John K. Dyke speaking at the 6/10/19 Caucus
*Photo Courtesy of John K. Dyke

Recently, a redevelopment proposal was put before the City Council for the Eagleswood-Celotex Site. It did not include archaeology of this very rich historic land.

You may ask what was Eagleswood? Eagleswood existed from 1854 to 1888. It was a farm, a utopian community, a racially integrated school, a military academy, a Salt Water Day resort, a major station of the Underground Railroad, an early women’s rights center, and an artists’ colony.

Many of the mid-19th Century progressive thinkers, visited, lived or worked at Eagleswood……including Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Grimke Sisters, Theodore Weld, Louis Comfort Tiffany, William Page, George Inness, Horace Greeley, Gerritt Smith, Elizabeth Peabody, Susan B. Anthony, William Cullen Bryant, Bronson & Louis May Alcott, Edward Kemeys, Frederick Law Olmsted, Alexander Jackson Davis, Civil War Hero Admiral Farragut, Mrs. John Brown, Arnold Buffum, the Spring Family and numerous others.

Below the surface ground, the 1854 brownstone foundations of the Eagleswood Phalanx still exist.   You can see part of these foundations in my film documentary entitled “George Inness: Peace & Plenty In Perth Amboy”.  We need to learn more about this important structure.

I ask the Perth Amboy City Council to please require the redeveloper of this historic land to perform archaeology before the site is built upon.  That is, the redeveloper must contract with a professional archaeology firm.    Our City Council has the ability to make this a conditional requirement.  Right now, the City Council has a choice before it:  The City Council can either document our rich history……or simply have it erased.

John Kerry Dyke