Dan Beery, Dan Walsh, Roger Holloway, Sam Stitts, Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes and Simon Carcagno. Messrs Beery, Walsh, Stitts and Carcagno are members of the US Sr. National Men's Rowing team
Local Groups and Volunteers Plant Princeton Elms in the Washington Road Elm Allee, Press Release, May 4, 2007
From Sturdy Old Survivor, a Hardier Elm Grows, New York Times, May 7, 2004
Opportunity at the Crossroads, The Trenton Times Editorial, February 7, 2003
Canal commission takes cues from public on improvements Princeton Packet, December 13, 2001
Meeting focuses on new trail plan The Trenton Times, December 11, 2002
Filling the gaps, The Trenton Times, December 10, 2002
Gaps in D&R Canal park finally will be bridged The Trenton Times, December 9, 2002
Leadership Trenton's canal walk highlights a neglected civic issue The Trenton Times, November 3, 2002
McGreevey touts Rt. 1 footbridge, The Trenton Times, July 27, 2002
The Star of Elm Street Stages a Comeback, New York Times, July 11, 2002
Historical crossroads, The Trenton Times, July 9, 2002
Once Devastated, Elms Start to Rebound, New York Times, January 15, 2002
National Conference on Transportation and Historic Preservation
Millstone roadways names scenic byway Princeton Packet, August 24, 2001
Clones resist fungus that killed most trees The Trenton Times, June 25, 2001
Toll foes find hope in discovery of relics Princeton Packet, May 8, 2001
Local Groups and Volunteers Plant Princeton Elms in the Washington Road Elm Allee
May 4, 2007
In observance of Arbor Day and Earth Week, representatives from Princeton University, the Washington Road Elms Preservation Trust, Princeton University's fencing team, the U.S. Senior National Men's Rowing Team, West Windsor Shade Tree Commission and Riveredge Farms of Atlanta, GA, gathered to assist in planting 10 Princeton elms (Ulmus americana) along Washington Road (Mercer County Road 571). Also present at the April 20 event were West Windsor Township Mayor, Shing-Fu Hsueh and Mercer County Executive, Brian Hughes.
The Washington Road Elm Allée is a 0.7 mile-long roadway bordered on both sides by approximately 76 elm trees that were originally planted around 1925. The trees create a majestic connection between West Windsor Township and the Township and Borough of Princeton. The Washington Road Elm Allée is the most extensive surviving elm-lined roadway in central New Jersey and the only one that serves as a scenic vehicular entrance to a town. The Allée was placed on the New Jersey and National Register of Historic Places in 1998. These elms also have horticultural significance. Bred for hardiness, they turned out to be resistant to Dutch Elm Disease, which hit the United States in 1930 and killed over one hundred million trees nationwide, including the vast majority of elm allées that once characterized the streets and open roads of many American towns and cities. Additional information about the elm allée is at www.princetonol.com/groups/wrept.
Roger Holloway, who grows Princeton Elms at his Atlanta nursery , Riveredge Farms, said replanting trees such as the Princeton Elm has more than just a sentimental benefit, however. "It's very important, especially considering all the foreign diseases coming in affecting trees," he said, mentioning Sudden Oak Death disease, Bacterial Leaf Scorch, the Asian Longhorn Beetle, and the Emerald Ash Borer as all having contributed to the demise of millions of trees. This is why, Mr. Holloway said, resistant strains of trees need to be identified and propagated. Riveredge Farms donated the trees that were planted last week. He also noted that some Home Depot stores are now stocking the Princeton Elms, specifically the store in Hamilton/Robbinsville.
From Sturdy Old Survivor, a Hardier Elm Grows
May 7, 2004
By ANTHONY DePALMA
PRINCETON, N.J. - More than 70 springs have come and gone since the first victims succumbed, but grieving friends and brokenhearted lovers have never stopped searching for survivors of one of the worst ecological calamities in American history.
They stalk damp backwoods and prowl deserted country roads looking for rare American elm trees that have somehow managed to ward off Dutch elm disease, which spread in successive waves across much of the country beginning in the 1930's, killing more than 77 million elms in the biological blink of an eye.
They are looking for a noble giant hiding in an overgrown field or standing sentinel over a disappeared farm, an elm that is not just an isolated wallflower that somehow escaped infection, but rather a true survivor that could yield the secret to its indestructibility.
For Roger W. Holloway, a wholesale nursery supplier in Atlanta, the search for super elms has become a consuming crusade that has taken him to an unlikely place to find a survivor: an old graveyard here.
Five years ago, Mr. Holloway, 49, drove into Princeton through a long allée of elms - most of them planted just before Dutch elm arrived. The size, shape and sheer beauty of the 70-year-old trees arching gracefully over the road convinced him this was indeed the place to look.
Now Mr. Holloway says he is certain he has found the mother of all those elms: a majestic giant standing in a prominent spot in Princeton since before it became a cemetery in 1757. About 100 feet tall, this noble elm bows gracefully over the corner of Witherspoon and Wiggins Streets, not far from Princeton University, and shades the grave of Dr. Thomas Wiggins (1731-1801), who donated land for the cemetery and for whom the street is named. The tree's gnarled base is so massive that it has crept over part of Dr. Wiggins's grave marker and nearly swallowed the white marble tombstones of three of his grandchildren.
Mr. Holloway believes - and others have confirmed - that this hardy survivor in Princeton Cemetery is the progenitor of a whole generation of disease-tolerant elms that growers have been shipping around the country for the last few years. His thesis is supported by tests conducted a few years ago that show that a significant sequence of the Princeton giant's DNA is an exact match with the trees planted along the entrance to Princeton.
"Long story short," said Joseph C. Kamalay, a molecular biologist at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Mo., who performed the genetic sleuthing several years ago when he worked for the United States Forest Service, "the cemetery tree was likely the maternal parent of the Princeton elm, at least in the lineage, because their chloroplast DNA is identical."
Even a disease-tolerant tree does not have total immunity. Last year, a much younger elm half a block from the cemetery tree was infected with Dutch elm disease. It had to be cut down, but not before the leaves on two huge branches of the cemetery tree turned brown, a sign of the infection. The branches were pruned, and the tree seems to be fine.
Mr. Holloway said he did not believe that the infection had upended his theories about the tree's ability to tolerate the disease that has killed so many others. "Just because a tree has some issues and has to be pruned doesn't mean the end of its life," he said.
The trees that Mr. Holloway has grown and sold through his business, Riveredge Farms, have been shown in tests by the United States National Arboretum to withstand catastrophic injections of the fungus that causes Dutch elm disease. Two other varieties, Valley Forge and New Harmony, are also highly tolerant, though they are not considered to have the same classic vase shape as the Princeton elm.
In the last few years, Princeton elms have been planted in New York City, at the University of Oklahoma campus and in Washington, D.C., among other places. Soon, they will also will take root on the grounds of the White House and sprout on the pedestrian mall being built along Pennsylvania Avenue.
Other growers are relying on the Princeton elm to revive interest in what used to be America's favorite tree.
"Princeton is an excellent American elm," said Keith S. Warren, director of product development at J. Frank Schmidt & Son, in Boring, Ore., one of the largest commercial nurseries in the country. He said that while some people still resist planting elms for fear of disease, overall acceptance is strong and growing.
"Elms create their own atmosphere," Mr. Warren said. "They really give a different feel to a street."
Elms are a vision of steadfastness, a dream of cathedral arches over city streets, a memory of cool shade on a blistering summer afternoon. For much of American history they had a devoted following whose many members planted the sturdy giants in front yards and along local streets from the Eastern Seaboard to the western prairies.
Then came the disease, imported in a shipment of European logs, and the infatuation turned deadly. Because they were so well loved, and had been planted so bountifully, elm trees turned out to be quite vulnerable. The fungus raced from tree to tree through intertwined roots or on the back of the peripatetic elm bark beetle.
Mr. Holloway remembers the elms from his boyhood and thought they were gone forever until he happened to see one while flipping through a catalog nine years ago.
The tree came from Princeton Nurseries. It used to be located in Princeton, but as land became more valuable, the business was moved to Allentown, N.J. Princeton University now owns most of the land that belonged to the nursery, including the part that includes the stunning row of elms that the nursery planted along Washington Road in the early 1930's.
A few years ago, after Mr. Holloway started experimenting with growing cuttings of the Princeton elm he got through the catalog, he visited Princeton and saw the Washington Road trees himself. "I'd never seen anything like that," he said. "It was just awesome."
Convinced that he had found elms that could resist disease, Mr. Holloway tried to grow them from cuttings; doing so was not easy, but it ensured that the disease tolerance of the parent would be passed on. Failures meant the death of thousands of trees, but he eventually perfected a method, which he declined to reveal.
Along the way, he heard stories about the origins of the Princeton elm, and investigated its background. Several people told him, with great certainty, that the man who headed Princeton Nurseries at the time, William Flemer Jr., used seedlings from the cemetery tree to develop the Princeton elm.
"That's the mother lode," Mr. Holloway said when he revisited the tree in April. Besides its great height and girth, the tree has a brownish-cinnamon tone common to Princeton elms.
"This tree has been here for 300 years while elm trees all around it were dropping like flies," he said. So he checked in with Claude G. Sutphen, 72, the third generation of his family to run Princeton Cemetery. Mr. Sutphen confirmed that yes, he had heard the story linking the big elm and Princeton Nurseries and did not doubt it for a second.
"This was always a big strong tree," Mr. Sutphen said. To prove just how long, he rummaged around his office for a few minutes and came back with an 1854 photograph of Aaron Burr's grave.
The elm is already massive.
The final clue came from the genetic decoding. To make a case for saving the trees during a road-widening project that was eventually scuttled, a Princeton resident sent Mr. Kamalay, the molecular biologist, cuttings from a dozen trees, including the Washington Road elms, the cemetery giant, and other elms, but kept their identities hidden.
Mr. Kamalay prepared DNA profiles of each, then compared them. The findings were incontrovertible. The DNA of the cemetery tree was identical to that of the elms along Washington Road. And their DNA matched that of the elms sold by Princeton Nurseries, which provided the genetic stock for Mr. Holloway.
There is just one problem. The son of the man who planted the elms more than 70 years ago said he was not sure the original came from the cemetery tree.
"Could be," said William Flemer III, now 82, "but if so, my father never mentioned it."
Mr. Flemer, who is retired but keeps his hand in the running of Princeton Nurseries, recalled that his father grew a batch of elm seedlings, and weeded out those with imperfections until just one was left, and that became the Princeton elm.
Mr. Flemer seemed to accept the findings about the cemetery tree, but not to embrace them. Nor did he endorse Mr. Holloway's quest for the mother of all Princeton elms. "If he wants to say the seed came from there, let him," Mr. Flemer said. "There's no one who's going to naysay it."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
http://nytimes.com/2004/05/07/nyregion/07ELM.html?hp
Friday, February 07, 2003
BY EDITORIAL
New Jersey was literally the Crossroads of the American Revolution. The four major armies involved - the British, Hessians and French and George Washington's Continental Army - passed through colonial New Jersey numerous times. Their peregrinations included retreats and battles during late 1776 and early 1777, when Washington won tide-changing victories at Trenton and Princeton, and the war's conclusive chapter in 1781, when Washington and French ally Gen. Jean B. de Rochambeau raced through the state toward Virginia, where they would trap and defeat the British army.
Major events also occurred during the war in and around Boston, Saratoga, Philadelphia, New York, Williamsburg, Yorktown and other points with names well known to history. Nevertheless, New Jersey can be linked to nearly every major development. Nearly 300 battles and skirmishes were fought here, more than in any other state. Washington and his army spent nearly half their wartime service in New Jersey. The hardships to civilians were intense. The patriots in Washington's army suffered severely. Liberty wasn't won easily.
Strangely, New Jersey's Revolutionary War sites, such as the Old Barracks, the Monmouth, Princeton and Red Bank battlefields, Washington Crossing State Park and historic locales such as Washington's Morristown headquarters never have received their proper degree of attention. That would change with the enactment of congressional legislation sponsored again this year by U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and U.S. Reps. Rush Holt, D-Hopewell Township, and Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-Harding Township. Their bill would create the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area, spanning 13 New Jersey counties. Once that was done, the federal government would provide $10 million over 15 years to help with preservation, recreation and education efforts.
Sen. Corzine's bill was approved in the last Congress by the Democratic-controlled Senate, but for reasons hard to fathom it died in the Republican-majority House. With a new Congress seated, the effort must begin all over again. This time, Sen. Corzine won't have the benefit of being a member of the majority party; he'll have to push the measure through a Senate now controlled by the Republicans.
One can only hope that a project that celebrates America's history won't be viewed in a partisan way. Unfortunately, that's not a given in today's Washington. For that reason, it's vital that every member of New Jersey's 15-person delegation to the House and Senate get solidly behind the bill, not just with lip service but with active lobbying. Rep. Frelinghuysen's five fellow New Jersey Republicans in the House can play a particularly constructive role.
The Heritage Area would pay tribute to the patriots who fought so bravely for the freedom we enjoy today. It also would help preserve treasures of American history, draw tourists to New Jersey and assist the state's economy by coordinating the promotion of these widely-scattered sites for the first time.
The project is pro-American. It's pro-education. It's pro-business. Who in Congress could question those benefits?
Copyright 2003 The Times.
Canal commission takes cues from public on improvements
By: David Campbell , Staff Writer 12/13/2002
Ten-year plan includes nearly $15 million in upgrades
The Delaware & Raritan Canal Commission has a thing or two to learn from the public as it drafts a new 10-year plan for improvements to the state parklands it oversees.
The Canal Commission held two public meetings this week at its office near Stockton to gather input on a draft plan for 31 enhancements to the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park.
The enhancement projects are meant to improve access to the park, expand its path system, preserve the park's historic structures and create more links with neighboring natural and historic places, according to the draft development plan.
According to James Amon, the canal commission's executive director, more than 30 people attended the two-hour public meeting Tuesday, which was noteworthy, he said, given that the meeting began at 7:30 a.m. to fit with attendees' work schedules.
One of the things Mr. Amon said took him by surprise was how strongly people felt that more instructional signs are needed in the 70-mile-long state park that winds through 22 municipalities in Mercer, Somerset, Middlesex and Hunterdon counties.
Part of taking advantage of the park's natural and historic resources, it seems, involves understanding the history of the canal, which is registered as a state and national historic site.
Construction of the canal began in 1830 to create a commercial route between Philadelphia and New York. Today, as many know firsthand, the natural environs of the historic waterway offer a great place to bike, walk and jog.
"There was a very strong emphasis on the fact that many people felt they really just didn't know what was in front of them when they came upon a lock or spillway," Mr. Amon said.
"It is something we certainly will take seriously," he said. "Our experience is that by giving the public the opportunity to make suggestions, we learn things we're really glad to learn."
The total cost of the park improvements is estimated to be under $15 million, with funding for many projects expected from federal transportation funds that have gone toward bicycle and pedestrian pathways throughout the state, including the state park, Mr. Amon continued.
Funding sources also may include money from the Legislature for capital improvements to state parks, partnerships with municipal and county governments, corporate citizens and nonprofit organizations.
Some partnerships are unique, Mr. Amon said, such as one with the sewage authority in Lambertville that funded the restoration of an outlet lock in exchange for running a pipe that crossed into canal commission property.
"You sort of never know where the money will come from," Mr. Amon said, noting that he was looking forward to raising funds for the projects.
Several of the projects are local ones.
There are plans to link the canal park with the Institute for Advanced Study with a bridge, and possibly preserve a parcel of land that would link the institute property with conservation lands in Lawrence, creating a 1,300-acre natural area in the Route 1 corridor, the draft plan said.
There are plans to create more parking at a small site maintained by Princeton University off Washington Road, and at a four-car site maintained by the canal state park at Harrison Street.
The canal commission also proposes developing the Kingston Lock area as a major access point, creating more parking, a new picnic area and erecting more informational signs.
There are also plans to link the towpath with a greenway path system in Montgomery Township by building a pedestrian bridge across the Millstone River and increase parking capacity at Griggstown and Blackwells Mills.
The draft development plan also calls for restoring and preserving a cluster of houses at the Griggstown Causeway.
The canal commission intends to use public input gathered this week as it prepares the final draft of its plan, and expects to hold a vote on adoption of the plan at its January meeting, Mr. Amon said.
"We're holding these public meetings because we take seriously listening to what the public has to say," he said.
©Packet Online 2002
Meeting focuses on new trail plan
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
By ARTEMIS COUGHLAN
DELRAN - Most of the people who attended last night's meeting here to air a plan for the Delaware River Heritage Trail from Palmyra to Trenton were mainly concerned with how the plan, which comes from the National Park service, would work.
Their concerns included how neighborhoods would be affected; how people would be persuaded to use the trail; parking locations; type and location of rest rooms; and possible littering.
More than 50 people attended the meeting and examined plans that call for the trail to begin at the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge and end at the Calhoun Street Bridge in Trenton, where it would connect with a similar trail in Pennsylvania, according to Matthew Johnson, Burlington County's open space program coordinator.
"We recently completed the Park and Open Space Master Plan to create a park system in (Burlington) county. We identified the trail area as one which we will focus on," Johnson said at last night's meeting at the Delran municipal building.
"We're very excited about this and the possibility to connect various areas with a trail such as the Rancocas Creek greenway and other areas."
The trail is slated to go through Palmyra, Riverton, Cinnaminson, Delran, Riverside, Delanco, Beverly, Edgewater Park, Burlington Township and city, Florence, Mansfield, Bordentown Township and city, Hamilton and Trenton, according to the map provided at the meeting.
The county, the Delaware Greenway and other organizations are taking updated information from those river towns and are trying to decide on the best biking and hiking route.
"We're here basically to get some feedback from you and we'll use that information to tweak the designs," Johnson said.
The trial is designed to link people with historic, industrial and business centers along its path.
"The nice thing about this trail is we're going to use a lot of the existing trails as possible," said Celeste Tracy, trail coordinator.
For instance, the trail will use the towpath of the Delaware & Raritan State Park and the promenade in Burlington City, existing sidewalks and mark off parts of roadways to identify the trail.
Along busy, six-lane Route 130, the trail will be built about 6 feet from the southbound lanes and separated by a guardrail or greenspace, said Michael Dannemiller, trail designer with the RBA Group handling the project. "This is a very detailed project and nothing is cast in stone," Dannemiller said.
"We want to minimize construction as much as possible. To mark the trail we're going to put up directional signs and use stencils to mark the path."
The focus of the trail is the Delaware River.
"We want to bring it as close to the river as possible and to emphasize the rich cultural and industrial heritage of the area," Tracy said.
The county will distribute trail maps, promote it in the county's newsletter and the county's division of parks will distribute information on it, Johnson said.
Tracy said she will develop a management plan to keep the trail from affecting residential neighborhoods.
"We want to make sure the trail is an asset to the community," Tracy said.
"Trails contribute to the economy and property values increase when they're located near a trail."
Last night's meeting was one of several that will be held before final designs are approved, Dannemiller said.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
BY EDITORIAL
The project to complete the missing links in the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park, announced recently by state and local officials, offers many benefits.
Completing the trail that runs alongside the canal from Frenchtown to Trenton to New Brunswick, except for two gaps in Mercer County, will bring the region a continuous 65-mile bike and walking trail.
That's an obvious recreational benefit. But also possible is a seldom-discussed economic benefit that has great potential to untap the region's most underused resource - its rich history.
The canal trail runs along old mule towpaths and railroad beds as it slices through Hunterdon, Mercer and Middlesex counties. It has two gaps, but that soon will be remedied.
Construction is expected to start in the spring on a $3 million pedestrian bridge over Route 1 in Lawrence, and work to fill a mile-long gap in Trenton might be finished within two years. The gap from Mulberry to Southard streets will be filled by a newly built trail that will use an old railroad bridge to cross Route 1.
Meanwhile, park, state and local officials should get ready to make the most of the completed path.
Fortunately, much of their work is already done.
The trail passes through some of the state's most historic areas, many connected to the Revolutionary War and many of them the key site in the fight for liberty. The trail passes through Washington Crossing State Park, veers through the Battle Monument neighborhood in Trenton, passes by Princeton Battlefield State Park and Rockingham and winds through Bound Brook, where a battle was fought in April 1777.
It isn't far-fetched to envision a unique historic tourism and recreation package marketed toward families that would allow visitors to rent bicycles and traverse the trail, visiting these historic treasures without the headaches of traffic and parking.
The trail could be marked with signs directing tourists to the sites and explaining their importance during the icy campaigns of 1776 and 1777, when Gen. Washington and his ragged troops helped turn the war's momentum with key victories in Trenton and Princeton.
Not only would local history and education be enriched, but some good exercise would also be had. There are few historical sites today that are connected by bicycle or hiking trails. The canal system itself is a major piece of local history.
It was dug between 1830-1834, and during its heyday, was primarily used to transport anthracite coal from Pennsylvania. In 1866, 2.9 million tons were shipped on the waterways.
Clearly, the canal and its accompanying trail overflow with history. Tourism and government officials from this area have long discussed packaging the many historic sites into a single attraction, yet progress has been slow. Using the canal path to spark such a renaissance is an idea with a lot of merit.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Gaps in D&R Canal park finally will be bridged
Monday, December 09, 2002
By JOSEPH DEE
TRENTON - Mercer County's reputation as the great interrupter of otherwise seamless transportation routes is about to take a hit.
The county is notorious for being home to the only gap in the Maine-to-Florida highway known as Interstate 95. That distinction will remain intact.
But it is also home to the only two gaps in the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park, a V-shaped ribbon of trail and canal that stretches from Trenton to New Brunswick along one strand and Trenton to Frenchtown along the other.
Once the gaps are filled - and there are plans on the books to do just that - the park will boast a continuous 65-mile bike and walking trail.
The trail, along historic mule towpaths and railroad beds, skirts the Delaware & Raritan Canal and its feeder canal for most of its length.
A project to fill one of the gaps, in Lawrence, is expected to start in the spring. And park advocates hope the other missing link, a mile-long trail gap in Trenton, will be built within two years.
The Lawrence gap was caused by the construction of Route 1, which was built over the canal near the I-95/I-295 interchange. The canal tunnels beneath the highway. The towpath does not.
"When we get the pedestrian bridge and the missing link in Trenton, we'll have a continuous trail from New Brunswick to Trenton and then up to Frenchtown," said Jim Amon, executive director of the Delaware & Raritan Canal Commission. "I've worked for the canal commission for 27 years and from day one that has been our No. 1 goal. So you can imagine how excited I am to see it being close to being accomplished."
The state Department of Transportation has awarded a $3 million contract to the IEW Construction Group of Hamilton to build a pedestrian bridge over Route 1. The bridge will connect the two dead-ends of the towpath on either side of the highway, Amon said.
The bridge-builder is expected to start work in the early spring and finish the job in six to eight months, according to a DOT spokesman.
-- -- --
The project to fill the mile-long trail gap in Trenton is expected to take two years to complete, Amon said. That gap stretches from Mulberry Street in the northern part of the city to Southard Street.
The plan is to build a new trail from the intersection of the feeder canal and main canal to Mulberry Street. The feeder canal feeds, or pours water into, the main canal near the intersection of Old Rose Street and Holland Avenue. From that point, the water in the main canal flows northward along the southbound lanes of Route 1, ultimately ending up in New Brunswick.
The new trail will deviate from the main canal slightly, Amon said. It will utilize an abandoned railroad bridge to cross over Route 1 at the intersection of the canals, turn left and proceed north along the northbound lanes of Route 1 to Mulberry Street.
The trail along the feeder canal, which starts 22 miles north of Trenton along the Delaware River at Raven Rock, is uninterrupted from Frenchtown, several miles above Raven Rock, to the intersection with the main canal.
Sections of that trail in Trenton have been rebuilt in recent years, notably near new housing developments close to the Battle Monument.
"The City of Trenton has really done a great job along the trail," Amon said. "So has the state. We've been working together with the city to provide this corridor of refurbished and new housing with a great recreation site."
The state Department of Environmental Protection maintains and rebuilds the trails through its Division of Parks and Forestry.
Bicyclists have one constant complaint about the feeder canal trail, Amon conceded. Broken glass from liquor and beer bottles glistens menacingly on the trail surface of loose, crushed stone near Calhoun Street and Hermitage Avenue.
Amon said the commission considered recommending that the inner-city portion of the trail be paved with asphalt to make it easier to clean, but 10 years ago when the trail in Trenton was refurbished, paving was deemed too expensive.
-- -- --
The feeder canal is 22 miles long by necessity, Amon said. Designers calculated that that distance was required to create enough momentum to keep the water flowing through the entire length of the main canal, all the way to New Brunswick, he said.
Some of the feeder canal water also once flowed southward from the junction of the canals to the southern end of the main canal on Crosswicks Creek in Hamilton, Amon said. That stretch followed what is now Route 129 through the Roebling industrial complex in Trenton and onto Duck Island.
The intersection of the feeder and main canals in Trenton was the summit, or highest elevation, along the main canal.
The canals were dug and lined with slabs of waterproof clay between 1830-1834. They were used primarily to transport anthracite coal from Pennsylvania, but many other commodities and manufactured goods also were shipped along the canals.
In 1866, 2.9 million tons were shipped on the waterways, according to Linda J. Barth, who wrote the photo-filled book, "Images of America: The Delaware and Raritan Canal," published by Arcadia, 2002.
The book is available at the Historical Society of Princeton, 158 Nassau St., Princeton Borough, where an exhibit on the canal is being shown.
The canals are now used by recreational boaters and anglers, as well as the joggers and bicyclists who use the adjacent towpaths and abandoned railroad beds. They also provide some of the drinking water for about 1 million central New Jersey residents, Barth wrote.
Copyright 2002 The Times
Leadership Trenton's canal walk highlights a neglected civic issue
Sunday, November 03, 2002
By KEN DERRY
TRENTON - Members of Leadership Trenton hiked along the towpath of the Feeder Canal yesterday guided by members of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Watch, hoping to learn more about the assets of the city's waterways.
In its inaugural year, Leadership Trenton is a 12-month program offered through Thomas Edison State College and the Leadership New Jersey Graduate Organization intended to develop a network of emerging civic leaders.
The 35 participants meet one day a month to discuss and witness the city's neglected issues, explained Nelida Valentin, director of the Center for Leadership Development at TESC.
In previous sessions, they have investigated health, criminal justice, economic and historical issues of the city, said Algernon Ward, a member of Leadership Trenton's premiere class. Yesterday's walk was intended to provide an examination of environmental issues.
Built to link resources from the Lehigh and Schuylkill valleys in Pennsylvania to New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey, immigrants began construction of the Delaware and Raritan Canal in 1830, said Barbara Ross, president of D&R Canal Watch.
To supply the canal with steady levels of water, the Feeder Canal was built from the higher elevation of Bull's Island 22 miles south into Trenton, Ross continued.
Though originally built to supply water, the Feeder Canal had its own high volume of cargo traffic upon completion in 1834, said Erik Jetzt, a trustee of D&R Canal Watch.
Cargo, usually coal, was pulled on mule-drawn barges, and though steam engines were introduced around 1843, canal speed limits were enforced to maintain a safe, dry towpath, Jetzt said.
America's canal systems were highly productive during the mid- to late 1800s, but the emerging railroads proved even more efficient, and the D&R Canal closed in 1932, Ross and Jetzt said.
The state of New Jersey now owns and operates the canal as a water supply system. In 1973, the canal and its remaining structures were entered into the National Register of Historic Places, but Ross and Jetzt noted that most of the structures and some areas along the towpath have long been neglected.
"There is summertime help with trash control along the canal," said Jetzt, but the crew responsible for cleanup and maintenance is more than 20 miles away.
Pointing out the bridgetender's house on Calhoun Street, Ross and Jetzt spoke of its history as a residence, about the structure's original condition and about its current state of neglect - peeling paint, graffiti and barred windows.
"Changing times," Valentin said. "I'm sure this looked a lot different way back when."
Though graduation might be around the corner for the first class of Trenton's leaders, it does not spell the end of their civic duties. Along with creating a network of community leaders, each class is expected to undertake a long-term project providing attention to a neglected civic matter many years into the future, Valentin said.
The inaugural class' project, still under consideration, would link future leadership classes and ultimately build a large network of community activists in the Trenton and Mercer County area, Valentin said.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
McGreevey touts Rt. 1 footbridge
Saturday, July 27, 2002
By MICHAEL JENNINGS
Gov. James E. McGreevey announced yesterday that construction will begin next spring on a pedestrian bridge over Route 1 in Lawrence that will connect sections of Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park.
Yesterday was the Central Jersey leg of McGreevey's 10-day "Celebrate New Jersey" tour. In addition to the bridge announcement, he showed off new technology purchased by the state police during a visit to the Princeton Barracks. He was also scheduled to attend last night's Trenton Thunder game and the Mercer County 4-H Fair.
Last year, the federal government agreed to pick up the $4.7 million tab for the 150-foot bridge linking tow paths on either side of Route 1 just south of the Interstate 295 overpass. McGreevey said the bridge should open in December 2003.
"(The park) is one of central New Jersey's most popular recreational corridors for canoeing, jogging, hiking, bicycling, fishing and horseback riding," the governor said.
Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell said the administration's goal is to make the park a continuous 70-mile linear expanse by the end of 2005. He said most of the remaining breaks are caused by railroad tracks in Trenton.
After being hostage for months to the state's budget woes, McGreevey is now trying to change the political climate with his tour.
His standing with the public has suffered during his first six months in office as he wrestled with the fiscal problems he said were inherited from the previous GOP administration. Multibillion-dollar budget deficits forced him to resort to a politically unpopular mix of tax hikes and program cuts.
The trek echoes his cross-state "Jersey Journey" of last summer, a highlight of his successful election campaign.
The tour allows McGreevey to return to the themes and agenda that got him elected.
"Now with a balanced budget in place we can turn our attention toward educational excellence, (economic) strength and prosperity and safe neighborhoods," he said.
He has underscored those points with events highlighting his third-grade literacy program, the state's school construction program in poor districts and renaming Lebanon State Forest for former Gov. Brendan Byrne.
The state police has overhauled its command center operations in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Two captains will now be on duty at all times, where previously sergeants were in charge during off-hours.
The captains will have two specially equipped SUVs at their disposal. The vehicles have special on-board computers and communication equipment allowing the driver to immediately contact the governor or the head of the state police. One captain is on the road at all times.
In addition to having senior officers respond to major incidents, McGreevey said the new approach "adds an additional level of management, accountability and efficiency."
By next year, Superintendent Joseph Santiago said there will be three regional command centers. He said the program will not require additional funds.
Contact Michael Jennings at (609) 777-4464, or mjennings@njtimes.com
Copyright 2002 The Times.
The Star of Elm Street Stages a Comeback
By ANTHONY DePALMA
ATLANTA - ROGER W. HOLLOWAY approaches elm trees with a proselytizer's prose and a planter's gentle hand. His green thumb comes from the five generations of gardeners in his family who have run the Michler Florist and Greenhouse in Lexington, Ky., where he was born. His reverence for trees was instilled in him when his family moved to Ontario in the 1960's to run a tobacco farm. That was when he first saw elms disappear.
Back then, elms were still noble giants that lined streets and stood outside public buildings. One day Mr. Holloway found the elms at his grammar school door butchered into logs, splinters and sawdust. "Even today I can see those piles in my mind," said Mr. Holloway, 47. "I was so shocked. I thought something mean was going on."
Anyone who had ever sat in the shimmering shade of an elm or walked along a sweetly darkened elm-lined street would have agreed. The culprit was Dutch elm disease, a fungus spread by elm bark beetles. It arrived in 1931 in a shipment of French veneer logs. By the 1980's, it all but eliminated elms from North America.
It has been said that Americans loved the elm too much. Planting the trees exclusively along entire streets left them vulnerable to the epidemic. No one knows how many elms were lost; one estimate is 77 million.
Driven by his memories, Mr. Holloway, a commercial landscaper based here, has made it his mission to bring back the elm.
It was in 1995, while leafing through a nursery catalog, that Mr. Holloway discovered an American elm described as disease- tolerant. Like many people, he had assumed that elms were gone forever. The tree in the catalog, he learned, had originally come from Princeton Nurseries (today based in Allentown, N.J.), one of the largest wholesale nurseries in the country.
The elms known as Princeton elms have lined Washington Road, which leads to Princeton University, since about 1930. Mid-90's tests proved their ability to at least tolerate Dutch elm disease, and the variety may represent the best hope of raising the species from the horticultural dead.
While Princeton Nurseries has never stopped producing elms, it does almost nothing to market them. Mr. Holloway ordered a tree from the catalog and took cuttings, hoping to start trees that could fight the disease as effectively as the original.
Mr. Holloway's company, Riveredge Farms, is one of several that have begun to sell elms. With nostalgic ads and a Web site that encourages visitors to "plant a piece of history," Mr. Holloway hopes to tap a vein of longing for a vanishing American heritage.
Although he belongs to a family of horticulturalists, Mr. Holloway has plowed other fields. He was a theater graduate of Windham College in Vermont, a versatile actor. He was performing with a regional theater in Richmond in 1978 when his father, who was ill, asked him to help out in the family business. Mr. Holloway never returned to the stage.
At Riveredge Farms, he has created his own world. There is no river - no farm, either. Mr. Holloway's elms are grown at several nurseries in the South and trucked to a parcel here sandwiched between a car lot and a warehouse. Standing in orderly columns is something many Americans have never seen: healthy American elms.
Mr. Holloway says his potted saplings - their developed roots packed in soil - can be planted almost anywhere in the United States between April and October (and in many states year round). Established, they grow three to six feet a year. Despite wariness about Dutch elm disease among homeowners and landscapers, he said he has sold more than 10,000 in two years.
"We were surprised and delighted to find out we could bring back American elms to this campus," said Molly Shi Boren, whose husband, David L. Boren, is president of the University of Oklahoma. She bought 200 of Mr. Holloway's elms for the campus, in part because she remembers the Elm Street of her youth in Ada, Okla.
In East Hampton, N.Y., Ann Roberts, chairwoman of the tree committee of the Ladies' Village Improvement Society ordered dozens of seedlings to be developed in nurseries and transplanted to the streets. "People would rather have an elm tree than almost any other kind," she said.
In the mid-90's, when Mr. Holloway was refining his business plan, Alden M. Townsend, a research geneticist at the National Arboretum in Washington, Md., announced the results of a seven-year experiment. He had tested various elm varieties by injecting them with megadoses of the fungus that causes Dutch elm disease.
Two varieties, which he called Valley Forge and New Harmony, proved strongest: 86 percent of the New Harmony trees survived, as did a surprising 96 percent of the Valley Forge trees.
Princeton elms matched Valley Forge elms in survival rates, Dr. Townsend found. But the Princeton variety offered other advantages: a better record of longevity and a shape closer to the classic vase than to the spindly shape of the other varieties.
The elms on Washington Road in Princeton form one of the most beautiful allées in the United States. The first time Mr. Holloway saw the Princeton survivors in person, he was stunned. "It was twilight as we went through this extremely long allée," he said. "I thought, this is amazing."
The Princeton elm has no patent, said William Flemer III, the vice president of Princeton Nurseries and the son of the man who developed the tree in the 1920's. Being unpatented, it can be reproduced without permission.
But not everyone believes the Princeton variety is impervious to Dutch elm disease. James W. Consolloy, the grounds manager at Princeton University, said that when a new strain of the disease began attacking the trees about 10 years ago, he started a routine of spraying, pruning and sometimes injecting fungicide.
With any elm, there are no guarantees, Mr. Holloway said. He tells customers he will replace any tree that succumbs to the disease. "We know they've been growing in Princeton now for 70 years," he said. "And since we're growing them from root, we know what they'll look like 70 years from now when our grandchildren see them. And that's what this is all about."
About boys and noble giants.
---------------------------
Descendants are cultivated by Roger W. Holloway, whose nursery carries disease-resistant saplings with developed roots.
------------------------------------------------------------------------Elms for Yard or Avenue
Riveredge Farms has elms from 2 1/2 to six feet high. A 2 1/2-foot sapling costs $39.95. A five-footer is $59.95; a six-footer, $89.95, plus shipping: (888) 680-1922; (www.americanelm.com).The Elm Research Institute in Westmoreland, N.H., sells a form of disease-resistant elm called American Liberty: (800) 367-3567.
Valley Forge elms are available at the Botany Shop in Joplin, Mo., (888) 855-3300.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
By DONOVAN SLACK
TRENTON - Reps. Rush Holt, D-Hopewell Township, and Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-Harding, said yesterday they will introduce legislation this week to establish a National Heritage Area in central New Jersey.
The proposed Crossroads of the American Revolution site stretches from Passaic, Morris and Bergen counties in the north, through Mercer and Monmouth counties, to Gloucester County in the south, and includes areas in 13 of the state's 21 counties.
It combines the Old Barracks, Washington Crossing State Park, the Princeton Battlefield and other sites into a single destination.
"By establishing the Crossroads as a National Heritage Area, we will immortalize the memory of the soldiers who fought and died here in New Jersey so that we might live in a nation free from tyranny," Holt said.
If passed, the legislation would not provide a great deal of funding, but it would provide a federal designation under which residents, businesses and various levels of government could create partnerships to preserve and promote the historical sites within the area.
"It will be a wonderful opportunity to elevate their activities under this umbrella," Holt said. "This will provide the focus to allow money to be spent in the best way."
According to Frelinghuysen, the bill would allow the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior to provide technical and financial assistance, mostly in the form of "seed money" for local preservation efforts and interpretation of Heritage area resources.
Since the National Heritage Area program began in 1984, Congress has created 23 areas, including the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor in Pennsylvania and the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area in New York.
"The Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Act will give New Jersey the national recognition it deserves as the true crossroads of the Revolutionary War," Frelinghuysen said.
Collectively, the battles that occurred in the corridor had a major impact on the British defeat and the subsequent establishment of the United States, according to a statement from Holt's office. More Revolutionary War battles were engaged in New Jersey than in any other state.
Holt is a member of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Public Lands and Recreation. Frelinghuysen is a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
Both said that they give the bill good odds for passage.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Once Devastated, Elms Start to Rebound
By ANNE RAVER
MORE than 70 years after Dutch elm disease began to wipe out 90 percent of the magnificent American elms that lined the streets of so many cities and towns, a handful of resistant varieties are beginning to cast their regal shade over the country's lawns and boulevards.
The fungus that causes the disease - Ophiostoma ulmi - accidentally entered the United States in 1931 on elm logs shipped from France and headed for Cleveland.
"It first showed up in Ohio and then New Jersey," said Alden Townsend, a plant geneticist at the National Arboretum for the United States Department of Agriculture, who has worked for 30 years to identify and propagate disease-resistant elms. "The fungus is carried from tree to tree by a bark beetle, and soon spread across the country."
By the 1980's, the fungus had wiped out 77 million American elms.
Now, two native elms are emerging not only as highly resistant (no elm is immune) to the disease, but with the same elegant vase shape and upheld branches that imprinted themselves on the American heart.
The Princeton elm - first propagated and planted in 1922 by Princeton Nurseries, now in Allentown, N.J. - may be the prettiest. Several hundred were planted in the early 1930's, to form an allée on Washington Road, leading into the Princeton University campus. And 70 years later, the 60- foot-high trees form the kind of leafy canopy so many Americans had thought lost to history.
In terms of resistance to Dutch elm disease, the elegant vase-shaped Princeton elm is running neck and neck with Valley Forge, a variety selected by Mr. Townsend from thousands of elms.
Since the disease struck, Department of Agriculture scientists have combed the country for resistant elms, propagating the most promising and inoculating them with huge doses of Dutch elm disease.
In Mr. Townsend's latest test, each tree base was inoculated with three million spores of the fungus. (A beetle would transmit up to 100 spores.) "Valley Forge and Princeton showed 96 percent resistance and New Harmony was 86 percent," he said.
Both Valley Forge and New Harmony, Mr. Townsend's top selections and planted more than 20 years ago, "are looking good," he said. "They may survive 100 years, but we just don't know how they will do long- term."
However, a resistant elm is not necessarily a beautiful elm.
Valley Forge "may not be as nice a looking tree as Princeton," said Keith Warren, the director of product development for J. Frank Schmidt & Son, near Portland, Ore., a 3,000-acre wholesale nursery that ships two million trees a year.
New Harmony is not getting high marks for beauty either. "It tends to be much twiggier," said Davis Sydnor, a professor of urban forestry at Ohio State University, who is working to bring elms back to Ohio.
Still, growers concede, these young trees, like ugly ducklings, may mature into beautiful swans.
"The elms are coming on very strong," Mr. Warren said. "It's a whole new group of plants that have been pretty much out of the system for 75 years. Now, they're coming back as a different group of plants."
The Schmidt catalog lists 10 elm varieties, though 19 grow in the nursery. "Valley Forge is going to be very hard to find," Mr. Warren said. "The Princeton is probably the best American elm in the most supply."
Such promising news gladdens the hearts of urban foresters who have long argued that the elm is about the best street tree there is, despite its susceptibility to Dutch elm disease.
When Cleveland was replanting its Public Square in 1978, Mr. Sydnor said, "They put a whole bunch of London plane trees in there. They all croaked."
THE city then tried green ash and honey locusts, but Mr. Sydnor said they all died. Now they've planted oaks.
"So here they went through four separate replacements, when I knew the American elm would probably give them at least 15 to 20 years of service as a street tree."
Elm trees are tough, Mr. Townsend agreed. "Even if you planted one without disease tolerance, it would tolerate ice and salt, air pollution, drought, some degree of flooding," he said. That's why the colonists loved them. "People would pull them out of the woods and they would just take off."
During the Industrial Revolution, cities found that the elm was one of the few trees that could tolerate "all that particulate matter from burning coal," Mr. Sydnor said. "But unfortunately, they planted it to the extreme, which led to a monoculture. Then came Dutch elm disease and the rest is history."
About four years ago, the Central Park Conservancy planted a number of Princeton elms at 104th Street and Fifth Avenue, as well as the park's Literary Walk, and they are doing fine so far.
In 1996, under Mr. Sydnor's prodding, Cincinnati planted 70 Princeton elms on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, a highly compacted and alkaline site. They are now 30 feet tall, with trunks 8 inches in diameter. About 300 Princeton elms, in fact, have been planted under the Cincinnati elm program, with an additional 100 due for planting in the spring.
Elm lovers may also choose from any number of highly resistant Asian and European hybrids like Frontier, a 40-feet-high tree with exfoliating bark and wine-colored leaves in fall; Accolade, a 70-foot vase-shaped tree with dark green glossy leaves; and Allee, an upright Chinese variety, which exfoliates with patches of cream gray, orange and brown.
The Princeton elm is available through Riveredge Farms (www .americanelm.com), in Atlanta, 888- 680-1922. Valley Forge is available through the Botany Shop (www .botanyshop.com), in Joplin, Mo., 888- 855-3300. Locally, these elms and promising hybrids are often only available to landscape contractors or municipalities with access to wholesale nurseries. Your local agriculture extension agent or a reputable arborist is a good place to start.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
National Conference on Transportation and Historic Preservation
Rescheduled for JuneLexington, Kentucky will be the site of the first national conference on transportation and historic preservation, June 2-4. This conference was originally scheduled for September 16-19, but was postponed due to the hijacking tragedies of September 11. The conference will present a real opportunity to examine ways for transportation and historic preservation professions and citizens to come together to achieve the goals of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). Major reauthorization of TEA-21 and the Transportation Enhancements are scheduled to begin in Congress next year and will be in full swing by 2003.
Sponsors of the conference include the National Trust, American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials, Kentucky Heritage Council and others. For further information, contact Dan Costello at dan_costello@nthp.org or 202/588-6167, or visit the National Trust for Historic Preservation web site.
Millstone roadways names scenic byway
By:Steve Rauscher, Staff Writer August 24, 2001
Twenty-five mile circuit extends from Kingston to Millstone Borough.
MONTGOMERY - A 25-mile circuit snaking through the historic Millstone River Valley has received official recognition under the state Department of Transportation's Scenic Byway program and can now compete for as much as $200,000 in federal funds, according to township resident Liz Palius.
Its designation as a scenic byway protects it by imposing tougher local land-use regulations, which discourage the buildup of such characteristics of suburban sprawl as billboards and cellphone towers.
"We decided we could do this because the entire area is already composed of places on the historic register," said Ms. Palius, a member of the Millstone River Valley Preservation Coalition, the group of area historic and environmental preservation activists that masterminded the project. "The MillstoneValley is a wonderful place, and it's worth showing off."
Tourist attractions already situated along the route include the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park, the relocated Rockingham site in Franklin Township and the 1860 House on Montgomery Road near Rocky Hill.
Beginning at the intersection of Route 206 and River Road in Montgomery, the route runs north along River Road on the west side of the Millstone River, across the causeway linking Millstone and East Millstone, and south on Canal Road through Franklin Township.
The route proceeds into Kingston by way of Kingston-Rocky Hill Road, turns south for a short distance on Route 27 before heading north again on Kingston-Rocky Hill Road by way of Church Street in Kingston.
The route then crosses the D&R Canal and the Millstone River on Route 518 and turns north again on Montgomery Road, in Rocky Hill, past the 1860 house, to Route 206 and River Road.
"Because of its intrinsic historic, scenic ... natural and recreational qualities, it was a natural candidate," DOT spokesman David Byars said.
Coalition members will now work with the DOT in applying for federal money to fund the project.
The National Scenic Byways Program, a part of the Federal Highway Administration, will evaluate, among other things, the corridor's current condition and historic value and the state's proposed strategy for its preservation, then judge its worthiness compared to nearly 300 other scenic byway applications nationwide.
Any federal money secured for the project will be used to hire a consultant to formulate a more comprehensive corridor management plan detailing the long-term preservation strategy for the area.
"There's a very complicated list of criteria we look at," said Sharon Hurt Davidson, spokeswoman for the National Scenic Byways Program. The program typically grants $22-25 million each year, she said, and has designated 84 scenic byways across the country in its eight years of existence. "Unfortunately, we always receive many more eligible projects than we have the money to fund," she said.
In previous years, Ms. Davidson said, Congress has left the decisions over which projects to fund up to the Federal Highway Administration, which considers applications from all 50 states. This year, however, Congress is considering diverting the bulk of the scenic byway funds to just six states, effectively eliminating nationwide competition.
"They've always had the authority to do this," Ms. Davidson said. "They've just never used it."
Fortunately for the Millstone River project, New Jersey is one of the six states. The current version of the highway spending bill before Congress for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 would provide $4 million for the Garden State's scenic byways program, the Associated Press reported Monday. The $4 million would still be administered by the Federal Highway Administration, but with the proviso that it be spent in New Jersey, Ms. Davidson said.
There are currently no nationally designated scenic byways in New Jersey. The Millstone River Valley is just the second scenic byway designated by the state.
©Packet Online 2001
Clones resist fungus that killed most trees
06/25/01
By JOSEPH DEE
Staff WriterThey were common, towering trees of uncommon beauty.
Almost anyone who grew up east of the Rocky Mountains before 1970 is likely to have a cherished memory or two of elm trees.
They were the ones that were often planted on both sides of city streets to allow their gracefully flaring limbs to form vaulted canopies of shade.
A rare, surviving example of the almost magical space created by artfully planted elms is experienced by motorists and joggers who travel along Washington Road in West Windsor between Route 1 and Princeton Borough.
The American elm species was almost wiped out in a man-made nightmare that lasted for decades, apparently from the time a log, infected with a deadly fungus, was imported from Europe in 1930. As the log was carried by rail from Cleveland to a Cincinnati furniture maker, spores of Ophiostoma ulmi
wafted to elms growing along the tracks.From that accidental introduction, it was only a matter of time before the fungus was carried by elm bark beetles to elms throughout the continent.
A sudden and irreversible wilting of an elm's leathery, green leaves was the calling card of the almost uniformly fatal Dutch elm disease. By the end of the 1960s, more than 100 million of the stately trees had died.
Portland, Maine, was once nicknamed "City of Elms" because residents had planted so many of them, according to elm enthusiast Bruce Carley, of Acton, Mass. But the "frighteningly efficient epidemic" and attempts by residents and city officials to halt the spread of Dutch elm disease, by cutting down and burning all infected specimens, eventually led to a new nickname -- "City of Firewood."
Now, thanks to decades of research, the Ulmus americana is back. Denny Townsend and two colleagues at the U.S. National Arboretum published their findings in the Journal of Environmental Horticulture in 1995.
"Several clones showed disease tolerance much higher than average American elm seedlings and, although not immune, offer promise for the return of this species to the landscape," Townsend wrote.
The article sparked renewed interest in the trees among nurserymen, who started experimenting with ways to mass-clone them, and more recently among architects who have started specifying them in their blueprints, according to Andrea Bonville, research and development specialist at Princeton
Nurseries in Allentown.Unlike natural reproduction through pollination, cloning assures that the genetic disease-tolerant qualities of a particular variety are passed along to new trees, Bonville said.
Townsend found the "Valley Forge" variety to be the most disease-tolerant, with "New Harmony" and "Princeton" tied for second. Another variety, "American Liberty," which actually is six distinct varieties marketed under the one name, also exhibits good disease tolerance.
"Right now we have the `Princeton' elm available," said Bonville, noting that Princeton Nurseries, which selected and named the elm from numerous clones it grew in 1922, are wholesalers only. Most of its elms are bought by garden centers and nurseries in New England, she said.
"The `New Harmony' and `Valley Forge' varieties are currently in production," she said. They will be available for sale in 2002 and 2004, respectively, she said.
Riveredge Farms in Atlanta is selling "Princeton" elms by mail order for $39.95, plus $11.50 shipping and handling. The trees are 1 or 2 years old and 2 1/2 to 4 feet high. They'll grow quickly, 3 to 6 feet per year.
Roger Holloway, owner of Riveredge Farms (americanelm.com), said it was difficult to perfect his cloning technique. "It took us several years and some frustrating failures to get to this point," Holloway said. "We killed up to 15,000 (cuttings) the first time around, two years ago."
He started selling elms by mail last year. "We're up against the stigma of
Dutch elm disease. Many people think all elm trees were wiped out. But we've
sold in the thousands and can produce tens of thousands per year. I'm the
only one doing this large-scale with `Princeton' elms," he said.Some of the old "Princeton" elms on Washington Road have succumbed to Dutch elm disease over the years, despite fungicide treatments, Princeton University spokeswoman Marilyn Marks said.
Those trees, closest to the edges of the road, are owned by Mercer County. Rows of younger "American Liberty" elms behind the mature trees are on university property, Marks said. They are among the 300 of that variety donated in 1990 by John Hansel, Class of 1946.
"American Liberty" varieties can be bought through Elm Research Institute, Westmoreland, N.H.
Carley's comprehensive Web site (http://users.aol.com/BCarley978/elmpost.htm) has a link to ERI and other sellers.Townsend continues his research in Maryland. "We have tried to make crosses between `Valley Forge' and other disease-tolerant American elm selections, and we have about 500 seedlings from those crosses growing in a field in Delaware, Ohio," he said last week.
"They'll be inoculated next year and so out of those could come some even better trees than "Valley Forge" or "New Harmony" or "Princeton."
Carley recently e-mailed Townsend, encouraging him to release new elm varieties. "I would suggest releasing new elm varieties even if it turns out that their Dutch elm disease-tolerance is more or less on the same level as `Valley Forge' or `New Harmony,' because I feel that a lack of genetic diversity in the currently available varieties remains a glaring weakness in the American elm restoration field."
"A lot of municipalities are using them as street trees once again," Bonville said. She said Princeton Nurseries recommends planting different varieties. "That's one of the lessons the Dutch elm disease taught us -- that monoculture is not necessarily a good idea."
Copyright 2001 The Times
Toll foes find hope in discovery of relics
By: David M. Campbell, Staff Writer
May 08, 2001 Indian objects unearthed at project site in West Windsor.
WEST WINDSOR - Mercy Bruestle, 67, remembers looking for Indian arrowheads
and other relics as a child in the field near her Bear Brook Road home, where she still lives today."I just know growing up as a child that was the folklore of the area, and frequently it was that we would take walks on Sundays into the fields, and one area pointed out to me by the other children, that's where the Indian was said to be buried," she said. "It was just an accepted folklore in the area, that there were Indians there."
According to Mike Gregg of the state's Historic Preservation Office, a consulting firm for the Toll Brothers development firm, which plans to build a 1,165-unit development on the field Ms. Bruestle once explored as a child, has uncovered evidence that confirms local folklore.
Mr. Gregg said the Cultural Resource Consulting Group, of Highland Park, recently discovered five pre-contact Indian campsites on the 426-acre site dating from the late archaic period, about 3,000 years ago. Artifacts included broken chipped stone tools, stone flaking debris and fire-cracked rocks.
He said three additional historic sites dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries were also found on the site, where Euro-American farmsteads had once stood. Ceramic fragments, butchered animal bone and building hardware were among the artifacts found, Mr. Gregg said.
Township officials now wonder what impact, if any, the find will have on Toll's planned development there.
"We really don't know," said Township Attorney Michael Herbert. "I really can't tell you until we look at the phase-two study to determine the scope of the relics, and whether they will have an impact. If it's a protected Indian burial ground, it could mean no building on that site."
Mr. Herbert said the findings were uncovered by a phase-one study. The phase-two study, which he said has been completed by Toll but has not yet been released, will be a more thorough investigation.
Sharon Southard, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees Mr. Gregg's office, said the department won't know what impact the find will have on Toll's ability to build until it has reviewed its application, which she said has not yet been filed by the developer.
Henry Hill, Toll's attorney, said Monday, "We don't anticipate a problem."
He said, "It can't legally (have an impact) from a municipal point of view," because township conditions to build, which were fought over in court, made no mention of protecting artifacts.
The Township Planning Board, constrained by court order, approved the first phase of the massive Estates at Princeton Junction development in January following a prolonged court battle. The township is still awaiting word from the state Supreme Court on whether it will hear the township's appeal of an appellate court ruling in August granting Toll the right to
build.Council President Kristin Appelget said, however, that federal and state regulations could factor into Toll's plan to build.
"This is something that has come up through the state looking into that property," she said. "If there is something of historic significance, it is our responsibility and Toll's to make sure it is preserved."
Mayor Carole Carson said the benefit of the find is that it forces Toll to conduct further study.
"I do believe that at that point, they're going to find something," she said.
Joe O'Shea, president of the Windsor Haven Condominium Association, has been fighting Toll over stormwater impacts the development will have on Windsor Haven residents, and said he fears relics will be washed onto his site, a circumstance he said he does not want to see.
"These things have been found and identified on the Toll site," he said. "If these archeological remnants are swept onto our site during a storm, the condominium association will then be responsible for the maintenance and mitigation of any state and federal requirements with regard to those relics."
Ms. Bruestle, who grew up knowing about the Indians, had some opinions of her own about the future of the Toll site.
"Yes, there's something to it," she said of the relics. "I joke sometimes the Indians don't want anyone to build on that land, because it's just been one thing after another that has prevented the development from starting. It sort of gives me an eerie feeling."
©The Princeton Packet 2001
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