In a message dated 9/11/00 7:40:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, jeanneg@ipa.net writes: << Subj: RE: FIRE LANDS Date: 9/11/00 7:40:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: jeanneg@ipa.net (J. Gaylord) To: kwsroots@aol.com Hi Ken, At the risk of showing my ignorance..... what is "The History of the Fire Lands?? Was it written about an area that had terrible fires like they had in many parts of the U. S. this summer?? If I don't ask..... I'll never know. <g> Thanks, Jeanne (Reed) Gaylord >> Hi Jeanne, At the risk of being mistaken for a historian, I'll pass along a description of how the Fire Lands came by their name, which appears in an article written by Henry Timman for the Norwalk Reflector newspaper on Sept. 11, 1981. The article was titled: "Connecticut suffered at war's end." It appears in our Just Like Old Times series by Henry Timman, Book 4, Page 37. Henry is the well known historian and journalist, living in the Norwalk, Ohio area. There is a very long and detailed description of the Fire Lands in our History of the Fire Lands by W.W. Williams, 1879, but Henry's article gives an excellent overview. Shortly before the surrender of Cornwallis in October 1781 during the Revolutionary War, the British, on Sept. 6, 1781, undertook two raids on the towns of Groton and New London, Connecticut, which resulted in considerable loss of life on both sides, and left many homes, stores, warehouses, and other buildings burnt to the ground by the British. The citizenry of these and other Connecticut towns who had also suffered property losses at the hands of the British found it difficult to to rebuild and re-establish themselves, since there was no insurance and no small business loans for this purpose. Following the end of the Revolution, the citizens who had suffered losses petioned the Connecticut state legislature for relief. The legislature, in 1792, granted 500,000 acres out of their "Western Reserve," of land in Ohio, to be divided among the Connecticut "Sufferers," according to the amount of their losses. There were nine towns in Connecticut which suffered losses during the Revolution: Greenwich, Fairfield, New Haven, East Haven, Ridgefield, Norwalk, Danbury, Groton and New London. These same names, except for East Haven, are found in the Fire Sufferers Land--or Fire Lands--of Ohio, which territory is now covered by Huron and Erie Counties, Ruggles Township in Ashland County, and Danbury Township on the Marblehead Peninsula in Ottawa County. Ninety-two claims from Groton, and 275 claims from New London were filed after the British raids. The 500,000 acres of land were not made available for settlement until 1805, when the Indians were paid for the land by treaty at Fort Industry (now Toledo, Ohio). Surveying, and false starts, delayed the actual partition of the land to the owners until Nov. 8, 1808. These claims of the Fire Land Sufferers were bought and sold between 1792 and 1808. Much of the land was sold for taxes, since the legislature immediately began taxing the Connecticut claims. Speculators also bought up the claims and hoped to become rich selling land to actual settlers. Very few of the actual settlers were "Sufferers." By 1808, 27 years after the British raids, the original claimants had grown that much older, and many had settled into comfortable homes and businesses, by dint of their own hard work. They had no desire to leave these surroundings for the wilds of Ohio. So there you have it: everything you wanted to know about the Fire Lands......... and weren't afraid to ask. Regards, Ken Shute, in MD (kwsroots@aol.com).