Wow! What
an inspirational moment just after sunset on December 1st in a
little town in East Central Ohio. This is the America we all hold dear in
our hearts.
I stopped in
Newark, Ohio on a trip through Ohio for Thanksgiving. I specifically made
my way through Newark for the must-see event of the annual lighting of their
City Hall/Courthouse on December 1st, 2013. The attached
photograph was taken as the Courthouse was spectacularly and lovingly
illuminated to celebrate the holiday season.
Man, I love the
original Northwest Territory Western Reserve towns settled by former
Revolutionary War officers, risk-taking business people, and families willing
to sacrifice everything to build a new life for themselves. These towns
inspire me with their independent thinking, get-it-done attitude, and absolute
love of country and their faith.
The privately
written and privately financed Northwest Ordinance of 1787 organized,
pre-planned the infrastructure and land-use, and opened up the Great Lakes area
of the fledgling United States as a massive new territory north and west of the
Ohio River. The Ordinance was the first document in world history to
decree that slavery and indentured servitude was illegal forever; and it was
written by well-educated, former Revolutionary War officers as private
businessmen preparing to expand post-revolutionary America.
Private property
rights, private industry, the rule of law, individual liberties, and
well-understood natural rights were forever written down on this paper at the
Bunch of Grapes Tavern near Boston to codify that each individual could and
would be successful if they were industrious enough to stand on their own two
feet and work hard. Rufus Putnam and Manasseh Cutler founded a private company
called the Ohio Company of Associates and proposed the development of the lands
north and west of the Ohio River as a business enterprise.
The Northwest
Ordinance was modeled after the original constitution/treaty between the Native
American Iroquois nations and became the model document from which our United
States Constitution was created two years later. The first settlement in
the Territory was built in Marietta, Ohio and included the largest number of
former Revolutionary War officers anywhere in America. Interestingly,
they used the surveying papers of former British officer George Washington to
layout the territory in six-mile squares which would eventually become all of
the cities of the Great Lakes states. Most of these former officers and
entrepreneurs are now buried in Mound Cemetery in Marietta, Ohio near their
first settlement called Campus Martius. Note that they named the town
after Marie Antoinette in tribute to her determined financial support of the
Revolutionary War effort. Mound Cemetery has more Revolutionary War
officers buried there than any other cemetery in the United States. The
officers built the cemetery around a large 2000 year old, 80 foot high, ancient
conical burial mound out of respect and reverence for the many peoples whom
came and settled the area before them.
On the
lighting of the Courthouse and its meaning to the people of Newark, Ohio:
I had to arrive
quickly after sunset on the first day of Advent to catch the official lighting
of the City Hall/Courthouse and grab about 20 spectacular photographs.
Immediately after
I was able to take the photographs (before the official celebration), the town
square surrounding the building was opened for many people and cars to
continuously parade around the square to photograph and celebrate the beginning
of the season of giving and rebirth. Each of the parading adults,
children, and cars donated gifts of food, clothing, and money for local people
who were less fortunate than them to awaiting volunteers placed around the
square. There is rampant poverty in the once bustling and wealthy Newark
and many other small towns of the industrial Great Lakes. If you don’t
remember, the formerly powerful and wealthy Great Lakes invented and produced
much of what grew this nation for 200 years and made America what it is today.
Those who have done well and are still living in the Great Lakes are
giving extensively of themselves to their communities and working diligently to
develop and foster a new resurgence of small-town America.
Newark, Ohio and
hundreds of other small formerly industrial communities have been desperately
wounded by the transfer of most of our “Made in America” industry to Mexico,
India, Brazil, and China over the past 30 years; but they are doing everything
they can to support budding entrepreneurism to revitalize their
micro-economies. Their faith in one another, private enterprise, tradition,
hard-work, innovation, charity, extensive private and government-sponsored
retraining of people for the new global economy, and in their God are going to
be the catalysts for their recovery as communities. This is happening all
over the Great Lakes in so many desolate and injured small towns. They
are attacking depression and hopelessness like economic warriors with a
new-found desire to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and start
over. They are relying on individual entrepreneurism and community intrapreneurism.
Small towns in
the Great Lakes such as Newark are using numerous methods to bring innovation
back to their people by leveraging the original tenants of the Northwest
Ordinance: common-sense management, efficiently managing the size and scope
of their government and regulations, promoting the renewed concept of
free-enterprise, creating public-private partnership between new business and
government, respecting the natural rights of their fellow man, and many other
rediscovered creative approaches. They have a long way to go, but the
seeds of prosperity have been planted in the ashes of despair.
It is my hope
that the attached photograph will inspire and motivate you to give back and be
part of the solution and the productive future of your communities.
All the best to
you and yours during this holiday season.
In Liberty,
Fraternity, and Peace,
William H. “Ham”
Oldfield
Annapolis,
Maryland
(a 40 year, born
and raised “buckeye” through and through)
No comments:
Post a Comment