Jay Heritage Center 
January/February 2014 Newsletter Volume 5
     
JHC IN THE NEWS

JANUARY 2014

Stone Marker to be Preserved
 

Save the Date!
"John Jay's 
Night at the Opera"
Arranged by 
Grant Herreid
Sunday, February 23, 2014
3pm - 5pm

Soprano, Catherine Leach
VISIT US 
     Jay Heritage Center
210 Boston Post Rd 
Rye, NY 10580
(914) 698-9275
Email: jayheritagecenter@gmail.com
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JHC green logo

Tilling Gardens and Unearthing History:
Free Winter Programs at the Jay Estate


Seeds to Schools
Wednesday, February 5, 2014, 8:30am - 1:00pm
gardening-items.jpg Gardeners aren't daunted by the polar vortex! They know this is the perfect time to plan for spring color and pre-order those heirloom seeds. And if you are a 
K - 12 teacher or a community volunteer it's an even better time to think about starting and maintaining an edible garden at your school. Join us for our first "Seeds to Schools," a free half-day collaborative workshop  co-sponsored by the Rye YMCA. Exchange ideas with more than 50 educators from Rye, all over Westchester, New York City and Connecticut. From composting to harvesting, hear two panels share their challenges and success stories. Registration required. Learn more here: Seeds to Schools
The Free African American Experience in Antebellum New York
Saturday, February 8, 10:00am - 12:30pm
From rare handwritten diaries, to church burial records and archived newspapers, historians, preservationists and archaeologists rely on artifacts from the past to inspire and inform their work. As we commemorate Black History Month this February, we invite you to hear two excellent speakers:

Dr. Myra Young Armstead, Author of  "Freedom's Gardener," the story of James F. Brown, a fugitive slave from the South who found freedom in New York as a Master Gardener. Brown had associations with American horticulturalist and landscape architect, Andrew Jackson Downing and also worked for Peter Augustus Jay from 1831 -1832.

Filmmaker, David Pultz , creator of a documentary called "The Bones Speak," a work about the history and archaeology at the Spring Street Church, one of the first integrated congregations in New York City and a focal point of the 1834 Abolitionists Riots. 

They will both discuss the types of cultural resources they used to research the lives of free black families in the Hudson Valley and downtown Manhattan. 

Co-sponsored by the Clunie Branch of ASALH (the Association for the Study of African American Life and History), the African American Men of Westchester and the Westchester County Historical Society. Admission is Free. 

Click here to read more about our speakers and 
Restoration of Music Room in Jay Mansion Continues 
Winter is our busiest window to continue restoration projects at the Jay Mansion. Thanks to several generous donors, modifications made to the "Music Room" in the 1970s are being reversed to reveal how the wood panelled room may have looked when it was first installed in 1906-7.      

Interested in making a gift to our Restoration Fund? Please contact us at (914) 698-9275 to find out more about ongoing capital projects at our site. All gifts towards preservation and rehabilitation of the historic buildings and landscape at the Jay Estate are 100 percent tax deductible!

Cut-outs made to accommodate  a doorway and old air conditioning ducts will be patched up to restore the length and appearance of the Music Room's South Wall circa 1907. The 19th century door, its frame and spandrels which date to the Jay family period of residency appear to have been cannibalized from a second floor bedroom and will be reinstalled there next. Small fragments of ministry pamphlets dated 1970 which were found wedged behind the wood casing indicate that the door was moved by the Methodist Church which occupied the Jay Estate from 1968 to roughly 1980 using it as a conference center. (Photos by Bruce MacDonald, Ashwood Restoration)

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