It was several years before
the survey of the new Western Reserve Empire was completed. The
base lines of the survey were the western boundary of
Pennsylvania, as determined ten years before (1786), and the
parallel 41° latitude north as now (1796) run for the first time
and extending west from Pennsylvania 120 miles. From this base
line, lines were run north and south, five miles apart, and later
cross lines, parallel to the base line, were run, five miles
apart, thus making twenty-four townships across, east and west,
and twelve, north and south, in the deepest place, that is on the
extreme east. Each township was therefore twenty-five miles
square. The townships, east and west, were numbered as "ranges,"
and from the base line north as "towns." Cleveland, for instance,
was in Range 2, from the Pennsylvania line, and town 7 from the
base line. The southern line of the Reserve, 41° north latitude,
is often confused, by writers, including many historians, with the
Geographer's Line which was 4o° 38' 02° latitude north, the gap
between the two lines being approximately twenty-five miles, and
according to recent researches in government archives by Mr.
Albion M. Dyer, Curator of the Western Reserve Historical Society,
the famous Seven Ranges running south from the Geographer's Line
were not extended north until 1800 and 1801, when, under the
direction of Rufus Putnam, then surveyor general, they were
continued to the southern line of the Western Reserve, thus adding
four townships to each range. The Geographer's Line was extended
west to the Ninth range, where it met the Indian boundary line of
the Greenville Treaty, the line extending from Fort Laurens
through Loramie's Station to Fort Recovery.
The lands of the Connecticut
Land Company were drawn by the purchasers in four separate drafts,
in 1798, 1802, 1807, and 1809. The deeds were made to the
allotment shareholders, by the trustees of the Company, and with
the last draft and deed allotment the Company was dissolved after
being in existence fourteen years.
As a land speculation,
however, the Connecticut Land purchase was not what was expected
of it. Like the Ohio Company, the Scioto Company, the Symmes
Purchase, and the French Colony, the Western Reservers had their
difficulties and disappointments. The ideas in 1795 concerning the
southern shore of Lake Erie, dating from the old French days, had
not been corrected; and the Connecticut Company supposed before
the surveys were completed, that they were buying 4,000,000 acres
of land. The survey proved that they bought less than 3,000,000
acres. Instead of thirty cents an acre they had paid more than
forty cents. Nearly a fourth of their supposed purchase lay
beneath the waters of Lake Erie. But greater troubles arose over
the question of the political jurisdiction of this newly acquired
domain. It was so serious as to even threaten to deprive them of
their property altogether.
We
cannot follow the details of the political dilemma into which the
Western Reserve had fallen. These details may be found in the
published accounts by Whittlesey and Hinsdale, the most reliable
authorities upon this subject. Connecticut had sold to the Land
Company the juridical and territorial right, as well as the soil,
of the tract. But where was to rest the government of the new
territory ? " So little was known," says Whittlesey, "at this
time, of the respective powers of the State and the United States,
under the Constitution of 1787, that many of the parties thought
the Land Company had received political authority and could found
a new State. They imagined themselves, like William Penn, to be
proprietors, coupled with the rights of self government." Indeed
one of the toasts at the Conneaut Landing celebration was "the
State of New Connecticut," which they had in mind, and believed
they might organize. The "Reservers" had unquestionably passed out
from under the government of Connecticut. On the other hand they
had not become subservient to the jurisdiction of the United
States, as their territory had never been ceded to the national
government. The Western Reserve, therefore, was politically sui
generis, it was a political orphan, anxiously seeking to be
adopted by some governmental parentage. Governor St. Clair had
included all that part of the Reserve lying east of the Cuyahoga
River in his outlines of Washington County, which he organized
July 26, 1788. In 1796 he included the whole Reserve in Wayne
County which had its county seat at Detroit. But the new settlers
of the Reserve rightly denied any such territorial jurisdiction.
On January 27, 1797, the stockholders of the company, in a meeting
at Hartford, instructed the directors and trustees to apply to the
General Assembly for an act creating the Western Reserve into an
entire and distinct county, with proper and suitable laws. But if
such application was made, the Connecticut legislature took no
action in the matter. It appeared unwilling to assume the
political custody of a child so far from home. In the following
October (1797), the stockholders gave the directors and trustees
full authority to pursue such measures as they deemed best
calculated to procure legal and practical government over the
territory belonging to the company. Almost at the same time, the
Connecticut assembly authorized its senators in Congress to
execute in the name of Connecticut, a deed releasing to the United
States the jurisdiction of the Western Reserve. But Congress
refused to take action accepting the proffered cession. Meantime
the Western Reserve, an outlaw indeed, was "calling for help more
and more loudly," first upon the State of Connecticut and then
upon the national Congress. But all in vain.
