September 11, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the rivalry between Michigan and Ohio actually dates back to before the days of football. Tedd Long, curator and founder of Holy Toledo History, tells the story of how war broke out between Michigan and Ohio over a small mapping error.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about
everything on this show and up next. Perhaps one of
the biggest football rivalries in the United States is between
Ohio State and Michigan. On game day, traditionally the third
weekend of November, fans of Ohio State cover up every
m they can see and Michigan fans partake in Buckeye nutcracking.
(00:32):
What most people don't know, however, is that this rivalry
extends back to the early eighteen hundreds over a land
dispute that turned violent. Here's Monty Montgomery with a story.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It's a well known fact if you live in the
Midwest that Michigan and Ohio don't really like each other
that much. Most of that comes down to football today,
but that hasn't always been the case. It used to
come down to a small strip of land known as
the Toledo Strip, that resulted because of a mapping error
in the Northwest Territories combined with interesting language in the
(01:16):
Northwest Ordinance in the early eighteen hundreds, which ultimately led
to a war between Michigan and Ohio when Michigan was
applying for statehood. Here's Ted Long, founder of Holy Toledo
History with more on this remarkable story.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
The rule was something like the Michigan was to run
on a line east and west drawn through the southerly
bend of the extreme of Lake Michigan till it reached
Lake Erie. And if you draw that line, it clearly
puts Toledo and Mommy Bay in Michigan. And as the
story goes, in eighteen oh three, when the state the
legislature in Ohio was putting together their application, a trapper
(01:58):
comes down from up north to reminds them if you
follow that you're going to lose lake access, and so
they made an adjustment collide for statehood. Apparently there was
some people in Washington that raised an eyebrow, but nobody
did anything about it, and it passed, and suddenly Ohio's
estate and they have Mommy.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Bay, which according to the language of the Northwest Ordinance,
should have been Michigan's.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Questions started to brew about how did this happen and
what's going on? And Edward Tiffin was the Surveyor General
of Northwest Territory later became governor of Ohio. He ordered
up a survey from a guy named William Harris, and
that survey followed exactly what the state of Ohio did
in eighteen oh three. So it was kind of a
(02:43):
ginned up deal. It's like, hey, we need you to
do a survey, just make sure it follows what we
already did. That became the Harris Line. And then in
eighteen eighteen, President Monroe stepped in and said, well, I'd
like to order my own survey. Cares to do it again?
And he said no, and invited a guy by the
name of John Fulton to do the survey. When he
(03:07):
was done, we now have the Fulton Line, and it,
by the way, followed what the Northwest Ordinance should have been.
And so the difference between the Harris Line and the
Fulton Line becomes this four hundred and fifty mile wedge
shaped section of land that became known as the Toledo
Strip and it's basically five miles wide at the Indiana
(03:28):
border and eight miles wide by the time you get
to Lake Erie.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
But within that small space was something very important to
both Michigan and Ohio.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
The big plus was lake access. You've got Mammy Bay
included in that portion of the strip that's five miles wide,
that includes Mammy Bay, and that was already a very
active port and an important part of the northwest Ohio area.
But what people also knew was that coming along was
(04:04):
probably the biggest economic development project coming, which was the
Miami Erie Canal, and that was going to connect the
Great Lakes with the Mississippi River. And they knew that
a terminus for that had to be somewhere in that area.
And so Ohio wanted that terminus, and so did the
Michigan Territory.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So to prevent Michigan from getting it, Ohio simply claimed
it as their own. But Michigan, led by twenty four
year old Governor Steven's team Mason, wasn't going to let
Ohio walk all over them. Oh No, they were going
to fight for the land, but first with the pen.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Well, when Michigan finally comes around to apply for statehood,
their governor, Governor Mason, he oversees the passage of what's
referred to as the Pains and Penalties Act, which essentially
leveled fines against anyone and jail sentences, by the way,
on any Ohio officials who tried to exercise jurisdiction over
(05:07):
this contested territory. And so that meant anything going on
within what we know as Toledo today was covered under
the Pains and Penalties Act. Now, the big question became
was how was he going to enforce it. At the
same time that that went through, Ohio Governor Robert Lucas
then passed a resolution that extended the county borders into
(05:27):
the strip. Before that, if you look at old paperwork
here in Toledo area, a lot of it would be
filed under Port Lawrence, Michigan or Port Lawrence Township, Michigan.
A lot of the Ohioans just thumbed their nose at
the Pains and Penalties Act and the Michigan governor and said,
we made a decision, We're part of Ohio.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And that decision that thumb their nose at Michigan resulted
in all out war, and Michigan raised its militia and
sent them the Phillips Corner where the first battle was fought.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Spring of eighteen thirty five, there was a number of
things that happened. Actually, I think it was April ninth.
There was a posse that was led down by the
Michigan sheriff and he arrested a number of Ohio state officials.
There were some newspaper reports that they tore Ohio state
flag down and dragged it through the streets and then
burned it. And then a few days after that, about
(06:25):
sixty Michigan partisans came down and intercepted a survey team
on April twenty sixth, and that became known as the
Battle of Phillips Corners. And there's actually a plaque out
in the middle of nowhere designating where this Phillips Corner
took place. At Battle of Phillips Corner, actually it was
no battle at all. The Michigan militia showed up. There
(06:48):
were nine members of the survey party. The militia shot
over their heads, and I think a couple of people
were actually captured. The rest of them ran off. There
was no blood or anything like that was more of
a shot across the bow for the state of Michigan
or the Michigan territory.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
And seeing that Michigan was going to fight for the land,
Ohio naturally fought back, or at least one Ohioan did.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah. So a couple of months after the Battle of
Phillip's Corner, in July of eighteen thirty five, the Michigan
Sheriff Joseph Wood comes into Toledo, and he's gonna try
to arrest a couple of Ohio partisans, one of whom
is a gentleman by the name of two Stickney, who
actually had a brother named one Stickney. His father, Benjamin Stickney,
(07:40):
was one of the really the founders of the Toledo area.
He was heavily involved in both Port Lawrence and Vis
Julia and helped promote the idea of those two organizations
with those two towns coming together to form Toledo. Anyway,
the sheriff come in, comes in, tries to arrest to Stickney.
Scuffle breaks out. I've heard it describe just a pen knife.
(08:01):
Stickney pulls out of his pocket stabs the sheriff kind
of left him with a minor wound. But that was
the first and only blood drawn in the whole Michigan War.
How they say that Sheriff Wood was kind of the
Toledo Wars loan casualty.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Soon enough, the federal government, especially President Andrew Jackson, grew
tired of these shenanigans and sought a resolution to the conflict.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Well, there were a lot of different things going on
in Washington, and how it played out, it was pure
politics but Jackson eventually steps up and says, enough's enough.
We're going to offer you all the Upper Peninsula and
we're going to give Toledo essentially what was laid out
in the original Ohio statehood application. Folks in Michigan were
(08:54):
not real excited about that, but they also knew that
the federal government, which had actually reached a point where
they were getting ready to distribute actual money to some
of the states, in order to get in line for that,
they had to get statehood. That money was not going
to come to Michigan territory. So they knew they had
to get in line, and so originally they voted against
(09:18):
the proposition, and then things got pretty ugly when they
realized that they were just going to be left out
in the cold, weren't going to get any federal support.
They had then a second convention, which is referred to
as the Frostbite Convention in December of eighteen thirty six,
and they reluctantly agreed to the compromise and took on
(09:39):
the Upper Peninsula, and Toledo became part of Ohio. And
it's funny because Michigan becomes the twenty sixth state in
the Union and a lot of folks said, you know,
they kind of got the short end of the stick.
But at the same time, as time went by, they
realized that that square miles of land they picked up
(10:01):
and the up was heavily loaded with deposits of copper
and iron ore, and so they were able to get
their money's worth out of it from that standpoint. And
then today, if you look at that area, it's a
spectacular vacation area winter, summer, fall, and I don't want
to see anything having you know, lived here in Toledo.
But I think Michigan might have done okay in that
(10:24):
deal in the in the end.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
The Upper Peninsula, that's what they got for the deal.
And Ohio, well they got Toledo, and it was at
the time what they wanted. What a great deal for
both in the end the Toledo War. Here on our
American story
This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about
everything on this show and up next. Perhaps one of
the biggest football rivalries in the United States is between
Ohio State and Michigan. On game day, traditionally the third
weekend of November, fans of Ohio State cover up every
m they can see and Michigan fans partake in Buckeye nutcracking.
(00:32):
What most people don't know, however, is that this rivalry
extends back to the early eighteen hundreds over a land
dispute that turned violent. Here's Monty Montgomery with a story.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It's a well known fact if you live in the
Midwest that Michigan and Ohio don't really like each other
that much. Most of that comes down to football today,
but that hasn't always been the case. It used to
come down to a small strip of land known as
the Toledo Strip, that resulted because of a mapping error
in the Northwest Territories combined with interesting language in the
(01:16):
Northwest Ordinance in the early eighteen hundreds, which ultimately led
to a war between Michigan and Ohio when Michigan was
applying for statehood. Here's Ted Long, founder of Holy Toledo
History with more on this remarkable story.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
The rule was something like the Michigan was to run
on a line east and west drawn through the southerly
bend of the extreme of Lake Michigan till it reached
Lake Erie. And if you draw that line, it clearly
puts Toledo and Mommy Bay in Michigan. And as the
story goes, in eighteen oh three, when the state the
legislature in Ohio was putting together their application, a trapper
(01:58):
comes down from up north to reminds them if you
follow that you're going to lose lake access, and so
they made an adjustment collide for statehood. Apparently there was
some people in Washington that raised an eyebrow, but nobody
did anything about it, and it passed, and suddenly Ohio's
estate and they have Mommy.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Bay, which according to the language of the Northwest Ordinance,
should have been Michigan's.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Questions started to brew about how did this happen and
what's going on? And Edward Tiffin was the Surveyor General
of Northwest Territory later became governor of Ohio. He ordered
up a survey from a guy named William Harris, and
that survey followed exactly what the state of Ohio did
in eighteen oh three. So it was kind of a
(02:43):
ginned up deal. It's like, hey, we need you to
do a survey, just make sure it follows what we
already did. That became the Harris Line. And then in
eighteen eighteen, President Monroe stepped in and said, well, I'd
like to order my own survey. Cares to do it again?
And he said no, and invited a guy by the
name of John Fulton to do the survey. When he
(03:07):
was done, we now have the Fulton Line, and it,
by the way, followed what the Northwest Ordinance should have been.
And so the difference between the Harris Line and the
Fulton Line becomes this four hundred and fifty mile wedge
shaped section of land that became known as the Toledo
Strip and it's basically five miles wide at the Indiana
(03:28):
border and eight miles wide by the time you get
to Lake Erie.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
But within that small space was something very important to
both Michigan and Ohio.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
The big plus was lake access. You've got Mammy Bay
included in that portion of the strip that's five miles wide,
that includes Mammy Bay, and that was already a very
active port and an important part of the northwest Ohio area.
But what people also knew was that coming along was
(04:04):
probably the biggest economic development project coming, which was the
Miami Erie Canal, and that was going to connect the
Great Lakes with the Mississippi River. And they knew that
a terminus for that had to be somewhere in that area.
And so Ohio wanted that terminus, and so did the
Michigan Territory.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So to prevent Michigan from getting it, Ohio simply claimed
it as their own. But Michigan, led by twenty four
year old Governor Steven's team Mason, wasn't going to let
Ohio walk all over them. Oh No, they were going
to fight for the land, but first with the pen.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Well, when Michigan finally comes around to apply for statehood,
their governor, Governor Mason, he oversees the passage of what's
referred to as the Pains and Penalties Act, which essentially
leveled fines against anyone and jail sentences, by the way,
on any Ohio officials who tried to exercise jurisdiction over
(05:07):
this contested territory. And so that meant anything going on
within what we know as Toledo today was covered under
the Pains and Penalties Act. Now, the big question became
was how was he going to enforce it. At the
same time that that went through, Ohio Governor Robert Lucas
then passed a resolution that extended the county borders into
(05:27):
the strip. Before that, if you look at old paperwork
here in Toledo area, a lot of it would be
filed under Port Lawrence, Michigan or Port Lawrence Township, Michigan.
A lot of the Ohioans just thumbed their nose at
the Pains and Penalties Act and the Michigan governor and said,
we made a decision, We're part of Ohio.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And that decision that thumb their nose at Michigan resulted
in all out war, and Michigan raised its militia and
sent them the Phillips Corner where the first battle was fought.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Spring of eighteen thirty five, there was a number of
things that happened. Actually, I think it was April ninth.
There was a posse that was led down by the
Michigan sheriff and he arrested a number of Ohio state officials.
There were some newspaper reports that they tore Ohio state
flag down and dragged it through the streets and then
burned it. And then a few days after that, about
(06:25):
sixty Michigan partisans came down and intercepted a survey team
on April twenty sixth, and that became known as the
Battle of Phillips Corners. And there's actually a plaque out
in the middle of nowhere designating where this Phillips Corner
took place. At Battle of Phillips Corner, actually it was
no battle at all. The Michigan militia showed up. There
(06:48):
were nine members of the survey party. The militia shot
over their heads, and I think a couple of people
were actually captured. The rest of them ran off. There
was no blood or anything like that was more of
a shot across the bow for the state of Michigan
or the Michigan territory.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
And seeing that Michigan was going to fight for the land,
Ohio naturally fought back, or at least one Ohioan did.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah. So a couple of months after the Battle of
Phillip's Corner, in July of eighteen thirty five, the Michigan
Sheriff Joseph Wood comes into Toledo, and he's gonna try
to arrest a couple of Ohio partisans, one of whom
is a gentleman by the name of two Stickney, who
actually had a brother named one Stickney. His father, Benjamin Stickney,
(07:40):
was one of the really the founders of the Toledo area.
He was heavily involved in both Port Lawrence and Vis
Julia and helped promote the idea of those two organizations
with those two towns coming together to form Toledo. Anyway,
the sheriff come in, comes in, tries to arrest to Stickney.
Scuffle breaks out. I've heard it describe just a pen knife.
(08:01):
Stickney pulls out of his pocket stabs the sheriff kind
of left him with a minor wound. But that was
the first and only blood drawn in the whole Michigan War.
How they say that Sheriff Wood was kind of the
Toledo Wars loan casualty.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Soon enough, the federal government, especially President Andrew Jackson, grew
tired of these shenanigans and sought a resolution to the conflict.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Well, there were a lot of different things going on
in Washington, and how it played out, it was pure
politics but Jackson eventually steps up and says, enough's enough.
We're going to offer you all the Upper Peninsula and
we're going to give Toledo essentially what was laid out
in the original Ohio statehood application. Folks in Michigan were
(08:54):
not real excited about that, but they also knew that
the federal government, which had actually reached a point where
they were getting ready to distribute actual money to some
of the states, in order to get in line for that,
they had to get statehood. That money was not going
to come to Michigan territory. So they knew they had
to get in line, and so originally they voted against
(09:18):
the proposition, and then things got pretty ugly when they
realized that they were just going to be left out
in the cold, weren't going to get any federal support.
They had then a second convention, which is referred to
as the Frostbite Convention in December of eighteen thirty six,
and they reluctantly agreed to the compromise and took on
(09:39):
the Upper Peninsula, and Toledo became part of Ohio. And
it's funny because Michigan becomes the twenty sixth state in
the Union and a lot of folks said, you know,
they kind of got the short end of the stick.
But at the same time, as time went by, they
realized that that square miles of land they picked up
(10:01):
and the up was heavily loaded with deposits of copper
and iron ore, and so they were able to get
their money's worth out of it from that standpoint. And
then today, if you look at that area, it's a
spectacular vacation area winter, summer, fall, and I don't want
to see anything having you know, lived here in Toledo.
But I think Michigan might have done okay in that
(10:24):
deal in the in the end.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
The Upper Peninsula, that's what they got for the deal.
And Ohio, well they got Toledo, and it was at
the time what they wanted. What a great deal for
both in the end the Toledo War. Here on our
American story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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