The Force Behind Horsham Historical Site

“We can always use volunteers,” says Beth MacCausland, the smiling, firecracker force behind Horsham’s Graeme Park, the 42-acre grounds of the Keith House that is the only surviving residence of a colonial-era Pennsylvania governor. 

She is president of The Friends of Graeme Park, a nonprofit organization helping the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) preserve the 1722 site and educate the public. Without MacCausland, her colleagues and family, Graeme Park would not be open.

Though she is thoroughly entrenched in Graeme, MacCausland is not naturally a history buff. Rather, it strikes her because she loves the peaceful, colonial haven and its tumultuous past, ensconced between heavily trafficked roads.

She also loves the work. “I like planning and seeing it all happen. It forced me to do it in a larger scale and I love the diversity of where Graeme Park is going in its larger programs,” she said.

Taking care of Graeme is not a hobby, as it involves too much work to be called that, but it is not a second job, as she seems to love it too much to call it work. It is more like a calling.

A part-time receptionist at Connexin Software in Horsham, a wife with two grown children, and a caretaker of her elderly mother, MacCausland still shows frank enthusiasm at the thought of brainstorming new event ideas, of making weeknight phone calls to bands that play at their annual Celtic Heritage Festival, and of hand-painting Graeme’s event signs.

She first heard about Graeme 15 years ago through her daughter’s fourth-grade field trip. “I thought, ‘this is nice.’ I thought I could do something here and offered to help with publicity.”

Her involvement with Graeme has snowballed.

MacCausland chairs most of the site's 20-something yearly programs, having added to the handful that existed when she first came. She has spent up to 50 hours a week preparing for larger events.

“No matter what your life is with work responsibilities and home responsibilities, even if there are things to do here, you can leave home behind. Plus I love working with Carla.”

Carla being Carla Loughlin, Graeme’s museum associate, the park’s only paid employee. She is a cheerleader for Team Beth. MacCausland is involved in almost every aspect of the programs, said Loughlin. “She was out there with her weed whacker before the Halloween festival,” she said.

MacCausland donned colonial dress for Graeme Park's recent Colonial Valentine program, where she played former resident and socialite Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson. Of course she wrote the actors’ scripts.

Born in Philadelphia, MacCausland settled in Horsham, where she and her husband Mike purchased a house. They had met at a wedding in 1978, she as a bridesmaid and he as the groomsman who was assigned to walk her down the aisle before the ceremony. 

Before she began her part-time reception work she was at home caring for her daughter and baking cakes for birthdays and weddings. The MacCauslands would love to move to Gettysburg, where Beth would open a cupcake shop and he would work with the Civil War site. 

She is also drafting a few murder-mystery stories and something else that is inspired by Graeme Park’s own Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson: “My dream would be to put Elizabeth’s story to a screenplay because it’s so interesting.”

But, she adds cheerfully, “I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up.” 

Right now she is needed here.

She almost hyperventilates as she remembers The Friends of Graeme Park’s struggle in 2009, when the PHMC made the difficult decision to close some of the state historic sites. She thought that Graeme was safe until the day local media got in touch: “I got a call from a newspaper … who asked me what I think about the state closing Graeme Park.”

They recruited help and contacted the PHMC. Many times. “I think the reason that Graeme Park stayed open was because of the dynamic that Beth brought to the site,” says volunteer Jack Washington, the former president of The Volunteers of Hope Lodge, which the state closed. 

He looks at MacCausland, who is embarrassed, but smiling: “The volunteers do it, Beth, but the personality that you have is what keeps us motivated.” 

Graeme, on the National Register of Historic Places, has MacCausland, Loughlin, and Washington on its side, and its public outreach is growing with Mother’s Day breakfasts, Dog fairs, monthly paranormal investigations, Revolutionary War reenactments, and more.

MacCausland will be here, developing Graeme’s presence in the community and enjoying visitors from all walks of life. “They may not be history buffs at all. Just talking to people, hearing their stories, is interesting to me.”

Her dedication to Graeme, says her husband, “just illustrates the way she is.”