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Possible Revolutionary War Campsite Found in New Jersey

Monday, May 9, 2016

New Jersey Revolutionary War campsiteCHATHAM TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY—According to an Associated Press report, historian William Styple and his son Brad think they may have found the place where Washington and his troops stayed after crossing the Delaware River and engaging in battles in Trenton and Princeton. The Styples found an 1855 newspaper article that reportedly records the memories of people who saw the camp, and late-nineteenth-century photographs of a mansion on the site, one of which was marked with the location of the camp’s flagpole. An archaeological survey, conducted by Michigan-based Commonwealth Heritage Group, recovered several dozen artifacts at the site, including metal buckles, a knob from a desk drawer, pottery, and a partial pipe bowl. “It could be an encampment during the war, possibly ’77. But armies constantly marched through here through the entire American Revolution, and bits of armies were camping as they passed through,” commented Eric Olsen, a park ranger at Morristown National Historical Park. For more on archaeology of the American Revolution, go to "Finding Parker’s Revenge."

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