TRENTON — The Petty’s Run archeological dig, saved two years ago from the backhoe, is expected to open again in several weeks to give visitors, history buffs and students on class trips to the capital a peek into one facet of Trenton’s industrial and Native American past.
A spokesman with the state Department of Environmental Protection said the $1.8 million project to preserve the endangered historical site behind the Statehouse is nearly finished.
After a state committee voted to preserve and fill in the dig in 2010, citing the high cost of keeping the attraction open, local legislators and historians fought back, pressing the state to continue funding the site instead of burying a piece of Trenton history.
As a result, the DEP and Mercer County partnered together in 2011 to restore, run and maintain Petty’s Run for the next 10 years. The two agencies agreed to contribute enough money to add a walkway and more signs and placards explaining the site’s history and significance and pay for the dig’s upkeep for the next decade.
“We could have covered up one of the real historic beauties of the City of Trenton, and I think it’s important that when we retrace the history of Trenton, we really need to highlight it and not bury it under tons of silt,” County Executive Brian Hughes said.
DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese said more signs designed by state and county historians will better inform tourists and history buffs about Petty’s Run, named for a small, since-buried creek that powered steel, cotton and paper mills founded in Trenton as early as 1731.
“Basically what we did there was look into establishing an interpretive site that would focus on the remains of the earliest steel and paper mills and paper and plating mills located near where Thomas Edison State College is today,” Ragonese said. “It allows you to kind of look at the past by looking down.”
After the dig was stabilized, a new fiberglass cover was added to preserve the dig and artifacts below, which include factory remnants and foundations and Native American pottery shards and tools. The clear cover will also give visitors a better glimpse of the dig, allowing them to peer beneath for a glimpse of the factories and mills that made Trenton an early industrial powerhouse.
“There was this great industrial history in Trenton, there’s obviously remains here of a plating mill built in 1732, a steel mill from the 1740s,” Ragonese said. “What they found down there has some historical significance and we wanted to make sure we called attention to that in a small way. It’s located next to the Statehouse, by the Old Barracks, in an area that has a bit of history to it. If you’re doing a tour of the Statehouse or this area, you can have another stop along your way.”
And preserving that stop is especially important given the sheer number of students who visit Trenton each year to learn about the capital and its role in the Revolutionary War, Hughes said.
“One of the reasons we wanted to keep it open is it will be seen by so many kids,” he said. “So many kids come through Trenton and they go to the State Museum, they go to the Statehouse, they go to the Old Barracks and right along the way now, you’ll be able to stop at Petty’s Run and really take a look at some of the history that made Trenton great.”
The site will cost about $30,000 to operate annually, Ragonese said. The estimated $1.8 million price tag includes $800,000 from the county’s Historic Preservation Trust Fund and money the DEP originally earmarked for the site’s closure. The county and DEP were also forced to contribute another $250,000 each to the project last year after construction bids came in higher than anticipated.
County and DEP officials expect to hold an opening ceremony sometime later this spring, Ragonese and county spokeswoman Julie Willmot said.