The first real progress made in creating useful roads through the Swamp came as a result of The Toledo War in 1835. The ‘war’ itself, resulted from a boundary dispute between Ohio and Michigan. Michigan claimed Toledo was within its borders according to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Ohio refused to accept this on the basis that the Ordinance assumed (incorrectly) that the southern tip of Lake Michigan was level with the Maumee Bay (where Toledo stood). Michigan’s governor, angered by Ohio’s refusal to budge on the issue in Congress, finally took matters into his own hands and marched on Toledo with a militia of about 250 men. Ohio’s governor moved to meet him, but ended up having to pass through the Great Black Swamp.

Needless to say, the militia became demoralized and much of their equipment sank into the mud holes. Before a real skirmish could take place, President Andrew Jackson dismissed Michigan’s governor, and awarded Toledo to Ohio, giving Michigan the Upper Peninsula as consolation. Ohio’s governor, Robert Lucas, took note of the bothersome Swamp and began to initiate legislation to organize its drainage.Wagon stops along the roadways provided respite from the slow going travel through the Swamp. The Miami, Wabash, and Erie Canals provided alternate transportation through the area for 13 years.

The first of a series of Ditch Laws was passed in 1859, and amended in 1871. The laws enabled the county to levy taxes and established a fund for the surface drainage of the Swamp. Ditches collected standing water above the ground and funneled it to existing waterways. Prior to the enactment of the first Ditch Law, Northwest Ohio had some 160 miles worth of ditches. By 1869, there was more than 2200 miles.

But surface drainage was only half of the battle. The water permeated the soil of the Swamp, resulting in the seemingly bottomless mud holes. In order to remove the water from the ground, special clay tile drains had to be buried 2 to 3 feet underground that would carry the water to the ditches, where it would flow into the waterways and then into Lake Erie. Clay was expensive, however, once it was discovered, in 1870, that there was a layer of clay 60-200 feet thick underneath the topsoil of the Black Swamp, the tile ditching industry took off.

In 1892, James B. Hill, a machine shop worker in Bowling Green, invented a steam-powered mechanical ditching wheel. His contraption spawned the Buckeye Traction Ditching Company, which grew to be the largest business of its kind in the world. After the turn of the century, the draining process went more and more quickly. By 1920, nobody would have guessed that the straight plane of fertile croplands stretching out in all directions had been America’s largest wetland a mere 40 years prior. With fortitude, industry, and a devotion to the land, men had conquered the Great Black Swamp.

PAGE 1 | 2