Early Ohio History

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="02c285a1erlcgo.gif"> <div> <B>Ashtabula Bicentennial Celebration</B><FONT SIZE="6" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="Century Schoolbook" ><B> </B></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="Arial" ><B>    </B></FONT></div> <div> <FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="Arial" ><B>   </B></FONT><A HREF="Home.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ashtabula Bicentennial Celebration"><U><B>Home</B></U></A><B>                 </B><A HREF="History.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" History "><U><B>History</B></U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="02ad2c00dkelyh.gif"> <div> <IMG SRC="3acbfad0.gif" border=0 ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" width="191" height="173"></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Early Ohio History</I></div> <div> <B>   </B></div> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="549" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 195 WIDTH="543"><div> <B><IMG SRC="3bf49ba0.jpg" border=0 ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" width="329" height="186"></B></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 401 WIDTH="543"><div>                                                     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Century Schoolbook" ><B>State Flag</B></FONT></div> <div> <B>   The first Ohio flag was created to be shown at the Ohio building</B></div> <div> <B>at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901. The General  Assembly  officially  adopted  the flag the following year. </B></div> <div> <B>     Designed  by  John  Eisenmann,  the  flag  three red and two white horizontal  strips  (symbolizing  the  roads  and waterways), a blue traingular  field  in which there are seventeen white, five-pointed stars  (symbolizing  Ohio's  admittance  to the Union as the seventeenth State),  grouped  around  a red on a white circle (symbolizing the initial letter of the state's name.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>                                                     <IMG SRC="3c1835a0.gif" border=0 width="131" height="90" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <bR> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="539" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 1187 WIDTH="533"><div> <B>Early History of Ohio</B></div> <div> <B>By</B></div> <div> <B>Darrell E. Hamilton</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>        Before the settlement of  Ohio in  the  late  1700's, about 95 per  cent of  Ohio was  covered with a dense  forest. This was not unlike Ashtabula. Ohio,  just like  Ashtabula, received her name from a river. The  Ohio River  was  named  by  the  Iroquois  Indians which in Iroquois means great and/or beautiful river.</B></div> <div> <B>       Ohio  received her nickname from the many buck-</B></div> <div> <B>eye trees that grew within the Ohio boundaries when</B></div> <div> <B>the first settlers  arrived  in  Ohio.  Some  of  the trees were a variety of horse  chestnut  in  which  the  early settlers  built many  log cabins from the  trees  across</B></div> <div> <B> the state.</B></div> <div> <B>          Ohio had been a part of the Northwest Territory</B></div> <div> <B>in which consisted  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michi-</B></div> <div> <B>gan,  Wisconsin  and  the  eastern  part  of  Minnesota. </B></div> <div> <B>This area was ceded by Britain to the United Sates in</B></div> <div> <B>1783.  On  the  basis  of  early  charters  Virginia,  New York,  Massachusetts  and   Connecticut  claimed  the </B></div> <div> <B>greater part of the Northwest Territory. However, the</B></div> <div> <B>other states refused to recognize  the  claims  of  those states and insisted that the territory should belong to</B></div> <div> <B>the country as a whole.  The states finally ceded their claims with  Connecticut  being  the  last state to cede </B></div> <div> <B>her claims in 1786.  The  states  did  however,  reserve </B></div> <div> <B>certain lands from cession. Virginia reserved much of </B></div> <div> <B>southern Ohio which was known as the Virginia Mili-tary District. Connecticut reserved much of Northern</B></div> <div> <B>Ohio which was know as the Connecticut Western Re-</B></div> <div> <B>serve.</B></div> <div> <B>    On March 1, 1784, Thomas Jefferson, then a member </B></div> <div> <B>of the Continental  Congress,  proposed to Congress a</B></div> <div> <B>temporary plan of government.  The plan was not  ac-</B></div> <div> <B>cepted until the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. It  pro-vided  the  formation  of  not  less  than  three  states   nor more than five states.  It also  defined  the bound-aries of   the  states,  forbade  slavery  in  the territory  and set  sixty thousand as the number of  free inhabit- ants  as  the  population  requirements  for statehood. </B></div> <div> <B>        Marietta,  settled in 1788, was the first permanent</B></div> <div> <B>settlement in Ohio.  It was named  after  Queen  Marie Antoinette of  France  in recognition  of French aid  to the  United  States  during  the  American  Revolution. </B></div> <div> <B>Marietta  was  also  the  first  capital of the Northwest</B></div> <div> <B>Territory.</B></div> <div> <B>         In March of  1803,  Ohio  became  the  seventeenth </B></div> <div> <B>state and "the  first  fruits  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787". </B></div> <div> <B>Chillicothe became the first state capital followed  by</B></div> <div> <B>Zanesville. After considerable  political  jockeying,  it was decided that the capital should be located  at  the</B></div> <div> <B>center  of  the  state.  Thus,  in 1816, the newly  platted Columbus became the state capital,</B></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><IMG SRC="59bdcc80.jpg" border=0 ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" width="220" height="200"></B></div> </td> </tr></table></body>