We find ourselves near Ashtabula once again, thanks to a snow storm. I am reposting this post about Ashtubula.

Sun Prairie, Wisconsin

We rented a cute little house for the week in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, a suburb of Madison. We knew very little about Sun Prairie, except that it is in quite close proximity to East Madison, where our son lives, and it was where artist Georgia O’Keefe grew up in the late 1800s. It is a quiet, manicured town with a small historic downtown and well-preserved village square. A little research revealed that the population of 34,661, is growing fast with a 17% increase since 2010. (U.S. Census 2019 estimate). It is the second-most populous city in Dane County after Madison. It seems like a nice place to live with clean, well maintained streets and parks and a new high school being built- something almost unheard of these days. It Is mostly white, so it might not be welcoming for all, although it has some racial diversity. Seventy-five percent of the population is white (non-hispanic), 8% is Black, 6.7% is Asian and 5.3% are Latino. The top of the City of Sun Prairie website announces “Sun Prairie is seeking the development of a city-wide Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program. We need assistance to identify blind spots and processes that perpetuate systemic injustice, and identify current successes, areas for improvement.”

Sun Prairie was recognized as one of the “Best Places to Live in America” for 2020 by Money Magazine. It is not cheap to live here, but it is not as unaffordable as many other places. The average owner occupied house in 2021 costs $261,700 and average rent for a 2 bedroom home is $1,100 (bestplaces.net). It gets an A rating on Niche- the school are excellent and the crime rate is low compared to the national averages. It scores 9 out of 110 for Most Diverse Suburbs in Wisconsin:” (NIche), which may not be saying alot cause it is Wisconsin. Overall, it seems that Sun Prairie is thriving and a nice place to live.

Ashtabula, Ohio

We stopped in Ashtabula, Ohio on our way home. It’s history as a prominent stop on the underground railroad and as one of the major Lake Erie coal ports back in the day, was intriguing. The city’s harbor has been important as a large ore and coal port since the end of the 19th century, and integral to the steel manufacturing that was developed around the Great Lakes.What a shock when we arrived. We were greeted by an abandoned ice cream shop when we turned off the Ohio Turnpike and things did not improve when we reached downtown Ashtabula.

Ashtabula downtown was for the most part boarded up. “Decline” is a word that comes to mind- the population of 19,597 in 2020, is in decline(-6.29% since 2010 according to the U.S Census) along with the harbor, roads, and buildings.

So why did one city, Sun Prairie, continue to thrive when Ashtabula declined? It is interesting to note that both cities have a similar racial make-up. According to the most recent U.S Census, the racial composition of Ashtabula is 79.6% white (non-hispanic), 8.8% Latino, 8.51% Black, and 4.2% multi-racial. Both cities were founded in the mid 1800’s by European settlers, although Ashtabula was not incorporated until 1891. One explanation for Ashtabula’s decline, is that it is part of the Ohio “rust belt” which suffered the loss of the steel industry. As steel mills were moved offshore, ore shipments via Great Lake freighters dwindled. And Sun Prairie is essentially a bedroom community for Madison, only a 15 minute commute away. Ashtabula is an hour from any large city with jobs such as Cleveland or Erie.

We saw signs of community revitalization on Bridge Street, near the harbor with new little coffee shops, restaurants and gift shops attracting tourists. The sidewalks were rebuilt and a row of condos was being built nearby. The reality might not be as thriving as the Bridge Street link above announces, but it is a start.

Another positive economic turn for Ashtabula is the construction of a new nodular pig iron plant in Ashtabula harbor. The plant, to be completed next year will be the only pig iron facility in the U.S. Pig iron is used to build high value metal components like engine blocks and landing gear. The plant is expected to create 100 permanent jobs.

While Ashtabula has a long way to go to until it is once again a thriving town, there is are glimmers of hope. Median home value is $54,200 (bestplaces.com)and average rent is $646/month. So for someone who is looking for a place to start out with affordable housing to be part of the change, it might be a good place to be.

We stopped in Maumee, near Toledo, Ohio for the night. The Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis National Historic Site is near our hotel.

The monument inscription reads: “To General Anthony Wayne who organized the “Legion of the United States” by order of President Washington and defeated Chief Little Turtle’s warriors here at Fallen Timbers August 20, 1794. This victory led to the Treaty of Greenville, August 3, 1795, which opened much of the present state of Ohio to white settlers.”

According to Wikipedia and History.Com, General Anthony Wayne (1745-96), was honored because of the success of the Battle of Fallen Timbers and fighting the British earlier in the Revolutionary War. There are several cities and towns named after him and/or his family including Fort Wayne, IN, Wayne, NJ and Waynesboro, GA. I question whether he deserves these accolades given that he has quite a few skeletons in his closet and his overall character and integrity could be questioned. His father immigrated to Pennsylvania from Ireland and Anthony was born to privilege in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was educated at his uncle’s private academy, then the College of Philadelphia, which later became U Penn. As an adult he moved to Georgia, where he had a large plantation with slaves. He was known as “Mad Anthony” because of his temper management issues. His marriage was rocky because of his infidelity. While Wayne did successfully lead the newly commissioned U.S. Army into battle at Fallen Timbers and defeated the Northwestern Confederacy, an alliance of Native nations, there is more to the story of the Northwestern Confederacy and what happened prior to the Battle at Fallen Timbers.

A Native American alliance was established at a Confederate Council Fire at the Huron Village, near the mouth of the Detroit River on December 18, 1786. This alliance called the Northwestern Confederacy or more formally, the United Indian Nations was to represent a united front in negotiating peace and resisting encroachment on their lands by European settlers. The Nations present were: the Five Nations (Iroquois), the Cherokee, the Huron, the Shawnee, the Delaware, the Ottawa, the Pottawattomi, the Twitchee, Joseph Brant and the Wabash Confederation. They sent a very moving letter (worth a read) to the Congress of the United States, asking them to respect the boundary of the Ohio River as the border of the United States and not allow settlers and surveyors to cross the river into Indian territory and they would do the same until further negotiations could be conducted. Their requests for peace were ignored by the U.S. This confederacy was very powerful and American expansion resulted in the Northwest Indian War (1785–1795), in which the Confederacy won significant victories over the United States. Some of these defeats were the worst ever suffered by the U.S Army. Perhaps Chief Little Turtle (Mihsihkinaahkwa) should be commemorated as well.

We arrived home last night after several day long drives. We stopped places where there are no known (yet) cases of coronavirus, invested in clorox wipes to sanitize our hotel rooms and washed our hands ALOT in an adundance of caution. We did notice some hotels and restarants were quite empty. Hard to tell if fear of coroavirus was the cause or it is just not tourist season yet.

It was a blessing that today it is 62 degrees and sunny in Ithaca. While there is still snow in our driveway, there are true signs of Spring and that is enough. I am quite sure that winter is not quite over yet, but we came home to spring in the air , which was our hope.

Thank you for joining us on our travels! Signing off until the next adventure.

When Lawrence, Kansas is mentioned, many people think of the legendary University of Kansas Jayhawks basketball team.

Interesting Fact: “jayhawk” was a term coined during the “bleeding Kansas” period (1854-1861) for militant groups defending Kansas as a state free of slavery. Abolitionist John Brown was a jayhawk. The jayhawks clashed with pro-slavery “border ruffians” who crossed the border from Missouri, a slave state. Lawrence was ground zero for the “bleeding Kansas” clashes leading up to the Civil War. It all started in 1854, with passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, opening Kansas Territory to settlers who would then vote whether to be admitted into the Union as a slave or free state.

According to the Shawnee Tribe website, before the Kansas Territory was established in 1854, this land was part of the 1.6 million-acre Shawnee Indian Reservation, via a treaty ratified by Congress in 1825. After 1854, the government took much of the reservation and opened it up for white settlement. Brutal abuses by white settlers forced the Kansas Shawnees to relocate again (they were originally from Ohio) to Cherokee Nation in northeastern Oklahoma.

Wikipedia states that: “anger at the Kansas-Nebraska Act, [that could potentially expand slavery], united antislavery forces into a movement committed to stopping the expansion of slavery, ( which eventually was institutionalized as the Republican Party). Many of these individuals decided to “meet the question [of slavery in Kansas] on the terms of the bill itself” by migrating to Kansas, electing antislavery legislators, and eventually banning the practice of slavery altogether.”

Lawrence was founded by the New England Emigrant Aid Company (NEEAC), and was named for Amos Adams Lawrence, a Republican abolitionist originally from Massachusetts, who was one of a group of investors who offered financial aid and support for anti-slavery settlers from the East coast to move to Kansas. I was interested to know how the NEEAC motivated people to move to the frontier from Massachusetts for the cause. The NEEAC founders were wealthy. They saw this as a business venture as well as fighting for the anti-slavery cause. They focussed on building the infrastructure in Kansas to encourage settlers. The first thing they did was to build steam saws and grist mills in Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, Osawatomie, Burlington, Wabaunsee, Atchison, Batcheller (now Milford) and Mapleton to aid settlers in building homes and feeding their families. They arranged for companies to provide transportation for settlers and offered reduced fares. They provided temporary housing in boarding houses while settlers built their homes. Schools and churches were built and practically given to local communities. Libraries and colleges were founded through efforts of individuals connected with the firm. Finally, they established a weekly newspaper in Kansas to communicate with settlers and promote their cause. The company planned to make a profit on its investments by purchasing the land upon which its hotels and mills stood and, when settlement had increased and land values correspondingly elevated, selling to the eventual benefit of the stockholders. The backers of the company hoped to raise $5,000,000 and send 20,000 settlers into Kansas. The plan received wide publicity in the New England newspapers of Horace Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, Thurlow Weed, and others. The company itself issued descriptive pamphlets and its advocates toured New England lecturing on the benefits to be derived. The project was very successful in the beginning, with 1,250 emigrating to Kansas in 1954 (the first year of operation), but interest waned over time. In terms of persons relocated in Kansas, it has been estimated that the company was directly responsible for only about 2,000 of whom perhaps a third returned to the East. Instead of the $5,000,000 it hoped to have, the company actually accumulated only about $190,000. No profit was ever made, but the company did have an impact on the border wars, spurring pro-slavery settlers to move from Missouri and it did help mobilize the political forces necessary to have Kansas vote to enter the Union as a free state in 1961.

It is ironic that the fight for freedom from slavery in Lawrence was at the expense of the Shawnees. Also, that the abolitionists behind the success in Kansas may have been largely motivated by profit and settlers by opportunity rather than politics. As I learn more, I find that the fight for justice is often nuanced and it is not as easy to characterize right from wrong, good from bad as I would like.

We had never heard of another college in Lawrence – Haskell Indian Nations University. It is a four year college that serves 1000 students per semester representing 140 tribal nations. It was founded in 1884 by the U.S. government as one of 5 Indian Boarding School designed to obliterate their Indian culture. The United States Indian Industrial Training School was year-round; children were not allowed to speak their native languages or sing native songs. When children arrived at the Training School their native clothing was taken away and traded for ‘English clothes’ and their braids were cut off. There are accounts of physical and emotional abuse on the children, especially in the earlier years of operation.

According to the Haskell Indian Nations University Cultural Center website: “The museum celebrates the strength and resiliency of the students and their contribution to what today has grown to become Haskell Indian Nations University. Punctuating the re-emergence of Indigenous expression, Haskell strives to incorporate the elements of Tribal pride and self-determination into its academics and University spirit. Absorbed into the past was an institution founded to kill the Indian and save the child; instead Haskell has victoriously emerged as an opportunity for students to become the change they want to see in Indian Country. Fundamentally through the continued efforts of Haskell students and Alumni the legacy of Haskell continues to live and thrive.”

The last interesting thing we learned about Lawrence is that the poet Langston Hughes grew up there. It is sad that a town created by abolitionists had Jim Cow segregation 60 years later.

So very nice to see our spirit daughter Annemarie and meet her friends at Colorado College. Wish we could stay longer, but we are getting anxious to get home. On to Lawrence, Kansas tomorrow!