baloney

HARMONY TWP. (AP)- Archaeologists digging up the fort where Gen. Anthony Wayne trained the U.S. Army’s first battalion fear the historic site will be paved in the name of new jobs. The Beaver County Corporation for Economic Development and a Beaver County developer want to buy the site along the Ohio River in Harmony Township near Ambridge. If the group and the developer have their way, the land where drunks, hunters and trappers trained for battles against Indians in the Ohio River Valley will turn into an industrial park. Wayne’s troops originally were stationed in Pittsburgh, but he moved the men downriver in 1792 because temptations of the city- gambling, drinking and romance- were undermining military discipline, said Ronald Carlisle, an archaeologist at the University of Pittsburgh.

Wayne, known as "Mad Anthony" for his fierceness in battle, dubbed the 22-acre site "Legion Ville," built a fort and drilled the troops for six months before taking them to Ohio to fight Indians. Wayne’s victories later would open the Ohio River Valley and Northwest Territory to settlers. The flat, undeveloped site- now covered with poison sumac and grass- is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But Harmony Township has zoned the land for industrial uses. Gencorp Inc.- the Akron, Ohio, chemical and rubber producer that owns the tract- paid $14,000 for an ongoing archaeological dig coordinated by Carlisle and the state’s Cultural Resource Management Program. Developer Paul Mouradian of Ambridge said when he bought an option on the site from Gencorp, he didn’t know about the "historical baloney."

Mouradian said the archaeologists should be more worried about creating jobs in the economically depressed Ohio River Valley and less concerned about events of the 18th century. If the CED obtains the site, it would require another phase of archaeological study before developing the tract, said the group’s president, Clair Searfoss. The excavating team has turned up remains of the unit’s armory, hospital, stables, kitchens and headquarters building, Carlisle said. The team also found what apparently was the trench Wayne’s troops dug around the camp, he said. Wayne was as strict about cleanliness as he was about discipline, Carlisle said, so the archaeologists are trying to find a garbage pit that could reveal details about life in the camp.

The troops who trained under Wayne’s rigid discipline included deserters from Revolutionary War battles with the English, trappers, hunters and a few habitual drunks, said William J. Bowan, a spokesman for the Anthony Wayne Historical Society. The camp leaders included William Henry Harrison, who later served as the country’s ninth president, archaeologist Patrick Riley said. Also stationed at Legion Ville were explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Henry Burbek, one of the founders of West Point, was commander of the Legion’s artillery unit.

If the site is paved, "Beaver County will have lost a unique connection between itself and the history of the United States," Carlisle said.