Encampment

LAKEWOOD, N.J. - Officials in a Jersey Shore community are taking steps to dismantle a homeless encampment. Summonses were recently issued to the leaders of the "Tent City" encampment in the woods of Lakewood where about 80 people live. Steve Brigham, who founded the encampment in Ocean County and who works with its homeless residents, told the Asbury Park Press authorities initially told him they would impose daily fines of $1,000 for each of the site's 100 tents and 80 wood-burning stoves.

Months after dozens of Camden's homeless were dramatically transported from their tent city and promised housing for a year, some have moved into a new encampment blocks from where they began. Their presence in another outdoor settlement in Camden reflects the mixed results of a pastor's innovative, highly publicized effort to provide a better life for 54 street people, whom he escorted by motor coach to a Mount Laurel hotel in May. It also shows the complications involved in solving the homeless problem in New Jersey's poorest city.

A middle-age woman was fatally burned Sunday morning in what authorities said was a suspicious fire at a homeless encampment in woods behind a Bristol Township shopping center in Bucks County. Firefighters called to the site about 10:30 a.m. found the encampment fully engulfed in flames, police said. The woman, whose identity was not released, was nearby, "screaming and on fire," a Bristol Township police statement said. She was taken to Lower Bucks County Hospital. Buck County fire officials said the blaze happened under "suspicious circumstances," but would not elaborate.

For most Americans today, the encampment at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78 is more a state of mind - the will to endure - than a geographic location. Yet, even as Washington's army marched out of the encampment in the spring of 1778, the site and what it symbolized began to fade from the new nation's memory. The emphasis of the republic was building and expanding - on the future, not the past. "During the early 19th century, Americans tended to be indifferent to their history . . . also surprisingly indifferent to the physical remains of history," writes Lorett Treese in her book, Valley Forge: Making and Remaking A National Symbol.

High atop a hill in Valley Forge National Historical Park, underneath well-manicured grasses crossed by meandering tourists and wildlife, an archaeological team has hit the jackpot: Continental Army trash. After weeks of digging for what George Washington's troops left behind, they have found artifacts such as musket balls and uniform buttons, as well as some skeletal remains undisturbed for more than 200 years. "It is absolutely amazing out here. We've found so much that really brings home what life for Washington and his army must have been like then," said Eleanor Herbert of Gwynedd, a volunteer in the park-sponsored dig. "We've found buttons from soldiers' uniforms, cuff links, bones.

Love or war? Take your pick this weekend as re-enactors exchange rings during a Civil War-era wedding in Bristol Borough and exchange gunfire during a Revolutionary War skirmish in Washington Crossing. Colonial soldiers will take on the British on Saturday, starting in open fields and then moving to a wooded area near the Delaware River and into the historic village at Washington Crossing Historic Park. The re-enactors will set up camp at the park Saturday and Sunday. Demonstrating that life goes on during wartime, a Civil War soldier will marry his betrothed in a ceremony written in the 1860s.

The Valley Forge National Historic Park centennial celebration included an encampment re-enactment and dedication of a 10-foot granite monument, entitled "Patriots of African Descent. " The monument honors a regiment of 400 black soldiers who participated in the encampment of 1777-78.

An 18th-century military encampment took place on the grounds of Historic Graeme Park in Horsham. Volunteer soldiers from the Northamptontowne Militia showed visitors what camp life was like when Gen. Anthony Wayne's brigade camped there prior to the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777. Visitors at Sunday's encampment saw soldiers drilling and cleaning weapons, as well as re- creations of military engagements. Women who accompanied the soldiers weaved on small, portable looms and cooked over open fires.

Boy Scouts from across the country gathered at the 79th Annual Valley Forge Council Pilgrimage and Encampment last weekend. Scouts arrived Friday to pitch their tents on the lowlands north of the Schuylkill in Valley Forge Park. At this year's encampment and the pilgrimage Saturday through the park, which drew 1,750 scouts in all, the scouts learned about battle tactics and the roles of black Americans in the Revolutionary War.

SHIP OUT to World War I today as the USS Olympia hosts a re-enacted encampment with men in authentic uniforms. The Olympia is docked at Delaware Avenue and Spruce Street. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission is $3 for adults and $1.50 for children under 12.

LAKEWOOD, N.J. - Officials in a Jersey Shore community are taking steps to dismantle a homeless encampment. Summonses were recently issued to the leaders of the "Tent City" encampment in the woods of Lakewood where about 80 people live. Steve Brigham, who founded the encampment in Ocean County and who works with its homeless residents, told the Asbury Park Press authorities initially told him they would impose daily fines of $1,000 for each of the site's 100 tents and 80 wood-burning stoves.

BURIN, West Bank - Israeli troops fired tear gas and stun grenades in a clash with rock-hurling Palestinians on Saturday as the forces tried to dismantle an encampment that activists set up in the West Bank to protest Israeli restrictions on building in the territory. The al-Manatir camp - four tents and five metal shacks built in a Palestinian olive grove near the West Bank village of Burin - is the fourth protest encampment that Palestinians have tried to establish in recent weeks.

EXACTLY one year ago, Fishtown's Dustin Slaughter was one of a couple of hundred protesters who - turned away from New York's Wall Street by a thick blue wall of cops - streamed into a then-unknown corner of real estate called Zuccotti Park to spend the night. Virtually no one noticed. Over the next few months, Slaughter, 33, a filmmaker and alternative journalist, became a virtual Zelig of the movement soon known as Occupy Wall Street - always in the picture. He was there when 700 protesters were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge and when Occupy Philly took root in Dilworth Plaza.

Organizers of two groups that grew out of the Occupy movement will begin a series of events in Philadelphia on Saturday and are promising peace, love, street protests, and fierce political debate. And, probably, camping. Only one of the groups has members who may camp. That would be the people who organized the Occupy Philly encampment last fall outside City Hall. They are pulling together six days of activities they are calling the "National Gathering. " Dustin Slaughter, one of the representatives handling reporters' questions for the gathering, said organizers do not know how many people will attend but believe it could be as many as 2,000.

Organizers of two groups that grew out of the Occupy movement kick off events in Philadelphia Saturday and are promising, peace, love, street protests, and fierce political debate. And, probably, camping. Only one of the groups has members that may camp. That would be the people who organized the Occupy Philly encampment last fall outside City Hall and are pulling together six days of activities they are calling the "National Gathering. " Dustin Slaughter, one of the representatives handling media questions for the National Gathering, said organizers don't know how many people will attend but believe it could be as many as 2,000.

SAN FRANCISCO - Police arrested dozens of people during a raid of an Occupy San Francisco encampment outside the Federal Reserve building early Sunday. San Francisco Police Officer Albie Esparza said that around 4 a.m., officers arrested about 55 people for illegal lodging. Esparza said that before police moved in on the encampment, demonstrators had been warned hourly for 24 hours that they were subject to arrest. The arrests Sunday came after at least 85 people were arrested Wednesday when police cleared a separate Occupy encampment in nearby Justin Herman Plaza.

Philadelphia's City Hall tower has reopened to tours following its closure on Sept. 22 because a crack was discoverd in the structure. The tours resumed last week, but the announcement apparently was lost in the stir surrounding the ouster of the Occupy Phialdelphia encampment from City Hall's Dilworth Plaza. The tower and its obervation deck were closed to tours on Sept. 22 after a crack was discovered on its north side. The crack may have been caused by the earthquake that rocked the East Coast a month earlier.

EIGHT WEEKS AGO tonight, more than 1,000 Philadelphians packed a church on North Broad Street with this crazy idealistic notion that an open-ended campout at City Hall could mark the beginning of the end for rampant income inequality and corporate greed. They were schoolteachers and the hopelessly unemployed, Quakers and anarchists - all agreeing with 69-year-old Carol Finkle, who told a reporter: "This is the first time in my adult life I feel there's some hope. " Last night, on an unseasonably balmy evening that recalled those first hopeful nights of an American Autumn at 15th and Market, hundreds from Occupy Philly rallied one more time - this time ringed by police officers and a police wagon that signaled the imminent end of their fall encampment.

Members of Occupy Philadelphia met late into Saturday night to propose ways to react to the anticipated arrests of those refusing to leave Dilworth Plaza after Mayor Nutter's 5 p.m. Sunday deadline. Earlier in the day, small groups had broken off to discuss how to respond to the mayor's decision to bring in police if the encampment continued past the deadline. "There will be a rally outside the Roundhouse [the police administration building] if there are mass arrests," said Stephen Metzger, one of those organizing the discussion - and using a bullhorn to make himself heard over the shouts of a man who repeatedly interrupted speakers, demanding that people listen to him. Among other proposals was encouraging a large contingent of homeless people who also have been staying in Dilworth Plaza to move to Logan Square before 5 p.m. Officer Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman, said the department was prepared to make arrests if necessary.

Members of Occupy Philadelphia met late into Saturday night proposing ways to react to the anticipated arrests of those refusing to leave Dilworth Plaza after Mayor Nutter's 5 p.m. Sunday deadline. Earlier in the day, small groups had broken off to discuss how to respond to the mayor's decision to bring in police if the encampment continued past the deadline. "There will be a rally outside the Roundhouse [the police adminstration building] if there are mass arrests," said Stephen Metzger, one of the people organizing the discussion.