Tuesday, June 30, 2009



THE GREENVILLE TREATY LINE—

If you examine a current map of Richland County you will notice a slight bevel to the shape of the very southeast corner of our county. That bevel is the result of this treaty line—a line that defined the boundary between white settlement to the south and Indian Territory to the north in 1795.

If you look on east across a modern map showing Ohio’s counties you will see that same bevel on the northwest corner of Tuscarawas County. The original treaty line was a straight line extending slightly southwest across what is now known as Ohio and connecting the borders described above.

When counties were formed later their shapes violated this treaty line at the whim of local political considerations.

The US won the Battle of Fallen Timbers back then and negotiated this treaty with the vanquished Indians; giving them $20,000 worth of goods and domestic animals in return for which the US received much of what is now Ohio.

So, the next time you travel south on Bunker Hill South Rd., onto Doup Rd., then into Knox County you will be crossing this treaty line that once described the south end of Indian territory.
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The picture above was taken about a mile east of Mt. Hope in Holmes County, just slightly north of the intersection of Winesburg Rd., and Township Rd., 652. Lady friend Joetta Goodman is standing in what was then Indian Territory. The photographer was not quite that brave.

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