USA > Indiana > LaPorte County > Michigan City > History of Michigan City, Indiana > Part 5
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As soon as the representatives of Ohio appeared in congress they opened a cam- paign to secure congressional approval of the diagonal proviso line, in support of which Indiana was gradually enlisted, and Michigan opposed them with a bit- terness that grew as the population in- creased. There was much confusion in the disputed district, for Michigan mag- istrates exercised jurisdiction there and the president appointed a collector in the same place and designated it as a part of Ohio. At last, after very many efforts, Ohio obtained a committee report in
congress directing a survey of the pro- viso line, but the bill passed with an amendment directing that the line should be run according to the ordinance. This was in 1812, when the country was dis- tracted by war with England and the Indians, and the matter, though con- stantly urged, was not taken up until in 1816, after the population affected had heavily increased, when the presi- dent ordered the act of 1812 to be com- plied with by the surveyor general of Ohio. That official employed one Har- ris to perform the work and instructed him to survey a line, not as laid down by the ordinance and specified by con- gress but according to the Ohio proviso, which was accordingly done. This was the first survey ever made in LaPorte county, where the line runs somewhat north of the ordinance line.
Meanwhile Michigan's troubles were growing, for in the winter of 1815-16, in the movements to bring Indiana in as a state, the question of the disputed bound- ary became acute in congress as it affect- ed that state. December 14, 1815, the territorial legislature adopted a memorial which, on the 28th, was laid before con- gress by the territorial delegate, Jona- than Jennings, who had represented the territory ably since 1809 and was fully apprised of all the steps and points in the boundary contest. The memorial asked for authority to meet in convention to organize as a state. Jennings, with the Ohio members and the Illinois dele- gate assisting, was strong enough to re- sist the Michigan demands for a bound- ary on the ordinance line. Jennings was chairman of the committee to which the Indiana memorial was referred and January 5, in only a week, he was en- abled to report a bill with the line where he wanted it. From then until April 19, when a passage was won, all of the familiar expedients were employed to get the ordinance boundary into the bill in
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lieu of the one the Hoosiers wished. As the entire boundary of the state was specified in the enabling act, ratified by the constitutional convention, approved by congress in the act of admission and stands now in the constitution of 1851, section I of Article XIV, it is thus de- scribed :-
In order that the boundaries of the State may be known and established, it is hereby ordained and declared, that the State of Indiana is bounded, on the East, by the meridian line, which forms the western boundary of the State of Ohio; on the South by the Ohio river, from the mouth of the Great Miami River to the mouth of the Wabash River ; on the West by a line drawn along the middle of the Wabash River, from its mouth to a point where a due north line, drawn from the town of Vincennes, would last touch the northwestern shore of said Wabash River; and thence by a due north line, until the same shall inter- sect an east and west line, drawn through a point ten miles north of the southern extreme of Lake Michigan; on the North, by said east and west line, until the same shall intersect the first-men- tioned meridian line, which forms the western boundary of the State of Ohio.
Inasmuch as the ten-mile strip thus carved out of Michigan Territory con- tained in 1816 less than a dozen settled whites, all traders, it cannot be said that the voting power of that population was a consideration ; but the donation to In- diana of a coast line, with its possibili- ties of commerce and of canal terminals and its possible connection by road with the waters of the Ohio, was supposed to appeal to all the people of the state as an evidence of the tender care of the national administration for their welfare. Moreover, in the event of a national dis- ruption, Indiana's connection with north- ern waters would render that state less liable to unite with a western or southern confederacy. Had the Chio question been closed then the boundary contro- versy would have been settled for all
time as far as the remainder of the dis- puted limit was concerned. Ohio, how- ever, took the ground that as the state constitution had been approved with the proviso in it, and as the Harris line fol- lowed the proviso, the true line had been ascertained and established. Every year the assembly of the state and council of the territory sent up memorials and the halls of congress rang with the quarrel. When Illinois prayed for admission in 1818 an enabling act was reported estab- lishing the northern boundary on the ordinance line, but the delegate, encour- aged by Indiana's success in winning to the north, made a fight for still more coast and obtained an amendment giving the new state sixty-one miles of the southern side of Michigan. The gover- nor and judges of Michigan in the same year entered upon the records of con- gress a formal protest against the dis- memberment of their territory. They felt that it was probably too late to rem- edy the established lines of the admitted states and were really directing their fire upon Ohio, but they said : "We take this way to preserve the just rights of the people of this territory * * * that it may not hereafter be supposed that they have acquiesced in the changes which have been made."
In 1818 also President Monroe, pressed by a special committee from Michigan and advised by a committee of the house, issued an order that the law of 1812 relating to the survey of Ohio's northern boundary should be complied with according to its true intent. Har- ris declined to do this work and one Fulton undertook it, surveying and marking a line due east from the south- ern extreme of Lake Michigan-the or- dinance line-this being the second sur- vey made in La Porte county. The presi- dent informed congress March 8, 1820, "that the act of the 20th May, 1812, re- specting the northern and western
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boundaries of the State of Ohio, has been executed." The Ohio members asked to have the line remarked in har- mony with the proviso and were refused, but congress again failed to take definite action by approving the Fulton survey. In 1821 and 1826 certain Indian treaties were made wherein the ordinance or Fulton line was utilized for boundary purposes and Michigan's hope rose somewhat. In 1824 and 1827 efforts were made to erect a territory in the district now known as Wisconsin and a bill was passed in the house forming such a territory and calling it Huron, but Michigan objected so vigorously to the proposed recognition of the northern boundary of Illinois, sixty-one miles above the ordinance limit, that the bill was lost in the senate.
Omitting many motions and counter motions in the two jurisdictions chiefly interested, we come to the act of 1827 directing the survey of the northern boundary of Indiana, a work that had not yet been performed. October 8 of that year E. P. Hendricks commenced where Harris and Fulton did at the southern bend of the lake, followed the shore until he made ten miles northing, then struck due east. He was the first who ever surveyed a line in Michigan City. At the next session of congress a bill was introduced, and failed, to ascer- tain the latitude of the southern extreme of Lake Michigan "for the purpose of fixing the true northern boundary lines of the states of Ohio, Indiana and Illi- nois." And ever the discord grew. A note of threatening began to sound in the chorus of supplication about the time the Erie canal was undertaken, with its commencement at the mouth of the Maumee, and the town of Toledo began to appear. The secretaries of war and of state were drawn in. Memorials went into the congressional hopper thick and fast, but naught came out save re-
ports. Many stormy scenes were enacted in the legislative bodies of Ohio and Michigan ; many warm communications were sent to congress ; and out of them would grow some such result as is indi- cated in the following message to con- gress of President Jackson, dated Janu- ary 10, 1833 :--
"In compliance with the resolution of the House of the 4th instant, requesting to be furnished with such information as the President may possess 'in relation to the survey of the northern boundary of the State of Ohio under the provisions of the act of Congress passed for that purpose on the 14th of July, 1832,' I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War concerning it."
But congress, having already more in- formation on the subject than it was able to assimilate, always dodged the issue. Twice, in 1833 and 1834, Michi- gan asked in vain for statehood; in 1835 the indomitable Wolverines held a con- vention, adopted a constitution and de- manded admission as of right, showing a population sufficient to meet the re- quirements for statehood as fixed in the ordinance of 1787. This unauthorized constitution was transmitted to the presi- dent, who, December 9, laid it before congress, "to whom," he said in the ac- companying message, "the power and duty of admitting new States into the Union exclusively pertains." On the same day he addressed another message to the lawmaking body enclosing a re- port of the progress made in the astron- omical observations relative to the dis- puted line and saying :-
"The controversy betwen the authori- ties of the State of Ohio and those of the Territory of Michigan in respect to this boundary assumed about the time of the termination of the last session of Congress a very threatening aspect, and much care and exertion were necessary to preserve the jurisdiction of the Terri- torial government under the acts of Con- gress and to prevent a forcible collision
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between the parties. The nature and course of the dispute and the measures taken by the Executive for the purpose of composing it will fully appear in the accompanying report from the Secretary of State and the documents therein re- ferred to."
He urged congress to take early ac- tion. His measures for composing the trouble seem to have consisted of some- thing like a "Come, boys, please be quiet" admonition. The senate passed a bill es- tablishing the line as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois wanted it, but John Quincy Adams killed it in the house. Senator Tipton of Indiana proposed a division of the debatable ground, which neither party would consider, and another sug- gestion was that all of the region be given to Chio with the northern penin- sula tacked on to Michigan by way of compensation, but Michigan would not hear to it. Michigan appealed to Virginia to exert the authority retained by the latter in the act of cession and Indiana came near doing so, but thought better of it after the resolution had been adopt- ed by the house. During a number of years the governor and general assembly of Indiana had the controversy constant- ly before them and a sample record is that of 1835, which goes more fully than any other into the details. In that year the governor's reference to the matter in his annual message was referred to a special committee, which, after stating the subject and its importance, said :-
"A portion of territory ten miles in width, extending across the entire breadth of our northern boundary, em- bracing a most fertile tract of country, and that part of Lake Michigan which we have been taught to prize as all im- portant to the trade, commerce and agri- cultural interests of the northern part of the state, and which we have always regarded as properly secured to us by the ordinance of 1787, by the law of Con- gress authorizing us to form a state government, and by the express accept-
ance and ratification of the terms of that law by the convention who met to form a government for this state,-has been claimed in positive terms by the territory of Michigan."
The report proceeds to state the grounds of the controversy at length, presenting the arguments of both sides fully, and closes with a series of resolu- tions as follows :-
"Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, That our Sena- tors in Congress be instructed, and our representatives requested, to resist the establishment of the southern boundary of Michigan on a line drawn east and west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan ; and also that they insist upon the present northern boundary of Indiana, as prescribed in the act of Con- gress of 1816, providing for her admis- sion to the Union.
"Resolved further as the sense of this General Assembly, That having the full- est confidence in the wisdom and integ- rity of Congress, this General Assembly cannot believe that any measure will be adopted by that body, which, by seeking to deprive this state of any portion of her territory as secured to her by the aforesaid act of Congress, and the ordi- nance of the convention of this State rat- ifying the same, would without the con- sent of this State thereto obtained, be unauthorized, unconstitutional and void, and only operate as a pretext for further controversy.
"Resolved further, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our repre- sentatives required, in the event of the passage of an act of Congress for the formation of a state in the territory of Michigan, to use their exertions to have incorporated in such act a provision re- stricting the territory of such state from extending south beyond 'an east and west line drawn through a point ten miles north of the southern extreme of Lake Michigan.'
"Resolved further, That his Excel- lency, the governor, be requested to transmit to our Senators and representa- tives in Congress copies of the foregoing report and resolutions."
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Edward A. Hannegan, an intense Hoo- sier in sympathy and for some years after 1837 a resident of Michigan City, was the representative in congress for the northwestern Indiana district from 1833 to 1837 ; he was in the senate from 1843 to 1849. George Crawford, builder in 1829 of the first mill at Elkhart, was the only member . of the general assembly who lived in the debated strip during the pendency of the dispute. He was elected in 1832, 1837 and three times later. In 1829, while a resident of Elkhart, he was appointed sheriff of Cass county, Michi- gan, and accepted the office under the supposition that he was an inhabitant of that territory. Governor Cass, the au- thor of the appointment, thus exercised jurisdiction in Indiana as late as that year. When Crawford discovered that he belonged in Indiana he gave his alle- giance to that state and in a short time located in LaPorte county and became prominent in its affairs. The people of the strip, influenced by their delegates in the state assembly and in congress, and also because Indiana was already a state and was farther advanced in pros- perity than Michigan, were quite general- ly loyal to Indiana as against the terri- tory. This was likewise true of the Ohio strip.
Ohio enacted a law extending her northern counties to the Harris line and to have that line remarked. Michigan adopted an act to prevent the exercise of foreign jurisdiction within her limits and reasserted her right to reach the or- dinance line. In April, 1835, General Brown and a command of territorial troops went into camp at Monroe, near the boundary, and General Bell and his Ohio troops took a position just opposite at Perrysburg. President Jackson hur- ried two mediators to the scene, who traveled night and day and received little satisfaction when they arrived. Michi- gan soldiers arrested the Ohio surveyors
near Tecumseh. Ohio declared her offi- cers had been attacked and passed a law against kidnaping and appropriated $300,000 to carry out her plans. Michi- gan proclaimed her intention to resist, "let the attempt be made by whom it may, all efforts to rob her of her soil and trample upon her rights." Both sides dispersed their armies, but mobilized them again September 7, with Toledo as the objective of both, for there the Ohio judges were preparing to hold court. The court was held at midnight and ad- journed just as the Michigan troops came up, too late to effect their purpose of preventing the session. This ended the Toledo war, or the Governor Lucas war, and transferred the whole matter to the halls of congress, where it was tem- porarily disposed of by the enabling act of June 15, 1836. Michigan, "mutilated, humbled and degraded" by this "bill of abomination" compelling her to "sell a portion of her brethren like Joseph into Egypt," and doubting whether it was after all desirable to enter "a Union of gamblers and pickpockets," rejected the prescribed conditions by a large majority ilì a convention at Ann Arbor in Sep- tember, but shortly thought better of it and called another convention in Decem- ber, which has passed into Wolverine history as "the frost-bitten convention" because of its illegality and some inci- dent growing out of the weather during the session. Here the act of congress was assented to, the president was so notified, he transferred the documents to congress, and that body reopened the en- tire question and threshed over all the old straw, but finally accepted the resolu- tions of the convention and declared Michigan to be a state January 26, 1837.
John Quincy Adams and Thomas H. Benton were, in the house and senate re -- spectively, stanch friends to Michigan's cause throughout, and the former said, referring on one occasion to an opinion
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given by the attorney general on a phase of the case, that it "was perfumed with the thirty-five electoral votes of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois," and at another time he said : "Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other, where the temptation was so intense to take the strongest side, and the duty of taking the weakest was so thankless."
By the admission as thus accomplished Ohio retained the Harris or proviso line and the northern boundary of Illi- nois was also permitted to stand as fixed at her admission. In compensation for the loss she was required to sustain Michigan was given the unknown and impenetrable wilderness of the northern peninsula, which she did not at all want but which turned out to be an exceeding- ly valuable possession. The "frost-bit- ten" convention, in reversing the work of the one that was held regularly, resolved that congress had no constitutional right to require the assent of the people to a change in boundary as a condition of ad- mission, but, nevertheless, since it was required, it was given "as the interest and prosperity of the State will be great- ly advanced by our immediate admission into the Union and the people of the said State are solicitous to give to her sister States and to the world, un- equivocal proof of her desire to promote the tranquility, and harmony of the con- federacy, and to perpetuate the unity, liberty and prosperity of the country." Notwithstanding these meek and submis- sive words, it seems that the underlying thought of the convention was to pre- sent the case later before the supreme court for adjudication upon the law, and until 1842, when the riches of the north- ern region began to grow apparent, the matter was kept before the Michigan legislature and eminent lawyers were
consulted as to the method of recovering the lost tract.
From January II, 1805, to December II, 1816, a period of eleven years and eleven months, the Trail creek valley was entirely in the territory of Michigan, whose jurisdiction included practically the two peninsulas. William Hull, after- wards discredited as a general, was the first governor, and Stanley Griswold was secretary. Against both the people reg- istered complaints to the president, who, March 1, 1808, referred the matter to congress, but they were not disturbed in office. Both traveled through Michigan City to Fort Dearborn before 1812. Gov- ernors Hull and Harrison, acting under instructions, sought diligently from their first appointment to acquire for the gov- ernment the titles of the original proprie- tors of the soil and a long series of treaties ensued, the one operating from Detroit, the other from the Wabash, which brought the influences of civiliza- tion nearer and nearer to the southern shore of the lake.
While the federal government claimed and exercised sovereignty over the terri- tory of the northwest it admitted that the Indians possessed the right to the soil, the legal title to the land, their only restriction being that the government claimed the sole right to purchase it from them. The problem was to extin- guish the aboriginal title and vest it in the United States for disposal to white settlers. This was a tedious and expen- sive process, accomplished by tribal trea- ties entered into by representatives of the government and chiefs of tribes. In spite of laws prohibiting settlers from encroaching upon unceded lands there were always hardy and impatient pio- neers ahead of the treaties and within the Indian lines without right, their pres- ence there being a just cause of resent- ment on the part of the red men and a constant source of embarrassment to
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the white negotiators. The untutored savage was very wily in the matter of these treaties, being very ready to enter into them and equally ready to crawl out. The Indians would claim that their alleged chiefs acted without authority ; that the treaties were not made plain to them ; that their young men were made drunk and were then overreached; that the agreements were abrogated by the encroachments of settlers, or that other tribes had assumed to cede the lands of the objectors without right; and too
of Saint Lusson in 1671. They joined in many others during the French and English occupancy and were ever atten- tive to proposals of friendship from whatever European source; they at- tended St. Clair's council at Fort Har- mar in 1789, which gave the first treaty obtained by the Americans in the north- west, and were at Greenville, which paved the way for the opening of Indi- ana. Of the forty-four treaties relating to lands in this state this tribe signed more than thirty, an average of over one
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often there was some basis of fact in the averments.
The Pottawattomies, cunning by na- ture and grown wise by long contact with Europeans, were indefatigable treaty makers and traveled long distances to be present at treaty councils. Deeds from the western line of Pennsylvania to the Mississippi river and from the Ohio to Michillimackinac bear their scrawled totems. It has been seen that they par- ticipated in the first western council, that
a year, and Ohio, Michigan and Illinois negotiators had often to deal with them. They liked the festivities with which the negotiations were accompanied, and they liked to share in the liberal payments the government gave for the lands. The century opened auspiciously and for the first half decade, "although some mur- ders by the red men had taken place in the far west, the body of natives seemed bent on peace."
But at Greenville there had been sown
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the germs of a union of tribes more an- bitious than that of Pontiac, more allur- ing than that of Brant, and in 1805 it be- gan to show upon the surface. Tecumseh, called by the Encyclopedia Britannica "the greatest of American Indians,"' was the author of this final effort to confed- erate the tribes for the purpose of repel- ling the white invasion. About the mid- dle of the eighteenth century a young girl was made captive in a border foray and was carried away into the west where she was adopted into an Indian family according to the tribal custom and when grown was married to a chief. During her girlhood she never saw a white per- son and when finally found she was so thoroughly Indianized that she refused to return to civilization when the oppor- tunity was presented. Her brother, as documents preserved in the family tend to prove, became the great grandfather of Ezekiel T. Ice, whose wife is the sis- ter of Mrs. William A. Banks of La Porte, and she herself, according to the same papers, gave birth to triplets, Te- cumseh, his brother, the Shawnee Pro- phet, and another son who remained ob- scure, about 1768, near the mouth of the Mad river in Ohio. The first two boys grew up with an unconquerable hatred for the white race and during twenty years participated in many of the raids and battles in the region where they lived. Gradually Tecumseh, who was the stronger in every way, formulated his great design and in 1805 began to put it in motion, using the lower talents of his brother for his own purposes. By May, 1807, they had seven hundred war .. riors encamped near Greenville.
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