Turnpike Lands were a group of land tracts granted by the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

to the state 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 ...

in 1827 along the path of a proposed road in the northwest corner of the state.

History

With the

Treaty of Greenville The Treaty of Greenville, formally titled Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory (now Midwestern United States), including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples ...

in 1795 the

Indian Nations This is a list of Indian reservations and other tribal homelands in the United States. In Canada, the Indian reserve is a similar institution. Federally recognized reservations There are 326 Indian Reservations in the United States. Most of ...

ceded southern and eastern Ohio to white settlement. - Text of Treaty of Greenville

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

The

Treaty of Fort Industry The Treaty of Fort Industry was a successor treaty to the Treaty of Greenville, which moved the eastern boundary of Indian lands in northern Ohio from the Tuscarawas River and Cuyahoga River westward to a line 120 miles west of the Pennsylvania ...

in 1805 moved the boundary westward to a line west of

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, ...

, which coincided with the western boundary of the

Firelands The Firelands, or Sufferers' Lands, tract was located at the western end of the Connecticut Western Reserve in what is now the U.S. state of Ohio. It was legislatively established in 1792, as the "Sufferers' Lands", and later became named "Fire Land ...

of the

Connecticut Western Reserve The Connecticut Western Reserve was a portion of land claimed by the Colony of Connecticut and later by the state of Connecticut in what is now mostly the northeastern region of Ohio. The Reserve had been granted to the Colony under the terms o ...

. - Text of Treaty of Fort Industry

In 1807, the

Treaty of Detroit The Treaty of Detroit was a treaty between the United States and the Ottawa, Chippewa, Wyandot and Potawatomi Native American nations. The treaty was signed in Detroit, Michigan on November 17, 1807, with William Hull, governor of the Mich ...

called for the cession of lands northwest of the Maumee River, in Ohio, and mostly in the Michigan Territory. - Text of Treaty of Detroit

The area between the Maumee River and the 1805 boundary remained Indian Lands, and thus, the United States could not legally build a road connecting settlements in Ohio and the Michigan Territory. This area was also swampy, and would require much engineering effort and funds to cross with a road. On November 25, 1808, at Brownstown in Michigan Territory, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and five nations of Indians signed the

Treaty of Brownstown The Treaty of Brownstown was between the United States and the Council of Three Fires ( Chippewa, Ottawa, Potawatomi), Wyandott, and Shawanoese Indian Nations. It was concluded November 25, 1808, at Brownstown in Michigan Territory, and p ...

. - Text of Treaty of Brownstown

Article II of the treaty called for the Indian Nations to cede to the United States "…also a tract of land, for a road only, of one hundred twenty feet in , to run southwardly from what is called Lower Sandusky, to the boundary line established by the Treaty of Greenville, with the privilege of taking at all times, such timber and other materials, from the adjacent lands as may be necessary for making and keeping in repair the said road, with the bridges that may be required along the same." Lower Sandusky is now called

Fremont, Ohio Fremont is a city in and the county seat of Sandusky County, Ohio, United States, located along the banks of the Sandusky River. It is about 35 miles from Toledo and 25 miles from Sandusky. It is part of the Toledo metropolitan area. The populat ...

and the boundary line of the Greenville Treaty lies in southern Marion County. Nothing was accomplished by Congress, so in 1820, the Ohio legislature asked Congress to take action. All the land between the Maumee River and the Western Reserve was ceded by the Indians with the

Treaty of Fort Meigs The Treaty of Fort Meigs, also called the Treaty of the Maumee Rapids, formally titled, "Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., 1817", was the most significant Indian treaty by the United States in Ohio since the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. It resulte ...

in 1817, -Text of Treaty of Fort Meigs

and surveyed into

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

and sections in the

Congress Lands The Congress Lands was a group of land tracts in Ohio that made land available for sale to members of the general public through land offices in various cities, and through the General Land Office. It consisted of three groups of surveys: *Ohio Ri ...

South and East of the First Principal Meridian in 1819, and North and East of the First Principal Meridian in 1821.

Grant by Congress

It became more desirable to run a road to Sandusky City 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 ...

rather than Fremont. In 1827, and clarified in 1828, - Text of Act of April 17, 1828

Congress granted to the state of Ohio "forty-nine sections of land to be located in the

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

Land District, in the following manner, to-wit: Every alternate section through which the road may run, and the section next adjoining thereto on the west, so far as the said sections remain unsold, and, if any part of the sections shall have been disposed of, then a quantity equal thereto shall be selected by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, from the vacant lands in the sections adjoining on the west of those appropriated." The road was constructed by the Columbus and Sandusky Turnpike Company. The grant of was declared for the use and benefit of the turnpike company by the state legislature in 1828 for the purpose of building the road, and authorized the company to sell the land and the governor to execute the deeds to the purchasers.

Ohio State Route 4 State Route 4 (SR 4), formerly known as Inter-county Highway 4 until 1921 and State Highway 4 in 1922, is a major north–south state highway in Ohio. It is the fifth longest state route in Ohio. Its southern terminus is at U.S. Route 42 i ...

north of Bucyrus in

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

and

Crawford Crawford may refer to: Places Canada * Crawford Bay Airport, British Columbia * Crawford Lake Conservation Area, Ontario United Kingdom * Crawford, Lancashire, a small village near Rainford, Merseyside, England * Crawford, South Lanarkshire, a ...

counties, and

Ohio State Route 98 State Route 98 (SR 98) is a north–south state highway in the northern portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. Its southern terminus is at the SR 47/ SR 423 concurrency in Waldo, and its northern terminus is at SR 61 in Plymouth. SR 98 is known ...

south of Bucyrus in Crawford and

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counties are situated along the path of the Columbus and Sandusky Turnpike where the 1828 grant was made.

Notes

References

External links

* {{coord, 40, 48, 30, N, 82, 58, 32, W, display=title Seneca County, Ohio Crawford County, Ohio Marion County, Ohio History of Ohio History of the Midwestern United States

History

Grant by Congress

See also

Notes

References

External links