Historic sites in Somerset, Camden counties awarded $1 million for restoration

The National Park Service has awarded the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection $1 million for two state historic sites, in Somerset and Camden counties, DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette announced.

The funds are for restorative work at the Wallace House in Somerville and the Indian King Tavern in Haddonfield. They are part of the Semiquincentennial Grant Program commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

“Both of these sites hold the history of critical moments in New Jersey’s and our country’s history and founding as a free nation,” said Assistant Commissioner for State Parks, Forests & Historic Sites John Cecil in a statement.

The Wallace House was the country home of Philadelphia merchant John Wallace and was the largest private dwelling built in New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. The home served as General George Washington’s winter headquarters for the 1778-79 Middlebrook Cantonment.

Grant funds will go toward replacing the Wallace House’s roof, repairing soffits and installing effective rainwater drainage to protect the house from weather and climate. It will also help pay for restoring windows and foundations, removing non-historic stucco on the Wallace House’s chimneys and restoring the 18th-century appearance of the roofscape lost more than a century ago.

The Indian King Tavern was where the newly elected New Jersey Legislature met during the first nine months of 1777 to discuss and vote upon issues of the Revolutionary War and the running of the new state government. The Indian King Tavern would later become the first state-owned historic site in New Jersey in 1903.

The grant will go toward stabilizing the Indian King Tavern’s envelope, which will include masonry work, plaster repairs and painting of the building's interior and exterior. A structure’s envelope separates the internal building from the external portion which includes the roof, doors, windows, floors and walls.

Created by Congress in 2020 and funded through the federal Historic Preservation Fund, the Semiquincentennial Grant Program's first round of funding includes $7 million to support 17 cultural resource preservation projects across 12 states.

Congress appropriated funding for the Semiquincentennial Grant Program in 2021 through the Historic Preservation Fund.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: National Park Service gives $1M to restore NJ historic sites