PRINCETON: Preservation group still short on funds to buy historic battlefield land

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The battlefield preservation group looking to buy part of the Revolutionary War Princeton battlefield still needs to raise about $1.5 million more, before the end of 2017, to acquire the historic 15 acres from the Institute for Advanced Study this year.
The Civil War Trust this month sent out a fundraising appeal to supporters encouraging them to donate. In the message, Civil War Trust President Jim Lighthizer said that “along with anticipated government funding,” the Trust had “raised more than half of the funds needed to help preserve this key piece of American history.”
“We’re going to be pulling out the stops, in the next couple of months, to raise that $1.5 million,” said Trust spokesman Jim Campi by phone Wednesday.
The Washington D.C.-based organization, seeking to close on the purchase Dec.15, last year reached a $4 million deal with the IAS to buy the land and then turn it over to the state to be preserved. The Trust will obtain 14.85 acres that will be added to the current 681-acre Princeton Battlefield State Park.
On its website, the Trust breaks out the $4 million price tag as $2.6 million for the real estate and $1.6 million “for restoration of the property and some reconstruction of the existing development plan.”
The deal saved roughly seven acres that would have been lost to a faculty housing project the IAS was in the midst of starting. Agreeing to the sale meant the IAS had to adjust its plan for 16 units, with a municipal Planning Board hearing set for Sept. 28. Contacted Wednesday, an IAS spokeswoman said the group had no comment.
In 2016, when the deal was announced, the “transfer” of the property from the IAS to the Trust was supposed to be at the end of this past June. But a source familiar with the matter said Wednesday that the IAS has not imposed a deadline for closing on the sale of the property.
Aside from the private donations it is raising, the Trust is looking to obtain federal and New Jersey funding for the purchase.
“We’re confident we’re going to get something,” Campi said, “but the timing’s probably next year, so we’re going to have to bridge that amount.”
“So there’s money out there,” said state. Sen. Kip Bateman (R-16), in pointing to open space funding as an option. Bateman was among the vocal advocates for preserving the land.
The Princeton Battlefield Society, the group that had fought the IAS to stop the faculty housing project, declined to comment Wednesday.
This year marked the 240th anniversary of the battle of Princeton, fought Jan.3, 1777. The victory for forces led by George Washington is considered a turning point in the Revolutionary War, having come a week after Washington’s historic crossing of the Delaware River.
As part of its vision for the site, the Trust obtained federal funds to plan on how to make the park more visitor-friendly. The organization, which has been about saving Civil War battlefields, expanded its mission to include preserving battlegrounds from the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.