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By Katherine Rizzo, Associated Press
in the News Messenger (Fremont, OH)
11-5-99
WASHINGTON -- It may be difficult to imagine from a distance of two centuries, but a vast stretch of land then called the Northwest Territory wasn't always destined to join the United States.
An area now comprising sections of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois once was the focus of a tremendous armed struggle -- and a battle that Rep. Marcy Kaptur says merits some national attention.
Legislation by Kaptur, D-Ohio, to affiliate with the National Park Service the land in Lucas County where the Battle of Fallen Timbers was fought got a warm reception Thursday from members of a House subcommittee whose endorsement is crucial to moving the plan forward.
Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, urged the House Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands to move quickly to remove the temptation to develop the property.
Though the owner, the city of Toledo, has no plans to sell the property, it is in a corridor that is being built up and "This clearly is threatened by development over the long term," DeWine said.
Development already has overtaken part of the original battle site because the true location was misidentified for years, Kaptur said.
Excavations begun in 1995 showed the marker for the battle was not in the right place, and the wrong property had been set aside in the 1930s. The discovery led to a new effort to combine state and private money to buy 185 acres of land and then link it to the national park system as a national historic site.
Fallen Timbers is where, in 1794, American forces -- led by Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne -- defeated a band of American Indian tribes in a fight that lasted less than two hours.
Great Britain, which had yet to relinquish its claim of what then was called the Northwest Territory, failed to support the tribes with artillery -- a decision widely believed to have led to the British withdrawal in 1796.
Wayne's victory broke the spirit of Indian resistance. Within a year, he negotiated a treaty that opened about two-thirds of southern Ohio to settlers.
The National Park Service has endorsed the Ohio proposal and issued a report declaring the battlefield's significance.
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