USA > Ohio > Wyandot County > Past and present of Wyandot County, Ohio; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievemen, Vol. I > Part 2
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dred and sixty dollars, with interest from the date of the above mentioned patent to the day of such payment.
(Approved March 3, 1803.)
By Section 4 of the constitution it was declared that "Chil- licothe shall be the seat of government until the year one thou- sand eight hundred and eight." And, by Section 25, it was enacted as follows:
SEC. 25. "The first session of the General Assembly shall commence on the first Tuesday of March next;" which would be "Tuesday, March 1, 1803."
These sections, and schedule 6 were all mandatory and were strictly and fully complied with.
It is therefore clear that Ohio became a state on the meet- ing of her first legislature, under the constitution of 1802, and this convened at Chillicothe on Tuesday, March 1, 1803. Mich- ael Baldwin was elected speaker of the house of representa- tives, and Nathaniel Massie speaker of the senate.
This general assembly then appointed : Secretary of State, William Creighton, Jr .; Auditor of State, Thomas Gibson; Treasurer, William McFarland.
These officers were duly qualified and entered upon their respective duties. On Thursday, the 3rd of March, the legis- lature counted the 4,564 votes cast for governor, and the speaker, M. Baldwin, declared "Edward Tiffin duly elected governor of the state of Ohio."
And the record of these proceedings date from March 1, 1803.
And as we have seen congress agreed to the modifications as proposed in the ordinance and resolution passed by the Ohio convention November 29, 1802. And thus the compact between the people of Ohio and the congress of the United States was completed.
The act of congress of February 19, 1803, which declared the laws of the United States should be of the same force and effect in said state as elsewhere in the United States and the act of March 3, 1803, published in this article by which congress consented to certain additions proposed by the convention, while they both recognized the state of Ohio, did not create a state. It must be remembered that there was no formal act of congress for the admission of Ohio as a state and the law- making power being the representative of the sovereignty of
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the state, whenever that began, the territorial government on that day ceased, and Ohio became a state in the Union.
By the enabling act of April 30, 1802, and by the adoption November 29, 1802, the people of Ohio became a body politic. Yet there was no state, for in the new constitution it was acknowledged that the territorial government should continue until a state government should be formed. It was for this object that in schedule (6) of the constitution it was ordained that an election of the governor, members of the legislature, and sheriffs, under the constitution shall be held January 11, 1803.
This election was held accordingly and a governor and members of the legislature elected. On this day all territorial officers resigned, the new state officials assumed their duties and then, and not until then, did Ohio become a state in the Union. This was Tuesday, March 1, 1803 ..
Will also state that I have in my library the first volume ever published of Ohio Laws. It is entitled " Acts of the State of Ohio, First Session, Volume 1, Chillicothe, Tuesday, the first day of March, A. D., 1803, being the first session held under the constitution of the State of Ohio." Now refer to the act of congress passed February 21, 1806, which decided when Ohio became a state. The territorial judges did not con- clude the business of their courts, as they claimed, until April 15, 1803, and wanted their pay to that date. The officials of the treasury, on advice of the attorney general of the United States, refused to allow them pay beyond the time of the adop- tion of the new constitution, November 29, 1802. The judges then applied to the state legislature of Ohio, and were refused payment, claiming that it was for the United States to pay. The result was the passage of the above act, which fixed the date when Ohio became a state as March 1, 1803. This has ever since been considered conclusive, and may properly be considered an authoritative decision upon this subject.
EVOLUTION OF OHIO COUNTIES
BY J. F. LANING
It is probable that the people who read this article will all know that the state of Ohio was not always divided into the number of counties there are now, and that to evolve
CCaukroon
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the present map a long period of time and many mutations of county outlines were necessary. But few people, how- ever, know the extent of the evolution that has been going on, in bringing Ohio counties within their present environ- ments. From the erection of the first county, in 1788, the number has been made to grow each year, by cutting down the size of those previously formed, until, by the limits of the constitution of 1851, requiring each of them to contain four hundred square miles, it is scarcely possible to now find a locality where the existing counties could let territory enough go to form a new one.
. The importance of the county as a political unit varies in different parts of the United States. In New England it takes a secondary rank, that of the township being first. In the southern states the position is reversed, the county, or parish as it is called, being the leading agency for the local government. In the state of Ohio, as also in other western states the county and township each has its special features in the frame of government and they do not vary much in their importance.
The structure of government here existing, is of such a character that it may be appropriately called a mixed or dual system as it properly has a double unit in the township and county, for each of these divisions has its primary func- tions to perform and neither outranks the other to any great extent. Each is a unit in making up the united whole rep- resented collectively in the state government.
As it is possible that there may be some who in this day of our fully formed state and perfected plan of government, may not be aware that the soil of Ohio was once a part of the territory of the United States, as Alaska, Utah and Oklahoma are now territories, it is proper to refer to the fact that at one time it was an unorganized civil condition, and that later its first chief magistrate was a territorial gover- nor, appointed by the authorities at Washington, as the governors of the Western territories are now elected.
The country embracing what are now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, first came to be known as a part of our nation, under the name of the North- west territory, and provision for its government was made by congress through a law known as the Ordinance of 1787. Arthur St. Clair was appointed as the first governor of the Vol. 1-2
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territory and through his actions the first counties were established.
Historically speaking, county government here came into existence before that of townships. Counties were or- ganized for the purpose of regulating the militia and second for organizing the courts. Those providing for the officers and affairs of townships came later.
In their original formation and creation, county and township divisions were independent of each other, the townships not being required to first exist as a basic factor in forming the counties nor the county to be, as it now appears, the aggregation of a number of pre-existing townships.
County lines were not at first concurrent, with the town- ship lines, and it was often necessary for the county area to be made up without regard to the confines of townships be- cause, in some cases, counties were created before the town- ship surveys had been commenced.
The Ordinance of 1787 was preceded by what was known as the Ordinance of 1785, sometimes called the land ordi- nance. This made provisions for the survey of lands, and their division into townships.
This, however, was for the purpose of getting them into farms, and making them ready for their occupancy, and not for government. The Ordinance of 1785 applied only to government lands, and made provision that they should be surveyed into townships six miles square, but no rule was ever enacted for laying out the tracts disposed of by the government to the land companies. Their proprietors cut them up into farms to suit their own liking, and into sections of various size and form. The United States thus lost con- trol over the manner of running township lines, and what is now regarded as our primary civil division was not laid out with a view of its becoming a factor in a higher county area, or a unit in a county organism.
St. Clair was authorized, by the Ordinance of 1787, to lay out the territory into counties and townships, but there is no record of his ever having interfered with the freedom of land owners to form townships. Counties, however, were never allowed to emerge in the irregular manner that town- ships did. Their larger functions, and their nearer relations to the central governments of the state, made it necessary for the ruling power to assume control of their erection,
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and alteration, when required and from the earliest period of our civil existence, counties have been brought into ex- istence by the will of the government executed through its executive or legislative department. In the progress of our state from an ungoverned wilderness to a fully organized and practically self-governed commonwealth, the edict of the ruling power has always directed the course and length of county boundaries.
With these remarks concerning the nature and historical relation of townships and counties, we now proceed to give something of the details of the evolution of the early Ohio counties.
The Ordinance of 1787 prescribing the manner that the Northwest territory should be governed, provided that for the execution of process, civil and criminal, the governor shall make proper divisions thereof; and he shall proceed from time to time, as circumstances may require, to lay out the parts of the district in which the Indian titles have been extinguished, into counties and townships, subject however, to such alterations as may thereafter be made by the legislature.
St. Clair was appointed governor of the Territory, Octo- ber 5, 1787, and arrived at Marietta, July 9, 1788. His first act toward carrying out the provisions of the ordinance as to the establishment of local government, was to erect the County of Washington. He issued an order defining its boundaries, July 27, 1788.
The next county formed by St. Clair was Hamilton. His edict brought it into existence January 2, 1790. Its boundaries were as follows: "Beginning on the banks of the Ohio river, at the confluence of the Little Miami, and down the said, Ohio river to the mouth of the Big Miami, and up said Miami to the standing stone forks or branch of said river, and thence with a line to be drawn due east, to the Little Miami, and down said Little Miami to the place of the beginning." On February 11, 1792, Governor St. Clair is- sued a proclamation enlarging Hamilton county.
On the 20th of June, 1790, St. Clair set off the county of Knox.
There was a wide stretch of country on the north part of the territory that was yet outside of any of the organized
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counties. On the 15th day of August, 1796, Wayne county was organized.
In order to establish more counties, as the existing ones embraced all of the territory, it was now necessary to make a division of some of those that had already been erected. The first separation to be made was for the purpose of creat- ing Adams county. Hamilton county was large, and could well be divided. So July 10, 1797, a county called Adams was taken off the east side. This county was named in honor of President Adams. Concerning its county seat, Howe, in his historical collections, says: "The first court in this county was held in Manchester. Winthrop Sargent, the secretary of the territory, located the county seat at an out of the way place, a few miles above the mouth of Brush creek, which they called Adamsville. The locality was soon named in derision Scant. At the next session of the court its members became divided, and part sat at Adamsville and part at Manchester. The governor, on his return to the ter- ritory, finding the people in great confusion, and much bickering between them, removed the seat of justice to the mouth of Brush creek, where the first court was held in 1789. Here a town was laid out by Noble Grimes, under the name of Washington. A large court house was built, with a jail in the lower story, and the governor appointed two more of the Scant party judges, which gave them a majority. In 1800 Charles William Byrd, secretary of the territory, in the absence of the governor, appointed two more of the Man- chester party judges, which balanced the parties, and the contest was maintained until West Union became the county seat.
The next county to be divided was Washington. In 1786 the Seven Ranges had been surveyed and July 29, 1797, a portion of the northern part of the county was eliminated, and made into the county of Jefferson. The county re- ceived its name from President Jefferson. Some idea of its original size may be known from the fact that, when es- tablished, it included within its boundaries what are now the cities of Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Warren, Steuben- ville and Youngstown. Its county seat has always been Steubenville.
The next act in dividing the territory into counties was changing the boundaries of the counties of Hamilton, Wayne
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and Knox. In 1795, General Wayne had made a treaty with the Indians at Greenville, by which the line of the lands of the United States had been extended from Loramie's west- ward to Fort Recovery, and thence southward to the mouth of the Kentucky river. The boundary of Hamilton county was extended westward June 22, 1798, to make it corre- spond with this change in the boundary of the government territory.
Ross next came into the family of Ohio counties. Na- thaniel Massie, a surveyor in the employ of Virginia, had laid out the town of Manchester, in 1790, and induced people to emigrate to it. Massie had become a large land owner, and circulated glowing descriptions of the country along the Scioto, with the hope of inducing settlements. Robert J. Finley and a Presbyterian congregation from Kentucky were attracted and a settlement was made at the mouth of Paint creek. Chillicothe was laid out in August, 1796, by Colonel Massie. The opening of Zane's Trace, soon after- ward, diverted much of the westward travel, which before this time had been in boats down the Ohio, and brought it ยท overland through this region. Other settlements sprung up, and with the increase in settlers, demands were put forward for a division of Adams county. St. Clair recognized the need of the new county, and, August 20, 1798, issued a proc- lamation for it, in which the boundaries were fixed.
CONTROVERSY OVER NEW COUNTIES
This list of nine counties comprised what had been erected when, in pursuance of the proclamation from St. Clair a ter- ritorial legislature was elected, in December, 1788. This proclamation was in obedience to the requirements of the ordinance of 1787, as follows: "So soon as there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants, of full age, in the district upon giving proof thereof to the governor, they shall receive authority, with time and place, to elect representatives from their counties or townships, to represent them in the Gen- eral Assembly; provided that for every five hundred free male inhabitants there shall be one representative, and so on progressively with the number of free male inhabitants, shall the right of representation increase, until the number of representatives shall amount to twenty-five, after the
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number and proportion of representatives shall be regulated by the legislature; provided, that no person be eligible or qualified to act as a representative unless he shall have been a citizen of one of the United States three years, and be a resident in the district three years, and in either case shall . likewise hold in his own right, in fee simple, two hundred acres of land, within the same; provided also, that a freehold of fifty acres of land in the district, having been a citizen in one of the states, and being resident in the district, or the like freehold and two years' residence in the district shall be necessary to qualify the man as an elector of representative."
Some idea of the population of the territory, at that time, may be formed from the representation the different coun- ties obtained in the territorial legislature. Washington had two, Hamilton seven, Ross four, Adams two, Wayne three, and St. Clair, Randolph, Knox and Jefferson one each. New Connecticut was a part of the territory, gov- erned under the laws of Connecticut and would have been entitled to a representative, but had none because, as St. Clair said, he did not know of population enough in the dis- trict to entitle it to a member.
The legislature met at the appointed place, February 4, 1799. Before this time the people of several localities in the territory had been clamorous for the erection of new coun- ties, but their desires had been refused by St. Clair. The territorial legislature having met, the matter now came be- fore that body and was a disturbing element between the executive and the general assembly. Several acts were passed creating new counties, or changing the boundaries of those already existing. The legislature insisted that, after the governor had laid out the country into counties and town- ships, as he had already done, it was competent for them to pass laws, altering, dividing, and multiplying them at their plea- sure, to be submitted to him for his approbation ; that when the territory had been divided into counties by the governor, his executive power was exhausted and any alterations there- after required, were to be made by the legislature, with his assent. But St. Clair would not assent to any laws changing the boundaries of the counties, or erecting new ones. Six acts of the kind, passed at this session, were vetoed by him. The governor made a speech to the legislature, on the day of its adjournment, in which he said:
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"I am truly sensible, gentlemen, of the inconveniences that follow from a great extension being given to counties; they cannot, however, be constructed while the settlements are otherwise, and the inconveniences are not lessened, but rather increased by being made very small, with respect to the number of inhabitants. The expenses which necessarily attend the establishment of counties fall light when divided among a number, but become a heavy burden when they must be borne by a few, and the inconvenience of attending the courts as jurors and witnesses, which are sometimes complained of, are increased nearly in the same ratio as the counties are multiplied within the same bounds. There is yet another reason, gentlemen, why those acts were not as- sented to. It appears to me that the erecting of new coun- ties is the proper business of the executive. It is, indeed, provided that the boundaries of counties, may be altered by the legislature; but that is quite a different thing from origi- nally establishing them. They must exist before they can be altered, and the provision is expressed that the governor shall proceed from time to time, as it may become necessary to lay them out. While I shall ever most studiously avoid encroaching on any of the rights of the legislature, you will naturally expect, gentlemen, that I should guard, with equal care, those of the executive."
Another reason given by St. Clair for his dissent to the bills for erecting new counties, was, as he said, that in some of them the present number of inhabitants could not support a county, as it was not probable that the names of every man living within the proposed boundary exceeded a hundred. St. Clair's biographer, in the St. Clair Papers, advances an- other reason for his conservatism. He says: "The greed which characterized the transactions in land, actuated those who were spectators, to seek to control the establishment of . county towns. They hoped to increase the value of their lands, as the public improvements in the way of buildings and roads, and superior advantages incidental to a county seat, would attract the better class of settlers to such a neighborhood. An illustration of this is afforded in the case of the strife in the county of Adams, to which reference has been made.
It is quite likely that the true secret of St. Clair's un- willingness to erect new counties, was, that if a large num-
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ber of them were represented in the legislature, the chance of his exercising much political influence over the body would be diminished.
DIVISION OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY
The next movement of the evolution of the territorial divisions of the Northwest Territory, was the act of congress dated May 7, 1800. This provided for the separation of the western part of the territory, and calling it the Indian ter- ritory. The division was to be made at a line beginning on the Ohio opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river; thence northerly to Fort Recovery; and thence north to an inter- section of the territorial line between the United States and Canada. This line divided the lower Michigan peninsula into two nearly equal parts, but it did not remain in force for any considerable time. The eastern division, thus created, was to remain under the existing government, and the west- ern division to be organized under a similar one.
It was also provided in the act, that when the eastern part should be formed into a state, the western boundary line should be changed, and begin at the mouth of the Great Miami river and run thence due north to the Canada line. A division of the territory into states had been contemplated in the ordinance of 1787, and this provision for changing the western boundary made the act coincide with the terms of the ordinance on the subject. Its requirements were: "There shall be formed in the said territory, not less than three, nor more than five states; and the boundaries of the states, shall become fixed and established."
The census of 1800 revealed the fact that the eastern di- vision of the territory had a population of forty-two thou- sand and although this was less than the number set in the ordinance to entitle it to admission to the Union, the people were anxious to form a state government, and made applica- tion to congress for the privilege. Much scheming was in- dulged in at the time between the adherents of the Federal- ists, and the Anti-Federalists party, each desiring to get the political advantage of the other in the formation of the new state. Each desired to have the boundaries coincide with their political majority. St. Clair was a Federalist, and was working for a state that would vote for his party. He ad-
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vocated that one be made from the territory east of a line running up from the Scioto to the northwest corner of the New Connecticut, as, in this district, a majority of the voters supported the Federalist party. But in the boundaries as they were fixed by the ordinance of 1787, not including the county of Wayne, there was a majority in favor of the Anti- Federalists. Congress was then an Anti-Federalist body, and the ordinance boundaries were left intact.
THE STATE FORMED
April 30, 1802, an enabling act was passed authorizing a constitutional convention, to form a state, from which the following extracts pertinent to this subject are taken: The inhabitants of the eastern division of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, be, and they are hereby authorized to form for themselves a constitution and state government, and to assume such names as they shall deem proper; that the said state shall consist of all the territory included within the fol- lowing boundaries, to-wit: Bounded on the east by the Pennsylvania line; on the south by the Ohio river, to the mouth of the Great Miami river; on the west by the line due north from the mouth of the Great Miami aforesaid; and on the north by an east and west line drawn through the south- erly extreme of Lake Michigan, running east, after inter- secting the due north line aforesaid, from the mouth of the Great Miami until it shall intersect, the said Lake Erie, or the territorial line, and thence, with the same, through Lake Erie, to the Pennsylvania line aforesaid:
That all part of the territory of the United States north- west of the river Ohio, heretofore included in the eastern division of said territory, and not included in the boundary herein prescribed for the said state, is hereby attached to, and made a part of the Indian territory.
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