Larry Kidder

Farming Pleasant Valley: 250 Years of Life in Rural Hopewell Township, New Jersey Larry Kidder

Publisher Marketing: Pleasant Valley lies in the northwestern corner of Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey and has been fortunate in not being subject to the type of suburban development that has obscured so much of the farmland and rural communities in the Mid-Atlantic States. A visitor to the Pleasant Valley area can still "read" elements in the landscape and buildings that tell the knowledgeable observer some of the history of the Valley as an agricultural region. For over 250 years farming was the primary activity in the Valley and a sense of community identity developed focused first on the local grist mill and later on the local rural school house. This book tells the story of how life changed over those 250 years both in general and for specific farmers and their families. Drawing on a number of original sources provided by local families, the Howell Living History Farm located in the Valley, and local historical societies, this is a unique story that provides a case study that helps us understand life in rural communities from the late 17th to the 20th century. The Pleasant Valley Historic District was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 and this is the story of its history. In this story we meet farmers, blacksmiths, grist mill owners, Revolutionary War militiamen, slave owners, tenant farmers, and baseball players among a host of characters and learn how the land formations, roads, Delaware River, creeks, canal, railroad, and nearby villages contributed to and helped shape their lives. Contributor Bio:  Kidder, Larry William L. Kidder, universally known as Larry, was born in California and raised in California, Indiana, New York, and New Jersey. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Larry is a retired high school history teacher who taught for forty years in both public and private schools. He considers teaching to be both his vocation and avocation. During his 32 years of teaching at The Hun School of Princeton he enjoyed designing courses that gave his students the opportunity to develop the thinking, research, and writing skills that result from "doing history" and not just learning facts for a test. Larry served four years of active duty in the US Navy and was assigned to the US Navy Research and Development Unit, Vietnam and then the destroyer USS Brownson (DD868) homeported in Newport, Rhode Island. In the 1980s he was the lead researcher and writer for the creation of the Admiral Arleigh Burke National Destroyermen's Museum aboard the destroyer museum ship USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (DD850) at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts. For the past twenty-five years, Larry has been a volunteer at the Howell Living History Farm, part of the Mercer County Park System, in Hopewell, New Jersey. For varying lengths of time he has volunteered as an historian, interpreter, webmaster, and draft horse teamster This interest led to the writing of his first book, The Pleasant Valley School Story: A Story of Education and Community in Rural New Jersey, which won the 2013 Scholarship and Artistry Award presented by the Country School Association of America. This book tells the story of the local schoolhouse that is now part of the Howell Living History Farm and is also a case study of a rural school in central New Jersey from the early 19th to the mid-20th century. Active in historical societies in Ewing, Hopewell, and Lawrence townships, Larry has given a number of talks on local history to a variety of civic groups. He is an avid member of the Association for Living History, Farm, and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM), the Washington's Crossing Roundtable of the American Revolution, and the New Jersey Living History Advisory Council. He can be contacted by email at larrykidder@gmail.com.