130 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



The treaties of 1763 and 1783 made the Mississippi our 

 western boundary and marked the western limits of Con- 

 necticut. 



A special Federal court met at Trenton, New Jersey, 

 by authority of Congress, and tried the issue between 

 Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It located the west line 

 of Pennsylvania where it now is, but left Connecticut to 

 claim the ancient boundaries as far west as the Missis- 

 sippi River. 



Massachusetts asserted her claims to much of the land 

 now occupied by Michigan and Wisconsin. Massachu- 

 setts conveyed her title April 19, 1785 ; Virginia, March 

 1, 1784; New York made her cession March 1, 1781; 

 Georgia made a pretty close bargain with the government 

 for the transfer of her western claims to the Mississippi, 

 but Connecticut granted her lands, with all the possibil- 

 ities of Chicago in the future, on September 14, 1786. 

 She reserved, however, 3,250,000 acres in northern Ohio, 

 ' ' The Connecticut Western Reserve, ' ' of which she after- 

 wards sold the soil, and subsequently ceded the sover- 

 eignty to the national government. This last was done 

 in order that a perfected title might be given to the Con 

 necticut Company to which she had granted the Western 

 Reserve. 



What a remarkable state Connecticut would have been ! 

 Her emblem should have been the kangaroo, the greatest 

 part would have been behind. She ceded Chicago, but 

 kept Cleveland and the Western Reserve. Had they not 

 afterwards made the relinquishment of political juris- 

 diction over the Western Reserve, her statesmen might 

 now say that they "had lost Chicago; they had lost Har- 

 rison and Dunne, but they still had the city of Cleveland 

 with the graves of Garfield and Hanna and a living Tom 

 Johnson." But the future Chicago's troubles were not 

 yet at an end. Wisconsin wanted the north fourteen 



