Construction on Historic Cooch’s Bridge: Archaeologists and Historians Exhibit Concern
This article originally written by Yusra Asif. Yusra is a senior media communications major at the University of Delaware and works as the associate news editor at The Review and a broadcast news reporter at the Student Television Network at UD. Asif is now a digital content production intern at Mix 99.5 WJBR.
The historic land surrounding the Cooch’s bridge battlefield in Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, is all set to go under construction with plans to build three logistics warehouses adding up to an area of 1 million square feet.
The warehouses that will span on three pieces of land near the southeast corner of South College Avenue and Old Cooch’s Bridge Road have drawn multiple voices of criticism — largely about undermining the historical significance of the battlefield land.
Fought on Sept. 3, 1777, the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge is the only battle in the American revolutionary War fought on Delaware soil. It marks the first time that the United States National flag was flown into the battle.
As per the Newark Post, “The properties under consideration stand at the very pinnacle of Delaware’s history, not only the revolutionary war history, but going back thousands of years to those other Delawareans that lived here long before Europeans arrived,” Michael McGrath, president of Preservation Delaware, said during a meeting of New Castle County’s Historic Review Board on Tuesday evening. “These Native American sites are, if not unique, some of the most important that have been discovered in Delaware.”
While the state protects much of the battlefield site, those opposing the construction — mostly historians — argue that a much larger land area has been included in the warehouse plan, and that the archaeologists must be given some time to analyze the site.
“I believe that archaeologists should at least be given time to thoroughly research the site prior to construction,” Mary Fesak, a PhD student in the American Civilization program at the University of Delaware said. “Once the ground is broken for construction, all of the historical information about the site that could be recovered through archaeology is lost forever.”
According to the developer’s lawyer, Michael Hoffman, they are open to discussing the project with the community.
The Historic Review Board will be voting on it on March 2.