Two culturally significant artifacts on loan from the Mercer Museum in Doylestown will be on display for public viewing at the historic 110-acre Playwicki Farm, located at 2350 Bridgetown Pike in Feasterville, beginning with its annual Fun Day on Saturday, October 23rd. The public is invited to view them free of charge.
The artifacts, a hammerstone and a grindstone, were originally unearthed during an archeological dig in the 1890’s at the bucolic farm conducted by Henry Chapman Mercer, founder of the Mercer Museum, Research Library and Fonthill Castle. The Castle is the former home of Mercer. The grindstone is a round sharpening stone used for grinding or sharpening ferrous tools, while the hammerstone is an ancient stone tool used as a hammer for chipping flint, processing food or breaking up bones. The farm was the formerly the site of a Native American village.
The loan was arranged and coordinated by Rose McMenamin, president of the Playwicki Farm Foundation, Patrice Luongo, foundation vice president and Ray Weldie, chairperson of the Lower Southampton Board of Supervisors. The three worked closely with Kristin Lapos, collections manager at the Mercer Museum to work out the details for the loan. “We are thrilled and excited to have these two wonderful pieces of our history back at the farm to be viewed, enjoyed and appreciated by our officers and board, government officials and the public-at-large,” state McMenamin and Luongo. “It was certainly worth all the time and effort it took to get it done.”
The two newly obtained artifacts will be added to close to 100 antiques, artifacts and jewelry now being housed at the farm as part of its rich history. A majority of the original collection was donated to the Playwicki Farm Foundation by Mary Loretta Van Artsdalen, the last of six generations of the Van Artsdalen family to be born and raised at Playwicki Farm. She was born April 25th, 1920. After her family sold the farm she attended college and then in 1945 married Ralph Hays. The couple generously donated all of their antiques and artifacts from when she resided on the farm to the Playwicki Farm Foundation.
The Playwicki Farm Foundation can be reached at 215-357-7300 extension 326 or by e-mailing playwicki.farm.foundation@gmail.com.