Histories: Trempealeau Co. Historical Accounts:
"History of Trempealeau County Wisconsin, 1917":
Chapter 1
Sub-chapter - Physical and Political Geography
Boundaries
-As
transcribed from pages 4 - 6
The
boundaries of Wisconsin were first laid down in the Ordinance of 1787, which decreed that the southern
boundary of the fifth or northwestern
State of the Northwest Territory should be an east and west line drawn through the southerly
bend or extreme of Lake Michigan;
that the western boundary should be the Mississippi to its source, thence by a straight line to
the Lake of the Woods and the
international boundary; that the northern boundary should coincide with the international boundary
through Lake Superior; and that
the eastern boundary should be the meridian due north of Vincennes to the international
line. The area of Wisconsin as outlined by this ordinance was one and a
half times as large as at the
present time. By successive measures Wisconsin's boundaries have since been curtailed at the
southern, northeastern, and northwestern
sides.
The southern boundary was changed when in
1818 Illinois was admitted
to the Union. In order to secure for that State a harbor on Lake Michigan, Illinois' northern
boundary was shifted from the line
due west from the southern point of Lake Michigan, to latitude 42° 30´. This added to
Illinois a strip of
territory sixty-one miles in width, containing 8,500 square miles, and the site of
Chicago. In 1818 there was no one in Wisconsin to protest against this
change. In 1838, however, and during Wisconsin's later territorial
period, attempts were made to repossess
the northern portion of Illinois on the ground that the Ordinance of 1787 was a solemn compact,
and as such inviolable without
the consent of all parties concerned. The matter never came before the United States Supreme
Court, but Wisconsin's territorial
legislature passed several vigorous resolutions on the subject to which Congress paid no
attention. Strange to say, many Illinois inhabitants dwelling in the
disputed strip would have preferred
Wisconsin's jurisdiction; at one time an informal referendum on the question in several
Illinois counties resulted overwhelmingly
in favor of Wisconsin. No official action, however, resulted, and the enabling act for
Wisconsin in 1846, fixed its southern
line 42° 30´. The eastern boundary as outlined by the Ordinance of
1787 was obliterated when in
1818 Wisconsin became part of Michigan Territory. When in 1834 it became evident that Michigan east of
Lake Michigan would soon become
a State, it was suggested that all west of Lake Michigan be organized into a new territory.
This would have included in Wisconsin
the upper peninsula of Michigan, and made out State a topographical unit.
Michigan, however, became engaged in a
boundary contest with Ohio concerning
the harbor of Toledo. Congress decided this controversy in favor of Ohio, but compensated
Michigan by adding to her area the lands east of the Montreal and
Menominee River boundary. Wisconsin, then unorganized, had no means
of protest. Her northeastern
boundary was fixed by the erection of the Territory in 1836.
Wisconsin Territory when organized
included all that portion of the Louisiana Purchase lying north of
Missouri, and east of the Missouri
and White Earth rivers. This vast region embracing Iowa, and the larger part of the Dakotas, and
Minnesota was understood to be
added to Wisconsin for administrative purposes only. In 1838 Iowa Territory was set off, and Wisconsin
was limited to the western
boundary as outlined in the Ordinance of 1787. This included within Wisconsin Territory nearly
one-third of the present area
of Minnesota. At one time it was suggested that a sixth State should be formed of the territory east of
the upper Mississippi and south
of Lake Superior. Later the portion west of the St. Croix and the St. Louis River line actually
became a part of a sixth State,
Minnesota, which was organized as a Territory in 1849 and admitted as a State in 1858.
Wisconsin in 1848 became a State with
boundaries as at present. Although short of her original allotment
of territory, her present area
makes her third in size of the five States of the Old Northwest. 3
Resources for the above
information:
3 - For
the entire subject of Wisconsin Boundaries, see Ibid, 451-501.