Timeline of the Toledo Strip

The following is timeline of events surrounding the Toledo War, a mostly bloodless conflict between the State of Ohio and the Michigan Territory in 1835-36, over a 468-square-mile (1,210 km2) disputed region along their common border, now known as the Toledo Strip.

The disputed Toledo Strip

Background History

1700s

1780s

1800s

Map of Michigan Territory, established in 1805

1810s

1820s

early 1830s

It is worth noting that Eastern capitalists had invested heavily in Port Lawrence real estate mistakenly guessing that the area would enjoy commercial success due to the construction of the Wabash and Erie Canal hoping that it would terminate in Toledo instead of Maumee thus keeping their holdings in wealthy and established Ohio.

Michigan capitalists wanted Port Lawrence in their state. Two sizeable railroad projects were being initiated in Michigan and due to terminate in the Toledo area.

1834

1835

January

February

March

Ohio passed a resolution confirming its belief in the Harris Line which had given Ohio the Toledo area. The Ohio legislature provided for a rerunning of the line to settle the controversy once and for all. Three commissioners, Uri Seely, Jonathan Taylor, and John Patterson, were to begin this project by April 1. Lucas called out the Ohio militia to be on hand, if need be, when the three commissioners arrived at Perrysburg on April 1—April Fool's Day.

Mason was worried. John Thomson Mason, Governor Mason's father and former secretary of Michigan Territory, advised his son to be slow to act and let Ohio be the aggressor.

Mason took his advice and wrote General Brown to hold off on any display of force. In reference to Lucas, his three Ohio commissioners and their guard, Mason wrote, "Let him get on our soil, arrest him, strike the blood at once, disgrace him and his state, and end the controversy."

However, at the same time Mason wrote the General, he also ordered three additional units of the Michigan militia into readiness. Lucas was an enemy and President Andrew Jackson showed no sign he had any intention of interfering.

Mason received a letter from U.S. Secretary of State John Forsyth that Congress might use its prerogatives over a territory to force a compromise with Ohio if Michigan refused to bend on the Pains and Penalties Act. This so distressed Mason that he asked Jackson to remove him as Governor if neither the President nor his administration could support him in the boundary controversy. Mason thought Michigan was protecting itself against a law of Ohio empowering Ohio commissioners, under the protection of the Ohio Governor, to rerun an Ohio boundary in Michigan Territory. If Michigan could not act, who could?

Governor Lucas has every intention of proceeding with the rerunning of the Harris Line, but he was anxious that it be done peaceably. He encouraged President Jackson to appoint a commission to arbitrate the dispute.

April

One witness wrote, "We are driven from our homes for acting under the authority of Ohio; our houses broken open in the dead of night; citizens taken prisoners, bound hand and foot, and tied to fiery horses, gagged that they may not alarm the rest of the citizens; the females too in the same house are treated with violence by being held and prevented from going to alarm the neighbors; and all this for saying to an individual, he need not obey the laws of Michigan."
After the assault of April 8, two or three hundred Michigan horsemen, armed with guns and bayonets, moved into the city and dishonored the Ohio flag by dragging it through the streets of Toledo on the tail of a horse. Benjamin F. Stickney wrote, soon after the outrage: "There cannot be a doubt that the generous Ohioans will turn out en masse to protect their northern border and restrain the savage barbarity of the hordes of the north."
Note: Major Stickney was regarded as an ardent Ohio Patriot by the people of Ohio and as an overly verbose hypocrite by the people of Michigan.
The outbreak of hostilities forced the Ohio officeholders elected on the sixth to make a fast retreat; likewise, the Ohio line-runners, who were unarmed and unprotected.
Rush and Howard reported to the President and to both Governors the measures they considered necessary if Michigan and Ohio were to avoid war.
  1. Ohio was to continue running the Harris Line.
  2. The residents in the disputed area were temporarily to decide whether they wished to belong to Ohio or Michigan. This would be in effect until Congress made a definite decision at its next session.
  3. They suggested that Michigan not enforce the Pains and Penalties Act nor try anyone under its provisions until Congress had a chance to act.
Mason would not listen. It would make it impossible to carry out his duties as territorial governor. The proposal allowed Lucas to extend jurisdiction over an area the Talcott Line had declared belonged to Michigan. As chief executive it was his obligation to defend the Territory against an aggressor. Force was legitimate within the American tradition. Congress had allowed the territorial government to pass the Pains and Penalties Act. As governor he could not interfere with the courts concerning those already apprehended under the Pains and Penalties Act; that would be “executive usurpation and tyranny.” He was “thwarted by circumstances beyond his control.” He would gladly be a peacemaker, but he was a governor first.
Mason directed the Monroe sheriff and his posse to be on hand to arrest trespassers. He also dispatched a letter to former Michigan Governor, Secretary of War, Lewis Cass, appealing for federal intervention.
The undersheriff of Lenawee County William McNair, mustered and armed thirty Adrian citizens as a posse to march with him against Lucas’ "ten thousand."
Late afternoon the Ohio surveyor and their guards ran their line to Phillips Corner (a small field located fourteen miles (21 km) south of Adrian, Michigan) and, because of the approaching Sunday, pitched camp for a day.
A spy sent by undersheriff McNair to discover the location of the line-runners spotted them. McNair was pleased to learn the Ohioans were close, for he had the necessary force to arrest them or to chase them across the border.
They were promptly surrounded by the posse and commanded to give themselves up. This they did after much delay. But no sooner had they lined up for arrest than their leader started a stampede for the woods. McNair's men fired a volley over the heads of the escaping Ohioans, wounding none but capturing all. They took the prisoners to the Tecumseh jail. Six entered bail, two were released and one was retained for refusing bail on principle.
The first shots of the war had been fired at the so-called Battle of Phillips Corner, a term sometimes used to describe the whole of the Toledo War.

May

Lucas refused the peace offer. Secretary of War Cass was infuriated by Lucas' unjustifiable exercise of power. Cass asked Mason to temper firmness with moderation. Mason had more to gain by suspending the Pains and Penalties Act than by pressing his right to enforce it. Jackson’s paramount desire was to see the dispute settled amicably, quickly and, if at all possible, by the two governors themselves.

June

Ohio's response was unsettling. In a special session of the legislature, the delegates passed a number of laws enforcing the state’s jurisdiction over the Toledo area.
  1. a law provided three to seven years hard labor for anyone guilty of the "forcible abduction of citizens of Ohio."
  2. a new county, to be named after the Ohio Governor, was to be formed from the disputed territory with Toledo as the temporary seat of justice.
  3. the legislature appropriated three hundred thousand dollars to implement these statutes and empowered Governor Lucas to borrow three hundred thousand more if he found it necessary.
  4. the lawmakers directed the court of common pleas to hold session there the first Monday in September (September 7).
Lucas appointed a three-man delegation to meet with the President: William Allen, Noah H. Swayne and David T. Disney. Jackson acceded that Michigan discontinue proceedings and prosecutions under the Pains and Penalties Act, that Ohio be given complete freedom to run the Harris Line, and that neither side forcibly oppose the official jurisdiction of the other in the disputed area.
Mason could not bear the suggestion that Toledo come under the concurrent jurisdiction of Ohio and Michigan. Michigan was fighting the war on the principle that the Ordinance of 1787 gave Michigan both complete possession of the disputed area and complete authority to govern it. This authority was derived from Congress.

July

Upon being informed of these developments, Mason immediately ordered the Monroe posse of about two hundred men into Toledo to arrest Two Stickney. When the Toledoans sighted the armed force, a large number fled across the Maumee River, some paddling their way to the other side on logs. Once safely out of the posse's reach, they gave vent to their anger by firing on the intruders. Fonts of type of the Toledo Gazette were "thrown into confusion."
In the midst of this uproar Two Stickney escaped. The posse arrested three or four Ohio sympathizers, including McKay and Major Stickney. The Major, on the way to the Monroe jail, was forcibly held on a horse by having his legs tied under the animal's body.

August

September

Mason's first replacement, Judge Charles Shuler of Pennsylvania, refused the assignment. This left the Territory without official leadership during September, although Mason continued to function as governor in all but formal title. Jackson's appointment of John S. ("Little Jack") Horner of Virginia was never fully received by the Michigan citizens. Shortly after Horner’s tenure of office began, the people of Michigan elected Mason as their first Governor. Despite the potential awkwardness, there were no quarrels between Mason and Horner, who was able to work quietly to ease tensions between Ohio and Michigan and then focused his attention on the western portion of the Michigan Territory that was not included in the state. Horner became Secretary of the newly formed Wisconsin Territory in July 1836, leaving Michigan to Mason's leadership.

The September incident amounted to the ability of Buckeye brain to outwit Michigan muscle. Michigan was ready to meet the enemy. Consisting of about two hundred fifty farmers and townsfolk, the contingent sported broom handles for weapons and feathers in their hats for military insignia. The march to Toledo took four days.

Mason's forces arrived hours later on foot, horseback and in boats. No Ohio soldiers were in sight. They stayed on three days and then were ordered back to Monroe for review by the Governor, unaware that Lucas had outwitted them.
With the disbanding of the Ohio troops, Mason was forced to order his own soldiers back to their farms and villages.

December

1836

1837

1915

The official survey of the line was finished and the governors shook hands over the border.

1973

References

Further reading

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