The Erie Triangle is a roughly 300-square-mile (780-square-kilometre) tract of American land that was the subject of several competing
colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
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* Colonial (1920 au ...
-era claims. It was eventually acquired by the U.S. federal government and sold to
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
so that the state would have access to a freshwater port on
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...
. The Erie Triangle land makes up a large portion of present-day
Erie County, Pennsylvania.
Background
Most of northwestern Pennsylvania came under American control following the 1784
Treaty of Fort Stanwix
The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was a treaty signed between representatives from the Iroquois and Great Britain (accompanied by negotiators from New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania) in 1768 at Fort Stanwix. It was negotiated between Sir William J ...
with the
Iroquois Confederacy. The following year, a boundary dispute between
New York and Pennsylvania erupted. Following a surveying effort by
Andrew Ellicott representing the Pennsylvanians and
James Clinton
Major General James Clinton (August 9, 1736 – September 22, 1812) was an American Revolutionary War officer who, with John Sullivan, led in 1779 the Sullivan Expedition in what is now western New York to attack British-allied Seneca and ...
and
Simeon DeWitt representing the New Yorkers, the western edge of New York was set at east of Pennsylvania's
Presque Isle, a small peninsula off the coast of
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 ...
. However, this left an unclaimed area, which came to be known as the Triangle Lands.
The Triangle Lands problematically fell under neither New York's nor Pennsylvania's charter, while both
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
and
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
also spoke up with claims derived from their original colonial "sea to shining sea" grants.
Of these four competing claimants (Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts), only Pennsylvania was landlocked, except for a very tiny strip of coastline 3.75 miles in length. Following some pressure from the new
federal government, all four states surrendered their claims to that entity, which then, in 1792, sold final rights to the of land to Pennsylvania for $151,640.25 (75 ¢/acre). The
Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy released the land to Pennsylvania in January 1789 for payments of $2,000 from Pennsylvania and $1,200 from the federal government. The
Seneca Nation separately settled land claims against Pennsylvania in February 1791 for the sum of $800.
This was accomplished without the approval of the federal government and in violation of the
Contract Clause
Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, known as the Contract Clause, imposes certain prohibitions on the states. These prohibitions are meant to protect individuals from intrusion by state governments and to kee ...
of the
United States Constitution which reserved the right to make treaties to the federal government.
With this access to the Great Lakes, Pennsylvania was persuaded to accept the western boundary
established by the
Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory
The Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory was a United States government official responsible for surveying land in the Northwest Territory in the United States late in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The position was cre ...
following passage of the
Northwest Ordinance in 1787.
The Erie Triangle is often described as a "tab" or "chimney" attached to the
Keystone State
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Mary ...
. The water off the coast of the Erie Triangle is known as the ''Graveyard of Lake Erie'' because of the large number of shipwrecks that occurred in the area's stormy waters in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was also the site of a preliminary battle between forces that participated in the
Battle of Lake Erie
The Battle of Lake Erie, sometimes called the Battle of Put-in-Bay, was fought on 10 September 1813, on Lake Erie off the shore of Ohio during the War of 1812. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of the Briti ...
during the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...
. The battle itself took place in the
Lake Erie Islands
The Lake Erie Islands are a chain of archipelagic islands in Lake Erie. They include Kelleys Island, Erie Island, Pelee Island, the Bass Islands, and several others. The majority of these islands are under the sovereignty of the State of Ohio ...
, at the western end of the lake, off the coast of
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
.
See also
*
Twin Tiers
The Twin Tiers are the collective counties that lie on the New York-Pennsylvania border on either side of the 42nd parallel north. The region is predominantly rural and contains many small towns.
Separately, the two halves of the Twin Tiers regi ...
**
Northern Tier
**
Southern Tier
*
New York–Pennsylvania border
The New York–Pennsylvania border is the state line between the U.S. states of New York and Pennsylvania. It has three sections:
* Along the center line of the Delaware River from the Tri-States Monument tripoint with New Jersey at the confluen ...
*
Pennamite–Yankee War
The Pennamite–Yankee Wars or Yankee–Pennamite Wars were a series of conflicts consisting of the First Pennamite War (1769–1770), the Second Pennamite War (1774), and the Third Pennamite War (1784), in which the Wyoming Valley along the North ...
References
External links
Explore PA Historyh1>
Further reading
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{{American panhandles
Border irregularities of the United States
Former regions and territories of the United States
History of Pennsylvania
Geography of Erie County, Pennsylvania
Internal territorial disputes of the United States