JVH behind Pluckemin Encampment

Getting added to National Register of Historic Places

Incredibly, the site of the Pluckemin Encampment and Artillery Park on Schley Mountain in Bedminster Township, site of America’s first West Point in 1778 and 1779, has never been a part of the National Register of Historic Places.

But now The Friends of Jacobus Vanderveer House are spearheading the effort to get the national commitment. It’s never too late.

The Friends group approached the township in February about committing $15,500 in funds to make the application, which was overwhelmingly approved by the municipality. Work started immediately, led by grants consultant Linda McTeague and archaeologist Ian Burrow.

A designation is critical now as the Friends scramble to furnish the JVH Museum and display some of the thousands of artifacts dug up on the nearby encampment site nearly 30 years ago in an archaeological project. Cataloguing of those items, put on the back burner for many years, has just started up again in earnest.

When it applied for state funds to catalogue artifacts from the dig, the Friends group learned that the National Register designation had to be in place first. It was a little like finding that the horse was leaving but the cart hadn’t been taken out of the barn.

The encampment area, located in the middle of the Somerset Hills housing development but protected by being township property, was always supposed to be a part of the National Register. Somehow the work never was undertaken.

Jim Cline, president of The Friends of JVH, said everything is moving forward to rectify the situation. “We are so excited that the Township of Bedminster has committed funds toward this very worthwhile project,” said Cline. Some day, he said, the encampment site and the JVH House will be key locations in the new Crossroads of the Revolution National Heritage Area being planned for New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Map Image:
A southwest view of the Pluckemin encampment drawing by Captain John Lillie, Commander of the 12th Company, 3rd Regiment (Crane's Massachusetts) Continental Artillery in early 1779. The "Academy" the center structure topped with a cupola, contained a lecture room, arched and plastered ceilings (reported by Sheppard Kollock- a journalist from that time).

More important than Valley Forge, that icon of the American Revolution?

Perhaps.

Historians are saying that the Pluckemin Artillery Encampment of December 1778 to June 1779 — one year after Valley Forge — and its command under General Henry Knox was one of the factors that helped turn the tide of the war against the British.

“The findings at this site revolutionize the thinking about how the Continental Army was organized and over-wintered, a stark contrast to what was discovered at Valley Forge,” said John Seidel, a professor at Washington College in Maryland and director of its Center for Environment and Society. Seidel was chief archeologist for the Pluckemin Archeological Project that excavated the site from 1979 thru 1989.

According to history, the visionary Knox established at Pluckemin the Continental Army’s first artillery school providing training for officers. The precursor of West Point, it was based on a school in Woolwich, England. All indications are that the school was well organized, supplied, and outfitted. Knox and Washington were determined not to repeat the mistakes that occurred at Valley Forge.

Pluckemin became a centralized site for armorers to repair and refurbish artillery. Artifacts found on the site show the “ingenuity” of the soldiers in modifying bayonets to fit the various muskets used by the Continental Army. Seidel said that during the encampment Pluckemin also became an industrial center. It was the focal point of re-supply for the entire Continental Army. It provided munitions, wagons, and armaments. These allowed officers greater confidence as they marched with the Army toward New York. There it choked off the British food and supply lines, forcing the English commanders to send troops south. Large-scale fighting never returned to the Northeast, and it was over following the Battle of Yorktown (VA) in 1781.

Because the Pluckemin site was abandoned at war’s end (the buildings were most likely sold off) and returned to farm fields, it escaped the notice of early historians. “Today we have a much better sense of how important this site was,” noted Seidel. “Pluckemin is so under-appreciated!”

The 10-year-long excavations by Seidel and historian Clifford Sekel revealed about 190,000-plus artifacts. “It is the largest, single most important, and arguably significant cache of excavated Revolutionary War materials in the country,” said Seidel. Linda McTeague, planning consultant to The Friends, noted that many artifacts indicated that officers, enlisted men, and even civilian laborers had a rather upscale lifestyle. It was not the ragtag army of Valley Forge, eating shoe leather to survive the winter. According to McTeague, they used Chinese export tea sets and had goods shipped in from France and around the country.

Little is left of the Pluckemin complex except stones from collapsed fireplaces, but the artifacts tell modern-day historians that Knox’s men lived and worked in framed buildings with glass windows. Headless nails found at the site show the buildings had moldings around windows and doors. The academy building even had plaster walls. All this was very unlike the crude, thrown-together log huts found at Valley Forge. “This was a very professional operation,” said McTeague.

Other Reference Materials:

Bernardsville News Artillery Park Article - March 1, 2007

Friends of JVH Presentation to the Bedminster Town Council

The Friends of the Jacobus Vanderveer House received an operating support grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, division of the Department of State.

Friends of the Jacobus Vanderveer House
PO Box 723
Bedminster, NJ 07921

Tel: 908-212-7000 ext. 611

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