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Fallen Timbers Site Investigation Report
14 FEB 1994
RESOURCE DESCRIPTION:
Location: The three sites are located in Lucas and Wood Counties, Ohio, in or adjacent to the cities of Maumee and Perrysburg. This area is part of Ohio's 9th Congressional District.
Current Uses and Ownership: There were three discrete sites we were asked to inspect. The Fallen Timbers battlefield is located just west of Maumee on the north side of the Maumee River. The Ohio Historical Society owns a 4 acre site on the battlefield which includes several memorials and interpretative waysides. The site is managed by the Toledo Metroparks, which also owns a portion of the battlefield extending from the memorial down to the Maumee River. The Metroparks holdings along the Maumee are extensive and are used as a regional park.
Much of the battlefield, including the portions where the heaviest fighting is believed to have occurred, are not owned or managed for public use. The city of Toledo owns a large tract in the center of the battlefield. Toledo acquired the property for industrial development, but has subsequently considered proposals for a shopping mall and a golf course. The current landcover of this property is forest and agriculture. The forested section is important because it is the last wooded portion of the battlefield. This forested section may provide archaeological evidence of the battle, especially since the dead were buried on the battlefield, if they were buried at all.
The site is located in an unincorporated section of Lucas County, which the city of Maumee is trying to annex.
The eastern extreme of the battlefield is interrupted by Interstate 475 and a major interchange.
The western edge of the battlefield, where Wayne's army formed a line of battle, roughly coincides with about a dozen single family residences along Jerome Road. There is an abandoned railroad line running east-west along the northern edge of the battlefield, but the Metroparks intends to develop a rail-trail.
Fort Miamis is located in Maumee on a bluff above the river. Most of the site is a city park. The western third or quarter of the fort is on the property of a private residence.
Fort Meigs is located in Perrysburg on the south side of the Maumee. The site is owned and operated by the Ohio Historical Society. The site contains a reconstruction of a War of 1812 fort. The society operates the site as a state memorial.
Resource Type: The resources studied for this report are primarily important for their historical value. Several themes listed in "History and Prehistory in the National Park System and the National Historic Landmarks Program" are represented by these three areas. Fallen Timbers is listed in this document under "X. Westward Expansion of the British Colonies and the United States, 1763-1898, C. Military-Aboriginal American Contact and Conflict, 1. East of the Mississippi, 1763-1850s." Fort Meigs is listed under "V. Political and Military Affairs, 1763-1860, E. War of 1812, 1812-1815." Fallen Timbers and Fort Miamis would also be representative of the theme "V. Political and Military Affairs, 1783-1860, C. Early Federal Period, 1789-1800."
These three sites are clustered about the rapids of the Maumee River. This was a strategically important area from 1783 to 1815. The United States was nominally sovereign over the "Old Northwest Territory" as a result of the treaty ending the American Revolution. However, the British remained at several strategic locations in the territory, such as Detroit, and supported the Native Americans who were resisting the settlement of European-Americans in what is now Ohio. Any American force wanting to march on Detroit would need to cross the Maumee near the rapids, and any British force marching to invade Ohio would likewise need to cross at the same point. The rapids were also the up-stream limit of the influence of British naval power in the region.
In 1790, the United States began a campaign to end the threat to the settlements in Ohio. In two successive years, 1709 and 1791, U.S. forces marched into the headwaters area of the Maumee and Wabash Rivers and were soundly defeated by a confederation of Native American tribes. The settlements in Ohio were in a tenuous position, and the U.S. was on the verge of losing control of the "Old Northwest" to the British. In response to these threats, a new army was raised and placed under the command of General Anthony Wayne, a Revolutionary War hero. Wayne trained his men well and engaged in a methodical campaign which climaxed at Fallen Timbers.
The Governor-General of Canada expected that the rivalry for the Northwest Territory would lead to a general war between the U.S. and Britain, and acted accordingly. As Wayne's army approached the Maumee River, the British sent troops to build a fort at the rapids to block a potential advance on Detroit. This fort, Fort Miamis, represents the final attempt of the British to control territory ceded to the United States by the Treaty of 1783.
Fallen Timbers was a decisive victory for the United States Army. The Native Americans, defeated and totally unsupported by the British during the battle, decided to discuss peace. The resulting Treaty of Greeneville between the United States and the tribes and the roughly concurrent Jay Treaty between the United States and Britain brought a period of relative peace, opened new lands for settlement, and removed British troops and traders from U.S. territory.
When the War of 1812 began, the "Old Northwest" was once again up for grabs. The British quickly retook key posts such as Detroit. This time it was the Americans who rushed to the rapids of the Maumee to forestall an enemy advance. U.S. Army troop under the command of William Henry Harrison built Fort Meigs as a winter encampment and supply fort. As a part of the siege they reoccupied the site of Fort Miamis. During the siege, Harrison, a veteran of Fallen Timbers, sought to inspire his troops by comparing their efforts to those of men that fought at nearby Fallen Timbers. Fort Meigs withstood the siege. Following the American victory on Lake Erie, and the subsequent expulsion of the British from the Northwest Territories, the fort was partially demolished, but continued to guard the critical river crossing until the end of the war.
The three sites are an interconnected group preserving the important remains of sites and events that were critical in the protection of U.S. interests in the Northwest Territories.
In addition to the three historic sites, there are additional resources. Fort Meigs includes the type site for the Fort Meigs phase of the Sandusky culture. The floodplain along the Maumee in the vicinity of the battlefield contains remnant tall grass prairie similar to that described in General Wayne's diary and in early surveyor's notes. The forest in the central portion of the battlefield is identified on the National Wetlands Inventory map as a Palustrine, forested, broadleaf, saturated, semipermanent seasonal wetland. The dominant canopy trees are red oak and shagbark hickory. These ecosystems would be representative of lowlands (themes 24 and 25 in "Natural History of the National Park System and on the National Registry of Natural Landmarks"). Glade mallow, a plant with potential to be listed as threatened by the State of Ohio, and listed as category 2 by the Fish and Wildlife Service, is found along the Maumee River in the vicinity of the battlefield.
Recreational resources in the area include a soon to be developed rail-trail crossing part of the battlefield, and an almost continuous string of Metropark properties along the Maumee River. These Metropark properties contain remains of the Miami and Erie Canal. (Another part of the Miami and Erie Canal outside of the study area is an NHL.)
Continue to Fallen Timbers Site Investigation Report: RESOURCE QUALITY.
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