Talk:History of Ohio

Industrialization source
This can be used for the Industrialization section. I don't have the time to do it now. Falphin 5 July 2005 22:15 (UTC)

temperatures in the state of columbus Ohio on Summer time
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.82.108.240 (talk • contribs) 02:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

mostly it is around 9,000 degrees farieghnheitititi — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.56.102.50 (talk) 19:11, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Naming convention
I've proposed a standard form for naming articles on Ohio school districts: Naming conventions (Ohio school districts), which could easily be extended to apply to districts in other states. I'd welcome some feedback on this. PedanticallySpeaking 16:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment
The Wikipedia article List_of_U.S._states_by_date_of_statehood contains a footnote saying "Congress extended federal laws to Ohio on February 19, 1803, but no formal date of statehood was set by the act of admission or a later resolution, as occurred with all other new states. On August 7, 1953, Congress passed a law retroactively making Ohio a state as of March 1, 1803, the date when Ohio's first legislature convened." This begs the question of whether or not Ohio was considered a state before 1953. When and how did Ohio actually become a state? When did Congress first offficial recognize Ohio's statehood? Does anyone have the answer? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Postalmaniac (talk • contribs) 20:34, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Early 20th century
I added a section about the Klu Klux Klan in the early 20th century in Ohio and the Grand Dragon of Indiana. --Margrave1206 (talk) 02:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I am concerned about the balance of the section, as it is only two sentences long and makes some rather wild claims not supported by the provided reference. Instead of removing the section outright (per WP:PROVEIT,) I've decided to give the section the benefit of the doubt.  Please consider improving it by adding more context- perhaps the section could be renamed "Race relations in Ohio" or something like that.  As it stands, the section comes out of nowhere, and is of little use to the reader.  --Confiteordeo (talk) 22:40, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Trivia
Someone deleted my section with a valid link about the KKK in Ohio, they called it trivia. It has been restored however have can historical fact be trivia when the whole Ohio article is nothing but unimportant trivia. I notice that the historical section doesn't even cover the harsh anti black migration tactics used by Ohio. I imagine uncomfortable subjects are considered trivia.--Margrave1206 (talk) 03:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I notice that your edits don't even cover the "harsh anti black migration tactics used by Ohio," either. I've reverted your edit because I feel that it adds nothing to the article without proper historical context (and borders on copyright infringement from your source.)  Please consider adding a more contextual and balanced section instead.  --Confiteordeo (talk) 05:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It wasnt you that removed the section unless you have another name and said it was nothing more than triva. Why write anything about the ""harsh anti black migration tactics used by Ohio," obviously there is no racism in Ohio so did it even happen? I am sure the people of Ohio are blamless. I looked at the page history. Since several of you "editors" seem to be the rulers of the article and want to protect the image of Ohio at all cost, it does no good to add valid information. Like I said you prove that you are bias and want a white American view of history. How very America.This article is a disgrace and shows a non neutral view of the few. It should be deleted.--Margrave1206 (talk) 14:55, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Lead does not cover article
The lead is devoted mostly to prehistoric and Native American cultures - it is supposed to address the entire article. There should be a separate section on ancient history.--Parkwells (talk) 19:23, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely. It's like most of the article has been converted into a history of Native American peoples. See my section tags and comments below. Holy (talk) 18:57, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * As it stands today, the first paragraph, one of three, is about prehistory. That's proportionally too much; it's worth a sentence, not a paragraph. Then it skips from thousands of years ago to mid-18th century, skipping about a century of written history since LaSalle discovered the Ohio River. The bigger problem is that the lead is way short.  We're allowed 5 paragraphs, and it's supercilious to think we can summarize ~350 years of history of a state into that.  See my comments below in the section, What is History of Ohio?. Sbalfour (talk) 16:52, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * For a rather good lead, see History of Indiana. Sbalfour (talk) 18:54, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I’ve answered the objection that the lead absorbs itself in ancient history. It’s still inadequate, more to come. If you can cobtribute something, stick it in, and I’ll work with it. Sbalfour (talk) 00:04, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

KKK in Ohio
In the 20th century the Klu Klux Klan had fifty thousand members, I think Ohio must still have race problems for the article to be so bias. The people who live on this article white wash history, but what can I expect from some. numbers. --Margrave1206 (talk) 23:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * yeh TRUE ALSO OHIO IS ALWAYAS HATED BY M  SO BYYYYYYYYYYY 81.111.60.67 (talk) 17:57, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Klan history,
I added this, I changed it alot. I also found another ref for Ohio lib. We need to add a section dealing with race in Ohio, why would the klan do so well in a Nothern State? There must be issues in Ohio that are worthy of this article.

In the early 20th century the Klu Klux Klan had a great deal of control, and it was supported by the people of Ohio. It went unchecked for many years and was at it's most powerful period between 1910 to 1930. During a meeting in Summit County the Klan had fifty thousand members attend, at the time it was the largest chapter in the United States of America. A vast amount of officials of Ohio's state and city governments were in the KKK. Amoung them were the mayor of Akron, as for every facit of small government.Licking County, had 70,000 people attend a Klan konklave during 1923 and 1925 which was an outstanding number. There power started to decline due to the brutal rape of Madge Oberholtzer by the well-liked David Stephenson, the Grand Dragon of Indiana and sometime resident of Buckeye Lake. Due to there decline in power they still exist in smaller numbers. --Margrave1206 (talk) 23:55, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

---Two things I know of occurred to me upon reading this: 1) Many smaller cities in Ohio were kind of self-segregating for a long time and much of the genetic makeup of the countryside considered itself almost completely white up until very recently. The graduating class of my high school in 2010 was almost completely white except for one Asian, one Hispanic, & one girl who was probably about 1/16 black. The other hundred or so kids were white. And most of the parents, 70s & 80s kids, were also quite racist. I was only starting to see more races among the Elementary school kids in my last couple of years. Many of those people are still pretty racist, although most of them are more-so passive about it.

2) A lot of the escaped slaved went through Ohio on the underground railroad, so it was targeted hard with anti-black propaganda in order to discourage this. I also know one escaped slave woman was caught by head hunters and killed herself & her children. It was toted by different newspapers & religious groups in the state both as an argument that she was barbaric, out of her mind & needed to be controlled, as well as a strong argument against slavery.

Hope this helps. Bobbotronica (talk) 17:05, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Tags added to "Prehistoric indigenous peoples" section
I added a "copy edit" tag (for typography, misuse of punctuation [esp. ampersands], inconsistent syntax, awkward usage, and others) and a "summarize section" tag (too detailed, not encyclopedic, could be better covered in multiple separate articles). I started to copy-edit this section, and made a lot of progress, but realized that it is a massive effort, and that it needs a lot more work than I originally envisioned. It reads like a list of notes that a research student collected from multiple sources, but did not distill into a cohesive, encyclopedic summary. This amount of information and detail can probably be better presented in MULTIPLE separate articles. There are numerous typography errors, syntax errors, usage errors, awkward phrasing, non-parallel structure, and so forth. Much of this information could probably be better placed in different articles, such as articles about the histories of native peoples in various regions of North America. If anyone can add some of this description to the tag, or a link to the talk page, as appropriate, please do so. Thank you. Holy (talk) 18:55, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

British Empire
This is an anemic and stilted section. At least 9 items are significant here:
 * Ohio as Ohio Country, and how Britain exercised sovereignty over it
 * rise of Miami capital Kekionga as center of British trade and influence
 * Royal Proclamation of 1763
 * Pontiac's Rebellion
 * Treaty of Fort Stanwix
 * Dunmore's War (though Battle of Point Pleasant may be better known than the war itself)
 * Treaty of Camp Charlotte
 * Logan's Lament speech at Camp Charlotte
 * Fort Gower Resolves

There are at least 5 notable people:
 * Ottawa Chief Pontiac
 * Marshall Jeffrey Amhurst
 * Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia
 * Shawnee Chief Cornstalk
 * James (John) Logan, indian orator and nominal chief

Two more minor figures compete for mention:
 * Colonel Andrew Lewis of the Virginia militia, victor at Battle of Point Pleasant
 * British Colonel Henry Bouquet, victor at Battle of Bushy Run

The text mentions Henry Bouquet, but none of the above five principals by title or role. I think I can name at least half a dozen other people in Ohio or elsewhere during this period whose actions were more important to the future of Ohio than this man. For example, George Rogers Clark, who helped write the Fort Gower Resolves. We need to heave that name.

The text says, "Lord Dunmore constructed Fort Gower on the Hocking River in 1774." So?? This bit of crafty cruft shows you found a factoid, but don't have a clue what it means. Yank it, or justify it. Sbalfour (talk) 08:56, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Splitting the article
I concur with other editors' opinions that someone dumped their research notes into the encyclopedia. Here's my opinion for restoring some reasonable context for the article.

1. I think we ought to cut off the article at about 350 years ago, ~1650AD, around the time of the Beaver Wars. Everything before that, summarize in a decent paragraph. - Done enough

2. split Indigenous peoples section off into a separate article "History of Native Americans of the Midwest", or merge into article Native Americans in the United States or article Midwestern United States - Done (merged into latter article)

2a. the Beaver Wars sub-section could be merged into the existing Beaver Wars sub-section, but the level of detail is rather more than a summary article can support and the quirky composition needs some work. I'd suggect merging it into the Beaver Wars main article, where I suspect most of it will simply disappear (duplicate).

2b. section Native populations today should be merged into article List of Native American peoples in the United States - Done

3. merge list of Ohio Indian place names into article List of place names of Native American origin in Ohio - Done

4. merge the Genetic studies section/paragraph into the Hopewell Tradition article - Done

5. restore a brief section on Beaver Wars to the article (3-5 modest paragraphs, no more) - Done

6. Restore an even briefer section on Native American/mound builder history to the article (1 good paragraph?) - Done

Sbalfour (talk) 01:33, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Revisionist history: Marietta
The text says: "...to establish Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory." And it is supported by (3) citations. That would be in 1788. Clarksville, IN was established in 1783 on a land grant from the U.S. state of Virginia, which later ceded its territorial claims to the United States. If that wasn't an American settlement, what was it?

Then there was the Vincennes Tract, which was ceded to the French by the Plankashaw Indians by means of a 'gift deed' in 1742. It was acquired by the British by the terms of the Treaty of Paris 1763, then claimed by the colony of Virginia by right of conquest by George Rogers Clark in the Illinois campaign 1778/9, then formally ceded by Britain to the United States by the Treaty of Paris 1783. The state of Virginia ceded its claims west of Appalachia to what became the Northwest Territory in 1784. By an act of Congress in 1791, the old French land titles were extinguished, but the land claims of Vincennes settlers were recognized by the issuance of new titles and deeds to tracts not exceeding 400 acres to anyone who could claim the land by means of homesteading or other improvement. If the settlers in Vincennes weren't Americans in 1783, what were they?

Then what of Kaskaskia (1703), Cahokia (1699), St. Louis (1764) and New Orleans (1718)? St. Louis and New Orleans weren't in the Northwest Territory, but Kaskaskia and Cahokia were. Were they not Americans in 1776? How about 1783? If not, then when? If they were not Americans then, what were they?

The sources supporting Marietta are provincial - every one wants to be the first, but only the ones who were there first, ARE first. Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes were first, second and third; Clarksville was fourth, and Marietta was Fifth.

Ah, and there is one more settlement to consider, if you know your Northwest Territory history, really know it. In 1786, Fort Finney (renamed Fort Steuben in 1791) was established in Indiana on the Ohio river, and a settlement grew up around the fort, to be named Jeffersonville around 1801 when it was then Indiana Territory. But that settlement was there in 1787 before the incorporation of the Northwest Territory - it just didn't have a name independent of its namesake fort. So Marietta wasn't fifth - it was putatively sixth, bumped by a settlement without a name.

Sbalfour (talk) 19:57, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

What is History of Ohio?
The opening sentence of the lead says "The history of Ohio includes many thousands of years of human activity." Urrrp? That's as expansive as it is meaningless. We know hardly anything at all before about 1670; all we have is artifacts in the archaeological record. Lasalle discovered the Ohio River in the late 17th century and that's the earliest anyone knows anything about Ohio. The lead fails to give the date or even period when Ohio became a state. We need to re-think and rewrite here.

The format of the opening sentence of a wikipedia article has the form: "A foo is a bar, baz, quux". For a history article, the antecedent translates to a time period. The time period is defined by what we expect to happen. And that leads to multiple definitions for history of Ohio. I think most people come here looking for Ohio as a state. It'd be quite plausable to start the history of Ohio in 1803. But states don't come from nowhere, and Indians didn't create the state of Ohio, European settlers did, so a plausable history starts with the historical record, i.e. when the first European explorers arrived. In another context, the archaeological rather than recorded, there were Native American cultures in the middle ages and Renaissanbce and evidence of human presence in Ohio since the end of the last ice age. Calling the archaeological record "history" is tenuous. I propose an opening paragraph as follows:

The history of Ohio as a state began in 1803 when it was admitted to the union as the 17th state of the United States. The recorded history of Ohio began in the late 17th century when French explorers from Canada reached the Ohio River, from which the "Ohio Country" took its name, a river the Iroquois called O-y-o, "great river". Before that, Native Americans speaking Algonquin languages had inhabited Ohio and the central midwestern United States for hundreds of years until displaced by the Iroquois in the latter part of the 17th century. Other cultures not generally identified as "Indians", including the Hopewell "mound builders", preceded them. Human history in Ohio began a few millenia after formation of the Bering land bridge about 14,500BCE - see Clovis Culture.

Sbalfour (talk) 08:03, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Ohio Territory?
The lead twice mentions Ohio [Tt]erritory. There never was such a thing as Ohio Territory; there was "Ohio Country" under French and later British sovereignty, and the Northwest Territory under U.S. sovereignty. We need to fix this. Sbalfour (talk) 19:16, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Done Sbalfour (talk) 23:02, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Recent Edits in Native American Section
I can live with the rewrite, as I am well aware that I'm not very good at this & the length was mainly the result of me trying to figure all this out myself over a long period. But I think there are several mistakes made & some things written out that should not have been:

The Opening Statement:

a river the Iroquois called O-y-o, "great river". The word is Ohi:yo & the belief that it translates to "Great River" or "Beautiful River" is Folk Etymology. I own dictionaries in Cayuga & Seneca. Cayuga translates Ohi:yo as "Good Flowing Stream," but didn't break the word down. As far as I can tell, my translation of "O-hih-gihedenyo" for either "River that Flows Forever" or "River that Gives Forever" seemed the only likely translation that I could pin down.

Before that, Native Americans speaking Algonquin languages had inhabited Ohio and the central midwestern United States for hundreds of years until displaced by the Iroquois in the latter part of the 17th century. Algonquians are the oldest continuous culture in the east with some settlements dating back about 10,000 years, I want to say, but the above statement is inaccurate. Ohio was populated by Iroquoians (Erie), Algonquians (Miami, Mascouten) & Siouans (Fort Ancients/ Ofogoula, Monongahela) when the Iroquois Confederacy conquered them during that time.

Prehistoric Peoples:

'''The Fort Ancient culture also built mounds, including some effigy mounds. Researchers first considered the Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio to be an Adena mound... Scholars believe it may have been a more recent work of Fort Ancient people.''' I am uncertain as to which culture actually built it, but I know it wasn't Fort Ancient. The one research paper I was able to find on the burial mounds also brings up the fact that, after the Hopewell collapsed, their descendants continued to repurpose the already existing mounds for a time instead of building new ones. The confusion may be because I discovered that there is a Fort Ancient burial mound a short walk away from the Serpent Mound & within the same park. The Fort Ancient mounds are actually smaller, consisting of a cairn made of stone slabs, covered over with fill rock, then dirt. The older mounds are just dirt- not counting the ones which were used as temples, which did contain limestone fill rock.

ADD: You ought to put back, at least, a statement that the Hopewells evolved into all modern Siouan-speaking peoples. If you want scientific evidence, there was a project from someone named Rankin who was studying how Siouan languages evolved & how the five Dhegiha-Siouan tribes migrated from the Ohio River Valley to the Ozarks. That would come between Hopwells & European Contact. Something else I think ought to be added, which I had neglected to before, was the size of Hopewell era settlements. I don't know if anyone knows of any resources to use which speak on the subject, but I heard they are estimated to have had populations in the thousands.

'''Thereafter, the Iroquois claimed Ohio and West Virginia lands as hunting grounds. For several decades, the land was nearly uninhabited.''' Ohio, Michigan & Indiana. It was mainly the Shawnee who went into West Virginia. The Iroquois did conquer a huge swathe of Virginia during the Beaver Wars, but that was a largely unrelated circumstance. So far as I can tell, it was revenge motivated.

Beaver Wars:

In 1608, French explorer and founder of Quebec City Samuel Champlain sided with the Wabanaki Confederacy and their allies the Huron people living along the St. Lawrence River The Wabanaki Confederacy didn't exist yet, nor were the tribes who became them in that location. Champlain allied with the Huron, surviving St. Lawrence Iroquois, the Ottawa River Algonquian tribes & the Montagnais & they were mostly fighting the Mohawk, who were acting on their own.

'''The result was a lasting enmity by the Iroquois Confederacy towards the French, which caused them to side with the Dutch fur traders coming up the Hudson River in about 1626. The Dutch offered better prices than the French and traded firearms, hatchets and knives to the Iroquois in exchange for furs''' The Dutch claimed Iroquois territory because they entered it first. The Dutch also did not give the Iroquois firearms. I have a resource that brings up a great deal of confusion & fear from the Dutch as to when & where the Iroquois got firearms. They definitely got them from the English, as the Iroquois helped the English fight the French Huron allies with their firearms at the same time that that prior reference happened.

ADD: The tribes who were known to exist in Ohio at the time of the Beaver Wars-- Erie, Mascouten, Miami, Fort Ancient (of which the later discovered Ofogoula/ Mosopelea/ Houspe were apparently a member) & Monongahela.

War of 1812:

ADD: One thing that I would like to try to get in here is the Shawnee War (1811-1813). I was, apparently, very wrong about my statements concerning that conflict previously & I had come onto the page to try to fix them when I discovered the page had been rewritten. Apparently, Tecumseh joined forces with the British when the War of 1812 broke out & the two conflicts merged. Tecumseh was also killed in Ohio, not the Ozarks.
 * Excuse me? Tecumseh was killed at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada, near Chatham, nowhere near Ohio.Sbalfour (talk) 02:15, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Also, I don't know if we can add back my "Native Americans Today" section, or if people think it belongs in another area of Wikipedia. I guess that's up to you guys.

Bobbotronica (talk) 15:48, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Revisionist history: Martins Ferry
The text says, ...to establish Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory., buttressed by (3) citations. But in fact Martin's Ferry established ~1779 was the first permanent European/American settlement in Ohio. It wasn't always the same town, or even always a town, and it moved around a bit before being platted. But the area opposite Fort Henry (WV) was continuously occupied from that time, and definitively qualifies as a "settlement". It was a squatters settlement. The history is little known and unrecognized even among scholars. In fact there was significant settlement along a broad stretch of the Ohio and its westerly branches in southern and eastern Ohio prior to the Northwest Territory. Marietta was the first town, certainly not the first settlement. This Ebenezer Sproat/American Pioneers to the Northwest Territory stuff has been creeping into the encyclopedia rather demonstratively, and to no good end, because they're not that prominent actually. It smacks of someone with a personal interest.Sbalfour (talk) 02:26, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Objectivity
In reading this article I've noticed a number of places where the tone and viewpoint lack objectivity.


 * Road to Fallen Timbers. Banks of the Maumee, Ohio, August 1794. Anthony Wayne commanded the Army, enlarged in 1792 and formed into the Legion (now 1st and 3d Infantry Regiments). He trained it into a tough combat team to beat the Indians of the Northwest who had twice whipped us. The Legion advanced into Indian country, feeling its way cautiously. On 20 August 1794 it tracked down the foe, routed him from behind a vast windfall, and destroyed his warriors. Thus the way cleared for the new nation to expand into the Ohio Valley.

Note the part I highlighted who had twice whipped us. Who exactly is "us" referring to? Not the Native Americans, obviously, as they are the one's doing the "whipping". Clearly the author views himself as part of the "us", or rather a descendant of those who were being "whipped". And of course the Native Americans are now part of "us". So what we have with this statement as boils down to "us was beating us".

Also the phrase "whipped us" is a very poor choice of words. What were the Native American's doing? literally whipping the other guys with lashes or something? As the previous commenter said in regard to another matter " It smacks of someone with a personal interest.Sbalfour" Which is to say it is not objective. TwelveGreat (talk) 20:13, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Cut content: Indigenous crops
I found the following list to be excessive for this page, but wanted to preserve it since it could be helpful elsewhere. All the following formatting, particularly the asterisk, is taken straight from the wikitext I removed. --BDD (talk) 21:40, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Wild native plants that Native Americans were known to, or may have likely, utilized for food are as follows: acorn*, American lotus, American lovage, Atlantic camas Root, bamboo, bearberry, beech nut*, bergamot, black cherry, black chokeberry, black nightshade*, black raspberry, black walnut, blueberry, bog rosemary*, butternut, calamint, cattail, chestnut*, chokecherry, common milkweed, Cow parsnip root*, crabapple, Cranberry, creek plum, cucumber magnolia fruit, dandelion, deerberry, Dewberry, downy wood Mint, eastern hemlock and other pine species (pine nuts, nettles as spice, cuttings for spruce tea/ beer, sap as chewing gum ingredient and spruce tips for jelly), eastern redbud, eastern red columbine nectar*, eastern yampah, elderberry*, false solomon's seal, filé (sassafras), gaylussacias, German rampion, ginger, goldenrod shoots, gooseberry, greenbriar, groundcherry*, hackberry, haw, hazelnut, hickory nut, hogpeanut, honewort, honey locust, Indian cucumber, Indian potato, Jack in the Pulpit root*, Jerusalem artichoke, Juniper berry*, Kentucky coffeetree*, ferns* (including lady fern and cinnamon fern), lake cress, leatherleaf*, licorice root, lily bulbs, maple (syrup and sugar), mayapple*, milkvetch root*, morning glory root*, northern bayberry, papaw, partridgeberry, pepperweed, persimmon, pincherry, pokeweed*, prairie tea* red currant, red mulberry, rock cress, rowan berry, samphire greens, sand cherry, serviceberry, solomon's seal*, sourwood flowers, spicebush laurel*, spikenard*, strawberry, strawberry blite, sumac, sweet anise, sweetflag*, toothwort, tuckahoe, tupelo fruit, viburnum berries (including American cranberrybush, nannyberry and blackhaw), Virginian dwarf plantain, Virginian sweetspire seeds, wapato, water horehound, waterleaf, water parsnip*, wild carrot, wild chervil*, wild grape (juice only), wild green bean, wild onion (including nodding onion, ramps and meadow garlic), wild peas*, wild plum, wild rice, wild rose (Illinois and swamp roses), wintercress, wintergreen (berries and leaves), wood sorrel* and yellow buckeye*


 * Asterisks follow if potential risk of poison, or easy confusion for poisonous lookalike.