HOLY TOLEDO - FIGHTING OVER SWAMPLAND

I would say 1835 was, like most years, a revolutionary year in America. North of the Rio Grande  pro-slavery gringo emigrants rebelled against Mexican anti-slavery laws. In Boston, five thousand  white supremacists broke into a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, and dragged abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison through the streets at the end of a rope (above, center).

 In South Carolina 36 slaves and one 60 year old free-black carpenter were hanged for allegedly organizing a slave revolt (above). Meanwhile, far to the north, along the shores of Lake Erie, free whites did their very best to start a war over possession of 268 square miles of swamp known as “The Toledo Strip”.

In truth, the Great Black Swamp was what film maker Alfred Hitchcock would call a "magoffin'. It was not what people were really fighting over, even though it was what people were fighting over. It was not even much of a swamp by Louisiana standards.

It was great only because it occupied a swath of land 40 miles wide and 120 miles long, in the northwest corner the new state of Ohio – which was a little far north for a swamp.

It was a remnant of the ice ages, a collection of ponds and marshes interspersed with drumlins, all filled and drained by the 130 mile long Maumee River, which rose from the high ground around Fort Wayne, Indiana and fed into Lake Erie.  It's only claim to fame was that it formed a natural barrier between the state of Ohio and the territory of Michigan. The Black Swamp provided a bumper crop of mosquitoes each summer, and they, and the malaria they carried, made life difficult for any intrepid surveyors who might set up their theodolites upon such soggy ground.

The first real attempt to draw the border through this "mish marsh" was made in 1817, when Former Ohio Territorial Governor and U.S. Surveyor General Edward Tiffin (above), hired surveyor William Harris to mark the southern boundary of Michigan Territory.

According to the “Harris Line” the mouth of the Maumee River was in Michigan, and just blow the northern edge of the swamp.  In 1818 Ohio responded by hiring John Fulton to survey the border, which he found five miles further north, avoiding the swamp by going above it. 

Taken together the two lines bracketed the head of Great Black Swamp. And while the desire of each surveyor to avoid all those mosquitoes was understandable, the residents of Ohio and Michigan were confused as to where the border between them actually lay. They appealed to Washington, D.C.  But abiding by the political rule that whatever you do will make somebody angry with you, the Federal politicians decided to do nothing. After all, nobody would fight for ownership of a swamp.

Then in 1825 the Erie Canal (above) opened, connecting the port of New York City with the Great Lakes. It proved to be such an economic revolution that plans were immediately drawn up for a port at the mouth of the Maumee River, and a canal past the swamp to high ground at Fort Wayne, Indiana - Hoosier statehood having been granted in 1816. The dreamers then envisioned a canal from Fort Wayne southwest to the head of navigation on the Wabash River, at Lafayette. From there boats could carry the bounty of Hoosier farms to the Ohio River, thence to the Mississippi, New Orleans and the world.   

Those canals would make the port at Toledo (above, which had been established at the mouth of the Maumee River) as the hub of transportation for the entire center of the continent. A Toledo lawyer, John Fitch, noted that already it was the general opinion that “no place on the lake except Buffalo will rival it.” 

The politically active residents of Michigan Territory and the state of Ohio both began to organize. And Michigan residents became convinced Ohio politicians were plotting to steal Toledo, Michigan from them. Which was true.

The politics finally solidified when hot-headed 23 year old Stephen Mason (above) was appointed Territorial Governor of Michigan. He was a gift from President Andrew Jackson, a man who appreciated hot heads.

Mason (above, left,  in the dark top hat)  rallied his followers by saying, "...we are on the side of justice…we cannot fail to maintain our rights against the encroachments of a powerful neighboring state.” And on 12 February, 1835,  Governor Mason issued the “Pains and Penalties Act”,  making it illegal for a non-Michigan resident to enforce Ohio law in Toledo, Michigan Territory.

The Cleveland, Ohio newspapers called the Michigan claim to Toledo “as absurd as it is ridiculous.” And on 23 February, the defiant Ohio General Assembly, playing to their own base, voted to “run the border” of the Fulton Line -  meaning to mark it again as Toledo, Ohio, with stone posts that clearly said so. 

Then on April Fool’s day Michigan held  elections in the Toledo Strip. One week later, on 6 April, Ohio held competing elections in the Toledo Strip. Somebody was going to have to disappoint their supporters

Two days later a Michigan Country sheriff and an armed posse of 40 men rode into Toledo to enforce the Penalties Act. Several men snuck into the home of Benjamin Franklin Stickney (above), a major in the Ohio militia, who was either an “Ohio patriot” or a "Phio Nut" - depending on which side of the border you lived on.  

Now, even allowing for dysfunctional parenting, the level of strangeness displayed by Benjamin Stickney is staggering.  This respected member of the Ohio community and one of the founders of Toledo, named his eldest son “Number One” and his younger son “Number Two”. Stickney also had a daughter, and we can just call her “Light Sleeper”.

You see, on the night of 8 April, 1835,  Miss Stickney was awakened by a noise, and stepped into the hall to investigate. A creeping Michigan deputy clamped a hand over the startled child’s mouth, and held her silent, lest she shout a warning to her father.  Alas, Benjamin Stickney would not have heard her, as he was not at home. So two of his house guests were arrested and taken north for arraignment. Two days later they were released on bail. Or ransom, depending your state of residence and mind.

In handbills and letters to Ohio newspapers Major Stickney inflated the posse to 300 men “armed with muskets and bayonets".  He claimed the deputies had tried to gouge out his eyes (he wasn't there)  and had “throttled” his daughter.  He urged his fellow buckeyes to “turn out en masse to protect  their northern border and restrain the savage barbarity of the hordes of the north.”  You see, Major Stickney had a lot of money invested in Toledo, Ohio. 

Ohio Governor Robert Lucas (above), another Jackson Democrat, sent 40 men to guard his two surveyors "running the border line" - 29 year old Colonel Jonathan Emmerson Fletcher, and Colonel Sebried Dodge. 

The governor then went further and ordered the 100,000 members of the state militia to assemble in the tiny town of Perryville, Ohio (above), just up the Maumee River from Toledo. Only 10,000 actually responded,  and most of them never got to Perryville, because they got lost in the swamp.

Meanwhile on Sunday, 21 April a 30 man Michigan posse caught the Ohio “line runners” relaxing in camp at a cross roads bordering a field owned by Michigan Militia Colonel Eli Phillips (above).   Most of the buckeyes broke for the woods and escaped, but nine were caught in the open. And when the badgers  fired a volley over their heads the buckeyes wisely surrendered. 

All nine were arrested for violating the “Pains and Penalties Act”.  And on Monday morning six were granted bail and two more were released with just a warning to behave.  The only Ohioan who remained in jail was Jonathan Fletcher, the hot head surveyor, who refused to post bail “on principle.”  In the annals of Michigan this encounter was memorialized as the “Battle of Phillip’s Corner” (above). The whiff of gunpowder brought a degree of sanity back to Governor Mason, who suddenly discovered he was pretty far out on a political limb. And in the spirit of good will he suspended enforcement of his Pains and Penalties Act. 

But now it was the Ohio legislature’s turn to appease their base. Kidnapping was already illegal in Ohio, but buckeye politicians now felt it necessary to pass a new law providing hard labor for kidnapping anyone from Ohio. And they made Toledo (above) the capital of a new Ohio county.

In Toledo one observer noted “Men (were) galloping about – guns getting ready – wagons being filled with people and hurrying off, and everybody in commotion “ The little town of just 1,250 citizens had become a magnet for every nut case, political hot head and pugnacious drifter in the old Northwest Territories, looking for a fight.

 In July, two Michigan deputies tried to hold an auction of property seized for non payment of Michigan taxes, and a gang of Ohio “patriots”, led by Number Two Strikney, broke up the auction.  So, on 12 July 1835 a Michigan arrest warrant was issued for the son-of-a-patriot, for disturbing the peace.  Number Two, upon learning of the warrant, sent a message to the Michigan Sheriff to stay out of Toledo, Ohio, if he wanted to live.

That threat set Michigan Governor Mason off again. He ordered 250 men into Toledo, under Deputy Sheriff Joseph Wood, to arrest Number Two and his "gang".  Most of the Ohio “patriots” ran safely for the Maumee River border, but Number Two didn’t make it. 

When Sheriff Wood physically grabbed Number Two, he pulled what in Ohio was called a pen knife and in Michigan was described as “a dirk”.  Whatever the size of the blade,  “Two” stabbed the sheriff in the leg and then disappeared across the Maumee River (below). 

The wound was minor and the sheriff was able to ride home that night, having paused to finally arrest Number Two’s father, the infamous Major Stickney, and drag him back to Michigan, tied to the back of a horse. But before leaving town the Michiganders also smashed the offices of the pro-Ohio Toledo Gazette, behaving, claimed the paper, worse than an “Algerian robbery or Turkish persecution.” It seemed the residents were finally running short of hyperbole. What was left but gunpowder?

It was at this point that Andrew Jackson finally stepped in. How dare these common political jackasses act as if they by God Andrew Jackson himself!  On 29 August, 1835 the President removed Mason as governor of Michigan Territory.  Party leaders let it be known that Michigan would only be allowed to become a state after they accepted that Toledo was a town in Ohio. It was a bitter pill for the Badger rabble to swallow, particularly after all that rabble rousing.  But in that instant the heat seeped out of the issue.

As a sop for hurt badger feelings, the federal government granted Michigan the additional territory known as the Upper Peninsula. Michigan was finally admitted into the union as a state, sans Toledo, on 26 January, 1837.

So Ohio won. The canals were dug, and the buckeyes benefited from the taxes paid by the port at the mouth of the Maumee River.  In 1842 1,578 barrels of flour and 12,976 bushels of wheat were shipped through Toledo, and taxed by Ohio.  By 1852 the totals were a quarter million barrels flour and almost two million bushels of wheat. 

But Toledo did not become the transportation hub for the Midwest, because canal technology was superseded by the railroads, and Chicago superseded Toledo; which the Ohio patriots could have predicted in 1835 if they had calmed down and calmly thought about it for a few moments.

Meanwhile, in 1844, a party of surveyors were marking investigating and staking out the second place prize for Michigan, the Upper Peninsula,  when they found their compasses spinning wildly. This was caused by one of the largest concentrations of iron ore ever found on the planet Earth, which was surrounded by one of the largest concentrations of copper ore ever found on the Earth. 

Beginning in 1847 and continuing over the next one hundred and fifty years, over a billion tons of iron and several billion tons of copper were removed from those hills. None of the Michigan patriots could have predicted that. 

The truth was the future contained a bounty beyond the imagination of the patriots who willing to kill each other in 1835, all for possession of a swamp – and not a great swamp at that. It has long since been drained for farmland.  It is remains a basic rule of human history - That which people are willing to murder for today, they may consider worthless tomorrow.   Folks, you might remember that rule, next time a hot head starts calling for a war. Stop and think before you start shooting. 

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POLITICAL SPEAK

 

I wonder how many of you know, dear readers, that the word “Gobbledgook”, meaning a nonsensical word or phrase designed to imply importance has an actual birthday? The word was born on Sunday, 21 May, 1944,  in the pages of “The New York Times Magazine”. And it is just one of the many new English words born out of American politics. For example...

In 1812 the Massachusetts’s legislature contrived, with the help of Governor Elbridge Gerry (pronounced "Jerry"), to redraw the lines for the Essex County Congressional District, to insure a Thomas Jefferson Democratic-Republican won the elections there. 

According to legend it was famed painter Gilbert Stuart who first examined the twists and bends and curves of the new district (above) and observed that, to him at least,  it resembled a salamander. But whoever said it first, it was Benjamin Russell, editor of the Boston Sentinel, who renamed the proposed district a Gerrymander, after the Governor. 

So Elbridge Gerry (above), a man who signed the Declaration of Independence,  is remembered not for the good he tried to do but for his most blatant act of gaming the democratic system - cheating to win an election, It was an act so damaging to democracy his name used as a verb, (Gerrymandering), to the redrawing of congressional district to insure the election of one particular candidate or party. And allowing politicians to control the drawing of districts has Gerrymandered all negotiations out of American politics.

Almost as old is the word “Bunko”, meaning a fraud or a fraudulent spiel used by salesmen to sell bad or fake products.  Police departments around the nation still have squads of officers assigned to uncovering fraud and cheating scams, named “Bunko Squads”.  Originally the word was used to describe a speech by Felix Walker, a congressman from North Carolina.

Walker was born in 1753 in the mountains of western Virginia. He worked as a store clerk in Charleston, South Carolina, and tried homesteading with Daniel Boone in Boonsboro, Kentucky. He fought in the American Revolution, and served in the North Carolina House of Commons, the state legislature. In 1816 he was appointed to Congress, to represent the Blue Ridge ‘hollars’ and the French River valley of Buncombe Country.

The county was named after American Revolutionary War hero Colonel Edward Buncombe (above), who had been wounded and captured at the battle of Germantown, in 1777. Recovering from his wounds in occupied Philadelphia that May, Colonel Buncombe was sleepwalking when he fell and bled to death when his wounds reopened. The new county named in his honor was so large it was locally referred to as “The State of Buncombe.”Expecting a contentious re-election in 1818 and again in 1820, Felix Walker quickly learned the value of a well publicized and well received speech. And on 25 February, 1820, while the House of Representatives debated the crucial issue of the “Missouri Compromise”, deciding whether or not to take the first step which would lead to the Civil War, Congressman Walker arose and began to pontificate about the wonders of his district. 

The leadership were eager to put the matter of the Compromise to a vote, and after listening to Walker’s rambling speech for several minutes, they urged the Congressman to stop wasting time and sit down. But Walker explained that his speech was not intended for the benefit of the congress, but for the "simple folk of Buncombe County back home". And then Walker returned to his endless platitudes.

Almost overnight Walker’s speech was transformed from being about Buncombe to being “pure Buncombe” itself. And, with a little modification in spelling, it changed from "Buncombe", to "bunkum", and then to "bunk", as in a useless, pompous and empty speech, or "bunko" a false promise intended to further a fraud: an entirely new word had been added to the English political language.

Gobbledygook is a 20th century invention, and first appeared in an article about an internal government memo. The author of that memo and that article, and the inventor of the word, was Texas Congressman Maury Maverick (above), who was one of those rare politicians who actually believed that politics was a form of public service. He won a silver star and 2 purple hearts in WWI. And then he ran for Mayor of San  Antonio, Texas

He was limited to one term because during his service a communist rented a meeting room in the Civic Auditorium (above, left) . Legally Mayor Maverick could not refuse to rent the room. But his opponents were able to rabble rouse a little Texas-Hysteria, complete with demonstrations that grew until tear gas shells were lobbed back and forth in front of the auditorium. After that panic, he was defeated for re-election.

Maury Maverick later won election to Congress, where, in 1944,  he was named chairman of the "Small War Plants Committee" -  overseeing and coordinating the work of thousands of small factories all across the United States, seeking to avoid duplication of their efforts, causing shortages of raw materials and general waste.

Being a man interested in results,  Maury (above) quickly grew frustrated with the growing complexity of official language which prolonged the already almost endless committee meetings he had to attend .

He defined his new word as a type of talk which is long, vague and  pompous,  "…when concrete nouns are replaced by abstractions and simple terms by pseudo-technical jargon…".  It all made him think of the wild turkey’s back home, and their conversations which sounded like,  "gobble, gobble, gobble, gook".

In his memorandum (above) Maury ordered, in pure Texas style, "Anyone using the words “activation” or “implementation” will be shot”. The sorry state of affairs is substantiated because those very words have burrowed their way into our language and are now passively accepted. Perhaps this is because, despite Maury's protests, no one was executed. But perhaps because no one was, the continued human attraction to verbosity has since produced such nonsense such as "Pentagoneze", "Journalize", "circumlocution", and other such gobbledygook phrases used to describe Maury’s gobbledygook.

In an interesting (I think) side note, gobbledygook was the Maverick family’s second addition to the American lexicon. The first was their family name. There was a Maverick aboard the Mayflower. And 17-year old apprentice, Samuel Maverick, was shot down by 'lobster backs' at the Boston Massacre (above). But the most famous Maverick of all was another Samuel, born in Pendleton, South Carolina in 1803.

This Maverick, Samuel Augustus Maverick (above), graduated from Yale in 1825 and was admitted to the bar in 1829. A year later, he ran for the South Carolina Legislature, but his anti-secession and pro-union opinions contributed to his defeat.  

In 1835 Samuel Maverick moved to Texas. He was one of two men the rebels in the Alamo elected to the Texas Independence Convention, and he thus missed being butchered when Mexican troops captured the mission.   

He was elected Mayor and then Treasurer of San Antonio, and later served in the seventh and eighth Texas Congresses. He also dabbled in East Texas land speculation, and sometime in 1843 or 1844, as payment for a bad debt, Samuel Augustus took possession of a ranch around Matagorda Bay, Texas, on the Mexican border.

The only problem was that Maverick had no experience in ranching and no interest in learning. When he saw that every other rancher had branded their cattle, Augustus decided there was no need for him to bother.  In 1847, when Samuel moved back to San Antonio, he left his cattle under the care of his ranch hands, who saw no reason to pay more attention to their jobs than their absentee boss

They let the animals wander the open range. Cowboys who found unbranded cattle thus identified them all as the property of "Mr. Maverick", and mavericks thus became any unbranded cow or horse.

Samuel Augustus Maverick favored Texas annexation by the United States. And after it was, he opposed  secession from the union until he realized there was no stopping it.  When he died in 1870 he left holdings of over 300,000 acres and a reputation for independence - not being branded by any special interests. His son, Albert, fought with distinction for the south in the Civil War and was promoted to second lieutenant. After the war Albert Maverick  helped preserve the Alamo, donated "Maverick Park" to the city and lived to swear in his own son, Fontaine Maury Maverick (above), as Mayor of San Antonio - and later inventor of the term gobbledegook.  Albert Maverick died in 1936 at the age of 98. Maury Maverick died in 1954. He was not yet 59 years old.

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