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Renovated historical society expands its story

The Camden County Historical Society is back, and so are "Nipper," Lord Camden, and former Camden Mayor Gwendolyn Faison. The society's grand reopening Sunday will feature a new, permanent display of an original stained-glass window depicting the trademark RCA-Victor terrier.

Jack O'Byrne, executive director of the Camden County Historical Society, talks about the recently restored museum space. “We’re giving people a reason to take a fresh look at what we’re doing here,” he said.
Jack O'Byrne, executive director of the Camden County Historical Society, talks about the recently restored museum space. “We’re giving people a reason to take a fresh look at what we’re doing here,” he said.Read moreDAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer

The Camden County Historical Society is back, and so are "Nipper," Lord Camden, and former Camden Mayor Gwendolyn Faison.

The society's grand reopening Sunday will feature a new, permanent display of an original stained-glass window depicting the trademark RCA-Victor terrier.

A recently restored Raphael Senseman portrait of the British aristocrat for whom the city is named, and a panoramic new mural by Philadelphia artist Donna M. Backues, highlighting notables such as Faison, also will greet visitors for the first time.

Due to damage from a flood, the Camden complex, which includes a county museum, library, and Colonial-era farmhouse, has offered only limited public access since January 2014.

"We're giving people a reason to take a fresh look at what we're doing here," says Jack O'Byrne, who was named the society's executive director six months ago.

"Nipper has basically been in [storage]. It's a national treasure! How could we not display this?" he says.

The society's goal is not only to better showcase beloved artifacts, but to present a broader, deeper, and more inclusive narrative of city and county history.

"We have an opportunity to tell a more balanced story," O'Byrne continues. "The museum had been very focused on the industrial era, and the period from the 1960s [onward] was somewhat neglected.

"We're trying to tell the story not just of white Europeans, but Native Americans, African Americans, Asians, Latinos, and other groups."

Inside the Park Boulevard facility, which includes the Pomona Hall plantation house (built in 1724), there's little if any visible evidence of the calamity that engulfed the nonprofit society two years ago.

Pipes, including those carrying hot water for the heating system, ruptured in nine locations throughout the complex. Cleanup and renovations cost about $120,000; at least 100 artifacts sustained some sort of damage.

Separately, a new, "historically appropriate" cedar-shingle roof recently was installed on Pomona Hall, society board president Chris Perks notes.

The roof and some additional exterior renovations will cost $190,000, mostly paid from federal and state grants.

And revenue for the $180,000 annual operating budget has stabilized.

In January, a Burlington County court agreed to allow the society to receive an annual payment based on the value of, rather than the income earned by, a $2.5 million trust set up by the late historian Charles Boyer.

The increase from $60,000 to $120,000 a year means "the difference between bankruptcy and solvency for us," society treasurer Robert Shinn says.

The society also cut expenses by having staff - all four of whom, including O'Byrne, are part time - help renovate the museum and create new displays. A dozen Virginia college students visiting the city's Urban Promise ministries recently helped repaint the first-floor exhibit space.

With 9,000 artifacts (700 pieces are stored on site), a 6,000-volume library, a gracious old home, and a parklike setting, the society is a wonderful regional resource. And the popularity of genealogical research has kept the library busy in recent years.

But fairly or unfairly, the society has long been viewed as remote from the city around it.

"We've got a really good collection, but we've presented a whitewashed version of history," education director Kimi Tallant says.

"We've just begun a new outreach, and we're partnering with community organizations such as Parkside Business and Community in Partnership," she adds. "There are amazing local stories, and we need to be more representative of them."

Consider the story of Camden's role in the slave trade, which society board member Derek Davis says has been "ignored."

The society is pursuing a $15,000 state grant to create and install historical markers in the city, including at a former ferry site that functioned as "port of entry for slaves" bound for Pennsylvania, he says.

"Slaves worked in Pomona Hall, and we believe they may have stayed in the attic," Davis adds. "There should be an archaeological dig to identify any slave quarters outside of Pomona Hall."

The society also hopes to add gallery space for community exhibits in the second-floor auditorium, and build a 22-space parking lot next to the library, Perks says.

Two coming exhibits and events, "Along the Cooper River" and "Nipper Fest," will aim to engage communities inside and outside Camden, he adds.

Sounds to me as if the society - steward of the collective memories of all 37 Camden County municipalities - is making an earnest effort to more widely open its doors.

It will be up to the public to walk in.

kriordan@phillynews.com

856-779-3845 @inqkriordan

www.philly.com/blinq

The grand reopening festivities begin at 1 p.m. Sunday.