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It has been said Americans lost the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, and 100 years later, lost the battlefield.

The man who helped identify the site and who made it a park thousands enjoy today is about to get some recognition.

The N.C. Highway Historical Marker Advisory Committee has approved a roadside marker for Judge David Schenck.

A Schenck monument stands in Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, “but there is nothing outside the park for him,’' says Alex Stoesen, professor of history emeritus at Guilford College, who urged the committee to salute Schenck.

Greensboro had a Schenck Street, but realignment long ago made it part of Smith Street. The marker, hailing the judge for starting the park, will stand near downtown along Battleground Avenue beside Green Hill Cemetery. The judge, who died in 1902, is buried there.

Schenck resigned his judgeship in 1882 to move from Lincolnton to Greensboro and  practice law.

He became intrigued about the area northwest of the city where Gen. Nathanael Greene’s forces confronted the British on March 15, 1781 — 228 years ago this Sunday.

The battle is called a “victory in defeat.” Greene technically lost because he retreated. But before departing, his army put such a hurting on the British that Britain surrendered later that year at Yorktown.

Schenck once wrote that Greensboro had 3,000 residents when he arrived, and “not a half dozen could point to him the site of the battle.”

The battlefield was known in decades after the battle.  George Washington toured it in 1791. But by the 1880s,  not a single building survived from Guilford Courthouse village.

It lost its purpose in 1808 when the county seat was moved to the new town of Greensboro, six miles away.

Schenck made many buggy rides to look for the battlefield. Using old maps, battle accounts and information from farmers who had dug up relics, Schenck pinpointed the site.

He described it as “a wilderness washed into gullies, covered with old field pines, briar, broomsedge — utterly neglected.”

He bought 70 acres of the battlefield. In 1887, he and others formed the Guilford Battle Ground Co. to create a park. With the Guilford Battle Ground Co.’s blessing, the federal government took control in 1917 and made the battleground the first national park honoring a Revolutionary War battle.

“He was a guy who had vision,” says Stoesen, who spent 15 years on the marker committee and secured many other historical roadside signs for the area.

People use the park today to study history, jog, walk and picnic. It has grown to 220-plus acres, but still amounts to only 20 percent of the battlefield.

The park provides breathing room for growing northwest Greensboro. Schenck’s Guilford Battle Ground Co. still operates. It has made park improvements and purchased additional battlefield land.

Schenck was active in other city affairs, serving a term on what’s now the City Council.

His descendants have served the city well. A grandson, also named David Schenck, was mayor in the 1960s. Great -grandson Jim Schenck and his wife, Anita, long have been leaders in raising money for the Greensboro Historical Museum.

In 1976, Anita Schenck coordinated the U.S. Bicentennial celebration in Guilford County.

“I think it’s great,”’ Jim Schenck says of the honor for his ancestor. “It is past due.”

When the marker is ready in about six months, a dedication will be held on Battleground Avenue, next to the cemetery. (The judge helped expand the burial ground.)

The marker also will be in view of where Schenck’s house once stood in the 400 block of North Edgeworth Street.

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net