CHRIS CAROLA, Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — When the force of 1,200 British redcoats, loyalists and American Indians finally made a stand against the 5,000-strong Continental Army pushing its way into Iroquois country in the summer of 1779, the two sides fought a running battle along the Chemung River Valley near present-day Elmira.
Today, a state park occupies the hill where much of the fighting occurred on Aug. 29, 1779. But Newtown Battlefield State Park only covers some 300 acres of the rolling, wooded landscape where the two forces fought, and there’s a proposal in Congress to look into whether neighboring land needs to be protected for its historical significance and possibly wrapped into a new national park.
The proposal was included in legislation introduced earlier this month by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY. Her measure would authorize the federal government to conduct a study into the benefits of having the Newtown Battlefield and parcels bordering the state park included in the national park system. Gillibrand said such a move would protect areas outside the state park that were part of the original battleground, which covered about 2,100 acres spread over what is now mostly private property in the towns of Elmira, Chemung and Ashland, along the Pennsylvania border 160 miles southwest of Albany.
“New York is known for her history, and this designation would attract more tourism for the area and strengthen our commitment to preserving our landmarks,” Gillibrand said in a news release announcing introduction of her legislation on Aug. 2.
Paul Perine and his fellow history buffs gathered last weekend at the Newtown Battlefield for their annual Revolutionary War battle re-enactment. While Perine and other re-enactors say they favor protecting the land outside the park where the battle was fought, they don’t necessarily want to see the state site taken over by the National Parks Service.
That’s because federal rules forbid battle re-enactments from being staged on NPS property. Musket and canon firing demonstrations and encampments of re-enactors are allowed, but massed ranks of people blazing away at one another with blank cartridges is prohibited, NPS officials said.
“We would probably lose the ability to do what our mission is,” said Perine, the acting president of the Chemung Valley Living History Society.
While the Battle of Newtown resulted in just a few dozen casualties on each side, it was the major engagement of what’s known as the Clinton-Sullivan Campaign, named after the American generals in command of the expedition. In 1779, Gen. George Washington ordered two armies to advance into the heart of the Iroquois Confederacy and punish the four tribes — Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca — who remained allied with the British and participated in bloody raids along the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers.
After defeating the British, loyalists and Iroquois along the Chemung River, the American forces marched north into the Finger Lakes region before heading west to the Genesee Valley. When the campaign ended in the fall, Washington’s troops had burned dozens of Indian villages, their thriving orchards and fields, and sent thousands of Iroquois fleeing to British protection at Fort Niagara.
A parks advocacy group said it isn’t opposed to the Newtown site being handed over to the feds, given New York state’s continued cost-cutting in a parks system desperately needing more than $1 billion in capital projects.
“We all know the state parks system is stretched so thin,” said Robin Dropkin, executive director of Parks & Trails New York. “The National Parks Service offers a kind of the uber-protection. If NPS thought something was worthy enough, it’s like, yeah, let them protect it.”
While such moves are rare, working arrangements between state and federal parks aren’t uncommon. In New York, the NPS has been operating the Oriskany Battlefield and Steuben Memorial state historic sites outside Utica on behalf of the state parks department for the past three years. Employees from the NPS-run Fort Stanwix National Monument in nearby Rome staff the two state properties, an arrangement that provides visitors with knowledgeable guides who are well-versed in the history of all three Revolutionary War sites.
In addition, the state pays for a ranger and two maintenance employees to work at the New York-owned sites, according to Debbie Conway, the NPS superintendent at Fort Stanwix.
“It made a lot of sense,” she said.
As for the Newtown Battlefield, a state parks official said it cost the agency $47,000 a year to operate the site, while its projected annual revenue is about $27,000.
“We would be happy to take part in any study or discussion with the National Park Service to improve Newtown Battlefield,” parks spokesman Dan Keefe said.
