Ohio History Journal

THE

ORIGIN AND LOCATION OF THE FIRELANDS   OF THE WESTERN RESERVE           By   HELEN M. CARPENTER                                         Copyrighted, 1935, by Helen M. Carpenter   (163)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

PAGE

British Invasions of Connecticut during the Revolutionary

War  ..............................................                                                                65

Appraisement of Losses and Granting of Relief ..........                                     69

Title of Connecticut to Lands Granted .................. 174

Location of Claimants on Lands Granted--the Connecticut

Company .........................................   175

Location of Claimants on Lands Granted--the Ohio Company 181

Incorporation ..................................                                                181

Organization     ..................................                                             182

Operations        ....................................                                           183

Extinction of the Indian Title .............. 183

Surveys      .................................                                             187

Partition    of  the  Lands ....................                                   192

Financial Operations ......................                                   193

Dissolution  .....................................                                               194

Political Organization .................................                                                 195

Bibliography  ........................................                                                       196

Maps--

The Firelands in the Western Reserve and Ohio....  176

Reproduction of the Amos Doolittle Map of Almon

Ruggles' Survey of the Firelands....... FRONTISPIECE

 

 

 

 

 

(164)

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THE ORIGIN AND LOCATION OF THE FIRELANDS OF

THE WESTERN RESERVE

 

British Invasions of Connecticut during the Revolutionary War.

Bunker Hill, Trenton, King's Mountain, Yorktown--none of

the historic encounters of the Revolutionary War occurred on the

soil of Connecticut. Yet its inhabitants suffered that destruction

of life and property which attends any military campaign. Con-

necticut was the scene of a different kind of warfare. It was the

victim of terrorization! To harry, ravage and burn became the

British policy after 1778 when the campaigns for control of the

Hudson had miscarried. That submission in the North which

open conflict had failed to bring, England hoped to accomplish

by intimidation. The proximity of coastal towns in Connecticut

to the English stronghold in New York probably accounted for

the concentration of raids there. But little could England realize

that the invasion of Connecticut towns would serve to push west-

ward the frontiers of the very colonies it was struggling to stifle.

It could not anticipate that the torches of British soldiers firing

the dwellings of Connecticut patriots were to light the hearth

fires of pioneer homes in north central Ohio. Rather this guerilla

warfare, requiring comparatively few men and a short time seri-

ously to hamper rebel effectiveness, seemed to accomplish well

the ends of the mother country. An advance by water under

cover of night, a surprise attack upon the town, a day of plun-

dering, pillage, and burning, a hasty retreat before the colonial

defense marked the execution of another British raid.

Although these incursions terrorized seaboard inhabitants of

Connecticut from time to time throughout the War, four major

raids were perpetrated over as many years. To Danbury, since

1776 a depository for military stores by order of the commis-

(165)

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166     OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

sioners of the Continental Army,¹ came word on the morning of

April 26, 1777, that the British were coming. The terrified cit-

izens, protected by only one hundred fifty militia and soldiers,

fled and left their village to the mercy of the two thousand British

who marched in during the afternoon under command of Major-

General William Tryon.² From two A. M. until daylight the

skies glowed as flames consumed military supplies, homes, shops,

and even the Congregational Meeting House.³ Returning in-

habitants found that whitewashed crosses had saved the property

of Tory sympathizers  from the conflagration.^{4 T}he trail of

destruction lay through the town of Ridgefield, near where the

colonials under Generals Benedict Arnold, Gold Sellick Silliman,

and David Wooster attempted to stop the retreating British.⁵

Connecticut was spared for two years from depredations of the

enemy until the importance of the salt works in the vicinity of

Greenwich as a source of supply to the Continental Army made

that village a prey to English soldiers on February 26, 1779. The

invaders, ravaging as they went, soon routed General Isaac Put-

nam and his inadequate forces. Tradition ascribes the escape of

this general to the descent of a perilous incline where his pursuers

dared not follow.⁶ Martial violence continued with an expedition

against New Haven, Fairfield, and Norwalk early in July of 1779.

On the night of July 4, a fleet bearing three thousand British

and Hessian soldiers moved into the harbor of New Haven under

the command of Sir George Collier.⁷   From  the ship Camilla

 

1 John Warner Barber, Connecticut Historical Collections, Containing a General

Collection of Interesting Facts, Traditions, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, etc.,

Relating to the History and Antiquities of Every Town in Connecticut with Geograph-

ical Descriptions (New Haven, 1838), 364-65.

2 Colonial governor of New York commissioned by Lord William Howe for the

expedition. Forrest Morgan, Connecticut as a Colony and as a State or One of the

Original Thirteen (Hartford, 1904), II, 95-96; Charles W. Burpee, "Connecticut in

the Wars," in Norris Galpin Osborn (ed.), History of Connecticut in Monographic

Form (New York, 1925), V, 39-40.

3 "Sir William Howe's Return of Stores Destroyed in Danbury," quoted in

Morgan, Connecticut as Colony and State, II, 101; "Robbin's Century Sermon," quoted

in Barber, Connecticut Historical Collections, 365.

4 Morgan, Connecticut as Colony and State, II, 97-98.

5 Memorial from the Selectmen of Ridgefield to the General Assembly of Con-

necticut, in Public Records of the State of Connecticut with the Journal of the

Council of Safety, 1776-1781; compiled by Charles J. Hoadly (Hartford, 1894), I, 298;

Morgan, Connecticut as Colony and State, II, 98.

6 Ibid, II, 137-38.

7 Connecticut Journal (New Haven), July 7, 1779; quoted in Charles Hervey

Townshend, The British Invasions of New Haven, Connecticut (New Haven, 1879), 25.

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FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                  167

 

Tryon and Collier issued an "Address to the Inhabitants of Con-

necticut," observing that

the ungenerous and wanton insurrection against the sovereignty of Great

Britain, into which this colony has been deluded, by the artifices of design-

ing men, for private purposes, might well, justify in you every fear which

conscious guilt could form, respecting the intentions of the present arma-

ment. ... The existence of a single habitation on your defenceless coast

ought to be a subject of constant reproof to your ingratitude.

And they warned that lenity could not be expected hence-

forth unless "you lie so much in our power, afford that most

striking monument of our mercy and . . . set the first example

of returning to allegiance."

Immunity of person and property to all those who remained

peaceful was promised in the impending raid.⁸ Not waiting for

the promulgation of the address, Tryon and General George Garth

invaded East and West Haven during the early morning hours of

July 5. Colonial defense hastily organized along the way availed

little. In spite of the pledge of immunity, by noon all citizens

of New Haven were at the mercy of indiscriminating marauders.

The destruction by fire of stores along the wharf and of eight

houses in East Haven⁹ was slight in comparison with that which

occurred in Fairfield, to which Tryon turned on July 7, 1779.

Courthouse, jail, schoolhouses, churches, homes--everything lay

in ashes when the troops retreated on July 8 leaving behind again

the proclamation of promised immunity.¹⁰ The ruffianism of the

soldiers, gaining momentum with increasing depredations, vented

itself on Norwalk, July 11, 1779, razing the entire town in the

face of colonial defense better organized than in either New

Haven or Fairfield.¹¹

Another two years passed in apparent serenity. Again came

the alarm of a British attack. This time to the fright of the

patriots was added the sorrow of treason. The commander was

not Tryon but Arnold, a native son of Connecticut, born fourteen

 

8 Tryon-Collier Proclamation, in Connecticut Journal (New Haven), July 7,

1779; quoted in Barber, Connecticut Historical Collections, 171.

9 Ibid., 168.

10 Morgan, Connecticut as Colony and State, II, 144; William Tryon to Sir

Henry Clinton, July 20, 1779, in Military America, British Archives, quoted in Town-

shend, British Invasion of New Haven, 35.

11 Morgan, Connecticut as Colony and State, II, 144-45; Burpee, "Connecticut

in the Wars," in Osborn, History of Connecticut in Monographic Form, V, 55.

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168    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

miles from the New London he gave the orders to raze.¹²  The

sinister part of Arnold in the Revolution forms a curious thread

in the story of the British invasions of Connecticut. In the Dan-

bury raid he resisted the British so valiantly that Congress voted

him a horse with caparison and accorded him the promotion to

major general but not with relative rank. This reservation is

thought to be one of the alleged slights contributing to his trea-

sonable conduct.13 In early September of 1781 there were col-

lected in the port of New London valuable quantities of merchan-

dise from the West Indies and Europe. Into her harbor also had

come as prize of war the Hannah, a rich merchant ship, taken en

route from London to New York by Captain Dudley Saltonstall.

Both factors occasioned the descent upon the town, September 6,

1781.14 At dawn the discovery of the British fleet lying in the

harbor produced a bedlam as excited citizens rushed to place their

families beyond danger, to hide their valuables, and to defend the

town. Colonel William Ledyard, officer in command, distributed

men and munitions as well as circumstances permitted. But what

could a few poorly organized colonials do against a superior force

commanded by one familiar with the vicinity since childhood and

who was receiving counsel for the attack from Tory friends within

New London!15 Frustration met the citizenry at every turn.

When two cannon shots gave the distress call, a British gun added

a third turning the signal into one of victory.16 The local code of

two cannon balls for help and three for exultation had been made

known to the enemy. Fort Trumbull, the defense of the town,

stopped the invaders but little as the two divisions entered at

opposite ends. Already in disarray from the flight of the in-

habitants, the village presented a scene of wild confusion as flames

roared down the streets from market wharf to battery, from

courthouse to jail, from dwelling house to Episcopal Church.

Smoke enveloped the whole. Gutters flowed with rum and Irish

 

12 Frances Manwaring Caulkins, History of New London, Connecticut, 1612-1852

(New London, Connecticut, 1852), 554.

13 Burpee, "Connecticut in the Wars," in Osborn, History of Connecticut in

Monographic Form, V, 41.

14 Caulkins, History of New London, 545.

15 Ibid., 554.

16 Ibid., 546-47.

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FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE             169

 

butter melted by the fire. Coffee and sugar from broken barrels

strewed the streets. The burning Hannah broke from its moor-

ings to drift down the river and sink near Winthrop's Neck.¹⁷

From time to time Arnold was seen on a height viewing the

devastation and reconnoitering for the greater disaster now be-

ginning in Groton. To the destruction of property was added

the slaughter of human life in a massacre as brutal as any of the

Revolution. An attempt to prevent the escape of the shipping

up the river brought the attack on Fort Griswold at Groton.¹⁸

The demand of immediate surrender met a sturdy refusal from

the valiant but inadequate defenses of the fort. Forty minutes

of desperate fighting ensued amid discharges of grape-shot, volleys

of bullets, avalanches of missiles, and bodies of British and Con-

tinentals writhing or prostrate where they fell. The struggle con-

tinued in the west bastion when the fort had surrendered, so great

was the confusion. Ledyard perished by his own sword at the

hands of the British officer who had accepted it in surrender.

Plundering of the dead and wounded followed the cessation of

hostilities. Preparatory to blowing up the fort, the British at-

tempted to remove the helpless colonials. A wagon heavy with

the bleeding bodies of some was permitted to lurch unrestrained

down a steep descent of one hundred rods to the river. The

impact as the wagon struck a tree and recoiled caused several

of the groaning bodies to be hurled out.l⁹ Igniting the barracks

and laying a trail of powder to the magazine, the British sailed

down the river late in the evening, leaving death and destruction

in their wake.

And thus ended the British raids into Connecticut, the last

one, more ghastly than the rest, perpetrated by one of her own.

Appraisement of Losses and Granting of Relief.

As the last British soldier disappeared in retreat, citizens of

the nine²⁰ suffering towns were faced with problems sufficient to

 

17 Ibid., 553.

18 Ibid., 557.

19 Ibid., 565.

20 Danbury, Ridgefield, Greenwich, New Haven, East Haven, Fairfield, Norwalk,

New London, and Groton.

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170    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

test the spirit of the most loyal. Provision of food, clothing, and

shelter, never an easy task, became a problem of increased diffi-

culty. Fields with oncoming crops lay in waste. Barns storing

the harvest of other years were destroyed. Flames had consumed

necessities in the stores or marauders had played such havoc with

the barrels and bags that the commodities were no longer edible.

Personal property which had survived the ravages of firebrand

and pillager frequently was not worth salvaging. So extensive

had been the conflagration that rented buildings were at a pre-

mium. Scarcity of materials hindered those who possessed the

means to rebuild their homes.²¹ To the problems of living were

added the burdens of government. Taxes--town, state, society,

with additional ones for the reconstruction of public buildings--

continued to be levied. Upon such towns, also, the Continental

Army depended for recruits and the expenses of maintenance.²²

In their distress the sufferers turned to the General Assem-

bly. Throughout the ten years between the first incursion and

1787, numerous memorials were sent from the individual towns

praying for relief. In a typical one "Dated at Norwalk the 8th

Day of December A. D. 1780," thirty-eight subscribers represent

to the Assembly

that in the Month of July in the Year 1779 your Honble Memorialists

together with many others Inhabitants of sd Norwalk were burnt out of

House and Home and Striped and plundered by the Enemy of almost all

our Household Furniture and that by means of having our Barns Destroyed

by Fire the greater part of our wheat Harvest and English Hay was then

Consumed to a very great amount and to our very great Distrefs and im-

poverishment . . . that altho many of the Sufferers have the Summer

past got themselves Houses yet they out of necefsity will be oblidged to

live in them through this Winter without being finished for want of many

materials and money to purchase others and that by means of the high

prices of Materials for Buildings and the very great Demand for Labor

your Honble Memorialists are very much involved and it appears to many

of them as if it was impofsible to ever regain their Lofs ... we would

therefore beseech your Honrs to take our unhappy and Distrefsed Situation

and Circumstances into your wise Consideration and abate the whole of

our State Taxes that are or may be laid upon the List 1779 and also upon

the List 1780 or in such other way grant us such Relief in the premifes as

21 Memorial of Norwalk and Fairfield to the General Assembly Praying for

Building Supplies, March 26, 1780, in Hoadly, State Records, II, 511.

22 Petition of John Lockwood and Others of Norwalk to the General Assembly,

December, 1780, in Royal R. Hinman (comp.), A Historical Collection from Official

Records, Files, etc., of the Part Sustained by Connecticut during the War of the

Revolution (Hartford, 1842), Appendix, p. 625.

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FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                      171

 

your Honrs in your great wisdom shall judge Just and Equitable and we

as in Duty bound shall Ever pray.23

In response to these entreaties the Assembly from time to

time appointed committees instructed to retire to the respective

towns, estimate the amount of losses sustained, and provide for

an abatement of taxes over a given period.²4         Sympathetic as the

memorials and committee reports alike show the General Assem-

bly to have been, the financial condition of the state did not per-

mit the granting of relief in any adequate form such as direct

payment from the treasury or the levying of a general tax for

this purpose.²⁵

Since the towns had been invaded at different times, it is not

surprising that they pressed their earliest claims separately. But

by 1787, with a large aggregate of losses uncompensated, that

cooperation which a common trouble brings became evident

among the towns. In a memorial dated at Hartford, May 21,

1787, the sufferers united in petitioning for "such Relief as the

Nature of the Case & Justice Require," and to which "they humbly

conceive they have a righteous and constitutional claim."           Com-

plaint is made of two similar memorials previously preferred

which received no answer. The document was signed by Daniel

Taylor in behalf of the sufferers of Danbury; Thomas Fitch of

Norwalk; Jonathan Sturges of Fairfield; John Mead of Green-

wich; Ebenezer Ledyard of Groton; John Deshon of New Lon-

don; Charles Chauncey of Ridgefield; and Andrew Ward and

Daniel Leete of Guilford.²⁶ A special committee consisting of

Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth, Major Charles Phelps, Major Wil-

liam Hart, and Colonel Charles Burral from the Lower House,

23 Connecticut Archives (in Connecticut State Library), Revolutionary War, 1st

series, XIX, Doc. 77a-d.

24 Examples of memorials from the individual towns and committee reports show-

ing losses and abatements granted are ibid: Ridgefield, VII, 28; VIII, 391; Green-

wich, XIX, 80, 81; XVIII, 368, 370; New Haven, XV, 234, 270; XXVII, 81; Fairfield,

XV, 249; XIX, 71a 70-72, 73a-d, 75a-d; Norwalk, XIX, 76, 78; New London, XXII,

371-373; XXVII, 79, 80, 331; Groton, XXII, 304, XXVI, 292, 293; XXVII, 79, 80. Typical

manuscripts are available in print in Hoadly, State Records: Danbury, I, 214, 217, 296,

373, 428; Ridgefield, I, 298; Greenwich, II, 328, 357, 432, 465; New Haven, II, 355, 373,

387, 426, 470, 485; Fairfield, II, 353, 373, 387, 432, 492, 510, 553; Norwalk, II, 59, 136, 360,

364, 371, 373, 425, 560; New London and Groton, III, 524, 546, 548, 550. A few are also

available in Hinman, Historical Collections, Appendix, 612-18, 624.

25 Jonathan H. Trumbull, "Abstract of the Record History of the Fire Lands

Grant, from the Records of the State of Connecticut, October 7, 1862," in Firelands

Pioneer (Norwalk, Ohio, 1858-), old Series, IV (June, 1863), 95.

26 Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War, 1st series, XXXVI, 351a.

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172    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

and Andrew Adams from the Upper House took the memorial

with its accompanying exhibits and documents for consideration.²⁷

Upon report of that body to the May session

that it hath been usual for other humane civilized nations, particularly the

Dutch, to extend more or lefs Relief, to their suffering Subjects, in similar

cases, upon the return of Peace. That therefore it is the opinion of your

Comtee, that Equity, Justice, and good policy require, that some further

Consideration and allowance be made to the mem1ts

but that a full investigation necessitated longer time, the General

Assembly referred the matter to the October session.²⁸ At that

time the committee deplored the lack of sufficient documents on

the losses sustained and abatements granted which prevented cor-

rect statement of the claims unremunerated but gave its opinion

that the Houfes building [sic] necesfary Houfehold furniture in thofe Fron-

tier Towns mentioned in the memorial burnt and deftroyed by the Enemy

during the Late War ought to be by this State paid for at their Juft Value.

That the only means in the power of this State at prefent to pay the

same is in the Weftern Lands owned by this State referved their--late

cefsion to Congress.29

The Lower House approved the conclusions of the committee

immediately, but consideration in the Upper House was continued

to the May session of 1788. The report of a conference commit-

tee composed of Phelps and Wadsworth from the Lower House

and Joseph Spencer of the Upper House was subsequently re-

jected by the Upper House.³⁰    Ceasing to claim the attention of

the Assembly after the session of October, 1788, the memorial

disappeared without securing the expected relief.

A last memorial was preferred by Thaddeus Betts of Nor-

walk and Thaddeus Burr and others of Fairfield to the General

Assembly in session December, 1790,

showing that in the month of July in the Year 1779 the Buildings and other

Property of the Memorialists were burnt & destroyed by the Subjects of

the King of Great Britain then being Enemies at open War with the United

States, that by means thereof the Memorialists have suffered great Diffi-

culties and distrefses, and many of them are reduced to Indigent Circum-

stances.31

The General Assembly constituted John Treadwell, Asher

 

27 Ibid., XXXVI, 116.

28 Ibid., XXXVI, 15.

29 Ibid., XXXVI, 117a.

30 Ibid.

31 Hoadly, State Records, IV, 23.

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FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                  173

 

Miller, and Captain John Chenward a committee to ascertain from

documents of earlier committee investigations, the amount of

losses of those suffering from the British incursions and the ad-

vancements already made by the state.32 When "through some in-

tervening and unavoidable Circumstances" the committee had not

completed its business by the session of May, 1791, the Assembly

reappointed it to make report in October of 1791.³³ Upon favor-

able report of the above committee the General Assembly of Con-

necticut on May 10, 1792,

released and quit-claimed to the Sufferers hereafter named, or their legal

representatives, where they are dead, and to their heirs and assigns forever,

five hundred thousand acres of the lands belonging to this state, lying west of

the state of Pennsylvania, and bounding northerly on the shore of Lake Erie,

beginning at the west line of said lands, and extending eastward to a line

running northerly and southerly, parallel to the east line of said tract of

land belonging to this state, and extending the whole width of said lands,

and easterly so far, as to make said quantity of five hundred thousand

acres of land.34

At the end is appended the list of sufferers with the uncom-

pensated losses classified by towns. The method of entry in the

resolution makes any accurate statement of the number of persons

remunerated impossible.³⁵ The nine towns received compensation

in the grant amounting to one hundred seventy-five thousand, two

hundred forty-four pounds, four shillings, six pence for one thou-

sand, eight hundred sixty-six losses. By towns the losses were

as follows:36

Town                       Losses     ??              s                 d

Danbury    .............. 186                               8,238          18         10

Ridgefield ...............      65                             1,736          1                           10

Greenwich ............... 279                              26,333        16         4 1/4

New Haven and East Haven 410                   17,079        3           10 1/4

Fairfield       ................ 269                            33,455        2           9

Norwalk      ................ 289                            26,062        15         3 1/2

 

32 Ibid., IV, 23.

33 Ibid., IV, 26.

34 Ibid., IV, 66

35 Some entries are a name "and sons," "and others," or "and Co."

36 Computed from the list in the copy of the Connecticut Resolution contained in

the Record Book of the Company, Incorporated by the State of Ohio, by the Name

of "The proprietors of the half million acres of land, lying south of Lake Erie, called

Sufferers Land," 1804-1811, Record Sufferers' Lands No. 1, (in Huron County, Ohio,

Office of Recorder), 21-49.

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174    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Town                      Losses                          ??              s           d

New London ............ 275                                 54,598       9          1 1/2

Groton .................. 93                                     7,739         15        6

Inequalities in coins and money existing after the Revolu-

tion, the period during which the losses were being estimated by

legislative committees, do not permit a reliable statement of the

value of the losses in dollars.³⁷ A further provision of the resolu-

tion required the grantees to survey the tract at their own ex-

pense and to submit a plan for such to the General Assembly in

order to assure a satisfactory settlement of the east line of the

grant. In a resolution of May, 1795, the Assembly released the

grantees from this obligation.³⁸

Title of Connecticut to Lands Granted.

From whence came the title of Connecticut to the land south

of Lake Erie now released? When Charles II granted a charter

to Connecticut in 1662, the boundaries of the colony were defined

as

all that parte of our Dominions in Newe England in America bounded on

the Eaft by Norrogancett Riuer comonly called Norrogancett Bay where

the said Riuer falleth into the Sea, and on the North by the Lyne of the

Maffachufetts Plantation and on the South by the Sea, and in longitude

as the Lyne of the Maffachufetts Colony runinge from Eaft to Weft that

is to say, from the said Narrogancett Bay on the Eaft to the South Sea

on the Weft parte with the Iflands thervnto adjoyneinge.39

This was one of the famous sea to sea grants of the English

crown, and by it Connecticut gained a limitless claim westward.

By the Revolutionary period the claims of some states to

western lands occasioned sufficient jealousy on the part of the

states of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware,

and Maryland with fixed boundaries, as to delay ratification of

the Articles of Confederation. Maryland was particularly ad-

amant. Congress called upon the states to cede whatever titles

to western lands were claimed. When New York offered to give

 

37 For discussion of the currency at this time see John Bach McMaster, A His-

tory of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War (New

York, 1883), I, 189-94.

38 Hoadly, State Records, V, 21.

39 The extant copy of the two original texts of the Charter.

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FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                     175

 

up its lands in 1781, Maryland ratified the Articles.⁴⁰ On Sep-

tember 11, 1786, Connecticut fulfilled the moral obligation re-

maining, when it conveyed to the United States through Samuel

Johnson and Sturges, delegates in Congress,

all the Right, title, interest, jurisdiction and claim of the State of Con-

necticut to certain western lands beginning at the completion of the forty

first degree of north latitude one hundred and twenty miles west of the

western boundary line of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as now

claimed by said Commonwealth, and from thence by a line drawn north

parallel to and one hundred and twenty miles west of the said west line of

Pensylvania, and to continue north until it comes to forty two degrees

and two minutes north latitude.41

The tract reserved by Connecticut in what is now north-

eastern Ohio became known as the Connecticut Western Reserve

and more generally as the Western Reserve. It was the western

part of this Reserve to the extent of five hundred thousand acres

which Connecticut released to the fire sufferers in 1792. Hence

comes the name, the Firelands of the Western Reserve.

Although Congress by resolution on September 14, 1786, ac-

cepted the deed of cession,⁴² the United States government did not

recognize the title of Connecticut to the Western Reserve.43 The

difficulty was compromised in 1800 when the United States con-

veyed the right to the soil of the Western Reserve to the state of

Connecticut for the benefit of those holding titles in the tract. In

return Connecticut released all political jurisdiction over the

area.44

Location of Claimants on Lands Granted

--The Connecticut Company.

In an account of the location of the Firelands some mention

should be made of the company incorporated under Connecticut

 

40 Edward Channing, A History of the United States (New York, 1924), III,

453-56.

41 Deed of Cession certified from the records of the Department of State.

42 Act of Acceptance certified from the records of the Department of State.

43 J. W. Powell, "Schedule of Treaties and Acts of Congress Authorizing Allot-

ments of Land in Severalty," U. S. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Reports

(Washington, 1881-), XVIII (1896-1897), part 2, 666-67. See also Treaty of Green-

ville, Article 3, in A Compilation of Laws, Treaties, Resolutions, and Ordinances, of

the General and State Government, Which Relate to Lands in the State of Ohio;

Including the Laws Adopted by the Governor and Judges; the Laws of the Territorial

Legislature; and the Laws of This State to the Year 1815-1816. [Referred to hereafter

as Land Laws for Ohio.] (Columbus, Ohio, 1825), Appendix, 479-80.

44 May 30, 1800, Laws of the United States (Philadelphia, 1815), I, 405, quoted

in ibid., 80-81.

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176   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

law for that purpose. Since the sources on the operation of this corporation are fragmentary, it is impossible to state how impor- tant a part it played. Apparently its existence was of significance only as the tax which it levied caused some sufferers to forfeit their interests in the Firelands at the outset. That the Firelands grant of 1792 did not end the difficulties

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FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                  177

 

facing the sufferers is shown by two memorials, alike in text but

preferred by different petitioners, to the General Assembly in the

May session of 1795. From a notation on the back of each by

"W. Bifsell Clk," both were admitted to the House of Represen-

tatives on June 3, 1795. One was signed by Comfort Hoyt,

Junior, and eleven other men or the representatives of their estates.

Thirty-five sufferers or the administrators of the estates of such

affixed their names to the other. In both the subscribers set forth

that they deem it necefsary to take meafures for Afcertaining the Boun-

daries and Extent of said Grant and for extinguishing the native right,

but on Account of the great numbers and the scattered Situation of the

Grantees, and that many are Minors and Feme Coverts and because of the

great diverfty of Opinion necefsarily--attending so large a number, and

with many on Account of the Smallnefs of their Interest, a total neglect

and disregard therof your Memorialifts find unfurmountable difficulties in

the way of Just Meafures, and they would fuggest to your honors that if

the Proprietors of said Grant were Incorporated, with proper powers to

manage and direct the affairs of said property it would enable them so

to manage and dispofe thereof, as to render it profitable and fubfervient

to the benevolent purpofes of the Grantors and without such Interpofition

of your honors they dispair of ever deriving any advantage therefrom.45

To this reasonable appeal the Assembly responded in the Oc-

tober session of 1796 with an act incorporating the grantees under

the name of "The Proprietors of the Half Million Acres of Land

lying south of Lake Erie."46

The statute provided for annual meetings of the proprietors

in the respective towns on the last Tuesday of December to elect

local officers consisting of a chairman, a clerk, and a collector and

agents to represent the proprietors in the general meeting. The

amount of allowed losses determined the number of votes con-

trolled by a single proprietor and the number of agents permitted

to a town. In the agents was vested power to extinguish the In-

dian title, to survey the lands for location, and to partition the

same into townships. To carry on the foregoing, the act empow-

ered the agents to levy taxes according to the amount of losses,

with authority to sell the rights in case of default. Another sec-

tion made the act obligatory only upon those grantees who ac-

cepted its provisions by registering with the clerk of the propri-

45 Connecticut Archives (in Connecticut State Library), not catalogued.

46 Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut in America, known as Connecti-

cut Revised Statutes, 1796. Public Acts, 1796-1808 (Hartford, 1805), 451.

• 15
 

178     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

etors in the respective towns. When the above provision was re-

pealed by amendment on May 23, 1797, all grantees under the

Act of 1792 automatically became incorporated. A further pro-

vision of the amendment gave increased protection to minors,

married women, the insane, and those outside the United States

against the sale of rights for the non-payment of taxes.⁴⁷

Records of the company thus created, if extant, are unavail-

able. Occasional newspaper notices, some old tax deeds, and a

single entry in the accounts of the company which succeeded it

comprise the only sources upon the activities of "The Proprietors

of the Half Million Acres of Land lying south of Lake Erie" in-

corporated under the laws of Connecticut. More information is

available upon the operation of the company in New Haven than

in the other towns. The combination of two factors there may

explain this. At that time New Haven as well as Hartford served

as a capitol of Connecticut and was so recognized by the Act of

Incorporation directing the agents to hold meetings in either New

Haven or Hartford. Not adequate in itself but of importance in

view of the above, was the regular publication of a weekly news-

paper in New Haven called the Connecticut Journal.⁴⁸ Activities

of the company in New Haven were no doubt typical of those in

the other suffering towns.

For six weeks previous, grantees in New Haven and East

Haven were warned of the meeting of the proprietors to be held

at the state house in New Haven on the morning of December

27, 1796, at nine o'clock.⁴⁹  When the proprietors assembled they

chose John P. Austin, collector; Abraham Bishop, clerk; and

Isaac Mills and Bishop, agents.⁵⁰ The first meeting of the agents

 

47 An Act in Addition to, and Alteration of an Act, Entitled "An Act for In-

corporating the Proprietors of the Half Million Acres of Land, lying south of Lake

Erie," ibid., 461. The original bill of the act is among uncatalogued Connecticut

Archives.

48 Connecticut Gazette, also a weekly, was published in New London. The Act

of Incorporation and a notice appearing in the Connecticut Gazette, July 26, 1797,

and in the Connecticut Journal, June 28, 1797, July 5, 1797, July 12, 1797, indicate the

publication of a newspaper in Danbury at this time. Copies are not available in

Hartford or New Haven.

49 Connecticut Journal, November 16, 1796, November 23, 1796, November 80, 1796,

December 7, 1796, December 14, 1796, December 21, 1796. Throughout the towns of New

Haven and East Haven were considered as one. An item in the Connecticut Gazette,

December 21, 1796, gave similar notice to the proprietors in New London and Groton.

50 Connecticut Journal, January 4, 1797, January 11, 1797, January 18, 1797.

• 16
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                179

 

took place on the second Tuesday of March, 1797, at the state

house in New Haven according to the Act of Incorporation. To

Bishop went also the office of clerk of the agents. It was voted

that, upon application of any five proprietors with aggregate losses

of five hundred pounds, the chairman in any of the towns should

be required to call a meeting with authority to transact business

consistent with the incorporation.⁵1 That privilege appears never

to have been used. The same meeting directed the clerks in the

several towns to certify the amount of losses entered in their of-

fices to the next general meeting. The importance of this action

was nullified by the 1797 amendment to the Act of Incorporation

discussed above.

Of the powers enumerated in the Act of Incorporation, the

agents apparently exercised but one, the levying of a tax on the

allowed losses of the proprietors. The action was taken when

a general meeting of the agents of the proprietors of the Half Million

Acres of Land, lying fouth of Lake Erie, holden at Hartford (by ad-

journment), on the 17th of May, 1797, Voted, That a tax of one cent on

the pound be laid on the proprietors of faid land, payable by the 15th day

of August next.52

The proprietors could not be expected to respond immediately

to the payment of a tax levied upon rights granted by reason of

destitute circumstance.   Nor was collection pressed at once.

During the last two weeks of December, 1797, and the first one

of January, 1798, Austin, collector for New Haven and East

Haven, by public notice urged the proprietors to call upon him

and pay within twenty days. Those who failed to comply were

warned of a public sale of their rights.⁵³  Of the four hundred

ten allowed losses in New Haven and East Haven, the tax had

been paid on only sixty-three by January 18, 1798. On that day

the collector gave notice of a public sale at the house of Ebenezer

Parmelee, tavernkeeper in New Haven, at two o'clock in the after-

noon of March 5, 1798, for the purpose of disposing of sufficient

51 Ibid., March 22, 1797, March 29, 1797, April 5, 1797.

52 Connecticut Gazette, July 12, 1797; Connecticut Journal, June 28, 1797, July 5,

1797, July 12, 1797. Deeds recording the sale of rights for non-payment of the tax

give August 5 as the day of payment, in Record of Sufferers' Deeds for New Haven

and East Haven, 1795-1798 (in Huron County, Ohio, Office of Recorder), Vol. A, 138.

53 Connecticut Journal December 21, 1797, December 28, 1797, January 4, 1798.

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180     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

rights of the defaulting proprietors to pay the tax of one cent on

the pound together with the fees and costs accruing. The names

of those three hundred forty-seven grantees still liable were ap-

pended to the notice.54 This public exposure brought a more

effective response and but seventy-nine of the rights remained to

be disposed of at the sale.55

Similar procedure to force payment of the one cent tax was

resorted to in Fairfield. On January 15, 1798, Lothrop Lewis,

collector, conducted the sale of rights to meet the tax on approxi-

mately seventy-four losses. Here not all of the interests were

sold in every case. The bidding seems to have been so much per

pound. For a small loss the bid was as high as nine cents on the

pound; for greater losses it ran as low as three cents per pound.⁵⁶

In New London proprietors were notified to meet William Rich-

ards, the collector, at Coit's Coffee-House on the first three Satur-

days of September, 1798, for settlement with the warning that

"thofe who neglect, will be proceeded againft according to law."57

No record remains showing whether or not the law took its

course.

Figures on the revenue from this tax are not available but

the income probably was not large. An entry in the accounts of

the treasurer of the company of proprietors incorporated under

the laws of Ohio shows a transfer of one hundred twenty dollars

to the new company from Jeremiah Atwater, treasurer of the

company incorporated in Connecticut.58

No annual December meetings of the proprietors for the

 

54 Ibid., January 18, 1798, January 25, 1798, February 1, 1798.

55 In May, 1795, the General Assembly of Connecticut passed "An Act for

recording Conveyances of certain Lands Lying on Lake Erie" which provided for

the recording of all deeds conveying any of the land granted in the Act of 1792 by

the town clerk of the town in which the losses occurred. A separate book was to be

used. Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut in America. Revised (New London,

1784). 493. Original bill of the act is among uncatalogued Connecticut Archives.

Record of Sufferers' Deeds, Vols. A, B, C, D, are the records of deeds kept in the

various towns by reason of the act. In Vol. A, beginning with page 137, are the

deeds conveying the rights of seventy-nine grantee interests executed for non-

payment of this tax in New Haven, March 5, 1798.

56 Ibid., Vol. B. These deeds form a separate part of the book with pages num-

bered 1 to 77. The number of losses sold may be incorrectly stated because four pages,

71, 73, 76 and 77, are missing.

57 Connecticut Gazette, August 30, 1797, September 6, 1797, September 13, 1797.

58 Record Book of the Company, 92, 217.

• 18
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                181

 

election of agents occurred after 1797.59 Since the Act of Incor-

poration fixed the term of the agents at one year, the conclusion

follows that the company became inoperative after 1798.

Location of Claimants on Lands Granted

--The Ohio Company.

Incorporation

The tract granted to the fire sufferers by Connecticut fell

within the boundaries of Ohio when that State joined the Union

in 1803. From Ohio, then the grantees sought legal recognition

of their claims and the right of location. Both were accorded by

the Legislature in an Act of April 15, 1803, constituting the own-

ers a body corporate under the name of "The proprietors of the

half million acres of land, lying south of Lake Erie, called Suf-

ferers' Land."60

This act in many of its provisions resembled that of Con-

necticut but placed more discretionary power in the hands of the

directors. Nine representatives of the towns were named as the

first Board of Directors: Jabez Fitch of Greenwich, Taylor Sher-

man of Norwalk, Walter Bradley of Fairfield, Philip B. Bradley

of Ridgefield, James Clark of Danbury, Mills of New Haven and

East Haven, Elias Perkins and Guy Richards of New London,

and Starr Chester of Groton. Proprietors were to meet biennially

in their several towns for the election of directors. The times

and places for holding all meetings were at the discretion of the

Board. The officers consisted of chairman, clerk, treasurer, and

collector or collectors. Bond was required from the treasurer and

collectors. In the Board was vested power to prosecute measures

for extinguishing the Indian title, surveying and locating the lands,

and partitioning the same proportionately by losses among the

sufferers. To defray the expenses of the foregoing, authority

was granted for the levying of taxes on the lands, the issuing of

warrants for collection, and the selling of the lands for non-pay-

 

59 Notice of the 1797 meeting appears in Connecticut Journal, December 14, 1797,

December 21, 1797, December 28, 1797. None appears for the years 1798, 1799, 1800,

1801, 1802.

60 Act of Ohio, 15th April, 1803, in Acts of the State of Ohio . . . (Chillicothe,

Ohio, 1803), I, 106; printed in Land Laws for Ohio, 106.

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182   OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

ment. An additional provision made it possible for the defaulter

to redeem his rights by paying the tax with twelve per cent in-

terest and costs within six months after the sale. The act directed

the use of any money remaining in the treasury for the laying out

of public roads in the tract.

Organization

The first meeting of the directors took place at the house of

Marcus Miles, tavernkeeper in New Haven, on February 8, 1804.

Joseph Darling, justice of the peace, administered the oath to the

Board, whereupon the directors chose Philip B. Bradley, chair-

man, and Mills, clerk.61 Meeting by adjournment the following

day, the directors adopted a series of ordinances governing the

meetings of the proprietors. The biennial ones provided by the

Act of Incorporation were set at two o'clock in the afternoon of

the second Wednesday in February in the places where the town

meetings usually were held. The proprietors in each town were

entitled to elect one director, except those of New London who

were permitted two, and those of New Haven and East Haven

who met together to choose one. Votes for directors were ap-

portioned among proprietors according to their losses with one

vote requiring losses to one hundred pounds, two votes those be-

tween one and two hundred pounds, and on up accordingly.

Voting by proxy was permitted. Notices tacked to the signposts

in the various towns were to advise proprietors of the meetings.⁶²

A second series of ordinances adopted governed the appointment,

bond, and compensation of the eight collectors.⁶³  The appoint-

ment of Darling as treasurer completed the organization which

perpetuated itself until the dissolution in 1811.

The Board of Directors for the years 1806 to 1808 consisted

of Perkins and Guy Richards of New London, Chester of Groton,

Mills of New Haven and East Haven, Samuel Rowland of Fair-

field, George Raymond of Norwalk, Jabez Fitch of Greenwich,

Philip B. Bradley of Ridgefield, and Clark of Danbury.⁶⁴ Elec-

 

61 Record Book of the Company, 8.

62 Ibid., 9-11.

63 Ibid.,        12.

64 Ibid.,        65.

• 20
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE             183

 

tions of the proprietors in 1808 resulted in the following directors:

Guy Richards and William Eldridge of New London; Ebenezer

Avery, Jr., of Groton; Mills of New Haven and East Haven;

Ebenezer Jesup, Jr., of Fairfield; Sherman of Norwalk; Jabez

Fitch of Greenwich; Philip B. Bradley of Ridgefield; and Clark

of Danbury.⁶⁵ The last Board of Directors was composed of

Guy Richards and Eldridge of New London; Avery of Groton;

Jesup of Fairfield; Sherman of Norwalk; Philip B. Bradley of

Ridgefield; and Eiphras W. Bull of Danbury.⁶⁶ Philip B. Brad-

ley, Guy Richards, and Mills served during the entire existence

of the company.⁶⁷

Operations

Extinction of the Indian Title. After the United States and

Connecticut had conveyed title, one claim on the lands granted to

the sufferers remained, that of the Indians. Since the United

States could not be expected to pay the expenses of extinguishing

the Indian title to lands held by individuals, the responsibility de-

volved upon the Sufferers' Land Company, so called.⁶⁸ To this

business the directors turned immediately. On February 9, 1804,

a committee consisting of Sherman, Mills and Guy Richards was

appointed to report upon the expediency and cost of removing the

Indian right.⁶⁹ After some consideration, a contract was entered

into with William Dean on September 20, 1804, whereby Dean

agreed to extinguish the Indian title to the land owned by the

company before September I, 1805; to secure unmolested transit

through neighboring Indian territory for those who came to trade

in the Firelands; to make payment to the Indians; and to bear

the cost of presents to the Indians, the expenses of the United

States commissioner, and all incidental expenses except those of

the company's agent; in consideration for six cents an acre.⁷⁰ The

same meeting of September 20 authorized Philip B. Bradley as

 

65 Ibid.,  84.

66 Ibid., 219.

67 The omission of the name of Isaac Mills must be by mistake, for he continued

to serve as clerk and to act on committees.

68 The United States had protected itself against such payment in the Act of

April 28, 1800, conveying the title of the Western Reserve to Connecticut, Laws of

the United States, III, 364; printed in Land Laws for Ohio, 80.

69 Record Book of the Company, 12.

70 Ibid., 16-18.

• 21
 

184     OHIO ARCH AEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

chairman of the directors to make application to the President of

the United States for the appointment of a commissioner to hold

a treaty with the Indians.⁷1 The fact that the National Govern-

ment would not permit private persons to negotiate with the In-

dians made the presence of a United States commissioner neces-

sary.⁷²

The Sufferers' Land Company was not the only party in-

terested in effecting a treaty with the Indians. On February 28,

1805, the Connecticut Land Company⁷³ petitioned the President

to appoint a commissioner for the same purpose.⁷⁴ In the Treaty

of Greenville the Indians gave a quit-claim to all of the Western

Reserve east of the Cuyahoga River.⁷⁵ The company now sought

extinction of the title to the approximately one million acres ex-

tending west of the Cuyahoga River to the sufferers' land. Still

another factor was the interest of the United States as revealed

in the instructions from Henry Dearborn, secretary of war, to

Charles Jouett, commissioner of the Government for holding the

treaty.⁷⁶   Jouett was to accomplish a release to the United States

of the territory lying south of the land owned by the companies

as far as the line fixed by the Treaty of Greenville, comprising

one to one and one-half million acres.77

The directors of the Sufferers' Land Company, in meeting

71 Record Book of the Company, 19. The letter of Philip B. Bradley is printed

in American State Papers (Washington, 1832-61), Indian Affairs, I, 702.

72 Elisha Whittlesey, "An Address Delivered before the Firelands Historical

Society of Norwalk, Nov. 12, 1857," in Firelands Pioneer, old Series, I (June, 1858), 19.

73 Between May, 1795, and September 2, 1795, Connecticut sold all of the Western

Reserve except the Firelands and a tract of twenty-five thousand four hundred fifty

acres conveyed to Samuel Parsons on February 10, 1788, to forty-eight different pur-

chasers. On September 5, 1795, the purchasers organized themselves into the Connecti-

cut Land Company. William Stowell Mills, The Story of the Western Reserve of

Connecticut (New York, 1900), 88-89.

74 American, State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 702.

75 Treaty of Greenville, Article 3, in Powell, "Schedule of Treaties and Acts of

Congress," loc. cit., 654.

76 American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 702-703.

77 The tract was bounded on the east by the Tuscarawas River, on the north by

the 41st degree of north latitude, on the west by an extension of the west line of the

Western Reserve south until it intersected the line established by the Treaty of

Greenville, and on the south by that line. Since this line established by the Treaty

of Greenville was a diagonal, it is difficult to locate. Article 3 of the Treaty describes

it as beginning on the Tuscarawas River at the crossing place above Fort Lawrence

"thence westerly to a fork of that branch of the Great Miami river running into the

Ohio at or near which fork stood Loromie's store and where commences the portage

between the Miami of the Ohio and St. Mary's river, which is a branch of the

Miami which runs into Lake Erie." Today it would be a line running diagonally

north northeast south of the present location of Mt. Gilead, Ohio, and north of that

of Millersburg, Ohio. Powell, "Schedule of Treaties and Acts of Congress," loc. cit.,

part 2, 654, Map no. 49.

• 22
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                      185

 

on March 27, 18058, appointed Mills agent of the company to at-

tend the treaty, allowing him five dollars a day for expenses and

services during his absence.⁷⁸ Mills left New Haven May 7 and

arrived in Cleveland, Ohio, the place announced for the negotia-

tions, June 1, 1805.79    But he "found that the Indians would not

be collected at the place" and he was forced to travel on to "Fort

Industry80 on the Miami of the Lake."81 Participants in the

treaty negotiations included Mills and Dean in the interests of the

Sufferers' Land Company, Jouett for the United States, Henry

Champion for the Connecticut Land Company, and the sachem

chiefs of the Chippewa, Ottawa, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Wyandot,

Munsee, and Delaware nations. The Indian tribes in two treaties

dated July 4, 1805, conveyed title to all lands desired by the three

parties.⁸²  An estimate placed the amount of land released to the

United States at one million two hundred thousand acres.⁸³ The

aggregate release no doubt approximated two million seven hun-

dred fifty thousand acres. In compensation the tribes received

from the land companies eighteen thousand, nine hundred sixteen

dollars and sixty-seven cents.⁸⁴ Of this, four thousand dollars

were paid in cash to the Wyandot and Chippewa nations and

those of the Potawatomi residing on the Huron River. It was

agreed that a sum of twelve thousand dollars be deposited with

the President for the benefit of the same nations in six annual in-

 

78 Record Book of the Company, 55.

79. Ibid., 58.

80 The location, time of building, and period of use of Fort Industry by the

United States Government are in doubt. It is thought by some authorities that the

location was near the present intersection of Summit and Monroe Streets in Toledo,

Ohio. Walter J. Sherman, "Old Fort Industry and the Conflicting Historical Ac-

counts," in Historical Society of Northwestern Ohio Quarterly Bulletin (Toledo,

Ohio, (1929-), II (1930), no. 3; Charles Elihu Slocum, The Ohio Country between the

Years 1783-1815 (New York and London, 1910, 164-65; Charles Elihu Slocum, The

History of the Maumee River Basin (Defiance, Ohio, 1905), 253, note. See also J. F.

Laning, The Growth and History of Ohio (Norwalk, Ohio, 1906), 21, map.

81 The river referred to as the Miami of the Lake is now called the Maumee,

ibid., 3.

82 Treaty of Fort Industry, July 4, 1805, between the Sachem Chiefs and War-

riors of the Chippewa, Ottawa, Shawanese, Pottawatomie, Wyandot, Munsee, and

Delaware Nations and the Agents of the Sufferers' Land Company, and the Con-

necticut Land Company under the Authority of the United States (in Department

of State, Washington). Treaty of Fort Industry, July 4, 1805, between the Sachem

Chiefs and Warriors of the Chippewa, Ottawa, Shawanese, Pottawatomie, Wyandot,

Munsee, and Delaware Nations and the Agent of the United States (in Department

of State, Washington).

83 Report of Charles Jouett to the Government, in American State Papers, Indian

Affairs, I, 703.

84 Treaty of Fort Industry between the Indian Nations and the Land Companies.

• 23
 

186    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

stallments of two thousand dollars each.⁸⁵ The remaining amount

of two thousand nine hundred sixteen dollars and sixty-seven

cents was to be secured with the President to provide one hundred

seventy-five dollars of a thousand dollar annuity promised by the

United States to the Wyandot, Munsee, and Delaware nations.⁸⁶

The companies fulfilled their obligations promptly. A letter

of January 16, 1806, from Dearborn, secretary of war, to Bald-

win, chairman of the committee considering the treaty between

the Indians and the land companies, informs the committee that

the companies have deposited with the War Department "specie

and public stock, sufficient as collateral security, for the fulfill-

ment of the several stipulations in said treaty, on the part of said

companies."87 What proportion the Sufferers' Land Company

bore of these payments is not clear. In the contract with Dean

the company agreed to pay six cents an acre or a total of thirty

thousand dollars. The only entries in the report of the treasurer

which seem to pertain to the cost of extinction are two. One of

March 19, 1806, indicates that on February 6, 1808, Dean ac-

knowledged payment of twenty-eight thousand five hundred dol-

lars.⁸⁸ The other of January 6, 1807, reads "to cash pd. Gideon

Granger in full for $1500 reserved in Contract with Dean--

$117.60."89 The proceedings of the directors show that Dean did

not receive the twenty-eight thousand five hundred dollars in lump

sum, but they are equally vague in regard to the way the trans-

actions were carried through.⁹⁰ That the Sufferers' Land Com-

pany expended at least twenty-eight thousand six hundred seven-

teen dollars and sixty cents for extinction of the Indian title to

the lands is certain, but how much of this went to the Indians is

undetermined.

With the ratification of the treaty between the Indian nations

and the agents of the land companies on January 25, 1806, the

 

85 Treaty of Fort Industry between the Indian Nations and the United States.

Article 5.

86 Ibid., Article 4.

87 American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 702.

88 Record Book of the Company, 212.

89 Ibid., 213. Gideon Granger had an interest by assignment from William Dean,

ibid., 58.

90 Ibid., 17, 58, 60, 62.

• 24
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE             18₇

 

grantees acquired unimpaired right to the Firelands of the West-

ern Reserve.⁹1

Surveys. Confident that the Treaty of Fort Industry would

receive ratification by the Senate, the directors turned their atten-

tion to locating the five hundred thousand acres. On November

1, 1805, they authorized Sherman to effect contracts for the survey

of the lands into townships five miles square, and quarter town-

ships of four thousand acres each at a cost of no more than two

thousand dollars.⁹²  On December 16, 1805, Sherman contracted

with John McLean and James Clark, Jr., both of Danbury,

to make a complete survey of the lands through "Almon

Ruggles or some other person well skilled in the art and mystery

of surveying." The consideration was two dollars for each mile

run and fifty cents additional per mile "if the same is done to the

full and entire satisfaction of said Directors or agreeable to...

the most approved method of surveying in that Country." The

work was to be completed within a year unless delayed inevitably.

Performance by both parties depended upon ratification of the

Indian treaty.⁹³ Delay on the part of the United States in run-

ning the south and west lines of the Western Reserve, in spite of

two appeals from the company, prevented the execution of the

contract within the designated time.⁹⁴  Both parties agreed on

August 6, 1806, that the conditions of the original contract should

be fulfilled if the survey was completed by June 1, 1807. At the

same meeting the directors allowed McLean and Clark three hun-

dred dollars additional compensation.⁹⁵

In the agreement of February 6, 1806, between the com-

panies, the Sufferers' Land Company accepted the island in San-

dusky Bay as a part of the five hundred thousand acres while the

Connecticut Land Company conceded that the waters of Sandusky

Bay should not be reckoned as land. To insure this, agents of

 

91 Treaty of Fort Industry between the Indian Nations and the Land Companies.

The other treaty was ratified April 24, 1806, and promulgated by the President the

same day. Treaty of Fort Industry between the Indian Nations and the United

States; Proclamation of the President, April 24, 1806 (in Department of State,

Washington).

92 Record Book of the Company, 63.

93 Ibid., 63.

94 Ibid., 19, 61.

95 Ibid., 79.

• 25
 

188   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

each company were to be on the ground during the survey to de-

termine the south shore of Lake Erie and the point at which the

waters of the bay began.⁹⁶

In April of 1806 a group of men composed of John M.

Lewis, Clark, Noah Barnum, Samuel T. Bateham, Benajah Wool-

cott, Urial Taylor, D. Sherwood, N. Morgan, Asa Stoddard, Wil-

liam Close, Sherman, and Simeon Hoyt set out from Danbury to

survey the Firelands. At Pittsburg Ruggles joined them. The

party stopped for a week in Cleveland at the tavern of Amos

Spafford to collect the necessary supplies. For the survey the

group divided into two companies: one of nine, in which were

Clark, Bateham, Stoddard and Hoyt, was to run the south and

west lines; the other, of which Ruggles was a member, was to

take the traverse of the Lake.⁹⁷ The south line of the Western

Reserve had previously been determined as far as the portage

path between the Tuscarawas and Cuyahoga Rivers, a point fifty

miles west of the Pennsylvania line.⁹⁸ The survey of 1806 began

at that place and continued under the direction of Seth Pease, a

surveyor commissioned by the United States, to run the south

boundary of the Western Reserve to a point one hundred twenty

miles west of the line of Pennsylvania. Pease met the group at

the portage path.⁹⁹ By fall the south and west lines of the Re-

serve had been established and the company met the other group

which had arrived in Huron, Ohio, in the process of determining

the traverse of the Lake.¹⁰⁰ All except Ruggles, Stoddard, Clark,

and Hoyt returned to Connecticut.101

The land companies in an agreement of September 23, 1806,

confirmed the lines establishing, as far as they were run, the south

shore of Lake Erie and the waters of Sandusky Bay surveyed

under the direction of Spafford, agent of the Connecticut Land

Company, and Sherman, agent of the Sufferers' Land Company.

 

96 Ibid., 71, 72.

97 Simeon Hoyt, "Surveying the Firelands," in Firelands Pioneer, old Series,

V (June, 1865), 27.

98 Simeon Hoyt, "Hoyt's Survey," in Firelands Pioneer, old Series, VII (June,

1876), 75-76.

99 Ibid., 76.

100 Hoyt, "Surveying the Firelands," loc. cit., 28.

101 Ibid.

• 26
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                    189

 

Provision was made for the appointment of Ruggles to continue

the line from the place where the survey stopped, about two miles

east of the outlet of Sandusky Bay, to the west line of the Reserve

established by Pease.¹⁰² The four left in Ohio did not return

from completing the survey until late in April of 1807.103 The

subsequent discovery of Pease that he had begun the south line

of the Reserve two miles west of the Pennsylvania line instead

of on it made the calculations inaccurate and necessitated a new

survey.¹⁰⁴

It was now a year and a half since the directors first turned

their attention to the survey, and the Firelands were still without

location. The new committee of Mills and Isaac Bronson ap-

pointed on June 20, 1807, was instructed to determine the bound-

aries of the sufferers' land, to establish them when located in

such a way as to avoid dispute with the United States and the

Connecticut Land Company, to fix the true southwest corner of

the Firelands, and to effect a re-survey if such appeared neces-

sary.¹⁰⁵ A contract which resulted in an accurate location of the

tract was signed on March 14, 1808, by Mills and Ruggles, who

agreed to complete a survey of the area at his own cost by Oc-

tober 1, 1808, in consideration for three dollars for each mile run

and an additional fifty dollars for traveling expenses to Con-

necticut. The details of the agreement were as follows: the cor-

rect amount of land owned by the company was to be determined

and the dividing line between it and that of the Connecticut Land

Company established. The area was to be divided into five

ranges106 and these into townships with east and west lines five

miles in length. The peninsula, island, and parcels of land along

 

102 Record Book of the Company, 73-74.

103 Hoyt, "Surveying the Firelands," loc. cit., 28.

104 P. N. Schuyler, "Centennial Historic Address," in The Firelands Pioneer, old

Series, XIII (July, 1878), 13.

105 Record Book of the Company, 80.

106 "A range on the Western Reserve, is a portion or parcels of land, five miles

wide from east to west, and extends from the south line of the Reserve, north to

Lake Erie (a range in the United States surveys, however, is six miles wide); these

ranges are numbered from the east towards the west, commencing on the Pennsyl-

vania line." See Erie Mesnard, "Surveys on the Fire Lands So Called, Being a Part

of the Western Reserve, Sometimes Called New Connecticut," in Firelands Pioneer,

old Series, IV (June, 1864), 94. The Western Reserve is the only area in Ohio in

which the counties are five miles in width. See Rand, McNally & Company, Sectional

Map of Ohio (New York, 1910).

• 27
 

190    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

the lake shore were to be grouped into one or more townships.

All lines were to be chained,¹⁰⁷ marked, and blazed with posts and

witness trees at the corners of the townships. Ruggles agreed to

furnish the directors with a map showing the lines, streams and

the traverse of the shore of the lake and bay together with a field

book giving descriptions of the nature of the soil and timber.¹⁰⁸

Such a description of the topography made possible a more equi-

table partition of the land later.¹⁰⁹

In the spring of 1808, Maxfield Ludlow, a surveyor em-

ployed by the United States to establish the outline of the West-

ern Reserve, ran the south and west lines fixing the southwest

corner at a point between one and two miles east of that set by

Pease.110 Ruggles, guided by Ludlow's computations, started

from the southwest corner thus established and surveyed eastward

along the Ludlow line approximately twenty-five miles to a point

which he deemed correct for the southeast corner of the Fire-

lands.111 The accuracy of this estimate is attested by a computa-

tion of the survey showing the amount of land so cut off to be

five hundred thousand twenty-seven acres.112    About six months

were required to complete the survey.113 The traverse of the

shore of Lake Erie and Sandusky Bay completed under the con-

tract between the company and McLean and Clark, was not taken

again.114 The field books of both Ludlow and Ruggles show the

task to have been a difficult one. The most expressive entry is

in Ludlow's notes describing the swamp in the twenty-second

range, "Sat a Post in Hell, I have traveled the woods for 7 years,

but never before saw so hideous a place as this." 115

The five ranges laid out in the Ruggles survey became from

east to west the twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second, twenty-

third, and twenty-fourth ranges in the Western Reserve. Upon

 

107 A chain equals sixty-six feet or 100 links. See H. C. Gallup (ed.), "Bounda-

ries of the Firelands," in Firelands Pioneer, new Series, XIX (October, 1915), 1857.

108 Record Book of the Company, 82, 83.

109 Mesnard, "Surveys of the Firelands," loc. cit., 94.

110 Hoyt, "Hoyt's Survey," loc. cit., 76.

111 Ibid., 76.

112 Record Book of the Company, 101.

113 Hoyt, "Hoyt's Survey," loc. cit., 76.

114 Record Book of the Company, 202.

115 Ibid., 120. The field books were made a part of the records of the company.

• 28
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                       191

 

recommendation of a committee reporting the results of the sur-

vey to the directors, it was voted that the township lines estab-

lished by Ruggles be changed so as to throw the whole into thirty

townships. The townships in each range were numbered from

south to north: e. g., the most southerly township in the twentieth

range became number one; that next north, number two; and so

on. Each of the thirty townships was divided into four equal

parts so numbered that the one in the southeast corner became

section one; that in the northeast, section two; the northwest, sec-

tion three; and the southwest, section four.116 The following

names were given to the townships:117 Range 20, township no. 1,

Ruggles, no. 2, New London, no. 3, Clarksfield, no. 4, Wakeman,

no. 5, Jesup, no. 6, Vermillion; Range 21, township no. 1, Green-

wich, no. 2, Fitchville, no. 3, Canterbury, no. 4, Townsend, no 5,

Eldridge; Range 22, township no. 1, Ripley, no. 2, Fairfield, no.

3, Bronson, no. 4, Norwalk, no. 5, Avery, no. 6, Huron; Range

23, township no. 1, New Haven, no. 2, Greenfield, no. 3, Vreden-

burgh, no. 4, Ridgefield, no. 5, Oxford, no. 6, Perkins; Range

24, township no. I, Cannon, no. 2, Norwich, no. 3, Sherman, no.

4, Lyme, no. 5, Groton, no. 6, Patterson. The peninsula north of

the bay and the island in the bay became Danbury township.118

Again the disappearance of the book in which the treasurer

no doubt made fuller description of the uses of the company's

money than in the formal report, prevents an accurate statement

of the cost of the surveys. Entries in the treasurer's accounts

showing reasonable connection total nearly $3,000.119 Others

 

116 Ibid., 101-02.

117 See map, frontispiece.

118 Record Book of the Company, 107. These names obtain today with the follow-

ing changes. Jesup is now Florence township; Canterbury, Hartland; Eldridge, Berlin:

Avery, Milan; Vredenburgh, Peru; Cannon, Richmond; Patterson, Margaretta. See

Ohio Railroad Map, prepared by W. D. Fulton, secretary of state; A. V. Donahey,

auditor of state; and Joseph McGhee, attorney general (Columbus, Ohio, 1918).

119 From the Record Book of the Company, 212-218, are taken the following items:

March 19, 1806, Taylor Sherman Order, Surveyor appropriations .............. $500.00

Sept. 18, 1806, To cash Surveyor Appropriation................................ 250.00

April 11, 1807, Taylor Sherman's Order to Truhand Kirtland Surveying fund                                             60.00

June  20,  1807,  Almon   Ruggles ..................................................                                                                  114.50

Jno. McLean and James Clark, Jr ............................ 656.46

August  19,  1807,  Almon  Ruggles..............................................  113.30

March 15, 1808, Isaac Mills order in favor of Almon Ruggles .............. 400.00

Nov. 11, 1808, To paid Clerks order to Almon Ruggles ........................ 674.93

Nov.     11,    1808,    Clark         &                                                                                                                      McLean................................................                      100.00

Oct.      20,    1808,    Almon      Ruggles..................................................                                                          113.00

• 29
 

192   OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

which may have been for the same purpose would make the

figure higher.

Partition of the Lands. Thirty years had elapsed since the

first British firebrand laid waste the homes of Connecticut patri-

ots, and the sufferers were just now at the point of realizing full

compensation. But one step remained, partition of the lands.

This problem had concerned the directors for two years. Various

committees had been appointed when all proceedings to date on

the partition were rescinded in a meeting of September 13, 1808.120

The new committee composed of Jesup Wakeman, Mills,

Sherman, and William Eldridge reported a mode of partition to

the Board on November 8, 1808.121 This called for a division of

the proprietary rights into one hundred twenty classes, each con-

taining one thousand three hundred forty-four pounds, seven shil-

lings of original losses. Four classes, each rolled separately and

marked no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, and no. 4, were to be tied up together

by a disinterested person. The thirty bundles thus made up were

to be put into a box. Thirty tickets, each one describing a town-

ship by range and number, were to be prepared and placed in a

second box. At the time appointed for the partition, a ticket was

to be drawn from that box and read to the directors. Then one

of the classification bundles was to be drawn and opened. Those

losses listed in class no. I were to be compensated by land in sec-

tion no. 1 of the township, those in class no. 2 with that in section

no. 2 of the township and the same for three and four. The

tickets and bundles were to be drawn in this succession until all

claimants were located within a township and section. The di-

rectors approved this method and the partition took place accord-

ingly at the County House in New Haven on November 9, 1808.122

The apportionment of losses to fall evenly into the classes of

one thousand three hundred forty-four pounds, seven shillings

frequently resulted in proprietors receiving land in more than one

section and township. For example, in the grant from Connecti-

cut, Samuel Tuttle of New Haven or East Haven was allowed

120 Ibid., 93.

121 Ibid., 104, 105.

122 Ibid., 106.

• 30
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                193

 

losses to the extent of £270 19S 6d.¹²³ In the partition he received

compensation for £54 5s 5d in section three of New Haven and

the rest in section four of the same township.¹²⁴ Bridgett Ledyard

of Groton had losses appraised at £397 14s 5d.¹²⁵ Remuneration

for £124 2s 9 1/2d of them fell in section two of Wakeman town-

ship and that for those remaining to section four of Bronson

township.¹²⁶

Financial Operations. Something remains to be said con-

cerning the financial operations of the company. Mention has

been made 127 of the balance of one hundred twenty dollars re-

ceived from the company incorporated in Connecticut. This to-

gether with the revenue from three tax levies supplied the Suf-

ferers' Land Company with the means of meeting its obligations.

To provide funds for extinction of the Indian title, an assessment

of twenty-five cents on the pound original loss as appraised in

the Connecticut Act was made on September 20, 1804, to be paid

by February 15, 1805^.128 The debit accounts of the treasurer

show a return of forty thousand three hundred thirty-five dollars

and sixty-seven cents from this levy.¹²⁹

Besides the costs for extinction of the Indian title and for

the survey, the company had another major expense to meet in

the form of a State tax levied in an Act of the Ohio Legislature

on January 27, 1806.¹³⁰ The possibility of such a tax had oc-

curred to the directors. From 1805 on, numerous committees

were empowered to take measures to prevent the taxation of the

tract or the sale of any lands for the payment of taxes before the

partition.131 In spite of its efforts, the company could not avoid

payment of the State tax for the year 1807. To cover this obli-

gation two assessments were made in 1808: one of two cents on

the pound original loss, payable by July 1st, and the other of two

 

123 Ibid., 39.

124 Sufferers' Land Partition Book (in Huron County, Ohio, Office of Recorder), 51.

125 Record Book of the Company, 48.

126 Sufferers' Land Partition Book, 11, 41. The names of the townships do not

appear here but are referred to by name and number.

127 See page 180.

128 Record Book of the Company, 18.

129 Ibid., 217.

130 Salmon P. Chase (ed.), The Statutes of Ohio and of the Northwestern Territory

(Cincinnati, 1833), 1, 536.

131 Record Book of the Company, 61, 67, 80.

• 31
 

194    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

and one half cents, due by October 20, 1808.132    The first brought

in three thousand two hundred twenty-eight dollars and thirty-two

cents,¹³³ and the second four thousand thirty-three dollars and

eighty-four and one half cents.¹³⁴   The total receipts of the com-

pany then amounted to forty-seven thousand seven hundred sev-

enty-five dollars and seventy-seven and one half cents. The tax

payments to the State by the company for the year 1807 appear

to have aggregated two thousand two hundred sixty-nine dol-

lars.¹³⁵

Small in themselves, but important in the aggregate were the

miscellaneous expenses of the company, consisting in the main of

fees to the officers. The directors received five dollars a day for

the time spent with the company's business.¹³⁶ At each tax levy

the collectors were allowed certain percentages for commissions

and expenses.¹³⁷ The Act of Incorporation provided that all

funds remaining in the treasury after the extinction of the Indian

title and the locating and partitioning of the lands be used for

cutting roads through the tract under the direction of the Legis-

lature.138 A balance of two thousand six hundred dollars was

expended for such improvement.¹³⁹

Dissolution

At the last meeting of the directors, held on August 28, 1811,

a petition to the Ohio Legislature was drawn up representing the

work of the company to be accomplished most strictly according

to the provisions of the Act of Incorporation and praying the As-

sembly to legalize the two record books of the company, contain-

ing in one, the votes and proceedings of the directors with the

field minutes of the survey, and in the other, the complete par-

tition of the half million acres.140

132 Ibid., 85, 91.

133 Ibid., 27.

134 Ibid.

135 Entry of September 6, 1807, $269, Ibid., 214; entry of December 23, 1808, $2000,

ibid., 215.

136 Ibid., 13.

137 Ibid., 18, 85, 92.

138 Land Laws for Ohio, 108.

139 Record Book of the Company, 222.

140 Ibid., 22, 223. The Legislature of Ohio in a resolution of February 20, 1812

legalized the two record books and ordered them to be kept forever by the recorder of

Huron County. See Acts Passed at the First Session of the Tenth General Assembly

of the State of Ohio (Zanesville, Ohio, 1812), X, 163; printed in Land Laws for Ohio,

109.

• 32
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE                  195

 

With this the directors "voted, that this meeting be adjourned

without day, and never to be holden again."141

Political Organization.

The territory of the Firelands has been a part of various

counties since the days of the Northwest Territory and is today

within the boundaries of four counties of Northern Ohio. On

August 15, 1796, Acting Governor Winthrop Sargent issued a

proclamation organizing Wayne County.¹⁴² The General Assem-

bly of the Northwest Territory, created when the Territory

passed to a second grade government in 1799, gave separate

political status to the area of the Western Reserve under the name

of Trumbull County on July 10, 1800.143

The Firelands were first erected into a separate county called

Huron on February 7, 1809, by the General Assembly of Ohio,144

but were not organized until an Act of January 31, 1815.145 By

subsequent Acts of March 15-16, 1838, Erie County was erected

and organized from territory in the northern part of Huron

County along Lake Erie and Sandusky Bay.¹⁴⁶ An Act of March

6, 1840, enlarged the boundaries of Erie County to include Ver-

million, Florence, Berlin, Milan and Huron townships and placed

Danbury township in a new county, Ottawa.¹⁴⁷ The last bound-

ary change came when Ruggles township fell within the limits

of Ashland when that county was erected on February 26, 1846.148

Thus the territory of the Firelands today comprises all of

Huron and Erie Counties together with Danbury township in

Ottawa County and Ruggles township in Ashland County.

To trace through the location of the original settlers, their

heirs, or assignees in the townships and sections allotted in the

141 Record Book of the Company, 224.

142 Clarence Edwin Carter (ed.), Territorial Papers of the United States (Wash-

ington, 1934-), II, 567-8.

143 Chase, Statutes of Ohio, III, 2097.

¹⁴⁴ Ibid., III, 2110.

145 Ibid., III, 2120. The one-time connection of Huron County to Geauga and

Cuyahoga Counties is recognized but not considered of sufficient importance to be

discussed.

146 Acts of a General Nature Passed at the First Session of the Thirty-sixth Gen-

eral Assembly of the State of Ohio . . . (Columbus, Ohio, 1838), XXXVI, 60-66.

147 Acts of a Local Nature Passed by the Thirty-eighth General Assembly of the

State of Ohio . . . (Columbus, Ohio, 1840), XXXVIII, 99-100.

148 Ibid., 172.

• 33
 

196   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

partition is beyond the province of this work. Suffice it to say

that those sufferers who came to the fertile acres of the Firelands

were not the young men and maidens whose homes the British

fired, but old people matured by the thirty odd years of waiting.

Many of those who shared their losses lay under the sod of

Connecticut.  Some lived in their native state, compelled by

financial pressure to relinquish their hopes of going west. But be

they heirs or conveyees, those who left were of Connecticut

stock and they built for themselves and their posterity a New

Connecticut in the Firelands. Whence came the names of New

Haven, Greenwich, New London, Fairfield and Norwalk in Ohio

than from the mother towns of Connecticut? Not on the map

alone is the New England influence evident but in the character

of the people and the atmosphere of the vicinity. Descendants

of the Lockwoods, the Benedicts, the Meads, and the Knapps still

live in white frame houses encircled by maple trees. New England

in homes, habits, and culture are these citizens of the Firelands

today who derive the title to their lands from a king of England,

the Government of the United States, the General Assembly of

Connecticut, and the Legislature of Ohio.

Bibliography.

Primary

Books

Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut in America.

Revised (New London, Connecticut, Timothy Green, 1784).

Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut in America.

(Hartford, Connecticut, Hudson and Goodwin, 1805). [Re-

ferred to as Connecticut Revised Statutes 1796, Public Acts,

1796-1808. Edition 1805.]

Acts of a General Nature Passed at the First Session of the

Thirty-sixth General Assembly, of the State of Ohio, Begun

and Held in the City of Columbus, December 4, 1837, and in

the Thirty-sixth Year of Said State (Columbus, Ohio, Samuel

Medary, 1838), XXXVI.

Acts of a Local Nature Passed by the Thirty-eighth Gen-

eral Assembly of the State of Ohio, Begun and Held in the

• 34
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE            197

 

City of Columbus, Commencing December 2, 1839, and in

the Thirty-eighth Year of Said State (Columbus, Ohio,

Samuel Medary, 1838), XXXVIII.

American State Papers; ed. by Walter Lowrie and

Matthew St. Clair Clarke. Class II, Indian Affairs (Wash-

ington, Gales and Seaton, 1832), I, 702-03.

Barber, John Warner, Connecticut Historical Collections,

Containing a General Collection of Interesting Facts, Tradi-

tions, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, etc., Relating to the

History and Antiquities of Every Town in Connecticut with

Geographical Descriptions (New Haven, Connecticut, Durrie

and Peck and J. W. Barber, 1838).

Chase, Salmon P. (ed.), The Statutes of Ohio and of the

Northwestern Territory, Adopted and Enacted from 1788 to

1833 Inclusive; Together with the Ordinance of 1787; the

Constitutions of Ohio and of the United States, and Various

Public Instruments and Acts of Congress; Illustrated by a

Preliminary Sketch of the History of Ohio; Numerous Refer-

ences and Notes, and Copious Indexes (Cincinnati, Ohio,

Corey and Fairbank, 1833-1835), 3v.

A Compilation of Laws, Treaties, Resolutions, and Ordi-

nances of the General and State Government, Which Relate

to Lands in the State of Ohio; Including the Laws Adopted

by the Governor and Judges; the Laws of the Territorial

Legislature; and the Laws of This State, to the Years 1815-

1816; published in pursuance of resolutions of the General

Assembly, passed January 22, 1825 (Columbus, Ohio, George

Nashee, 1825). [Referred to as Land Laws for Ohio.]

Hinman, Royal R., A Historical Collection from Official

Records, Files, etc., of the Part Sustained by Connecticut

during the War of the Revolution (Hartford, Connecticut,

E. Gleason, 1842).

Public Records of the State of Connecticut with the

Journal of the Council of Safety, 1776-1781; compiled by

Charles J. Hoadly (Hartford, Connecticut, Case, Lockwood

and Brainard Company, 1894-1922), 3v.

• 35
 

198   OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The Public Statutes Laws of the State of Connecticut,

Book I, published by authority of the General Assembly

(Hartford, Hudson and Goodwin, 1808).

Manuscripts

Charter of Connecticut, 1662 (in special case, State Li-

brary and Supreme Court Building, Hartford, Connecticut).

Connecticut Archives (in Connecticut State Library,

Hartford, Connecticut). Revolutionary War, 1st series,

1763-1789, 37v. [Compilation of manuscripts of petitions,

committee reports, orders, memorials, etc.]

Connecticut Archives (in Connecticut State Library,

Hartford, Connecticut), not catalogued.

Bill for act of Connecticut General Assembly en-

titled "An Act for Recording Conveyances of Certain

Lands Lying on Lake Erie," signed by W. I. Dana, clerk

of the House, and George Wyllys, secretary of the Up-

per House, dated May, 1795.

Bill for act of Connecticut General Assembly en-

titled "An act in addition to and alteration of an Act,

Entitled 'An Act for Incorporating the Proprietors of

the Half Million Acres of Land, lying south of Lake

Erie,' " passed May 23, 1797.

Memorial of April, 1795, signed by a group of men

of whom the name of Comfort Hoyt, Jr., appears first,

begging the General Assembly to incorporate the grantees

of the half million acres.

Memorial of April, 1795, signed by thirty-five suf-

ferers of Fairfield or their administrators praying the

General Assembly to incorporate the grantees of the half

million acres south of Lake Erie.

Deed of cession of Western Territory by the State of

Connecticut, to the United States of America, September 13,

1786, and the Act of the United States in Congress Assem-

bled Accepting the Same, September 14, 1786, certified from

records of the Department of State by Thomas Jefferson on

• 36
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE          199

 

March 19, 1792 (in Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford,

Connecticut).

Index of Sufferers' Lands, 1794-1850 (in Huron County,

Office of Recorder, Norwalk, Ohio). [Index to Sufferers'

Deeds in volumes A, B, C, D, and to Deeds and Mortgages,

old series, Huron County, Ohio, 23v.]

Proclamation of the President of the United States Pro-

mulgating the Treaty of Fort Industry, July 4, 1805, between

the Sachem Chiefs and Warriors of the Chippewa, Ottawa,

Shawanese, Pottawatomie, Wyandot, Munsee, and Delaware

Nations and the Agent of the United States, April 24, 1805

(in files of Department of State, Washington, D. C.).

Record Book of the Company, Incorporated by the State

of Ohio, by the name of, "The proprietors of the half mil-

lion acres of land, lying south of Lake Erie, called suf-

ferers' Land," Begun on the Second Wednesday of Febru-

ary, A. D. 1804; attest Isaac Mills, clerk, New Haven,

August 28, 1811; catalogued as Record Sufferers' Lands No.

1 (in Huron County, Office of Recorder, Norwalk, Ohio).

[In the handwriting of Isaac Mills.]

Record of Sufferers' Deeds for Fairfield, 1795-1801, rec-

ord of each instrument certified by Samuel Rowland, regis-

ter; for Danbury, 1795-1800, by Major Taylor, register or

by Eli Mygatt, register; for Ridgefield, 1795-1799, by Ben

Smith, clerk or by Samuel Stebbins; for Norwalk, 1795-

1800, by Samuel Gruman (in Huron County, Office of

Recorder, Norwalk, Ohio), Vol. C.

Record of Sufferers' Deeds for Greenwich, 1795-1799,

record of each instrument certified by Jabez Fitch, recorder;

for New London, 1795-1801, by John Owen, recorder; for

Groton, 1795-1800, uncertified; for Fairfield, 1799, certified

by Samuel Rowland (in Huron County, Office of Recorder,

Norwalk, Ohio), Vol. B.

Record of Sufferers' Deeds for New Haven and East

Haven, 1795-1798 (in Huron County, Office of Recorder,

• 37
 

200   OHIO ARCH AEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Norwalk, Ohio), Vol. A. [Record of each instrument cer-

tified by Samuel Bishop, clerk.]

Record of Sufferers' Deeds, 1800-1809, record of each

instrument is certified by either John S. Cowards, recorder

of deeds, Trumbull County, Ohio, or by Almon Ruggles,

recorder of Huron County, Ohio (in Huron County, Office

of Recorder, Norwalk, Ohio), Vol. D.

Record Sufferers' Lands No. 1 (in Huron County, Of-

fice of Recorder, Norwalk, Ohio). [Transcribed copy in the

writing of Edward A. Moody who attested on November 30,

1875, that it was the true and correct copy done under con-

tract between the Board of Commissioners of Huron County,

Ohio, and him in accordance with an Act passed March 26,

1863.]

Records of the State of Connecticut, 1776 to the pres-

ent, Connecticut Archives (in Office of Secretary of State,

Hartford, Connecticut). [From 1781 the records are un-

printed. Vols. IV and V were used. Vol. IV is in the

handwriting of George Wyllys, secretary. Volume V is in

the handwriting of George Wyllys and Samuel Wyllys.]

Treaty of Fort Industry, July 4, 1805, between the Sa-

chem Chiefs and Warriors of the Chippewa, Ottawa, Shaw-

anese, Pottawatomie, Wyandot, Munsee and Delaware Na-

tions and the Agents of the Sufferers' Land Company, So

Called, and the Connecticut Land Company under the Au-

thority of the United States (in files of Department of State,

Washington, D. C.).

Treaty of Fort Industry, July 4, 1805, between the Sa-

chem Chiefs and Warriors of the Chippewa, Ottawa, Shawa-

nese, Pottawatomie, Wyandot, Munsee, and Delaware Na-

tions and the Agent of the United States (in files of Depart-

ment of States, Washington, D. C.).

Sufferers' Land Partition Book, 9th November, 1808,

I. Mills, Clerk (in Huron County, Office of the Recorder,

Norwalk, Ohio).   [Contains lists of the original grantees

with the amounts of their losses, the names under which they

• 38
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE          201

 

were classified, and the amounts classified, under the head of

ranges, townships, and sections to which the sufferers were

assigned through a mode of partition adopted by the directors

of the Sufferers' Land Company, so called. Certified as the

original Partition Book by Isaac Mills, August 28, 1811, at

New Haven, Connecticut.]

Maps

Amos Doolittle Map of Almon Ruggles' Survey of the

Firelands, 1808.

Newspapers and Periodicals

"An Address to Major General Tryon Written in Con-

sequence of His Late Expedition into Connecticut, printed

MDCCLXXIX," in Magazine of History. Extra Numbers

(Tarrytown, New York, 1908-), XXIV, no. 95.

Connecticut Gazette (New London) (in Connecticut

Historical Society, Hartford, Connecticut).

Connecticut Journal (New Haven) (in Yale University

Library, New Haven, Connecticut).

Hoyt, Simeon, "Hoyt's Survey," in Firelands Pioneer

(Norwalk, Ohio, 1858-), old Series, VII (June, 1867), 75-77.

Hoyt, Simeon, "Surveying the Fire Lands," in Firelands

Pioneer (Norwalk, Ohio, 1858-), old Series, V (June, 1865),

27-29.

Secondary

Books

Burpee, Charles W., "Connecticut in the Wars," in Vol.

V of Osborn, Norris Galpin (ed.), History of Connecticut

in Monographic Form (New York, States History Company,

1925), 5v.

Caulkins, Frances Manwaring, History of New London,

Connecticut, from the First Survey of the Coast in 1612, to

1852 (New London, Connecticut, published by the author,

1852).

Channing, Edward, A History of the United States (New

York, Macmillan Company, 1921-1926), 6v.

• 39
 

202   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Laning, Jay F., The Growth and History of Ohio (Nor-

walk, Ohio, Laning Company, 1906).

McMaster, John Bach, A History of the People of the

United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War (New

York, D. Appleton and Company, 1883-1913), 8v.

Mills, William Stowell, The Story of the Western Re-

serve of Connecticut (New York, Brown and Wilson Press,

1900).

Morgan, Forrest, Connecticut as a Colony and as a State,

or One of the Original Thirteen (Hartford, Connecticut,

Publishing Society, 1904), 4v.

Slocum, Charles Elihu, The History of the Maumee

River Basin (Defiance, Ohio, published by the author, 1905).

Slocum, Charles Elihu, The Ohio Country between the

Years 1783-1815 (New York and London, G. P. Putnam's

Sons, Knickerbocker Press, 1910).

Townshend, Charles Hervey, The British Invasions of

New Haven, Connecticut (New Haven, Connecticut, 1879).

Periodicals

Gallup, C. H. (ed.), "Boundaries of the Fire Lands,"

in Firelands Pioneer (Norwalk, Ohio, 1858-), new Series,

XIX, October, 1915, Foreword.

Hendry, A. W., "Early Political Divisions of the Region

Constituting the Firelands," in Firelands Pioneer (Norwalk,

Ohio, 1858-), old Series, III (June, 1862), 49-54.

Mesnard, Erie, "Surveys of the Firelands, So-Called,

Being a Part of the Western Reserve Sometimes Called New

Connecticut," in Firelands Pioneer (Norwalk, Ohio, 1858-),

old Series, IV (June, ¹⁸⁶4), 93-97.

Perkins, Joseph, "Indian Titles Extinguished," in Ma-

honing Valley Historical Society Historical Collections

(Youngstown, Ohio, 1876), I (1876), 134-142.

Powell, J. W., "Schedule of Treaties and Acts of Con-

gress Authorizing Allotments of Land in Severalty," in U.

• 40
 

FIRELANDS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE         203

 

S. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Reports (Wash-

ington, D. C., 1881-), 18th (1896-97), part 2, 666-67.

Sherman, Walter J., "Old Fort Industry and the Con-

flicting Historical Accounts," in Historical Society of North-

western Ohio Quarterly Bulletin (Toledo, Ohio, 1929-), II

(July, 1930).

Schuyler, P. N., "Centennial Historic Address," in Fire-

lands Pioneer (Norwalk, Ohio, 1858-), old Series, XIII

(July, 1878), 6-22.

Trumbull, Jonathan H., "Abstract of the Record History

of the Firelands Grant, from the Records of the State of

Connecticut, Oct. 7, 1862," in Firelands Pioneer (Norwalk,

Ohio, 1858-), old Series, IV (June, 1863), 95-97.

Webb, Thomas D., "Connecticut Land Company, a Par-

tial Sketch of the History of the Original Titles of the Lands

in That Part of the State of Ohio Commonly Called the Con-

necticut Western Reserve," in Mahoning Valley Historical

Society Historical Collections (Youngstown, Ohio, 1876), I

(1876), 142-65.

Whittlesey, Elisha, "Address Delivered before the Fire-

lands Historical Society, at Norwalk, November 12, 1857,"

in Firelands Pioneer (Norwalk, Ohio, 1858-), old Series, I

(June, 1858), 13-26.

Maps

Map of Ohio, published by the secretary of state of

Ohio (1920).

Ohio Railroad Map, prepared by W. D. Fulton, secretary

of state; A. V. Donahey, auditor of state; Joseph McGhee,

attorney general (Columbus, Ohio, 1918).

Rand, McNally and Company, Sectional Map of Ohio

(New York, 1910).

• 41