Curator looks to bring the past into the future
David Johns succeeds Alvia Martin as curator of Warne museum
BY MARLENE CANTY
Staff Writer

SCOTT PILLING staff David Johns, the new curator at the Thomas Warne Museum in Old Bridge, checks out an old shotgun that was donated to the facility.

OLD BRIDGE - David Johns may not know where everything is yet, but he's learning, and as he does he's cataloging it all in his computer.

And Johns, the new curator for the Thomas Warne Museum and Library, 4216 Route 516, is doing something else. He's creating a new legacy, a museum that will be accessible not just to Old Bridge residents but to the whole world online.

"Soon, someone in London or Antarctica or Brazil who has an interest in the colonies and how our ancestors lived and died will be able to go online and read about and see the same exhibits that local residents have firsthand access to," Johns said.

That's because Johns, a computer specialist who previously operated his own business, is planning to digitally photograph every artifact, exhibit and display at the museum.

As Johns, 35, takes the reigns as curator of the painstakingly preserved little red schoolhouse that houses the museum, he is filling some very big shoes. His predecessor, Alvia Martin, was curator for 41 years. She retired at the age of 82 last spring.

SCOTT PILLING staff David Johns discusses the significance of an old phonograph.

Martin created the museum's first legacy, a hodgepodge of distinctive artifacts and memorabilia from the area's immediate and long-term past, with some pieces dating back before the earliest colonists to the Lenni Lenape Indians that once peopled the open plains of what became central New Jersey.

The one-room schoolhouse where she housed the extensive collection was designed to replicate a schoolroom at the turn of the century. The room is priceless with its carefully maintained daily itinerary including instructions on school prayer and a giant potbellied stove filled with wood and coal.

With a sense of irony, Johns noted, "We will bring the museum into the 21st century." He means to make it accessible not only to modern audiences but also to those of the future.

Once the archives are captured digitally, the information can be viewed and copied via the Internet, allowing Johns to preserve and store under glass the original away from environmental elements like dust or copy machine light that would only cause further deterioration.

Johns, who will be attending classes at Rutgers University to learn techniques of preservation and restoration, describes himself as an "apprentice" curator; one who is still learning techniques of identifying what qualifies as memorabilia and historical artifact.

"It's not as simple as a house that has to adhere to a checklist of specific criteria to qualify as a landmark building," Johns said.

Museum pieces are more ethereal in their value.

"History happens all the time. It's dynamic and ongoing," Johns said, noting that a curator develops a special sense about those pieces or replicas that capture a spirit of the past.

His favorite artifacts include an authentic late-1800s harmonium, a reed instrument that is a cross between a harmonica and an organ; arrowheads and a genuine head-dress from the Lenni Lenape; and an entire display case of distinctive home-grown pottery from the kilns of Old Bridge's founding families, like the Morgans or the Warne family that first donated the one-room schoolhouse.

"The clay this pottery is made from comes from clay pits all over the area," he said. He even has a clay map from the early 1900s that delineates claypits in and around the Raritan Valley area and all over New Jersey.

According to Eleanor Whitaker, president of the Madison Township Historical Society, which owns and operates the museum, clay is an important economic staple of Old Bridge's past and one of the two industries that put the town on the map.

The second industry was apples.

According to Whitaker, Old Bridge was once the largest apple-producing town on the East Coast, boasting some 20 varieties.

Corresponding museum artifacts include a giant apple press and various smaller, less ornate versions - some used to create cider and others a unique home brew known in the county during Prohibition as apple jack. The museum has even preserved the replica of a bottle.

The Thomas Warne Museum, originally created by descendants of Old Bridge's founding families from scraps, leftovers and "interesting relics," was officially brought into being in the late 1960s. It is a nonprofit organization that has survived through the years solely through the donations of local families, according to Johns.

But Johns added that the museum is badly in need of further expansion. The schoolhouse donated by the Warne family and an added wing donated more recently by the Kennedy family, are jam-packed with memorabilia not properly organized or displayed because there is no place to put it all.

Johns commended his predecessor, Martin, for her ability to house so much of the museum for so long "in just that one-room schoolhouse." But Johns feels the time has come to move forward with space to properly do the artifacts justice.

But finding more space for the museum is only the tip of the iceberg. He also plans to expand into multimedia, and has already begun negotiations with local television stations 14 and 22 at Old Bridge High School to do a 15-30-minute weekly or monthly segment featuring exhibits and memorabilia.

"We haven't worked out the format yet, but something to capture the imagination of local youth and get them interested in their own local history," he said. For the future, he's even contemplating his own local version of something like the "Antiques Road Show."

Because the museum is a nonprofit institution, pieces and artifacts that have been appraised can qualify as tax-deductible donations.

So what else is in store?

"We've got 2 acres of undeveloped land out there," Johns said. "That gives us real possibilities."

He would like to build some paths on the acreage and mark off historic trees, and perhaps display a mock-up pottery kiln - a monument to the industry so intrinsic to Old Bridge's past.

"Maybe an outdoor English garden or eventually outdoor summer theater, with historical re-enactments featuring local talent. Anything that would get our young people more involved with the museum and history. We'd also like to make people more aware of the museum's library and its ability to supply genealogical information. We actually have family Bibles in our archives," he said, with the kind of glee only a genuine history buff would have.

"After all," Johns said, "We don't know where we are headed if we don't know where we've been."