Ohio, state, United States: From the Settlement of the Old Northwest to Statehood

Ohio was part of the vast area ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris (1783; see Paris, Treaty of). Conflicting claims to land in that area made by Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia were settled by relinquishment of almost all of the claims (see Western Reserve) and the organization of the Old Northwest by the Ordinance of 1787. Ohio was the first region developed under the provisions of that ordinance, with the activities of the Ohio Company of Associates promoted by Rufus Putnam and Manasseh Cutler. Marietta, founded in 1788, was the first permanent American settlement in the Old Northwest.

In the years that followed, various land companies were formed, and settlers poured in from the East, either down the Ohio on flatboats and barges, or across the mountains by wagon—their numbers varying with conditions but steadily expanding the area's population. The Native Americans, supported by the British, resisted American settlement. They successfully opposed campaigns led by Josiah Harmar and Arthur St. Clair but were decisively defeated by Anthony Wayne in the battle of Fallen Timbers (1794). The British thereafter (1796) withdrew their outposts from the Northwest under the terms of Jay's Treaty, and the area was pacified. Ohio became a territory in 1799. General St. Clair, as the first governor, ruled in an arbitrary fashion that made Ohioans for many years afterward distrustful of all government. In 1802 a state convention drafted a constitution, and in 1803 Ohio entered the Union, with Chillicothe as its capital. Columbus became the permanent capital in 1816.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Twentieth-Century Developments
• The Civil War, Industrialization, and Politics
• The War of 1812 and Further Settlement
• From the Settlement of the Old Northwest to Statehood
• Prehistory to the American Revolution
• Government, Politics, and Higher Education
• Economy
• Geography
• Facts and Figures
• Bibliography

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