The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1949-10-06

Concluded from page u

Concluded from page Il
ritory should be cut up into lot of
little states" each though sparsely |
populated to be eligible to statehood,
and William Henry Harrison was IN
favor of the territory becoming one
big state. The meeting was at Gin
cinnati.
So st. Clair proclaimed himself a
"Federalist" and Harrison called him
self Republican" And so, III what
later was Ohio, two political parties
were born. Harrison was elected to
the Congress in Washington.
There. were % lawmakers at that
Cincinnati session of the territorial
legislature-15 of them from the
area which later became Ohio.
Indiana was cut off early in 1902.
In Washington Harrison furthered
the cause of his party. In 1900 he
got a law through which reduced by
half the minimum acreage Of land a
settler could buy and also allowed
four years credit on land payments.
More convenient land offices were set
| up.
Many Settlers Arrive
Settlers flowed into the territory
rapidly after the more lax land laws
came into being and the question Of
statehood became an important one.
Z, The Federalists were attempting TO
get President Adams to reappoint
st. Clair governor Of the Northwest
| Territory, which now included only
, the area now Ohio. Thomas Worth
ington, wealthy ChillicothiaG, got
out into the country with petition,
filled it full Of signatures Of those
who disapproved of the Federalist
plan and with it and a group of sup
porters, went to Washington. That
defeated the st. Clair-Federalist
party.
In 1902 the victorious Republicans
met in convention and adopted Il
constitution. 1t provided that all
state officials except the governor, be
appointed by the legislature. That
made the legislature a pretty power
full political factor.
Chillicothe was the stronghold OF
the Republicans and Marietta, the
Federalists. Cincinnati, growing
rapidly was a half-and-half mixture
of both of them. Incidentally, the
Republicans kept their men in the
governors chair until 1880.
Ohio Becomes State
With it's new constitution Ohio had
become a state and its residents
preened and prided themselves on
their statehood. However, a full
year later-after Edward Tiffin, an
other Chillieothe Republican, had
been elected to the governorship-
Representatives from Ohio arrived ct
Washington and found out that its
sister states in Congress had heard
|
1t was then early in 1903, that
Ohio was recognized and received
into the Union as one of its states
During the entire first year of Ohio'S
statehood it had not been a state al
all. Persons who We're born that
year and later prided themselves or
being born in Ohio, were not born in
Ohio at ALL Or were they? The
Ohio Society in New York debated
that question for full season and
ended up just where it began. Sc
did everybody else and it was moot
question for decades. 1t never yet
has been settled-just forgotten.
One of the acts of the first session
of the first General Assembly was to
instruct the new Secretary of State
to provide a State Seal
State Seal
The act said: "The Secretary ot
State shall procure seal, one incr
and a half in diameter, for the use o1
each and every county now or here.
after to be created ,on which shall be
engraved the following device: Or
the right side, near the bottom, /;
sheaf of wheat and on the left, {
bundle of seventeen arrows, botf
standing erect in the background
and rising above the sheaf and ar
rows, a mountain over which shall