IAS Should Subsidize Faculty Mortgages or Swap Land Not in Dispute

To the Editor:

At the Planning Board meeting of last Thursday, historian and professor, Lawrence Babits spoke against granting the IAS their building permit. Professor Fred Anderson, one of the two historians that were hired to debunk the claims of the Princeton Battlefield Society by the IAS, had this to say about Babits in his IAS commissioned review of the Milner Report: "One of the most scrupulous
and successful... is the historical archaeologist Lawrence Babits, who has made major contributions to the history of the Revolutionary War in books on the battles of Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse."  In other words,  one of the scholars retained by the IAS gave the highestpraise to an actual expert on the military aspects of the Revolutionary War, who after looking at all of the evidence is against building on the IAS land.

So far, IAS retained or quoted historians have done the IAS no favors. Historian John Shy was quoted on the IAS website that "the battle proper was about fifteen minutes of intense fighting in the area of the present park" and went on to say that it would be absurd to preserve any land not related to the "battle proper." The problem with this quote for the IAS is that very simply, the IAS land was part of the "battle proper." It doesn't take much imagination to
understand this as the IAS land borders the battlefield park.

The IAS hired historians have harped on the location of the Sawmill Road to cast doubt on the Milner Report's finding. However, what is not in doubt is that the target of the American attack and the area of Shy's "battle proper" was the area around the William Clark farm. Simply put, to attack that area the U.S. forces had to cross, while fighting and dying, over IAS land.  The Princeton Battlefield Society is not asking for anything but the promise of no development on a very small tract of land. The very small amount of archaeology done by
both parties strongly suggests that the contended IAS land was the site of the counterattack and that further archaeology will prove this. Instead of building on this tract, why can't the IAS either subsidize the mortgages of faculty, build on other land or swap out IAS owned conserved land that is not in dispute? Finally, the IAS's housing proposal will not only ruin forever a part of the Princeton Battlefield, but will also ruin the historical landscape of the existing park and again, it doesn't take much imagination to understand that.

Sincerely,
Matt White
Sewell, NJ