Peter Wentz Farmstead Historic House Environmental Monitoring Project

FAIN: PG-50609-09

County of Montgomery (Worcester, PA 19490-0240)
Morgan T. McMillan (Project Director: May 2008 to September 2010)

Consultation with a conservator and the purchase of equipment for monitoring environmental conditions at the Peter Wentz Farmstead, an historic site that documents life on an 18th-century Pennsylvania German farm. Collections of household furnishings and personal effects are displayed in the Wentz family home, which was built in 1758.

The Peter Wentz Farmstead requests $6,000 to establish an environmental monitoring program to observe changes in temperature and relative humidity in our historic house museum. Maintaining a consistent environment is a significant part of preventative conservation of our collection of 18th-century furnishings and household equipment. The grant will fund the acquisition of four indoor data loggers and one outdoor data logger with the accompanying equipment and software, which will be used to record temperature and relative humidity. The grant will also fund the services of objects conservator Kory Berrett to plan equipment installation, review and interpret data collected over one year, and provide mid-term and final reports with recommendations regarding mitigation strategies and future needs. The project would begin in January of 2009 and run through June of 2010.