do that, should step four paces to the front, when thirty so stepped out. Of these twenty were taken. Captain Granville Jones, of Lucas Guards, Toledo, was left in charge of the camp at Miami, with directions to be ready for cooperation with the advance. It was then decided that September 7th began immediately after 12 o'clock Sunday night, and as no hour for the assembling of the court was mentioned in the law, one hour was as good for the purpose as any other, so that the court was held and due record of its proceedings made. Accordingly at 1 o'clock A. M. the procession took up its march of eight miles for Toledo, cach soldier of the escort carrying two cavalry pistols. They reached Toledo about 3 o'clock, and proceeded at once to a school house which stood between Washington and Monroe and Michigan and Erie strects. It was a frame building. At that time it was well "out of town," and thus as safe from observation as accommodations could have been found.

Here "the Court of Common Pleas, in and for the county of Lucas, and State of Ohio," for the first time was opened in due form. It consisted of the three associate judges--Jonathan H. Jerome, Baxter Bowman and William Wilson. The president judge (David Higgins), as supposed for reasons already indicated, was not present. Junius Flagg, of Toledo, acted as sheriff, and Dr. Horatio Conant, of Maumee, as clerk. A short session was held, the proceedings being limited to the appointment of John Baldwin, Robert Gower and Cyrus Holloway, as county commissioners, and the approval of the clerk's bond. The clerk's minutes were kept on loose pieces of paper. The length of time occupied in these proceedings is not recorded, but it was as short as was consistent with the proper forms; and "no further business appearing before said court, it adjourned," literally "without day," since its entire session and adjournment took place in the dark.

There seems somehow to have been very little interest taken by the people of Toledo in the record of their initial court and its attendant circumstances. Hence the difficulty at this late day in obtaining satisfactory particulars of the event, and especially of the movements and experiences of the court in placing a desired distance between themselves and the supposed "Wolverine" troops. In the absence of local information, we are left, for our most

detailed statement in that regard, to the narration given by the late Willard V. Way, Esq., of Perrysburg, in his address before the Raisin Valley (Michigan) Historical Society. Without in any way impeaching the loyalty of that gentleman as a citizen of the Commonwealth of Ohio, it must be conceded that his account of that occasion does not read in all respects just as one of the zealous champions of Ohio on the disputed boundary question would have been expected to tell the story. In this the writer does not wish to be understood as questioning the truthfulness of Mr. Way's version, which was substantially this: That upon adjournment of the court, the officers and escort went to the tavern then kept by Munson H. Daniels, not far from the court house; that while there enjoying a season of conviviality natural on the accomplishment of important and critical public service, a wag came hurriedly into the tavern and reported a strong "Wolverine" force approaching and close by; that the party at once left the house, sprang to their horses, leaving their bills unpaid; that they took the trail for Maumee, following near the river; that upon reaching the hill across Swan Creek and near where the Oliver House now stands, seeing no pursuit, they came to a halt; that it then became known that the clerk had lost his hat, and with it his minutes of the court; that under direction of Colonel Vanfleet, careful search was made for the papers on the line of their hasty travel; and that after diligent efforts, the hat and contents were found. Colonel Vanfleet signalized this important success by firing two salutes, when the party continued their journey to Maumee, where they arrived soon after daylight, or about six o'clock, having occupied five hours in going to Toledo, holding a court and getting safely back. The record of that court, so essential to the proper vindication of the rights and authority of the State of Ohio, is as follows:

The State of Ohio, Lucas County, ss.:

At a court of Common Pleas, began and held at the court house in Toledo, in said county, on the 7th day of September, A. D. 1835. Present, the Honorable Jonathan H. Jerome, senior associate judge of said county, their honors, Baxter Bowman and William Wilson, associate judges;

The court being opened in due form by the sheriff of the county.

Horatio Conant being appointed clerk of said county, exhibited his bond, with sureties accepted by the court agreeable to the statute in such case made and provided.

The court appointed John Baldwin, Robert Gower and Cyrus Holloway commissioners for said county.

ing took place with the Michigan troops, and especially in petty robbery of property, although such action was against the will of the officers in command. That Major Stickney should be made conspicuous in that connection is not remarkable, he being an object of special hostility with that side. It was stated that the

J. H. JEROME, Associate Judge.

Adjutant-General Andrews, in his report to Governor Lucas, said:

"The court was accordingly held under these circumstances: The judges and sheriff of the county met at Toledo on Monday, which was the 7th, and, attended by a small posse, opened court, organized, appointed their clerk, county commissioners, etc.; and after performing such business as was necessary for a complete organization of the county, and making up their record, adjourned without molestation. In the meantime the opposing force had entered the place, and taken possession of the adjoining village [Vistula, the court meeting in the Port Lawrence division], with the express purpose, as declared, of preventing the session. They They had, it is asserted, information of the fact, and made arrangements accordingly. No interruption, however, took place."

This report elsewhere says the Michigan forces entered Toledo on Sunday, the 6th, where they remained until Monday, and some part of them until Tuesday following, when they disappeared entirely, with the exception of a straggling band, who afterwards returned in search, as pretended, of the judges of the court, but engaging in the customary excesses and proceeding to acts of violence against certain of the citizens. The inhabitants were aroused to resistance, and they were forcibly expelled. Their whole number upon entering Toledo, appears to have been not to exceed 1,100, and to have been reduced at the time of their retreat to between 500 and 600. General Brown subsequently stated that his main force halted at Mulhollen's, some eight miles from Toledo, where they remained Sunday night, he having sent Colonel Warner Wing forward with 100 men, to watch the judges and arrest them if they attempted to hold court. The main force reached Toledo the next day.

gan soldier in his garden, in the act of pulling up potatoes, asked what he was doing, when the trespasser replied that he was "drafting potato tops, to make the bottoms volunteer." The major was subsequently paid $300 by the State for damages suffered during that controversy, besides costs and expenses incurred by him in connection with his arrests May 8th and July 20, 1835, and being taken to the jail at Monroe.

As already mentioned, the body of the Michigan forces detailed to prevent the holding of court at Toledo stopped at Mulhollen's on Sunday, the 6th. At that place ex-Governor Mason, although then nine days out of office, issued an address to the troops, in the character of "the executive," in which he notified them that the command was by him at that time " time "assigned to Brigadier General J. W. Brown," and enjoined on them due observance of that officer's orders. On the same day General Brown issued from Toledo his address to the militia, closing with this appeal :

“Our cause is just. We assemble to defend from invasion our constitutional privileges. The voice of law calls us to the field, and although young in history, Michigan must be placed by us in the proud attitude of seeking to do no wrong, and never shrinking to defend the honor of the country and the inviolability of her soil.”

The manner in which these movements in Ohio were received by the authorities and people of Michigan is further seen from the following article, taken from the Michigan Sentinel, published at Monroe, under date of September 12, 1835:

Washtenaw, Lenawee, Oakland, Macomb and St. Joseph. The whole body entered the disputed territory on Monday, accompanied by Governor Stevens, Generals Brown and Haskall, and Colonels Davis, Wing and others, to the number of 1,200 to 1,500, and encamped on the plains of Toledo. Governor Lucas did not make his appearance. The court is said to have been held at the dead of night, by learned judges dressed in disguise; and the insurgents of Toledo fled precipitately from the scene of action."

The Michigan view of this result was no doubt fairly stated by Hon. A. L. Millard, of Adrian, in an address delivered July 4, 1876. He said:

'The result was, that Ohio, influential and powerful with her twelve members on the floor of Congress, prevailed against her younger and weaker sister Michigan, with her single delegate, and he without the right of voting; and before Congress would admit her into the Union as a State, she was required to assent to the change in her boundaries and to adopt the boundary claimed by Ohio. But in order to make her some amends, the Northern Peninsula, then no part of Michigan, was offered her. At first this overture was rejected. A convention called to act upon it, refused to give the assent required. Her people at the time felt keenly upon the subject. They felt that her right to the territory, under the ordinance (of 1787), and under the act of Congress of 1805, was unquestionable, and there are few, in this State, at least, who have examined the question, who do not regard it so to this day. But this decision of the convention did not finally prevail. A large and influential portion of the citizens some from public considerations, and others, perhaps, from private reasons, thought it highly desirable that the State be speedily admitted into the Union. Another convention was accordingly called, not by the governor or other legal authority, but by a Democratic Cen tral Committee, requesting the people in the several townships to elect delegates. The convention met, and in the name of the people of the State gave the required assent. This, after considerable discussion, was accepted by Congress as a compliance with the condition, and the State was admitted by an act passed on the 27th of January, 1837, and thus the controversy ended. The people of Michigan were ill-satis

fied at the time, being little aware of the mineral value of the Upper Peninsula, which they acquired in lieu of the strip surrendered. But the subsequent development of that region has shown that they got an ample equivalent, and that the bargain, though in a manner forced upon them, turned out to be not a bad one for Michigan."

It was only after such repeated appeals to Congress for the interposition of its authority for the settlement of the question, that Ohio, in 1835, acting in its own sovereign capacity, set out to assert and settle her rights in the case. It was at such suggestion that Messrs. Rush and Howard were sent as commissioners by the President for the adjustment of the difficulty. By the agreement made between those commissioners and the Governor of Ohio, April 7, 1835, it was provided:

"1st. That the Harris line be run and remarked, without interruption. 2d. That the civil elections under the laws of Ohio having taken place throughout the disputed territory, the people residing there be left to their own choice as to which of the parties should be accepted. as authority in government until the close of the next session of Congress." This Ohio assented to, with the proviso that Michigan be compelled to abide by the terms of the compact; and especially, that all prosecutions begun under the authority of that Territory against citizens of Ohio, be discontinued.

The case having been by arrangement finally referred to Congress, the discussion became active there, and was ably presented on the part of Ohio by Governor Lucas and the Senators and Representatives from this State. In a letter to the Secretary of State at Washington, November 10, 1835, the Governer stated that he was informed by General Haskall, a member of the Michigan legislature, that Governor Mason procured the key to the United States Arsenal at Detroit, and in that way came into possession of government arms for use by his forces. Governor Lucas expressed the belief that such use of the arms was made "by private special permission of the Secretary of War" (General Lewis Cass). The Governor stated that in private letters to friends in Ohio and seen by him, Secretary Cass stated that while not appearing publicly in the controversy, he was doing all he could privately in support of the Michigan claim. Governor Lucas attrib

In a letter of November 19, 1835, Secretary Cass alludes to this expression by Governor Lucas, and protests against the same as grossly unjust. On the contrary, he stated, that while fully believing in the justice of Michigan's claim, and advising the exercise of jurisdiction over the disputed territory by the use of ordinary civil power, he at all times discountenanced the resort to force which Governor Mason made.

In a report made March 1, 1846, the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, of which Hon. John M. Clayton, of Delaware, was chairman, discussed the matter with much clearness and detail, going over the essential points and facts. The immediate matter in hand was the "bill to settle and establish the northern boundary line of the State of Ohio," which provided "that the northern boundary of the State of Ohio shall be established by, and extend to, a direct line running from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the most northerly cape of the Miami Bay; thence northeast to the northern boundary line of the United States; and thence, with said line, to the Pennsylvania line." The result of the committee's investigation was to the effect, that aside from the declaration made in the constitution, the State of Ohio could have no claim to the line therein set forth. Thus, the whole question turned upon the validity of that declaration as a basis for the claim made by Ohio; while such basis could not be valid, without the "assent of Congress."

The bill endorsed by the Senate committee fixed the boundaries of Michigan and Indiana, as well as the northern boundary of Ohio, and passed the Senate March 10th by a vote of thirty-seven to three, and went to the House of Representatives. March 22d a bill was introduced into the Senate by Mr. Benton to establish the northern boundary line of Ohio and to admit Michigan into the Union, upon conditions therein expressed, which bill passed the Senate April 2d, by a vote of twenty-four to eighteen, and went to the House. This bill differed from the one passed March 10th, in that it contained a proviso that the boundary line of Ohio should receive the assent of a convention of delegates of the people of Michigan, as a condition of the admission of Mich

ond bill was not satisfactory to the larger portion of the Ohio delegation in Congress, who preferred the unconditional terms of the Clayton bill, and were not willing that the question be left open for further doubt and agitation. In the House the question of precedence in action upon the two Senate bills was raised, and decided in favor of the Benton bill, and June 13th it passed, by a vote of one hundred and fifty-three to forty-five. June 15th the Clayton bill, unconditionally fixing the northern line of Ohio, passed the House without a division, and thus was the long deferred and much-disputed boundary question and the "Toledo War" definitely and finally settled.

For reasons which seemed to have been more political than substantial, it was deemed advisable by the friends of the administration to connect the admission of Arkansas with that of Michigan, by which association the adjustment of the boundary question probably was delayed for six months. A prominent, if not the controlling, consideration in the matter, was the sleepless jealousy of southern politicians, with whom it had come to be settled that no free State should be added to the Union unless associated with a new slave State, to the end that equilibrium in the political power of freedom and of slavery might be preserved. This fact will explain the precedence given the Benton bill over the Clayton bill in the House. The same spirit of jealousy was constantly manifested as long as slavery continued to be a cause of sectional discord. To the same fell spirit was the country subsequently indebted for the annexation of Texas, in order that additional territory for slave States might be obtained; and to the same, for the like object, the Mexican War; and neither of these recourses being found effective, as a last resort came the attempt, through the repeal of the Missouri compromise, to subject free territory to the establishment of slave States. It was the failure of this device that drove the slaveholding power to the fatal madness of rebellion and an attempt to destroy the Union it was no longer able to control to its purposes, and led to the sudden and total destruction of the interest so long and so desperately defended.

In this connection, the particulars of the Michigan forces as furnished by the pay-roll of her soldiers, now among the archives of the

State, will be of interest. That roll gives the name of every soldier (officer and private), the amount of pay received, and in most cases his receipt therefor. The list has the names of 1,160 men. The pay of Major-General Brown, commander of the territorial army, was $200 per month. He had for aid-de-camp, Alpheus Felch, afterward Governor and United States Senator, who received $50 per month. Colonels were paid $75, captains $40, lieutenants $30, ensigns $20, sergeants $8, and privates $6.66 per month. Considering the "currency" in which they were paid (“Wild-cat” bank notes), these rates do not seem to be excessive. The several organizations of the Michigan forces were known as follows: The Oakland detachment of 192 men; Major Bucklin's regiment of 159 men; Colonel T. D. Davis's rifle brigade of 248 men; Second Regiment (Colonel Warner Wing), 140 men; Captain J. Wood's company of light horse of 61 men; Shelby Volunteers of 60 men; Acting Brigadier-General Martin Davis's detachment of 47 men; Colonel Davis Smith's Eighth Regiment of 247 men. Total force, 1,254. The aggregate expenditure of Michigan in connection with the boundary controversy, is placed at $13,658.76.

The people of Michigan, in that controversy, labored under two serious embarrassments. In the first place, as already stated, theirs being only a territorial government, the creature of Congress, wholly subject to Federal rule, it could have no recognized authority even over its domestic affairs, and much less over its relations to other governments. This condition of tutelage deprived it of the political status which State organization and power alone could confer. In the next place it was largely handicapped by an unfortunate head of what government it possessed. In 1814, General Lewis Cass, then of the United States army, but a resident of Marietta, Ohio, was made military governor of Michigan Territory. Subsequently he was made civil governor, with William Woodbridge, also of Marietta, as secretary, both appointments being fortunate for the Territory. The administration of Governor Cass will always stand prominent among those of Western Territories. He was specially serviceable in his relations with the Indians, with whom he concluded important treaties and largely maintained friendly relations, being superintendent of Indian affairs for all the then

Northwest, as well as civil governor of Michigan. He it was who negotiated at Fort Meigs in September, 1817, the important treaty by which the Seneca, Delaware, Wyandot, Shawanese, Pottawatomie and Chippewa tribes surrendered to the Government about one-fifth of the territory comprising the State of Ohio, beside large districts in Michigan and Indiana. Beside this treaty, sixteen others were negotiated, chiefly under his management, and in their results transferring to the United States vast extents of lands, both east and west of the Mississippi. In 1831, Governor Cass was called to Washington to serve as secretary of war in President Jackson's cabinet. The loss of his services, made so highly valuable by his long experience and intimate knowledge of the affairs of the Territory, was much regretted at the time; but the measure of the loss was made more fully known only through the management of succeeding years. In 1830, the Territory had attained to a population of 32,538, and was self-supporting. With such advance in numbers, the people had become possessed of an exceptional degree of local pride, no doubt largely due to the position which Governor Cass's administration had given the territorial government. Hence, the succession to that officer was a matter of more than ordinary concern with them, and they were very desirous that it should fall upon one of several prominent citizens of the Territory, instead of being utilized in the promotion of political interests elsewhere. Secretary Woodbridge and Austin E. Wing were looked upon as specially suitable for the governorship. Such desire, however, had so little consideration at Washington that John T. Mason of Virginia, a brother-in-law of Postmaster-General Barry, was appointed secretary of the Territory, to act as governor until the latter office should be filled. The appointee, however, did not accept, but went abroad on some private agency, and the office was transferred to his son, Stevens T. Mason. The choice of a non-resident for purely political and personal reasons, was bad enough; but that of a mere boy-but nineteen years of age — added greatly to the disappointment and chagrin of the people, who sent to him a committee for conference, when he acknowledged his minority.

This feeling was greatly intensified by the fact that in consequence of Governor Cass be