The Toledo Strip and the Battle of Phillips Corners

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Recently, I was driving across the northwestern corner of Ohio along the flooding Maumee River towards Toledo.  Suddenly, the road disappeared into the fast-flowing waters, leaving me, a Californian way out of my element, wondering what to do.  A young man rowing past in a canoe wasn’t much help.  I pulled out my Auto Club roadmap of Ohio and found an alternate route.  In the process, I noticed something I had never noticed before: the Ohio-Michigan border is slightly tilted to the northeast.  There are many stories in the shapes of our states and this anomaly had to be no exception. So, I looked into it and, sure enough, found the story of the Toledo Strip, a thin strip of land that both the State of Ohio and the Territory of Michigan claimed and came to blows over at the Battle of Phillips Corners.

The Mitchell Map showing the tip
of Lake Michigan on a parallel with
the mouth of the Detroit River

The conflict has its root when the Second Continental Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance in 1787. This legislation created the Northwest Territory between the Ohio River, the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.  Further, it proposed that the territory be divided into new states, the first of which was Ohio.  The north-south border dividing the future states was defined as “an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan” even though no one knew exactly where that was.  The best map of the time, the Michell Map, showed the tip of Lake Michigan on a latitude well north of Lake Erie.  In 1802, as Ohioans prepared for statehood, they got wind of reports that the tip of Lake Michigan was much farther south than previously described, possibly on a latitude that would miss Lake Erie altogether.  To compensate for this fuzzy information, the framers of Ohio’s constitution included a condition that if the reports proved correct, the state boundary line would be angled slightly northeast so as to intersect Lake Erie at the "most northerly cape of the Miami [Maumee] Bay."  Bottom line: regardless of where the tip of Lake Michigan turned out to be, Ohio claimed the Port of Maumee, or as we know it today, Toledo.  A few years later, in 1805, Congress created the Michigan territory – and used the Northwest Ordinance language to describe its southern border.  Legally, the state of Ohio and Michigan Territory had the same border defined differently.

In the early 19^th century, tensions grew as both Ohio and Michigan territory claimed the Port of Maumee.  Residents of the area demanded that the government resolve the border dispute.  U.S. Surveyor General Edward Tiffin (a former Ohio Governor) hired William Harris to survey the border using the Ohio Constitution line.  Unhappy with the resulting “Harris Line”, Michigan Territory governor Lewis Cass ordered his own survey by John Fulton using the Ordinance line.  The 5 to 8 mile wide area between the Lewis line and the Fulton line became known as the Toledo Strip.  Michigan quietly settled the Strip, building roads and setting up municipalities.  By 1833, Michigan had enough residents to request statehood from Congress but Congress, under pressure from the Ohio delegation, turned down the request due to Michigan’s occupation of the Toledo Strip.  In early 1835, the Ohio legislators set up county governments all along the strip including Toledo, further goading Michigan.  Michigan's hot-head governor Stevens Mason passed a law making any government action in the Strip by Ohio illegal and sent in the Michigan militia to enforce it.  Ohio responded by sending in militia of its own, igniting the Toledo War.

President Andrew Jackson, anxious to avoid armed conflict, sent two representatives from Washington to negotiate a temporary agreement between the two sides while Congress decided the fate of the Toledo Strip.  The talks resulted in a re-survey of the Harris line.  The new survey proceeded without incident until the survey team was attacked by 50 to 60 members of the Michigan militia at Phillips Corners on April 26, 1835.  Shots were fired over the heads of the survey team who turned tail and ran into the woods.  The Battle of Phillips Corners enraged both sides, heating the conflict to the brink of war.  Over the next year, there would be many skirmishes and minor bloodshed but no resolution.  Finally, on July 15th, 1836, President Jackson signed a bill admitting Michigan to the Union under the condition that the Toledo Strip went to Ohio.  In exchange, Michigan got the Upper Peninsula, a seemingly worthless piece of wilderness.  Michigan, out of money thanks to the high cost of the militia, agreed to the deal.  On January 26, 1837, Michigan was admitted to the Union without the Toledo Strip.

Michigan Governor Ferris and Ohio Governor Willis
at the border in 1915

So Ohio won the Toledo War - or so it seemed.  Years later, copper and iron deposits were discovered on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula - an economic boon that lasted well into the 20^th century.  So Michigan didn’t do too badly either.  In fact, the only real loser of the Toledo War was Wisconsin which would have had the Upper Peninsula.  The Harris line was surveyed once again in 1915, defining the Ohio-Michigan border once and for all.  Governors from both states shook hands at the border officially ending the dispute.


Question of the Day: Indiana was admitted to the Union after Ohio and before Michigan. Why doesn't its northern border follow the Northwest Ordinance line?