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Messenger Journal (Perrysburg, OH)
11-10-99
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) recently urged support for a national historic designation for the Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis in testimony to the United States House Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands. The subcommittee held a hearing on the Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis National Historical Site, Act. S. 548, introduced in the House as H.R. 868.
This legislation will establish the Fallen Timbers Battlefield, the Fallen Timbers Battlefield Monument and the Fort Miamis site as an affiliated unit of the National Park Service.
"Some authorities place the Battle of Fallen Timbers among the three most important battles in the formation of the United States, alongside the battles of Yorktown and Gettysburg," said Rep. Kaptur. "The Battle of Fallen Timbers secured and opened a large territory -- now embracing parts of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois -- for new settlements in our fledgling nation."
"This hearing is a matter of great significance to the American Midwest and to the Ninth District in particular. It brings us closer to national recognition of the Battle of Fallen Timbers as a keystone in the Maumee Valley and the Midwest."
Also testifying were Toledo Area Metroparks Director Jean Ward and Perrysburg resident Dr. G. Michael Pratt, Heidelberg College professor and military archaeologist. They, along with Marianne Duvendack of the Fallen Timbers Preservation Commission and Steve Pauken, the former mayor of Maumee, have been leaders in the fight for the need for a federal designation.
In addition to providing national status to the site, affiliated status will allow the management of the historic site to enter into cooperative agreements with the National Park Service regarding research, interpretation, education and preservation as well as integrate these sites into America's national heritage. Actual management of the site will be under the auspices of the Toledo Area Metroparks.
Fort Miamis, located at Michigan Street and River Road in Maumee, was constructed and used by British troops as a military post. It changed hands among the British and Americans several times between 1794 and 1813.
On August 20, 1794, General Anthony Wayne led his legion down the Maumee valley, engaged the British, and won a decisive battle at Fallen Timbers. The battle was a clear victory for the United States, a policy failure for the British, and a disaster for the Native American Confederacy. The resultant Treaty of Greenville in 1795 gained the city of Detroit, then the largest city on the Great Lakes and secured the Ohio Territory for the United States, thus clearing the way for the expansion of the United States into the formerly British Territory.
S. 548, introduced by Senator Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), was passed by the Senate on October 14, 1999.
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