10.02.06 - Congress approves Crossroads National Heritage Area in NJ! On September 29, 2006, the U.S. Congress officially designated the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area in New Jersey. When this legislation is signed by the President, New Jersey's pivotal role in the American Revolution will at last be nationally acknowledged.
National Heritage Areas are special kinds of national parks – living landscapes where people live, work and play. Networks of partnerships among municipal, county, state and federal governments, environmental commissions, historical commissions and societies, businesses, recreational groups and private landowners work together to promote and preserve their heritage. New Jersey's new National Heritage Area stretches from the heights of the Palisades at Ft. Lee in Bergen County through the 1700 acres of Morristown National Historical Park in Morris County to the southern shores of the Delaware River at Red Bank Battlefield in Gloucester County. It encompasses all or parts of 14 counties, 214 cities and towns and several hundred National Registered Historic sites.
Crossroads Association President Kevin Tremble points out that, "The Heritage Area will help us develop a coherent vision for the more than 250 Revolutionary War sites in New Jersey that are recognized as nationally significant. We will link them together to tell the overall story of New Jersey's important role in the Revolutionary War."
Tremble added, "I know that I speak for all of the Crossroads Association's trustees when I say how grateful we are to Representatives Rodney Frelinghuysen and Rush Holt for their persistent efforts to gain National Heritage Area designation for New Jersey's Crossroads of the American Revolution."
Crossroads of the American Revolution Association is designated in the legislation as the managing entity for the National Heritage Area. Founded in 2002, the Association is actively pursuing six priorities in our Heritage Area: heritage education, ethnic and cultural conservation, environmental conservation, historic preservation, recreational heritage trails and heritage-based economic development.
Cate Litvack, Executive Director of the Crossroads Association said:
"With the active participation of our partners will we find numerous ways to improve the quality of life in the Heritage Area. "In addition" she added, "by preserving our many intact historic Revolutionary War landscapes and sites we will promote the significant, woefully under appreciated role New Jersey played in the struggle for liberty and the birth of our nation."
From H-Net Network on New Jersey history, Crossroads of the American Revolution Association.
