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 disputed region along their common border, now known as the Toledo Strip after its major city.
Background history
1700s
1780s 1787: The Northwest Ordinance, also known as the Ordinance of 1787, established the boundary for possible future states in the Northwest Territory as "an east-west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan."
1800s
1802: Congress restated the Ordinance Line of 1787 as Ohio's northern boundary, in the Enabling Act of 1802, which allowed Ohio to become a state. Ohio petitions to gain statehood, and the northern boundary is set by the Ohio constitution as the Ordinance Line of 1787 with one proviso: If the line intersected Lake Erie to the east of the mouth of the Maumee River, then "with the assent of Congress of the United States, the northern boundary of this State shall be established by, and extended to a direct line running from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the most northerly cape of the Miami Bay." This laid the basis for the Toledo War. 1803: Ohio admitted into the Union with an enabling act authorizing the inhabitants to set up a state government. 1805: Congress created the Michigan Territory with the Ordinance Line as Michigan's southern boundary. 1809: Congress established the Illinois Territory.
1810s 1812: War of 1812 delayed survey of the Ordinance Line. 1816: Indiana admitted as a state, with a northern border north of the Ordinance Line, to allow the state some lakefront. Michigan Territorial Governor Lewis Cass renewed request for national survey. 1817: Edward Tiffin, Surveyor General of the Northwest and former Governor of Ohio, commissioned William Harris to rerun the line. Harris drew a line favoring Ohio's claim to the Toledo Strip. 1818: The state of Illinois admitted into the Union. The Michigan Territory was enlarged to include Wisconsin and part of Minnesota. Michigan pressed her claim to the southern boundary. At Lewis Cass's urging, President James Monroe ordered a new survey. John A. Fulton plotted the Ordinance Line a few miles south of Toledo. The situation was now more confused than ever. The Harris Line agreed with the Ohio Constitution, and the Fulton Line agreed with the Northwest Ordinance. The difference between the two was a wedge-shaped strip of land, wide at the Indiana border, wide at Lake Erie, and from west to east, an area of about and including the mouth of the Maumee river. This was, in effect, a no-man's land between Michigan and Ohio, claimed by both.
1820s 1827: The Michigan Territorial Council organized the wedge-shaped area into Port Lawrence Township. 1828: The U.S. House Committee on Territories in the United States House of Representatives reported that the framers of Northwest Ordinance of 1787 intended to give every state created from the Northwest Territory equal accessibility to the Great Lakes, thereby supporting Indiana's claim to a Lake Michigan outlet and Ohio's claim to Maumee Bay. Congress, however, took no definite action in resolving the dispute.
Early 1830s 1832: Michigan Territorial Council petitioned Congress for an enabling act which would permit Michigan to call a constitutional convention. Congress refused the request because of the unresolved boundary dispute between Michigan and Ohio. Congress passed a law providing for a third survey of the Ordinance Line to be completed December 31, 1835. Andrew Talcott, captain of U.S. Army Engineers was commissioned to undertake the project, and the actual survey was made by Lieutenants Washington Hood and Robert E. Lee.
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 May: Congress turned down Michigan's petition for statehood. June: The Talcott survey was reported to Congress. The Talcott Line practically coincided with the Fulton Line, thereby supporting Michigan's claims to Toledo. Late June: Congress enlarged Michigan Territory to encompass Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and the eastern parts of North and South Dakota. Since 1818 Wisconsin and part of Minnesota were already considered part of Michigan. Two of Michigan's first six counties, including Brown, were in what is now Wisconsin. July: Stevens T. Mason, age 23, became Michigan's acting Territorial Governor. He called a special session of the Michigan Legislature to expedite Michigan's admission into the Union. November: Mason stressed the importance of retaining the Toledo Strip. He wanted Congress to create the Wisconsin Territory and return Michigan to its natural boundaries. Mason wanted the Michigan legislature to press for statehood after that.
1835
January January 26: Acting-Governor Mason signs Enabling Act for Michigan to hold a constitutional convention on the second Monday in May 1835.
February February 6: At the request of Governor Robert Lucas, Ohio lawmakers passed a law extending the jurisdiction of their state over the disputed area. February 12: The Michigan territorial legislature responded. If Ohio would extend its control into the Toledo region, then Michigan would make it a criminal offense to do so. They passed the Pains and Penalties Act which fixed a fine up to $1,000 and/or up to five years imprisonment at hard labor. Mason appointed Brigadier-General Joseph Brown of the Third U.S. Brigade to be ready to strike against any Ohio trespasser.
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 had 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.
March 23: Mason dispatched Senator John Norvell to talk with the President. Mason was also upset by some inhabitants in the disputed area who wanted to belong to Ohio because of interest in the Toledo canal. Norvell would press for presidential action. March 24: President Jackson appointed Benjamin C. Howard of Baltimore, and Richard Rush of Philadelphia to serve on a commission to arbitrate the dispute. March 31: Lucas and the Ohio line-runners set out for Perrysburg.
April April 1: Michigan held elections for township officials in the disputed area. April 2: Lucas and the Ohio line-runners arrive in Perrysburg. April 3: Rush and Howard (President Jackson's commissioners) reached Toledo. Both Ohio and Michigan had already created a situation for war. April 4: Michigan residents proceeded to the polls to elect delegates for the constitutional convention in May. April 5: Writing from Monroe, Howard indicated that all signs pointed to Governor Lucas’ determination to carry out his designs. "He is very firm in his character," he noted. "And though doing what nine tenths of the nation will hereafter pronounce wrong, yet will listen to no argument upon the point, because he says that his State has decided upon it and it is his duty to exercise her laws." April 6: Ohio held elections in the disputed area. April 8: The Monroe County sheriff and posse moved into Toledo and began arresting violators of the Pains and Penalties Act. The most publicized incident took place in the night. The Monroe contingent, numbering some thirty-five to forty persons, entered into Major Benjamin F. Stickney's house and drove his two guests, George McKay and N. Goodsell, out of their beds, having first attempted to gouge out McKay's eyes and having throttled Stickney's daughter for sounding the alarm. They then carried the two to Monroe; had a mock trial; and released them on bail two days later. The alleged crime being interference with the arrest of Toledoans loyal to Ohio.
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. April 10: Writing again from Monroe, Howard described the situation: "Men galloping about - guns getting ready - wagons being filled and hurrying off, and everybody in commotion." April 11: The Ohio line-runners sized up their precarious situation. One of them wrote from Maumee, “We shall certainly be made prisoners.” They knew Michigan was resolved to enforce its right over Toledo. Mid-April: Michigan's determination to enforce the Pains and Penalties Act put Governor Lucas into a fighting position, the rumor was carried to Michigan that any further incursion into the disputed territory would be met by force. Ohio was mustering ten thousand volunteers. Rush and Howard reported to the President and to both Governors the measures they considered necessary if Michigan and Ohio were to avoid war. Ohio was to continue running the Harris Line.