Opportunities From: Volunteer River Counties

Andrew Horton dressed as a colonial seaman to attend Education Day at the annual Urbana Oyster Festival in November working with elementary and middle school students. He guided and expanded their understanding of colonial craftsmen from our area making bricks. Working with grinding oysters and mixing them together with our local clay, water and sand the students replicated building materials that were used to construct colonial buildings that still stand in Middlesex County today.

Museum volunteers Vel Gray and Claudia Soucek visited with MHS history students who toured the museum in April. They helped students with a scavenger hunt designed around the World War II exhibit including Middlesex veterans and their personal stories. The students heard a first-hand family account of Soucek’s uncle’s story of being shot down over France 4 days after D-Day.

New county resident Renee Loustaunau joined our pool of volunteers after visiting our tent at Arts in the Middle event. She began working with us researching and installing exhibits. She then transitioned to working with records related to our accessions. She has captured specific information on each item that has been donated to the museum which then allows David Jett to enter it into the computer system. She has also helped with research into the background information about the objects and the time period that they came from. 

New volunteer David Jett has helped us with accessions work on the computer by inputting donated items and their specific details into our PastPerfect software program. This allows access to the information for future exhibits and community talks.

Stephanie Mulligan has helped as a volunteer with our accessions. She has helped clean historic textiles that were from the 1920s. Utilizing a slow soaking processing, she removed decades of dirt, dust, and mite dander from fragile fabric. They show beautifully after drying in the sun. We have added her latest work to the collection of children's clothing here in the main museum.

The Middlesex County Museum & Historical Society has exhibit space in four different locations that explore our indigenous population, early marine life, Free and enlsaved individuals, indentured servants, plantations, farmsteads, military battles, soldiers, along with early residents and structures. 

Researchers needed to enhance the history behind the artifacts of the Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society. Being an unburned county, our historic records and artifacts run to the 1600's, and are a wealth of information. 

Genealogy researchers are also needed to support the uncovering of some of the earliest settlers who built large plantations to small farmsteads. The history of the indentured, free and enslaved citizens is sought after too.