Victory Parade

 

RETHINKING PETTY'S RUN


Within a half block in downtown Trenton are several monuments to the city's, New Jersey 's, and our country's history—the Old Barracks built in 1758, the Statehouse built in 1792, and the demarcation of the first Office of the Secretary of State and the Clerk of the Supreme Court built in 1795-96. Between these two buildings lies the excavation of Petty's Run which tells a significant story of industry in Trenton in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In 1750, the Trenton Steel Works was one of only five steel furnaces in the colonies and the only one whose archaeological remains have ever been found. It also contained a plating mill where steel was fashioned into household utensils as well as armaments for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. From about 1812 to 1820, a cotton mill was in production at the site and from about 1827 to 1876, a paper mill. Excavations at Petty's Run have also uncovered Native American objects. Information on Petty's Run including remarkable photographs of the dig can be found at www.pettysrun.org.

The Board of Trustees of the Trenton Historical Society (THS) is deeply concerned by the vote of the State Capitol Joint Management Commission on November 29th to fill in the Petty's Run archeological site and uncover it at a later time. This decision seems to have been made without a review of other options from trained professionals in the field of cultural resource management, historic preservation, museum management, and other areas of history and culture. The consulting project archaeologists were asked only to present a report of how to cover over their years of excavation dating back to the mid-1990s.

In covering over the site, New Jersey will have missed the ability to offer important new information about our capital city's history to tourists, school-children, residents, and office workers. At a time when the Christie administration is increasing promotion of the State's business community, the Commission has bypassed an opportunity to highlight the beginnings of our remarkable history of technological innovation right on the Capitol grounds.

The potential for physical damage to this site in filling it in and then removing the fill is real and would be an incalculable loss to scholars. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is planning to spend $400,000 to cover the excavation; it is not unreasonable to assume that it would cost a significant amount in the future to carefully reopen the site without damage to its historic contents. This does not seem to be a wise investment of limited State dollars. The THS Board offers an alternative to this decision and its impact on heritage tourism in Trenton .

If the DEP is willing to spend $400,000 to cover the excavation for an unknown period of time, why not use those funds instead to create a heritage tourist site right now? The perimeter of the excavation visible from West State Street could be concealed by appropriately designed fencing. The rest of the perimeter can be surrounded by more open fencing that would allow visitors to continue to see and learn from the archaeological excavation. It would also allow archaeologists to continue their analysis of the remains of Petty's Run. Significant connections have been made between its steel furnace and plating mill and the English steel factories of the mid-18th century. Why postpone this research which can help place Trenton and New Jersey within an international industrial history?

The $400,000 could also be used to install interpretive signage, similar to the ones now on West State Street . These signs could prototype the interpretive approaches that might be used later in a revived Capital State Park . In other words, the site could become an additional point of heritage tourism in Trenton for no more than the cost of covering over the excavation.

Another beneficiary of a revived Petty's Run would be the Old Barracks. The State has sought to decrease its funding for this museum, asking that the private managers of this State-owned property raise more money. The Capital State Park Master Plan calls for the Barracks staff to offer paid tours and programming around Petty's Run. Leaving the site open would allow them to offer this service and develop a new source of revenue.

The THS Board believes that Petty's Run presents our city as a location of national significance in the development of this country's industrial history. We propose that this solution—creating a scaled down version of the Master Plan—is the now the most feasible and economical resolution for this unique part of Trenton 's history. And we continue to look forward to the State's future development of the permanent Capital State Park .

 

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