Vernon Historical Society

Promoting activities relating to the history of Vernon Township, New Jersey.

Black Creek Site

Facts about the Black Creek Site

The Black Creek Site in Vernon Township is listed on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. The site is one of only three Native American sites in New Jersey listed on the historic registers.

Artifacts found at the site date back 10,000 years. These artifacts represent the Early Archaic to the Late Woodland Periods

The Nanticoke Lenni Lenape Indians of New Jersey joined efforts with local residents to nominate and preserve the Black Creek Site.

Native Americans from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Canada have visited the Black Creek Site, making the Black Creek Site the unifying force for Lenape people throughout the United States and Canada.

Pro bono attorneys from the prestigious Washington D.C. law firm of Piper Rudnick donated more than $600,000 in legal services for the preservation of the Black Creek Site.

It took more than 25 legal and legislative hearings before the Black Creek Site was listed on the historic registers and preserved.

The Black Creek Site preservation team won an award from the Sate of New Jersey in 2002.

The Vernon Township Historical Society thanks Dorothy Guzzo, director of the NJ Historic Preservation Office, and her staff for their dedication and effort in making the Black Creek Site a New Jersey and National Register listed site.

  • Butterfly
  • Our friends, the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape of Bridgeton, NJ, conduct a prayer ceremony at the Black Creek Site in this photo taken by Greg Werkheiser at the 2007 grand opening.
  • A field view of the Black Creek Site in the Vernon Valley
  • Hammer stones, primitive tools, and spear points found at the Black Creek Site
  • Artifacts found at the Black Creek Site
  • After the Black Creek Site was nominated for the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places, and despite specific advice from the State Historic Preservation Office and numerous archaeologists not to dig up the site, geologist Philip LaPorta, contracted and paid by the Township of Vernon, forged ahead using an invasive and destructive backhoe. LaPorta’s actions were in contradiction to the advice of the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office and in total disregard of the cultural resource.
  • American Indians from South Jersey and Pennsylvania gathered at the site while LaPorta did his backhoe dig.
  • On the ill-fated September 11, 2001, a group including Rick Patterson, Jessi Paladini, and Rita Pentenreider of Highland Lakes; archaeologist Cara Blume of Delaware; Chief Mark Gould, Tribal Council Leader Urie Ridgeway and Pat Rossello of the Bridgeton Lenape; Earl Evans of the Haliwa-Suponi Tribe of South Carolina; and Attorney Greg Werkheiser of Washington, D.C. (taking the photograph) went to Trenton for the hearing on the nomination of the Black Creek site for the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. Little did they know that another historic but sad event would take place on that day, postponing the hearing on the nomination until December of that same year.
  • Society President Jessi Paladini, Rick Patterson, Deb Israel, Greg Werkheiser, Rick Affleck, Barbara Maneri, and Earl Evans of the Black Creek Site preservation team accept the 2002 Historic Preservation Award for preserving and listing the Black Creek Site onto the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. Presenting the award at the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton are state officials on the left and right.
  • Many Native Americans such as Steve King, an Oglala Sioux from Pine Ridge, SD, visit the Black Creek Site annually as a homage to the lost home of the Lenni Lenape, New Jersey’s first people. Lenape from the United States and Canada have visited the Black Creek Site as home.
  • This book is a great oral history of our friends, Chief Mark Gould and his mother, “Strong Medicine,” and the Lenape Indians of Bridgeton, N.J. It is a great read. The book is available through amazon.com, through bookstores, or through Amy’s website at http://www.amyhillhearth.com/