I am not a historian, and this is not a book about history. This is a book about discovery. I remember very clearly the first time I discovered something about New Jersey history. It was in a Newberry's dime store in a strip mall in downtown Springfield. I was about six or seven at the time. The strip mall was across the street from the Presbyterian Church
where a Minuteman statue stands proud, commemorating the Battle of
Springfield.
     That battle was a fairly fierce campaign in which some seventy-five
hundred Continental Army regulars and New Jersey militiamen repelled a
British force of six thousand.
     I would learn about the particulars much later But on this day,
what I saw on a wall at Newberry's was a color mural depicting the action
and that mural appealed to a little boy's imagination.
The mural had a line of soldiers getting ready to fire at oncoming
British troops. In the foreground was a man, not dressed like a soldier,
shouting instructions. Along the bottom of the mural were the words, "Now
give 'em Watts, boys!"
     I asked my father what the mural was all about. He told me some of
the story. His abbreviated version was about "The Fighting Parson," Rev.
James Caldwell. A parson, my dad told me, was a like a priest, and although
Caldwell was a man of God, he believed in the Colonial fight for freedom,
even if it meant killing enemy soldiers. The "Watts" were the church hymnals
which he tore up so the American soldiers could pack their muskets with the
paper. "Now give 'em Watts, boys!" was a veiled way of saying, "Now shoot
'em!"
     My father also told me that on the very spot where we were standing
- in the middle of Newberry's - had been part of the battlefield. And down
the street was a house that had been hit by a cannon ball, and you could
still see the dent in it.
     He told me that George Washington had been in the area, probably
rode right up the street. I knew, of course, who George Washington was, but he seemed so
distant from me not only in time, but geography. All the important things in
American history, I learned in school, happened somewhere else ... New
England, Virginia, New York, Philadelphia. But now I knew something else was true: George Washington fought battles near our house. I remember thinking that I lived somewhere special
.. a place that was important to America ... a place you could be proud of.
     You can imagine my disappointment, then, when I learned about the American Revolution in school. In school, the Revolution happened somewhere else. We learned all about Lexington and Yorktown, and not much about Trenton and Monmouth. We learned about the hard winter at Valley Forge, and nothing about Jockey Hollow.
     We heard the legendary quotes: William Prescott's "Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes" at Bunker Hill and John Paul Jones' "I have not yet begun to fight" aboard the Bonhomme Richard. We never heard The Fighting Parson's "Now, give 'em Watts, boys!"
Perhaps that's why my interest in New Jersey history went dormant for nearly three decades. My reinforcements never came.
     I became interested in New Jersey history not through education, but by accident.
I was born and raised in New Jersey. When I went away and joined the Navy to see the world, they put me in Philadelphia. For much of the time I served there, I lived in South Jersey. After the service, I went to college at Rutgers College, New Brunswick, then Rutgers-Newark. I've worked at three newspapers in the state and I've lived in 15 Jersey towns in six Jersey
counties.
For most of that time, I was only mildly curious about the state. For the early part of my newspaper career I was a sportswriter. In 1985 I began working for the New York Post and soon became a columnist. It was during this time, when I had a job most men envied, that I began to
re-examine what I truly wanted to write about. The games and seasons began to blend into one, and I got tired of spending my creative energy on athletes. As a "New York journalist" I also got tired of hearing my home state denegrated as either a network of boring bedroom communities where artistic spirit is dulled by suburban sameness, or as chemical-industrial
wasteland, filled with gritty blue-collar drones living week-to-week, beer-to-beer. I got tired of all those stupid Turnpike jokes.
     I left the Post in October of 1990 and began writing for The Star-Ledger. In the search for feature stories, I began exploring my home state. I spent as much time on the road as I could, traveling the state, meeting its people and doing the best I could to tell their stories. I drove
the rocky hills of the Highlands, got lost in the Pinelands, marveled at the desolation of the lower Delaware Bay. I discovered the rural beauty of the Upper Delaware Valley, where the Protestant steeples jut out over the rolling hills like sailboat masts on the high seas. I discovered the different Jersey Shores: the circa Victorian hamlets of Ocean Grove, Spring Lake and Cape May; the honky-tonk of Keansburg, Seaside and Wildwood; the cedar-shingled elegance of Bay Head and the Levittown-by-the-sea sprawl of Ocean Beach just a few miles down the road. I found the weird and the wonderful: the Dover psychologist who built totem poles; the car parts
magnate who started his business by selling the spare parts he found in the trunk of a junked Packard; a Sussex County zookeeper who had a father-son relationship with the world's largest bear; the Thomas Edison-built concrete houses in Union and the remains of his concrete plant in Warren County; the ruined Stephen Crane Memorial in an overgrown vacant lot in Newark. I could
- maybe should - fill a book with these stories. I found myself infinitely fascinated by my home state.
In 1993, I did a series about the inter-county roads in the state.
It was pure Jerseyanna travel reportage, taking readers along the roads less
traveled, following some old routes that began as Native American walking
paths or Colonial wagon routes.
It was an eight-part series, so at times, I followed two connecting
inter-county roads to develop a regional theme. (I cheated a little here,
too, including sites not far from the chosen road less traveled.)
I wanted to do a story on a Revolutionary War corridor so I picked a
pair of roads, Routes 525 and 533, that basically connected the Morristown
area with Trenton, via Somerville and Princeton.
Route 525 begins in Mendham, not far from Jockey Hollow, and not
even a mile down the road, I made a discovery.
The First Presbyterian Church, known locally as the Hilltop Church,
is a classic early American landmark with a 130-foot landmark steeple that
towers over the surrounding hills. Buried behind the church are 27
Revolutionary War soldiers who died at Jockey Hollow during a smallpox
epidemic in 1777. The hospital was used as a sick bay during the epidemic.
Buried along with the soldiers is Rev. Thomas Lewis, the church pastor who
cared for the ailing men and died of the disease alongside them. Here was
another good story. A local legend. I wondered how many others were out
there.
Plenty.
That day alone I found out that a 13-star Betsy Ross flag flies
perpetually over the Middlebrook Camp ground ... that Washington plotted
strategy a frontier campaign against the Indians while headquartered at
Somerville ... that there is a monument on the front yard of a private home
along the Millstone River that tells the story of the British raid that left
Millstone, the colonial capital of Somerset County, burned to the ground ...
that the oak tree where General Hugh Mercer lay mortally wounded still
survives ... that Richard Stockton, signer of the Declaration of
Independence, is buried at the Friends Meeting House just south of the
Princeton Battlefield, that there are a series of 12 markers that follow the
11.8 mile route Washington took to Princeton after the Battles of Trenton.
The markers, one of which is buried deep in the woods and another of which
sits in a farmer's cornfield, are mostly off Hamilton Avenue and Quaker
Bridge Road through Trenton, Hamilton Township, Lawrence Township and
Princeton.
These discoveries made me realize how little I knew. I wanted to
know more.
But when I began researching the Continental Army's travels for the
article, I was dismayed not to find one readily available central source
that listed all New Jersey Revolutionary War sites.
Out of that disappointment came the idea for this book.
Until now, no single publication has listed detailed information
about so many New Jersey's Revolutionary sites. All previously published
guides to the Revolution center on the highlights: Fort Lee and Washington's
retreat across New Jersey; the victories at Trenton and battle of Princeton;
the brutal winter encampment at Jockey Hollow and the Battle of Monmouth.
Until now, there has been much out there to help you fill in the blanks. You
had to go out yourself and discover it.
I wanted to do that ... to find and catalog as many Revolutionary
War sites as possible. And so I began traveling the state, looking for the
monuments, bronze plaques and signs that mark our Revolutionary War history,
as well as the private homes where history happened.
Armed with maps, pamphlets, out-dated books (see next chapter "The
Research") and a camera, I spent as much time on the road as I could,
looking for Revolutionary War sites.
If you're out to discover New Jersey's Revolutionary trail from your
car, almost any place called Washington is a good place to start. ¶
At one end of New Jersey, the George Washington Bridge spans the
Hudson River. At the other, Washington's Crossing State Park overlooks the
Delaware.
In between are six Washington Townships, and a Washington Borough.
There is a Washington Corner, a Washington Valley and a pair of
Washingtonvilles. There's a Washington Oak, a Park, a Place, and two
Washington Rocks. Ten of New Jersey's twenty-one counties have a town or
area of a town named after the general, and there are 23 major thoroughfares
throughout the state named Washington Avenue, Street or Road, and hundreds
of smaller ones. Not to mention the schools and parks.
Washington is a big name in New Jersey's geographic vernacular and
in many cases, places named after Washington are near places of some
Revolutionary War significance.
Yes, Washington slept here ... and lived here .. and fought here.
He crossed New Jersey in defeat, then crossed again in victory. He
experienced, as Thomas Paine wrote in Hackensack, "the times that try men
souls," here, and the elation of watching his ragtag army gel into a
formidable fighting force. In all he spent nearly three years in New Jersey.
He set up five long-time headquarters here in private homes: twice in
Morristown, and once in Somerville, Wayne and Rocky Hill, where he wrote his
final orders to his officers. He also stayed in dozens of other homes while
traveling through the state.
At the foot of the George Washington Bridge is Fort Lee, which the
Continental Army abandoned in the face of a British rush that led to
Washington's retreat across New Jersey. Washington Street in Morristown runs
in front of the Ford Mansion, Washington's Headquarters for the winter of
1779-80. Washington Avenue in Morristown heads out toward Jockey Hollow.
But even without the Washington clues, it's not hard to find
Revolutionary War sites.
The most important thing to remember if you're exploring is that the
main roads really haven't changed that much. Today's major highways mimic
the paths of major routes in days of yore. For instance, six-lane Route 24
through the Hobart Gap in Summit took the place of a two-lane road, which
replaced a dirt road as old as Colonial days, which was based on a Lenni
Lenape trail.
In some cases, the paths of the roads haven't changed at all. The
Old York Road was the main road between New York and Philadelphia. Today you
can pick that road up through Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon, western
Monmouth, Mercer, and Burlington County. The Wallace House (Washington's
headquarters in the winter of 1778-79), for example, was right off Old York
Road. Many parts of Route 202, which runs from Lambertville on a
northeasterly slant up to Suffern, N.Y., were used during Colonial times, as
was Morris Avenue, connecting Elizabeth to Morristown. You'll find a good
number of sites along or near these roads in towns that existed during
Colonial times.
As you explore, keep in mind that Colonial towns were much more
compact. To find the old part of town, for the most part, find the First
Presbyterian Church. Even if the church building itself doesn't date back to
Colonial times, the Presbyterians often rebuilt churches over the
foundations of their old ones.
Churches today are often in town centers; in Colonial times churches
were the town centers. Most of the homes - especially those of influential
people were also close to the downtown area. Areas where skirmishes took
place were usually in the shadow of the church steeple
Springfield is a great example of this. Every significant
Revolutionary War site in town is within a few hundred yards of the church,
including the Cannonball House and a D.A.R. marked cemetery.
You will also find that street names often correlate to sites.
Beacon Road in Summit is right near the beacon site. The Caldwell Home in
Union is on Caldwell Avenue. Peter Kemble's home in Harding Township is on
Mt. Kemble Avenue (Route 202).
Of course, you can't just drive around aimlessly. I visited many
local libraries and county historical societies to get started. In many
cases, I interviewed the area "authority" - people like Eric Olsen at
Morristown National Historic Park and John Mills at the Princeton
Battlefield State Park - to uncover unlisted sites. So much is out there -
much more than most of us ever knew.
There is a saying among collectors of rare things: "behind each
piece of a great collection is a great story."
The same can be said for many of the sites I have collected. There
are great stories in the history of these places ... that goes without
saying. But there are also good stories in the preservation of these sites,
and in my personal discovery of them as well.
Three of my favorites are the home of famed spy John Honeyman in
Griggstown, Gallows Hill in Westfield, and the home of General David Forman
in Manalapan.
Of the three, only the Honeyman house is listed in any previous
publication - and without an exact address.
Honeyman was believed by his neighbors to be an ardent Loyalist,
when in fact he was a great spy who reported directly to Washington (see
Griggstown section of Somerset County chapter). During one exchange of
information, Continental Army pretended to imprison him, and even beat him
up a little to make it convincing. Honeyman was so adept at infiltrating the
British that, at war's end, Washington publicly commended him, so that
Honeyman and his family would be safe from revenge-minded Patriots.
I knew Honeyman's house was in the vicinity of the Griggstown
village in the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park. I stopped into the
park office on the Griggstown causeway, but no one there ever heard of
Honeyman, let alone his house.I drove up and down Canal Road, just west of
the Millstone River and the old D & R Canal. In trying to find the house, I
made at least three passes - I took a clue from one of the side streets,
called Bunker Hill Road. (I figured maybe the area Patriots named it that
long ago). In that immediate area, there were a number of Revolutionary
War-era homes, some on a scale grand enough to be worthy of a war hero.
Before knocking on doors, I made one last pass, looking for a marker of some
sort. Through a clearing in some high hedges, on a modest, one-story
Colonial home, I saw a hand-painted sign black-and-gold sign saying: "John
Honeyman, Revolutionary War Spy and Patriot 1776-1786."
Gallows Hill in Westfield was a public execution place in Colonial
times. The most sensational hanging was that of an American sentry named
James Morgan, who was convicted of murdering popular rabble-rouser Rev.
James Caldwell in a dispute at Elizabethtown Point (see Union section of
Union County chapter). Evidence surfaced at his trial that he had been paid
by enemies of Caldwell to kill the Reverend should the chance arise.
I learned of this site from Robert Reynolds, who runs the Abraham
Clark House, which is headquarters for the Sons of the American Revolution.
He said the place where Morgan was hanged was near the intersection of East
Broad Street and Gallows Hill Road. I drove there to take a look around.
Sure enough, imbedded in the sidewalk was a plaque by the Westfield
Bicentennial Commission marking the spot.
I learned of the General Forman house from Garry Stone, the
historian at Monmouth Battlefield State Park. Forman had a checkered public
life and at one point fended off accusations of profiteering. But he was
best known for expunging Tory raiders and bandits from the Monmouth
countryside. During the war, the county residents were hit often by these
raiders from both sides: from Sandy Hook to the east and the Pine Barrens to
the west. Washington asked Forman to take charge and he did with such overt
force that he earned the nickname "Black David": many of those bandits (or
suspected bandits) apprehended by Forman's men were executed... no questions
asked.
The Forman house is not on any historic homes tour and is not
marked. It sits in the most unlikely place; in the middle of the Covered
Bridge condominium complex off Route 9 in Englishtown. The small yellow
house is behind the condo's association's club house on Amberly Drive, the
road that circles through the complex. It is surrounded by the pool, tennis
and bocce courts and used for storage. It is infairly good condition and in
no danger of being taken down. That's the good news. The bad news is that
there are also no plans to restore it or open it to the public.
In each case, the discovery was somewhat of a personal triumph. I
was finding (and cataloging) something that very few people knew about. I
was finding pieces of our state history, discovering New Jersey's
Revolutionary War Trail.
On one of my many trips around the state, I returned to Springfield.
The shopping mall is still there, but the Newberry's is gone. I parked and
got out of the car with my camera to take pictures of the Minuteman statue.
As I worked, an older man came up and asked me what I was doing. I told him
about this book and we talked about other sites in the area.
"Did you go to the cemetery?" he asked.
"The church cemetery?"
"No, the other one."
He told me that on the other side the shopping mall was a small
Revolutionary War burial ground. I know this area well, I told him, but I'd
had never noticed a cemetery. "C'mon," he said. "I'll show you." I walked with him down past the shopping mall. Just beyond the mall next to the small commercial building at 37 Mountain Ave. was a patch of land, elevated above the sidewalk, hidden by shrubs and trees. The steps
leading up were missing an iron railing. The cemetery contains maybe 25
grave markers, a few of which displayed the names of Continental Army
soldiers. Two plaques there - placed there by the Sons of the American
Revolution and the Daughters of the Revolution - indicate there are a number
of unmarked graves of soldiers killed during the fighting on June 23, 1780.

New Jersey's Revolutionary War history is an understated commodity.  The state does little to promote it, and our schools do little to teach it. 
  While states like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia trumpet  their glorious patriotic pasts, New Jersey sits subdued, like the cliché  sullen, contemplative war hero at the end of the bar.
  It's a shame.
  And yet, the Revolution shows up nowhere in the state motto, or on  specialty license plates. State tourism campaigns are aimed to lure people  to the Shore. The tourism motto, "New Jersey & You, Perfect Together,"  certainly does nothing to tell out-of-staters of our rich Colonial past.
  There has only been one major campaign that emphasized the  Revolutionary War theme for New Jersey tourism. That was prior to the  nation's 1976 Bicentennial celebration, but the fervor died down right after  the milestone date passed.
  A second campaign was launched in 1998. The centerpiece of the  campaign was a glossy 12-page booklet called "A Revolutionary Time." The  booklet was developed not by the division of tourism, but by the state parks  and forestry division. It is a slick, informative booklet, but it is  strictly an in-state campaign, not aimed at out-of-state tourists.
  It's hard to understand why we don't play up our history. It's hard  to understand why we Jerseyans are bashful about proclaiming our greatness  ... about taking our rightful places among the states that formed this  nation politically ... militarily ... socially ... and economically.
  A few years ago, I heard a New York State radio ad campaign targeted  at out-of-state tourists to visit the historical wonders of the Empire  State. The commercial, narrated by "Civil War" filmmaker Ken Burns,  mentioned the Revolutionary War battlefield at Saratoga, the birthplace of  the Suffrage Movement at Seneca Falls, and Cooperstown, home of the baseball  Hall of Fame.
  Immediately, I thought, "Yeah, and in New Jersey we have the  Monmouth battlefield, the Botto House, home of the American labor movement  and Hoboken, the birthplace of baseball."
  What we don't have is a media campaign to promote all of it.
  What we need is a major campaign to educate Jerseyans and other  Americans about New Jersey history.
  What we need is a snappy, telling motto like ... "Do Something  Revolutionary, Visit New Jersey."
  Now that would be perfect.
  But promotion of New Jersey historical sites only solves part of the  problem.
  We also need to teach our kids more about significant local history.  Right now, our schools teach New Jersey history in fourth-grade ... one  skinny year to learn about everything from the migrations of the Lenni  Lenape people to Washington's surprise attack at Trenton to Thomas Edison's  inventions to the suburban sprawl of the last half of the Twentieth Century.  When kids later learn about the American Revolution, they're taught from  books that do not emphasize New Jersey's role.
  We have taught generations of New Jersey kids about the Boston Tea  Party but not the Greenwich tea burning ... about the miserable winter at  Valley Forge but not Jockey Hollow ... we have taken our kids on class trips  to the Philadelphia's Independence Hall but not Princeton's Nassau Hall.
  Local history is almost never emphasized.
  I grew up in Summit, which overlooks Springfield, home of the war's  last major encounter in New Jersey. I never learned about the strategic  importance of Hobart Gap (about a mile from my house), or why Beacon Hill  was named such (it housed one of the Lord Stirling-designed fire tower  warning beacons.) The beacon was at what today is 226 Hobart Avenue. Next to  it was a cannon nicknamed "Old Sow." Prior to the Battle of Springfield, Old  Sow boomed out to bring the militiamen out of the mountains to take on the  British. A great local legend ... not taught in Summit public schools. Not  then, not now.
  Mrs. Ranell Shea, the current owner of 226 Hobart Avenue said she  contacted the schools to tell them of the property's significance.
  "They were surprised," she said. "They said, 'We should come up  there for a field trip,' but they never did."
  Over in Madison, another highly regarded school system, my older two  children would walk past the Sayre House - where Mad Anthony Wayne stayed  during one of the Continental Army's Morristown encampments - every day. The  children would pass this house, then get to school and learn about things  that happened in other places.
  Some might argue teaching local history is too parochial, that it  offers too narrow a view. Not so.
  Take the case of the Watchungs. Washington spent much of the war in  and around these mountains, setting up headquarters and encampments at  Wayne, Morristown and Somerville. The lay of the Watchungs gave him vantage  points to the South and East (where the British were entrenched), escape  routes from to the North and West, and access to food and other provisions  from the West Jersey farmlands, and most importantly, protection from quick  strikes. If you understand Washington in the Watchungs, you begin to  appreciate his genius not only as a military strategist, but as a surveyor  as well.
  He exploited the British ignorance of the landscape and always  positioned himself on higher ground. Instead of fighting for the cities, he  took the mountains by default and bought time ... time to regroup and heal,  time to drum up new recruits, time to procure provisions and time to get  Congress to fund the war, knowing the home team almost always wins a war of  attrition. By holding down the Watchungs, he made it impossible for the  British to cut the Colonies in half - they never truly had command of the  Mid-Atlantic Region.
  Now take the case of the Battle of Springfield.
  For three weeks in June of 1780, the British force lead by German  Gen. Wilhelm von Knyphausen pounded Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth),  Connecticut Farms (now Union) and Springfield. The British plan was to shoot  through the Watchung Mountain gap at Summit and Short Hills to attack Gen.  George Washington at Morristown.
  That was the military agenda. But there was a political agenda, too. 
  Most school kids think the American Revolution was a war between the  Colonies and England. Forgotten in this simplistic teaching is that war also  pitted neighbor against neighbor - it was part revolution and part civil  war. Many "Americans" didn't want independence. They wanted to remain  British subjects. These people were known as Loyalists and Tories, and the  area around Springfield was a hotbed of pro-British activity.
  When von Knyphausen's troops arrived in Elizabethtown, they  immediately went on a muscle-flexing campaign designed to make those who  wanted independence think twice about their choice, and to give Loyalists a  feeling of confidence in their king.
  In the weeks leading up to the Battle, the British had burned  churches and public buildings in Elizabeth(town) and Connecticut Farms (now  Union). But at Connecticut Farms, their plan to intimidate the  revolutionaries backfired.
  During the fighting, Hannah Caldwell, the wife of strident  revolutionary Rev. James Caldwell, was shot and killed in the kitchen of her  home in front of her children. Word spread that she was purposefully  murdered by a British soldier, although it has never been proven.
  But one thing is certain: The incident became one of the ugliest  atrocities of the entire war. The murder of Hannah Caldwell by the redcoats  helped rally Jerseyans against the invaders. After being held at  Springfield, the British left New Jersey, obviously aware that their support  here was waning.
  See how a little insight into the battle of Springfield gives you a  much greater understanding of the political climate in America.
  See how far a little local history goes.
  The Battle of Springfield was an heroic episode, especially for the  New Jersey militia. They dug in and turned back a force of 6,000 British  regulars and, in essence, booted England out of New Jersey.
  In Virginia or Massachusetts or Pennsylvania or any other state that  commercially extols their Revolutionary War history, the battlefield at  Springfield would be hallowed ground. It would today be a tourist  attraction: a park, some monuments, an interpretive center with one of those  narrated electronic maps explaining troop movement, weekly reenactments,  T-shirt sales, etc.
  But this is New Jersey and part of the battleground became a  downtown strip mall - a good example of how our commercial development has  devastated our historical site stockpile.
  Architectural historians estimate that only five percent of what  stood in the 18th Century is standing today. But when you consider that most  of the New Jersey Revolutionary War activity happened between what was then  - and what is now - the busy New York-to-Philadelphia corridor, it's easy to  see why so much been destroyed.
  New Jersey has been fortunate to have a vibrant manufacturing and  retail economy. The development of the New York-to-Philadelphia corridor has  accelerated in this century and, with money to be made, historical  preservation has often been overlooked.
  The strong economy hurt historical preservation in another way. The  availability of jobs brings a certain transient population, native and  immigrant, to the state. There are very few us with great-great-great  grandfathers in the local cemetery. In America's slower-paced and rural  areas, there are multigenerational, blood-line caretakers of local history.  In New Jersey, we grow fast, we come and go, we trample things that were  important to the previous generation.
  Despite all this, there is still a lot to see in New Jersey. And  that's what this book is all about. Yes, this book is about history, but  more than anything else, it's a road adventure. It's a book about exploring  the cities and countryside, finding the roadside markers and the forgotten  plaques that tell us something happened here. Our history is out there - in  our busy cities and rural towns, in our public historic sites and in private  homes, in fading historical society markers and cemetery memorials.
  To find the history in New Jersey, you can't rely on the state or  the education system to show you the way. You have to get out there and  discover it yourself. For you and your children or grandchildren.
  Our kids live in a world were they are bombarded by pop culture ...  music, TV, movies, sports. The only way for history to compete for a place  in their consciousness is if we keep history interesting ... if we tell real  stories about real people and find the real places near our homes. We need  to let the kids make history theirs. To let them see the human in the  Washingtons and the Edisons, to see the places they worked and walked.  History should not be stuffy ... it should be the smells from the working  Colonial kitchen at Rockingham ... the cannon fire outside the Old Barracks  at Trenton ... the great living oak in the meadow here where Gen. Hugh  Mercer lay dying ... the thundering Passaic falls Alexander Hamilton  harnessed for industry ... the elegance of the Llwellyn Park mansion where  Thomas Edison finally reclined ... the blinding beams of our towering  lighthouses ... the pastel gentility of Cape May, Ocean Grove and Mt. Tabor. 
  The only way for history to compete is to be relevant, not distant. 
  And believe it or not, it's as close as your own neighborhood.

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