Screening this weekend at the Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival, Graves on Indian Lane is a documentary short written and hosted by the owner-operators of a nearby local historical tour company.
Maris and Dustin Elder run the Central Pennsylvania outfit Local Historia, located in the Centre County borough of Bellafonte. They teamed with a number of others, including local high school teacher Matt Maris (a producer on the project) and Happy Valley Adventure Bureau film commissioner Pablo Lopez (director, producer), to tell the story of a pair of Revolutionary War soldiers who died in a July 24th, 1778 battle with Native American attackers.
Private Thomas Van Doran and Corporal Jacob Shadecre were dispatched to the fields of what is now Centre Hall to defend harvesters after a nearby family was massacred. Engaging with a party of five, Van Doran was immediately shot dead while Shadecre was chased. After both Shadecre and his attacker emptied their guns, a knife fight ensued, with the American killing his attacker before being shot by another member of the Native American group.
The soldiers' graves were initially marked by a simple rock, but in 1900, members of the organization Daughters of the American Revolution replaced that with an official marker. Beginning this July 4th, the full 17-minute film will be available to stream via the Centre County portion of a special Pennsylvania website marking the country's 250th anniversary.
"As someone who lived in Centre Hall and has gone down that [Indian Lane] road so many times - literally - I had to stop and be like, 'I never noticed that,'" Lopez told the Centre Daily Times. "The more I learned about it, the more we researched, the more the story just pulled me in."
Graves on Indian Lane first screened May 16th privately for members of Daughters of the American Revolution and then as a soft premiere May 27th at State College. The site of the graves marker can be viewed on Google Maps here.
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