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Marietta marks anniversary of Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Photo by Michael Kelly A stone monolith commemorating the signing of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 is one of two that frame Front Street just off the Putnam Bridge at the entrance to East Muskingum Park in Marietta. On Friday, a group gathered to hear speakers talk about the importance of the ordinance on the 231st anniversary of its proclamation.

MARIETTA — Every year Marietta pays homage to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a visionary document which established the governing framework for the new territory north of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes.

It was a vast territory, and Marietta was its first capital. The ordinance set up a process for statehood, enshrined civil rights and outlawed slavery, among other things. Two months after its enactment, it served as a model for the U.S. Constitution, particularly influencing the section known as the Bills of Rights.

On Friday morning a group of about 25 people gathered in Muskingum Park to hear speakers and celebrate the 231st anniversary of the proclamation. But first, in keeping with tradition, came a musical prelude.

The north tower of the First Congregational United Church of Christ, on Front Street directly across from the park, includes a cramped, dusty room accessible only by a tightly wound spiral staircase off the upper gallery of the church’s big sanctuary. Inside the warm, unventilated space just before 10 a.m., Sean Lofty unpacked sheet music and racked it on a music stand above a line of wooden levers the size and approximate shape of gunstocks, each marked with a note from the alphabet of music.

A keyboard of sorts, the levers are connected to the bell carillon a few feet above the room at the top of the tower. With a l0-note array of bells to play, ranging from a low F to a high G, Lofty pressed down on the levers at 10 a.m., playing the Westminster Chime, familiar to church goers as a call to service and householders as the most common doorbell sound in the western world.

Photo by Michael Kelly Sean Lofty reads sheet music as he presses down on levers to play the bell carillon in the north tower of the First Congregational United Church of Christ on Front Street Friday. A program of patriotic music and hymns rang out from the church Friday morning to start the annual program marking the proclamation of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

Lofty, 23, when not playing the giant bells at his church, works in accounts at Settler’s Bank. A member of the church since he was 8 years old, he began playing the bells to help out the previous bell virtuoso, Nancy Riley, who had developed trouble getting up the challenging stairway.

The levers are connected by vertical rods that run through the ceiling to the hammers that strike the bells. Lofty, who also studies piano and sometimes plays the giant pipe organ in the church, said the timing at first was challenging — there aren’t any dampers to stop the reverberation when the bells are struck.

“With the timing, I got to the point where I ‘m kind of playing to my own rhythm,” he said. “It was easier as I got used to it.”

He said the levers aren’t a lot of physical work but it can be tiring in the summer as heat builds up in the tower and the bell vibrations send occasional clouds of dust and debris down from the wood ceiling. The bells were installed in 1922, and the church building itself dates back to 1906.

The concert moved on through “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “America the Beautiful” and other patriotic melodies, followed by a few hymns. During the ringing, half-hour cascade, a few hardy people — a history teacher from Williamstown High School, Brian Kesterson, and Jack and Barbara Moberg, of Marietta, came up to watch.

Photo by Michael Kelly Bells are visible in the north tower of the First Congregational United Church of Christ. A program of music played on the bells by Sean Lofty opened the program Friday morning to mark the 231st anniversary of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

As the bell music drifted over Muskingum Park and faded, historian Jean Yost introduced speakers that included Rev. Linda Steelman of the First Congregational Church, state school board member Nancy Hollister and Ohio Rep. Andy Thompson, R-Marietta, who cited Alexis de Tocqueville, the French diplomat and political scientists and author of Democracy in Action, the book that held a mirror up to the America of the early 19th century.

Tocqueville, Thompson said, compared what he saw in Ohio and Kentucky, noting that Ohioans as a group were far more industrious than their counterparts south of the river, who relied on slaves to get their work done. Thompson attributed that in part to the Northwest Ordinance, with its guarantees of freedom and civil rights.

“We’re here today to pay tribute to this visionary document, and its forward thinking which would ensure our nation would thrive,” he said.

Bob Gordon came from Gallia County to tell his story. Gordon, who among his other accomplishments was the first African-American city manager of Gallipolis, told the gathering that the Northwest Ordinance as taught in public school history when he was a student was presented as a document governing land ownership and settlement matters.

“But it also protected civil rights and religious freedom, and prohibited slavery,” he said. “I applaud their vision. It must have been difficult in those times, but as Martin Luther King, Jr., said, ‘The time is always right to do what’s right.'”

Photo by Michael Kelly Robert Gordon was one of the speakers who addressed a crowd gathered Friday to mark the 231st anniversary of the proclamation of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

Gordon offered some of his own history to illustrate, starting with a DNA analysis.

“I’m Irish, Nigerian and Saponi Indian,” he said. “Top that. In Appalachia, you really can’t judge a book by its cover.”

“My family was enslaved in Mason County, Virginia, which is now in West Virginia,” he said. His great-grandfather escaped twice, being captured once by slave hunters but settling the second time in Gallia County. He worked in the furnaces, fought in the Civil War and bought land, which Gordon still owns.

“Now, I can sit on my land and look across the river to Mason County,” he said. “I have a legacy of endurance.”

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