Photos by Scott Longfield
LITTLE SILVER – Research has begun on the Parker Homestead to determine the age of the historic farmhouse’s three barns. The Parker Homestead-1665 Committee, the not-for-profit organization working on preserving the more than 350-year-old site, was awarded a $250,000 matching grant by the Monmouth County Open Space Fund to begin work on the dilapidated barns.
Above: Monmouth University graduate student Evan Mydlowski, right, bores a test hole in one of the red oak beams of the horse barn as Rich Veit, professor of anthropology and history at Monmouth University, oversees the project. The samples will be sent to Columbia University for analysis to determine the age of the beams.
Above: Parker Homestead-1665 Committee volunteer Keith Wells is framed in the exterior window frame of the horse barn that is in need of serious repair.
Parker family members continually owned the Parker Homestead, located on 10 acres, since 1665. The homestead was added to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places in 1976 and the national register in 2012.
