Ohio's Connecticut Western Reserve

Ohio’s Connecticut Western Reserve When the British colonies were however, Connecticut refused to first established on the Atlantic yield her title to the land west of Coast, no one knew what lay Pennsylvania's fixed boundary. She beyond their still claimed title to this strip of the western continent from Pennsylvania boundaries. westward between the 41° and Everything west 42° 2' parallels. belonged to The Revolutionary War England which temporarily halted the boundary had the power to disputes. Following the war, states deed all or any holding western claims surrendered part of it to any them to Congress to form the public person or domain. In 1786 Congress accepted company to Connecticut's claim and the state Connecticut’s land whom King was allowed to reserve about 3 Charles II might choose. Since these million acres for its future needs. western lands had neither been Connecticut reserved the surveyed nor mapped, the King's westernmost one million acres, experts could define the boundaries known as the "Firelands," as of his land grants in only the vaguest reparation for its citizens whose of terms. Such loose grants were property was destroyed by the British made to Virginia, Delaware, in the Revolutionary War. The rest Pennsylvania, New York, was to be sold for not less than $1 Massachusetts, Connecticut, and million to the Connecticut Land others. The Connecticut grant of Company, a 1630, like many others, had an group of indefinite western boundary private stretching to the Pacific Ocean. speculators. Legal descriptions of valuable lands This reserved read in magnificently puzzling and territory, inadequate words. never part of The western boundary of the Connecticut overlapped that of Northwest New York and Pennsylvania and on Territory, was July 3, 1778, a bloody civil war The “Western Reserve” known by ensued in the Wyoming Valley of the several Susquehanna River over settlers' names: New Connecticut, the conflicting claims to the land. A Connecticut Reserve, the federal ruling of 1782 awarded the Connecticut Western Reserve, etc., disputed territory to Pennsylvania; but it was soon designated in legal records as the Western Reserve of reached the Cuyahoga River and it Connecticut and in Ohio simply as is here that Moses Cleaveland chose the Western Reserve. the site for the capital of the Western The Connecticut Land Reserve, first called Cuyahoga Town, Company had to dispose of the later renamed Cleaveland by the entire Reserve before concluding surveyors in his honor. the sale of any single portion of it. An early winter prompted the Proceeds of the $1,200,000 sale were surveyors' departure to Connecticut to be placed in perpetuity into a in October. They returned, without special fund the interest from which General Cleaveland, in 1797 to would support the public schools of complete the survey of the Reserve. Connecticut, terms still in effect It was in the summer of 1797 that the today. Moses Cleaveland's share of present boundaries of the area the purchase was $32,600 and he known as "Slavic Village" were himself was made general agent of surveyed. Major modern streets such the Company to conduct the as East 71st, Easy 55th, Fleet, and surveys of the reserve in person. Harvard, were the surveyors' original Moses Cleaveland and his 100-acre lot boundary lines. The party of fifty men reached the surveyors' notes indicated that they western border of broke camp near Morgan's Run near Pennsylvania on the Worsted Mills valley near East July 4, 1796. They 55th and Broadway. Their notes also were not settlers indicate they traveled through the but staff surveyors Burke’s Run area near East 71st and and their aids. It Worley as they described the terrain had taken them and vegetation they found. 68 days to make the trip from Moses Cleaveland Dover to Conneaut. Their job was to survey and mark with posts the boundaries of the Western Reserve, a land of nearly unbroken forest. It began at the western border Pennsylvania between 41° and 42 ° 2' north latitude and extended westward for 120 miles. The boundary line was to be drawn as far west as the Cuyahoga River and the land therein apportioned into townships five miles square. On July 22, 1796 the party.

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