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The Connecticut Western Reserve was land claimed by Connecticut in the Northwest Territory in what is now northeastern Ohio.
History
Although forced to surrender the Pennsylvania portion of its sea-to-sea land grant following the Yankee-Pennamite Wars and the intercession of the federal government, Connecticut held fast to its right to the lands between the 41st and 42nd-and-2-minutes parallels that lay west of the Pennsylvania border.
Within the state of Ohio, the claim was a 120 mile (190 km) strip between Lake Erie and a line just below Youngstown, Akron, New London and Willard, about three miles 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.
In her deed of cession (the states gave up their western claims in exchange for federal assumption of their American Revolutionary War debt) dated September 13, 1786, Connecticut retained more than three million acres (12,000 km²) in Ohio. In 1796, Connecticut sold that land to the Connecticut Land Company, but the Indian title to the reserve had not been extinguished. Clear title was not obtained until the Greenville Treaty in 1795 and the Treaty of Fort Industry in 1805. The west end of the reserve included the 500,000 acre (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 largest city in the Western Reserve portion of Ohio is Cleveland, named for Conneticut Land Company surveyor Moses Cleaveland. The arbitrary decision to drop the "a" in the name of the community was done by an printer early in the settlement's existence; Cleveland taking less room on a printed page than Cleaveland.
Architecture
Architecture in the Western Reserve mimicked that of the New England towns were settlers came from. Many of the buildings were designed in the Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival style. Towns such as Hudson and Gates Mills, Ohio exemplify the mixture of these styles and traditional New England town planning.
Culture
Many street, business, and organization names still reflect the region's Western Reserve origin. Western Reserve University, which merged with the Case Insitute of Technology to form Case Western Reserve University, is an example of that tie to the past. The Western Reserve Historical Society works to preserve history and historical items relevant to the area.Use of the term "Western Reserve" continues today in northeastern and is used in lieu of the directional terminology.
Sources
- Hatcher, Harlan, Western Reserve: The Story of New Connecticut in Ohio, Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1949.
See also
External Links
Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio (http://www.wrhs.org/)
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