National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: River Raisin Battlefield Site (Additional Documentation and Boundary Increase)

Spence, Mark

INTRODUCTION This document expands and amends the existing National Register designation for the River Raisin Battlefield (National Register site # 82000542). Since the battlefield was listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1982, the physical conditions of the battlefield area have changed considerably. The abandonment and removal of large facilities associated with the paper industry, and the conversion of these sites to open park areas, has created an entirely new landscape. As a result of these changes, the historic qualities of setting, association, and feeling have been greatly enhanced, and in large part been returned to their pre-development state. This is true of the landscape within the boundaries of the original National Register site as well as adjoining parcels that compose significant parts of the Battles of Frenchtown but were not included in the 1982 NRHP nomination. The process of demolition, environmental mitigation, and landscape restoration within the core battle areas also created opportunities for archeological investigations which have shed new light on American Indian use and residence in the area, the establishment and development of Frenchtown in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the War of 1812 conflicts that occurred there, and the subsequent history of the site. The establishment of River Raisin National Battlefield Park in 2009, which has administrative and statutory authority within and beyond the original boundaries of the NRHP site, represents another significant development. The sum of these many changes provides a new and larger context that better reveals historic landscape features and more fully conveys the significance and scale of the Battles of Frenchtown and the River Raisin Battlefield.