When a New Jersey pork roll king's opera house was facing a wrecking ball in the 1970s, art lovers scrambled to rescue a large mural displayed there for decades.
The mural, "George Washington Crossing the Delaware," was painted by renowned Philadelphia artist George M. Harding in 1921 for the Taylor Opera House in Trenton, a large theater built in 1867 by John Taylor, the founder of Taylor Pork Roll. Art conservators, according to a 1972 New York Times article, took the painting down before demolition, believing it would be displayed in a visitors' center at Washington Crossing State Park for the nation's bicentennial in 1976.
The painting was coated in wheat paste and Japanese rice paper, rolled up, then stored, for unknown reasons, in a building at Ringwood State Park, 80 miles north, in Passaic County. If not for a historian with a keen eye, the mural might have been forgotten forever.
"It just sat there, rolled in a dank basement for 50 years, near some Christmas decorations," said Patricia Millen, a historian and coauthor of the book Images of America: Washington Crossing.
Millen, 65, of Ewing Township, Mercer County, discovered a small reference to the mural while researching her book in 2021. Harding's name "jumped out" at her. A Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts graduate and, later, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Harding was a renowned muralist. He served as an official combat artist during both World Wars and worked as an illustrator for Harper's Magazine. His Works Progress Administration murals can be found in many government buildings in the Northeast.
"So I researched a little more, then wondered 'Did I miss this mural at the visitor center?' " Millen said.
Harding's mural, roughly 15 x 10 feet, was too big for the visitors' center, Millen learned, so it was simply stored away, in North Jersey. After a little more digging, Millen called park historians at Ringwood.
"Is it still there?" she asked.
Once rediscovered, the painting was rolled out and assessed for possible display in 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Annette Earling, executive director of the Washington Crossing Park Association of New Jersey, said her organization is raising $60,900 to restore and reframe the mural.
"Well, it's very dirty and there was some damage from the rolling," Earling said. "It will be completely restored."
Earling said the restored mural will be displayed in a new visitors' center museum at Washington Crossing in time for the semiquincentennial. That visitors' center is set to break ground this fall.
Millen, whose close reading found the forgotten mural, said Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas in 1776 was a defining moment in the Revolutionary War.
"And it's also the iconic image of the Revolution," she said. "I'm so excited it's going back where it belongs."
