The Old City Hall Restoration Committee’s Sunday Soiree series returns to Bordentown City in September with programs exploring the history and reported hauntings of White Hill Mansion and the work of the Trenton Community A-Team.
The free programs will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. on Sundays, Sept. 13 and Sept. 20, at Old City Hall, 13 Crosswicks St.
The Sunday, Sept. 13, program will focus on the history, reported paranormal activity and upcoming tours at White Hill Mansion in Fieldsboro.
The mansion was occupied for three generations by the Field family, for whom Fieldsboro was named, and has significant connections to the Revolutionary War.
Mary Peale Field was living at White Hill when her husband, Robert Field, drowned in the Delaware River in 1775. During the Revolutionary War, her home was searched by British troops on Dec. 8, 1776, and four days later became temporary quarters for a Hessian officer. Col. Carl von Donop, whose Hessian troops occupied nearby Bordentown, also visited White Hill.
Mary Field married Commodore Thomas Read in 1779. Read, who had served in the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War, made White Hill his country estate and died there in 1788.
The property also has ties to the Stockton family. Annis Boudinot Stockton, a poet and wife of Declaration of Independence signer Richard Stockton, lived at White Hill late in her life.
White Hill itself is considered architecturally significant. The original Georgian-style house features Flemish-bond brick facades. It was expanded with a brick addition in the 19th century and later remodeled with Queen Anne and Shingle-style elements, including shingle-clad bays, dormers, iron cresting and Gothic details.
The history of the property predates the mansion. Archaeological work has uncovered evidence of prehistoric Native American occupation as well as deposits that could provide information about 18th- and early 19th-century life on the riverfront property.
White Hill underwent another transformation in the 20th century. Heinrich and Katrina Glenk purchased the property in 1922 and opened an upscale German restaurant the following year. The restaurant became known as the Mansion House and attracted political and other prominent guests.
The property continued operating as a restaurant, bar and grill under various owners until 1982.
The Borough of Fieldsboro eventually acquired White Hill, and preservation efforts began in the early 2000s. The New Jersey Historic Trust has awarded grants for projects at the mansion, including preservation planning, foundation stabilization, exterior restoration and archaeological work.
White Hill has also developed a reputation for reported paranormal activity. The Friends of White Hill Mansion, the nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the property, offers guided history tours as restoration work continues.
The Sunday Soiree series turns from history to art on Sunday, Sept. 20, when the Trenton Community A-Team brings its Art Cart mobile art studio to Bordentown.
The A-Team traces its beginnings to 2000, when five artists at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen formed an artists cooperative open to self-taught artists who lacked the resources to pursue their creative work.
The group grew in both membership and recognition and became a tax-exempt nonprofit in 2014. Now known as the Trenton Community A-Team, or TCAT, the organization supports, develops and promotes the work of self-taught local artists.
TCAT operates Studio 51, an art studio and gallery at 51 N. Stockton St. in Trenton. The organization provides artists with gallery space, opportunities to exhibit work at museums, galleries and other venues, art supplies and access to cultural activities.
The Art Cart expands that outreach by taking a mobile art studio directly into the community. TCAT describes the project as a place for people to create, connect and experience art, with the cart making scheduled stops in Trenton neighborhoods and appearing at special events.
The project is supported through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s Activation, Revitalization and Transformation, or A.R.T., Phase II grant program.
The Sept. 20 Sunday Soiree will also feature A-Team poets reading from their publication, “Fresh Type & Novel Visions.”
The Sunday Soiree series is organized by the City of Bordentown’s Old City Hall Restoration Committee, a volunteer group dedicated to raising awareness and funds for the restoration of the historic Old City Hall building in downtown Bordentown City.
Both programs are free and run from 4 to 6 p.m. at Old City Hall, 13 Crosswicks St., Bordentown City.
For more information, visit the Old City Hall Restoration Committee’s Facebook page.
