Crossroads of the American Revolution
National Heritage Area Visitor Readiness Assessment
Statewide, New Jersey
In 2019, Hunter Research, working with Clarke Caton Hintz Architects and Cheryl Hargrove of Hargrove International, cultural heritage tourism specialists, has embarked on a state-supported visitor readiness study of approximately 140 historic sites within the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area. This heritage area, formally designated in 2006, comprises the greater part of central New Jersey where so many key events in the American Revolution took place in the early years of the conflict, notably the Battle of Trenton, Princeton and Monmouth, and where the Continental Army winter quartered in Morristown and Middlebrook. This project is being completed in anticipation of New Jersey’s upcoming celebration of the semiquincentennial (250th) anniversary of the American Revolution and with an awareness that Revolutionary War-era historic sites within the state require better cross-promotion and lack cohesion in terms of their interpretation and public programming. Many are also in need of basic capital improvements, more effective preservation and better signage. Our firm’s role in this challenging project has been to assist in assembling basic site information toward identifying capital improvement and visitor readiness needs and to evaluate each site’s interpretive programming. Preliminary archaeological assessments are also being provided for each of the sites.