Howell Living History Farm

Photo by Jeff Johnson Jr.

Hayrides are a staple of events that take place at the Howell Living History Farm in Mercer County, N.J. After the death of her husband, Charles Howell, the farm's last private owner, Inez Howell, donated the land to Mercer County in 1974 with the request that it be used as 'a Living History Farm, where the way of living in its early days could not only be seen but actually tried by the public .'

By Jeff Johnson Jr.

The first photo in New Jersey Monthly's July 2008 historical pictorial shows us a different time in the Garden State, with a 1950s family taking a cruise in their convertible through rural Sussex County. The photo's heading, "From Y'all to Sprawl," describes well what we know has happened to New Jersey in the past 60 years.

Perhaps Inez Howell saw what was happening to the state when, in 1974, she donated her farm to Mercer County with the request that it be developed not into a subdivision, but a living history farm.

Today, visitors to the Howell Living History Farm can see that the farm reflects the wishes Mrs. Howell expressed in her letter offering the farm to the county.

The farm has been in use since the 1730s. The last private owners, Inez Howell and the late Charles Howell, who had represented New Jersey in its 4th U.S. Congressional District, leased it out to a tenant farmer, and the property is said to have been in bad condition when the county took it over in 1974.

The living history farm's theme is intended to reflect a typical central New Jersey farm around the year 1900. Staff members dress in costumes from around this time period and show the public how farming took place around that time.

Photo by Jeff Johnson

At its ice cream socials held each summer, the Howell Farm serves up home made ice cream churned with the power of an antique two-horsepower single-piston Stover gasoline motor.