[History] Ohio History: Ohio-Michigan War

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

Author: vizi
Original Thread: Ohio History: Ohio-Michigan War

Ohio History: Ohio-Michigan War

The Ohio-Michigan War of 1835-1836 was a largely bloodless boundary dispute between the state of Ohio and the Michigan Territory of the United States over a 468 square mile (1,210 square kilometers) strip of land including what is now the city of Toledo, Ohio.

The Northwest Territory established by the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 defined a parallel of latitude running from the extreme southern tip of Lake Michigan eastward, to divide the Northwest Territory for administrative purposes. The precise location of that Ordinance Line later became the subject of the war between the State of Ohio and the territory of Michigan. The land included in this line is what is known as present day Williams, Fulton and Lucas Counties, including the city of Toledo and areas north of Bryan, Ohio and Wauseon, Ohio.

At the time of the Ordinance, the exact location of the southern tip of Lake Michigan was not known, but the most highly regarded map placed it at a latitude just south of present day Detroit, Michigan. It was thus assumed by the framers of Ohio's constitution that Congress' intent in the Ordinance was that Ohio would control the entire Lake Erie shoreline west of the Pennsylvania border, while the territory or state to the north of the line would have Great Lakes access via Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior.

During the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1802, reports were received from trappers that Lake Michigan extended significantly further south than maps or popular belief indicated. It was even possible that the parallel extending east from Lake Michigan' southern end may not intersect Lake Erie at all, or perhaps would intersect it somewhere between Sandusky Bay and Maumee Bay, meaning that the mouth of the Maumee River might not lie within Ohio boundaries. Therefore the Ohio convention delegates included a provision in the draft constitution that if these reports about the actual location of the southern terminus of Lake Michigan were correct, the state boundary line would be angled so as to intersect Lake Erie at the "most northerly cape of the Maumee Bay", thus placing much of the Maumee River watershed, and all of the southern shore of Lake Erie west of Pennsylvania, in Ohio. The draft constitution, with this proviso, was accepted by the United States Congress, and Ohio was then admitted into the Union. However, before accepting the state constitution, it was referred to a committee in which the clause defining the northern boundary was decided to depend upon "a fact not yet ascertained" and the committee "thought it unnecessary to take it, at this time, into consideration"

When Congress established the Michigan Territory in 1805, after Ohio had been accepted as a state of the Union, it explicitly used the exact language of the 1787 Ordinance to define the southern boundary of the territory. When Michigan applied to become a state in 1835, it claimed the originally designated Ordinance Line as its southern boundary. By this time it was known that such a line would intersect Lake Erie southeast of the mouth of the Maumee, thus giving Michigan control of the port city of Toledo, and all of the Lake Erie shoreline from there north to the mouth of the Detroit River. However Ohio refused to cede the land to Michigan.

Prior to Michigan statehood, the disputed area was surveyed as part of the Michigan Survey. With Michigan prepareing to become a state, Ohio's Governor Robert Lucas defiantly drew up counties and set up county governments in the strip. Lucas placed Toledo in the new county named after the governor. Michigan's governor Stevens T. Mason responded by sending a militia force to the area. Lucas did the same. However the disputed lands were part of the Great Black Swamp. The two militias got lost in the swamp for weeks and never actually found each other. Though at one point a Michigan deputy was stabbed to death while arresting an Ohio man in a tavern. Surveyors were also shot at during this time. The reason for that was neither the state of Ohio nor the territory wanted land surveys presented in favor of the other to the US Congress.

The U.S. Congress agreed to grant Michigan statehood in 1836 under the condition that they relinquished its claim to the disputed tract. Michigan was granted the western two-thirds of the Upper Peninsula thus granting Michigan control over the entire Upper Peninsula.

The war ended at a Michigan territorial convention in Ann Arbor on December 14, 1836, at which Peter Morey, a delegate from Lenawee County, put forward a resolution noting that though the delegates solemnly protest the conditions of admission to the union, they would nevertheless agree to the terms "as a token of our respect for the Congress of the United States, and a convincing evidence of our love for the union, and our desire to be admitted to partake of its privileges." The bitterness between Ohio and Michigan led to the meeting being referred to as "the Frostbitten Convention." Michigan was admitted to the Union on January 26, 1837, becoming the 26th state.

Robert Lucas


Steven T. Mason

*Now everyone knows about the frist and only interstate war. (The South left the Union and formed its own government so that really doesn't count now does it.)

This is also the reason why Michigan controls the Upper Peninsula even though it is connected to Wisconsin.