By: Bill Greenwood
MONROE The Bethel Mission is not located on a 35-acre parcel of Thompson Park where the Board of Education wants to build a new high school, according to the final results of an archaeological survey on the parcel that also included historical research.
According to a report prepared by Richard Grubb and Associates, the Cranbury company that conducted the survey, the mission is actually located about a half-mile north of the proposed high school site.
"There is no evidence that the Bethel Mission Settlement is located within the APE (Area of Potential Effects)," the report states. "Given the results of the historical research combined with the archaeological research, it is also considered unlikely that any portion of the Bethel Mission Settlement is present within the APE. Therefore, no further investigation connected with locating the Bethel Mission Settlement is warranted within the APE."
The survey was ordered by the state Department of Environmental Protection to ensure that the construction of a 365,000-square-foot high school on the Thompson Park parcel would not disturb the Bethel Mission, an 18th-century community of Leni Lenape that had been converted to Christianity by Presbyterian minister David Brainerd. The survey consisted of three tests conducted on the land: a shovel test, a metal-detector test and a ground-penetrating-radar test.
DEP spokeswoman Darlene Yuhas said the department is reviewing the report.
Richard Grubb and Associates also reviewed historical maps and records, including old title maps, to determine whether the mission was located on the Thompson Park parcel.
The group also met with local historic preservation commissions, historical societies and individuals knowledgeable of local history, including township historian John Katerba and Somerville historian Richard Walling, who has nominated the mission to the state Register of Historic Places.
Before the high school can be built, the township and Middlesex County must receive approval from the DEP for a land swap in which Monroe would transfer 175 acres of open land to the county for the Thompson Park parcel. If approved, the township would transfer the 35-acre parcel to the Board of Education, which wants to build the school there. An $82.9 million referendum for the project was approved in 2003.
Richard Grubb and Associates met May 8 with the DEP to discuss the survey’s preliminary results, which indicated that the mission was not on the high school site. At that meeting, the DEP asked Grubb and Associates to do additional historical research, including deed research, on the property. The final report, now available to the public in the clerk’s office in the Monroe Township Municipal Building, includes the results of that research.
The shovel test was conducted by digging 602 shovel test pits at 50-foot intervals throughout the high school parcel. A 5-foot-by-5-foot excavation unit also was dug in the northeastern part of the parcel.
According to the report, 514 artifacts, most dated from the 19th through 21st centuries, were found in the pits. Seven artifacts were firmly dated to the 18th century and included a sherd (a piece of broken pottery) of white slipped English stoneware, a sherd of agateware, two sherds of buff earthenware and three sherds of Staffordshire slipware. Thirteen other artifacts, including sherds of red earthenware, had date ranges that included the 18th century.
A total of 64 18th- and 19th-century artifacts were found in the excavation unit, according to the report. They included four sherds of Staffordshire slipware, a sherd of white salt glazed stoneware, a sherd of creamware and two white ball clay pipe fragments.
The metal detector survey conducted by the Battlefield Restoration and Archaeological Volunteer Organization, a nonprofit organization based in Freehold found 46 metal artifacts, 18 of which may have been from the 18th century, according to the report. Those artifacts include three musket balls and two worn, undated copper coins. A wrought nail and copper shoe buckle were more firmly dated to the 18th century.
The surface-penetrating-radar study conducted by Geo-Graph, a West Chester, Pa.-based company revealed nine buried anomalies from 1 to 6 feet below the ground, according to the report. Two were determined to be the remains of a foundation and well that were likely part of a 19th-century tenant house on the Samuel Forman property, four were related to relict stream drainages, and three were unidentified. They could be "related to undetermined agricultural activities, natural processes or could represent features," according to the report.
Background research conducted by Grubb and Associates revealed that the proposed high school site was adjacent to the Falconer South Tract and owned by Samuel Ivins and Samuel Forman in the 1840s, according to the report. Based on its deed research and an 1882 account from Woodford Clayton, Grubb and Associates now considers the Bethel Mission to be "approximately 2,500 feet north of the APE," the report states. It says the mission "may lie on undeveloped lands to the west of Perrineville Road as well as within portions of Thompson Park.
Township Business Administrator Wayne Hamilton and Assistant Township Attorney Peg Schaffer both said they were happy with the results.
"We feel vindicated," Ms. Schaffer said. "We have been saying this from the git-go."
Mr. Hamilton agreed.
"(The results are) certainly what we anticipated after the preliminary findings," Mr. Hamilton said. "We’re anxious now for a timely sign-off (from the DEP)."
Ms. Schaffer said the only other obstacle facing the land swap is an appeal filed by the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic on behalf of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, New Jersey Public Interest Research Group and Park Savers, a local group opposing the proposal. The appeal seeks to overturn a unanimous, conditional approval from the State House Commission allowing the property exchange.
The appeal was heard March 13 in the Appellate Division of state Superior Court, and Ms. Schaffer said she expected a ruling to be made soon. However, she said the township could move forward with the swap before a ruling is made if the DEP grants approval.
Richard Webster, an attorney for the Law Clinic who argued the appeal, said the results of the archaeological survey would not negatively impact his case because the appeal is aimed at overturning the State House Commission’s approval, not preserving the mission. He said the township should have known that the mission was not on the Thompson Park parcel before it sought approval for the swap.
"This question should’ve been dealt with before they applied," he said.
Mr. Walling said a peer review of Grubb and Associates’ historical research should be conducted.
"People have to have an opportunity to review the material Richard Grubb and Associates used," he said, adding that the report does not account for how 18th-century artifacts were found during the survey.
"Where did they come from?" he asked. "Did they fall from the sky?"
Mr. Walling said he still plans to seek a restraining order against anyone doing work on the property.

