DERAILING THE MONEY GRAB

 

[NOTE:  On August 17, the plan of out-of-state billionaires to build an oversized hotel in the heart of the Harpers Ferry Historic District hit a wall.  The Jefferson County Commission set aside a $30 million taxpayer subsidy (tax increment financing - TIF) to this private equity firm as local residents raised major concerns. Since 2008, the billionaires asserted that their project was fully funded.  Since then, they have sought subsidies and grants, along with waivers from taxes and fees.]

JEFFERSON COUNTY COMMISSION

HILLTOP TIF HEARING - Scot Faulkner Remarks

There are several issues you need to consider before giving up to $30 million to a private equity company.

First, this will be the only hotel to receive a government subsidy from this Commission.

You are creating a dangerous precedent.

Government should not pick winners and losers in the private sector.

What prevents existing or future hotels demanding subsidies from Jefferson County Taxpayers?

Second, you are ignoring the facts.

When SWaN first arrived in Harpers Ferry, they promised to shower riches on the community.

Instead, SWaN has been given waivers from the taxes and fees they promised to pay.

SWaN has also been given federal grants and now is asking for $30 million from County Taxpayers.

During the last 15 years, SWaN has not provided or promised even one dollar of proffers to the town.

Another fact – the justification for the $30 million, and all the other waivers and subsidies, is that the SWaN hotel will save Harpers Ferry.  Somehow, Harpers Ferry will become a ghost town without the oversized SWaN hotel.

Since the closing of the old Hill Top House in March 2008, Harpers Ferry has experienced a tripling of visitors.  The town is packed with tourists, especially on weekends.

Over the last ten years, every major travel magazine, website, and rating has named Harpers Ferry the top tourist town in America. 

All of this is happening without an oversized government subsidized hotel.

Third, all citizens of Jefferson County deserve to vote on whether $30 million of their money should go to a private interest in the smallest municipality.

Jefferson County voters have voted on smaller bond issues, including the $19 million school bond in 2016. At least school bonds benefit everyone, not a small group of private investors.

This Commission has one vacancy.  It cannot speak for the entire population.

Let the people speak instead.  This should go to a public referendum.

 

HOW ANTIETAM CHANGED EVERYTHING

[Part of Constituting America’s 90 Day Study - Days that Shaped America]

America’s bloodiest day was also the most geopolitically significant battle of the Civil War.

On September 17, 1862, twelve hours of battle along the Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, resulted in 23,000 Union and Confederate dead or wounded. Its military outcome was General Robert E. Lee, and his Army of Northern Virginia, retreating back into Virginia. Its political outcome reshaped global politics and doomed the Southern cause.

The importance of Antietam begins with President Abraham Lincoln weighing how to characterize the Civil War to both domestic and international audiences. Lincoln choose to make “disunion” the issue instead of slavery. His priority was retaining the border states (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri) within the Union. [1]

The first casualties of the Civil War occurred on April 19, 1861 on the streets of Baltimore. The 6^th Massachusetts Regiment was attacked by pro-South demonstrators while they were changing trains. Sixteen dead soldiers and citizens validated Lincoln’s choice of making the Civil War about reunification. Eastern Maryland was heavily pro-slave. Had Maryland seceded, Washington, DC would have been an island within the Confederacy. This would have spelled disaster for the North.

To affirm the “war between the states” nature of the Civil War, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, issued strict instructions to American envoys to avoid referencing slavery when discussing the Civil War. [2]

Explaining to foreign governments that the conflict was simply a “war between the states” had a downside. England and France were dependent on Southern cotton for their textile mills. “Moral equivalency” of the combatants allowed political judgements to be based on economic concerns. [3]

On April 27, 1861, Lincoln and Seward further complicated matters by announcing a blockade of Southern ports.  While this was vital to depriving the South of supplies, it forced European governments to determine whether to comply. There were well established international procedures for handling conflicts between nations and civil wars. Seward ignored these conventions, igniting fierce debate in foreign governments over what to do with America. [4]

England and France opted for neutrality, which officially recognized the blockade, but with no enforcement. Blockade runners gathered in Bermuda, and easily avoided the poorly organized Union naval forces, while conducting commerce with Southern ports. [5]

Matters got worse. On November 8, 1861, a Union naval warship stopped the Trent, a neutral British steamer travelling from Havana to London. Captain Charles Wilkes removed two Confederate Government Commissioners, James Mason and John Slidell, who were on their way for meetings with the British Government. [6]

The “Trent Affair” echoed the British stopping neutral American ships during the Napoleonic Wars. Those acts were the main reason for American initiating the War of 1812 with England.

British Prime Minister, Lord Henry Palmerston, issued an angry ultimatum to Lincoln demanding immediate release of the Commissioners. He also moved 11,000 British troops to Canada to reinforce its border with America. Lincoln backed down, releasing the Commissioners, stating “One war at a time”. [7]

While war with England was forestalled, economic issues were driving a wedge between the Lincoln Administration and Europe.

The 1861 harvest of Southern cotton had shipped just before war broke out. In 1862, the South’s cotton exports were disrupted by the war. Textile owners clamored for British intervention to force a negotiated peace.

In the early summer of 1862, bowing to political and economic pressure, Lord Palmerston drafted legislation to officially recognize the Confederate government and press for peace negotiations. [8]

During the Spring of 1862, Lincoln’s view of the Civil War was shifting. Union forces were attracting escaped slaves wherever they entered Southern territory. Union General’s welcomed the slaves as “contraband”, prizes of war similar to capturing the enemy’s weapons. This gave Lincoln a legal basis for establishing a policy for emancipating slaves in the areas of conflict.

Union victories had solidified the Border States into the North. Therefore, disunion was not as important a justification for military action. In fact, shedding blood solely for reunification seemed to be souring Northern support for the war.

Lincoln and Seward realized emancipating slaves could rekindle Northern support for the war, critical for winning the Congressional elections in November 1862. Emancipation would also place the conflict on firm moral grounds, ending European support for recognition and intervention. England had abolished slavery throughout its empire in 1833. It would not side with a slave nation, if the goal of war became emancipation. Lincoln embraced this geopolitical chess board, “Emancipation would weaken the rebels by drawing off their laborers, would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition”. [9]

On July 22, 1862, Lincoln called a Cabinet meeting to announce his intention to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. It was framed as an imperative of war, “by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion.” [10]

Seward raised concerns over the timing of the Proclamation. He felt recent Union defeats outside of the Confederate Capital of Richmond, Virginia might make its issuance look like an act of desperation, “our last shriek, on the retreat.” [11] It was decided to wait for a Northern victory so that the Emancipation could be issued from a position of strength.

Striving for a game-changing victory became the priority for both sides. The summer of 1862 witnessed a series of brilliant Confederate victories. British Prime Minister Palmerston agreed to finally hold a Cabinet meeting to formally decide on recognition and mediation. [12]

General Lee wished to tip the scales further by engineering a Confederate victory on northern soil. [13] Lee wanted a victory like the 1777 Battle of Saratoga that brought French recognition and aid to America. [14]

The race was on. General Stonewall Jackson annihilated General John Pope’s Army in the Second Battle of Manassas (August 28-30, 1862).  Lee saw his opportunity, consolidated his forces, and invaded Maryland on September 4, 1862.

After entering Frederick, Maryland, Lee divided his forces to eliminate the large Union garrison in Harpers Ferry, which was astride his supply lines. Lee planned to draw General George McClellan and his “Army of the Potomac” deep into western Maryland. Far from Union logistical support, McClellan’s forces could be destroyed, delivering a devastating blow to the North. [15]

A copy of Special Orders No. 191, which outlined Lee’s plans and troop movements, was lost by the Confederates, and found by a Union patrol outside of Frederick. [15] On reading the Order, McClellan, famous for his slow and ponderous actions in the field, sped his pursuit of Lee.

Now there was a deadly race for whether Lee and Jackson could neutralize Harpers Ferry and reunite before McClellan’s army pounced. This turned the siege of Harpers Ferry (September 12-15, 1862), the Battle of South Mountain (September 14, 1862), and Antietam (September 17, 1862) into the Civil War’s most important series of battles.

While Antietam was tactically a draw, heavy losses forced Lee and his army back into Virginia. This was enough for Lincoln to issue his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, five days after the battle, on September 22, 1862. When news of the Confederate retreat reached England, support for recognition collapsed, extinguishing, “the last prospect of European intervention.” [17] News of the Emancipation Proclamation launched “Emancipation Meetings” throughout England. Support for a Union victory rippled through even pacifist Anti-Slavery groups who asserted abolition, “was possible only in a united America.” [18]

There were many more battles to be fought, but Europe’s alignment against the Confederacy sealed its fate. European nations flocked to embrace Lincoln and his Emancipation crusade. One vivid example was Czar Alexander II, who had emancipated Russia’s serfs, becoming a friend of Lincoln. In the fall of 1863, he sent Russian fleets to New York City and San Francisco to support the Union cause. [19]

Unifying European nations against the Confederacy, and ending slavery in the South, makes America’s bloodiest day one of the world’s major events.

REFERENCES

[1] McPherson, James, Battle Cry of Freedom (Oxford University Press, New York, 1988) pp. 311-312.

[2] Foreman, Amanda, A World on Fire; Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War (Random House, New York, 2010) p.107.

[3] Op. cit., McPherson, p. 384.

[4] Op. cit., Foreman, page 80.

[5] Op. cit., McPherson, pages 380-381.

[6] ibid., pages 389-391.

[7] ibid.

[8] Op. cit., Foreman, page 293.

[9] Op. cit., McPherson, page 510.

[10] Carpenter, Francis, How the Emancipation Proclamation was Drafted; Political Recollections; Anthology - America; Great Crises in Our History Told by its Makers; Vol. VIII (Veterans of Foreign Wars, Chicago, 1925) pages 160-161.

[11] Op. cit., McPherson, page 505.

[12] Op. cit., Foreman, page 295.

[13] Op. cit., McPherson, page 555.

[14] McPherson, James, The Saratoga That Wasn’t: The Impact of Antietam Abroad, in This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), pages 65-77.

[15] Sears, Stephen W., Landscape Turned Red (Ticknor & Fields, New York, 1983) pages 66-67.

[16] Ibid., pages 112-113.

[17] Op. cit., Foreman, page 322.

[18] ibid., page 397.

[19] The Russian Navy Visits the United States (Naval Historical Foundation, Annapolis, 1969)

CIVIL WAR's ORIGINS - JOHN BROWN

[Part of Constituting America’s 90 Day Study - Days that Shaped America]

On the evening of Oct. 16, 1859, John Brown and his raiders unleashed 36 hours of terror on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).

Brown's raid marked a cataclysmic moment of change for America and the world. It ranks up there with Sept. 11, the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and the shots fired on Lexington Common and Concord Bridge during the momentous day of April 19, 1775. Each of these days marked a point when there was no turning back. Contributing events may have been prologue, but once these fateful days took place, America was forever changed.

Americans at the time knew that the raid was not the isolated work of a madman. Brown was the well financed and supported "point of the lance" for the abolition movement.

He was a major figure among the leading abolitionists and intellectuals of the time. This included Gerrit Smith, the second wealthiest man in America and business partner of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Among other ventures, Smith was a patron of Oberlin College, where Brown's father served as a trustee. Thus was born a 20-year friendship.

Through Smith, Brown moved among America's elite, conversing with Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, journalists, religious leaders and politicians.

Early on, Brown deeply believed that the only way to end slavery was through armed rebellion. His vision was to create a southern portal for the Underground Railway in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The plan was to raise a small force and attack the armory in Harpers Ferry. There Brown would obtain additional weapons and then move into the Blue Ridge to establish his mountain sanctuary for escaping slaves.

Brown anticipated having escaped slaves swell his rebellious ranks and protect his sanctuary. He planned to acquire hundreds of metal tipped pikes as the weapon of choice.

The idea of openly rebelling against slavery was an extreme position in the 1850s. Abolitionist leaders felt slavery would either become economically obsolete or had faith that their editorials would shame the federal government to end the practice.

For years Brown remained the lone radical voice in the elite salons of New York and Boston. He looked destined to remain on the fringes of the anti-slavery movement when a series of events shook the activists' trust in working within the system and shifted sentiment toward Brown's solution.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 forced local public officials in free states to help recover escaped slaves. The federally sanctioned intrusion of slavery into the North began tipping the scales in favor of Brown's agenda.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 destroyed decades of carefully crafted compromises that limited slavery’s westward expansion.  The Act ignited a regional civil war as pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers fought each other prior to a referendum on the state’s status – slave or free.  Smith enlisted the help of several of the more active abolitionists to underwrite Brown's guerilla war against slavery in Kansas in 1856-57. This group, including some of America’s leading intellectuals, went on to become the Secret Six, who pledged to help Brown with his raid.

The Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision in 1857, and its striking down of Wisconsin's opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act in March 1859, set the Secret Six and Brown on their collision course with Harpers Ferry.

Today, Harpers Ferry is a scenic town of 300 people, but in 1859 it was one of the largest industrial complexes south of the Mason Dixon Line. The Federal Armory and Rifle Works were global centers of industrial innovation and invention. The mass production of interchangeable parts, the foundation of the modern industrial era, was perfected along the banks of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers.

Brown moved into the Harpers Ferry area on July 3, 1859, establishing his base at the Kennedy Farm a few miles north in Maryland. The broader abolitionist movement remained divided about an armed struggle. During August 19-21, 1859, a unique debate occurred. At a quarry outside Chambersburg, Pa., Frederick Douglass and Brown spent hours debating whether anyone had a moral obligation to take up arms against slavery. Douglass refused to join Brown but remained silent about the raid. Douglass’ aide, Shields Green, was so moved by Brown’s argument, he joined Brown on the raid, was captured, tried, and executed.

The American Civil War began the moment Brown and his men walked across the B&O railroad bridge and entered Harpers Ferry late on the evening of Oct. 16, 1859. Brown's raiders secured the bridges and the armories as planned. Hostages were collected from surrounding plantations, including Col. Lewis W. Washington, great grandnephew of George Washington. A wagon filled with “slave pikes” was brought into town.  Brown planned to arm freed slaves with the pikes assuming they had little experience with firearms. 

As Brown and his small force waited for additional raiders with wagons to remove the federal weapons, local militia units arrived and blocked their escape. Militia soldiers and armed townspeople methodically killed Brown’s raiders, who were arrayed throughout the industrial complexes. 

Eventually, the surviving raiders and their hostages retreated into the Armory’s Fire Engine House for their last stand.  Robert E. Lee and a detachment of U.S. Marines from Washington, DC arrived on Oct. 18.  The Marines stormed the Engine House, killing or capturing Brown and his remaining men, and freeing the hostages.  The raid was over.

Brown survived the raid. His trial became a national sensation as he chose to save his cause instead of himself. Brown rejected an insanity plea in favor of placing slavery on trial. His testimony, and subsequent newspaper interviews while awaiting execution on Dec. 2, 1859, created a fundamental emotional and political divide across America that made civil war inevitable.

Fearing that abolitionists were planning additional raids or slave revolts, communities across the South formed their own militias and readied for war. There was no going back to pre-October America.

Edmund Ruffin, one of Virginia's most vocal pro-slavery and pro-secession leaders, acquired several of Brown's "slave pikes." He sent them to the governors of slave-holding states, each labeled "Sample of the favors designed for us by our Northern Brethren."  Many of the slave pikes were publicly displayed in southern state capitols, further inflaming regional emotions. 

On April 12, 1861, Ruffin lit the fuse on the first cannon fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.  The real fuse had been lit months earlier by Brown at Harpers Ferry.

WEST VIRGINIA's PERPETUAL STRUGGLE

West Virginia Convention - Wheeling 1861

CONSTITUTING AMERICA'S SERIES ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The origins of West Virginia, its current challenges, and its political dynamics are all embodied in a unique case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1870.

In Virginia v. West Virginia, 78 U.S. 11 Wall. 39 39 (1870) 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 39 two counties demanded to be reinstated into Virginia.  The Court ultimately prevented Berkeley and Jefferson Counties from returning to Virginia.  In the process, the Civil War and the battlefield origins of West Virginia were reviewed in detail.  Three Justices dissented, asserting that the birth of West Virginia was chaotic and violated the rights of local citizens in the Eastern Panhandle.

The three judge dissent reveals origins of the state’s current political tensions.  Citizens in the Eastern Panhandle continue to agitate against the highly centralized state government.

Virginian political leaders initiated a process to succeed from the Union in January 1861.  As a Commonwealth, Virginia gave deference to county representation.  Initially, the 152 delegates were solidly pro-Union.  However, old regional rivalries surfaced.

Delegates from the western counties of Virginia raised the issue of unequal political power with the eastern sections of the state.  This east-west divide had been simmering since the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829.  That State Constitution required a property qualification for voting. This disenfranchised many yeoman farmers in the more mountainous western counties. It also embraced counting slaves on a three-fifths basis for apportioning representation. Every county beyond the Alleghenies, except one, rejected the 1829 constitution, which still passed with overwhelming eastern support. The issue of regional inequality erupted again during the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850-1851.  

On the morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate cannons opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. After the Fort’s surrender on April 13, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to forcibly return the rebellious states to the Union.  This was enough for the succession proponents in the Virginia Convention to prevail on April 17, 1861.

A formal vote, by county, was scheduled for May 23, 1861. 

Successionists took matters into their own hands and attacked the Federal Arsenal in Harpers Ferry on the evening of April 18.

The Eastern Panhandle became the site for over 60 Civil War Battles.  Local communities descended into chaos as Union and Confederate armies competed for control of this critical north-south gateway.  Some towns changed hands dozens of times.   

Pro-Union forces in western Virginia formed a separate state in June 1861.  Former Virginia Governor, and Confederate General, Henry Wise reported that, “The Kanawha Valley is wholly traitorous…You cannot persuade these people that Virginia can or ever will reconquer the northwest.”

Early in the Civil War, Union forces solidified control of northern Virginia (Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax). President Lincoln and the U.S. Congress merged this Unionist beachhead with the western counties as the “free” state of Virginia. 

On August 20, 1861, Lincoln empowered this military-backed civilian entity to establishment the separate state of West Virginia from the pro-Union western counties that opted-out of the Succession Convention.

A “free” state convention met in Wheeling, November 26, 1861, and drafted the "Constitution of West Virginia". It designated forty-four counties, "formerly part of the State of Virginia," to be "included in and form part of the State of West Virginia." The Counties of Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, Morgan, Frederick, Berkeley, and Jefferson were not named as part of the state.

The new West Virginia constitution left open the possibility of adding additional counties:

“if a majority of the votes cast at the election or elections held as provided in the schedule hereof, in the district composed of the Counties of Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, and Morgan, shall be in favor of the adoption of this constitution, the said four counties shall be included in and form part of the State of West Virginia, and if the same shall be so included, and a majority of the votes cast at the said election or elections, in the district composed of Berkeley, Jefferson, and Frederick, shall be in favor of the adoption of this constitution, then the three last-named counties shall also be included in and form part of the State of West Virginia."

Under the terms of this Constitution, an inclusion vote was held on the first Thursday in April,1862, for citizens in the original forty-four counties, and those living in Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, and Morgan.

Significantly, no one in the counties of Berkeley, Jefferson, or Frederick voted on the matter, because:

"from the 1st of June, 1861, to the 1st of March, 1862, during which time these proceedings for the formation of a new state were held, those counties were in the possession and under the absolute control of the forces of the Confederate States, and that an attempt to hold meetings in them to promote the formation of the new state would have been followed by immediate arrest and imprisonment."

A series of laws were passed within the “free” state of Virginia authorizing the military-backed State Legislature to certify popular support for counties being added to the new state of “West Virginia”. On January 31, 1863, the “free” state of Virginia gave consent for the counties of Berkeley and Jefferson to be transferred to the State of West Virginia.  Frederick County, still under Confederate control, remained in the old Virginia.

At the national level, an enabling act was approved by President Lincoln on December 31, 1862 for admitting West Virginia, on the condition that a provision for the gradual abolition of slavery be inserted in the state constitution.

The West Virginia state convention reconvened on February 12, 1863, and passed a new constitution including the abolition provision. The revised constitution was adopted on March 26, 1863.  On April 20, 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation admitting West Virginia as the 35^th state effective on June 20, 1863.

West Virginians in the eastern panhandle bridled under being forcibly included in a Union state.  Rumors were rampant that the owners of the B&O Railroad engineered their inclusion because they did not want their rail line going through a southern state.  This led to the 1870 Supreme Court decision. As recently as the 1990s, the Mayor of Charles Town, the county seat of Jefferson County, explored reopening the case.

Unlike its origins, West Virginia choose not to be a Commonwealth.  It remains one of the most centralized state governments in America, possibly for maintaining unity among entrenched regional interests.  Only recently did the West Virginia legislature authorize limited home rule for certain municipalities.  The power of counties to control growth and levy impact fees is less than 20 years old.

West Virginia’s turbulent genesis, and its Charleston-centric political power, has led to the state earning a reputation for corruption and incompetence.  “Democrats are controlled by the coal mining unions; Republicans are controlled by the coal mining executives” observed a Republican legislator. 

The state is challenged in finding its economic bearings as coal use declines.  It lacks internet access (West Virginia has the worst connectivity of the fifty states, while neighboring Virginia has the best).  Teacher unions and a bloated state bureaucracy make West Virginia one of the most expensive per-student school systems in the country, while consistently placing 49 or 50 in academic achievement.  The state steadily loses population, except for the eastern panhandle and the state Capitol of Charleston. 

Except for recent Presidential elections, Democrats dominate the state.  In 2016, Republicans won control of both the House of Delegates and the State Senate for the first time in 82 years.  In Jefferson County, formed in 1803, it took until 2004 for the first Republican Clerk to be elected. The first Republican Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney was elected in 2018.

HILL TOP REALITIES

SWaN Investors have done a masterful job orchestrating an “echo chamber” of positive media.  Countless Letters to the Editor purportedly from Harpers Ferry “residents”, news releases, and unsubstantiated assertions, have flooded local media.

SWaN’s goal is to stampede four of the seven voting Members of the Harpers Ferry Town Council to ignore, bend, and invent rules in order to give the out-of-state billionaires everything they desire as quickly as possible.

Facts and laws must drive the decision that will shape the next century of Harpers Ferry. 

The first reality check is to remember that the Hill Top Hotel was fully operational the day SWaN bought it.  Tour groups filled its rooms, hungry customers lined up for Hill Top’s famous fried chicken and buffet, and community groups regularly met there. 

The second reality check is to remember that it was SWaN, no one else, who closed the Hill Top Hotel. They asserted that Hill Top must be completely torn down.  To validate their assertion, SWaN allowed Hill Top to become derelict.  No repairs occurred, windows were broken, and water seeped in, collapsing the hotel’s front facade.  Those saddened by Hill Top’s current state of disrepair should remember who is responsible.

The third reality check is that the Town of Harpers Ferry owns the roads and undeveloped paper streets that SWaN so desperately craves.  These streets were laid out by War Department engineers under President George Washington.  They were officially documented in the 1869 War Department plat.  These streets are not “fake”.  They contribute to the integrity of Harpers Ferry’s Historic District, which was established by the Department of Interior in 1976.  Harpers Ferry’s Town Ordinances do not allow for the sale or transfer of these streets to anyone. The 2016 Ordinance amendment was only intended for disposing of Personal Property. No street has ever been given, sold, or ceded to anyone since 1790.  No amount of undocumented assertions changes this.

The fourth reality check is SWaN’s heavy-handed efforts to control public access to the Promontory.  Armed thugs brandishing guns have accosted members of the community when they are on paved portions of East Ridge and Columbia Streets.  In one instance, Harpers Ferry police had to order a SWaN thug to “stand down” and retreat to actual SWaN property.  SWaN refuses to release its “Security and Safety” Policy that will dictate when the community can access the Promontory.  Their secret policy could all but eliminate access. 

SWaN’s proposed land swap of their nearly vertical property for all the adjoining paper streets would bankrupt Harpers Ferry.  Accessing the Promontory using a massive zig-zagging wooden stairway would generate lawsuits and costs for making the 45% incline comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  No-one in a wheel chair, on crutches, or infirm may be able to enjoy one of our region’s greatest vistas.

The fifth reality check is that the number of Harpers Ferry visitors has increased since Hill Top Hotel closed in March 2008.  That year 260,000 visitors entered the Park.  In 2017, there were 342,534 Park visitors, an increase of 31.7 percent.  Since Hill Top closed, Harpers Ferry has been listed as one of America’s top tourist destinations in countless travel magazines and websites.  Harpers Ferry is certainly not a dying ghost town portrayed by SWaN’s acolytes.

The final reality check is about the true nature of SWaN and its proponents.  None of those appearing at Town meetings, or writing as “residents”, were involved, in any way, with the thirty preservation initiatives, since 1988, that saved the historic and scenic resources of the Harpers Ferry area from being destroyed. None of SWaN’s “community” proponents helped with the 50^th Anniversary of the Park, the Centennial of the Second Niagara Movement, or any of the Sesquicentennial commemorations of the John Brown Raid or the area’s Civil War battles. 

No one from SWaN even had the decency to attend the funeral of Bill Stanhagen, the person who sold Hill Top to SWaN.

These are the realities of the Hill Top project, and its supporters. 

Hopefully, they will be aired during the March 9 Town Workshop on the Concept Plan.

Scot Faulkner is President of Friends of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and co-chaired the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Park.

SAVING AMERICA'S HERITAGE

Harpers Ferry NHP 1985

Harpers Ferry NHP 2004

[Published on Newsmax]

Imagine America without scenic vistas or historic sites. These physical touch stones define American Exceptionalism, and remind us who were are and why we are.

One of the reasons our defining landscape remains mostly in tact is the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). On September 30, this Fund vanished. Lack of Congressional action allowed this fund to expire and with it countless opportunities to preserve uniquely American places threatened by sprawl and short-sighted development schemes.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund is funded by a small percentage of federal oil royalties from offshore drilling in public waters. No tax dollars are involved.

Each year, four percent of $20 billion collected in offshore royalties is deposited in the LWCF account in the federal treasury. It is less than the rounding errors across the Federal Budget. It is less than one quarter of one percent of the annual documented waste throughout the Federal Government.

Over its 50-year history, LWCF has protected land in every state and supported over 41,000 state and local park projects. It pays dividends well beyond preserving what makes America America. Outdoor recreation, natural resource preservation, and historic preservation activities provide a powerful building block in our national economy that supports 9.4 million jobs and contributes a total of $1.06 trillion annually to the U.S. economy, according to the National Fish and Wildlife Federation.

West Virginia is an excellent example of what the LWCF can do. West Virginia has received approximately $241 million in LWCF funding over the past five decades, protecting places such as the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, Monongahela National Forest and New River Gorge National River.

The Outdoor Industry Association has found that active outdoor recreation generates $9 billion in consumer spending in West Virginia, 91,000 jobs which generate $2.4 billion in wages and salaries, and produces $660 million annually in state and local tax revenue.

There are amazing stories behind these numbers – here is one.

In the late 1980’s, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (HFNHP) was threatened on all sides. Neighboring Loudoun County, Virginia was the fastest growing county in America. Developers looked to land around HFNHP for intensive development. They hoped the Loudoun real estate boom would spill over Loudoun Heights and create a deluge of new housing and strip malls. The developers saw riches on the hallowed ground where Americans fought and died during the Civil War. Access to the Washington, DC MARC commuter trains trumped historic preservation.

In March 1988 a small group of concerned local citizens met with the Superintendent of HFNHP. The result was chartering Friends of HFNHP as the official Friends Group for the Park. Its mission was to preserve precious historic and scenic resources before the bulldozers arrived.

Senator Robert Byrd became the “patron saint” for the preservation forces. He funded a Resource Study that defined core battlefield land (where troops actually engaged in fighting and tactical movement) and buffer lands that preserved the vistas and maintained the contextual integrity of the many battles fought in the area.

The study, adopted after extensive scholarly documentation and public meetings, became the new “battle map” for the preservationists.

What followed was forty separate preservation projects over thirty years. Twenty six successful legal and regulatory actions stopped developers from destroying earthworks, and blighting vistas with townhouses, apartments, subdivisions, strip malls, and in one instance, a strip club. In their place is now over 1,500 preserved acres in three states, which were ultimately transferred into the National Park system.

The preservation battles in the Harpers Ferry area all banked on the Land and Water Conservation Fund being all or part of the final financial arrangements. In some cases, the LWCF allowed the Friends’ group and its partners to outbid developers for unspoiled farmland. Willing sellers desired their legacy to be open land, not concrete and vinyl. In other cases, legal actions slowed or stopped developers, forcing them to the bargaining table.

Through it all, the LWCF was the financial “cavalry” that would arrive just in time to acquire land or reimburse preservation partners who were holding land in trust.

Today, 500,000+ visitors, from all over America and the world, can roam one of the nation’s most fully preserved battlefields. Countless travel and history rankings list Harpers Ferry as the top historic & scenic community in the U.S. None of this would have been possible without the tireless commitment of local citizens, the hard work of preservation and conservation groups, and the LWCF.

Permanent reauthorization, and full dedicated funding, of the LWCF will ensure other communities have this same access to vital preservation resources for facing current and future challenges.

BRIDGE TO OUR FUTURE

Hall Rifle Works, Harpers Ferry

Published on Newsmax and the Washington Examiner.

In an era when America’s history is being erased and its monuments are being removed, a group of young political leaders did something meaningful.

West Virginia State Senator Patricia Rucker, and WV Delegates Jill Upson and Riley Moore, made sure a bridge commemorates the person whose actions span the ages.

John Hancock Hall was the person who perfected interchangeable parts. His accomplishment, created using water power from the Shenandoah River at Harpers Ferry, made our modern age possible.

Hall was a self-taught engineer. His rise from a ship builder in Portland, Maine to a person who changed the world is inspirational. In 1811, at age thirty, Hall received a U.S. Patent for the world’s first breech loading weapon. Changing the of loading ammunition from the muzzle of a gun to its breech revolutionized warfare. This was just the beginning.

Hall won the contract to create the manufacturing process, and the machines, to produce rifles and carbines with parts that were fully interchangeable. The U.S. War Department wanted weapons that were easy to repair on the battlefield. At the time, all weapons were individually hand made by skilled craftsmen, each one unique.

It took eight years for Hall to create the revolutionary machines and processes that would become known as the “American System”. In December 1826, the world’s first fully interchangeable product, made solely by machines, rolled off Hall’s assembly line.

This moment made our modern world possible. Once one complex item could be consistently made by machines, it was possible to make anything by machine. This was revolutionary - technologically, economically, and culturally.

The impact of Hall’s inventions and processes was immediate, dramatic, and fundamental. The speed and volume of meeting consumer needs made a quantum leap, and continues to speed-up to this day. The cost of consumer goods plummeted, vastly expanding their availability to a broader range of people, improving lives.

The role of the worker was forever changed. For thousands of years craftsmen learned their craft from masters and then spent days, or even weeks, producing individual items. The “American System” changed everything. Younger workers, with limited training, could run manufacturing machines that produced ready made goods in hours. This reinvented the entire work culture for America, and eventually the world.

Hall’s inventions, and his system of mass producing interchangeable parts, was the ultimate disruptive act. His death in 1841, at age 60, meant others stepped forward to promote and adapt his inventions and processes. Hall’s accomplishments faded from memory. Rucker, Upson, and Moore sponsored and led the passage of legislation that makes sure he is memorialized in the Route 340 bridge over the Shenandoah River by the ruins of Hall’s Rifle Works.

History wrongly credits Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, as the father of interchangeable parts. He was not. The John Hancock Hall Bridge establishes Hall’s proper place in world history.

This is what monuments, and the naming bridges and places, is all about. Humans need physical reminders of who we are and why we are. We need places where we can go to understand the events that continue to shape us.

Just like people and events, inventions change things in a multitude of ways. Some changes are immediately tangible, some take generations to comprehend. Hall’s inventions made warfare more deadly and disrupted the role of the master craftsman. Hall’s inventions also made manufactured products affordable, and created employment opportunities for millions.

The actions of Senator Rucker, and Delegates Upson and Riley remind us of why we have monuments. They proved that even a few people can still make a difference.

Monuments draw attention to what shapes our identity, frames how we view our past, and prepares us for the future.

[Scot Faulkner is the President of Friends of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served on the White House Staff, and as an Executive Branch Appointee.]

TRUMPING THE PARKS

#TRUMPING

[Also published http://www.newsmax.com/ScotFaulkner/trump-national-parks-preservation-friends-groups/2017/05/01/id/787459/] 

President Trump signaled his commitment to the National Parks by donating his first quarter’s salary to their upkeep.

America’s nationhood is based upon ideals.  America’s National Parks are the physical touchstones that reaffirm who we are and why we are.

America remains America if our Parks remain integral to our lives.  It means making our Parks relevant and relatable to all Americans through the 21^st Century and beyond.

National Parks have three primary customers.  Each requires diverse actions to meet their needs.  Visitors are one customer.  However, the environmental and historical resources a Park protects are also customers with their own unique needs. 

Making sure a Park’s plants and animals are healthy and thriving is grounded in science linked to creativity.  The 1995 reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park was a master stroke that is improving the Park’s environment on a daily basis.

Making sure the historical resources of a Park remain viable is a daunting challenge.  Natural parks even have historic structures, sites, and viewsheds.  Time, the elements, and visitors constantly assault this historic fabric and context.  A leaky roof today may become a collapsed one a year later. Unfortunately, Park maintenance has been neglected by Presidents and the Congress far too long.

Making sure visitors gain the intended insights, and leave with a sense of civic renewal, is complex.  Young people no longer bring to their Park experience the language, historical, geographical, or scientific knowledge of previous generations.

There exist highly successful best practices that will help President Trump, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and the Park Service address these challenges.

Expanding Partnerships – every National Park should have its own Friends Group, corporate partners, and, where appropriate, Cooperating Association.

Lack of funding has devastated America’s National Parks for more than a generation.  There are less than 100 Friends groups among the 415 National Parks.  These groups are formed by local citizens and chartered by the Department of Interior.  Friends groups generate support within the communities surrounding each Park.  Partners can supplement Park resources with volunteers to staff special events.  They also serve as advocates to win preservation battles.

Cooperating Associations are another vital Park partner.  These groups run Park bookstores, build a membership base, raise funds, and co-develop and present interpretive programs. 

Corporate partners have provided vital funds for major maintenance projects. Target raised $5 million to help repair the Washington Monument in 2000, while Chrysler CEO, Lee Iacoccca, spearheaded raising $36 million for the restoration of the Statute of Liberty in the 1980s.

Embedding Parks in Schools – Young people must grow up with National Parks being an important part of their life.  Parks need to be a learning resource. This will help the next generation embrace the role Parks play in preserving America’s civic culture. 

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (HFNHP) has been at the forefront of highly successful education initiatives.  In 1988, the Park partnered with the local county schools to create an award winning living history immersion.  Each year the Park provides educational material to local K-12 schools, including a full day Civil War simulation where students experience being raw recruits.

In 2009, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground and HFNHP developed “Of the Student, By the Student, For the Student” video workshops.  8^th grade students studied a major Park theme (i.e. John Brown’s 1859 raid) and then, working with media coaches, wrote, acted, directed, and produced short videos on some aspect of that theme.  The multiple avenues of learning, from history to film making, has become a national model for engaging young people.

Making Parks Virtual – iPhone and Android screens have become our window to the world.  Bringing the Park to the visitor, creating unique experiences, is one way of engaging more people, without expanding the number of Park staff.

Recently, HFNHP launched “Time Trek” which uses smart phones and virtual reality to immerse young people in history.  They peer through their smart phone cameras with images from historical story lines overlaying their surroundings.

Google Street View now has technology for mapping trails and off-road environments.  “Guide by Cell” and applications like “Wikitude” and “Detour” enable nonlinear tourism.  Imagine virtually hiking the Appalachian Trail from your own home or having real time access to experts in a park you are visiting.

President Trump’s and Secretary Zinke’s leadership and vision can make Parks Great Again.

[Scot Faulkner is President of Friends of Harpers Ferry National Park and a former Trustee of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground. He helps private corporations and governments save billions of dollars by flattening organizations; achieving dramatic and sustainable cost reductions while improving operational and service excellence. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.  He also served as Director of Personnel for Ronald Reagan’s Presidential Campaign and on Reagan’s Transition and White House Staff.] 

HILLTOP BOOGEYMAN

By Scot Faulkner

Published at http://www.journal-news.net/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2017/03/harpers-ferrys-hilltop-boogeyman/

There are many scary issues surrounding the long running battle over the future of the Hilltop House property.  The collapsing Hilltop House structure is a favorite spooky site on Youtube.  Neighbors worry about the 81 police incidents that have made the Hilltop House the center for drugs, vandalism, and worse.

The latest scare is “by right”.  Spokespeople for SWaN Investors, the Hilltop owners, have used their ominous voice to threaten that terrible things will happen if they do not get their way.  Their current boogeyman of choice is that SWaN will build a new hotel on a 1.25 acre commercial site “by right”.

“By right” sounds scary, but it is just the legal term for “grandfathered”, a right granted to any property owner.  “Grandfathered” does not sound as scary, which is why SWaN avoids it.  The better to spook Harpers Ferry’s elected officials and townspeople.

In 2015, a major fire destroyed three commercial buildings in the lower town of Harpers Ferry.  These buildings are slowly being rebuilt “by right”.  It is totally legal to build “like for like” when something needs replacing. 

Harpers Ferry is a National Historic District, administered by the Department of Interior and the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.  In order to comply with these national organizations, the town has very strict and detailed ordinances governing what can be built or rebuilt.  Architectural style and building materials must be approved to preserve the integrity of the Historic District.  The three buildings destroyed by fire are being rebuilt within these guidelines, even though they are “grandfathered” in terms of commercial use and their overall dimensions.

The Hilltop House owners can proceed, right now, with a “by right” or “grandfathered” hotel on their one and a quarter commercially zoned acres.  SWaN tries to make this sound terrible.  They are proposing an alternative that will develop an area nearly seven times larger, turning private residential lots into commercial space, and taking over three public streets.

SWaN’s “overlay district” is the real boogeyman.  Their “overlay” creates an area devoid of all ordinances and restrictions, which govern the town’s Historic District. 

Once approved by the Harpers Ferry Town Council, this seven times larger “overlay district” will become the new “by right” area where SWaN can tear down historic structures, clear cut trees, blast, jack hammer, take over public land, alter streets, and bulldoze with impunity. 

SWaN’s “overlay district” will allow them to build whatever they want in any style, shape, and size they want.  SWaN and its Town Council allies are already pushing for expedited permit approvals, some of which would be issued administratively without public notice or comment.

It is very scary in Harpers Ferry.  People shouldn’t worry about the ghosts of old, but fear the demons being created.

[Scot Faulkner has been an active member of the Harpers Ferry community since 1987]