After the American Revolutionary War, when was the first time that States fought a “war” against each other? Most people would answer that question with “The American Civil War” (1861-1865). There was an earlier “conflict” between states that had militias called up for battle that happened in 1835-36. It was known as the “Michigan-Ohio War” or the “Toledo War.” What was it about and what happened? Join us for today’s post on this little-known conflict.
The Toledo War, also known as the Michigan–Ohio War or the Ohio–Michigan War, was a boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan over what is now known as the Toledo Strip. The Toledo Strip was a 468-square-mile region along the Ohio/Michigan border that resulted from a poor geographical understanding of the Great Lakes region which resulted in conflicting state and federal legislation between 1787 and 1805. This led to the governments of Ohio and the Michigan Territory both claiming authority over this region.
The Creation of the Toledo Strip
In 1787, the Congress of the Confederation enacted the Northwest Ordinance, which created the Northwest Territory in what is now the upper Midwestern United States. The Ordinance specified that the territory was to be divided into "not less than three nor more than five" future states. One of the boundaries between them was to be "an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan". When Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1802, which authorized Ohio to begin the process of becoming a U.S. state, the language defining Ohio's northern boundary elaborated on that, but was fundamentally the same:
"An east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, running east ... until it shall intersect Lake Erie or the territorial line [with British North America, now Canada], and thence with the same through Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania line aforesaid."
The most highly regarded map of the time, the "Mitchell Map", showed the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan at a latitude north of the mouth of the Detroit River, suggesting that an east–west line would not intersect with Lake Erie at all, until well across the international border. The framers of the 1802 Ohio Constitution therefore believed it was the intent of Congress that Ohio's northern boundary should certainly be north of the mouth of the Maumee River, and even of the Detroit River. Thus, Ohio would have access to most or all the Lake Erie shoreline west of Pennsylvania, and any other new states carved out of the Northwest Territory would have access to only Lakes Michigan, Huron, or Superior.
However, the delegates received reports from a fur trapper that Lake Michigan extended significantly farther south than they had previously believed (or mapped). To address this contingency, the Ohio delegates included a provision in the draft Ohio constitution that if this report about Lake Michigan's position was correct, the state boundary line would angle slightly northeast to intersect Lake Erie at the "most northerly cape of the Miami [Maumee] Bay". This provision would guarantee that most of the Maumee River watershed and the southern shore of Lake Erie west of Pennsylvania would fall in Ohio.
The draft constitution with the United States Congress accepted this stipulation, however, prior to Ohio's admission to the Union in February 1803, Congress referred the proposed constitution to a Congressional committee for review. The committee's report said that the clause defining the northern boundary depended on "a fact not yet ascertained" (the latitude of the southern extreme of Lake Michigan), but the members "thought it unnecessary to take it [the provision], at the time, into consideration."
Throughout the early 19th century, both governments contested the location of the border, with residents of the Port of Miami—which would later become Toledo—urging the Ohio government to resolve the border issue. In turn, the Ohio legislature passed repeated resolutions and requests asking Congress to address the matter. Finally, in 1812, Congress approved a request for an official survey of the line, however, the War of 1812 delayed the survey. It was only after Indiana's admission to the Union in 1816 that work on the survey began. At that time, Congress altered the border between Michigan and Indiana from the Northwest Ordinance boundary – over the protests of the Michigan Territory – moving it 10 miles (16 km) northward to give the new state substantial frontage on Lake Michigan.
U.S. Surveyor General Edward Tiffin, who oversaw the survey, was a former Ohio governor, and employed William Harris to survey not the Ordinance Line, but the line described in the Ohio Constitution of 1802. When completed, the "Harris Line" placed the mouth of the Maumee River completely in Ohio, as intended by the drafters of the state constitution. When the results of the survey became public, Michigan territorial governor Lewis Cass objected, writing in a letter to Tiffin that the survey, biased to favor Ohio, "is only adding strength to the strong, and making the weak still weaker." In response, Michigan commissioned a second survey, conducted by John A. Fulton. The Fulton survey was based upon the original 1787 Ordinance Line, and after measuring the line eastward from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie, it found the Ohio boundary to lie just southeast of the mouth of the Maumee River.
The region between the Harris and Fulton survey lines formed what is now known as the "Toledo Strip". This ribbon of land between northern Ohio and southern Michigan spanned a region five to eight miles wide, over which both governments claimed sovereignty. While Ohio refused to cede its claim, Michigan quietly occupied it for the next several years, setting up local governments, building roads, and collecting taxes throughout the area.
By the early 1820s, the growing Michigan Territory reached the minimum population threshold of 60,000 to qualify for statehood. When it sought to hold a state constitutional convention in 1833, Congress rejected the request because of the still-disputed Toledo Strip. Ohio asserted that the boundary was firmly set up in its constitution and thus Michigan's citizens were simply intruders; and refused to negotiate the issue with them. The Ohio Congressional delegation was active in blocking Michigan from reaching statehood, lobbying other states to vote against it.
In 1828, the U.S. House Committee on Territories in the United States House of Representatives reported that the framers of the 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. In 1833, when Congress rejected Michigan's request for a statehood convention, President John Quincy Adams, who favored Michigan’s claim, summed up his opinion on the dispute as follows:
"Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other."
In January 1835, frustrated by the political stalemate, Michigan's territorial governor Stevens T. Mason called for a constitutional convention to be held in May of that year, despite Congress' refusal to approve an enabling act authorizing one. In February 1835, Ohio passed legislation that set up county governments within the Strip. The county in which Toledo sat would, later in 1835, become Lucas County, after incumbent Governor Robert Lucas, a move that further worsened the growing tensions with Michigan. Also, during this period, Ohio tried to use its power in Congress to revive a previously rejected boundary bill that would formally set the state border to be the Harris Line.
Michigan, led by the young and hot-headed Mason, responded with the passage of the Pains and Penalties Act just six days after the formation of Lucas County. This act made it a criminal offense for Ohioans to conduct governmental actions in the Strip, under penalty of a fine up to $1,000 (equivalent to $36,000 in 2024), up to five years imprisonment at hard labor, or both. Acting as commander-in-chief of the territory, Mason appointed Brigadier General Joseph W. Brown of the Third U.S. Brigade to head the state militia, with the instructions to be ready to act against Ohio trespassers. Lucas obtained legislative approval for a militia of his own, and he soon sent forces to the Strip area. The elements of the Toledo War were in place and waiting for a spark to set it off.
The War
Acting as commander-in-chief of Ohio's militia, Governor Lucas—along with General John Bell and about 600 other fully armed militiamen—arrived in Perrysburg, Ohio, 10 miles southwest of Toledo, on March 31, 1835. Shortly thereafter, Governor Mason and General Brown arrived to occupy the city of Toledo proper with around 1,000 armed men, intending to prevent Ohio advances into the Toledo area as well as stopping further border marking from taking place.
On April 3, 1835, President Andrew Jackson sent two representatives from Washington, D.C. – Richard Rush of Pennsylvania and Benjamin Chew Howard of Maryland– to Toledo to arbitrate the conflict and present a compromise to both governments. The proposal, presented on April 7, recommended that a re-survey to mark the Harris Line begin without further interruption by Michigan, and that the residents of the affected region could choose their own state or territorial governments until Congress could definitively settle the matter. Lucas reluctantly agreed to the proposal and began to disband his militia, believing the debate settled. Mason, however, refused the deal and continued to prepare for possible armed conflict. Three days later, elections in the region were held under Ohio law. During the elections, Michigan authorities harassed Ohio officials, and threatened area residents with arrest if they accepted Ohio's authority.
On April 8, 1835, 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 at night. The Monroe contingent, numbering thirty-five to forty persons, entered Major Benjamin F. Stickney's house and drove his two guests, George McKay, and N. Goodsell, out of their beds, having first tried 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 Battle of Phillips Corners
After the election, Lucas believed that the commissioners' actions had alleviated the situation and once again sent out surveyors to mark the Harris Line. The project went ahead without incident until Sunday, April 26, 1835, when 50 to 60 members of General Brown's militia attacked the surveying group, guarded by a small contingent of Ohio militia. About noon, the Michigan posse moved in on the surveying party. Thrown into a panic, the line runners made a quick retreat to the border. A remaining party of nine Ohio militia took shelter in a small log cabin on Phillip's property and barricaded themselves inside.
They were quickly surrounded by the posse and ordered to give themselves up. This they did after a considerable delay. 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, Michigan jail. Six entered bail, two were released and one was kept for refusing bail on principle.
The surveyors wrote to Lucas afterward that while observing "the blessings of the Sabbath", Michigan militia forces ordered them to retreat. In the ensuing chase,
"Nine of our men, who did not leave the ground in time after being fired upon by the enemy, from thirty to fifty shots, were taken prisoners and carried away into Tecumseh, Michigan."
While accounts differed on the details of the attack, Michigan claimed it fired no shots, only discharging some musket rounds in the air as the Ohio group retreated. Whatever the truth, the first shots of the war had been fired at the so-called Battle of Phillips Corner, further infuriating both Ohioans and Michiganders, bringing the two sides to the brink of all-out war.
Bloodshed in 1835
In response to the allegations that Michigan's militia fired upon Ohioans, Lucas called a special session of Ohio's legislature on June 8 to pass several more controversial acts, including the establishment of Toledo as the county seat of Lucas County, the establishment of a Court of Common Pleas in the city, a law to prevent the forcible abduction of Ohio citizens from the area, and a budget of $300,000 ($11 million in 2024) to implement the legislation. Michigan's territorial legislature responded with a budget appropriation of $315,000 to fund its militia. Lucas ordered his Adjutant General, Samuel C. Andrews, to conduct a count of the militia. Andrews reported that 10,000 volunteers were ready to fight.
Throughout mid-1835, both governments continued their practice of one-upmanship, and constant skirmishes and arrests occurred. Citizens of Monroe County joined in a posse to make arrests in Toledo. Partisans from Ohio, angered by the harassment, targeted the offenders with criminal prosecutions. Lawsuits were rampant and served as a basis for retaliatory lawsuits from the opposite side. Partisans of both sides organized spying parties to keep track of the sheriffs of Wood County, Ohio, and Monroe County, Michigan, who were responsible for the security of the border.
On July 15, Monroe County, Michigan, Deputy Sheriff Joseph Wood went into Toledo to arrest Major Benjamin Stickney, but when Stickney and his family resisted, the whole family was subdued and taken into custody. During the scuffle, the major's son, Two Stickney, stabbed the Deputy Sherif on the left side with a dirk (other accounts say a penknife), saying: "Damn you, you have got it." Wood was taken to the nearest inn for treatment and later recovered. Meanwhile, fifty to seventy-five leading Toledo citizens, including Goodsell and McKay (former guests of Major Benjamin Stickney), gathered to pledge resistance against any further Michigan arrests, "as long as they have a drop of blood left."
Upon hearing of these developments, Mason at once ordered the Monroe posse of about two hundred men into Toledo to arrest Two Stickney. When the citizens of Toledo sighted the armed force, a substantial 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. During 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. When Lucas refused Mason's demand to extradite Two Stickney to Michigan for trial, on the grounds that the stabbing had occurred in Ohio, Mason wrote to President Jackson for help, asking that he refer the matter to the United States Supreme Court. At the time of the conflict, it had not been established that the Supreme Court could resolve state boundary disputes, and Jackson declined the request.
In August 1835, at the strong urging of Ohio's members of Congress, Jackson removed Mason as Michigan's territorial governor and appointed John S. ("Little Jack") Horner as his replacement. Before his replacement arrived, Mason ordered 1,000 Michigan militiamen to enter Toledo and prevent the symbolically important first session of the Ohio Court of Common Pleas. Although the idea resonated with Michigan residents, the effort failed: the judges held a midnight court before quickly retreating south of the Maumee River, where they were protected by Ohio forces positioned there.
Horner proved extremely unpopular as governor and his tenure was short. Residents disliked him so much they burned him in effigy and pelted him with vegetables upon his entry into the territorial capital. In the October 1835 elections, voters approved the draft constitution and re-elected Mason governor.
The Frostbitten Convention and the Resolution of the War
On June 15, 1836, Jackson signed a bill that allowed Michigan to become a state, but only after it ceded the Toledo Strip. In exchange for this concession, Michigan would be granted the western three-quarters of what is now known as the Upper Peninsula (the easternmost part had already been included in the state boundaries). Because of the perceived worthlessness of the Upper Peninsula's remote wilderness, which was ill-suited for agriculture, a September 1836 special convention in Ann Arbor rejected the offer.
As the year wore on, Michigan found itself in a deep fiscal crisis, nearly bankrupt because of the high militia expenses. The Michigan government was spurred to action by the realization that a $400,000 surplus ($14 million in 2024) in the United States Treasury was about to be distributed to the 25 states but not to territorial governments; Michigan would have been ineligible to receive a share.
The "war" unofficially ended on December 14, 1836, at a second convention in Ann Arbor. Delegates passed a resolution to accept Congress's terms. The calling of the convention itself was controversial. It came about only because of an upswelling of private summonses, petitions, and public meetings. Since the legislature did not approve a call to convention, some people said the convention was illegal and Whigs boycotted the convention. Consequently, many Michigan residents ridiculed the resolution. Congress questioned the convention's legality but accepted its results. Because of these factors, as well as a notable cold spell, the event became known as the Frostbitten Convention.
On January 26, 1837, Michigan was admitted to the Union as the 26th state, without the Toledo Strip but with the entire Upper Peninsula.
We hope you enjoyed today's post “The Michigan – Ohio War.” We hope this will interest you in learning more about the lesser-known historical events in the Early United States and awaken an interest in exploring some of them. Please join us again next month for another look into life in Colonial America and the Early United States.
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Resources
Armstrong, W. C. (1930, July). The Axfords of Oxford. The American Register, p. 10.
Detroit Free Press – August 1885 (1904). How They Fought. Personal Recollections of the Contest with Ohio Fifty Years Ago. Pioneer Collections Report of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan, VII, 69-73.
Faber, D. (2008). The Toledo War: The First Michigan-Ohio Rivalry. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Way, W. V. (1869). The Facts and Historical Events of the Toledo War of 1835. Toledo: Daily Commercial Steam Book and Job Printing House