Early Capitals of the Midwest

Like the colonial east, the new western territories state capitals were also mobile.  In Ohio the first permanent settlement was the first seat of civil government in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.  The capital was Marietta where 47 men of General Rufus Putnam came up the Ohio on the "Ohio Mayflower" on April 7, 1788.  The first general assembly on September 16, 1799, with 5000 free male inhabitants of full age, met in Cincinnati.  Congress fixed the Ohio territory's capital at Chillicothe where the second session met on November 3, 1800.  The assembly voted to move the government from Chillicothe Bank back to Cincinnati in 1801.  Then, under the new State Constitution of 1802, the capital was again to be at Chillicothe.  (confused yet?)  We are not done!

 

In 1810 an act required that the capital be relocated at some place…"not more than 40 miles from…the common center of the state, to be ascertained by Mansfield's map thereof."  Many towns, and many uninhabited villages were proposed and considered.  In 1812 it was decided to remove the capital to the east "High Bank" of the Scioto River, opposite Franklinton, on the site of a FUTURE town to be named Columbus. 

 

Not to be out done, Indiana had a migratory capital as well. Vincennes was the oldest town and was the territorial capital from 1800-1813, but a demand for a more central location caused the removal to a place now forgotten,  Corydon at the constitutional convention of 1816.  Corydon, possessed a grand new hotel only a mile from the capital that was said to be "built for the ages" with solid stone walls 18 inches thick. The perfect place for a state capital they said!   By 1825 Corydon's days of glory had already passed.  That year the capital was moved to Indianapolis, which at the time was only five years old.  There it remains...

 

Illinois Territory, organized in 1809, began with the capital city of Kaskaskia, but moved the capital to Vandalia in 1820.  With the permission of Abraham Lincoln, it was moved again to Springfield in 1837.  There it remains...

 

A similar story could be told of most of the Western states.  American viewed their governments functionally and when one headquarters no longer served, or another could serve better, they were just simply moved.

 

More Traveling Next time…

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Today in Pioneer History: "On August 20, 1804, Sargent Charles Floyd died three months into the journey of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, becoming the only member of the Corps of Discovery to die during the journey.  Floyd was a young military volunteer from Kentucky and died from illness that he contracted while on the journey.  He is buried on the bluffs over looking the river named in his honor, the Floyd River. "