Why Isn’t Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Part of Wisconsin?

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan does not make a whole lot of sense. It’s entirely physically attached to Wisconsin. It belongs to Michigan. This is like saying Wisconsin’s nose belongs to its dance partner when “Graduation” by Vitamin C plays at an eighth grade dance.

Why did this happen? Well, it’s Toledo’s fault, of course.

In 1787, the United States set apart the land in the young nation’s then-northwestern corner—mostly bordered by the Ohio River, Mississippi River, and Great Lakes—as the “Northwest Territory.” It looked like this (to the aliens—no humans could see it from this high above the earth at that point, so they were mostly just guessing, which becomes an important part of the story in a few minutes):

By 1805, the Northwest Territory, like the Beatles after it, was breaking up. Ohio had begun a solo career, admitted to the Union as its own state in 1803, and with poor communication between Detroit and the rest of what was then the Indiana Territory (seriously—they couldn’t get the mail from Detroit to the territorial capital at Vincennes), Michigan was split off, now looking like this:

Why was any part of the Upper Peninsula, at this point, kept with the Lower Peninsula? I haven’t read this explicitly, but two theories:

First, Fort Mackinac was a big deal at this moment in history, and giving some land to its north to Michigan kept the government contiguous on either side of the strait the fort controlled.

Second, water travel was much easier at this point, relatively if not totally, than travel by road. Ironically, it would one day be Michigan which changed this, but at the time, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was easier to get to the LP’s tip (what’s now Mackinaw City) by water than by land, making it comparably easy to travel to the UP and much of the LP, because you would take a boat to either. Did the map look weird to Americans in 1805? Maybe. But at the same time, maybe it didn’t. Maybe this kind of thing was normal to them. After all, they weren’t far removed from Maine being part of Massachusetts despite New Hampshire having its toe in the door.

One point here is that it appears the western line was the same as the western line between Illinois and Indiana, which would track, but I lack confidence in that impression and it would lead us astray at this point, so we’re going to move on.

Ohio and Michigan got in a war.

Well, first, Indiana became a state. Then, Illinois became a state. With each of these separations, what had once been part of the Indiana Territory became part of the Michigan Territory. At one point, even parts of the Louisiana Purchase were added to the Michigan Territory, as Missouri obtaining statehood left the portions of the Purchase which lay north of Missouri effectively unorganized, though they belonged to the United States. After twelve years of what may have been anarchy, a chunk of this land was added to the Michigan Territory, which now looked like this:

Then, Michigan and Ohio got in a war.

In classic Michigan/Ohio fashion, there’s an inflated sense of self-importance with this “war.” Nobody died. One person was wounded. I stubbed my toe last night on one of Fargo’s chew toys, locking up the doors in the dark like the hero of the home that I am, but I didn’t call it the Split Elk Antler War (perhaps I should, though).

What happened?

Well, when the Northwest Territory was created, Congress dictated that it would eventually become somewhere between three and five states. Among other specifications, it stated that the boundary between two of these states would run east-west and lie even with the southern tip of Lake Michigan, which was at the time thought to be roughly due west of Detroit. Fifteen years later, Congress’s action that allowed Ohio to start becoming a state defined the border differently (emphasis mine):

“Bounded…on the north by an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, running east after intersecting (Ohio’s western border) until it shall intersect Lake Erie or the (Canadian border), and thence with the same through Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania line…”

In 1802, though, between this Congressional passage’s passing and Ohio’s statehood approval, a trapper, legend goes, reported to the Ohio Constitutional Convention that Lake Michigan went further south than previously thought. Ohio wasn’t getting everything south of Detroit. Ohio might not be getting any Lake Erie shoreline at all. The line might never intersect Lake Erie, let alone what we now know as the Canadian border.

Responding to this, Ohio’s delegates sent Congress an altered constitution defining the border as running along a northeastern line, stretching from Lake Michigan’s southern tip to the north edge of what’s now the Maumee Bay, on the western edge of Lake Erie. This is what we who gamble on sports call a “hedge.”

Congress, though, didn’t accept the hedge. Doing exactly what Congress would currently do, the committee in charge decided to just hope the old map was right and, if it wasn’t, let someone else deal with it later. It stuck with the original definition—from the Northwest Territory days.

This was, immediately, a problem. Toledo, at the time a sparsely-habited place called the Port of Miami, said immediately—like many a dating partner in the years to come—“Hey Ohio, what are we?”

Ohio went back to Congress, and in 1812, Congress agreed the line could be officially surveyed. This was delayed by a war (a real one—the War of 1812, where something like 35,000 people died), but eventually, it happened. In 1816, after Indiana had been admitted to the union (a process which included its own Lake Michigan problem—Congress allowed the Michigan/Indiana line to be moved ten miles north from the Northwest Territory definition so Indiana could have some shoreline, which was again very important back then because boats were still faster than cars, which didn’t yet exist), U.S. Surveyor General Edward Tiffin paid William Harris to survey the line. Except, he didn’t. He didn’t pay William Harris to survey the Northwest Territory line, extending due east from the southern tip of Lake Michigan. No, Tiffin—a former governor of Ohio—instead paid William Harris to survey the line Ohio had sent to Congress back in 1802, the line from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to the north edge of the Maumee Bay.

Michigan, of course, was pissed, because Tiffin two-timed ‘em. They responded by starting a survey-off, surveying the Northwest Territory line themselves. The space between the two lines became what is now known as the Toledo Strip:

It might not be much land, but it’s land, and it has a port, and that port—now the fourth-largest city in Ohio due to its prime economic position in bygone days which were then not yet bygone—was valuable. Michigan moved in.

Over the seventeen years that followed, Michigan governed the Toledo Strip, just by going in there and governing it. They set up local governments. They collected taxes. The Toledo Strip, functionally, was part of Michigan. Even the federal government’s surveyors—still led by Tiffin, who’d evidently changed course—treated the Northwest Territory line as legitimate, giving the Toledo Strip to Michigan. But, when Michigan reached the population necessary to apply for statehood, Congress told them no, citing the conflict over the Toledo Strip. Ohio’s 21 voting congressmen were effective in their lobbying. Michigan had no voting congressmen. Michigan was still a territory.

Eventually, Michigan got fed up and started its constitutional convention without Congressional approval. Seeing what was happening, Ohio set up county governments governing the Strip. Petty things were done. Ohio named the proposed county where the port of Toledo lay after its own incumbent governor. Michigan passed a law making it illegal for anyone from Ohio to conduct governmental acts in the Strip. Both sides sent militias.

As is naturally the case when armed conflict is about to happen between states, the president became involved. As is naturally the case in politics, the president acted in the best interests of his own reelection. Ohio was a big state with a lot of electoral votes. Michigan was not yet a state. Andrew Jackson, a notorious piece of shit like so many who would follow in his footsteps, asked his attorney general for a favor. His attorney general said no, this is bullshit, the land belongs to Michigan. Andrew Jackson, trying to buy some time, sent a Pennsylvania representative and a Maryland representative to Toledo to present a compromise: Restart the Ohio survey delineating their preferred line, and let the people vote (this is reasonable—Andrew Jackson was an ass but letting the people vote was reasonable). Ohio acquiesced. Michigan did not acquiesce (King Solomon Rule here says Michigan was right). A Michigan sheriff arrested two Ohioans under the law Michigan had just passed about governmental acts in the Strip. A Michigan militia attacked the surveying group, taking nine prisoners.

After the attack and taking of prisoners, Ohio answered by doing more petty shit, like making Toledo the county seat in the county Ohio named after its incumbent governor. Meanwhile, Michigan continued to draft its constitution, Congress continued to tell them no, and Ohio sent its militia northward towards the Strip. Eventually, during another arrest, an Ohio sympathizer named “Two” (yes, his brother was named One) stabbed a Michigan deputy sheriff (who survived). Two fled into Ohio. Ohio refused to extradite Two to Michigan. Michigan asked Jackson if he could ask the Supreme Court to get involved. Jackson said no. Ohio’s congressmen got Jackson to install a new territorial governor in Michigan (this man was burned in effigy and pelted with vegetables, as he deserved).

In 1836, Congress and Jackson decided to give the Toledo Strip to Ohio and to give the western parts of the Upper Peninsula to Michigan. This worked out great for Michigan, in the long run. They avoided owning Toledo and they now get the UP. But at the time, it was a crappy deal, and Michigan initially rejected it, only to realize later in the year that they’d spent more money than they could afford on their militia, that they needed money, and that if they became a state they’d get a slice of the U.S. Treasury’s surplus—a slice large enough to bail them out of debt (ominously foreshadowing how 2008 would go down for G.M. and Chrysler).

Of course, more boundary disputes followed, because how in the hell should anyone expect the UP’s western border to be a simple thing? A quick summary (you can read more about all of these here but I need to eat lunch):

• A treaty was necessary in 1842 to determine whether Michigan or Canada (then still part of Great Britain) owned Sugar Island.
• This treaty also eventually gave a piece of Lake Superior from Michigan to Minnesota.
• In 1915, the Toledo line had to be re-surveyed (it now zigzags a little bit).
• In 1926, Michigan and Wisconsin went to the Supreme Court because the 1836 definition of the UP’s Western Border was, as is tradition, based on a geographic error.
• The same court case split up some islands in the Menominee River between Michigan and Wisconsin, and…
• …decided at the same time that Merryman Island is not an island.
• In 1936, Michigan and Wisconsin went to the Supreme Court again about some islands (and a little bit of water).
• In 1973, Michigan and Ohio went to the Supreme Court about a portion of Lake Erie.

The long and short of this all is that it made some sense to give the UP to Michigan initially, because of Fort Mackinac, but that Wisconsin was ultimately robbed in the name of Andrew Jackson’s political expediency. Also, satellites are helpful. At least when it comes to knowing where geographical features are.