Historic sites & museums 45
Battlefields, historic villages, and the grounds of old houses and museums where a dog may come along outside.
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Washington Crossing State Park
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the trails and grounds; not in the visitor center museum, the historic houses, the nature center or overnight facilities.
Where Washington's army landed after crossing the icy Delaware on Christmas night 1776, with the 18th-century Johnson Ferry House and miles of wooded river trails.
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Monmouth Battlefield State Park
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the battlefield grounds and trails; not in the visitor center or the Craig House.
The farm fields and orchards of one of the largest battles of the Revolution, fought in June 1778, with a visitor center and miles of trails.
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Princeton Battlefield State Park
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the battlefield grounds; not in the Clarke House.
The quiet fields where Washington defeated British troops on January 3, 1777, with the Thomas Clarke House and a stone colonnade marking the soldiers' grave.
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Absecon Lighthouse Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the lawn around the lighthouse; no pets in the tower, museum or visitor center (service animals excepted).
New Jersey's tallest lighthouse, first lit in 1857, with a long climb to a gallery overlooking Atlantic City and the ocean.
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Morristown National Historical Park
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the trails and grounds of every unit of the park; not in buildings.
The country's first national historical park: Washington's headquarters in the Ford Mansion and the woods of Jockey Hollow, where his army lived through the hard winter of 1779–80.
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Twin Lights Lighthouse Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the grounds during open hours only; no pets in the lighthouse or museum (service animals excepted).
A brownstone lighthouse with two towers on the bluff above Sandy Hook Bay, with a museum of lighthouse history and wide views of the bay and harbor.
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Wallace House Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside on the grounds only; no pets inside the historic buildings (service animals excepted).
The house where George and Martha Washington stayed during the Middlebrook winter encampment of 1778–79, next door to the Old Dutch Parsonage.
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Grover Cleveland Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside on the grounds only; no pets inside the house (service animals excepted).
The birthplace of Grover Cleveland, the only president born in New Jersey, in the parsonage where his father was minister.
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Indian King Tavern Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside only; no pets inside the tavern (service animals excepted).
A colonial tavern on Haddonfield's main street where New Jersey's legislature met in 1777 and confirmed New Jersey as an independent state.
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Somers Point Mansion Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside on the grounds only; no pets inside the mansion (service animals excepted).
Built in the 1720s, the oldest surviving house in Atlantic County, a brick home looking out over Great Egg Harbor Bay.
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Trenton Battle Monument Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the grounds around the monument; not inside the monument (service animals excepted).
A tall granite column topped by a statue of Washington, marking where American guns opened the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776.
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Walt Whitman House Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside only; no pets inside the house or visitor center (service animals excepted).
The modest Mickle Street house where Walt Whitman spent his last years, the only home the poet ever owned.
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Waterloo Village
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the village grounds; not in buildings.
A Morris Canal village on the Musconetcong River, with a gristmill, a canal museum and a watered stretch of the old canal.
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Batsto Village
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the village grounds and the trails; not in buildings.
A 19th-century iron and glassmaking village deep in the Pine Barrens, with an ironmaster's mansion, a working sawmill and a post office that still hand-cancels mail.
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Historic Smithville Park
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the park's trails and grounds.
A 19th-century factory village and mansion on Rancocas Creek, now a county park with lake trails, mansion tours and the story of a bicycle railroad.
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Historic Village at Allaire
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the village grounds; not in the buildings.
A restored 19th-century iron-making village inside Allaire State Park, with a general store, bakery, blacksmith and church.
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Lambert Castle
Dogs: Leashed dogs in the surrounding Garret Mountain Reservation; only service animals inside the castle.
A silk baron's 1892 stone castle on Garret Mountain, reopened in 2026 after a long restoration, with guided tours and views over Paterson.
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Old Dutch Parsonage Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside on the grounds only; no pets inside the historic buildings (service animals excepted).
A brick parsonage of 1751, home of the minister whose petition founded Rutgers, moved in 1913 to stand beside the Wallace House.
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Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park
Dogs: Leashed dogs in the park and at the falls overlooks.
The Passaic River's 77-foot Great Falls, which powered Alexander Hamilton's planned industrial city, with overlooks and a footbridge across the gorge.
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Sandy Hook Lighthouse
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the paths and bay beaches around the lighthouse; not in buildings, and off the ocean beaches from March 15 to September 15.
The oldest working lighthouse in the country, first lit in 1764, beside the old harbor-defense post of Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook.
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Cape May Historic District
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the streets of the district, but never on the Washington Street Mall; on the beach and promenade only from September 15 to May 15.
Some 600 Victorian buildings, rebuilt after the fire of 1878, make Cape May one of the best-preserved seaside resorts in the country.
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Fort Hancock
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the paths and roads; not in buildings, and off the ocean beaches from March 15 to September 15.
The army post that guarded New York harbor for a century, with a row of yellow-brick officers' houses, old gun batteries and a Nike missile site.
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Rockingham Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside on the grounds only; no pets inside the house or visitor center (service animals excepted).
Washington's last wartime headquarters, where he wrote his farewell orders to the army in 1783. The house has been moved several times to save it.
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Hancock House Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside on the grounds only; no pets inside the house (service animals excepted).
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Hermitage House Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside on the grounds only; no pets inside the house, museum or visitor center (service animals excepted).
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Steuben House Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside on the grounds only; no pets inside the house (service animals excepted).
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Boxwood Hall Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside only; no pets inside the house (service animals excepted).
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Lawrence House Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside only; no pets inside the house (service animals excepted).
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Marshall House Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside only; no pets inside the house (service animals excepted).
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New Bridge Landing Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the grounds of the historic village; not inside the historic houses.
A cluster of Jersey Dutch sandstone houses by the Hackensack River, where Washington's army crossed during the retreat of 1776.
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Proprietary House Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside only; no pets inside the house (service animals excepted).
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Carranza Memorial Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs allowed at the memorial site in Wharton State Forest; not in buildings.
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Monmouth Battle Monument Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs allowed around the monument.
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Princeton Battle Monument Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs allowed around the monument.
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Van Nest-Hoff-Vannatta Farm Historic Site
Dogs: Leashed dogs outside on the farm grounds only; no pets inside the buildings (service animals excepted).
Over the border
A short drive into New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware.
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Philadelphia's Magic Gardens
Dogs: Friendly leashed dogs are welcome at the Magic Gardens museum.
Isaiah Zagar's mosaic labyrinth of tiles, mirrors, bottles and found objects, covering a block on South Street.
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Delaware Museum of Nature and Science
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the Evolution Trail and the Nature Trail behind the museum; no pets in the building (service animals excepted).
A natural history museum for families in Greenville, with dinosaurs, seashells and hands-on discovery rooms.
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Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the grounds of Burnside Plantation and the Colonial Industrial Quarter; no pets inside the historic buildings or museums (service animals welcome).
The 18th-century Moravian settlement at the heart of Bethlehem, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with museums and guided tours.
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New Castle Historical Society
Dogs: Leashed dogs welcome in the Amstel House and Dutch House gardens (open daily sunrise to sunset).
Historic houses in Old New Castle, Delaware's colonial capital, where William Penn first landed in America in 1682.
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Valley Forge National Historical Park
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the park's trails and grounds; not in buildings, and not on the Grand Parade trails from April 1 to September 15.
Where Washington's Continental Army camped through the winter of 1777-78: rolling fields, rebuilt huts, his headquarters and miles of trails.
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Washington Crossing Historic Park
Dogs: Leashed dogs on the park grounds and trails; not inside the historic buildings or the visitor center
The Pennsylvania shore where Washington's army set out across the icy Delaware on Christmas night 1776, with historic buildings and a yearly reenactment.
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Laurel Hill Cemetery
Dogs: Leashed dogs welcome on the cemetery grounds; only service dogs in the buildings.
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Harriton Association
Dogs: Leashed dogs welcome on Harriton's grounds, meadow and preserve, open free from sunrise to sunset.
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Noble Maritime Collection
Dogs: Leashed dogs on most Snug Harbor grounds; not in the museum building, the Chinese Scholar's Garden or the Heritage Farm (service animals excepted).
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Staten Island Children's Museum
Dogs: Leashed dogs on most Snug Harbor grounds; not in the museum building, the Chinese Scholar's Garden or the Heritage Farm (service animals excepted).
