Havens Homestead is a trip to Christmas past BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer PHOTOSBY MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Above, Brick Township Historical Society member Vilma Oxenford talks to brothers Joseph Tocket, 9 and Gregory, 6, about how gingerbread was made in Colonial times at the Havens Homestead Museum during the annual Christmas tour on Saturday. At right, Brick resident Tony Capuano donned a blue Victorian Santa suit to help celebrate. The stairs are high and narrow. The ceilings are low. The bathroom is outside. Welcome to life in the 1800s in Brick Township. Visitors to the Havens Homestead Museum on Herbertsville Road were able to literally sample a taste of how people lived and celebrated over the holidays during the Brick Township Historical Society’s eighth annual Christmas tour. This year’s theme was Santa’s Toyland. A jovial Santa Claus, a.k.a. Brick resident Tony Capuano, sat in front of the pale brick fireplace in the parlor. He wore a blueberry-colored robe and hat fringed with white, not the traditional red. “Merry Christmas,” he boomed, in a voice tinged with a Jersey City accent, his birthplace. “Welcome to the homestead.” Santas didn’t wear red suits back in the Victorian 1800s. They wore blue, green or purple, said society member Janet Nielsen, who was on hand with Capuano to welcome visitors. Coca-Cola started the red-suited Santa tradition back in the 1920s, when it featured one in an ad, Nielsen said. “We are in the 1800s, so we are doing an 1800s Santa,” she said. The tree strung with popcorn and cranberry garlands next to the fireplace was a real one, not artificial. A replica of the “Blue Comet” train chugged around the tree. The house was in the Havens family since 1827, when Joshua Havens bought a one-room cabin and 104 acres of land off what is now known as Herbertsville Road. Havens put a two-story addition on in 1846. The homestead does have a few concessions to modern life, including electricity and running water. A small room has been remodeled into a kitchen. A rest room is off the kitchen. Margaret Vandenburg, the author of “Brick Oven,” a series of three cookbooks, had a beef stew in the oven for hungry society members, who donated their time yesterday to act as docents for the tour. Mulled cider bubbled in a kettle on the stove. Vandenburg handed out samples of her Christmas eggnog pound cake, frosted with white icing and studded with chips of peppermint candy cane. Society Vice President Vilma Oxenford stood in the heart of the house, the original 15-by-14-foot cabin the Havens family lived in back in 1827. A battered table held varieties of gingerbread and a bit of Colonial history. When the colonists arrived in New England, molasses was in short supply. So they made do with maple syrup. Colonists in the South used sorghum molasses. Oxenford had samples of both for visitors, along with gingerbread cookies. A framed needlepoint message on the wall was a poignant reminder of the generations of Havens that lived in the house for more than 160 years. “A sorrow shared is but half a trouble. A joy that is shared is a joy made double.” One of the sorrows came on Christmas Day in 1857, when Charlotte Ann Havens, 13, Amey Jane Havens, 11, and William Alfred Sherman, 19, drowned in the nearby Manasquan River, according to Gene Donatiello, a society member and author of several books about Brick Township. Oxenford enjoys her work with the historical society, especially the research. “I do a lot of what family life was like in the 1800s,” she said. “You don’t think about the things we take for granted.” She held up an iron that weighed at least 5 pounds. The cast-iron cooking pots were heavy, even without any food in them. The 6-foot, 7-inch ceiling is low and the windows are small to keep in the heat. “Most of this is original,” she said. “It’s fantastic.” But it was in less than pristine shape when Elmer and May Havens donated the homestead to the historical society in March 1993, with the understanding that it would be used as a museum, society President Peggy Osborn said. Layers and layers of wallpaper had to be removed. Post powder beetles and termites had chomped their way through some of the flooring and walls. “It was a disaster,” she said. “It took us about five years to restore it, with the help of volunteers.” And the volunteers don’t stop once the annual Christmas tour is over. They are already preparing for Christmas 2007, Osborn said. This year’s two-day tour was “the best ever,” said Jane Fabach, the society’s press secretary. Fabach’s childhood Flexible Flyer, complete with red runners, was on display during the tour. “We did very well,” she said. “We had nice crowds. Friday night was the busiest, so we are thinking about changing the times or doing two nights next year. The gift shop was busy. We are very happy.” The museum is open from April to October, except for special events. For more information about the Brick Township Historical Society, call 732-785-2500.