Middletown Historical society receives federal grant

MIDDLETOWN – The Middletown Historical Society has won a $67,200 federal grant to capture the story behind the Battle of Rhode Island in August 1778.
The grant is part of National Park Service awards announced Wednesday totaling more than $1.19 million in American Battlefield Protection grants to research, document or interpret dozens of significant American battlefields representing more than 300 years of history.
“From a swamp of Connecticut, to shipwrecks off the shore of Yorktown, to a small island in Pearl Harbor; these places hold clues to our past,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “Preserving and understanding these sites allows us to reveal a complex history representing multiple sides of the story, as well as stories of sacrifice and heroism that ultimately shaped our nation today.”
In Rhode Island, the historical society will develop a map, timeline and narrative of Colonial and British fortifications involved in the 1778 battle. This was the first battle to involve a combined French-Colonial force in the Revolutionary War, and contributed to Britain’s withdrawal from Newport the following year.
Federal, tribal, state and local governments, nonprofit organizations and educational institutions are eligible for the battlefield grants, which are awarded annually.
Since 1996, the federal program has awarded more than $16 million to help preserve significant historic battlefields associated with wars on American soil.

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