Cannonball in a Wall

Chesterfield, New Jersey

A surprisingly large amount of the Revolutionary War was fought in New Jersey. One memento of those days is a cannonball that embedded itself in the outside wall of the Crosswicks Quaker Friends Meeting House on June 23, 1778. Since both sides were blasting each other in Crosswicks at the time, its unknown which side fired this particular shot.

A number of landmark U.S. buildings still wear ballistic badges of wartime honor; this must be one of the oldest. The cannonball was mortared into place and can still be seen today, although it hit the second floor and is thus too high to touch (which may have saved it from grabby souvenir collectors). Every once in a while a cartoon arrow is stuck onto the brick wall to make the cannonball easier to spot, but it seems to keep falling off.