In our continuing quest to uncover Rosendale’s 200 year history, we have made an absolutely fascinating discovery. Among the old papers and documents we were going through last week, we found the Guestbook and the attending newspaper article (glued in it) for a February 7, 1908 luncheon in honor of Ellen Axson Wilson, the future First Lady of the United States (March 4, 1913-August 6, 1914). Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton University in 1908. The Guestbook bears her original ink signature.  A copy of it, along with a variety of historic photos of Rosendale, the Brown Family (Ellen’s first cousin’s family who owned Rosendale from 1920-1988) and the Wilsons are on display in the Museum Room.

An exhibit of Ellen Axson Wilson’s paintings, an impressionist landscape painter who was active at the artist colony of Old Lyme, Connecticut, from 1908-1911 will be held at the Presidential Museum in Staunton, Virginia, in May 2013.  We will be there. Don’t miss it.