Garry Wheeler Stone’s passion for history goes way back.
“I have been a history nut as long as I have memory,” Stone said.
He recalls his first research paper in the fourth grade in which he wrote about Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain in New York. Stone has been focused on history ever since. He studied history at Oberlin College in Ohio and went on to receive his doctorate in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania.
In the early part of his career, Stone was the chief archaeologist at Historic Saint Mary’s City in Maryland.
In 1990, Stone started what would become 25 years of work at Monmouth Battlefield State Park, Manalapan, first as a regional preservation specialist and later as a park historian.
In recognition of his dedication to preserving New Jersey’s history, Stone was a recipient of a historic preservation special award for extraordinary service presented by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Historic Preservation Office and the New Jersey Historic Sites Council.
“These awards are our chance to honor the many individuals, organizations and corporations, and state, county and local governments who have worked hard to preserve New Jersey’s historic places,” said Dan Saunders, administrator and deputy state historic preservation officer at the DEP.
“This year’s award recipients have taken on the worthy cause of preserving the important links to our past, while ensuring that our state’s heritage and architectural works are sustained,” DEP Commissioner Bob Martin said.
Stone, who is now retired, can reflect on his 25-year tenure at Monmouth Battlefield State Park, where one of the largest battles of the American Revolution took place in 1778.
“I was a catalyst,” Stone said.
He reflected on several grants he was instrumental in securing during his career. The grants included a $400,000 award for the rebuilding of the Rhea-Applegate House on Wemrock Road and an $850,000 award for the rehabilitation of the battlefield landscape, which included the clearing of invasive vegetation and the addition of pedestrian paths.
Both of these grants, said Stone, were obtained through the New Jersey Historic Trust with matching funds from the state Green Acres program.
Stone spearheaded efforts to improve the displays, landscape and structures of the park and the interpretation of the battle.
In 2014, Stone saw his efforts come to fruition in the form of the reopening of the visitors center with new exhibits which make Monmouth Battlefield one of the top destinations in the state park system, according to a DEP news release.
These changes “opened up the battlefield to visitors,” Stone said.
“As a fourth-grader writing a report on Fort Ticonderoga or as an eighth-grader thrilled by the Revolutionary War novels of Kenneth Roberts, I never could have dreamed that someday I would work at the battlefield that restored George Washington’s reputation,” he said.
Stone also lists his work educating the public as an another important part of his role at the park.
“I was teaching (everyone from) thirdgraders to brigadier generals. I would get the kids not just listening, but participating,” he said.
Stone said he was “grateful for having been able to work at this great site.”
Stone has “very good foresight,” said Dan Sivilich, the president and founder of the Battlefield Restoration and Archeological Volunteer Organization.
“In a time when many archaeologists were adamantly opposed to the use of metal detectors, Garry saw the benefit of using them as tools to excavate large battlefield areas,” Sivilich said.
Because of Stone, Sivilich said, the site of the Battle of Monmouth was the second battlefield in the world to be properly excavated and the first Revolutionary War battlefield ever excavated.
“Garry has taken Monmouth Battlefield to worldwide recognition,” Sivilich said.