FIRST MAPS OF CLEVELAND AND THE WESTERN RESERVE
In 1786, Connecticut relinquished all claim to western lands to the fledgling U.S. federal government, except for a 120-mile strip along the south shore of Lake Erie, which was being "reserved"as compensation for land lost to Pennsylvania in the Wyoming valley of the Susquehanna River. This land became known (in various forms) as the "Connecticut Western Reserve" and Connecticut began trying to sell it to raise money for the state's school system. A group of investors purchased the Western Reserve, incorporated themselves as the Connecticut Land Company, and set about preparing to survey the lands and lay out the village that became Cleveland. Like the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains generally, the Western Reserve was little-known, but becoming an important part of the westward movement of settlers in the years following American independence. Maps were crucial to inform settlers about the frontier lands and to attract them to move there. Here are some of the first maps depicting the Western Reserve and Cleveland.
Many of these maps are owned by the Western Reserver Historical Society may be seen on a color microfilm in the WRHS Library.
SOUTHERN SHORE OF LAKE ERIE
First maps of northern Ohio and the south shore of Lake Erie, before the Western Reserve:
• David Brose's article Explorations in the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History covers this period and it's maps well.
• Also see Thomas H. Smith's 1977 book The Mapping of Ohio. (Kent State University Press)
THE WESTERN RESERVE
First manuscript maps to show the Western Reserve:
• Holland Land Company map of 1795. - This is a map produced for the owners of the Holland Land Company, in Amsterdam, who then owned a huge tract in upstate New York. They were interested in purchasing the Connecticut Western Reserve and dispatched one of their American surveyors, Ellicott, who produced this map. The map offers little more than an overview of the Reserve's outline, the Cuyahoga River and some generic fill about forests, but it predates anything produced by the Connecticut Land Company, who eventually did purchase the Reserve. The original manuscript map is in Amesterdam, but the SUNY/Fredonia made a 2/3 color copy of the map and has offered reprints for sale. Check the Western Reserve Historical Society gift shop, too.
• John Heckewelder's map of 1796. - John Heckewelder was a Moravian missionary to the tribes living along the Tuscarwaras River. He was captured by other indians and moved to Detroit. He eventually returned and years later, in 1796, produced this map of the Reserve, which was found amongst Moses Cleaveland's papers after his death. It is particularly important for showing the trails across the Reserve, but it is not known whether Moses Cleaveland possessed this map before coming to the Reserve in 1796. A booklet was published about this map, containing a reproduction of hte map and a modern counterpart map by James A. Bier. Copies of the booklet and the map have been available in past years at the WRHS gift shop and the booklet might be found in local libraries.
====
THE CONNECTICUT WESTERN RESERVE
The following was prepared by Judith Sheridan. It gives a good explanation as to why this part of Ohio is still know as "The Western Reserve" Mrs. Sheridan is a board member of the Trumbull County Historical Society and First Vice President of the Geauga County Historical Society.
In the years before the American Revolution, the colony of Connecticut claimed all of the land from its western border to the Mississippi River. This included parts of New York and Pennsylvania. After the United States Federal System of Government was established, Connecticut ceded all of its claims to these lands except for a 120 mile strip in the Ohio Country. This land became known as the Connecticut Western Reserve. Funds obtained by the state from the sale of this land were to be used for public schools in Connecticut. The western end of the Reserve (later Huron and Erie Counties) was set aside as the "sufferer" lands. It was to be given to Connecticut residents to compensate them for losses from British military actions during the Revolutionary War. In the Reserve it was called the "Firelands".
The remaining 3,000,000 acres was sold by Connecticut to the Connecticut Land Company. This group of 35 men paid $1,200,000 for the Reserve. This amounted to $.40 an acre. In order to sell the land it had to be surveyed and Moses Cleaveland was hired as the land agent to do the job. Cleaveland settled prior Native American claims by signing a treaty with the Indians in Buffalo, NY on June 22, 1796. The surveying party then continued to the Reserve and arrived at Conneaut, Ohio on July 4, 1796, 20 years after independence from England had been declared.
The surveying party split into town groups. One party surveyed along the north-south Pennsylvania border. General Cleaveland continued along the lakeshore and arrived at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River on July 22nd. This was to be his only visit to the site that would eventually become the city of Cleveland. The surveyors laid out Townships in 5 mile square grids beginning with Township One, Range One. in what is now Poland, Ohio, Mahoning County. The surveying work was slow and difficult due to the terrain and the dense forests.
The entire area was called Trumbull County and Warren, Ohio was the county seat. Beginning in 1798 a steady stream of settlers began arriving in New Connecticut to begin a new life in a new land. The difficult 600 mile trip transplanted the culture of New England to the northern Ohio frontier. Groups of related people or people from the same town moved together to the wilderness to begin new lives.
By 1805 Geauga County was thinly settled but had enough voters to separate from Trumbull County. At that time Geauga County also included all of what later became Lake County. By 1820 the population of Geauga County was 7791 and it had doubled by 1830. The total population of the Western Reserve was 55,000 in 1820. Completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 was a great economic factor in the continued growth of the county. It provided an outlet for agricultural products to be sent east.
The settlers were a diverse group of people. Some hoped to make their fortune here and some were well-to-do on arrival. They worked together to bring their dreams to fruition. They created towns and cities which reflected the values they carried with them from New England. Schools, churches, mills, farms and factories all took root and flourished at an early date.
The Geauga County Historical Society has brought together a sampler of typical 19th century buildings and related artifacts to create the century village. The surrounding 50+ acres reflect the importance of agriculture during the last two centuries in Geauga County. The Society is dedicated to the brave pioneers who walked the Western Reserve and all of those who believe that history can be a valuable resource and teacher.
More:
====
1786 In return for ceding its land claims, Congress granted Connecticut this land in Northern Ohio. The state sold the land to raise money for public education in Connecticut.
====
The Western Reserve
After the Trenton decision--perhaps even as an outside political arrangement--Connecticut was compensated for the loss of Wyoming with a huge grant just west of Pennsylvania called the Western Reserve. The acquisition, organization, and disposal of this vast tract can be studied in Harlan H. Hatcher, Western Reserve: The Story of New Connecticut in Ohio (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1949). There is a revised version published by Kent State University Press in 1991. Other useful or interesting works include these:
Beasley, James R. "Emerging Republicanism and the Standing Order: The Appropriation Act Controversy in Connecticut, 1793-1795." William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd series 29 (October, 1972) 4:587-610. The proceeds from the sale of the Reserve were much desired by several factions in the state. Ultimately they were given to the towns to support local education.
Brown, Jeffrey P. "Samuel Huntington: A Connecticut Aristocrat on the Ohio Frontier." Ohio History 89 (Autumn, 1980) 4:420-38. Huntington was nephew and stepson of the Connecticut governor of the same name. "Huntington's career illustrates the ease with which a prominent easterner could win high office in the sparsely settled west." (p. 420) He was a major land speculator in the Western Reserve.
Burpee, Charles W. "The Story of the State's School Fund." Hartford Daily Times (August 21, 1933). A good piece, despite its newspaper publication.
Carpenter, Helen M. "The Origin and Location of the Firelands of the Western Reserve." Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 44 (1935):163-203. Connecticut patriots burned out of their homes during the British raids on New Haven, Fairfield, and Norwalk in 1779 and on Groton and New London in 1781 were compensated with lands in the Western Reserve. This is an excellent short account, with two maps, full citations, and bibliography of thirty towns on the southern shore of Lake Erie.
Collier, Bonnie B. "The Ohio Western Reserve: Its Influence on Political Parties in Connecticut in the Late Eighteenth-Century.” The Connecticut Review 9 (November, 1975) 1:50-61. Questions of who was going to be lucky enough to purchase the Reserve and make millions and what to do with the money once the state had it dominated Connecticut politics during the mid-1790s.
Downs, Randolph C. "Frontier Ohio, 1788-1803." Ohio Historical Society Collections 3 (1935).
McCormick, Virginia E. and Robert W. McCormick. New Englanders on the Ohio Frontier. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1999.
George, Milton C. "The Settlement of the Connecticut Western Reserve of Ohio." Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 1950.
Harris, Marc L. "Social Entrepreneurs: Economic Enterprisers and Social Reformers on Ohio's Western Reserve, 1795-1845." Dissertation, Johns Hopkins, 1984.
Larned, Ellen. "New Connecticut, or Western Reserve." Connecticut Quarterly 2 (1896) 4:86-95 and 3 (1897) 1:88-99. A nice piece by an old-fashioned but reliable historian.
Livermore. Shaw. "The Connecticut Land Company," in his Early American Land Companies. (New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1939). There are ten pages on the Connecticut Land Company and much more on many others based in the state, such as the Gore Land Company. This is a good, scholarly study that puts the Western Reserve and westward migrations in their legal context.
Murdock, Aubrey. "The Connecticut School Fund." Freehold 1 (1937) 7.
Shepard, C. L., ed. "The Connecticut Land Company." Tracts of the Western Reserve Historical Society. An important collection of documents.
Upton, H. T. History of the Western Reserve. (Indianapolis: Lewis Publishing Co., 1910). Focus is on home life. "Women, as well as men, laid the foundations of the Western Reserve and helped build its walls, and no work which neglects to take notice of this fact is a history." (Introduction) Many illustrations.
Webb, T. D. "Connecticut Land Company...Western Reserve." Collections of the Mahoning Historical Society I (1876):142-65. This is a competent narrative, which includes a chart of individual cash contributions and other information not found in more readily available works. But it is for the serious scholar.
Wheeler, Robert A. (ed.). Visions of the Western Reserve: Public and Private Documents of Northeastern Ohio, 1720-1860. Columbus Ohio State University Press, 2000.
Williams, William W. History of the Fire Lands, Comprising Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio. Cleveland: Leader Printing Co., 1879.
See also
Adams, Herbert B. "Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States." Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science 3 (1885):1-54. A professionally done piece by a major historian, this should be read with (or ignored in deference to) work by Merrill Jensen, especially "The Cession of the Old Northwest." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 23 (1936) 27.
Baldwin, Simeon E. "Connecticut in Pennsylvania." (cited above)
Bond, Beverly W. The Civilization of the Old Northwest. New York: Macmillan, 1934.
Collier, Christopher, Roger Sherman's Connecticut. (cited above)
Granger, James N. "Connecticut and Virginia a Century Ago." Connecticut Quarterly 3 (1897) 1:100-05 and 2:190-98. Deals with Connecticut speculators--notably Gideon Granger--who invested in a half million acres in what is now West Virginia.
Holbrook, Stewart H. The Yankee Exodus. New York, 1950; reprinted by University of Washington Press, 1968. See Chapter III. A standard, popular treatment.
Mathews, Alfred. Ohio and Her Western Reserve. New York: Appleton, 1902.
Rosenberry, Lois K. M. Migrations from Connecticut Prior to 1800; and Migrations from Connecticut After 1800. Tercentenary pamphlets XXVIII and LIV (1934). These pamphlets are taken entirely from The Expansion of New England, written by Mrs. Rosenberry under her maiden name, Lois K. Matthews. (Boston, 1909) They are based on her 1906 Radcliffe dissertation and are just super.
The Ohio side of the Western Reserve story can be read in histories of that state. The Harvard Guide to American History (1974), I:314, lists some twenty of them
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
