FREEHOLD, N.J. – On Saturday, April 2, the Monmouth County Historical Association will hold a day-long seminar on Eighteenth Century chairmaking in Monmouth County, N.J. The program will be led by Joseph W. Hammond, curator of museum collections.

Focus will be placed on locally produced banister-back, fiddle-back and slat-back chairs of several different types. Approximately twenty examples with histories of ownership among the old families of Monmouth County will be studied in detail. They will be drawn from the Association’s extensive collection of documented local furniture, as well as from private collections.

Chairs that have been attributed since the 1930s to the Maps family of West Long Branch, N.J., will be closely scrutinized. That investigation will take advantage of a series of photographs taken about 1933 of many chairs still owned at the time by Maps descendants. Using a variety of analytical techniques, participants will be asked to sort all the chairs on display into groups possibly attributable to individual craftsmen even though their names are not at present known.

The seminar, to be held at the Association’s museum at 70 Court Street in Freehold, will begin at 10:30 am, and end about 3 pm. Lunch will be provided. The program will be of interest to serious collectors and students of New Jersey furniture, as well as those individuals who wish to learn more about the techniques of furniture connoisseurship. Enrollment is limited but a few spots still remain. To register, call 732-462-1466 x11 or email pgithens@monmouthhistory.org. Program cost is $75 per person.