Embedded Files
June 28, 2026 at 2pm
June 28, 2026 at 2pm
The Dayton-Mersereau-Hendricks spy ring was General George Washington’s first organized intelligence network, predating the more famous Culper spy ring. Washington set up the Mersereau ring in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in early December 1776 when he asked Staten Islander Joshua Mersereau to recruit operatives that would report critical information from behind enemy lines on Staten Island. Colonel Elias Dayton of Elizabethtown, an officer in the New Jersey militia, became involved with the Mersereau ring in 1777, expanding the network by adding more operatives including New Jerseyans Captain Baker Hendricks and his brother John Hendricks, and John Meeker. Operating primarily between Staten Island, New Jersey, and the lower Hudson River Valley, the Dayton-Mersereau-Hendricks ring passed intelligence to Washington about the British military’s numerical strength, its tactical operations, artillery positions, supplies, and naval assets. The network supplied critical information to General Washington and carried out important clandestine tasks that facilitated his crossing of the Delaware River in December 1776. It also provided intelligence on the British fleet, which helped shape Washington’s late-war strategy, and played a role in exposing General Benedict Arnold’s treason in 1780.
Please join NJSAA at Flounder Brewing as Phillip Papas, Senior Professor of History at Union College of Union County, New Jersey (UCNJ) speaks about Dayton-Mersereau-Hendricks ring.
July 26, 2026 at 2pm
July 26, 2026 at 2pm
This interactive, multi-media talk provides a look at the iconic music that helps us understand our shared history as we approach the 250th anniversary of American independence. Special emphasis is given to Thomas Edison, Paul Robeson, James P. Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Queen Latifah, Bon Jovi, and others from NJ who have contributed so much to the American music landscape.
Melissa Ziobro is a longtime educator and the Curator of the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth University.
Please join NJSAA at Flounders Brewing for the next Rev250 themed talk!
Drinking in Early New Jersey by Michele Rotunda and Tara Maharjan - August 23, 2026 at 2pm
Hank Bonnell - September 27, 2026 at 2pm
Historic Preservation "Down the Brook" at Wallace House & Old Dutch Parsonage by Paul Soltis - November 15, 2026 at 2pm
New Jersey Book Club- Co-Sponsored with the Middletown Public Library
New Jersey Book Club- Co-Sponsored with the Middletown Public Library
Second Monday of each month from 12pm-1pm
Hybrid
To register for the book club discussion: https://mtpl.libcal.com/calendar?t=d&q=new%20jersey%20book%20club&cid=-1&cal=-1&inc=0
Join NJSAA and the Middletown Public Library for the monthly New Jersey Book Club!
June 8, 2026 - "Three Hundred Years Hence" by Mary Griffith
July 13, 2026 - David Rosenfelt's "Andy Carpenter" series
August 10, 2026 - TBD
September 14, 2026 - "American Pastoral" by Philip Roth
October 12, 2026 - "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells
November 9, 2026 - "In the Unlikely Event" by Judy Blume
December 14, 2026 - In celebration of the 239th anniversary of New Jersey statehood (18 Dec. 1787), choose any subject about the great Garden State to discuss!
If you are working in New Jersey studies and would like to present your current research, please contact program coordinator Melissa Ziobro (mziobro@monmouth.edu).
Past Lectures
Katie Singer, “Laboring in Obscurity: Louise Epperson and Her Battle Against Urban Renewal”
Dr. Jen Janofsky, Uncovering History: Red Bank Battlefield and the Discovery of Hessian Remains
Dr. David Blake, Department of English at The College of New Jersey, "Liking Ike: Eisenhower, Advertising, and the Rise of Celebrity Politics"
Gordon Bond, author, “My Patron: The Friendship of James Parker and Benjamin Franklin”
Carla Cielo, historic preservation consultant, "Domestic Outbuildings of Northwest Central New Jersey”
John Delaney, Princeton University Library, “Nova Caesarea: A Cartographic Record of the Garden State, 1666-1888”
Eleonora Dubicki, reference and instruction librarian at Monmouth University, "Carnegie Libraries in New Jersey, 1900-1923" (co-hosted with the Union County Cultural & Heritage Commission)
Frank J. Esposito & Donald Lokuta, authors, "Victorian New Jersey - Photographs by Guillermo Thorn from the Kean University Collection"
Brad Fay, filmmaker and board president of the Millstone Valley Preservation Coalition, "Farming in the Millstone Valley"
John Fea, Messiah College, “Philip Vickers Fithian: An 18th Century Jersey Boy”
Raymond Frey, Centenary College, “The History of Centenary College in Hackettstown”
Catherine Hudak, educator at Morris Hills Regional District, "The Ladies of Trenton: Women's Political and Public Activism in Revolutionary New Jersey" (co-hosted with the Alice Paul Institute)
William Kroth, president of the Sterling Hill Mine Museum in Sussex County, "Great Zinc Mines of Sussex County"
Maxine H. Lurie & Richard Veit, authors, "Envisioning New Jersey: An Illustrative History of the Garden State" (co-sponsored with the Trenton Free Public Library)
Bill Marsh, Monmouth University, “Why Lincoln Lost New Jersey Twice”
Robert McGreevey, The College of New Jersey, "Trenton's Early Civil Rights Activists" (co-hosted with the Trenton Free Public Library) and "Borderline Citizens: The U.S., Puerto Rico, and the Politics of Colonial Migration"
Lucia McMahon, William Paterson University, “Mere Equals: The Paradox of Educated Women in the Early American Republic”
Sandra Moss, M.D., past-president of the Medical History Society of New Jersey and the American Osler Society, "1916 Polio Epidemic"
Phillip Papas, Union County College, "Renegade Revolutionary: The Life of General Charles Lee”
Joanne Hamilton Rajoppi, author and former journalist, "Northern Women in the Aftermath of the Civil War" (co-hosted with the Monmouth County Library Headquarters) and “The Brunswick Boys in the Great Rebellion”
Brian Regal, Kean University, "The Jersey Devil: The Real Story"
Gary Saretzky, Monmouth County Archives, "Photographers of Middlesex County" and “New Jersey’s Civil War Photographers”
Jean Soderlund, Lehigh University, "The Lenape Indians and Colonial West Jersey"
Bob Vietrogoski, Rutgers University’s George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences, “How New Jersey’s Governors Created the State Medical Education System”
Google Sites
Report abuse