[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19] [House] [Pages 28020-28025] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]{time} 2230 NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE GREAT LAKES, AMERICA'S FIRST FRONTIER The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Riley). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 60 minutes. Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to reiterate what I just said a minute ago as far as the gentleman from Florida's work for many years as a Senate staffer and then as a leader here in the House and has been down in the region for multiple times. You can hear the frustration in his voice about the mismatch, particularly in the past, between the rhetoric and the action. And while General McCaffrey, the drug czar, and General Wilhelm in SouthCom and others are aggressively working to try to interdict these drugs before they hit our country and working with us in multiple areas, this has been a frustrating process because a lot of times over at the White House, the rhetoric is not matching the action. Those who are paying for that are our kids in the streets, families that are being wrecked, our jail systems and prison systems that are clogged with people who have abused illegal narcotics, partly because we have let down our interdiction guard and this stuff has flooded our Nation at a very cheap price and high purity. I am here tonight to talk about a totally different issue. I serve on the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Resources. One of my goals has been to work with a number of the historic areas in this country in trying to work with historic preservation. I plan this week to introduce a bill along with many of my colleagues from the Midwest called the Northwest Territory of the Great Lakes, America's First Frontier National Heritage Area. I want to give a little bit of background about this tonight and set up this piece of legislation which I believe has been a long time in coming and is a very important thing for the Midwest. Many people are not even aware of what the Northwest Territory is, and that is why we have to put the Northwest Territory of the Great Lakes. They think it is someplace up in Canada or somewhere around Washington and Oregon, in the northwestern part of the continental United States, but in fact the Northwest Territory in the famous Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was America's first western frontier. At the end of the American Revolution in the treaty with Great Britain, we all of a sudden received lands that heretofore had not been part of the Continental Congress of the United States Government. So even while we were under the Articles of Confederation, they were busy putting together the first guidelines of how a democratic government would work in new areas. In 1785 they passed laws on how to subdivide the land, which we still largely use today, as new settlers were moving in and what relations, good and bad, we would have with Native Americans, the Indian tribes in those zones. Basically the Northwest Territory, which did not have State divisions at that point, and this map, I want to thank the Library of Congress for this. They somewhat cut off the eastern side of Ohio but it is Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois that were the original Northwest Territory. This area of Wisconsin that includes part of Minnesota at that time was part of Illinois, and so for the purposes of our act, up until the point of the end of this pioneer period, Wisconsin would be included but actually Wisconsin became a separate territory as did Minnesota and historically, while geographically was part of that Northwest Territory, was not considered as a territory or State. In other words, once there were significant numbers of people there, they were not really part of the Northwest Territory. At the point of the original Northwest Territory and the Ordinance, there were not very many people here. The bulk of the people were in the eastern side of Ohio, just across from Pittsburgh, pretty heavily around Cincinnati, and some in the southern part of Indiana, a few in Vincennes, in the southern part of Illinois, some along the Ohio River. The rest of this was Indian land, a few scattered French villages where traders of questionable allegiance were still located and a number of British forts. The British were in fact supposed to have left this territory but did not. They were still in the Detroit area, up in the Mackinac area, in the Fort Dearborn area, around Chicago, and did not really leave until John Jay's treaty later, just before 1800, around 1793 to 1795. They started moving back across over to the Windsor, Canada, area, but amazingly they still kept some Canadian troops down as far as what is now Fort Wayne and other critical points, as well as British agents stirring up the different tribes in hopes of coming back. And then once again around the War of 1812 time, the British came back in and it was not really until the War of 1812 that this really became part of the United States rather than Canada, which is another important part of this. At the time that the British ceded this to the United States, the Native Americans continued to claim all of Ohio down to the Ohio River, most of Indiana, all of Illinois and basically all of Michigan. So while the British gave us control of this, they gave us control without treaty and without any justification as far as the Indians were concerned. The British felt they could continue to control that area, so they did not give it up. So why should this be a heritage area and what are we looking at here? First off, we are defining this fairly tightly. The period that would be covered is from 1785 until 1830. Why 1830? By 1830, even northwest Ohio was starting to get fairly well settled. We have not finalized it, maybe 1835, 1830, but somewhere in that area. A book on the Ohio frontier considers the end of their frontier period at 1830. Indian removal in Indiana finally occurred in its final stages in the 1840s. Michigan by 1840. The degree that they had settlers there, most of them by that point were farmers which is a sign that it has been pacified and the pioneer period is certainly down. In Illinois, it was starting to get pretty heavily settled from central up and some around the Fort Dearborn/Chicago area, and really after the Black Hawk so- called war where the Indians were removed from Illinois, that time period around 1830, 1835 was really the end of the frontier period. So the sites that would be covered by this heritage area would fall first in a date period of 1785 to the middle 1830s. What is the dominant thing and why did I select tonight this particular map? One of the things that becomes really apparent is there were not highways, there were not canals, there were not railroads, there were not air systems. The United States in that period was defined by its rivers and rivers were our highways. In other words, to understand the Northwest Territory, or really any part of the United States and any part of any heritage area that we should do should start with the topography, it should start with the geography and with the landscape and nature itself, because that is really what our heritage is and that is how we largely developed. If it was not actually around a river or the Great Lakes, which is really a defining region as well and also another major part of communication, the other way it could get defined is, for example, the capital of Ohio is Columbus. Why Columbus? Because it is right in the center. The capital of Indiana is Indianapolis, right in the center. The capital of Illinois is Springfield, right in the center. The capital of Wisconsin is Madison, right in the center. The capital of Michigan is Lansing which is just south center [[Page 28021]] but certainly the center between Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and so on and Detroit. In other words, if it was not a river that determined it, it was still geographical that your capital was in the center of where the people were. That was even true in the early days. The first capital in Indiana, the territorial capital was in Vincennes because that was the kind of population center, that is where William Henry Harrison was based. The first state capital was in Corydon because most of the people were in southern Indiana. The first capital in Ohio was Chillicothe because that was kind of where the people were between Cincinnati and the eastern side, and then it moved up to Columbus, in between Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati and the different cities. So you can understand first the heritage of an area by understanding its geography. Now, a couple of things jump out from this. First off, the importance of the Ohio River. There would be no Lewis and Clark adventure if we had not settled this area first. For one reason, if you could not control the Ohio River, you could not get to the Missouri River and to go to the West. Thomas Jefferson understood that and he knew that unless he could get pacification and settlement in this area, he was not going to make the Louisiana Purchase, that is why this is the first frontier, and he was not going to send Lewis and Clark out. In fact, Lieutenant William Clark was not worried about going to the Pacific Ocean, he was up in the area at the Battle of Fallen Timbers and other battles in this area because this was the first frontier. My hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, was important for another reason. If we had a larger U.S. map here, if you started and came in from Quebec City, which at that time was the key French settlement and went down through Montreal and then wanted to get to New Orleans, you would go down through the St. Lawrence River, down through Lake Ontario, Lake Erie to around what is present day Toledo, come down the Maumee River, at the Maumee River there was a portage at an Indian village called Kekionga. In Kekionga there was a small portage, you could either go to Boy Creek, Little Wabash, and connect with the Wabash River which then went down Indiana, all the way down to here, connected the Ohio River, which then connected the Mississippi River, which was then, of course, New Orleans. Now Chief Little Turtle, the war chief of the Miami Indians of Indiana, said and referred to the village of Kekionga as that ``glorious gate which the Miamis had the happiness to own and through which all the good words of their chiefs had to pass north to the south and from east to the west.'' What did he mean by that? Since that was the only portage of navigable rivers for the French, it became a critical area. In fact one French fort, two British forts and two American forts eventually were at that location now called Fort Wayne, because it was not only critical this way but there was as much traffic if you wanted to go from this Great Lake to this Great Lake. You had two choices. Either go up like this and all the way through the straits of Mackinac and on down or you could come into Fort Wayne, portage and come to Fort Dearborn this way. That is what Chief Little Turtle meant when he said it was east-west and north-south. It became a critical junction. There were other critical junctions as well, some less important. For example, to the Indians, this area of the Great Miami River which Anthony Wayne later went up and the different battle things was never really an important navigable river to the modern Native Americans because there were always settlers pushing in along the Ohio River and it was a battle zone and not somewhere where the Native Americans really developed a stable community or was within their own land structure. The French and the British tended to concentrate up in these zones. The fur trade was better here, the timber trade was better and they tended to be concentrated up this direction. The settlers coming across into Kentucky and across from Pennsylvania were tending to come further south. So you have to understand the geography. Now, understand the importance of this Northwest Territory. If this had been part of Canada from here up, we would have lost the agriculture, the farm belt of the United States, some of the best producing agriculture land, timber land, iron and copper and many of the critical natural resources that today are so important to our country. There were also critical battles here that were decisive in the settlement of the United States. Among the important battles was where Harmar and St. Clair were defeated, eventually Anthony Wayne came up, this area along the Great Miami River, the Indians fled from Kekionga and Fort Wayne to try to get up by the British at Fort Miami by Toledo and at the Battle of Fallen Timbers was really the major breakthrough for the United States settlement of the Midwest. After that period, the next big battle was the Battle of Tippecanoe where William Henry Harrison won right near Lafayette and what is now Purdue University. There also was a battle just across from Detroit over in Ontario, the Battle of Thames. The battle which is now celebrated at Put-in-Bay where Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British in control of the Great Lakes and really settled the fact of whether this was going to be part of Canada and the United States. So there were a number of very critical battles. There were also a lot of interesting people. Mad Anthony Wayne as he was called is certainly an interesting individual, very important in the American Revolution. At Stony Point, at Valley Forge, other critical battles. In fact, we have a number of his items in Fort Wayne at our Allen County Historical Museum. Next Monday we are having an official dedication of a new letter for our public library in the Indiana Collection. I include the following material for the Record at this point. Rare Gen. Wayne Letter Displayed at Library (By Bob Caylor) A magnificently preserved Revolutionary War letter written by Gen. ``Mad'' Anthony Wayne will find a place of honor in the city that grew from a fort he founded. The letter was written by Wayne in 1782, just three days before his troops met the British in a skirmish along the Combahoe River in South Carolina. Theirs would be the last American-British fighting of the war. The letter was donated to the Allen County Public Library earlier this year. The library will place it on display in its rare-books room in a dedication ceremony Monday. Gen. Wayne, a surveyor before the war began, was not a prolific correspondent like many of the Founding Fathers, and letters from his pen are uncommon. ``Apparently they are fairly rare,'' said Steven Fortriede, the library's associate director. ``As far as we know, there's nothing similar in Fort Wayne.'' Bringing the letter to Fort Wayne took the combined efforts of a Fort Wayne history buff, a circle of generous donors and a Noblesville man who trades in rare military artifacts. It began early this year, when Duane Arnold, owner of the Gentleman Soldier Gallery in Noblesville, learned a private collector in Indiana was looking to sell the letter. It had been in his collection for about 20 years, and he likely would have sold it out of state, Arnold said. ``I thought if possible, we should try to keep it in state,'' he said. Arnold, who was born in Fort Wayne, has clients in this area. Among them is Fort Wayne attorney Jack Lawson, who collects Revolutionary and Civil War weapons. ``Jack is someone who's very interested in history and very committed to Fort Wayne,'' Arnold said. He showed Lawson, the letter, and Lawson hit on the idea of finding donors to divide the $10,000 price and then donating the letter for public display. Hew had no trouble finding takers. ``Once it was explained to (potential donors) what the letter was and what its historical significance was, we had no difficulty,'' Lawson said. Mostly, he appealed to donors' civic spirit. ``This belongs to Fort Wayne. It would be a monument for the city,'' he told them. Wayne's letter was written Aug. 24, 1782, from Drayton Hall in South Carolina. In it, Wayne tells Gen. Nathaniel Green what forces he believed he would need to handle the British. Drayton Hall, incidentally, survived the devastation of the Civil War, adding another dimension of historical appeal to the letter. ``We can see the house. We can imagine the room in which Anthony Wayne actually wrote the letter,'' Arnold said. [[Page 28022]] Gen. Wayne's military career converged with local history a dozen years later, when he led an American army in a campaign against Indians through what is now Ohio and Indiana. His Fort Wayne at the confluence of our three rivers was established in 1794. Arnold said Wayne's military success against Chief Little Turtle opened the path to settlement here much earlier. ``Without Anthony Wayne's actions, it's extremely unlikely that Indiana would have been achieving statehood within about 20 years after that time,'' he said. ____ [From the Allen County Public Library] Wayne's Letter to Gen. Green--Drayton Hall, 24 August, 1782 `Dear Sir: If a detachment from this army be deemed expedient to prevent the enemy from effecting a forage at Combahe I wish to take charge of it; two hundred infantry & one hundred dragoons with two Howitz (ers; ed. note) will be fully adequate to the business and to make the Britons suffer for their temerity should they commit themselves on shore.-- The horse can be foraged, & the troops rationed without difficulty, whilst on this duty. Yours very sincerely, Anthony Wayne. N.B. Should this request then meet your approbation I would wish to march this evening at--biding. This letter is a letter that Anthony Wayne wrote regarding his preparations in putting together this battle, and this article details how this letter came into possession, how often historic letters like this are lost, and also gives some background on Anthony Wayne which I am going to read briefly here. He was nicknamed ``Mad'' long before he founded Fort Wayne. I am reading from Bob Caylor's article in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel this afternoon. {time} 2245 Naturally it is not easy to separate romantic lore from fact when it comes to Revolutionary War heroes, but an appealing tale purports to explain the general's nickname. In 1779, General Washington summoned young General Wayne, then only 34 years old but already distinguished in battle, and asked him to storm Stony Point, a British fort on the Hudson River. Stony Point was a forbidding target. It sat atop a high rocky hill surrounded by water on three sides. The only land approach was through a marsh that flooded daily. Anthony Wayne was not put off. ``General, if you will only plan it, I will storm hell,'' Wayne told him. ``Perhaps, General Wayne, we had better try Stony Point first,'' Washington responded. Overhearing this exchange, a soldier exclaimed Wayne surely was mad, and a nickname was born. Now, after two devastating defeats of the American armies, the largest defeats in American history, other than at Wounded Knee, and arguably St. Clair's defeat was a lot more significant and larger than Wounded Knee, one occurred right at Fort Wayne where Harmar's army was set back and had to retreat in disgrace, and St. Clair lost something on the order to wounded and injured 80 percent of his troops in that, General Washington said unless we can control the junction at Kekionga, the West will be lost. And he said I have to call Anthony Wayne out of retirement. Mad Anthony Wayne trained for a year, set up a string of forts through Congressman Boehner's district all the way up to Fort Recovery in a whole string, because he wanted to make sure, unlike St. Clair and Harmar, that he had the supplies behind him as he moved into this tricky territory. Little Turtle, who was the war chief of the Miamis, kind of saw the handwriting on the wall. In fact, this is a description from a book about Anthony Wayne by Harry Emerson Wildes that is fascinating commentary on Little Turtle, but also on Anthony Wayne. Little Turtle, tall, sour disposition, crafty war chief of the Miamis, was inclined to head Wayne's invitation to negotiate piece. The 40 year old warrior, veteran of both the Harmar and St. Clair campaigns, called his fellow chiefs into conference. Standing straight before him, his foot long silver earrings jingling as he tossed his head, his 3 huge nose jewels glittering in the firelight, he told Stalwart Buckongehelas, leader of the Delaware Indians, and Blue Jacket, Shawnee war chief, that Indian luck had been too good to last. Now, this is part of the remaining what remains of Little Turtle's speech. We have beaten them twice under separate commanders. We cannot expect the same good fortune always to attend us. The Americans are now led by a chief who never sleeps. Night and day are alike to him. Notwithstanding the watchfulness of our young men, we have never been able to surprise him. Think well of this. There is something that whispers to me it would be prudent to listen to his offers of peace. Now, in fact Little Turtle because of Blue Jacket and Buckongehelas leading the Delawares and the Shawnees and many Miamis into battle, they did have the battle with Anthony Wayne. Anthony Wayne then defeated them at Fallen Timbers. The British would not allow them into their fort. At that point the tribes scattered. Anthony Wayne marched back down the Maumee River to control the junction at Fort Wayne that was so critical and build a fort. Later there was a second fort built there as well and on a little bit higher ground. Now, that fort, Anthony Wayne left a strong garrison there, because he knew they had to control that junction. Then he marched back down to Greenville. Little Turtle and the other Indian chiefs wanted to have the peace negotiations up in Fort Wayne. Anthony Wayne figured out that if he went up to Kekionga, he would be too far and separated from the Great Miami River where the supplies came. So he said you have to come down to Greenville. After much kicking around, after all, they had been defeated and most of their crops had been destroyed, the Indians reluctantly came to Greenville, and the Treaty of Greenville became really the first big treaty in the settlement of the Northwest. I will also mention Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. William Henry Harrison, I have a document that I want to show here too, this beautiful piece of political and historic memorabilia that has been loaned to my office by a friend of mine, Mike Tonger, who has a business here in town, and he has let us display this in the front office. This is a scarf, often one of the pieces of political memorabilia that people would distribute or collect related to different campaigns. General William Harrison, Indiana has no native born presidents of the United States, but we have two that spent significant, actually three, that have spent significant time in Indiana. Two of them are Harrisons, who are from Virginia, Benjamin Harrison, who was in Indiana at the time he was elected president, and William Henry Harrison, who headed the Indiana territory and fought many battles in Indiana, and then our third is Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, finished his life in Illinois, but, as we say in Indiana, Indiana made Lincoln, Lincoln made Illinois. But William Henry Harrison spent much of his life in Indiana. Because after the period of time from when Anthony Wayne won his battle and the Treaty of Greenville we had a period of peace, but it was a very restless peace. And William Henry Harrison, then in charge of the Northwest Territory, based down in Vincennes, Indiana, William Henry Harrison was constantly pushing the Indian tribes for additional land concessions, because people wanted to move up from the Ohio river and farther up into different states. He had two treaties, the First Treaty of Fort Wayne, the Second Treaty of Fort Wayne, there were a couple of other treaties, but that was causing a backlash among the Indian tribes in the Midwest. Probably one of the most dynamic Indian leaders, much written about, very colorful, dramatic, what, charismatic leader, it was Tecumseh. Tecumseh decided what was needed was the Indian tribes to separate their kind of competitiveness and develop into a confederation. This confederation was his dream. He even went to the southern parts of the United States to recruit different Indian tribes, saying look, these Americans are coming across, they are taking our lands. No matter what they tell us, all they want is more lands. They cheat us, they give us beads and a few dollars and take thousands of acres. We need to unite as a confederation. He won some allies in the south and brought them north. But while he was away his brother the Prophet, so-called, there is a lot of debate why the [[Page 28023]] Prophet got his name, he clearly had one eye, was very colorful, was a medicine man of some sorts, he basically was trying to stir his people to earlier action, got a little restless. William Henry Harrison sitting down there in Vincennes, said now is a good time to teach these guys a lesson. He marched up from Vincennes to what was called Prophet's Town. Prophet, because he was giving these mystical trances and dances and celebrations, was gathering a lot of Indians around, including many Miami from the Kekionga area, who, while their chiefs were not too enamored of this, a lot of their young braves felt the older Indians were giving up too soon, and so many of them joined the Prophet. William Henry Harrison marched up, they had some exchanges, a lot of debate about what exactly happened here, but basically common historical assumption would be that one night when the Indians were celebrating and drunk, William Henry Harrison walked in and wiped them out. That, of course, became the famous battle of Tippecanoe, which was the slogan that led him to be President of the United States, Tippecanoe and Tyler too. Tyler, of course, was the Virginian who became president, because Harrison got pneumonia when he was giving his address here at his inaugural address, got pneumonia and Tyler became another one of the accidental presidents. But it was the battle of Tippecanoe that led to the slogan. Now, the Whig party never really did elect a president based on any Whig principles, which were kind of whatever the other party wasn't. But they had great slogans and they often ran generals, like Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison. You can tell from this famous historical piece of political memorabilia here that what is notably from this it is not a party platform. It is not like when William Henry Harrison is elected, this is what he is going to do. What it says is here is the hero of Tippecanoe, William Henry Harrison, hero of Tippecanoe. These barrels say hard cider, which is basically alcohol, and so he was known as the log cabin and hard cider man. The slogan here talks about the log cabin, how he was born in a log cabin. It talks about him being a hero of Tippecanoe. The glorious field of Tippecanoe to the log cabin of North Bend. Now, that is the pitch that William Henry Harrison had, not that he was going to lower taxes, keep government small, build more rivers. It is that you are going to get a lot of hard cider, he was from a log cabin, and he won this battle of Tippecanoe by blind-siding the Indians when they were drunk. Now, beyond that William Henry Harrison was actually a pretty good territorial governor. He won the battle of Thames over by East of Windsor that was very important and seemed to be good at balancing the politics of the era, and part of his political skill was that he did not put out a party platform. He ran on hard liquor and log cabin and the battle of Tippecanoe. I mentioned earlier Lieutenant William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame was here. I mentioned Tecumseh, the Prophet. Blue jacket is a half breed, as they would say, part anglo, part Native American, who became the leader of the Shawnee. In Ohio they have one of the state parks, a famous play about him that you can go see at night during the summers. There are a number of books about him. He was a fascinating character. A number of other interesting characters in the Northwest Territory were Arthur St. Clair, who, even though he had the most humiliating defeat in American history, became a Governor of Ohio. He did not understand why people wanted to join Jefferson's party and kind of went down as a sour old man with that. But was a very significant person, has St. Clair's, Ohio, and other places named after him. In Indiana, we had Jonathan Jennings, our first Member of Congress from Indiana, key settler in the Corydon area. William Wells, who married Little Turtle's daughter. William Wells, nobody trusted William Wells. He married Little Turtle's daughter. When Anthony Wayne is marching up to try to defeat the Indians, William Wells is working as his scout. Meanwhile, Henry Harrison never trusted him because even though he was on the side of the Americans, he never knew whether he was working for Little Turtle or the Americans, or, as is more likely the case, himself, whichever served best. But in the end William Wells died serving the American government, because he was sent over to Fort Dearborn in Chicago during this period between wars, between the settlement of the Treaty of Greenville and the War of 1812, William Wells was told to evacuate the people at Dearborn in spite of the fact there were warnings of an ambush, and he was ambushed and massacred along with all the other people from Fort Dearborn, with the exception of just a couple who escaped. In Fort Wayne we have a number of things named after William Wells, Wells Street. We have one of the major streets along near the Kekionga Village area and where the forts were is called Spy Run, because he was a spy. Just south of Fort Wayne, the first county to the south- southwest is Wells County. So many of these names are still historic. I wanted to touch on one other interesting person from this time period related to my home area, and that is Johnny Appleseed. Johnny Appleseed, like many other settlers, came in after this period of the War of 1812 and the frontier opened, all of a sudden settlers came in. Johnny Appleseed was born in Ohio in 1774. The first reference to his name, and he is buried in Fort Wayne today. The first reference to his nickname Appleseed is found in a letter from William Slaughter to Reverend Haley of Avignon, Virginia. ``That was Mr. John Chapman whom you must have heard me speak of. They call him John Appleseed out there in Ohio.'' The first discovered order for apple trees was in 1818. He was just a really interesting gentleman. We have a Johnny Appleseed stamp that was issued by the post office. This is his grave site. This is actually something that was done in probably third grade by my son, because Johnny Appleseed is a big folk hero in Indiana. It says, ``Johnny Appleseed, bright red and shiny; some are big, others tiny; one bite and you will see, just how delicious an apple can be.'' Now, how did this, you know, start and what kind of guy was Johnny Appleseed? Well, he was an interesting character. In fact, let me just read this description about him. That he was known for having, what this is is a pan on his head, because he would walk around, he would have this pan on his head, move around, talk to different people, and it said he had such a remarkable passion for rearing and the cultivation of apple trees from the seed and pursued it with so much zeal and perseverance as to cause him to be regarded by the few settlers just then beginning to make their appearance in the country with a degree of almost superstitious admiration. He also believed, and in the reason he planted apples, and he systematically did this. For example it said that he would clear a few rods of land in some open part of the forest, girdle the tree standing around it, surround it with a brush fence and plant his apple seeds. This done, he would go off some 20 miles or so, select another favorable spot, and again go through the same operation. In this way, without family and without connection, he rambled from place to place and employed his time, I may say, his life, planting apple trees. {time} 2300 His goal was to live for others. His dad was a preacher. He was an itinerant pastor as well, and frequently preached. His goal was to serve others. One other interesting reference to this period, anybody living in the frontier period had to be aware of the battles and the conflict between the Native Americans and the American settlers. So Johnny Appleseed himself, according to a man named Amariah Watson of Washington Township, said that during the war of 1812, Chapman, like Paul Revere, he was called the Paul Revere [[Page 28024]] of the Midwest, sped through northern Ohio to warn settlers of expected Indian attacks on frontier outposts. This is at the start of the War of 1812. The British were arming the Indian tribes. What this man who was a contemporary of Johnny Appleseed reported was Johnny Appleseed traveled through like Paul Revere, running from village to village shouting, ``Flee for your lives, flee for your lives, the British and Indians are coming upon you and destruction followeth upon their footsteps.'' There was a more colorful version that supposedly Johnny Appleseed said, but the other is more likely, because this is a bit long to go running from house to house. It fits, kind of, the preacher. ``The spirit of the Lord is upon me and he hath anointed me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness, and sound an alarm in the forest; for, behold, the tribes of the heathen are round about your doors, and a devouring flame followeth after them.'' So even Johnny Appleseed played a role in this period of the Northwest Territory, in the settlement. So we had a lot of interesting people that were involved, and it is part of American history that is often overlooked. We also had a number of historic sites, such as the Battle of Fallen Timbers. This Thursday in the Subcommittee on National Parks we are having a hearing on a bill from Senator DeWine of Ohio and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) regarding expanding this as a national historic site and developing this. I am a strong supporter of this legislation because I believe the Battle of Fallen Timbers has been too long ignored. The Battle of Tippecanoe, which is now being developed at Prophetstown, Indiana, our newest State park in Indiana where we will have our first museum. It is not called Angloana or Germanana, even though a large percentage of the population is Germans. It is called Indiana. Other than the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian art, we have no museum in Indiana paying tribute to our Native Americans. In Prophetstown, this will be corrected. In Fort Wayne, we have the Chief Richardville House. Little Turtle was the war chief of the Miamis. Chief John Baptiste Richardville was the Miami civil chief from 1816 until his death in 1841. His house, now we are sorting this through, may be the only remaining Native American building east of the Mississippi. It certainly appears to be the oldest Native American building still standing east of the Mississippi. Richardville was known, at least by legend, as the richest Indian in this country. This trade center, it is one of only a few of these buildings that were known to exist. It is the oldest known Native American structure east of the Mississippi still located on its original site. Some have been moved to different complexes, but this is actually at the site where it was, a Native American structure. Indiana is finally taking the means to start the project. Senator Thomas Wyss of Fort Wayne and David Long helped secure $150,000 of Indiana funds for the Richardville house. This needs to be matched and developed. It needs to become a State historic site. On top of that, this Saturday it is going to be recognized as part of the national Save America's Treasures project coming out of this administration and through the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It is a very important site that we need to preserve in Fort Wayne because Richardville was the leader of the Miami Nation, their civil chief, for many years. In fact, down in Huntington, Indiana, we have the La Fontaine house roughly shortly after that time period. La Fontaine is interesting, as well. He was the son-in-law of John Baptiste Richardville, and was the last Miami chief before the Miami Nation was removed from the State of Indiana. The forks of the Wabash down at Huntington is a critical area, as is Mississinewa. I would be remiss if I did not point out a couple of the other historic sites that will be named specifically in our bill. I mentioned the capitals, like Corydon and Chillicothe, but in addition, the Straits of Mackinaw were a critical trade route to the fur trade and others, and were battled over by the French and British. Until the war of 1812, it really was not established that that was going to be under American control at Mackinac as well as at Mackinaw. I also mentioned the Treaty of Greenville. One of the more important settlement roads was Zane's Trace in Ohio. What this heritage area is going to try to do is pull together the time periods, 1785 to 1830. It is going to try to pull together these geographic boundaries of Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Illinois, including Wisconsin, highlight the sites of significance to that time era only, market and connect them together thematically, promote the preservation, education, and utilization of such sites, which could include additional land, interpretive centers, and other appropriate development. Once again I want to go through these critical periods. Attempted American settlement and the resulting wars, the Indian counterattack, the Americans' final victories during the War of 1812, then the American settlement accelerates and demands land. Then, as part of that, in spite of the promises made over and over to the different Indian tribes, those treaties were broken, and eventually the Indians for the most part were removed from the Midwest to Oklahoma, to Iowa, to Kansas, and to the west, and laid on top of the other Indian tribes, which caused some of the later conflict. In addition to the rivers, we have our Great Lakes, our farmland, our resources. We have Indian Nations: the Miami, the Shawnee, the Delaware, Potawatomie, the Chippewa, the Sac, the Ottawa. We have the different battles, the traders, the settlers. Then the one thing I want to spend a little bit more time on are a number of the Indian chiefs. We hear so much about the Indians of the Southwest and the West, and so little about those in the Midwest. Yet, think about a couple of points here. One is, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, do not together equal the population of the four Midwestern States, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. Their number of Native Americans did not equal the number of Indian nations. They certainly did not achieve the success in war against the American armies that the Indiana nations of the Midwest achieved. While they have creative pottery, there are remnants of creativity from the Midwest too. It is just that, quite frankly and bluntly, we did not do as good a job of preserving that in the Midwest because we removed them. It does not mean that the history is not there and that we should not look to preserve that history. We have bits and pieces of this in Indiana. Chief Leopold Pokagon, whose village, Pokagon Village, was just across the Michigan line, just north of Notre Dame and St. Mary's on U.S. 31 and then just west, but Leopold Pokagon and his son Simon Pokagon have a State park named after them in my district, Pokagon State Park, and the Potawatomie Inn there. We finally started to pay tribute to the Potawatomies in Indiana, who have been ignored, much like the Miami were. Right near my hometown where I grew up in Graybill, the town of Cedarville, now Leo-Cedarville, at that critical junction of the Cedar Creek and St. Joe River, there is Metea Village. Now we have a small county park there, Metea Park. We are starting to pay some recognition to him. We have other Miami chiefs who have been ignored: Pecan (Pecanne), who is up near the Elkhart area, and LeGris, and Hibou, the owl. They were other important Miami chiefs. One of my favorites is Bad Bird, the chief of the Chippewas. We had many different interesting Native American leaders. One kind of unusual story is Francis Slocum, Maconaquah, who was captured at age 5 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was transported to the Mississinewa River. Her husband died. She raised her two girls. She was discovered by a Mr. Ewing at Mississinewa when she was very old. [[Page 28025]] She had so acclimated herself and become such an Indian herself that when they approached her about leaving, she said, to go back in the Anglo civilization would make me like a fish out of water. She said, I am now an Indian, a Native American. There are many stories like Francis Slocum that exist in our heritage that we need to do a better job of preserving. So I am pleased that most of the Members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, from our Northwest Territory area are going to cosponsor this. We are looking forward to hearings here in Washington and in the field, and working with the Governors of each State in developing this. I think it can be a big asset. In the Midwest, unlike in the West, where they have many national parks, and the East tends to have historic sites and fewer parks, the West tends to have national parks, in the Midwest we have very little. We have very little that helps us develop for tourism, we have very little that helps us develop different assets in our community. {time} 2310 I think this is one step toward some equalization in developing the history of the Midwest, and I am excited and looking forward to doing this. As we develop a management entity with this, this can be one of the most exciting things that has happened in the Midwest for many years. I also want to take a few minutes tonight because today was an important day. One of the things in the northwest ordinance and in American history that we value most is the ability to participate in electing our own leaders. Today was a very important day in Indiana, because we elected mayors and city council members across the State and in my district. For those who first say that their vote does not matter, we have had an extraordinary number of extremely close elections tonight. Some of these are still pending. Fort Wayne, the biggest city in my district, around 230,000 people, it appears, but it is far too early to say, even though 99 percent of the vote is in, that in a very close vote, both candidates are friends of mine, both of them ran tremendous campaigns, but the Democratic candidate for mayor appears to be pulling an upset, but right now is ahead by 174 votes out of way over 40,000. Whoever of these candidates ultimately is our mayor we can be proud in Fort Wayne in working with them because they ran a terrific campaign. But once again, this shows the importance of every person participating in finding good quality candidates and then people participating. In our city council races in what were expected to be not very close races, Tom Freistroffer, a Democratic candidate, right now is 129 votes ahead of the third place person on the Republican ticket, my friend, Rebecca Ravine. All three Republican candidates were outstanding candidates, as were the Democratic candidates. This is an unusual race in the sense that we did not have anybody who was really a weak candidate. Tom Freistroffer, even though he is a Democrat, was a Notre Dame grad, so I appreciate him very much for at least that. But I am still hoping the Republicans pull out this election tonight. It was extraordinary. We had an upset in another city council race in one of the councilmanic districts. We have another one that was decided by barely over 100 votes. In New Haven, Indiana, the election there was decided by only 145 votes. In Kendallville, Indiana, the vote was won by the incumbent mayor over Suzanne Handshoe who ran an excellent campaign, but the Democratic mayor hung on in that race by about 180 votes. In Auburn, a close friend and supporter of mine, won the mayor's race there by about 400 votes. The Republican in Columbia City, Ronald Glassley, pulled a big upset and won that by 48 votes. In Huntington, the incumbent mayor was defeated by an overwhelming margin by a person, Terry Abbett, who had won a number of races and who always runs really well, but nobody expected he got nearly 70 percent. That was not one that was a cliff hanger. But it is important to understand that the recruitment first of quality candidates by both sides is always important in the electoral process. The second is, once again in Indiana tonight, in a big upset in the Indianapolis mayor's election, potentially in Fort Wayne, other parts of Indiana, very close vote margins. When you hear the debates we have here on the House floor and you hear the kind of combat that is occurring and you wonder how come people cannot just sit down and work these things out, our country right now is very closely divided between the two parties. Election after election is showing this. That means we rub hard at the edges. Because what we do on this floor, what we do in mayors' offices and governors' officers are very important to the future of this country. The project that I spent most of my time talking about tonight, the Northwest Territory, anchored the first American attempt to spread the American philosophy of democracy beyond the original 13 States and into the northwest. It talked about the promotion of religion, the promotion of education, the promotion of good citizenship, how we would set up property values, how we would set up the respect for law. That is what we should be concentrating on in this country, regardless of whether one is a Republican or Democrat, is how to uphold the traditions, the history and kind of all that went before us, all that is going on now, and we want to pass that on to the next generation. Part of that is understanding how we got where we are, and it is critical to understanding where we will go next. ____________________