A trek for peace

When his children were young, Peter Prusinowski walked them in Penn Treaty Park. The place spoke to him. The Polish immigrant was fascinated by what happened there in 1682, the year William Penn and Chief Tamanend of the Leni-Lenape Indians made a pact of peace under a magnificent elm.

"It was a treaty based on friendship and love," said Prusinowski, who lives in Fishtown. "The place became sacred to me, and one day, my heart was telling me this is something I needed to do."

That "something" was something indeed - a 2,000-mile, 143-day journey from Philadelphia to Oklahoma - on foot. The route Prusinowski took - across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas - followed the path of migration of the Lenape or Delaware Indians as they were pushed west during the 180 years after the treaty.

Prusinowski called it the "Trail of Hope."

"I wasn't trying to prove anything," Prusinowski said the other day, sitting on a bench at the park. "My goal was to remind people of what happened in 1682, to show people that we can live in a peaceful way."

When Prusinowski, 57, hatched his idea about three years ago, he was an unlikely candidate for a physical challenge. He smoked two packs a day and hadn't exercised in years. The first time he tried jogging, he lasted only 15 seconds.

"It was very depressing," he said. "I couldn't believe how out of shape I was."

But he persisted, increasing the length of his power walks, reforming his diet. By summer 2010, he was training eight hours a day, swimming, weightlifting, walking with a backpack filled with 50 pounds of sand.

Prusinowski set off on his journey on a rainy and chilly March 23. There was a small ceremony at Penn Treaty Park with a representative from the Nanticoke tribe of Lenape Indians, based in Bridgeton, N.J.

Prusinowski carried four roses. He left one at the obelisk marking the site of the treaty. He left the second at the statue of Chief Tamanend near Front and Market Streets. He left the third at Philadelphia City Hall. After walking along Lancaster Avenue west to Haverford College, he left the fourth near the base of a campus elm descended from the original treaty elm.