Ohio History Journal

486      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

 

 

 

NOTES - GEOGRAPHICAL.

 

BY R. W. MCFARLAND, LL. D.

These notes are intended to draw attention to errors or slips

which manage sometimes to get into print, and which may mis-

lead the unwary. Attention is called to four such points.

 

 

FIRST.

It has been stated in the OHIO STATE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND

HISTORICAL QUARTERLY that the United States military tract ex-

tended to the Ohio river. This is an error. See Vol. 2 U. S. Laws,

page 565, act of June 1, 1796. The place of beginning is forty-

two miles due west from the point on the north bank of the Ohio

river where the west line of Pennsylvania crosses that river.

Section 1 of the said act begins as follows: "That the surveyor

general be, and he is hereby required to cause to be surveyed the

tract of land beginning at the northwest corner of the seven

ranges of townships, and running thence fifty miles due south,

along the western boundary of said ranges; thence due west to

the main branch of the Scioto river; thence up the main branch

of the said river to the place where the Indian boundary line

crosses the same; thence along the said boundary line to the

Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum river, at the crossing place

above Fort Lawrence; thence up the said river to the point where

a line, run due west from the place of beginning, will intersect the

said river; thence along the line so run to the place of be-

ginning."

So the United States Military Tract is about forty miles

from the Ohio river.

SECOND.

It has been stated that the charter to the Virginia company

extended from the thirty-seventh to the forty-ninth parallel of

latitude. It was from the thirty-fourth to the forty-first degree.

The Connecticut company claimed the territory north of forty-one

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Notes - Geographical.                487

 

degrees, and the south boundary of the Connecticut Western Re-

serve is at the parallel of forty-one. See the charter of the fourth

year of James I., April 10, 1606, in Smith's History of Virginia.

The words in the charter are "between the said four and thirty

and one and forty degrees."

 

THIRD.

It is easy to become confused in locating the various

Indian towns called "Chillicothe." It was a sort of common noun

and was applied to several places; and the present city of Chilli-

cothe was not one of them. But the Indian town which stood

on or near the position of the present city of Piqua was called

Chillicothe. Another village of the same name was three miles

north of Xenia; another at Frankfort about twelve miles from

the city of Chillicothe, and nearly west, and a village three miles

north of the aforesaid city sometimes went by the same name.

The Indian town Piqua, which was the birthplace of Tecum-

seh, was six miles west of Springfield, Clark county, and was

at or near the village of New Boston. It was not where the

present city of Piqua is located. More than fifty years ago Colo-

nel Rogers, one of the commissioners sent in 1806 by the Gov-

ernor from Chillicothe, then the capital of the state, to Spring-

field, to treat with Tecumseh and other chiefs, described to me

the appearance and bearing of this celebrated chief.

 

FOURTH.

It has been twice stated in this journal that six states were

formed out of the old northwest territory. This also is an er-

ror. The ordinance declared that there should be not less than

three nor more than five states. Besides the five, there is about

one-third of Minnesota east of the Mississippi. On examination

it will be found that the western boundary of that territory was

really unknown, and was merely guessed at. It is true that the

treaty of peace in 1783 between the United States and Great Brit-

ain gave the Mississippi as the western boundary, as did also the

treaty of 1763 between Great Britain and France. The wording

of the first named treaty shows that neither of the contracting

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488      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

parses knew the position of that boundary. After tracing the

line from the north side of Lake Superior along its present posi-

tion to the southeast corner of the Lake of the Woods, the treaty

says, "thence through the said lake to the most northwestern point

thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mis-

sissippi." This is an impossible boundary. From the point named

the direction to the Mississippi is not west, but south, and the dis-

tance is more than a hundred miles. In fact, years afterwards,

when the true state of the facts became known the line was drawn

south to the headwaters of the Mississippi. Subsequently when

the parallel of forty-nine degrees was agreed on as the boundary

between the British possessions and the United States, the line

from the Mississippi to the northwest point of the Lake of the

Woods extended nearly twenty miles north of the forty-ninth

parallel. And this accounts for the jog in the northern boundary

of Minnesota at the Lake of the Woods.

The St. Croix is a part of the western boundary of Wiscon-

sin. Its source is not far from the west end of Lake Superior,

and the travel from the missions on the south shore of Lake Su-

perior in the 17th and 18th centuries was down the St. Croix to

the Mississippi.  Excursions into the interior of Minnesota were

by the St. Peters (Minnesota) river, the Mississippi above the

falls of St. Anthony being practically unused for travel. In this

way it was but natural that men should think of the St. Croix

as the west boundary of the Northwest Territory; and in 1848,

when Wisconsin was formed into a state, the St. Croix became

the western boundary to a point not far from Lake Superior. In

1832 Schoolcraft claimed to have found the head of the Mis-

sissippi, so long was it before the uncertainty gave way to posi-

tive knowledge.

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