NJ student, Catherine Paris, wins Congressional Seminar Essay Contest

May 2, 2022, WASHINGTON – The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA) is pleased to congratulate Catherine Paris, a student of Kent Place School in Summit, New Jersey, for winning the nationally held Congressional Seminar Essay Contest for an all-expense paid trip to study at the Washington Workshops Seminar in Washington, D.C.

For the past 44 years the NSCDA has generously underwritten a national essay contest with the mission of encouraging students from across the United States to gain a greater understanding of our shared American origins and the importance of civic duty.

Catherine Paris

This year students were asked to “Choose one of the five freedoms in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and discuss why it should or should not be changed in today’s high-tech global society.” The NSCDA received hundreds of submissions and the winning essays were picked by a committee of NSCDA representatives from among 44 Corporate Societies.

Click here for more information on the annual Congressional Essay Contest.

1782 Beg Rug from Peachfield collection featured in exhibition in New Lyme, CT

The 1782 Bed Rug from the collections at Peachfield, usually situated in our master bedroom, as been featured these last few months at the “New London County Quilts and Bed Covers 1750-1825” Exhibition at the Florence Griswold Museum in New Lyme Connecticut.

NSCDA-NJ President, Mary Prendergast, took a trip to the New Lyme to see the rug on display.

The 1782 Bud Rug has been donated to Peachfield’s collections by the family of Phoebe E. (Harris) Dinsmore, who noted that it had come from New England.

The unique bed rug features various tints of blue wool on an undyed woven wool background, and measures 78″w by 81″l. Too few bed rugs have survived to allow any constructive or definite conclusion to be drawn about sources of patterns. For sure, the maker created a work that is colorful, wonderful and seemingly unique in the history of needlework. The upper head end has a semi-geometric design of squares, triangles and concentric cyma lines forming an arch above the initials “S S” and date “1782”. Bed rugs seldom go on the market, but when they do, museums compete against collectors. The 1782 Bed Rug in the Peachfield collections is in excellent overall condition and integrity meriting its conservation and restoration.