parallel of latitude passing through the southern extremity of Lake Michigan would intersect the blunt end of Lake Erie about halfway between the mouths of the Maumee and the river Raisin." D'Anville believed that such a parallel would entirely clear the lake to the south.10 Bellin, through a happy fortune succeeded in drawing his maps so that such a parallel would sever the southern shore of Lake Erie east of the mouth of the Maumee. Bellin had chanced upon a close approximation of the true relative position of the two lakes. Had the British map-makers and publishers used Bellin as a model in this matter, the boundary controversy would never have occurred. Instead, the De l'Isle assumption was taken over in more or less exaggerated form by Mitchell, Evans and their school, though one of the standard atlases, with an excess of that quality which Matthew Arnold termed "sweet reasonableness," followed all three of the French models in as many different maps.12 On Lewis Evan's map a due east line drawn from the southernmost point of Lake Michigan would have intersected the western end of Lake Erie some distance north of Maumee Bay. According to Mitchell, it would have crossed the Detroit river above its entrance into Lake Erie. The De l'Isle-Mitchell-Evans misconception dominated mapmaking to such an extent that the vast majority of maps produced from 1755 until the early decades of the nineteenth century were so constructed as to permit a parallel drawn through the southernmost bend of Lake Michigan to intersect Lake Erie at some point north of the mouth of the Maumee, or to pass the lake entirely on the north. Nor did maps drawn under the supervision of the United States government, and based on actual surveys, improve the situation perceptibly. The map made in 1778 by Thomas Hutchins, of New Jersey, who bore the title of "geographer general in the United States," was not as far wrong as many others, but the due east line in question would have struck Lake Erie near the northern cape of Maumee Bay.13 The same was true of a map made in 1784 by William McMurray, "late assistant geographer to the United States."14 The De l'Isle-Mitchell-Evans misconception as to the relative position of the lakes was widespread as evidenced by its perpetuation on the following maps: de Vaugondy's Partie de l'Amerique Septent Carte du Canada ou de la Nouvelle France et des decouvertes qui y ont ete faites * * *Par Guillaume Del l'Isle, geographe de l'Academie Royale des Sciences. 1703. 10 Amerique Septentrionale. Par le sr. d'Anville. 1746. * * * 11Carte des lacs du Canada. * * * 1744. Par N. Bellin, ingenieur et hydrographe de la marine. 12 Jefferys, Thomas, American Atlas (London, 1776), nos. 2, 5, 7. 13 A new map of the western parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina, comprehending the rivers Ohio, and all the rivers which fall into it; part of the river Mississippi * * * By Thomas Hutchins. 14 The United States. According to the definitive treaty of peace signed at Paris, September 3, 1783. By William McMurray. R. Scot, sculp. Mr. P. Lee Phillips, Chief of the Division of Maps and Charts at the Library of Congress, has called this "the first official map of the United States;" The Rare Map of the Northwest by John Fitch (Washington, 1916), p. 27. * * * * * * qui comprend la Nouvelle France ou le Canada (1755); Palairet's Carte des possessions Angloises & Francoises du continent de l'Amerique (1759); An accurate map of North America by Eman. Bowen and John Gibson (1763); A map of the British dominions in North America * * * by Peter Bell (1772); An accurate map of North America by Bowen and Gibson (1772); Pownall's A map of the middle British colonies in North America. First published by Lewis Evans, of Philadelphia, in 1755; and since corrected and improved * * (1776); The British colonies in North America, engraved by William Faden (1777); A new map of North America, engraved for Carver's Travels through the Interior Parts of North America (1778); A map of the United States of North America, engraved by H. D. Pursell (1785); the same (1787); A map of the United States of North America, reproduced in Schopf's Reise durch einige Mittlern und Sudlichen Vereinigten Nord Amerikanischen Staaten (1788); the anonymous map, Sketch of the western countries of Canada (1791); Conder's A map of the middle states of America (1794); A new map of North America, with the West Indies, published by Laurie & Whittle (1794); Scott's N. W. territory (1795); Bradley's Map of the northern part of the United States of America (1797); A new map of North America graved by Hill (1797); Map of the United States, Canada, etc., engraved by Smith and Jones (1799); Map of the southern, western and middle provinces of the United States, engraved for Michaux's Travels to the westward of Alleghany Mountains (1805); Map of the United States, including Louisiana, engraved by Scoles (1810); The upper territories of the United States, engraved by Kneass and Delleker (1814); Map of the United States of America, published by John Melish (1815); Map of the United States of America, from Mellishes, with additions and corrections, engraved by Neele & Son (1818); Lewis's A new and correct map of the United States of North America (1819); and United States, engraved for Cobbett's A Year's Residence in the United States of America (1828). * * * * * * * * * en Thus the misconception was wide-spread and long-enduring. The only exception during this time that the writer has been able to find was A map of the northwest parts of the United States of America by the inventor, John Fitch, wherein the relative position of the two lakes was given with approximate correctness. Although published in 1785, Fitch's map was not once referred to by either party in the later boundary controversy. In view of the almost unanimous testimony of contemporary cartography, it cannot be doubted that in the later eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth it was an accepted fact in the best scientific circles, as well as among the people in general, that the southern extremity of Lake Michigan lay on a parallel of latitude north of Maumee Bay to a greater or less distance. Indeed, the Senate Committee on the Jucidiary, which finally effected an adjustment of the difficulties between Ohio and Michigan in 1836, went so far as to say that Mitchell's map, "then considered every where as a map which, in reference to the Northwestern Territory, had no superior for accuracy," was "alleged to have been the very map relied on by Congress, and by the convention of Ohio, at the time of the admission of the State." It is only fair to conclude therefore that when the Ordinance of 1787 described "an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend of Lake Michigan" as a proper boundary between the upper and lower tier of the projected states, the framers had in mind a line that would intersect Lake Erie north of Maumee Bay; or, if Mitchell's map was relied on as authority, the Detroit river above its entrance into the lake.16 Further, Congress must have intended the same division of territory when the Enabling Act for Ohio (1802) declared that a part of the northern boundary of Ohio should be a line running due east and west "through to the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan." The members of the Ohio constitutional convention were laboring under the same misapprehension, when, an old beaver-trapper appeared on the scene and informed them that the southern shore of Lake Michigan lay much farther south than the maps indicated. Under the circumstances the convention incorporated in the constitution the boundaries described in the Enabling Act, with the proviso that if the southern bend of Lake Michigan extended so far south that a parallel passing through it should not intersect Lake Erie or should pierce the lake east of the mouth of the Maumee, then, with the assent of Congress, the boundary should be "a direct line running from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the most northerly cape of the Miami [Maumee] bay." In 1805, when the territory of Michigan was organized by Congress, the Ohio line remained as defined in the Ordinance of 1787 and in the Enabling Act for Ohio. The merits of the subsequent controversy between Ohio and Michigan should now be clear. The Ohioans claimed the boundary which it had been the intent and purpose of Congress to give them in the light of the geographical knowledge of the times. The Michigan officials 15 Senate Doc. 211, 1st Sess., 24th Cong., p. 13. Cf. p. 47. 16Jacob Burnet in his Notes on the Early Settlement of the North Western Territory (Cincinnati, 1847), p. 360, says: "It is generally known, to those who have consulted the maps of the western country extant at the time the Ordinance of 1787 was passed, that Lake Michigan was represented as being very far north of the position, which it has since been ascertained to оссиру. On a map in the Department of State, which was before the committee of Congress, who formed the Ordinance, for the government of the Territory, the southern boundary of that Lake was laid down as being near the forty-second degree of north latitude; and there was a pencil line passing through the southern bend of the lake to the Canada line, which intersected the strait, between the river Raisin and the town of Detroit. That line was manifestly intended by the committee, and by Congress, to be the northern boundary of this State * * The map here described was in all probability Mitchell's map. 17Congress admitted Ohio without assent to or rejection of the proviso. |