Battle Over Princeton's Battlefield
Einstein's School Plans To Build 15 Houses
By Elizabeth McNamara | Online Only | July 19, 2010
It was January 3, 1777, and Gen. George Washington's army was on the march. His troops were tired and their rations paltry. With more than 8,000 well-rested reinforcements of British Regulars bunkered along the borders of Trenton, N.J., however, Washington saw little advantage to staying put. Ninety percent of his army had been lost since the previous summer, and his remaining 5,800 ragtag rebels couldn't afford another beating in their fight for independence.
In a risky move, Washington chose to circumnavigate the enemy and stage a surprise attack from the rear. His plan: Leave bonfires as a decoy, while the majority of troops secretly advanced under cover of night.
"This is the kind of move military strategists have always claimed as the best," says Jerry Hurwitz, president of the Princeton Battlefield Area Preservation Society. "This is more important than when [Washington] crossed the Delaware."
What followed was a battle fought at daybreak on Princeton fields so frozen warm blood wouldn't penetrate the soil, as soldiers' notes document. The Continental Army won, making the cause of American sovereignty not an ideal, but an achievable goal.
Today, however, this history-rich area may be threatened with development by the Institute for Advanced Study, whose property borders the Princeton Battlefield State Park. The Institute, a highly regarded community of scholars in Princeton whose alumni includes Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, wishes to expand its faculty housing. In February 2003 the group unveiled plans to erect 15 "low-profile" homes on the very eight acres some historians believe Washington's troops marched through, then charged into battle.
"It's comparable to saving Little Round Top in Gettysburg, and not where Pickett's Charge happened," says Hurwitz of preserving the state park without its abutting acres. "Yes, it's only one aspect [of the battle], but no one would say it's not important."
The Institute has a history of generosity toward Princeton Battlefield State Park, donating 32 acres of land in the 1970s and, in 1997, relinquishing development rights for an additional 589 acres. Christine Ferrara, a spokeswoman for the Institute, said four metal-detection surveys were commissioned between 1989 and 2007. Ferrara said in an e-mail that the studies concluded "the level of military activity in the project area was very limited, and that the major events of the battle … took place outside the project area."
Hurwitz says that one survey found high concentrations of impacted musket balls and significant numbers of British coins. "The Institute prefers to see that the battle was fought only within the state park lines," Hurwitz says.
According to the Institute, a fourth and final study by the Berger Group concluded in June 2007 that "it is very unlikely that any concentrations of additional artifacts of the Battle of Princeton may be found on the building site," wrote Ferrara.
The Princeton Battlefield Society commissioned its own study to determine troop movements. Last year the Society received a $30,542 grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP), a division of the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior, to fund a KOCOA Analysis: Key Terrain, Observation and Fields of Fire, Cover and Concealment, Obstacles, and Avenues of Approach. It's a report that analyzes written accounts from historic battles, looks for consistencies, and then plots observations on a topographic map.
Hurwitz says the analysis, submitted to the ABPP for review last week, not only revealed the probable location of Saw Mill Road, the long-forgotten path Washington used, but also confirmed that the location of Washington's attack sits on the 22-acre parcel of land the Institute owns.
"We feel that this portion of the Institute property is hallowed ground and it is a very important part when explaining the process of the battle," says Kip Cherry, a member of the Society who helped facilitate the analysis. "It's a place where we would like to do more archeological research."
Preservation New Jersey named the Princeton Battlefield one of the state's 10 Most Endangered Historic Sites last year.
The Institute has tried to be amenable, offering a 200-feet-wide buffer zone to separate the homes from the state park. However, the Society insists the dispute isn't solely about acreage or view shed, but about the land's high archeological significance. The Society has even gone so far as to offer a land swap, but the Institute has not expressed interest.
The KOCOA analysis will not create additional protection for the park or force a change in zoning laws on the eight-acre parcel, but Hurwitz hopes it will at least sway those at the Institute to consider another solution. The critical part of the battlefield, not yet landmarked, is too valuable to lose, he says.
"There was one day I was at a booth [at the battlefield park] and a guy from the Institute grounds came over to me," Hurwitz recalls. "He told me, 'You should let the Institute build their houses because Einstein was more important than George Washington.' I couldn't believe it."
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Comments
Submitted by Alex at: August 5, 2010
Thnx for this news, I lived on Quaker Bridge Road near Princeton and feel a spiritual connection w/ the battlefield and its national significance. Now living in the Ozarks, I know the issue is very complex but deserves speedy conclusion. It seems a more thorough archaeological study of the disputed site could be helpful in determining its significance in the battle. David Hacket Fischer has a great description of that event in _Washington's Crossing_.
Submitted by historyguy at: August 3, 2010
The state of New Jersey and the NPS, despite their budgetary woes, should buy the land.