[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 114 (Thursday, August 5, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S10436]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. MOYNIHAN:
  S. 1531. A bill to amend the Act establishing Women's Rights National 
Historical Park to permit the Secretary of the Interior to acquire 
title in fee simple to the Hunt House located in Waterloo, New York; to 
the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.


         legislation authorizing the purchase of the hunt house

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill that 
would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to purchase the Hunt 
House in Seneca Falls, New York. This summer the owners of the Hunt 
House put it on the market for $139,000. Of four historic buildings in 
Seneca Falls that should be part of the Women's Rights National 
Historical Park, the Hunt House is the only one that is not. It was the 
site of the gathering of five women (the founding mothers, you might 
say) who decided to hold the nation's first women's rights convention. 
That convention took place in Seneca Falls in July, 1848. The Women's 
Rights Park is a monument to the idea they espoused that summer, that 
women should have equal right with men; one of the most influential 
ideas of the last 150 years.
  Adding the Hunt House to the Park would complete it. The problem is 
that the Department was not given the authorization to purchase the 
Hunt House in the bill I offered 20 years ago so that speculation would 
not drive up the price of the house when it eventually went on the 
market. That worked. But now the lack of an authorization should not 
keep us from being able to acquire the house at all. This bill simply 
removes the restriction against a fee simple purchase by the Park 
Service. I hope my colleagues will offer their support, and I ask that 
the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
  The bill follows:

                                S. 1531

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. ACQUISITION OF HUNT HOUSE.

       Section 1601(d) of Public Law 97-607 (94 Stat. 3547; 16 
     U.S.C. 410ll(d)) is amended--
       (1) in the first sentence, by inserting after ``park,'' the 
     following: ``including the Hunt House designated under 
     subsection (c)(8),''; and
       (2) in the last sentence, by striking ``McClintock'' and 
     inserting ``Hunt''.
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