The Haddon Heights Historical Society was pleased to feature Mr. Ralph Siegel, proprietor of Trenton Battlefield Tours.org as the speaker at the July 2005 meeting. Through the use of a multimedia slides and his practiced and enthusiastic delivery, Mr. Siegel packed a great amount of information into a necessarily brief presentation. Using brief biological sketches and easily-understood battlefield diagrams, he showed how the Colonial forces attacking the British and Germans at Trenton in the winter of 1776-77 utilized brilliant strategy--not to mention a healthy dose of audacity--to outmaneuver a vastly larger British force. The victories at Trenton turned what had been a faltering campain completely around and laid the groundwork for the eventual Colonial victory.

In addition to speaking about the Battles of Trenton, Mr. Siegel, who is also Executive Director of the Garden State Preservation Trust, the financing agency for open space and farmland preservation in NJ, talked about the preservation efforts of that organization. Those efforts included the successful passage of NJ Assembly Resolution 58, which now designates a 24 block section of Trenton on which much of the aforementioned Battles occurred, as the Trenton Battlefield Historic Area.

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