Welcome back to National Parks and other public lands with T! 

Liberty Hall is a mansion dating back to 1772 and was the home of William Livingston, the first governor of New Jersey. Alexander Hamilton lived at Liberty Hall for a year. Livingston’s son, Supreme Court Justice Henry Brockholst Livingston inherited the house upon his parents’ death.

In 1811, Liberty Hall passed to the Kean family by way of a niece of the Livingstons. The Keans have also produced numerous statesmen and politicians. They founded Kean University. Today, Liberty Hall is on the grounds of the university and is preserved as a museum.

Mary Alice Kean began restoring Liberty Hall in 1949. She advocated for the preservation of the home as a museum and passed away there in 1995 in her nineties. The museum opened to the public in 2000.

The only way to see the inside of the house is by guided tour or by attending a special event. I took a tour with a docent, dressed in colonial garb, in October. It was an abbreviated tour for the Four Centuries in a Weekend event put on by Union County.

Since the home was continuously occupied by family for over 200 years, the museum has access to many original artifacts. They’d decorated with some of Mary Alice’s vintage Halloween decor when I was there.

Location: 1003 Morris Ave, Union, NJ 07083

Designation: National Historic Landmark

Date designated or established: 11/28/1972

Date of my visit: 10/20/2019