Historical Society of Princeton reopens Updike Farmstead Museum

After an extended shutdown due to the pandemic and the closure of Quaker Road, the Historical Society of Princeton has reopened its museum at the Updike Farmstead.

Museum hours are Thursdays through Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is $4 per person. Masks are required of all guests, regardless of vaccination status. The museum is located at 354 Quaker Road.

To celebrate the reopening, all visitors during the month of January will receive a free Albert Einstein t-shirt.

Exhibitions at the museum include the Einstein Salon and Innovators Gallery, which includes furniture from his home. Princeton’s Portrait showcases vintage photographs of Princeton’s farming history. Works by painter and educator Rex Goreleigh, the A-Team Artists of Trenton, and the Princeton Photography Club are also on view. 

Outdoors, visitors can explore the Farmstead History Trail, which tells the stories of the Native Americans, Quakers, and family farmers that inhabited the area, and the Garden State History Garden, a multimedia interpretation of New Jersey’s agricultural past. 

The Updike Farmstead was once part of a 1200-acre parcel purchased by Benjamin Clarke in 1696 to create the Quaker settlement at Stony Brook. Listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places, the property is along the route followed by Continental troops on their way to engage British soldiers at the neighboring Thomas Clarke farm on January 3, 1777, in what would become the Battle of Princeton.