The Glebe House, built about 1740, is celebrating its 97th year in operation in 2022 as an historical house museum and garden. It was the home of Rev. John Rutgers Marshall, his wife Sarah, nine children and three slaves from 17771 to 1786 and is furnished with period furniture including a wonderful collection of furniture made in Woodbury during the 18thcentury.
    In 1771 Woodbury’s first Anglican minister, John Rutgers Marshall of New York City, arrived with his wife Sarah. By the end of the Revolutionary War, John Marshall and his family had endured the oppression suffered by many New England Anglicans who were often presumed to be loyal to the king.
    Only weeks after American independence was secure, a group of American clergy met secretly at Glebe House to make a momentous decision; to take part in the building of a new nation while upholding their religious heritage. The group elected the Reverend Dr. Samuel Seabury to go to London to argue before Parliament to become the first Bishop in the new world, a decision that assumed both the separation of church and state and religious toleration in the new nation.
    After the Marshalls moved from the Glebe House, Gordon B. Botsford, a silversmith, lived in the house. Botsford lived and worked in the Glebe House with his wife and family of eight children through the mid-19th century. By the 1920s the house had paseed through several owners and fallen intogreat disrepair.
    As plans were discussed to tear down the house it was saved by the Seabury Society for the Preservation of the Glebe House, which repaired the building, began collecting furniture, and raised funds to ensure continued operations as a museum.
    The Glebe House was restored in 1923 under the direction of Henry Watson Kent, a pioneer of early America decorative arts and a founder of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. One of the early historic house museums in the country, the Glebe House opened its doors to the public in 1925.