Have You Heard Connecticut Once Claimed Part of Ohio? What You Need to Know

According to the Connecticut Historical Society, there was a time when Connecticut stretched much farther west than the Nutmeg State we know today. In fact, our state's original colonial charter gave Connecticut a claim to land that extended all the way across North America.

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It sounds impossible, but it's true.

Back in 1662, King Charles II granted Connecticut a charter that essentially gave the colony a strip of land running "from sea to sea." Of course, nobody really knew what was out there yet, and overlapping claims from other colonies eventually created plenty of headaches.

After the Revolutionary War, the new federal government encouraged states to give up those massive western land claims. Connecticut agreed to surrender most of its territory in 1786 but held onto one important piece: a 120-mile-wide strip of land along Lake Erie in what is now northeastern Ohio. That territory became known as the Connecticut Western Reserve, or simply "New Connecticut."

Here's where it gets even cooler.

If you've ever been to Ohio and noticed towns named New London, Norwalk, Fairfield, New Haven, Saybrook, or Mansfield, that's no coincidence. Connecticut settlers brought those names with them as they moved west. Even the city of Cleveland owes part of its history to Connecticut. In 1796, surveyor Moses Cleaveland was sent by the Connecticut Land Company to map the area, and the city was originally named after him.

Another fascinating piece of the story is the Firelands, a section of the Western Reserve that Connecticut set aside to compensate residents of towns like Danbury, Fairfield, Norwalk, and New London after the British burned parts of those communities during the Revolutionary War.

Eventually, Connecticut sold the Western Reserve, and by 1800 it gave up its remaining governmental claims to the land. Today, it's part of Ohio, but Connecticut's fingerprints are still all over the region.

I love little pieces of Connecticut history like this because most of us spend our lives thinking our state's borders have always looked the way they do now. The reality is that Connecticut once reached hundreds of miles farther west, helped shape part of modern-day Ohio, and even left behind town names that Nutmeggers would recognize instantly. It's one of those incredible stories they somehow forgot to teach us in school.