Growing up in Titusville, New Jersey, Patricia Millen loved living in such close proximity to Washington Crossing State Park and “being in the footsteps of one of the most critical” places in American history.##M:[more]##
It was there that George Washington and his troops crossed the river overnight to make a surprise attack on Trenton, a pivotal move and a turning point in the Revolutionary War. Millen, whose mother was a registered nurse at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and whose father was a state employee, recalls running on the Continental Trail, where the troops marched after they crossed. Millen said she got her love of history from her father, who she calls “a closet historian,” with a voracious appetite for reading history and watching old films. As a teenager, Millen worked as an interpreter for Washington Crossing State Park.
“I spent a lot of my years growing up there,” she says. “I would think of it every year at Christmas,” after she moved out.
The location of her home only fed her lifelong love of history, which grew into a career. After working extensively in various capacities in the field throughout the Northeast, Millen now brings her love of all things history to Plainsboro, where she is serving as the new director of the Plainsboro Historical Society.
“It’s all I’ve ever done, really,” she says of history.
Millen’s first stint involving history came when she worked as a curator at the Thomas Clarke House in Princeton. She earned her bachelor’s degree in American Studies at the Empire State College at the State University of New York at Albany.
She served as the supervisor of museum teachers at the New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown, N.Y., which operated two museums — the Fenimore Art Museum and the Farmers’ Museum. There, she supervised a staff of 30 teachers, who worked at both museums. She also served as a museum cataloger at the Senate House State Historic Site in Kingston, N.Y.
While working as the executive director and curator at the Zadock Pratt Museum in Prattsville, N.Y., she worked on collections from the Civil War at the museum. She wrote a book on the history of Zadock Pratt and the leather tanning industry in the Catskills. During her time in Prattsville, she became so interested in the Civil War, she also wrote another book, “From Pastime to Passion: Baseball and the Civil War.”
As a result of her husband’s job, Millen moved back to New Jersey, where she taught history at Notre Dame High School in Lawrence for three years. Her husband Brian works at the Lawrenceville School. Millen’s connection to Plainsboro actually goes back to when she first lived in the township as a newlywed for a year after getting married. The high school sweethearts, who have been married for 31 years, have two grown children – a son, Brian, who graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology, and a daughter, Tiffany, who is a junior at Rutgers University, studying dietetics.
In fact, when she arrived back in the Garden State, she purchased the same house in which she grew up. She then took a job at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia as the director of public programs, but began working for Plainsboro’s recreation department in summer, 2005, as the director of summer camps and programs coordinator, a position she still holds.
Millen now splits her time between that job and at the Plainsboro Historical Society. When former executive director Robert Yuell decided to retire from the executive director position, she jumped on the opportunity to get back into history. “Primarily, my enthusiasm is for this kind of work,” she said. “This is really the first time ever that I was in recreation and that I wasn’t in the history field,” Millen said. “It’s really what I truly love to do.”
Since assuming the position December 1, she has been delving into Plainsboro’s rich history. Currently, she is working on the budget for 2008 and working to increase membership.
Millen also has other goals for the historical society, including improving “the public dimension to the museum to have more people aware of it and what they have to offer.” She is also anticipating new exhibits at Plainsboro’s museum to bring new people in, increasing educational offerings for local schools, and initiating internship programs through the high schools and colleges. She was instrumental in doing that at the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown.
The public’s perspective of museums and how to get them involved is important to Millen. “Keeping people’s history alive to maintain a sense of community — I think that’s why it’s so important.”
She also wants to get more people involved in Plainsboro’s diverse backgrounds. Plainsboro is “very transient. People come from a lot of different countries,” she said. “It’s their history too that I want to incorporate,” especially how newcomers have changed Plainsboro’s history.
Millen’s says she’s got a lot to look forward to in the coming months, especially given the historical society’s Wickoff House museum, located near the municipal complex. “It’s nice to have something here that’s tangible in the form of a beautiful old historical building and the collections.”
— Cara Latham
Plainsboro Historical Society, 641 Plainsboro Road, Plainsboro 08536. Patricia Millen, director. 609-799-9040. Home page: www.plainsboro.com/historical/
