A Few Blog Updates and a Smoking Chair of Exceptional Provenance!

I'm not aware if you noticed, but I recently updated some of the features on the Kearny History Museum Blog.

I added several easy-to-access pages under the title: Home, About the Museum, and About the Author. I felt that this would help keep the blog organized and would facilitate the experience of new visitors to the blog. I also wanted to provide some information about myself, to make the blog seem more personable.

Due to the great influx of pageviews on museum-related posts, I decided to try to make my blog more accessible to new readers by installing a "Follow By Email" button. Now any new visitors can stay connected with the latest happenings! To further facilitate the experience of visitors to the blog, I added some basic information on the Museum's hours and location to the right-hand side of the blog.

And now, a special treat: a tufted velvet smoking chair given to General Kearny by Napoleon III! General Kearny spent a portion of his life in France.

General Kearny's Smoking Chair

"Napoleon III of France presented General Kearny with the pictured smoking chair. The picture shows the chair with its original blue velvet upholstery and silk fringe, with a delicately carved back with a cigar motif. Its hinged cigar box on the chair’s back is upholstered in blue velvet as an armrest. It is the only chair of its type in this country, a similar one being in a Paris museum. It was used by the general in his home at “Belle Grove”, which was more commonly called Kearny Castle. Virginia Livingston Hunt, who was Kearny’s granddaughter and Agnes Maxwell Kearny, who was his second wife, donated the chair. Hunt’s regard for the late Harold Latham and his interest in her grandfather motivated her to have the general’s favorite smoking chair returned to the town carrying his name. It had been part of the Traphagen Museum Collection until she arranged for its homecoming to Kearny in 1968."