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Battle of Bowman's Hill

To fully appreciate the divisive reach of Pennsylvania's budget woes, consider the fair wildflowers of Bucks County. Even they - and the issue of who will own them - have sown controversy in these nettlesome economic times.

Members of a nonprofit have declared war on a proposed bill to turn over a section of Washington Crossing Historic Park to another nonprofit. Above, members of the Crossing Legacy Foundation protested at the reopening of the visitor center there during ceremonies Thursday. (CLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer)
Members of a nonprofit have declared war on a proposed bill to turn over a section of Washington Crossing Historic Park to another nonprofit. Above, members of the Crossing Legacy Foundation protested at the reopening of the visitor center there during ceremonies Thursday. (CLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer)Read more

To fully appreciate the divisive reach of Pennsylvania's budget woes, consider the fair wildflowers of Bucks County.

Even they - and the issue of who will own them - have sown controversy in these nettlesome economic times.

For decades, the state-owned Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve, a 134-acre section of Washington Crossing Historic Park, has been ably run by a nonprofit association of flora enthusiasts.

But a recent bid by the cash-strapped state to hand over the tract to the nonprofit has set off a latter-day revolt among some history buffs.

Critics oppose selling any of the land set aside to honor George Washington's Continental Army troops who camped along the Delaware River in late 1776. The soldiers' daring Christmas crossing of the Delaware, enabling a subsequent rout of Hessian troops at the Battle of Trenton, was a pivotal moment in the Revolutionary War.

"It's the turning point of the Revolution," said Washington Crossing resident Guy Polhemus, a descendant of Maj. John Polhemus, who participated in the crossing. "And it's not for sale."

Supporters of the deed transfer argue that it would enhance a property whose crumbling infrastructure - nonworking bathrooms, a leaking visitor-center roof, a potholed entrance road - resulted from crippling cuts to state entities that were supposed to maintain it.

Officials of the Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve Association, the longtime steward of the grounds, say they could more easily raise private money if donors didn't see the preserve as a state-owned, tax-supported site.

"The state hasn't really lived up to its end of the deal," said Miles Arnott, executive director of the association. "The folks here care deeply about the site and are trying desperately to find a way to raise the funds to fix this place up and make it the jewel that it deserves to be."

The dispute is a new wrinkle in a broader struggle by private groups to prop up Pennsylvania's state-owned historic sites in the face of withering cutbacks.

Few state entities have been so thoroughly gutted in recent years as the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, overseer of more than 20 sites, including the 500-plus acres of Washington Crossing park.

The commission lost more than 40 percent of its funding and one-third of its staff in last year's budget cutbacks, PHMC executive director Barbara Franco said. Additional cuts are included in this year's state budget.

In May, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Pennsylvania's sites on its annual list of endangered places, blaming the dwindling public funding.

As the cuts forced some sites to shutter visitor centers and eliminate programming, volunteer groups have taken on many of the maintenance and staffing duties.

"There is no other way for any of these treasures to survive without strong partnerships between the community and the government agencies," said Wayne Spilove of Philadelphia, PHMC chairman.

That cooperation was on prominent display Thursday when the volunteer Friends of Washington Crossing Park and PHMC officials reopened the visitor center in the southern end of the park. The group is working with the state to raise money, maintain the grounds, and provide volunteers to operate the facilities and provide educational programs for schoolchildren and other visitors.

The group formed last year after staff cuts forced the visitor center to close and threw the annual reenactment of Washington's crossing - which draws thousands of spectators - into jeopardy.

"We've come a long way in six months," said Bill Haas, president of the group. "What is clearly obvious now is that nonprofit friends groups are being called upon to step up to the plate much more significantly than at any other time in the past."

But off to the side of the sun-splashed pageantry of uniformed reenactors and musket fire stood Polhemus and a group of protesters. Silently they held signs with slogans such as: "Who's giving away our park?" and "Taxpayers paid for this park."

Polhemus, whose Crossing Legacy Foundation has offered to pay $1 million for a 99-year lease of the wildflower preserve, said he would support leasing the property, but not turning over the deed.

"We do not have to cede any part of this to a private group," said Polhemus, who in the 1990s successfully battled efforts to build a shopping mall across from the park entrance and to use some of its land for athletic fields. "It's been paid for by taxpayers before us. Actually, it's been paid for in blood."

The rhetoric crested in May, shortly after the state House overwhelmingly passed a bill deeding over the preserve to Arnott's association for $1. Republican State Rep. Bernie O'Neill, who introduced the bill and whose district includes the preserve, said he had received "hate mail" and incendiary e-mails falsely claiming that a casino and Toll Bros. houses would soon be built there.

The bill contains a clause that would turn the land back over to the state if the new owners veered from the intended use. Polhemus derided the clause as "toothless" and "not worth the paper it's written on."

The legislation is on hold. State Sen. Chuck McIlhinney (R., Bucks) said he would hold a hearing at the park this year to air the disputes before his chamber took up the bill.

The wildflower preserve was established in 1934 when a state commission set aside 100 acres of parkland "to commemorate, in Nature's own way, the valor of the Patriots who camped in these hills."

Arnott said his nonprofit, which raises an annual operating budget of $750,000, had increased the native species on the site from 200 to about 800. Since 1997, the association has had a formal agreement with the state to handle all operations there, short of major capital improvements.

The association hopes to replace its 45-year-old visitor center with one incorporating green technology and to build a treetop-canopy walk spanning the gorge of Pidcock Creek, which winds through the property.

"We want a less passive experience," Arnott said. "We no longer want to be Bucks County's best-kept secret."