Portal:Ohio/Selected Articles/9



The Toledo War (1835–1836), also known as the Ohio-Michigan War, was the almost entirely bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan. The dispute originated from varying interpretations of conflicting state and federal legislation, passed between 1787 and 1805, which in turn resulted largely from a poor understanding of the location of certain features of the Great Lakes. This caused the governments of Ohio and Michigan to both claim sovereignty over a 468 square mile (1,210 km²) region along the border, now known as the Toledo Strip. When Michigan pressed for statehood in the early 1830s it sought to include the disputed territory within its boundaries but Ohio's Congressional delegation was able to halt Michigan's admission to the Union. Beginning in 1835 both sides passed legislation meant to force the other side's capitulation. Ohio's governor Robert Lucas and Michigan's then 24-year-old "Boy governor" Stevens T. Mason were both unwilling to cede jurisdiction of the Strip, so they raised militias and helped institute criminal penalties for citizens submitting to the other state's authority. Both militias were mobilized and sent to positions on opposite sides of the Maumee River near Toledo, but there was little interaction between the two sides besides mutual taunting. The single military confrontation of the "war" ended with a report of shots being fired into the air, incurring no casualties.