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Getting
Ready for Settlement
In order for the Ohio
area to be settled properly, the various states
claiming the area had to give up their stake. According
to different charters, New York, Massachusetts and
Virginia all claimed the Ohio area, but they all
eventually surrendered their claims to Congress.
Deciding how to govern and settle the Northwest
was difficult. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson offered
a resolution that would have created ten states
out of the Northwest Territory, but Congress hesitated
because of the possibility that the new states,
combined with Kentucky, Tennessee and Vermont, could
hold more voting power than the original thirteen.
In the 1785 Land Ordinance the land of the Northwest
was divided into townships, and the surveyed land
was to be sold by the acre. The Ordinance also set
aside 1/7 of the land for veterans. In July of 1787
the Northwest Ordinance was passed creating a way
to govern the territory, and called for the creation
of three to five states. A governor would be appointed
by Congress and when 5,000 free male voters inhabited
the territory they could elect a legislature, and
when the population reached 60,000, they could apply
for statehood.
The First Authorized Settlers
The Ohio Company of
Associates was created to buy Ohio land to settle,
and in 1788 the settlers went out into Ohio and
created the town of Marietta, and two years later
Cincinnati was founded. Pennsylvanians, Virginians
and immigrants all came to settle in Ohio. Deeds
were sold to a group of French immigrants, but when
they arrived they found that their deeds were not
valid. Some of the settlers returned to France,
and some stayed and settled on land owned by the
Ohio Company land. Those who stayed created a permanent
settlement called Gallipolis. Settlers from the
British Isle of Guernsey immigrated to Ohio and
founded Guernsey County. Scotch-Irish Virginians
accounted for a large segment of the settlers as
well. Welsh immigrants coming to Ohio impacted certain
areas such as Butler County, the French town of
Gallipolis and the Welsh settlement on the Jackson
County and Gallia County border. Some immigrated
to Ohio to escape Calvinist Methodist extremes as
well as to join other Welsh immigrants. Cincinnati
soon emerged as the leading city in Ohio and was
populated with people from New Jersey, Kentucky,
New England and Virginia as well as free blacks
and Irish immigrants. In the 1830s a flood of German
immigrants settled in Cincinnati becoming the dominate
ethnic group.
Early Industry
Early on Ohio developed
a strong manufacturing core within many different
industries. Lumber, farming, minerals, clay, meatpacking,
iron and steel all proved to be important industries
for Ohio. The busy industries created a constant
and chronic labor shortage in Cincinnati during
the first half of the 19th century. This labor shortage
drew a stream of Irish and German immigrants who
provided cheap labor for the growing industries.
Religion
Ohioans were a devoutly
religious group of people, and their religious beliefs
varied greatly. Presbyterianism was the best organized
pioneer religion in Ohio, and was particularly strong
in the Miami Valley, the Scotch-Irish settlements
in eastern and southern Ohio, and among the New
Englanders. The Episcopalians, also known as the
Anglicans, had a small number of followers in the
Ohio Valley, but were influential because they attracted
people of position and wealth. The Methodists were
a very aggressive sect and by 1850 they had grown
to be the largest denomination in Ohio. The Lutheran
Church was also popular, especially among the German
immigrants and some English. The Catholic Church
catered to some German immigrants, as well as to
the Irish Catholic immigrants. Some Old Order Amish
settled in the backcountry of Ohio, and still live
there today. An interesting piece of Americana comes
from the Church of Jerusalem, of which John Chapman,
better known as Johnny Appleseed, was a member.
Johnny Appleseed roamed the Ohio frontier planting
apple orchards and befriending isolated Natives
and settlers, earning himself a position in American
history and folklore.
The War of 1812
Ohio played its own
part in the onset of the War of 1812 because of
the constant conflict between the settlers and the
Native Americans. The amount of land that the Native
Americans had to live on continued to dwindle as
more settlers moved in, and the younger Native American
men were upset with the policies of the old chiefs
who kept making deals with the settlers and ceding
land. Among these young men were Tecumseh and his
brother Lalawethika, later known as Tenskwatawa,
or the Prophet. They believed that it was time to
get rid of the white men's ways, such as whiskey
and Christianity, and return to their own traditions.
Tension rose between them and the settlers so they
moved their village to Tippecanoe (in present-day
Indiana) and named the settlement Prophetstown.
From this point Tecumseh rallied other tribes with
a goal to push the settlers eastward. Governor William
Henry Harrison kept track of Tecumseh's movements
and tried to weaken his power through treaties,
looking for ways to break up his troops. In 1811
Harrison led an army of 1,000 combined soldiers
and frontier militia along the Wabash and camped
near Prophetstown. Tecumseh told his brother not
to begin a conflict with Harrison, but Tenskwatawa
did not listen and told his warriors that they would
be immune to bullets. With this false sense of invincibility,
the Natives attacked the camp. Fighting ensued and
the Indian warriors sustained many injuries. This
battle forced Tecumseh to realize that an Indian
confederation could not take on and push back the
settlers alone, so he turned to the British. This
Indian-British alliance along with conflict in the
Northwest and the maritime conflicts with the British,
prompted the Americans to declare another war on
England. The victory of this war cemented the United
States' place as an independent country.
Continuing to Populate the Northwest
Ohio became a state in 1803
and its population continued to grow. In 1810 there
were 231,000 people living in Ohio, in 1820 that
number rose to 581,000 and by 1830 there were 938,000
people inhabiting Ohio. So where did all of these
people come from? Most of the settlers moved west
by water, using the Ohio River, Erie Canal, and
the Great Lakes. Many man-made canals were constructed
to facilitate this migration, and between 1825 and
1842 over 1,600 kilometers of canal were built in
Ohio alone, mostly by Irish immigrant laborers.
As mentioned before,
the people who populated Ohio were both immigrants
from Europe and migrants from other states, but
more specifics are needed to understand why so much
domestic migration occured. The settlers coming
from New England migrated because of hard times
brought on by British blockades and also because
of bad weather. New England suffered through a "year
without summer" where snow and freezing temperatures
hit every month for a year. After that year Ohio
and its advertised "moderate temperatures" sounded
particularly appealing and most New England migrants
settled on the Western Range. Small communities
of Quakers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania settled
on land owned by Congress. It was the Pennsylvanians
who dominated the post-Revolution population flow,
especially the Pennsylvania Germans, also known
by their popular misnomer, the Pennsylvania Dutch.
These Germans settled heavily in Stark, Wayne and
nearby areas. Jewish immigrants were present in
pre-Civil War Ohio, mainly settling in Cincinnati.
The first Jewish congregation was formed in Cincinnati
in 1824.
Significant Indigenous Religious
Movements in Ohio
There were some important
religious movements that originated in America and
effected Ohio, specifically the African American
Methodist Episcopal Church, the Campbellites and
the Mormons. Methodism did not originate in the
United States, but churches were set up specifically
for the black population, and were the leading church
for blacks in Ohio. The Campbellite following was
a truly American movement. This sect was founded
in 1820 by Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Scotch-Irish
Presbyterian ministers who were shut out of local
churches. They called for Christians of all denominations
to join them in giving up special doctrines that
divided them. The Campebllites joined with the "Christians"
of Kentucky to form a new sect called the Disciples
of Christ, popularly referred to as the Christian
Church. This denomination had ninety-two churches
and organized Hiram College in Ohio by mid-century.
The Mormons spent
a short period of time in Ohio when Sidney Rigdon,
a Campbellite and religious seeker invited Joseph
Smith and his followers to move to Ohio. Smith moved
his community to the Western Reserve of Ohio in
1831, and in 1833 a Mormon Temple was built in Kirtland.
From there Smith acquired as many as 25,000 followers,
but rumors of odd sexual behavior made some people
hostile to the Mormons so they decided to move out
west. |
