1805
“Provided always, and it is hereby fully understood and declared by this convention, That if the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan should extend so far south, that a line drawn due east from it should not intersect Lake Erie, or if it should intersect the said Lake Erie east of the mouth of the Miami River of the lake, then, and in that case, with the assent of the Congress of the United States, the northern boundary of this state shall be established by, and extending to, a direct line, running from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the most northerly cape of the Miami Bay.”
“The eastern division” of the Northwest Territory, now organized under the name of the state of Ohio, was admitted to the Union in 1803.
1809
1816
On the eleventh of January, 1805, an act of Congress was approved, erecting the Territory of Michigan out of “all that part of the Indiana Territory which lies north of a line drawn east from the southerly bend, or extreme, of Lake Michigan, until it shall intersect Lake Erie, and east of a line drawn from the said southerly bend through the middle of said lake to its northern extremity, and thence due north to the northern boundary of the United States.” In short, the present southern peninsula of Michigan had a southern boundary as established by the Ordinance of 1787, and all that portion of the Upper Peninsula lying east of the meridian of Mackinac. Congress had admitted Ohio to the Union with a tacit recognition of the northern boundary laid down in her constitutional proviso. Geographical knowledge of the West was still so vague that this conflict of boundaries had been overlooked, and Michigan Territory was allowed a southern limit which overlapped the territory assigned to Ohio. Thus, when the southerly bend of Lake Michigan became known, a serious boundary dispute arose. Michigan claimed the ordinance was a compact which could not be broken by Congress, except by common consent; but Ohio clung to the strip of country which the constitution-makers at Chillicothe had secured for her in the eleventh hour. The wedge shaped strip in dispute averaged six miles in width, across Ohio, embraced 468 square miles, and included Toledo and the mouth of the Maumee River. May 20, 1812, Congress passed an act to determine the boundary; but owing to the impending war with Great Britain, the lines were not run until 1818, and then not satisfactorily. July 14, 1832, another act of Congress for the settlement of the northern limit of Ohio was passed. The situation of the compact had further complicated the territorial boundary when Congress attached the northeastern part of Louisiana purchase to Michigan Territory for temporary purposes of government.