Battlefield park at Princeton expanded

The land is not particularly unusual. The 4.6 acres include a ridgeline, slope, wooded area, and open ground.

What gives the tract value is the history that unfolded around it on Jan. 3, 1777, when Gen. George Washington helped rally American soldiers and turn the tide of battle against the British outside Princeton.

Now the once-privately owned parcel is part of Princeton Battlefield State Park. Its acquisition for $850,000 will be marked at 10 a.m. Sept. 16 during public ribbon-cutting ceremonies at the Colonnade, on the north side of Mercer Street in the park.

The event will be attended by state, county, and local officials as well as representatives of the Princeton Battlefield Society, Friends of Princeton Open Space, and Campaign 1776, a project of the Civil War Trust, which supported the effort.

Visitors will be able to tour the property along a newly created pathway, and receive a map and fact sheet on the crucial clash of the American Revolution.

"This land is an important part of the battlefield," said Jerald Hurwitz, president of the Princeton Battlefield Society. "We have reason to believe there are bodies possibly buried there.

"This is the place where the psychology of everything changed," he said of the battle. "This is where the British found out Washington was a dangerous guy."

The additional land expands the park - which fronts on Stockton Street and abuts the main battlefield - to nearly 80 acres, officials said.

"The critical part of preserving the battlefield is that there's a place people can go and imagine exactly how the battle took place," said Kip Cherry, first vice president of the Princeton Battlefield Society.

"It's historic landscape that helps us understand how difficult it was for the Continental Army to challenge the British and be successful," she said.

Just before the first phase of the battle, two British units stood on the ridge of the former D'Ambrisi property, behind the Colonnade that now stands in the park. Some of the Redcoats later retreated across the same terrain.

The success at Princeton in 1777 followed Washington's stunning triumph over Hessian troops at Trenton a week earlier, on the day after Christmas.

Washington strategically redeployed his army after another clash at the Second Battle of Trenton on Jan. 2, 1777. Then, that night, he marched around the British army's left flank and clashed again with the Redcoats on Jan. 3.

The victories at Trenton and Princeton helped change the course of the Revolutionary War by finally establishing the Continental Army as a viable fighting force - and Washington as a cunning general, Hurwitz said.

"It was the reputation that it gave George Washington," he said. "What he did was Napoleonic.

"He beat the Hessians at Trenton, but then he beat British regulars at Princeton and humiliated them," Hurwitz said. "It was the symbolism of beating the British, which he wasn't supposed to be able to do."

The victory also "led to private contributions from the population to support the army and finance the war," Cherry said. "It emboldened state militias to harass the British and drive them out of New Jersey."

The acquired property was purchased from the D'Ambrisis in April 2015 with funding from state, county, and nonprofit organizations.

The Green Acres Program's state acquisition program contributed $450,000 and Mercer County $200,000, officials said. The county also provided the nonprofit Friends of Princeton Open Space $100,000 as a match to a $100,000 Green Acres grant available to nonprofit groups.

Princeton agreed to shoulder the costs of repairing a dam and demolishing a house on the property as its contribution to the preservation effort.

The Princeton Battlefield Society plans to use National Park Service grants to conduct an archaeological investigation in cooperation with and supervision by the state Park Service.

Future recreational use plans include extending the bike path that starts at Mercer Street to Stockton Street, with the possibility of connecting the much larger system of trails along the Stony Brook and elsewhere in Princeton.

"You need to physically see the place," Cherry said. "By going to the battlefield, you can better understand the soul of the country."