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That Time Ohio and Michigan Almost Went To War · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. AH
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Speaker 1: State Rivalries. One of my favorite things about traveling around
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Speaker 1: this fair nation of ours is that regardless of what
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Speaker 1: state you find yourself in, you can find another state
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Speaker 1: that most of the people in that state hate. So
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Speaker 1: if you go to Alabama, you'll find a lot of
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Speaker 1: people who hate Georgia. If you go to Georgia, you'll
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Speaker 1: find a lot of people who hate Alabama. Hi. My
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Speaker 1: name is Ben, Hi, my name is Nolan. I was
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Speaker 1: just recently in or again driving around in a rental
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Speaker 1: car with California plates, and I was I was counseled
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Speaker 1: that I better tread lie because that's not a good look.
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Speaker 1: And people from Oregon do not cotton to those city
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Speaker 1: slickers from California crossing over into their fair state. And
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Speaker 1: here's the problem. The car was in It was a
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Speaker 1: big giant SUV, so a real hog of the road,
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Speaker 1: and it had a tear trigger horn, so I was
1:16
Speaker 1: constantly accidentally honking at people in traffic and getting some
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Speaker 1: pretty nasty looks. Well, listeners, super producer Casey Pegram, and
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Speaker 1: I can assure you that that Noel is a responsible driver,
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Speaker 1: and you don't just lay on your horn. You know,
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Speaker 1: it's tough when you're driving a rental car and you're right,
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Speaker 1: you're right about California. A lot of people have been
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Speaker 1: moving to Oregon, especially the western part of the state
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Speaker 1: by the coast. And when I had spent time in Portland's, uh,
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Speaker 1: that's one thing everybody got behind. They were like, all
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Speaker 1: these Californians, California coming in here, taking over our state.
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Speaker 1: Stay on the four oh five. So so today's story
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Speaker 1: is a story about state rivalry. But it's not about
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Speaker 1: that kind of you know, funny. Let's tell one liner,
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Speaker 1: Joe sort of rivalry. Um, what do we mean by
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Speaker 1: one liner joke? I'll tell an example that makes fun
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Speaker 1: of Georgia. Since this is our state, of course, we
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Speaker 1: don't want to offend anybody. So so let's say you're
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Speaker 1: in Alabama, you're in Florida, and someone says, hey, did
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Speaker 1: you hear about that hurricane that hits Savannah? And they
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Speaker 1: say no, what happened? They said, well, it did like
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Speaker 1: millions of dollars worth of improvements. That's a that's a
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Speaker 1: joke that you hear thrown around a lot. Savannah is
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Speaker 1: a beautiful lot of city, though, Ben who would say
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Speaker 1: that about Savanna. Who would say that, I don't know jerks,
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Speaker 1: who are these monsters? Well, they're jokes. Savannah is a
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Speaker 1: town with a lot of histories to get a weird vibe.
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Speaker 1: And there's a like a nuclear weapon lost off the
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Speaker 1: coast there. Did you know that? I didn't, but I
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Speaker 1: know there's a lot of ghosts there. Yes. Yeah, it
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Speaker 1: goes on those ghost deep port towns like in New Orleans,
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Speaker 1: and it's oh man, yeah, we should we should go
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Speaker 1: down there. We should go down there on a ridiculous
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Speaker 1: history field trip. We could do a ghost tour. We
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Speaker 1: could do a ghost tour. I think I think it's
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Speaker 1: in the budget. What do you say, let's do in
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Speaker 1: case here you down for a ghost tour. I'd love
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Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah, Savers going to Hawaii, they can
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Speaker 1: at least send us to Savannah for a ghost tour.
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Speaker 1: That really uh Savers and Food Lifestyle and travel show.
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Speaker 1: It's also involves food science. Do check it out if
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Speaker 1: you're did a chance to your friends Lauren Voge, Obama
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Speaker 1: and any Reese who are going to why that is true?
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Speaker 1: I asked them to bring back some spam for me.
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Speaker 1: We'll see, you know, they sell spam here in the States. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but it's different. There are more flavors in Hawaii. Okay,
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Speaker 1: did you specifically ask for a flavor? Just say give
3:36
Speaker 1: me get weird with it. Say give me one that
3:39
Speaker 1: I can't get in the States. It's sort of like
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Speaker 1: all those different flavors of kit cats that you can
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Speaker 1: only get in Japan. Yeah. I have a bag of those.
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Speaker 1: If I desk really like the green tea ones green
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Speaker 1: tea is good. I get hip to banana. Um. Also,
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Speaker 1: Hawaii is, I think, per capita, the world's largest consumer
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Speaker 1: of spam. Remember when we did an episode on spam
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Speaker 1: with any from Saver and we talked about how they
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Speaker 1: have to keep it under lock and key because it's
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Speaker 1: such a nonperishable item that they can just flip it
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Speaker 1: out of their trunks once they, you know, do a
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Speaker 1: big spam heist. Yeah. I used to have spam in
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Speaker 1: my go bag. But the weight ratio is anyway. Anyway, anyway,
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Speaker 1: State rivals right, that's um state rivalries. Today's episode is
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Speaker 1: about a state rivalry. It is about the fair states
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Speaker 1: of Ohio and Michigan, who nowadays nol neither of us
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Speaker 1: are are big football fanatics. Football football. Yes, American football fanatics. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: neither of us are are huge American football fanatics, nowhere
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Speaker 1: near as insane and rabid about it as Casey Pegram is. Uh.
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Speaker 1: But even we know that Michigan and Ohio are famous
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Speaker 1: for how much their college football teams hate each other
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Speaker 1: because it says it right here on this out line. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's how you and I know that. But it's true.
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Speaker 1: And who knows. I mean, perhaps the rivalry in in
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Speaker 1: in question today has had historical hold on the relationship
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Speaker 1: between these two states and his you know, I would
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Speaker 1: say a football rivalry or a little healthy josh and
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Speaker 1: around between you know, rough and tumble footballers is a
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Speaker 1: lot healthier and safer than what has been described as
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Speaker 1: the Toledo War, a clash between Ohioans. And I'm gonna
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Speaker 1: go with my favorite Michiganders because in our research material
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Speaker 1: sometimes it says Michiganians and sometimes I yeah, right right
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Speaker 1: in any Michigan folk, let us know what you one
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Speaker 1: do you prefer um. But this conflict took place in
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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five, and it had to do with the
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Speaker 1: fact that both Ohio, which was a state at the time,
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Speaker 1: and Michigan which was not yet a state at the time.
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Speaker 1: Both thought they owned this little strip of land. It's
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Speaker 1: almost like a gaza strip kind of situation between two
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Speaker 1: warring nations, uh, only this case it's you know, there's
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Speaker 1: their states and a state and a not quite yet state, um,
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Speaker 1: and there's this little strip of land between them that
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Speaker 1: each of them feel like they have a claim to,
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Speaker 1: right right. This was a long time in coming, and
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Speaker 1: it's a uh. It's based on a series of misunderstandings.
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Speaker 1: First of all, I love the name Toledo War. It
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Speaker 1: sounds like it's the name of an album. In the
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Speaker 1: US Congress drafted what they called the Northwest Ordinance, and
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Speaker 1: the Northwest Ordinance said that two hundred and sixty thousand
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Speaker 1: square miles of territory around the Great Lakes would be
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Speaker 1: carved into a handful of states. The law also said
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Speaker 1: that the border between Ohio and Michigan was to run
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Speaker 1: on a quote east and west line drawn through the
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Speaker 1: southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan until it intersected
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Speaker 1: with Lake Erie. However, they did a bad job. They
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Speaker 1: did a piss poor job, because the problem is that
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Speaker 1: the maps they had were wrong. La Michigan southern tip
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Speaker 1: on the map, one of the best maps at the
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Speaker 1: time that they used, which was called the Mitchell Map.
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Speaker 1: You can look it up today. The Lake Michigan that
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Speaker 1: was on the map was actually several miles north of
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Speaker 1: where it where it is in the world or on
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Speaker 1: the planet. And so Congress got it wrong and they
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Speaker 1: didn't know it. Congress did what I know, I know,
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Speaker 1: I thought they were infallible. It was the one time, uh,
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Speaker 1: Congress got it wrong, and they didn't know that they
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Speaker 1: got it wrong until eighteen o two years and years later.
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Speaker 1: And it was because of a fur trapper who said, hey, guys,
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Speaker 1: actually got the line wrong. That's gonna come back to
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Speaker 1: bite you in the future. Listen to me. I'm I'm
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Speaker 1: a trapper. Professionally, I'm telling you you guys are trapping yourselves. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And how did they react, Well, we know it wasn't resolved. Well,
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Speaker 1: first of all, I got I got a backtrack slightly.
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Speaker 1: Let me ask you, guys, did this fur trapper with
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Speaker 1: you know, just just waltz into Congress and announce these findings.
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Speaker 1: Say hey, hey, you guys, it's me Raoul the fur trapper.
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Speaker 1: I got something to tell you or was he employed
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Speaker 1: by them? Was he sent to what's the word survey
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Speaker 1: the land? Because the surveyors come in a little later.
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Speaker 1: Sorry if I'm getting caught up in semantics here, I
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Speaker 1: just can't picture Raoul with the fur Trapper just waltzing
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Speaker 1: into Connor and saying, listen here, this is gonna be
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Speaker 1: a real problem. He did. I like the name Raoul,
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Speaker 1: and we we don't have the exact name for this guy. Uh.
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Speaker 1: Apparently delegates from the Ohio Constitutional Convention received reports from him,
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Speaker 1: so he did not stroll into the halls of federal
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Speaker 1: I see he had a correspondence going on with him.
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Speaker 1: He was some in some form, their representative, and he
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Speaker 1: had a lot He had a lot of stuff going
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Speaker 1: on already, show what I mean. He can't watch every
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Speaker 1: falling sparrow or border dispute. But uh, you said, you
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Speaker 1: said there were There was another important thing happening here,
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Speaker 1: which is that these territories, these areas around the lakes
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Speaker 1: were not states. Ohio finally became a state in what
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Speaker 1: eighteen o three, and so Ohio said when it became
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Speaker 1: a state, its specified something about this border in its constitution.
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Speaker 1: So the fur Trapper says the line actually falls south
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Speaker 1: of the Maumi River, and Ohio says, we own the
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Speaker 1: land around this no matter what future surveys show. And
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Speaker 1: then the Michigan Territory is formed and the government of
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Speaker 1: the Michigan Territory says, hey, hey, hey, hey, Ohio, watch yourself,
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Speaker 1: because that Mitchell map is wrong. We have newer, better maps,
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Speaker 1: and they show that this region is ours. This is
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Speaker 1: Michigan Territory, so step off. So things only got worse,
9:54
Speaker 1: um because in the eighteen tens they sent a pair
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Speaker 1: of land surveyors. Uh actually I guess, one from each side. Yeah, um,
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Speaker 1: one from each side, and of course they came to
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Speaker 1: two different conclusions yeah yeah, about the location of where
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Speaker 1: this border would be. And that's when this strip became
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Speaker 1: a thing. This uh, this Gaza strip esque um area
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Speaker 1: of land, a four hundred and sixty eight square miles
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Speaker 1: slice known as the Toledo Strip um that was officially
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Speaker 1: being claimed very aggressively actually, as it would turn out,
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Speaker 1: by both Ohio and what was then called the Michigan Territory.
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Speaker 1: So okay, sure, maps get things wrong. People are fallible.
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Speaker 1: Can't they just sit down together and work it out? Well,
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Speaker 1: they could if it were an arbitrary mistake. The problem
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Speaker 1: is they both have skin in the game. They both
10:55
Speaker 1: have a horse in the race. They both want a
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Speaker 1: badger in the bag here because they wanted to control
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Speaker 1: this area that it would later become Toledo and the
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Speaker 1: river you see, by the completion of the Erie Canal
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Speaker 1: linked the Great Lakes to the east coast on the
11:15
Speaker 1: area that one. It's a song kind of like in
11:19
Speaker 1: the company store. We're trying to ground it and like,
11:22
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, and folks, folks, folks songs. Exactly. No,
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Speaker 1: this is very, very very valuable position to hold in
11:31
Speaker 1: terms of trade, right, yeah, absolutely, you're absolutely right. So
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Speaker 1: Toledo at this point is a growing village. It's the
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Speaker 1: largest port on Lake Erie's western side, and that means
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Speaker 1: it could be a financial windfall. So of course both
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Speaker 1: Michigan and Ohio want to tighten their grip on it.
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Speaker 1: And just like uh, just like the border disputes we
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Speaker 1: see in more recent years, they try a number of
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Speaker 1: things right to legitimize their claim, both in the eyes
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Speaker 1: of the people living there and in terms of just
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Speaker 1: pure infrastructure. So the Michigan Territory, because still not a
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Speaker 1: state yet, is constructing roads, it's sending people on purpose
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Speaker 1: to live there to sort of take over the land.
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Speaker 1: It's holding election, it's collecting taxes. Really put in the
12:25
Speaker 1: cart before the old horse. There isn't yeah like a
12:28
Speaker 1: boots like sounds colexing that claim, right, It is not
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Speaker 1: an ethical way to gain territory. It is an unfortunately
12:36
Speaker 1: common way that human beings have done this in the past.
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Speaker 1: In the modern day, just say like, let's if we
12:42
Speaker 1: send enough of quote unquote our people to a place
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Speaker 1: that we don't own and have them live there, but
12:47
Speaker 1: eventually it's ours. It just isn't the moon. You know.
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Speaker 1: This isn't like a far removed location. This isn't a
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Speaker 1: colony that is completely disconnected from day to day life.
12:57
Speaker 1: This is a very small strip of land right between
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Speaker 1: these two places where presumably human beings live. Um. And
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Speaker 1: it became very evident that both sides wanted to protect
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Speaker 1: their claim uh physically if necessary. Right right in Ohio.
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Speaker 1: Ohio tries a different strategy. They're doing some of the
13:18
Speaker 1: same things the Michigan territory is, but Ohio is already
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Speaker 1: a state, so they have a pretty pretty significant advantage.
13:25
Speaker 1: They go to Washington like that fur trapper who never
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Speaker 1: made it. Yeah. Right, Well, uh so they go to
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Speaker 1: the halls of federal power and they say, look, a
13:36
Speaker 1: deal is a deal, is a deal. When we became
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Speaker 1: a state, we put this in our instruction manual or
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Speaker 1: their constitution. Rather, you guys screwed up. You guys screwed up.
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Speaker 1: That's not on us. Toledo is and will always be
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Speaker 1: a part of Ohio as God intended it. In fact,
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Speaker 1: in the early eighteen thirties, UH members of Congress from
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Speaker 1: Ohio blocked a Michigan petition for statehood and tried to
14:05
Speaker 1: tried to hold the uh Toledo strip, which they called
14:09
Speaker 1: it hostage, and they said, look, you can't be a state.
14:12
Speaker 1: They didn't say, give up Toledo. They said, unless you
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Speaker 1: admit that Toledo is ours. I mean, if we're being honest, here,
14:19
Speaker 1: pretty scrappy of non state Michigan. Here the way they're
14:23
Speaker 1: flexing on this claim, knowing that they themselves don't even
14:26
Speaker 1: have statehood yet. And then they're poking the bear in
14:31
Speaker 1: more ways than one, right, Yeah, exactly. In eighteen thirty three,
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Speaker 1: the US becomes divided on the issue. The entirety of
14:40
Speaker 1: Congress so the Senate says, Okay, we're team Ohio. We
14:44
Speaker 1: side with Ohio. But the House of Representatives says, well, well,
14:48
Speaker 1: like we're not just gonna go along with you guys.
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Speaker 1: And then people say, Stevens Mason. That's his name, Stevens,
14:57
Speaker 1: that's Stevens. We're gonna get into some other really amazing
15:00
Speaker 1: name in this story later, but yeah, Stevens Mason. Yeah,
15:03
Speaker 1: he's governor of the Michigan Territory again still not a state.
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Speaker 1: And he says, hey, look, let's get a commission together
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Speaker 1: to try to work this out. I think it's so funny.
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Speaker 1: Stevens Mason. It should be flipped. It should be Mason Stevens.
15:15
Speaker 1: It's the last name, first name, first name, last name,
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Speaker 1: vibe that he's more than one sees. I have a
15:21
Speaker 1: I have a good friend whose name is James. He's
15:25
Speaker 1: just like what one James. Well, that was the name
15:29
Speaker 1: of Buffalo Bill in the Sounds of the Lambs movie.
15:32
Speaker 1: His name was Jamee Gum and that right casey Goodbye Horses.
15:37
Speaker 1: Oh I thought it was James. It was Jamee. Oh weird.
15:41
Speaker 1: I just rewatched the chase scene from that. I just
15:43
Speaker 1: rewatched the scene, not the mirror see. Of course, the
15:52
Speaker 1: mirror cy that's the most iconic moment from that movie.
15:54
Speaker 1: That's the one part everyone remembers. Goodbye Horses and the
15:57
Speaker 1: mirror scene. I remember the lotion of the skin part.
16:00
Speaker 1: That's also a good one. Uh. Anthony Hopkins is only
16:02
Speaker 1: in that movie like fourteen or fifteen minutes. He's he's
16:06
Speaker 1: a he's a. I mean, but it's it's a very
16:08
Speaker 1: powerful fourteen or fifteen minutes. It's true speaking, powerful, powerful
16:13
Speaker 1: fourteen or fifteen minutes. We have to wonder how long
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Speaker 1: Governor Robert Lucas of Ohio took to evaluate Mason's appeal.
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Speaker 1: Not that long. He pretty much instantly refused it. He said,
16:26
Speaker 1: we do not negotiate. And then he said furthermore, in
16:30
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five, this is when everything started to go
16:33
Speaker 1: really off the rails. He said, we're going to form
16:36
Speaker 1: our own county on the Toledo Strips. Now, don't call
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Speaker 1: it the Toledo strip now it's Lucas County, Ohio. Yeah.
16:45
Speaker 1: And then um, Michigan flexes back against against Ohio, UM
16:50
Speaker 1: against the Lucas um and and and and acts this
16:53
Speaker 1: series of laws called the Pains and Penalties Act. And
16:56
Speaker 1: that's in February eighteen five, a law that said anyone
16:59
Speaker 1: found hanging in said strip that supported Ohio could be
17:03
Speaker 1: sent to jail for up to five years and find
17:05
Speaker 1: a grand which at the time would have been equivalent
17:08
Speaker 1: to about twenty dollars. So Mason gets a thousand men
17:12
Speaker 1: a militia um and stations them right inside of this area.
17:17
Speaker 1: And then Lucas, uh, you know, maybe having access to
17:20
Speaker 1: fewer men, are thinking that there wasn't that big a
17:22
Speaker 1: deal because they, you know, we're big old state boys. Um.
17:25
Speaker 1: Since six hundred men. Just to make sure that there
17:27
Speaker 1: wasn't some sort of like out and out blood bath.
17:30
Speaker 1: This is looking bad. Oh. Also we should mention, uh,
17:35
Speaker 1: the governor of the not quite a state Michigan Territory,
17:38
Speaker 1: Stevens Mason. He is twenty three years old. They call
17:42
Speaker 1: him the Boy King or something like that, the boy Governor. Okay, yeah, yeah,
17:46
Speaker 1: So so now we have military forces moving in and
17:51
Speaker 1: this weird hearts and minds law supporting this state of Ohio.
17:57
Speaker 1: What does that mean? That can mean anything from being
18:00
Speaker 1: an official of the county they proposed Lucas County to say, hey,
18:06
Speaker 1: I live in Toledo and I'm in Ohio. And and and
18:09
Speaker 1: also it's got that very kind of like gestapo e
18:14
Speaker 1: kind of idea of like what if you're just caught
18:15
Speaker 1: pounding around with somebody from the other side. You know,
18:18
Speaker 1: what if someone names names and you're one of the names,
18:21
Speaker 1: what gets named? Next thing? You know, you're sitting in
18:23
Speaker 1: the clink for five years and you're you know, a
18:26
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in debt which would be incredibly difficult to
18:29
Speaker 1: pay off. So the federal government tries to get these
18:35
Speaker 1: people to get along despite the fact they're already active
18:39
Speaker 1: militias in the area. So on April ninety five, a
18:44
Speaker 1: posse led by a sheriff from Michigan rode into Toledo
18:48
Speaker 1: and they did just what they were talking about. They
18:50
Speaker 1: arrested several state officials from Ohio, and then newspapers, who
18:56
Speaker 1: you imagine have to have loved the headline potential here.
19:00
Speaker 1: Uh newspapers said that in Ohio flag was torn down,
19:03
Speaker 1: dragged through the streets, and burned. People are p oed.
19:08
Speaker 1: Really a lawless zone here, you know, because no one
19:11
Speaker 1: knows who's in charge, so everyone's kind of in charge,
19:16
Speaker 1: or it's kind of mean, it really is like a
19:17
Speaker 1: Wild West situation, but just in this little strip. Um.
19:21
Speaker 1: So it escalates my friend and involves another sheriff from Michigan,
19:26
Speaker 1: this time a man named Joseph Wood, who attempts to
19:29
Speaker 1: enforce this pain and Penalties act by arresting Major Benjamin
19:35
Speaker 1: Stickney loving that name because he voted in an Ohio election. Um,
19:41
Speaker 1: and this is fantastic. Stickney's sons who are named one
19:47
Speaker 1: Stickney and to Stickney. Like the numbers O n E
19:51
Speaker 1: t w O. Yeah, they join in with their pops
19:54
Speaker 1: uh Stickney sr um and they resist being arrested, and
20:00
Speaker 1: they they stab sheriff would with a pocket knife, but
20:05
Speaker 1: not fatally. No, it's a it's a it's a but
20:08
Speaker 1: a flesh wound. Really right, tis only a scratch this
20:11
Speaker 1: but a scratch. Uh funny story. I've got a I
20:15
Speaker 1: had a great aunt whose name was nine. Really, that's
20:19
Speaker 1: pretty cool. I like the idea of numbers for names.
20:22
Speaker 1: Me too, I met I met a dude name seven,
20:24
Speaker 1: and he was so cool. He was not related to me.
20:26
Speaker 1: I only have one number name in my family. I
20:28
Speaker 1: like the name four. Like the name four. Give about
20:32
Speaker 1: six six? A character on Blossom uh there's six Smith
20:38
Speaker 1: in uh cloud Atlas. Okay, I haven't seen that. Yeah,
20:42
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm partially for some reason, I'm partial
20:44
Speaker 1: to odd numbers for names. This has nothing to do
20:48
Speaker 1: with Michigan, Ohio's Toledo War. What do you think is
20:52
Speaker 1: a great number for a name? There was a character
20:55
Speaker 1: name six on Blossom and he was six Lemure played
20:57
Speaker 1: by Whoa jenne von Oi another These are great names? Um, yeah,
21:03
Speaker 1: I would go with a I would go with a
21:05
Speaker 1: nine or maybe a three. Yeah, we go with the
21:08
Speaker 1: name three. Casey, do you have a number that you
21:10
Speaker 1: you think would make a good name. I knew you
21:13
Speaker 1: were gonna. Okay, Casey on the case. He's thought about it, folks.
21:17
Speaker 1: He thought about this a lot. So this is the
21:25
Speaker 1: first violent physical altercation when the Michigan Sheriff Joseph Wood
21:32
Speaker 1: and Benjamin Stickney and co. Get beefed up, and now
21:37
Speaker 1: Sheriff would is remembered as the one injury casualty in
21:43
Speaker 1: the Toledo War. So the Ohio Governor Lucas announced his
21:49
Speaker 1: intentions to old a court session in Toledo. So they
21:52
Speaker 1: were gonna hold a session in a court of law,
21:55
Speaker 1: said like a hearing kind of, right, yeah, kind of
21:57
Speaker 1: like a kangaroo court. It's not like he's gonna have
22:00
Speaker 1: a stunning plot twist. Kinkaroo coords just seems so cute
22:03
Speaker 1: and fun to me, the idea, but they're not at all. No,
22:06
Speaker 1: they're they're very uh railroad e and sort of a
22:10
Speaker 1: mockery of justice, right right? Uh? Do you know where
22:14
Speaker 1: that comes from? A lot of people think it comes
22:17
Speaker 1: from Australia, predictably only because the only not not just
22:21
Speaker 1: a stereotype because of kangaroo's I would have thought it
22:25
Speaker 1: maybe came from the fact that it was a penal
22:27
Speaker 1: colony and maybe you know, it was the idea of
22:30
Speaker 1: giving someone not a fair trial and throwing them onto
22:32
Speaker 1: a penal colony. Is that not true? It's it's not true,
22:35
Speaker 1: which is weird because it's it's something I believe for
22:38
Speaker 1: years to The first published instance of the term kangaroo
22:41
Speaker 1: court comes from nine or eighteen fifty three rather, and
22:45
Speaker 1: it may have been popularized during the California gold Rush
22:49
Speaker 1: because a lot of Australians went to the California gold
22:53
Speaker 1: Rush and then they would have, you know, accusations of
22:58
Speaker 1: claim jumping, so claim jumping and hastily proceeding through the
23:04
Speaker 1: legal system, perhaps by leaps and bounds like a kangaroo.
23:09
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, they leap and bound right, so they
23:13
Speaker 1: would jump over or ignore evidence that would be in
23:16
Speaker 1: favor of the defendant. But people don't really know. That's
23:18
Speaker 1: just another theory. I think the most widely believed one
23:22
Speaker 1: is the penal colony. But apparently that's the timing doesn't
23:25
Speaker 1: work out. Ben, I just went down a bit of
23:27
Speaker 1: a mini internet rabbit hole when I was looking into
23:29
Speaker 1: the origins of kangaroo courts, and I discovered that in Germany,
23:33
Speaker 1: the Third Reich would hold their versions of kangaroo courts,
23:36
Speaker 1: and you know what they were called, Ben, what were
23:37
Speaker 1: they called? They were called the People's Court. But not
23:41
Speaker 1: with Judge Wappner. I think I've seen this show. Yeah,
23:44
Speaker 1: you know what show I miss as well. I watched
23:47
Speaker 1: I listened to the I listened to the intro theme
23:50
Speaker 1: song for it all the time. Night Court. I'll probably
23:53
Speaker 1: never actually watch Night Court. It probably hasn't aged well
23:56
Speaker 1: since Dan Fielding is pretty much in uh Sexual Predator. Yeah,
24:02
Speaker 1: but but that intro music is so great. I wish
24:06
Speaker 1: we could play it anyhow, so he has this kind
24:10
Speaker 1: of fake court set up to supposedly legitimize Ohio's claim
24:15
Speaker 1: is this is the Governor Lucas of Ohio and the
24:19
Speaker 1: boy governor Steven's Mason's here's about this, And he marches
24:23
Speaker 1: twelve hundred militiamen called Wolverines onto the Toledo Strip and
24:29
Speaker 1: they are prepared the Michiganders to use violent force to
24:33
Speaker 1: stop this court session from taking place. They get there
24:37
Speaker 1: on September seven of eighteen thirty five, and then they
24:41
Speaker 1: find out they have been outsmarted. It's true because the
24:46
Speaker 1: Ohioans had already done these court proceedings in secret at
24:52
Speaker 1: the witching hour towards a midnight court session um and
24:56
Speaker 1: then just booked it out of there because they didn't
24:59
Speaker 1: want to get slaughtered, right right. So, according to history
25:05
Speaker 1: dot com, the court incident marked the last gasp of
25:09
Speaker 1: armed hostilities in the Toledo War. Uncle Sam's representatives say, hey, Ohio, Michigan,
25:15
Speaker 1: why don't you guys jointly governed the territory until Congress
25:19
Speaker 1: can make a permanent decision on the issue. Ohio says,
25:23
Speaker 1: all right, cool, dope, let's do that. But at the
25:27
Speaker 1: same time. While they said that was okay, they authorized
25:30
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollars to the Ohio militia to seize
25:35
Speaker 1: the territory if Michigan said no. And Michigan said no,
25:42
Speaker 1: so the Ohio militia moved to the south bank of
25:44
Speaker 1: the river and faced off with Michigan's military on the
25:48
Speaker 1: north side. And then the president had had enough. Andrew Jackson,
25:53
Speaker 1: president at the time, said this is bonkers. This is bananas,
25:56
Speaker 1: this is malarkey. I am removed, moving slash firing the boy. Governor.
26:04
Speaker 1: How do you do that? That's that's a bit of
26:05
Speaker 1: a of a legal reach, isn't it? Just to say
26:08
Speaker 1: I unequivocally, as the president remove you from your duly
26:12
Speaker 1: elected office. Didn't seem like that would go over very well.
26:15
Speaker 1: And then installing install my guy, right, that's right. It
26:18
Speaker 1: does seem like an overreach of power, you know, But
26:21
Speaker 1: that's what happened. And Mason was replaced by fellow named
26:24
Speaker 1: John Horner. John Horner, I don't know if we would
26:28
Speaker 1: say completely mended the offences, but he worked with the
26:33
Speaker 1: Ohio governor to reach a okay conclusion to the dispute,
26:39
Speaker 1: and Ohio was happy. The people of Michigan were not.
26:44
Speaker 1: They hated this guy, They despised him. They would see
26:48
Speaker 1: him in the street and verbally abuse him. They hanged
26:51
Speaker 1: effigies of him on multiple occasions, and they immediately voted Stevens. Mason,
27:00
Speaker 1: the boy Governor, back into office. So this debate raged on,
27:06
Speaker 1: and a lot of it focused on Michigan's, you know,
27:09
Speaker 1: ongoing plea to be made a state, and that that
27:14
Speaker 1: was really the deciding factor here because on December fourteenth,
27:17
Speaker 1: eighty six, Michigan did eventually accept a congressional compromise and
27:24
Speaker 1: they said, okay, we will give up the Toledo Strip
27:28
Speaker 1: if we are admitted to the Union as the twenty
27:31
Speaker 1: sixth state. And with that, Toledo became part of the
27:36
Speaker 1: state of Ohio. Michigan didn't just give that up for statehood.
27:42
Speaker 1: They also got some land right in the Upper Peninsula. Yeah,
27:46
Speaker 1: it's between Lake Michigan and Lake superior Um. The thing is,
27:50
Speaker 1: though the Michigans weren't super thrilled about this. They thought
27:53
Speaker 1: it was kind of a raw deal um because the
27:56
Speaker 1: Detroit Free Press of the time had categorized this Upper
28:00
Speaker 1: an insular area as a barren waste land of perpetual snows.
28:05
Speaker 1: But you know, as history has a tendency to do
28:08
Speaker 1: kind of soften things a little bit when they discovered
28:11
Speaker 1: some precious, mindable materials in the form of copper and
28:15
Speaker 1: iron ore. So it turned out to be not not
28:18
Speaker 1: a bad not a bad trade, not a complete wash.
28:21
Speaker 1: And there we have at folks. The Toledo War, nowadays
28:24
Speaker 1: is remembered as the most ferocious conflict in Ohio Michigan history,
28:29
Speaker 1: even worse than the uh college football rivalries. But this
28:34
Speaker 1: was not the last time the states clash over their borders.
28:38
Speaker 1: These folks have legitimate boundary issues. The precise location of
28:42
Speaker 1: their land boundary was still a constant subject of contention
28:47
Speaker 1: argument until nineteen fifteen. They had to have a new
28:50
Speaker 1: government survey, and the governors celebrated the resolution by shaking
28:55
Speaker 1: hands across the border. See and nineteen sixty the lieutenant
29:02
Speaker 1: governors repeated the ceremony. That's nice, like many hands across
29:06
Speaker 1: America think hey, and here will come full circle. Uh.
29:09
Speaker 1: You know. There were occasional legal battles between the states
29:13
Speaker 1: up until nine seventy three, when a Supreme Court ruling
29:16
Speaker 1: resolved any claims to the waters of Lake Erie now, um,
29:22
Speaker 1: those tensions that historical tensions are pretty much dealt with
29:27
Speaker 1: in in those college football rivalries we talked about at
29:31
Speaker 1: the top of the show, the Toledo War. There you
29:34
Speaker 1: have it. So this ends today's episode, but not our show.
29:40
Speaker 1: We would love to hear some of your favorite stories
29:43
Speaker 1: of state rivalries in the US or uh, you know,
29:46
Speaker 1: country rivalries, county province rivalries anywhere throughout the world, because,
29:53
Speaker 1: as we know, at least here in the States, it's
29:55
Speaker 1: a huge ongoing issue and every state has at least
29:58
Speaker 1: one other state that they despise for one reason or another.
30:04
Speaker 1: You can let us know on our email. We are
30:07
Speaker 1: ridiculous at I heart radio dot com. You can find
30:11
Speaker 1: us on Instagram, and you can find us the most
30:13
Speaker 1: importantly your fellow listeners on our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians. Yeah,
30:17
Speaker 1: and you can check us out individually on Instagram if
30:19
Speaker 1: you like, um follow our various exploits. I am at
30:22
Speaker 1: embryonic insider. I am at Ben Bowling with a lot
30:27
Speaker 1: of stuff on there that's probably gonna ruin my political
30:31
Speaker 1: ambitions later in life. Oh surely not, Ben, surely not.
30:34
Speaker 1: You're just a full human person, very rich life experiences,
30:38
Speaker 1: that's that's very kind. I, like many people do, try
30:42
Speaker 1: to emulate Casey Pegram Oh speaking of that guy, Hey, Casey,
30:46
Speaker 1: thanks so much for, as always saving the show. We'd
30:49
Speaker 1: also like to thank Gabe, our research associate. I would
30:52
Speaker 1: like to think Alex Williams who composed our theme, Christopher
30:55
Speaker 1: Haciots who is here in spirit, and Jonathan Strict on
30:57
Speaker 1: the quister and as usual, Ben Bolan, thanks to you
31:00
Speaker 1: for being a friend, and all the other lyrics of
31:02
Speaker 1: the Golden Girl theme that I will never never remember.
31:05
Speaker 1: Why don't you ever remember? It's a great song. You
31:07
Speaker 1: said it wasn't that greatest song, and it's the full
31:09
Speaker 1: song is not great, but the TV version, just for
31:13
Speaker 1: the intro is spot on. It's pretty heartwarming, especially when
31:16
Speaker 1: paired with the you know, cliffs of these women and
31:19
Speaker 1: their antics. It really does warm the cockles. And I'm
31:22
Speaker 1: gonna say this even though it's late, we probably should
31:25
Speaker 1: have said it earlier. Uh, you know it's here in
31:28
Speaker 1: the US. Mother's Day happened this weekend, and I just
31:32
Speaker 1: want to say thanks to all the moms listening. Yes,
31:37
Speaker 1: thanks to everyone with a mom. Uh and and you know,
31:42
Speaker 1: if you didn't get a chance you didn't get a
31:44
Speaker 1: chance to call her. This is maybe a week a
31:47
Speaker 1: week late now that you're hearing this, But if you
31:49
Speaker 1: didn't get a chance to say hello, just just give
31:52
Speaker 1: her a ring, drop by and see her. Um, we
31:55
Speaker 1: both hung out, well, all three of us hung out
31:57
Speaker 1: with our moms recently and had a heck of a time. No,
32:02
Speaker 1: my mom even almost came to my improv show, which
32:06
Speaker 1: was it was a weird flex man. I would have
32:08
Speaker 1: come to your improv show as well if I wasn't
32:10
Speaker 1: already entertaining my mom and daughter. Uh, you know, in
32:12
Speaker 1: my daughter's ten I don't think um, the improv stuff
32:16
Speaker 1: you guys would have done would have been quite inappropriate.
32:17
Speaker 1: Hear for very soon when she's I'm gonna say thirteen
32:19
Speaker 1: and she can go to her first improv show. Okay,
32:21
Speaker 1: all of us listening now we've ever done improv, know
32:24
Speaker 1: that it can be. It can be tiresome to continually
32:28
Speaker 1: invite your friends to improv. So never feel, you know,
32:31
Speaker 1: we improvise enough together on the show. Will never feel
32:35
Speaker 1: obligated or anything other than invited to that kind of
32:40
Speaker 1: that kind of outside of workstick, you know what I mean.
32:42
Speaker 1: I do indeed, We'll see you next time, folks. For
32:50
Speaker 1: more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I heart
32:52
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
32:55
Speaker 1: favorite shows.