Relics of the American Revolutionary War have been turning up all over town for decades. And now the Ridgefield Historical Society has advanced to a critical part of its Battle of Ridgefield Archaeology Project as the country prepares to mark 250 years of American democracy.
Since 2001, the Society has preserved, interpreted, and fostered public knowledge of the town’s historical, cultural, and architectural heritage.
“The first phase was completed in 2022, when Heritage Consultants LLC, a Connecticut-based cultural resources firm, carried out documentation and mapping work,” said Stephen Bartkus, executive director of the Ridgefield Historical Society. “We’re in a second phase of a longer stewardship effort funded through the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program that is archaeology-focused.”
That includes field survey, excavation, and advanced tools like metal detection and geophysics to better define the battlefield and answer specific research questions.
“We’re grateful for the funding because this kind of research is specialized and expensive. Grants like (the battlefield protection program) are essential for nonprofit historical organizations because they let us do work that becomes a public resource, maps, reports, preserved artifacts, and educational programs, at a scale we could not fund alone,” said Bartkus.
He noted the project’s main objective is to expand and elaborate an understanding of the Battle of Ridgefield and its participants while also defining battlefield boundaries through archaeology, identifying areas with integrity, building community investment, and assessing National Register eligibility.
“As we approach the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, this project ensures that Ridgefield’s role is understood not just as a story we tell, but as a landscape we’ve carefully studied, documented, and preserved for future generations,” said James Segelstein, historical society board member and chair of the Battle of Ridgefield Archaeology Project Committee.
The study area of the battlefield encompasses roughly 400 acres across all of Ridgefield. In this phase, Heritage is conducting fieldwork in four areas using metal detection, magnetometry, targeted excavation, and Ground Penetrating Radar, a non-invasive technique that uses radio waves emitted from an antenna and records reflections to create a picture of buried features. “Essentially it helps us ‘see’ below the surface without digging first,” said Bartkus. It helps identify buried features such as foundations; grave shafts/burials; wells and trenches; and broader subsurface patterning.
So far, they’ve discovered musket balls, uniform buttons, and other ammunition. “Authentication in battlefield archaeology is about context + documentation: Each metal-detected find is recorded with depth, soil association, material/object type, and GPS location, then mapped into a GIS so patterns can be interpreted relative to the battlefield landscape,” he said.
Along with Heritage Consultants, who specialize in archaeology, military/public history, GIS/GPS mapping, and geophysical studies, like ground-penetrating radar and magnetometry and their professional team of metal detectorists, the Society has partnered with the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office for technical guidance.
According to Bartkus, it’s important to study history, especially the Battle of Ridgefield.
“History matters,” Bartkus said. “It helps a community understand who we are, what happened here, and why it still shapes the present, and archaeology adds something unique: it can test what written sources claim.”
The Battle of Ridgefield is significant because it’s widely described as the only inland battle in Connecticut fought between American and British forces during the Revolutionary War, and it unfolded across a large swath of town, not at a single contained site.
From the project they hope to learn the following: where engagements and skirmishes occurred (and how troop movements actually played out on the landscape); how archaeology can help answer lingering questions, such as where burials may be located and how the battlefield’s broader “support system” worked (encampments, field hospitals, etc.). It also helps people obtain a fuller story of participants, including underrepresented groups and the impact of Loyalists, women, and children in the community during and after the battle.
The first phase sharpened the documentary picture, sequencing accounts, clarifying militia roles, building a better timeline, and documenting Black soldiers’ presence in Continental service. This phase adds physical evidence, artifacts and subsurface features that confirm where events happened and add ‘on-the-ground’ detail such as where soldiers stood, moved, fired, dropped equipment, etc.
Bartkus is grateful this work connects residents to the literal ground beneath them. “Because much of the battlefield lies on private land, it also creates a positive, community-based model of stewardship where property owners can help preserve a nationally important story,” he said.
