ParkFest @ Bread Lock Park

A free day of music, art, history, literature, and more returns to an historic Morris Canal site that is now a county park.

ParkFest will once again feature an art show in the barn by local artists, exhibits by history, heritage and community groups, and “Authors Alley” where attendees can meet published authors on hand to discuss their work, which includes a variety of fiction, non-fiction and children's books. Musical entertainment on the ParkFest stage – built into the side of a barn with open air seating – will be from Serene Green with traditional Bluegrass, Sycamore Banjo Band with favorite tunes from the 1920s and the heyday of radio, and Don Kincaid & The Wait, an Americana Alt-Country band. A second stage has been added this year, as guitarist Walt Bibinger will play in the pavilion near the museum.

The Warren County History Museum at Bread Lock Park will be open during the festival. The museum features artifacts, displays, and working models on aspects of the county's rich history, highlighting the area’s earliest Lenni Lenape inhabitants, the Colonial period and the birth of the iron industry in the colonies, the Morris Canal, Thomas A. Edison's nearby cement industry and the first "concrete mile" of roadway in New Jersey, and much more.

The park is located at the remains of Morris Canal Lock No. 7 West, which gained a reputation as the “Bread Lock” during the canal era when the lock tender's wife baked and sold fresh bread to the passing canal boats. In addition to the museum, the park includes a life-sized model of a canal boat and walking paths, including a 2.5-mile section of the Morris Canal Greenway Trail to Stewartsville that was dedicated during ther 2018 ParkFest, and a storybook walk unveiled at 2019 ParkFest.

ParkFest also will feature activities and entertainment for kids, community organizations as informational exhibitors, and select food vendors.

ParkFest is presented by the nonprofit Warren County Parks Foundation along with the Warren County Morris Canal Committee, the county Land Preservation Department, and the Explore Warren County Tourism Partnership, part of the county Public Information Department, with support from the Warren County Board of County Commissioners.

ParkFest @ Bread Lock Park is free, open to all, and reasonably accessible to persons with disabilities.

For more information about ParkFest, or to become an exhibiting artist, author, send an email to info@warrenparksfoundation.com or call 908-475-7753.