It started with a question: How do you choose a hometown?

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Some New Jersians are born and raised here. But many others, like Katie Feather and Ryan Ross, have chosen New Jersey as their home. In 2020 Ryan, who grew up in California, and his wife Meg, originally from Massachusetts, moved back to the US after living abroad for a few years. They found their way to Morristown but knew very little about their new home state of New Jersey.

 

Katie Feather and her husband A.J. found their first home in Hoboken and have been slowly moving west across the state ever since. In 2022 they found themselves in need of a bigger home and more space to support their growing family, and they wanted to make this move their last. 

Both families found their forever home in Mendham. The two met in July of 2022 at the Mendham Township 4th of July parade. Both parents of newborn infants, they struck up a conversation about sleepless nights and diaper protocol, and learned that their daughters would be attending the same daycare in the fall. In the camaraderie and celebratory atmosphere of Mendham’s 4th of July Parade a new friendship was born.

Over the next year, as the two families got together for playdates and dinner parties, they talked about how much they loved living in Mendham and how New Jersey was so very different from what they expected. From those conversations came the germ of an idea: to start a podcast about what makes Mendham so special, highlighting the people and places that have lived here centuries before us.

Season 1 of Hometown History: Mendham launched on May 8th of 2024 to unequivocal praise from residents of Mendham and beyond. In fact, there was an immediately clamoring for more thoughtful and engaging storytelling about New Jersey history from listeners everywhere. There were more Mendham stories they could tell, but also many other small New Jersey towns with history worth sharing.

With Hometown History NJ, we've set out to help small towns shine a light on little known history from all corners of the state. We help preservationists, historians, archivists and lovers of history tell stories of heroism, innovation and adventure from across New Jersey. Armed with a reporters eye for detail and a decade of professional audio experience, we take a journalistic approach to historic research and script writing that results in a podcast that is both entertaining and truthful.  We'll pour all the enthusiasm we have into exploring the question of what makes your New Jersey town so special: history.