An archaeological survey last week conducted on an unspoiled swath of land about 15 miles west of Newark Liberty International Airport produced several dozen items including metal buckles, a knob from a desk drawer, a shard from a clay pot and a partial pipe bowl.
(FOX)- William Styple, an author and editor of numerous American history books, believes those artifacts are proof that Gen. George Washington’s army made camp there for several months in the winter of 1777, a year before the ragtag group hunkered down at its more well-known refuge at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
“We know they ate here, we know they smoked here, we know they unstrapped their gear here,” he said.
If Styple is right, it could add a chapter to the historical record of the Revolutionary War that has been hinted at but never fully explored. Compared with Valley Forge, considerably less is known about the 1777 encampment, which closely followed Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware River and the battles of Princeton and Trenton.
That there is virtually no contemporaneous written record of the camp casts some uncertainty over the site’s location, however, said Eric Olsen, park ranger and historian at nearby Morristown National Historical Park, site of Washington’s army’s camp in the winter of 1780.
“It could be an encampment during the war, possibly ’77,” Olsen said. “But armies constantly marched through here through the entire American Revolution, and bits of armies were camping as they passed through.”