~ERICA IS COVERED WITH NAMES THAT reflect broken dreams, dreams of riches to be won by platting towns where cattle grazed and forests stood. Possibly such a town would become a county seat, a state capital, the home of a university or, at least, an insane asylum. Nowhere and at no time did this craving become so apparent as in Ohio during the years 1815-1819. Though Kentucky, Alabama Territory, 1 Tennessee, Indiana and the territories of Illinois and Missouri also became hot spots of town platting, no other state or territory was in the same league with the Buckeye State. Within Ohio's borders well over 100 new towns were platted or advertised for sale between 1815 and 1819. Boosting towns was an economic sequel to the optimism that followed the Battle of New Orleans and the Treaty of Ghent. In early 1814 with the British poised on the border of New York State, with the Royal Navy ready to take control of the Chesapeake Bay region and with an attack upon New Orleans projected, the United States appeared headed towards certain defeat. Surprisingly, dawn followed darkness. Battles such as those at the River Thames and Horseshoe Bend made tens of thousands of fertile acres safe for white settlement. The War of 1812 had dammed up the stream of westward heading immigrants. With the end of the war, the Old Northwest became the object of the largest migration to that date. Ohio's share of this tidal wave is clearly shown by Buckeye State population statistics. Ohio's 1820 population was nearly two and a half times that of 1810. Because of the state's exposed condition during the War of 1812, it is probably safe to assume that the lion's share of Ohio's growth came during the last half of the decade. The state's location athwart major migration routes and its resultant population increase made it particularly susceptible to the siren songs of the land
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Jan 1, 1983
Elizabeth A Kiernan + 1
Open Access