In
2000, Congress directed the National Park Service to determine
whether remaining resources related to the American
Revolution in central New Jersey were of national significance.
The study area comprised 14 counties between Bergen and Passaic
in the north and Camden and Gloucester in the south. This area
includes a national park (Morristown National Historical Park),
five state parks (Princeton Battlefield, Monmouth Battlefield,
Washington’s Crossing, the Wallace House, and Old Trenton
Barracks), 13 National Historic Landmarks, and more than 250
other National Register of Historic Places sites and districts,
all having resources of the Revolutionary War period and many
whose protection is predicated on their importance in the Revolutionary
War. A series of public meetings to introduce the study and solicit
comment took place in 2001 and 2002. In late 2002, the
Secretary of the Interior certified to Congress that the Crossroads
of
the American Revolution met all National Park Service criteria
as a National Heritage Area. Authorization will come with the
passage of bills introduced in both houses of Congress. Enabling
legislation is now before Congress, sponsored by Representatives
Rodney Frelinghuysen and Rush Holt (HR-524) in the House and
Sens. Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg in the Senate (S-230).
Unlike a national park,
which is owned and managed by the National Park Service in its
entirety, a national heritage area (NHA) offers a framework
for partnerships and collaboration within a region of thematically
related, locally managed sites. Federal funding of a management
group (up to $1 million a year for 10 years) is intended as the
catalyst to attract state and local funding and substantial corporate
and private foundation support.
No
two NHAs are alike, but New Jersey’s proposed Crossroads
of the American Revolution National Heritage Area has established
an over-arching themes for its activities: to foster
the conservation, preservation and interpretation of New Jersey’s
Revolutionary War sites and landscapes in ways that enhance public
understanding
about the people, places and events that transformed the course
of American and New Jersey history. Ultimately, the mission of
the Crossroads NHA will be to raise popular understanding of
the historical significance of these sites, to provide an
area-wide network between established historic sites, state
parks, private property owners, local governments, not-for-profits,
and other
civic organizations in order to facilitate further preservation
(including open-space preservation) and to offer a forum
for new initiatives on site use, management, education, and historical
interpretation.
