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Story by Sally Vallongo
Photos by Diane Hires
The Blade (Toledo, OH)
03-05-2000
DOCUMENTARY filmmaker Gary Foreman knows a few things about history. He knows that it can be made in moments. And he realizes that often it takes centuries for those moments to be recognized.
Take the Battle of Fallen Timbers.
Next weekend, Toledoans can get a preview of the four-part History Channel series, Frontier: The Decisive Battles, which will air on the cable channel this summer.
The public and private screenings of the series' Battle of Fallen Timbers segment will be held at The Pinnacle in Maumee's Arrowhead Park.
The battle was joined a
little over two centuries ago, in a wooded ravine and fields just
minutes from today's downtown Toledo, and in less than the time
consumed during the standard business lunch, America's pipeline
to western expansion was permanently opened, its former British
rulers sent packing, and 40 years of regional guerilla warfare
halted.
Filmmaker Gary Foreman
directs actors in Secor Metropark in his documentary about the
Battle of Fallen Timbers. He says the Midwest's contribution to
U.S. history is often overlooked.
Yet today, while most residents recognize "the shot heard round the world" as the abrupt start of the American Revolution in Concord, Mass., or indentify Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as a memorial to events at this country's pre-eminent Civil War battle, few understand the full significance of Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne's military victory on a steaming August day in 1794, a few miles from the Maumee River.
"We have this feeling that everything important took place in the east or the west," says Foreman, a passionate historian who was born in Wisconsin. "In the Midwest, we have a tendency of letting our history go."
Some won't let go. Members of the Fallen Timbers Battlefield Preservation Commission for years lobbied Congress and labored to preserve and elevate the site of the Fallen Timbers skirmish. Last November, the group, aided by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) and Sen. Mike DeWine, (R., O.), scored a victory of another sort: Congress passed a bill authorizing conversion of the 185-acre battlefield to a national historic site.
Yet with the current owner, the city of Toledo, demanding top market prices for the historical acreage, no one can rest easy about the future of Fallen Timbers. Nor do most people swishing by on nearby I-475 really appreciate the importance of its past.
General Wayne's victory opened the Midwest for expansion by settlers eager to make their way in the New World. It reclaimed the important settlement of Detroit to the north, and finally forced the British to relinquish their toehold on American soil by abandoning outposts held in violation of a Revolutionary War peace treaty.
The Fallen Timbers decision also ended 40 years of vicious fighting between native tribes and white settlers by prompting the drafting and signing of the Treaty of Greeneville. And the clear victory proved beyond doubt the value of a professional military force to protect a young nation.
Sadly for the vanquished Indians, the Battle of Fallen Timbers also established a precedent for a long series of bloody turf wars in which ambitious whites drove the natives farther and farther west, ultimately all but eradicating their distinctive and well-developed cultures.
Alas, such are the wages of history, for whenever there are winners, there are also losers. Yet if the battlefield is lost to development, neither victor nor vanquished will be able to commemorate the event on its actual site.
Foreman, an award-winning producer and director of historical documentaries, believes he can make a difference in the outcome by telling the story in a well-produced recreation of the moment. "I consider myself a well-rounded historian. I'm passionately interested in 18th and early-19th century America," he said last week from his home in Indiana. "I've been wanting to do Fallen Timbers for years."
In June, Foreman "did" Fallen Timbers, although not on the actual site -- that's farmland a mile east of the existing memorial which Heidelberg College professor G. Michael Pratt discovered and verified nearly a decade ago.
To create the appropriate setting, Foreman filmed at Fort Meigs, an Ohio Historical Society site from the War of 1812 across the Maumee River, and at Secor Metropark, which he said resembles the battlefield's wooded terrain. He cast local history enthusiasts such as Craig Fisher, Don Secondine, and Jared McKenzie in major roles.
Foreman set up key scenes that conjured the movements and feeling of that important late 18th-century event. "We want to take people there, into the action, the moment," Foreman said. "Each story doesn't have to be told so literally. We can incorporate landscapes and skyscapes that are a part of the story anyway."
Rather than filming flat art, using talking-head scholars, and interviews, he said, "We try to put as much of our money in front of the screen as possible. We end up filming more on-location work than anybody," Grammy-nominated Windham Hill artist David Arkenstone composes original soundtracks for Foreman's films; actor Peter Coyote is the narrator. The director works with Dayton historian Carolyn Raine, who is the field producer.
"Our mission is not to ell the whole story," Foreman said. "That's not possible anyway. What we want is to tell the story that's engaging, to put people on a journey."
Foreman said his own father grew up within a half-hour drive of one of the battles leading up to Wayne's Fallen Timbers victory and didn't know a thing about it. "We're sitting on so many treasures here."
Most tourism in the United States, he points out, is driven by an interest in history.
"Ironically, the greatest interest in U.S. history comes from people in other countries. They think we have a fascinating story -- yet most people here don't know what we're sitting on."
Foreman says his own history passion springs from his interest in the 1950s film, Davy Crockett, with Fess Parker in the title role. "I was 5 years old. That movie changed my life," he says.
Foreman has befriended the actor, and will be at Parker's house in California to work on a show about the American cowboy.
Among his other film credits are Betrayal at Little Big Horn for A&E, for which he won the 1998 CINDY award for outstanding documentary and the 1999 Western Heritage Awards. His four-part series, Frontier: Legends of the Old Northwest, another A&E project, won Outstanding Documentary honors from the Western Writers of America, and was a finalist in the 1998 Native American Film Festival.
But during the weekend screenings of the Fallen Timbers film, Foreman will be in town to talk about production and the subject.
"I really have a message for people for the premiere of this documentary. In my way, I'm going to ask people if they could just be quiet for a second and listen. They'll hear drums beating along the Maumee, drums of passion and desire, to be in touch with the past."
A fund-raising banquet produced by the Fallen Timbers Battlefield Preservation Commission is set for Saturday. Tickets are $100 for the evening. The Metroparks will sponsor screenings of the film at 1:30 and 3 p.m. Sunday, with appearances by re-enactors, the director, and historians. Tickets are $5 each. Both events will take place at The Pinnacle in Arrowhead Park.
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