Toledo War

John Quincy Adams, who at the time represented Massachusetts in Congress, supported Michigan and summed up his opinion on the dispute: "Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other."

When the Northwest Territory was established with the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, there were no accurate surveys of the region. The Ordinance defined an east-west line from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to divide the Northwest Territory for administrative purposes. The precise location of that Ordinance Line became the subject of dispute between the State of Ohio and the Michigan Territory.

When Ohio became a state in 1803, its constitution included a provision that redrew the Ordinance Line such that it angled slightly northward and included Toledo and all of Maumee Bay in Ohio. The discrepancy between the original Ordinance Line and Ohio's revision defined an area that became known as the Toledo Strip. When Michigan applied to become a state in 1835, it claimed the original Ordinance Line as its southern boundary. However, Ohio refused to cede the Toledo Strip.

Ohio's Governor Robert Lucas drew counties and set up county governments in the strip. Toledo was placed within Lucas County of Ohio, named after the Governor. Michigan's youthful territorial governor Stevens T. Mason responded by sending a militia force to the area. Lucas did the same. The Strip was at the time covered with dense arborvitae swamps (collectively known as the "Great Black Swamp"), which today have been almost totally drained to create farm land. The two militias got lost for weeks and never actually found each other in the swamps. Though at one point a Monroe County, Michigan, deputy was stabbed while arresting an Ohio man in a tavern, no one else was seriously injured.

The U.S. Congress agreed to grant Michigan statehood in 1836, but only if it relinquished its claim to the disputed tract. In exchange, Michigan would be granted the western two-thirds of the Upper Peninsula (the eastern portion was already part of the Territory). At the time this appeared to make Ohio the winner because the Upper Peninsula was thought to be worthless; only later was the extent of its rich mineral and timber resources learned.
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's being referred to as "the Frostbitten Convention." Michigan was admitted to the Union on January 26, 1837, becoming the 26th state.

The boundary between Ohio and Michigan in Lake Erie was not finally resolved until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1973.

Traces of the original Ordinance Line can still be seen in northwestern Ohio and northern Indiana. The northern boundary of Ottawa County with Lucas County follows the original Ordinance Line. Many township boundaries also follow that line and many old north-south roads are offset as they cross the line. The line is identified on topographical maps as the Old Indian Treaty Boundary.

A common (but unsubstantiated) legend claims that Ohioans gave Michigan its nickname, "The Wolverine State", because Michiganders were vicious and bloodthirsty during the Toledo War. The wolverine is not native to Michigan.

See also