The Erie Triangle is a roughly 300-square-mile (780-square-kilometre) tract of American land that was the subject of several competing

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ...

-era claims. It was eventually acquired by the U.S. federal government and sold to

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

so that the state would have access to a freshwater port on

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...

. The Erie Triangle land makes up a large portion of present-day Erie County, Pennsylvania.

Background

Most of northwestern Pennsylvania came under American control following the 1784

Treaty of Fort Stanwix The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was a treaty signed between representatives from the Iroquois and Great Britain (accompanied by negotiators from New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania) in 1768 at Fort Stanwix. It was negotiated between Sir William J ...

with the Iroquois Confederacy. The following year, a boundary dispute between New York and Pennsylvania erupted. Following a surveying effort by Andrew Ellicott representing the Pennsylvanians and

James Clinton Major General James Clinton (August 9, 1736 – September 22, 1812) was an American Revolutionary War officer who, with John Sullivan, led in 1779 the Sullivan Expedition in what is now western New York to attack British-allied Seneca and ...

and Simeon DeWitt representing the New Yorkers, the western edge of New York was set at east of Pennsylvania's Presque Isle, a small peninsula off the coast of

Erie, Pennsylvania Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 ...

. However, this left an unclaimed area, which came to be known as the Triangle Lands. The Triangle Lands problematically fell under neither New York's nor Pennsylvania's charter, while both

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

and

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

also spoke up with claims derived from their original colonial "sea to shining sea" grants. Of these four competing claimants (Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts), only Pennsylvania was landlocked, except for a very tiny strip of coastline 3.75 miles in length. Following some pressure from the new federal government, all four states surrendered their claims to that entity, which then, in 1792, sold final rights to the of land to Pennsylvania for $151,640.25 (75 ¢/acre). The Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy released the land to Pennsylvania in January 1789 for payments of $2,000 from Pennsylvania and $1,200 from the federal government. The Seneca Nation separately settled land claims against Pennsylvania in February 1791 for the sum of $800. This was accomplished without the approval of the federal government and in violation of the

Contract Clause Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, known as the Contract Clause, imposes certain prohibitions on the states. These prohibitions are meant to protect individuals from intrusion by state governments and to kee ...

of the United States Constitution which reserved the right to make treaties to the federal government. With this access to the Great Lakes, Pennsylvania was persuaded to accept the western boundary established by the

Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory The Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory was a United States government official responsible for surveying land in the Northwest Territory in the United States late in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The position was cre ...

following passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787. The Erie Triangle is often described as a "tab" or "chimney" attached to the

Keystone State Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Mary ...

. The water off the coast of the Erie Triangle is known as the ''Graveyard of Lake Erie'' because of the large number of shipwrecks that occurred in the area's stormy waters in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was also the site of a preliminary battle between forces that participated in the

Battle of Lake Erie The Battle of Lake Erie, sometimes called the Battle of Put-in-Bay, was fought on 10 September 1813, on Lake Erie off the shore of Ohio during the War of 1812. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of the Briti ...

during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

. The battle itself took place in the

Lake Erie Islands The Lake Erie Islands are a chain of archipelagic islands in Lake Erie. They include Kelleys Island, Erie Island, Pelee Island, the Bass Islands, and several others. The majority of these islands are under the sovereignty of the State of Ohio ...

, at the western end of the lake, off the coast of

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

References

External links

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Background

See also

References

External links