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By Jeff Fearnside, Sentinel Staff Writer
Sentinel-Tribune (Bowling Green, OH)
06-23-95
The monument for the Battle of Fallen Timbers should do an about-face.
For years the faces of three soldiers looked out over the Maumee River from where they stood low in the flood plain. But according to a recently completed archaeological study, the historical battle was fought about a mile northeast of that position.
The "new" location is in a dusty soybean field between North Jerome Road and Interstate 475 on a parcel of land owned by the City of Toledo.
"Did the Battle of Fallen Timbers take place in this field? The answer is yes. Without a doubt," said Dr. G. Michael Pratt of Heidelberg College, the archaeologist heading the dig. Pratt held a press conference Thursday on the site.
"The buttons are to Anthony Wayne's army and no other army, the musket balls are of the right caliber, the ravine is the only ravine it could be. This is where the Battle of Fallen Timbers took place."
The ravine Pratt spoke of provided a major clue as to where the battle site really was. The ravine is within a green woods abutting the soybean field. According to historical accounts, a cavalry charge was led up a "very steep ravine." Pratt pored over modern topographical maps and compared them to maps from 1915, before the interstate highway was built and Route 24 enlarged. He looked for ravines with in the approximate area that met the characteristics as described in the battle accounts.
"The one that's in this field is it," asserted Pratt.
The Battle of Fallen Timbers was one of the most important in American history. General "Mad" Anthony Wayne defeated the Indians and their British allies on a section of land that had recently been torn up by a tornado, turning the battlefield into a tangled, craggy hell and earning its name "Fallen Timbers."
The resulting Treaty of Greenville opened up huge tracts of land to American settlement for the first time.
"Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin would not exist and most of us would be Canadian citizens if not for Fallen Timbers," said Dr. Ted Ligibel, president of the Maumee Valley Heritage Corridor.
And now Fallen Timbers might finally catch the attention of the National Parks Service.
"It's clear that in the National Park System this period of history is extremely underrepresented," Ligibel said. "If this valley ever had a place where a national park could be, this is it.
"People all across the world read about the Fallen Timbers, and now we're standing in it."
Pratt also agreed.
"They have no National Park that relates to historic Native American leaders. Tecumseh is the only Native American leader who is liked by both Indians and non-Indians...He was here."
The original Indian battle line, Pratt indicated, was probably where I-475 is today. The fallen timbers lay twisted and heaped to the west, and further west was the woods where the Wayne's troops formed their battle line.
As the Americans charged forward from the protection of the woods into the fallen timbers, their buttons probably became snagged in the tangle of branches, burrs and thorn patches there.
Pratt and his team found a pattern of buttons laid out in a long corridor.
"It may very well be when we get this mapped up that the concentration of buttons -- which is a long, linear pattern through this field -- may mark the edge of where the fallen timbers is."
The buttons were among a total of 458 artifacts unearthed. All but about "100 or so" are definitely from the battle, said Pratt. Also found were musket balls, buckshot, rifle balls and a gunflint.
The most impressive discovery was a socket bayonet.
"I had paced off from where we thought this fallen timbers was," Pratt said, "and I walked up to (Larry Hamilton) and I said, 'Larry, if the Army's where we think it is, you're in one of the squares,' and his beeper went off and he picked up the bayonet."
Hamilton and Richard Green are remote sensing specialists from Historic Archaeological Research. With Bret Ruby and Bill Anderson, archaeologists from the National Park Service's Hopewell Culture National Historic Monument, and a crew of 20 volunteers a day (eventually numbering a total of 150), they conducted a remote sensing survey in rain, heat and hail.
Currently the site is being mapped with a satellite Global Positioning System to determine the battle layout.
NOTICE: This article, which may be copyrighted, is reprinted with specific permission granted to Heidelberg College. Further reprint rights must be secured from the publisher.
Heidelberg College / Office of News Services / webmaster@heidelberg.edu