Bring Dad out to Graeme Park for a tour and Living History event featuring costumed interpreters playing various tavern games. We’ll be selling hot dogs, soft pretzels, beer and soda, or bring a picnic lunch. The Living History demonstrations are free, house tours are free for Dads, $5/12+, and $3/3-11. Please note that this is […]
Keeping house in colonial times involved many activities we take for granted in today’s world. Lacking modern conveniences, our foremothers did all the washing, sewing, and spinning by hand. Meals were prepared at an open hearth from food grown or raised on the property, and beer and candles had to be produced in large quantities for even […]
The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission (PHMC) will celebrate the commonwealth’s 338th birthday on Charter Day, Sunday, March 10, with free admission to many of the historic sites and museums along the Pennsylvania Trails of History, including Graeme Park. This annual celebration of the granting of the Pennsylvania Charter to William Penn by Charles II […]
The Graeme family was very well-to-do, and therefore had many fine things in the way of furnishings, tableware, decorative objects, and clothing, jewelry and accessories. Some of these things are listed in the various inventories that were taken of the house and its contents and some are described in The History of Montgomery County, by […]
We spend a lot of time at Graeme Park on the history of Elizabeth Graeme, but with Mother’s Day coming up, it might be nice to delve into the history of some of the less-discussed women of Graeme Park. Ann Newberry Diggs Keith, or Lady Ann, was born in 1675 near London. Nothing is known […]
Happy Bastille Day everyone! Today it seems appropriate to take a break from our Celtic Festival preparations and quickly look at Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson’s interest in the French Revolution, which followed so closely on the heels of American independence. In 1793 Elizabeth sent a bundle of her poems and writings to fellow writer Annis Stockton. […]
On December 7, 1771 Elizabeth’s friend Benjamin Rush brought a Scotsman named Henry Hugh Fergusson to one of her attic evenings. Well-educated and handsome, Henry did not own property, nor was he in a position to inherit any. This, and their age difference (he was 11 years younger than she) made him a bad match […]
(Paraphrased from The Most Learned Woman in America by Anne Ousterhout). On the evening of February 11, 1801, while she sat up writing, Elizabeth suffered a chill. Her friend Betsy Stedman persuaded her to go to bed. By morning she was suffering a stranguary, but she refused to allow Betsy to call a doctor because […]
Edward Lamson Henry painted “Drafting the Letter,” the painting in the photo at left, in 1871. You may recognize certain elements in the room as being similar to the master bedroom in the Keith House at Graeme Park. In fact it is based on this room – Henry painted what was called “historic fiction,” so […]
Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson led a life of wealth and privilege, romance and intrigue, heartbreak, poverty and sorrow. She was the youngest child of the prominent and wealthy Dr. Thomas Graeme and his wife, Ann Diggs Graeme, and the step-granddaughter of Sir William Keith, Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania. She spent her summers at idyllic Graeme Park […]