The Buckeyes and the Wolverines: it’s a rivalry that sets the Midwest ablaze every fall, full of passionate fans and epic football battles. But what if we told you this legendary feud began not on the gridiron, but over a contested strip of land, sparking a near-war that reshaped state lines? Long before touchdowns and tailgates, Ohio and Michigan fought tooth and nail for something far more valuable: a vital piece of territory known as the Toledo Strip, igniting a conflict rooted deep in our American history.
Imagine a time when maps were debated, lines were redrawn, and local militias were called to arms over crucial lake access and the promise of a grand canal. This wasn’t just a squabble; it was a showdown with statehood on the line, where governors issued bold decrees and armed posses clashed in the contested territory. Join us as we uncover the astonishing true story of the Michigan-Ohio War, a forgotten chapter that reveals how a mapping error, political maneuvering, and a quest for economic power turned two neighbor states into bitter adversaries, long before their iconic football rivalry ever began.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Perhaps one of the biggest football.
Rivalries in the United States is between Ohio State and Michigan. On game day, traditionally the third weekend of November, fans of Ohio State cover up every M they can see, and Michigan fans partake in Buckeye nut-cracking. What most people don’t know, however, is that this rivalry extends back to the early 1800s over a land dispute that turned violent. Here’s Monty Montgomery with a story.
It’s a well-known fact, if you live in the Midwest, that Michigan and Ohio don’t really like each other that much. Most of that comes down to football today, but that hasn’t always been the case. It used to come down to a small strip of land known as the Toledo Strip, that resulted because of a mapping error in the Northwest Territories, combined with interesting language in the Northwest Ordinance in the early 1800s, which ultimately led to a war between Michigan and Ohio when Michigan was applying for statehood. Here’s Ted Long, founder of Holy Toledo History, with more on this remarkable story.
The rule was something like, “the Michigan was to run on a line east and west drawn through the southerly bend of the extreme of Lake Michigan till it reached Lake Erie.” And if you draw that line, it clearly puts Toledo…
…and Mammy Bay in Michigan.
And as the story goes, in 1803, when the state, the legislature in Ohio, was putting together their application, a trapper comes down from up north and reminds them, “If you follow that, you’re going to lose lake access,” and so they made an adjustment: collide for statehood. Apparently, there were some people in Washington that raised an eyebrow, but nobody did anything about it, and it passed, and suddenly Ohio’s estate, and they have Mommy By.
Which, according to the language of the Northwest Ordinance, should have been Michigan’s.
Questions started to brew about how did this happen and what’s going on? And Edward Tiffin was the Surveyor General of Northwest Territory, later became governor of Ohio. He ordered up a survey from a guy named William Harris, and that survey followed exactly what the state of Ohio did in 1803. So, it was kind of a ginned-up deal. It’s like, “Hey, we need you to do a survey; just make sure it follows what we already did.”
That became the Harris Line.
And then in 1818, President Monroe stepped in and said, “Well, I’d like to order my own survey.” So, they asked Cares to do it again, and he said no and invited a guy by the name of John…
…Fulton to do the survey.
When he was done, we now have the Fulton Line, and it, by the way, followed what the Northwest Ordinance should have been. And so, the difference between the Harris Line and the Fulton Line becomes this 450-mile, wedge-shaped section of land that became known as the Toledo Strip. And it’s basically five miles wide at the Indiana border and eight miles wide by the time you get to Lake Erie.
But within that small space was something very important to both Michigan and Ohio.
The big plus was lake access. You’ve got Mammy…
…Bay included in that portion of the strip that’s five miles wide, that includes Mammy Bay, and that was already a very active port and an important part of the Northwest Ohio are. But what people also knew was that coming along was probably the biggest economic development project coming, which was the Miami Erie Canal, and that was going to connect the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River. And they knew that a terminus for that had to be somewhere in that area, and so Ohio wanted that terminus, and so did Michigan Territory.
So, to prevent Michigan from getting it, Ohio simply claimed it as their own. But Michigan, led by 24-year-old Governor Stevens Team Mason, wasn’t going to let Ohio walk all over them. Oh No, they were going to fight for the land, but first with the pen.
Well, when Michigan finally comes around to apply for statehood, their governor, Governor Mason, oversees the passage of what’s referred to as the Pains and Penalties Act, which essentially leveled fines against anyone, and jail sentences, by the way, on any Ohio officials who tried to exercise jurisdiction over this contested territory. And so, that meant anything going on within what we know as Toledo today was covered under the Pains and Penalties Act. Now, the big question became, “How was he going to enforce it?” At the same time that that went through, Ohio Governor Robert Lucas then passed a resolution that extended the county borders into the strip. Before that, if you look at old paperwork here in the Toledo area, a lot of it would be filed under Port Lawrence, Michigan, or Port Lawrence Township, Michigan. A lot of the Ohioans just thumbed their nose at the Pains and Penalties Act and the Michigan governor and said, “We made a decision. We’re part of Ohio.”
And that decision, the thumbder nose at Michigan, resulted in all-out war. Michigan raised its militia and sent them the Phillips Corner, where the first battle was fought.
Spring of 1835. There was a number of things that happened. Actually, I think it was April 9th. There was a posse that was led down by the Michigan sheriff, and he arrested a number…
…of Ohio state officials.
There were some newspaper reports that they tore Ohio state flag down and dragged it through the streets and then burned it. And then a few days after that, about 60 Michigan partisans came down and intercepted a survey team on April 26th, and that became known as the Battle of Phillips Corners.
And there’s actually a plaque out in the middle of…
…nowhere, designating where this Phillips Corner took place. At Battle of Phillip’s Corner, actually, there was no battle at all. The Michigan militia showed up. There were nine members of the survey party. The militia shot over their heads, and I think a couple of people were actually captured. The rest of them ran off. There was no blood or anything like. That was more of a shot across the bow for the state of Michigan or the Michigan Territory.
And seeing that Michigan was going to fight for the land, Ohio naturally fought back, or at least one Ohioan did.
Yeah.
So, a couple of months after the Battle of Phillips Corner, in July of 1835, the Michigan Sheriff Joseph Wood comes into Toledo, and he’s going to try to arrest a couple of Ohio partisans, one of whom is a gentleman by the name of Two Stickney, who actually had a brother named One Stickney. His father, Benjamin Stickney, was one of the really the founders of the Toledo area. He was heavily involved in both Port Lawrence and Visjulia and helped promote the idea of those two organizations, with those two towns coming…
…together to form Toledo.
Anyway, the sheriff come in, comes in, tries to arrest Two Stickney. Scuffle breaks out. I’ve heard it describe. Does a penknife Stickney pulls out of his pocket, stabs the sheriff, kind of left him with a minor wound. But that was the first and only blood drawn in the whole Michigan War. How they say that Sheriff Wood was kind of the Toledo Wars loan casualty.
Soon enough, the federal government, especially President Andrew Jackson, grew tired of these shenanigans and sought a resolution to the conflict.
Well, there were a lot of different things going on in Washington, and how it played out, it was pure politics. But Jackson eventually steps up and says, “Enough’s enough!”
We’re going to offer you…
…all the Upper Peninsula, and we’re going to give Toledo essentially what was laid out in the original Ohio statehood application. Folks in Michigan were not real excited about that, but they also knew that the federal government, which had actually reached a point where they were getting ready to distribute actual money to some of the states, in order to get in line for that, they had to get statehood. That money was not going to come to Michigan Territory. So, they knew they had to get in line, and so originally they voted against the proposition. And then things got pretty ugly when they realized that they were just going to be left out in the cold, weren’t going to get any federal support. They had then a second convention, which was referred to as the Frostbite Convention, in December of 1836, and they reluctantly agreed to the compromise and took on the Upper Peninsula, and Toledo became part of Ohio.
And it’s funny because Michigan…
…becomes the 26th state in the Union, and a lot of folks said, “You know, they kind of got the short end of the stick.” But at the same time, as time went by, they realized that that nine thousands square mouse of land they picked up and the UP was heavily loaded with deposits of copper and iron ore, and so they were able to get their money’s worth out of it from that standpoint. And then today, if you look at that area, it’s a spectacular vacation area: winter, summer, fall. And I don’t want to say anything, having, you know, lived here in Toledo, but I think Michigan might have done okay in that deal in the end.
The Upper Peninsula: that’s what they got for the deal. And Ohio, well, they got Toledo, and it was, at the time, what they wanted. What a great deal for both in the end: the Toledo War. Here on Our American Story.
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