To the Editor:

I am writing in response to Mark Scheibner (“Opponents of IAS Housing Plan Downplay Finding of Over 700 Agricultural Artifacts,” Town Topics, December 14, 2011). There are several issues in this letter which should not remain unopposed.

The Princeton Battlefield was not preserved for agricultural history; there are thousands of farms in New Jersey alone which would better suit such interests. What sets the Princeton Battlefield apart from other land in the state is the significance of George Washington’s victory over the British and the incomprehensible sacrifices which occasioned that campaign. The American Republic, as well as George Washington, was either going to live or die on that battlefield on the morning of January 3, 1777.

There is a glaring historical error in Mr. Sheibner’s letter concerning the common burial site of the battle’s dead. It is commemorated by a plaque in the park, but the grave itself is located on the southern side of the northernmost of three ponds near Drumthwacket. Its location might have been lost, as would the battlefield itself, if not for the foresight of Moses Taylor Pyne. Besides his interest in creating Princeton University from the foundering College of New Jersey, Pyne had an abiding interest in preserving the Princeton Battlefield. He saved it from developers in 1913. His granddaughter Agnes Pyne Hudson donated the land which became the Battlefield Park in 1946.

As a FitzRandolph descendant, the fact that my ancestor’s bones were excavated during the construction of Holder Hall and placed into its walls I find to be less offensive than the IAS plans. Woodrow Wilson displayed affection for the memory and the legacy of the FitzRandolphs. The IAS plans amount to desecration, as well as the destruction of an incalculably significant relic of American history — one that was carefully and almost miraculously preserved by generations of Princetonians. The IAS plan is at best self-interested and insensitive, if not a deliberate act of desecration. If the Battlefield’s use as farmland somehow diminished its sanctity, as Scheibner contends, a similar argument might be made that Arlington has lost its claim as sacred ground because its grass is mown. As for commemorating the sacrifices that bought America its liberty, the Battlefield at Princeton serves as no better example. The IAS ought to respect American history, preserve its dignity, and employ its intellectual resources to discover an alternative.

William Myers
Highland Park