Leni-Lenape win land battle
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
By RICHARD COWEN
STAFF WRITER
In Vernon, the fierce battle to save the Leni-Lenape's ancestral homeland
known as Black Creek from becoming an athletic complex is over.
The state has purchased a 134-acre tract off Maple Grange Road for $804,000
from Vernon Township. The parcel contains the 40-acre Black Creek site, where
archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a Leni-Lenape settlement dating to
prehistoric times.
"Naturally, we are happy about it," said Urie Ridgeway, a member of the
Nanticoke Leni-Lenape tribe of South Jersey, which sued Vernon to stop it from
plowing the site into ball fields. "My ancestors lived on that land, and they
lived there not in small numbers or for a short period of time. They lived there
for 10,000 years. So understand how important this is to us."
The land, which the state Department of Environmental Protection has bought
through its Green Acres program, will now become part of Wawayanda State Park.
Vernon still plans to build a scaled-down version of the athletic complex on
land adjacent to Black Creek - but not on it.
Vernon Township Attorney Joseph Ragno said the Black Creek controversy is now
history.
"The closing has been held and check from the state is in the mail," Ragno
said. He added that Vernon expects to break ground on the ball fields in late
spring.
DEP Commissioner Bradley |M. Campbell announced the purchase this week and
acknowledged the efforts of Native Americans and activists who worked to save
Black Creek from development.
"Preserving Maple Grange will protect the site from development and enable
the state to interpret the history of New Jersey's indigenous Leni-Lenape
population," Campbell said. "This acquisition also highlights the importance of
non-governmental efforts to preserve open space. While the state ultimately
purchased the site, the Nanticoke Leni-Lenape, National Trust for Historic
Preservation New Jersey and the Vernon Civic Association were instrumental in saving
this archaeological gem from development."
Vernon, which has seen its population nearly double in 20 years, bought the
Maple Grange Road tract for $1.1 million in 2000. Township officials wanted to
build a massive athletic complex, with fields for soccer, football, softball
and baseball, plus parking.
But what the township hadn't counted on was the boundless energy of a local
archaeologist, Rick Patterson, who for more than a decade had been scouring the
Black Creek site in search of Indian artifacts. He came away with thousands
of arrowheads, beads, and pieces of pottery - plenty of evidence to suggest
that Black Creek had been a manufacturing and cultural center for the
Leni-Lenape.
"There are only three other sites in the New Jersey historical register that
are Leni-Lenape," Patterson said. "Indians have a right to their history,
too."
As important as the Black Creek site was to history, township officials were
determined to move forward with the athletic field plan. The Nanticoke filed a
lawsuit in 2001 to stop the project, beginning the long legal battle to get
Black Creek listed as a landmark on state and national registers.
Defiant, Vernon tried to move forward with the project, even as Native
Americans from all over the country came to council meetings to ask that their
history be respected. In June 2001, Vernon went so far as to bulldoze a half-acre
of the Black Creek site in attempt to grade the land for a ball field.
Campbell, the new DEP commissioner, quickly moved to preliminarily declare
the site as historical, stopping Vernon's work. The township responded by making
the Black Creek off-limits - and charged Patterson and two reporters with
trespassing when they visited the site.
"The really good news is that this land will now be open to everyone,"
Patterson said. "It will be a public park."
E-mail: Richard Cowen
Link to Report
March Reports
Last updated on March 17, 2005