A region of northeast Ohio bordering on Lake Erie. It was retained by Connecticut after other western claims were ceded to the U.S. Congress in 1786. Much of the area was given or sold to immigrants from Connecticut (1786-1800), and the remainder of the territory was ceded to Ohio in 1800 and became part of the Northwest Territory.
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Western Reserve
American Heritage Dictionary:
Western Reserve |
A region of northeast Ohio bordering on Lake Erie. It was retained by Connecticut after other western claims were ceded to the U.S. Congress in 1786. Much of the area was given or sold to immigrants from Connecticut (1786-1800), and the remainder of the territory was ceded to Ohio in 1800 and became part of the Northwest Territory.
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
Western Reserve |
For more information on Western Reserve, visit Britannica.com.
Gale Encyclopedia of US History:
Western Reserve |
The Western Reserve, a part of northeastern Ohio lying along the south shore of Lake Erie and once belonging to Connecticut, is an irregular quadrilateral—with Conneaut, Youngstown, Willard, and Port Clinton at the corners. The charter that the Connecticut river towns obtained from Charles II in 1662 fixed the colony's boundaries north and south by parallels extending westward to the "South Sea" (Pacific Ocean). With royal disdain for the inconveniences of geography, King Charles granted parts of the same region to the Duke of York and to Admiral William Penn, while King James had already given Virginia a basis for a claim to all the territory included in Connecticut's boundaries beyond Pennsylvania.
Following the American Revolution, these overlapping claims left the thirteen states to face serious territorial disputes. Small states without western lands, particularly Maryland, were loath to enter a union with great inequalities in public lands. Congress proposed that states cede their western lands, all or in part, to the Confederation, promising to admit the territories as new states on equal terms with the original thirteen. The states accepted the plan, launching the Confederation.
In 1786 Connecticut ceded its lands west of Pennsylvania except for a portion, the Western Reserve, that it attempted to keep as recompense for its relatively small size. It proceeded at once to plan for an advantageous disposal of its western estate. In 1792 it assigned 500,000 acres from the western end to the inhabitants of the Connecticut towns along the Long Island Sound as compensation for losses inflicted by British raids during the revolution. The "Firelands," as they called this western region, drew a steady stream of immigrants from Connecticut. In 1795 the Connecticut Land Company purchased the remaining portion of the Western Reserve, estimated at the time at more than 3 million acres.
Moses Cleaveland, one of the purchasers and general agent of the company, went west in 1796 to supervise a survey and other preparations for sale and settlement, finding a heavily forested area along the south shore of Lake Erie that was long unfavorable for extensive sale. The absence of any form of local government also for many years created a barrier to settlement. In 1800 Connecticut and the United States arranged by a joint agreement that the Western Reserve should be attached as a county to the newly formed Ohio Territory. Governor Arthur St. Clair gave it the name Trumbull County and proceeded to organize local government. Later, particularly after the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, the population grew, resulting in Trumbull County's division and redivision into multiple counties.
The term "Western Reserve" ceased to have any territorial meaning and later lingered in the names of various commercial and banking enterprises, or in such instances as the Western Reserve Historical Society and the Western Reserve University. But Connecticut's Western Reserve developed as an extension of New England into the West. Names of families, towns, architecture, and social customs carried evidence of this transfer of population from the East and marked Western Reserve apart from other parts of the country until later industrialization and immigration blurred its origins.
Bibliography
Campbell, Thomas F., and Edward M. Miggins, eds. The Birth of Modern Cleveland, 1865–1930. Cleveland, Ohio: Western Reserve Historical Society, 1988.
Lupold, Harry F., and Gladys Haddad, eds. Ohio's Western Reserve: A Regional Reader. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1988.
Van Tassel, David D., ed. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. 2d. ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Western Reserve |
Western Reserve, tract of land in NE Ohio, on the southern shore of Lake Erie, retained by Connecticut in 1786 when it ceded its claims to its western lands (see Northwest Territory). In 1792, Connecticut gave 500,000 acres (202,350 hectares), called "firelands," to citizens whose property was burned during the American Revolution. The Connecticut Land Company bought (1795) the remaining land, and Cleveland was established (1796) as the first permanent settlement in the reserve. In 1800 the reserve gained government when it was included in the Northwest Territory as Trumbull co.; later this region was divided into 10 counties and parts of 4 others. The chief cities are Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Ashtabula, Lorain, and Sandusky.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Connecticut Western Reserve |
"Western Reserve" redirects here. For other uses, see Western Reserve (disambiguation).
The Connecticut Western Reserve was land claimed by Connecticut from 1662 to 1800 in the Northwest Territory in what is now northeastern Ohio.
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Contents
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History
Although forced to surrender the Pennsylvania portion (Westmoreland County) of its sea-to-sea land grant following the Yankee-Pennamite Wars and the intercession of the federal government, Connecticut held fast to its claim to the lands between the 41st and 42nd-and-2-minutes parallels that lay west of the Pennsylvania border.
Within Ohio the claim was a 120-mile (190 km) wide strip between Lake Erie and a line just south of Youngstown, Akron, New London, and Willard, about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of the present-day U.S. Highway 224. Beyond Ohio the claim included parts of what would become Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. The east boundary of the reserve follows a true meridian along Ellicott‘s Line, the boundary with Pennsylvania. The west boundary veers more than four degrees from a meridian to maintain the 120 mile width, due to convergence.[1]
Connecticut, like several other states, gave up western land claims in exchange for federal assumption of its American Revolutionary War debt. The deed of cession was issued on 13 September 1786. However, Connecticut retained 3,366,921 acres (13,625.45 km2) in Ohio, which became the "Western Reserve".[1] [2] In 1796[citation needed] (or possibly 12 August[3] 2 September [1], or 5 September 1795[2]), Connecticut sold title to the land in the Western Reserve to the Connecticut Land Company for $1,200,000.[1][2][3]
The Land Company was a group of investors who were mostly from Suffield, Connecticut. There were initially eight in the group[citation needed] (or possibly 7[3][1] or 35[2]). They planned to divide the land and sell it to settlers from the east. The Indian title to the Reserve had not been extinguished. Clear title was obtained east of the Cuyahoga River in the Greenville Treaty in 1795,[4] and west of the river in the Treaty of Fort Industry in 1805.[5] The western end of the reserve included the 500,000 acres (2,000 km2) Firelands or "Sufferers Lands" reserved for residents of several New England towns destroyed by British-set fires during the Revolutionary War.
The next year, the Land Company sent surveyors led by Moses Cleaveland to the Reserve to divide the land into townships. The townships laid out in this survey were squares 5 miles (8.0 km) on each side (25 square miles (65 km2)), unlike most of the those elsewhere in Ohio, which are 6 miles (9.7 km) on each side (36 square miles (93 km2)), following the guidelines of the Land Ordinance of 1785.
Cleaveland's team also founded the city of Cleveland, which became the largest city in the region. (The first "a" was dropped by a printer early in the settlement's existence, Cleveland taking less room on a printed page than Cleaveland.)
The territory was originally named "New Connecticut", which was later discarded in favor of "Western Reserve." Over the next few years, settlers trickled in. Youngstown was founded in 1796, Warren in 1798, Hudson in 1799, Ashtabula in 1803, and Stow in 1804.
In 1800, Connecticut finally ceded sovereignty over the Western Reserve. It was absorbed by the Northwest Territory which established Trumbull County there. As the former county seat of the territory, Warren calls itself "the historical capital of the Western Reserve." Later, several more counties were carved out of the territory.
The name "Western Reserve" survives in the area in various institutions (see Western Reserve (disambiguation)).
Congress has considered declaring the Western Reserve a National Heritage Area, to encourage preservation of historical sites and buildings there. There are 49 National Heritage Areas in the United States, one already in Ohio – the Ohio Canal of the Ohio and Erie Canal. A study on this decision was to be presented to Congress in 2011.
Architecture
Architecture in the Western Reserve mimicked that of the New England towns from which its settlers originally came. Many of the buildings were designed in the Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival styles. Towns such as Aurora, Canfield, Gates Mills, Hudson, Medina, Milan, Norwalk, Painesville, and Poland exemplify the mixture of these styles and traditional New England town planning. Cleveland's Public Square is even characteristic of a traditional New England town green.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e Knepper, George W (2002). The Official Ohio Lands Book. Auditor of the State of Ohio. pp. 23–26. http://www.auditor.state.oh.us/Publications/General/OhioLandsBook.pdf.
- ^ a b c d Upton, Harriet Taylor (1910). Cutler, Harry Gardner. ed. History of the Western Reserve. 1. New York: Lewis Publishing Company. pp. 10–11. http://books.google.com/books?id=xEsbLFoBttYC&pg=PA10.
- ^ a b c Peters, William E. (1918). Ohio Lands and Their Subdivision. W.E. Peters. p. 153. http://books.google.com/books?id=HiApAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA153.
- ^ 7 Stat. 49 - Text of Treaty of Greenville Library of Congress
- ^ 7 Stat. 87 - Text of Treaty of Fort Industry Library of Congress
- Hatcher, Harlan, Western Reserve: The Story of New Connecticut in Ohio, Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1949. (2nd edition, Cleveland: World Publishing, 1966). (2nd edition paperback, Kent State University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-87338-449-0).
- Taylor Upton, Harriet, History of the Western Reserve, New York: Lewis Publishing Co., 1910, ISBN 9780832850912 (1996 edition).
- Ohio Historical Society -- Connecticut Western Reserve
Further reading
The following publications are in the collection of the Connecticut State Library (CSL):
- The Public Records of the State of Connecticut [HistRef ConnDoc G25 1776-]. This multi-volume set contains the record of transactions of the Connecticut General Assembly. Each volume covers a given time period and has an index. Researchers interested in the Western Lands should consult these volumes to gain knowledge of the legislative actions and petitions granted by the Connecticut General Assembly.
- Burke, Thomas Aquinas. Ohio Lands: A Short History. [Columbus, OH]: Auditor of State, c1997 [CSL call number HistRef HD 243 .O3 B87 1997].
- Cherry, Peter Peterson. The Western Reserve and Early Ohio. Akron, OH: R. L. Fouse, 1921 [CSL call number F 495 .C52].
- Fedor, Ferenz. The Yankee Migration to the Firelands. s.l.: Fedor, 1976? [CSL call number F 497 .W5 F43 1976].
- Mathews, Alfred. Ohio and Her Western Reserve, With a Story of Three States Leading to the Latter, From Connecticut, by Way of Wyoming, Its Indian Wars and Massacre. New York: D. Appleton, 1902 [CSL call number F 491 .M42].
- Mills, William Stowell. The Story of the Western Reserve of Connecticut. New York: Printed for the author by Brown & Wilson Press [ca. 1900] [CSL call number F 497 .W5 M6].
- Peters, William E. Ohio Lands and Their Subdivision. Athens, OH: W. E. Peters, 1918 [CSL call number F 497 .W5 P47 1918].
- Rice, Harvey. Pioneers of the Western Reserve. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1883 [CSL call number: F 497 .W5 R5 1883].
- Upton, Harriet Taylor. History of the Western Reserve. Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1910 [CSL call number: F 497 .W5 U7].
- Wickham, Gertrude Van Rensselaer. Memorial to the Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve. [s.l.]: Whipporwill, [197- ] [CSL call number F 497 .W5 W63 1970z].
External links
- The Western Reserve Heritage Feasibility Study
- Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
- Research Guide to Connecticut's "Western Lands" or "Western Reserve"
- Connecticut Western Reserve article on h2g2
- Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
- History of the Western Reserve
- Early Settlers Association of the Western Reserve
- Firelands Historical Society
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 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Gale Encyclopedia of US History. Encyclopedia of American History Copyright © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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