The Michigan – Ohio War (a/k/a The Great Toledo War)

The Michigan – Ohio rivalry is much more than just a football game. Did you know that Wolverines and Buckeyes were battling each other long before the annual meeting on the fields of college football ever began? That famous rivalry goes back much farther … all the way back to the Michigan – Ohio War, the original War Between the States, which took place in 1835 – 1836.

The trouble began in 1787, when the U.S. Congress drafted the Northwest Ordinance, which laid out guidelines for the formation of states’ boundaries from the Union’s Northwest Territory: Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. One important line used to divide up the Northwest Territory was a line drawn east from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to Lake Erie.

So, when Ohio was granted statehood in 1803, its Governor Robert Lucas established the new state’s northern land boundary along this line. However, when the Michigan Territory was created in 1805, surveyors realized that the tip of Lake Michigan was actually further south and that the land including the Maumee River and its crucial port at the mouth of Lake Erie as set forth by the language in the Northwest Ordinance actually belonged to the Territory of Michigan.

Thus, because of poor understanding of geographical features of the Great Lakes at the time and varying interpretations of the law, the state government of Ohio and the territorial government of Michigan both claimed ownership of the region now known as the City of Toledo … in a dispute that would last for 30 years.

Immediately, Ohioans in Congress begin campaigning to have the line re-surveyed and work finally began in 1817. As if there wasn’t enough confusion, two surveys later, there were now TWO boundary lines drawn, eight miles apart at Lake Erie and five miles apart at the Indiana border, with a total of 468 square miles in between. Although Ohio still claimed this “Toledo Strip” as its own, the squabbling temporarily ceased and Michigan quietly assumed jurisdiction over the area.

This all came to an end when Michigan sought admission to the Union on December 11, 1833. The Buckeyes’ refusal to recognize the Wolverines’ ownership of the region halted Michigan’s admission to the Union as a state. The seeds of war were planted.

Beginning in 1835, both sides passed legislation attempting to force the other to surrender the land. Ohio’s Governor Lucas and Michigan’s then 24-year-old “Boy Governor” Stevens T. Mason both refused to yield, so they raised militias and established laws of treason applicable to any citizen that did not abide by their respective authorities.

The Michigan and Ohio militias were mobilized and sent to positions on opposite sides of the Maumee River near Toledo. But besides mutual taunting and saber-rattling (sound familiar?), there was little interaction between the two forces. The single truly combative confrontation of the Michigan – Ohio War ended with a report of shots being fired but no human casualties.

President Andrew Jackson then stepped in and Congress held Michigan’s statehood hostage until it agreed to Ohio’s claims. As a consolation, Michigan was given the western portion of the Upper Peninsula … 9,000 square miles of the most valuable timber, iron, and copper country in America. You be the judge as to whom went the spoils!

This wooden case labeled “Toledo, Michigan” is believed to have been an ammunition box used by the territory’s militia during the Michigan – Ohio War. (Michigan Historical Museum)

The Michigan – Ohio War exhibit at the Michigan Historical Museum in Lansing.

Michigan, now complete with its two distinctive peninsulas as we know it today — a focal point of our nation’s outline even visible from space — became our 26th state and formally entered the Union on January 26, 1837.

How ironic is it that we had to fight our way into the Union and, less than 25 years later, the President of the United States was thanking us for fighting to preserve it:

“Thank God for Michigan” – Abraham Lincoln, 1861.

Sources:

Wikipedia: The Toledo War

Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs: The Toledo War