Monday, January 16, 2006

Some Michigan History Trivia

Tonight I hung out with one of my friends and his fiancé at Ashley's, which is a great little pub in Ann Arbor. One of the topics that we discussed was the Michigan-Ohio War. For those of you who aren't from either Michigan or Ohio, back in 1835, armed hostilities broke out between Michigan and Ohio. The cause of the conflict was a section of land known as the "Toledo Strip". The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 defined the Michigan border as that "which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan". However, Ohio wanted the entrance of the Maumee River, and so they claimed an additional eight miles north of the legal boundary. Soon the politics got out of hand, and the State of Ohio and the Michigan Territory sent armed militias to fight. Thankfully, there were only two instances of bloodshed during the war. A Michigan sheriff was stabbed by one of the Ohio militia members, and a mule belonging to a farmer was killed. Other than that, the militias spent most of the summer of 1835 lost in the Black Swamp around Toledo. Some interesting articles on the topic are here and here.

In the compromise settlement that followed, Ohio won the Toledo Strip. Michigan gained the additional 2/3 of the Upper Penninsula. Michigan may not have liked it at the time, but we clearly came out ahead.

1 Comments:

Blogger David said...

One odd side effect of the Michigan-Ohio War is the "Lost Peninsula". There is a little peninsula off of Ohio in Lake Erie that crosses the Michigan line, and becomes Michigan. As a result, you have to drive through Ohio in order to get to the rest of Michigan.

2:34 AM, January 16, 2006  

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