Bedminster’s historic Jacobus Vanderveer House celebrates its 22nd holiday season with Colonial Christmas.
Who likes history? Who likes Christmas? A tradition occurred just after Thanksgiving at a beautifully restored colonial home in Bedminster, New Jersey. The event is called Colonial Christmas, and it’s time to recognize what a great event it is. Called the Jacobus Vanderveer House (pronounced Jake-O- Bus Vander Veer – it’s a Dutch thing), it has transformed into one of the most beautifully restored Revolutionary War era federal homes in America. But it’s colonial Christmas, where a local non-profit combines history, tourism, tradition, and Christmas spirit. Put them all together, and you’ve got one fantastic event.
‘Tis the Season
Festivities include Photos with Santa, Live Holiday Music, Reading The Night Before Christmas, a Surprise Holiday Pull, a Poinsettia Sale, and Decorating your Gingerbread Man! Join us for complimentary hot cocoa and pretzels around the fire pit with Colonial Re-enactors. The Liberty Tree typically gets lit at 5:00 pm. This interpretative event has it all. It teaches you things, and it brings you into the Christmas season spirit. Not to mention, it’s a great way to use such a great historic venue. Because once a historic site is repaired, the most important thing to be done is to bring that history to life. Stories can be told. Traditions can be handed down from generation to generation. And best of all, the historic facility is open!
Colonial Christmas takes place the first weekend of December at the Jacobus Vanderveer House and Museum, also known as the General Knox Headquarters. Sponsored by a non-profit organization called the Friends of the Jacobus Vanderveer House, Colonial Christmas brings the community together, celebrates history, celebrates colonial Christmas, and reminds everyone that this New Jersey area is part of America’s heritage and the cockpit of the American Revolution. Colonial Christmas is the Friend’s annual fundraiser, and it’s the only opportunity to raise funds for programs at the house. The Vanderveer House served as the Headquarters of General Henry Knox, the father of the American Artillery during the Revolutionary War.
Colonial Christmas has been sponsored for the last sixteen years at the Jacobus Vanderveer House in Bedminster, New Jersey. Home to New Jersey’s premier colonial Christmas event, it celebrates Christmas “Colonial Style” in a style only found in Colonial Williamsburg.
Colonial History – General Henry Knox and the Pluckemin Cantonment
Whether you come to see the colonial house, the beautiful handmade decorations, the fresh-cut trees, the antiques on loan, or to get into the spirit of the holidays, there’s plenty to see and do at Colonial Christmas. Even Santa attends! Carolers attend, storytelling for the kids, boutique shopping, and, yes, colonial history. Actors and reenactors are dressed while they greet visitors and tell stories of little Julia Knox and the winter General Knox built America’s first military academy at the foothills just down the road. Not many people realize that America’s first West Point was here 23 years before the USMA at West Point. That’s just another reason to see the house.
Historic Artist Rendering of Knox’s Pluckemin Cantonment
In 2012, the Friends showcased the commissioned painting of General Henry Knox at Pluckemin. The exhibition featured paintings by noted American landscape artist John Phillip Osborne, including the unveiling of a specially commissioned painting of Gen. Henry Knox. The exhibit was courtesy of the Stringer Gallery, Bernardsville. Colonial holiday decorations were by David Mitchell, Artistic Director of Still Life Fine Event Design, Harding, NJ.
Event Details
December 7, 2024, 3:00-5:30 pm
Join them for our annual holiday event! You can take photos with Santa, decorate holiday cookies, listen to live music and see Colonial Reenactors in action. Then, go on a docent-led tour of our historic house decorated for the holidays. Admission is free, with refreshments available by donation.
Visit www.jvanderveerhouse.org to learn more about Colonial Christmas. And be careful—you might learn something about one of the most forgotten Generals of the American Revolution.
Tell them Mr. Local History sent you!
Additional Local History
