*UPDATE* National Park Service Not Removing William Penn Statue…For Now
“The Penn statue and Slate Roof house model will be removed and not reinstalled.”
*UPDATE* The National Park Service said the announcement to remove the William Penn statue from Welcome Park to rehabilitate the park came out “prematurely”:
Independence National Historical Park has withdrawn the review of a draft proposal to rehabilitate Welcome Park and closed the public comment period. The preliminary draft proposal, which was released prematurely and had not been subject to a complete internal agency review, is being retracted. No changes to the William Penn statue are planned.
The National Park Service (NPS) remains committed to rehabilitating Welcome Park as the nation prepares to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. Upon completion of all the necessary internal reviews, the park looks forward to engaging in a robust public process to consider options for refurbishing the park in the coming years.
The park is located on the site of William Penn’s home, the Slate Roof House, and is named for the ship, Welcome, which transported Penn to Philadelphia. The design and construction of Welcome Park was funded by the Independence Historical Trust and was completed in 1982.
I think it went out on purpose, and the NPS is trying to cover it up. Even if NPS released it prematurely, it shows us that it has (or had) plans to remove the statue.
Fools.
***Previous reporting…
The ignorant folks at the National Park Service want to “rehabilitate Welcome Park” in Philadelphia “to provide a more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience” by removing Willian Penn’s statue.
The ignorance makes me so mad:
The proposed rehabilitation of Welcome Park includes expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia and was developed in consultation with representatives of the indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee, the Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, the Shawnee Tribe, and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. The reimagined Welcome Park maintains certain aspects of the original design such as the street grid, the rivers and the east wall while adding a new planted buffer on three sides, and a ceremonial gathering space with circular benches. The Penn statue and Slate Roof house model will be removed and not reinstalled. In a separate and future effort, new exhibit panels will be installed on the south site wall to replace the Penn timeline.
Penn founded Pennsylvania as a haven for religious freedom in 1681.
Before Penn, the Indian tribes fought and treated each other in awful ways:
In the mid-1600s, upheavals among Indians in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions helped clear the way for the European settlement of the Delaware Valley. The Iroquois, equipped with Dutch (and later English) firearms, struck out against the Huron and other native groups to secure fur trading routes and take captives to replenish their numbers, which had been decimated by European diseases. By the time Charles II (1630-85) granted Penn his colonial charter, Iroquois raids had largely depopulated the Susquehanna Valley of its native inhabitants.
Penn sought out a way to live peacefully with the Native Americans (emphasis mine):
With the Susquehanna Valley open for hunting beaver and other pelts that Europeans prized for Atlantic markets, the Lenapes were disposed to negotiate with Penn, a man they called Miquon (meaning “feather,” or quill pen, a Delaware pun on his last name). Penn, in return, promised he would deal with Indians honestly and fairly. These early treaties cemented Pennsylvania’s reputation as a peaceable colony where love and friendship prevailed between Indians and colonists.
Penn bought the Susquehanna area from New York. That led the Shawnee, Conoy, and Conestoga to recognize Pennsylvania in 1701.
What did Penn do? He “promised his Indian allies that his government would protect them from unruly colonists and dishonest traders.”
After 1701, Pennsylvania enjoyed a “long peace.”
Penn left his colony, leaving it to colonist James Logan. Everything went sour in 1737 when Logan and Thomas Penn developed the “Walking Purchase.”
Unfortunately, Penn’s son ruined everything after his death.
But yeah, the ignorance from the NPS makes me furious. The one colonist who truly wanted thought of Native Americans as equals they want to erase.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
He’s white
He helped formulate this great, once, Country
He must go
Where are the people of Penni?
Where the new brain injured American loving Fetterman ?
The cultural “ethnic cleansing” is strong in this traitor.
Question – If they are getting rid of Penn, are they going to get rid of the Penn Biden Center?
Asking for a friend.
Woke progressive lefties going fight over changing the name of the state??
They still haven’t done anything about Harvard, named after a major slaveholder. His status is in no danger of being removed — quite the contrary.
Damn… not “status” — “statue.”
William Penn is foundational.
He is as important an historic figure to the state of PA, as George Washington is to the nation.
Biden is betraying his own home state.
Hopefully this will encourage PA voters to vote out biden and other dems next election, to reverse this historic error. Flip PA red.
“Biden is betraying his own home state.”
Once you’ve done a whole country, a state is nothing.
Joe’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden, is a Philadelphia native. She must approve of the measure.
DEI has infected the Park Service, as it has every federal agency.
Penn was a white man. White men are evil colonizers. Natives were not white, therefore natives were virtuous.
The fact that Penn founded a successful colony based on virtuous motives is an ACCOMPLISHMENT. Accomplishments are white, therefore evil. Natives accomplished very little, proving that they were not evil..
Penn’s statue exemplifies evil white accomplishment, and must go.
It makes perfect sense to a progressive.
Native american tribal peoples had no concept of human rights.
They scalped other tribes during periods of tribal warfare, before they extended the practice to scalping white settlers.
I *miiiiight* be mistaken on this one, but I was told a LONG time ago — well before the current woke/DIE era — that the “scalping” thing was actually started by whites, as they offered bounties for any Amerinds killed. The scalps showed you’d (presumably) killed one and was turned in for cash payment.
Not saying I’m sure it’s true, but …. might want to look more into the history of scalping.
Jus’ Sayin’
95% of the attitude these days is insanity, but this one, you might have wrong.
Revisionist fraud.
You’re mistaken. There’s evidence of scalping by Native Americans going back to 600 AD, long before the arrival of Europeans. If you look, you’ll find numerous research papers supporting this finding.
I wonder when my undergrad alma mater, FSU, will be forced to change the touchdown chant that ends in “…scalp ‘em!” We’ve avoided the forced name change so far, because the Seminole tribe strongly supports its use, but it’s probably only a matter of time.
Certainly sounds like all those folks in Delaware are still fearful that they will be sucked back into Pennsylvania.
Originally, there was no Delaware colony. It was a county of Pennsylvania.
When it came time to ratify the US Constitution, they claimed to be an unique state and ratified the Constitution first.
Why not replace it with a statue of Sean Penn? His life has been spent in search of piece.
Replace with wooden indian statue like can found in cigar store in lobby of tribal casin0?
Not to mention trading one piece for another.
Nahhhh. He was a rabid gun owner until Charlize Theron had him so p-whipped he sold his whole collection. She dumped him about 6 months later. I assume he’s been collecting it back ever since.
If Quakers are not safe, no one is
This 2020 cartoon was genuinely prophetic.
Amish are not safe,..see: Amos Miller
I just got off the phone with Dell computer support.
The tech guy lives near Fort Liberty, formerly known as Fort Bragg.
Apparently, there were streets that contain the evil name “Bragg” that were all renamed.
Everybody on these “Evil Streets” have to change their addresses and get new stationery and business cards. This is very painful for everyone.
Soon thee will be no proof the Democrats supported the only true insurrection that ever occurred in our Country.
The nationwide riots and arson of 2020 were true insurrection attempts. They sought to burn the nation to the ground and went after every symbol of America. They specifically attacked government buildings and made clear that their intention was to bring America to its knees, which they nearly did. Even more, they actually took American territory – with the aid of many treasonous officials – to declare new “nations”, short-lived, violent, and retarded as they were.
The horrid “Have you visited ‘yette?” ad campaign does not help the cause. Fayettnam has always been somewhat of a seedy land of sand and black jack oak trees bordered by pines and silica sand mines. Being from the border of NC/SC just down 401 from Bragg I can tell assure you The Bloody Bucket in McColl, SC was filled with Fayettvillians, both civil ( somewhat) and military during the 1940s and 50s, as Cumberland County along with most of NC was dry then.
Much easier to propagate 1619 Project lies without visual reminders of the real history of this country beautifying public spaces.
Pennsylvania to be renamed Wokesylvania??
Wakanda
Speaking of the history of terrible white people, Rhodes initially stopped the warring in Southern Africa and the missionaries in the South Pacific also ended the ongoing warfare. For Rhodes, he stopped the Zulus from attacking the Shona and Matabele … but after that things went south but for a moment there was peace.
It’s very poor form, and hurtful, to introduce historical fact into a woke argument. I think you owe some traumatized youth an apology.
Wakanda…Isn’t that the Summer Camp where Ray Stantz toasted Stay-Puft Marshmallows as a kid?
From the link in article:
NEWS RELEASE
Park seeks input on the rehabilitation of Welcome Park
“The public is invited to submit comments on this proposed design for the rehabilitation of Welcome Park for a 14-day period from January 8th – 21st, 2024 through the National Park Service’s Planning, Environment and Public Comment (PEPC) at https://parkplanning.nps.gov. Comments submitted through social media, phone calls, email or mail will not be accepted. All public comments must be received through PEPC by midnight Sunday, January 21st, 2024.”
They are removing a statue from in front of the mans house to be more inclusive of the people who are going to visit that mans house??
They are getting rid of the house too
Sylvania means woods. Woods are racist owing to lynchings.
Amazing. The founder of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, the cradle of Liberty. A Quaker. Gettysburg will be next. GETTYSBURG.WILL.BE.NEXT. for the year zero zealots.
They have already purged anything Confederate from the stores there. I’d challenge Ken Burns that he couldn’t produce “The Civil War” today especially with the likes of Shelby Foote. All those Union soldiers calling a certain constrained ethnic minority by its colloquial term.
Orwell was a naive optimist.
Just another blatant reminder that there is no room for reconciliation by these people.
Statues and monuments belong to all of us and our posterity, not the NPS. They are merely the custodians of our history, not the owners.
From the Left’s perspective, the Government owns EVERYTHING. They own the history, they own the present, they own the future, they own your property, THEY OWN YOU. Nothing is yours or ours unless granted by the Government. And even then it is only on loan to you as long as you toe the line.
/rant off
Please, do not misconstrue these words….prepare and arm yourself, and embrace the 2A before the two wolves decide YOU are on the menu. This will reach a tipping point at some point prior to November.
The minority only has so much power as the majority is willing to give it.
Keep Penn, remove Biden.
Stupid people should feel the consequences of their stupidity.
“The National Park Service said the announcement to remove the William Penn statue from Welcome Park to rehabilitate the park came out “prematurely”
“Dammit, you weren’t supposed to let the cat out of the bag yet!”
They will wait until the tumult dies down and then remove it in the missle of the night.
Glad to see Michelle Obama’s “we have to change our history” hasn’t kicked in in this instance…….yet.
Biden is trying to provoke confrontation again to divide americans?
As a native Pennsylvanian, this makes me ill. What’s next – removing the iconic statue of William Penn from atop Philadelphia’s City Hall?
They could change the name of the state to “Sylvania”, like William Penn suggested in the first place. Parliament added “Penn” in honor of his father the Admiral, in recognition of the elder Penn’s service at sea and in oppressing the Irish. No one was going to honor a Quaker, but they owed his father a large fortune when he died, and saw a chance to cancel that debt by giving his son a huge piece of land stolen from the Indians.