It’s official: Dolington to be cemetery site [Archive] - Marine Corps

thedrifter

01-09-06, 12:14 PM

January 9, 2006
New veterans cemetery to be built near nation's first
Veterans Affairs chief announces site in Bucks, 2 miles from graves of Washington's soldiers.
By Steve Wartenberg
Of The Morning Call

Standing in a large field, dead corn stalks and dried cobs at his feet, Ed Hackett contemplated eternity.

''I want that one over there,'' the Newtown resident and former marine who served in Korea said as he pointed to a nearby ridge that could one day be the site of his final resting place. ''I want a good view.''

On Sunday afternoon, Hackett and about 20 other Bucks County veterans joined U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary R. James Nicholson on the 200-acre Dolington tract for a quick tour and photo opportunity shortly before the official news conference/pep rally to announce what everyone already knew: the Upper Makefield Township site was the winner in the contest to determine southeastern Pennsylvania's national veterans cemetery.

''It means a lot to us,'' Hackett said of the farmland at Dolington and Washington Crossing roads.

''It's a respectful place, it's pristine.''

The $32 million cemetery, which will include about 200,000 burial sites, should be ready for funerals in 2008, according to Nicholson.

''I just turned 80 and I want to be here one day, so they better hurry up and get it finished,'' said Fred Caldwell, a Northampton Township resident and Navy veteran of World War II and Korea. ''It's ideal and everyone's saying George Washington and his troops came through here.''

Minutes later, before a standing room crowd of more than 400 cheering veterans packed into the auditorium at nearby Washington Crossing Historic Park, Nicholson made the news official. ''On Christmas Day 1776 a small band of nearly-frozen, ill-clad, some of them shoeless, band of citizen soldiers [crossed the Delaware River] not far from what is soon to be the site of southeastern Pennsylvania's national veterans cemetery.''

The country owes veterans a final resting place in ''a shrine-like setting,'' Nicholson said.

There are about 570,000 veterans in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Many of the speakers at the news conference, including U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick and U.S. Senators Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter (who was in Washington and spoke via telephone), talked about how the beauty of the property and history of the area made the Dolington tract a good choice.

The nation's first veterans, Nicholson said, were buried at Washington Crossing Historical Park, about two miles from the Dolington tract.

According to park officials, 35 to 60 soldiers were buried in a mass gave at the site in December 1776.

The National Cemetery Expansion Act of 2003 authorized the creation of a veterans cemetery in southeastern Pennsylvania. After two years of debate, lobbying and politicking, the Dolington site was chosen, beating out the former site of the Pennhurst State School and Hospital in Chester County that was championed by U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach.

A 200-acre Riegelsville site in Upper Bucks, owned by St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church, was also considered, as was a site next to Graterford State Prison in Montgomery County and a part of Valley Forge National Historic Park.

Santorum called the process ''rocky,'' Specter called it a ''long struggle''and Fitzpatrick said that when he took office a year ago the Dolington site was all but dead.

''I credit Congressman Fitzpatrick, he worked tirelessly and significantly advanced the possibility of this initiative,'' said John Mangano, division president of Toll Brothers. The Horsham developer sold the tract to the Department of Veterans Affairs for $7 million.

steve.wartenberg@mcall.com

215-529-2607

Ellie