By DEBORAH GERTZ HUSAR

Herald-Whig Staff Writer

BARRY, Ill. -- New Philadelphia, the community founded by former slave Free Frank McWorter in 1836, is heading toward another national distinction.

New Philadelphia Association members will be in Washington, D.C., Wednesday morning for a National Park Service hearing on the site's nomination as a national historic landmark.

"It's another milestone for us," said Carol McCartney, association secretary, who will attend the hearing and speak if needed.

Hearing officials are expected to make their recommendation Wednesday on granting the second highest designation given by the federal government, second only to becoming a national park. The final decision rests with Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, who oversees the park service.

Paul Shackel, chairman of the University of Maryland department of anthropology who oversaw a three-year field school, is optimistic.

"If it's gotten this far, I think it's got a good chance of being recommended," Shackel said.

About two dozen letters of support will be presented, along with oral testimony from New Philadelphia Association President Phil Bradshaw; Free Frank descendant Patricia McWorter; and Charlotte King, who began working with the site in 2003 and wrote the nomination as a graduate school project.

"We're excited," King said. "It's quite a lengthy process, but I certainly am passionate about this."

About 80,000 sites, including New Philadelphia, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Shackel said fewer than 2,400 are national historic landmarks.

Illinois has 84 national historic landmarks, including Cahokia Mounds, the Abraham Lincoln home and tomb, the Nauvoo Historic District and the Old State Capitol.

If the association seeks in the future to make the site a national park, one thing Congress asks is whether it is a national historic landmark.

"If it is, it will be a lot easier to make it a national park. We're one step closer," Shackel said.

Becoming a national historic landmark will give New Philadelphia "more importance ... so the site will be always remembered," McCartney said.

The designation also could open up more funding sources and provide technical preservation advice for the association as it continues work at the site.

The association began in 1996 as an effort to get a new sign for the site. Since then, the association bought the Burdick House on the New Philadelphia site, continues work to buy the rest of the town site and sponsors an annual lecture series.

The National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates program awarded the site a three-year grant in 2004 and a second three-year grant in 2008 for a summer field school that brings undergraduate students from across the nation to New Philadelphia. They conduct archaeological digs followed by lab analysis of the finds at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield.

-- dhusar@whig.com/221-3379