Can you put a price tag on your heritage?

Take, for example, the case of the Old Barracks.  The Colony of New Jersey built five military barracks in 1758; the one in Trenton was at that time the largest building in town.  In 1776, the “Old Trenton Barracks” was captured and occupied by British and Hessian soldiers, after they had chased George Washington clear out of New Jersey.  But on Christmas night, Washington and 2400 patriots crossed the Delaware (ask your kids just where was he going, their answers will scare you) and marched through a winter gale to win a miraculous victory right outside the Old Barracks’ front door.  This, together with subsequent victories at Second Trenton and Princeton, is remembered as the “10 crucial days” which saved the American Revolution.

From 1777-1783, the Old Barracks served as a military hospital.  In that capacity, it was the site of perhaps the first successful mass smallpox inoculations in history.  After the war, the building fell into disrepair.  During Trenton’s industrialization, the building became an apartment complex and at one point even had a road punched through it.  But then a group of patriotic local women stepped in. They bought the building in 1902 and fully restored it by 1916.  Along the way, they donated it to the State (the Statehouse is right next door), with the legal stipulation that they would run it and the State would fund its maintenance “forever.”  Today, the Old Barracks is a National Historic Landmark and a living history center hosting over 20,000 school children and other visitors every year.

But now the Old Barracks is facing an entirely different kind of battle.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently announced severe budget cuts for every historic landmark in the state, including the complete elimination of state funding for the Old Barracks.  This elimination may result in the Old Barracks closing its doors for the first time since 1914.

So what’s the cost of saving the place where the United States was saved?  Less than a half million dollars.  That should be easy to find, right?  But the State claims it doesn’t have it.  Corporations have their own troubles.  Private donations are hard to come by.  And the budgetary clock is ticking.

Three days before the Battle of Trenton, Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”  Perhaps there are some who will stand by the Old Barracks in THIS time of crisis.  But if not, a critical piece of America’s heritage will be…history.