Daily Staff Reporter

Popularly regarded at the times
the "poor, frozen country
beyondLake Michigan," the Upper Peninsula was granted to the state of Michigan as a consolation prize in the dispute with Ohio over a strip of land containing Toledo.

As Michigan sought statehood in 1836, issues including the balance between slave and free states and the upcoming presidential elections caused a clash in Congress. Michigan was seen as a counter to Arkansas' recent admission to the Union as a slave state.

But the issue that concerned Michiganians more than any other was a border dispute with Ohio over a 468-square-mile strip of land in the southeast corner of the state, which included Toledo -- considered valuable because of its harbor on Lake Erie and control of the mouth of the Maumee River.

In a scuffle called the "Toledo War," the Michigan Militia organized to fight the Ohio Militia. In fact, there were two casualties -- a pig and a man who fell on a knife.

"There was more brawling in taverns and things like that," said Eastern Michigan University history Prof. Jo Ellen Vinyard.

Congress settled the dispute June 15, 1836, with the Northern Ohio Boundary Bill, giving Toledo to Ohio and granting Michigan the 13,000-square miles of the Upper Peninsula and immediate statehood.

President Andrew Jackson worried that giving Toledo to Michigan would offend Ohio, Indiana and Illinois -- and their 25 combined electoral votes -- gaining only three votes from Michigan for his chosen successor, Martin Van Buren.

Michiganians on both peninsulas were unhappy with the decision.

"People in the Lower Peninsula had no idea what was up there and thought they were getting some kind of wasteland," Vinyard said. "People in the Upper Peninsula -- and there weren't that many up there at this time -- were more interested in being separate than being tacked on to somewhere else."

Most Upper Peninsula residents at the time felt closer ties to Wisconsin. Detroit is closer to New York City than to parts of the Upper Peninsula, both geographically and logistically.

"There was some sentiment in the Upper Peninsula as to whether they wanted to be a part of Michigan," said David Armour, current deputy director of the Mackinac State Historic Parks. "It was kind of a controversial thing."

Lower Peninsula Michiganians were even more appalled by the ruling. A petition signed by 1,000 Detroiters rejected the gift of "the sterile region on the shores of Lake Superior, destined by soil and climate to remain forever a wilderness."

Resigned, some groups favored accepting the Upper Peninsula and becoming a state, but others rallied against losing Toledo, which they felt was more important than the "whole of Wisconsin."

The ruling -- and statehood -- required a convention, which was convened in the Washtenaw County Courthouse in Ann Arbor in the summer of 1836. Delegates, elected on the basis of population, rejected the compromise, 28-21, after a few days of debate.

But even with the widespread disfavor with the congressional compromise, public opinion began to favor statehood.

In addition to balancing free and slave states, Michigan, as a state, would receive a share of the $500,000 treasury surplus to be divided on Jan. 1, 1837. More importantly, states received 5 percent of all public land sale money.

Stephens T. Mason, the territorial governor, decided the money was more important than debating about Toledo and convened a second convention in Ann Arbor, using delegates chosen to approve the resolution.

The results of the two conventions were debated in Congress for several weeks.

Jackson signed the bill granting Michigan -- both peninsulas -- statehood on Jan. 26, 1837.

The compromise paid off well for those most unhappy with it. Copper was discovered in the Upper Peninsula in the 1840s, and the Upper Peninsula led U.S. copper production until the late 19th century.

"All the wealth of the resources was unknown," Vinyard said. "In fact, the wealth of the resources of the Upper Peninsula would be the mainstay of the Michigan economy in the last decades of the 19th century. But it was an unknown.

"I guess Michigan certainly, definitely came out ahead. As transportation changed, the mouth of the Maumee turned out to be not so important -- certainly not as important as all that copper."

All from a frozen, barren wasteland.