The Michigan Historical Review 44:2 (Fall 2018): 97-124©2018 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved A Long-Overdue Evaluation of Benjamin Hough’s Observation for Latitude of the North Cape of Maumee Bay, Ohio’s Northern Border By Jack N. Owens When Ohio gained statehood in 1803, its new constitution called for its northern boundary to be a due East line from the south end of Lake Michigan, as specified in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The state, however, provisionally wrote an alternate alignment into the constitution: that if the most southerly point of Lake Michigan should extend far enough south that this border would intersect east of where the Miami River emptied into Lake Huron, then another line was to be drawn. That line, requiring approval from the US Congress, would be “a direct line running from the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan to the most northerly cape of the Miami Bay.”1 Congress neither objected nor assented to this provision, since the southern extent of Lake Michigan remained uncertain. As a result, Ohio was admitted with an indeterminate, inconclusive northern boundary.2 When Congress subsequently created the Michigan Territory in 1805, the territory’s southern line was as specified in the Northwest Ordinance. Ten years later, the border between Ohio and Michigan was still undetermined, as the War of 1812 delayed the survey of the line, which Congress authorized that same year.3 In 1815, Congress again authorized surveys, this time of Military Bounty Lands in Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri, as well as a road from Fort 1 Bess M. Sheehan, The Northern Boundary of Indiana (Greenfield, IN: The W. Mitchell Printing Co., 1928). 2 Michigan Geological and Biological Survey, The Biennial Report of the Director 19141916 and Report on Retracement and Permanent Monumenting of the Michigan-Ohio Boundary (Lansing: W. H. Crawford Co., 1916); Annah May Soule, The Southern and Western Boundary of Michigan (Ann Arbor: The Michigan Political Science Association, 1896), reprinted by Michigan Society of Professional Surveyors, Lansing, MI, and Professional Land Surveyors of Ohio, Columbus, OH, 1996; Alec R. Gilpin, The Territory of Michigan [18051837 ] (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1970). 3 Sheehan, The Northern Boundary; Michigan Geological and Biological Survey, The Biennial Report. 98 The Michigan Historical Review The southerly extreme of Lake Michigan can be readily discerned in this contemporary Google Earth image. Some squarish-shaped areas near the shore are breakwaters erected by land owners. Larger streaked areas in the water are from photo composites used to compile the image. The shore has likely changed little since 1817. The north boundary of Indiana, ten miles out into the lake, is north of the top of the image. Source: Google Earth Pro, 2010 (photo imagery 2005, 2007) Meigs (near Toledo) to the Connecticut Reserve (today the SanduskyCleveland area). That provided the first opportunity to obtain a measurement of Ohio’s northern boundary. Still, the dispute over the border continued to fester until Congress granted Michigan statehood in 1837 under the condition that it accept Ohio’s alignment (and as compensation receive the Upper Peninsula). The first interest expressed in the US General Land Office (GLO) records of the Public Land Surveys (then in the Department of the Treasury, now housed in the National Archives) regarding the latitude of Ohio’s provisional north boundary appears to be an 1815 letter to Edward Tiffin, surveyor general of the Northwest Territory, from Josiah Meigs, the former surveyor general (1812-1814) who had just been appointed commissioner of the GLO (the predecessor of the Bureau of Land Management).4 This was a comprehensive letter that also first authorized 4 Ralph M. Berry, Special Instructions to Deputy Surveyors in Michigan 1804-1854 (Flint, MI: Flint Rotary Press, 1990), 23, 26, 8. See also Letters Received by the Surveyor General of the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, 1797-1856, Microfilm Roll No. 479-5 (1 January – 30 A Long-Overdue Evaluation 99 surveys of the Public Lands in Michigan.5 It typified most exchanges between Tiffin and Meigs. Both often referenced previous letters but only sometimes responded directly to their content; they also tended to discuss multiple subjects at once, further...