Fort plans to be revealed Sunday

Each time a patron entered the doors to Fort Recovery State Museum, Nancy Knapke would explain that drawings of Fort Recovery were based on speculation. No plans for the fort existed.
Soon, she’ll have a different story to tell.
Within the last year, plans for Fort Recovery surfaced after a descendent of one of General Anthony Wayne’s officers put a group of about 2,300 documents up for sale.
Those plans will be revealed locally Sunday, when several historians present “Recently Discovered Fort Plans in Burbeck Collection” at 3 p.m. Sunday at Fort Recovery Nazarene Church.
“Saying that I was excited would probably be putting it mildly,” said Knapke, Fort Recovery State Museum director, of learning about the documents’ existance. “I would have said some disbelief, except that I knew the sources were extremely credible.”
Plans for Fort Recovery were thought to have been destroyed when the British burned Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812. But the recently-discovered documents, which were purchased and then donated to the University of Michigan’s William L. Clements Library, prove otherwise.
The collection donated to the library included plans for four forts — Fort Mackinac and Fort Detroit in Michigan, and Fort Recovery and Fort Defiance in Ohio.
Henry Burbeck was responsible for building the fort, said historian David Heckaman, who will be part of Sunday’s presentation.
He noted that in December 1793 Wayne sent Burbeck, his artillery officer, and others to “recover” the area that had been lost to the Native Americans during St. Clair’s Defeat two years earlier. Wayne gave instructions for how to build the fort, but left some of the details, such as location, up to Burbeck.
One of the major discoveries, Heckaman said, is that the Burbeck papers include the fort’s dimensions, which show it to be a 32-by-32-foot square. Historians had long speculated that its walls were 100 feet long.
“So it’s really a small fort,”?said Heckaman. “And at one point during the battle I think they might have put about 300 guys in there, which is really tight. It really gives us a sense of how it actually was.”
Native Americans attacked Fort Recovery about six months after Burbeck and his team set out to build it, Heckaman explained, but they were unable to take it.
Sunday’s presentation will also include David Cox, a historian from Greenville, David Simmons of the Ohio History Connection and Ball State University archaeologist Christine Thompson, who has been working with students to excavate the area of the fort.
The free event is scheduled to last about an hour, with a question-and-answer session to follow. Doors will open at 2 p.m. to allow visitors to view some of the artifacts Thompson and her team have uncovered.
“Anyone who’s interested in the history of Fort Recovery and this military history and the important events that happened there, I think they’ll be really curious to hear what they have to say and to ask questions,” said Knapke, who said about 50 museum patrons have already told her they plan to attend. “There will be more definitive answers now.”