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ELIZABETH -- Many of the headstones marking the graves in New Jersey’s oldest cemetery are no longer readable, not only because they’re worn, but because they’re partially underground. While excavating around the headstones in the Old First Presbyterian Church cemetery in Elizabeth last week, archaeologist Seth Gartland found stones had sunk several feet, leaving only the top half exposed. When workers elevated the decaying stones, Gartland discovered inscriptions that had long been hidden. Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerRows and rows of markers in the cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church on Broad St. The cemetery is currently undergoing a project of preserving...

It took 9 years to complete the Haitian monument in Franklin Square, but it took 230 years for the people of Haiti to receive the proper recognition for their role in the Revolutionary War. "The best moment in my life!" shouted Daniel Fils-Aime, who has seen this project through for those 9 years. "This recognition is a reward for all Haitians whether they are in the U.S. or Haiti," said Ralph Latortue, the Haiti consulate general in Miami. The monument was originally unveiled unfinished with only four statues in 2007, but thanks to a single-donor, the sculpture was recently completed,...

Vast Cache of Financial Papers Is Rich in Details One day in 1791, President George Washington received a bill for 60 pounds, 1 shilling and 7 pence from his physician friend James Craik, who regularly made the rounds at Mount Vernon. The invoice ran two pages: "Anodyne Pills for Breachy . . . Laxative Pills for Ruth . . . syphilic Pills for Maria . . . oz 1 Antiphlogistie Anodyne Tincture . . . Bleeding Charlotte . . . oz 4 Powdered Rhubarb . . . Extracting one of your Negroes tooth . . . a Mercurial Purge for...

MENDHAM -- Rick Pressl burst into the board of trustees meeting, a boyish exuberance overcoming his normally reserved temperament. The retired fire chief pulled aside Tanya Sulikowski, the executive director of the Schiff Natural Lands Trust, to show off a rusty, barely recognizable object. It was a Revolutionary War era stirrup, Pressl said, his first major find while excavating the nature preserve. He would soon have much more to show the board. Photo by Hilary Klimek/For the Star-LedgerRick Pressl, a retired fire chief, and students from Ridge High School have unearthed Revolutionary War era memorabilia in Mendham, including a set...

MILFORD -- A 1907 catalog of the New Haven County Historical Society listed several rare and odd items, including a necklace from an Egyptian mummy, slave chains, a small block of wood from the Old South Bridge in Concord, Mass., which the British guarded at the start of the Revolutionary War. But lot 23 in the inventory -- "a skull of an American soldier, one of 42 who died of the 200 in a destitute and sickly condition that were brought from a British prison ship ... and suddenly cast upon the shore of the town of Milford on the...

ALDERSON, W.Va. - Although it was occupied off and on for only about 10 years by Revolutionary War-era soldiers and settlers who left few traces of their presence behind, Arbuckle's Fort continues to shed light on the lives of those it protected. During an excavation last weekend involving Concord University and Marshall University Graduate College students, new evidence surfaced about a likely black presence at the fort during the struggle for independence from Britain. The frontier fortress was built on a bluff overlooking the confluence of Muddy and Mill creeks during the peak of tensions between Virginia settlers who developed...

A new patriotic organization called “Oath Keepers” rallied on Massachusetts’ historic Lexington Green to renew their oaths to support and defend the U.S. Constitution April 19, the 234th anniversary of the revolutionary war battles of Lexington and Concord. The event was sponsored by the Committees of Safety, named for the groups of the same name that organized in colonial America during the beginning of the War for Independence. The new organization of mostly current and former military, police, and emergency-service personnel pledged themselves to 10 resolutions to disobey any order to confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens, assist in warrantless searches,...

Military Milestones from a Kentucky Raider to 'a Bulldog of a Fighter' Mar. 15, 1781: British Army forces under the command of Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis march toward a pyrrhic victory over Continental Army and militia forces commanded by Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Greene at Guilford Courthouse (near present-day Greensboro), N.C. Once engaged, the two armies fight for less than two hours. Tactically, it ends in a victory for Cornwallis, who drives Greene’s forces from the field. But British losses are heavy. Cornwallis will purportedly say, “I never saw such fighting since God made me. The Americans fought like demons.” When...

The father of our country also was a 'spymaster extraordinaire,' according to a retired CIA executive George Washington defeated the British empire, not with his "ragtag Army," but with his extensive network of spies. That's according to Eugene Poteat, a retired senior CIA executive who began to research the history of espionage decades ago. "Washington had his spies everywhere," said Poteat, who helped establish the International Spy Museum in Washington. "He set up the most effective intelligence operation this country has ever seen." Poteat lives in McLean, but was in Fredericksburg Saturday to address a group keenly interested in the...

History and a mystery all rolled into one. Musket fire filled the woods near Brier Creek, but nothing like 230 years ago. Crowds gathered to remember the 3,000 Revolutionary War soldiers who fought there on this date. Among them, Tom Gurley's great, great, great grandfather. "He submitted paperwork for a Revolutionary War pension and in his deposition he described marching here, the battle and escaping across the Savannah River." said Gurley. 150 men weren't as lucky. They were killed by the British in one of the war's lesser known battles. Local historians know the names of many who died here,...

Flyers:  Available below Range:  Hartford Gun Club Address:  157 South Main St, East Granby, CT 06026 Website:  http://www.hartfordgunclub.com When: April 18-19, 2009 Range Fee:  $10 per shooter per day Camping available: We can pitch tents on the rifle range.  Ten RV/Electric hookups are also available at $10 per night.  There is a clubhouse with restroom and sink. Hotels: Many hotels to choose from near Bradley Intl Airport (Windsor Locks, CT) (~2 miles away)  Holiday Inn, Best Western, Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza, Staybridge Suites, LaQuinta Inn, Days Inn, Sheraton, Ramada. (avoid Motel 6!) Directions:    *  Take I-91 to Exit 40...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Largest Marksmanship Event on the Planet World Record Attempt to be Made Locally Contact: [local name and phone number] On April 18 and 19th, the Revolutionary War Veterans Association's "Project Appleseed" rifle marksmanship clinic will be in town at XYZ [location] for a history-making attempt at establishing a world record for the longest cumulative firing line spread over the largest land area in history - a total of 2.5 miles of firing line spread over the North American continent - from California to Florida, Texas to Minnesota, Arizona to Maine. It will be the biggest marksmanship event...

John Mills and Jerry Hurwitz are historians with a scholar's knowledge of the Jan. 3, 1777, Battle of Princeton. Mills, the historian for Princeton Battlefield State Park, and Hurwitz, president of the Princeton Battlefield Society, recently stood on high ground overlooking the 75 sweeping acres that remain of the battlefield. Before them, patches of ice splotched the yellow grass just as they did on that "bright, serene, and extremely cold morning," as an American lieutenant described it nearly 232 years ago, when Gen. George Washington and his cold and battle-weary volunteers defeated British regulars in a turning point of the...

Washington Crosses the Delaware, 1776 Back | EyeWitnesstoHistory.com Washington Crosses the Delaware, 1776 December 1776 was a desperate time for George Washington and the American Revolution. The ragtag Continental Army was encamped along the Pennsylvania shore of the Delaware River exhausted, demoralized and uncertain of its future. The troubles had begun the previous August when British and Hessian troops invaded Long Island routing the colonial forces, forcing a desperate escape to the island of Manhattan. The British followed up their victory with an attack on Manhattan that compelled the Americans to again retreat, this time across the Hudson River...

Christmas Night, 1776 By Newt Gingrich On Christmas Day, 1776, nearly all thought the Revolution was lost, except for a valiant few who still believed in "The Cause." We owe our liberty today to those valiant few. Led by George Washington, most of his army, dressed in rags and barefoot, faced a winter gale of rain, sleet, ice and snow. This band of patriots braved a midnight river crossing and a nine mile march over frozen roads to win a spectacular victory at Trenton, New Jersey, the following morning. Those were indeed times, as Thomas Paine would write, that "try...

<p>People in 18th century dress greeted visitors Tuesday at Federal Hall, commemorating the end of the Revolutionary War.</p> <p>The costumed reenactors were busy answering questions about the 225th anniversary of Evacuation Day, the day in 1783 when the last British redcoats boarded ships in New York Harbor and sailed away, and Gen.George Washington and his victorious troops marched down Broadway.</p>

The Times That Try Men's Souls232nd Anniversary of the Retreat at Fort Lee, NJclick for video

Melissa Haneline/The Post and CourierJai Cassidy-Shaman handles two Revolutionary War letters Tuesday bought at auction by the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum in Columbia. Like so many first-time visitors to the Lowcountry, Charles Campbell was enchanted. In a letter to his father back home in Britain, Campbell gushed about the natural beauty of the Holy City in spring. Captain's letter "Charlestown is a handsome and well built town situated on the extremity of a tongue of land formed by two large & navigable rivers, Cooper and Ashley;" he wrote, "it lays open to the sea, and...

Freeps. My son is a tremendous fan of history and devours books and media on the subject constantly. Today, while rummaging through some sale items at my local library I acquired a copy of "The Hornet's Nest" by former US president Jimmy Carter. The book is a fictionalized account of events in the south during the American Revolution. It is read by Edward Herrmann. I would not have purchased the CD had it been read by Carter. Has anyone read this book, or know anything about it? I'd like to just spin it up and listen to the story with...

Following the withdrawal of the British army from Boston on 17th March 1776, Washington in the expectation that Howe would attack New York which was held for the Congress marched much of his army south to that city. In fact the British had sailed north to Halifax in Nova Scotia. It was not until the summer of 1776 that Howe launched his attack on New York. The British fleet reached the entrance to the Hudson River on 29th June 1776 and Howe landed on Staten Island on 3rd July. The Congress declared independence the next day. Reinforcements began to arrive...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A 22-gun British warship that sank during the American Revolution and has long been regarded as one of the "Holy Grail" shipwrecks in the Great Lakes has been discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, astonishingly well-preserved in the cold, deep water, explorers announced Friday.

Death, disease and injury were the fate of thousands held at sea More Americans died in British prison ships in New York Harbor than in all the battles of the Revolutionary War. There were at least 16 of these floating prisons anchored in Wallabout Bay on the East River for most of the war, and they were sinkholes of filth, vermin, infectious disease and despair. The ships were uniformly wretched, but the most notorious was the Jersey. Following the Battle of Long Island in August, 1776, and the fall of New York City soon after, the British found thousands of...

Battle of Lexington and Concord Minute Man Monument at Lexington Green "By The Rude Bridge That Arched The Flood, Their Flag to April's Breeze Unfurled, Here Once The Embattled Farmers Stood, And Fired The Shot Heard Round The World." A Brief History: On the 15 of April 1775, when General Thomas Gage, British Military Governor of Massachusetts, was ordered to destroy the rebel's military stores at Concord. To accomplish this he assembled the "Flanking units", including Light Infantry and Grenadiers, from his Boston Garrison. In charge he put Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith and Marine Major John Pitcairn. He also composed...

Associated Press New York, Massachusetts launch program to save Revolutionary War trail markers. Bi-state effort hopes to save monuments to 1775-76 route ALBANY -- New York and Massachusetts are launching an effort to conserve dozens of roadside monuments that mark the route taken by patriots who transported the artillery that forced the British from Boston during the Revolutionary War. The granite slabs with bronze plaques serve as markers for the Knox Trail, considered one of the earliest heritage trails created in the United States. The trail mostly follows the original route used by Gen. Henry Knox and his troops in...

Of all the things that make no sense about New Jersey, the state's failure to invest, promote and capitalize on our Revolutionary War history has always led my list. People who ran state tourism said there was no money in it. But 40 years ago, the government leaders of Pennsylvania saw the 1976 Bicentennial coming and funded the Valley Forge Convention and Visitors Bureau. It cost them about a million bucks to promote the historic significance of the area, the natural beauty and the proximity to Philadelphia. In time, hotels and restaurants went up, most with a historic theme. Within...

WASHINGTON CROSSING, N.J. (AP) — This George Washington could not make it across the Delaware River. Ronald Rinaldi III was prepared to play the role of the military leader whose daring Christmas crossing led to a rout of British-led forces and revived the downtrodden Continental forces. Rinaldi, 45, had taken part in every re-enactment of Washington's crossing of the Delaware since 1976, amassed more than 500 books on the American Revolution and earned a degree in U.S. military history. But this year, he and his fellow re-enactors were done in by the river's strong currents. As Rinaldi and hundreds of...

The regimental flag of the Continental Army 2nd Light Dragoons, also known as Sheldon's Horse, was captured by British cavalry led by Banestre Tarleton in the 1779 Battle of Pound Ridge. (December 21, 2007) WILLIAMSBURG - Four rare American battle flags captured by the British during the Revolutionary War will get their first extended public homecoming Saturday in a new exhibit at The Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. Taken as trophies more than 225 years ago, the unusually well-preserved banners remained in the family of notorious British cavalry leader Banestre Tarleton until being sold at auction to a private owner last...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In a small survey boat, maritime archaeologist J. Lee Cox Jr. was checking the bottom of the Delaware River at the Sunoco Logistics pier in South Philadelphia when he got a hit on the side-scan sonar. A pipe? A log? A hazard to the oil tankers docking nearby? No one was sure until a diver was sent down weeks later and found a strange pointed object buried in the muck about 40 feet down. Earlier this month, Cox identified it as the business end of a cheval-de-frise, an iron-tipped log once embedded in the river, along with...

h A revolt in an undeveloped colony on the fringe of civilization, led by a big landowner and slaveholder with little education or military experience, brought to success by help from France in its feud with the British colonizers. That's how a cynical European might have described the American Revolution. Jay Winik's new account of the period takes a different view in American Revolution presented as source of worldwide political changes ever since "The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800" (Harper Collins, 659 pages, $29.95). He feels that history may never have seen a group...

ALMOST A MIRACLE: The American Victory in the War of Independence ___ by John Ferling In late 1779, John Adams, then America's "minister plenipotentiary for peace," set out across the Atlantic for France. It was a difficult moment. The Revolution was turning into a long war. It had been more than four years since Lexington and Concord and three since the Declaration of Independence; the American forces and their French allies had just lost an important engagement in Savannah. Adams had much to do, and his journey marked the beginning of yet another lengthy separation from Abigail. Sacrifices, however, were...

The way Jerry Hurwitz sees it, it doesn't take an Einstein to understand the significance of the hal lowed ground on which a pivotal Revolutionary War Battle of Princeton was fought 230 years ago. Part of the battle on Jan. 3, 1777, was waged on 22 acres of gently sloping farmland now owned by the Institute for Advanced Study. The institute -- an independent, private research institution that counted physicist Albert Ein stein among its faculty -- is adja cent to the 85-acre Princeton Battlefield State Park. But that section of the battlefield was never incorporated into the state park,...

In the popular mind, the American Revolution was mostly about liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- and the war that followed the Declaration of Independence wasn't much of a war. We imagine toy soldiers in red coats chasing picturesque rebels. Actually, the War of Independence was horrific, according to John Ferling, a leading historian of early America. It was a grinding conflict that rivaled, and in some ways exceeded, the Civil War in its toll on American fighters when looked at on a per-capita basis. Ferling chronicles the suffering in his new book, "Almost a Miracle: The American Victory...

TRENTON -- When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to honor the grave sites of Declaration of Independence signers, don't count New Jersey in. It can't afford it. Five Declaration signers are buried in the Garden State -- four New Jerseyans and a Pennsylvanian. But an effort to preserve their graves, promote their lives and honor them with graveside plaques has stalled in a state that was home to several key Revolutionary War battles and dubs itself the "Crossroads of the American Revolution." A plan to spend $200,000 to preserve and newly mark the graves has bounced...

Monmouth was a memorable battle in several respects. Although it was fought to a draw, each side could take pride in the outcome. For Gen. Henry Clinton, who had never before commanded in battle, it climaxed a bold and well-directed venture in which he succeeded in getting most of his army and all of his 1500 wagons through some seventy miles of enemy territory. For Washington it was a triumph that an army that only a few months before had been reduced to a few thousand half-naked and ill-disciplined troops could stand up to the pride of the British...

CHARLESTON, S.C. --Hundreds gathered at the end of Charleston Peninsula to watch the unveiling of a statue to honor Revolutionary War hero and former South Carolina governor, Maj. Gen. William Moultrie. Moultrie's most famous battle was fighting off a British attempt to capture what was then called Charles Town Harbor. Moultrie and his group of about 400 men battled from a fort made of sand and palmetto logs on Sullivans Island. Moultrie's unit held firm against an estimated 2,000-strong British group trying to cross from what's now Isle of Palms. "This statue represents freedom and liberty, from now to eternity,...

If the proposed Amenesty Bill passes, our country will change in ways we can't forsee. In thinking about this, I thought it might be inspiring to find out how many Freepers have Patriot ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. Naming those who gave so much for the establishment of this Republic will make their sacrifices (their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor) more real to us. It will remind us of their determination in the face of all odds and give us encouragement to "keep the Republic."

Very sad story for those interested in New Jersey and Revolutionary War history. Heavy damage to the house and some collection. Follow the link to Bergen County Historical Society's web page for pics.

On April 19, 1775, British and American soldiers exchanged fire in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. On the night of April 18, the royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, commanded by King George III to suppress the rebellious Americans, had ordered 700 British soldiers, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith and Marine Major John Pitcairn, to seize the colonists' military stores in Concord, some 20 miles west of Boston. A system of signals and word-of-mouth communication set up by the colonists was effective in forewarning American volunteer militia men of the approach of the British troops. Henry Wadsworth...

Historians have long referred to New Jersey as the "Crossroads of the American Revolution." During America's struggle for independence, New Jersey was the scene of 238 battles and skirmishes. George Washington's troops were victorious in key battles, including Trenton, Princeton and Monmouth. More than 900 New Jersey soldiers lost their lives in the war. Now New Jersey's role in the Revolution is on the brink of gaining official recognition from the federal government. The U.S. Senate has given final legislative approval to a bill designating a large swath of New Jersey as the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage...

BOSTON --Thousands of black men fought for American independence during the Revolutionary War, yet their contributions to the nation's freedom are for the most part unrecognized and rarely appear in modern history books. Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the Sons of the American Revolution are hoping to change that by undertaking an ambitious project to identify those soldiers, and then find their descendants. "My first goal with this project is to enhance the awareness of the American public of the role of African-Americans in the struggle for freedom in this country," said Gates, director of the W.E.B....

ROCK HILL, S.C. - A research facility is planned for York County that will focus on the role of Southern states in the Revolutionary War. Historian Michael Scoggins said the Southern Revolutionary War Institute will be used to educate people about the South's contributions to the war. It's a field he says has been neglected in the past. "There's been various fields that downplay the role of the South," Scoggins said. "When you look at most history textbooks, we are generally given the short treatment." The institute will be based at the McCelvey Center in York and local officials hope...

PEEKSKILL, N.Y. (AP) — It's been around for a lot of history, but now, unfortunately, it IS history. A 72-foot-tall white oak tree that was used to hang a recruiter for the British army during the Revolutionary War is coming down, declared beyond saving after being hit by lightning last month. The tree, one of the largest in Westchester County, sits outside Peekskill High School. Schools Superintendent Judith Johnson told The Journal News of Westchester for Sunday's editions, "This is a sad moment for all of us," adding that the tree was "a reminder of the past and the importance...

In June 1776, just a month before the Declaration of Independence was ratified, the white men of Barnstable, Mass., voted on whether America should break its bonds with Great Britain. The tally: 30 for independence, 35 against and 65 abstentions. These days, the Colonists who opposed the revolution have been all but forgotten. Yet, in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, as many as a fifth of those living in America wanted to remain British subjects. Probably at least that many again were apathetic or opportunistically waiting to see which side won. The American Revolution, many historians argue,...

NEW YORKERS are a famously restless, impatient sort of people, focused more on where they're going than where they've been. That's a real pity where the American Revolution is concerned, because the city played a key role in the resistance to King George III that led up to the Declaration of Independence. It's also the place where thousands of men died during the Revolutionary War that followed — not in combat, but in British prisons. From 1775 to 1783, some 200,000 colonials took up arms against the crown. While the statistics are rough, it has been estimated that more than...

Diver Dennis O'Neil of Plattsburgh, N.Y., poses with a piece of a cannon muzzle which he discovered during a dive Friday, June 30, 2006, in Peru, N.Y. Divers have spent the last seven years combing the bottom of Lake Champlain in search of 'battlefield scatter' from the crucial 1776 Battle of Valcour near Peru. O'Neil has made about 100 dives during the project. PERU, N.Y. - Gen. Benedict Arnold led a "wretched, motley" crew of sailors on Lake Champlain against a far superior British fleet near here on Oct. 11, 1776. The rebels lost. But their dogged fight delayed...

Two arrested for damaging Revolutionary War vet's gravesite Posted on Saturday, June 10 @ 00:00:00 CDT CLARENDON, N.Y. It's a problem not uncommon in many rural upstate communities -- vandals who target headstones in historic cemeteries. In one western New York town, two teenagers now face charges for allegedly damaging several gravesites -- including that of a Revolutionary War veteran. The Orleans County Sheriff's Department says 18-year-old Daniel Callaghan and 19-year-old Jonathan Schneider are both charged with felony criminal mischief and desecration for the vandalism in the Cook Cemetery in the town of Clarendon. Nearly all the gravestones at the...

June 15 1775 George Washington assigned to lead the Continental Army On this day in 1775, George Washington, who would one day become the first American president, accepts an assignment to lead the Continental Army. Washington had been managing his family’s plantation and serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses when the second Continental Congress unanimously voted to have him lead the revolutionary army. He had earlier distinguished himself, in the eyes of his contemporaries, as a commander for the British army in the French and Indian War of 1754. Born a British citizen and a former Redcoat, Washington had,...

The British captured this battle flag made of gold silk from a Virginia regiment. According to Sotheby’s, it’s the earliest surviving documented American flag bearing 13 stars. It has a painted emblem of a beaver and the motto “Perseverando.” The image was copied from the engraving on the $6 Continental bill that Benjamin Franklin had chosen. ROY A. BAHLS/THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Amid the crack of musket fire, smoke and confusion on the field, three battle flags fluttered above the exhausted 3rd Virginia Detachment in South Carolina on May 29, 1780. Col. Abraham Buford and his Continental soldiers had set out...

Anonymous bidder snaps up flag belonging to a Connecticut regiment and three others for total of $17 million. An American Revolutionary War flag fetched $12.3 million at an auction in New York on Wednesday, and a group of three other flags went for more than $5 million to the same bidder, Sotheby's said. The total price of $17,392,000 was well over the pre-sale estimate of $4 million to $10 million for the two lots of battle flags captured by the British during the 1775-83 war,...