Brookes, R. “The Northwestern Territories of the United States”

R. Brookes.  “The Northwestern Territories of the United States.” 

From Brookes’s General Gazetteer Improved.  Philadelphia & Richmond: Johnson & Warner, 1812.  2nd. American edition.   7 1/2 x 9 1/2.  Engraving.  Trimmed to neat line at top as issued.  

An interesting map of the remnant of the old Northwest Territory, issued in Dr. R. Brookes’s gazetteer of the world from 1812.  The original Northwest Territory comprised essentially today’s Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.  Ohio was made a state in 1803, and then by 1809 Indiana, Illinois and Michigan Territories were created, leaving a smaller Northwest Territory.  That is the status as shown on this map.  Of particular interest is the mistaken position of Lake Michigan’s southern tip, shown too far north.  As originally established, Ohio’s northern border was supposed to run along the latitude line even with the bottom of Lake Michigan.  Because of the error in that position, this line was thought to pass north of the mouth of the Maumee River, whereas in fact it would pass south of present-day Toledo.  This mistake led, in the 1830s, to the “Toledo War” between Michigan and Ohio.  It is most interesting to see this historic evidence of the cartographic mistake that had such an interesting result.