The GREENVILLE TREATY LINE was the boundary established by the Treaty of Greenville (1795), separating lands open to American settlement from territory reserved to Native American tribes in the Old Northwest. The treaty followed the defeat of Native confederate forces by the United States under Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and was negotiated at Greenville with representatives of several tribes.
In northeastern Ohio the line began at the mouth of the CUYAHOGA RIVER at Cleveland, followed the river upstream, and continued to the carrying place between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers. From there it descended the Tuscarawas River to Fort Laurens, where the boundary turned southwest toward the Ohio River as part of a larger line extending across the Northwest Territory.
For the Connecticut Western Reserve, the treaty line defined the western limit of lands initially available for survey and settlement by the CONNECTICUT LAND COMPANY, which had acquired most of the Reserve in 1795. During the earliest years of Reserve development the boundary effectively confined American settlement to the territory east of the Cuyahoga while lands to the west remained under Native American control.
Across the Northwest Territory the line also presented practical difficulties for surveyors and land companies eager to extend settlement westward. The presence of the treaty boundary complicated adjacent surveys and served as a temporary but often inconvenient obstacle as settlers and speculators pressed toward lands beyond it.
The geographic corridor marked by this boundary later assumed additional importance in Ohio’s transportation history. The valley linking the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers—including the former carrying place—became the route of the OHIO AND ERIE CANAL, completed in the 1830s to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio River. With Cleveland as its northern terminus, the canal transformed the city into a major commercial port and reinforced the long-standing significance of the Cuyahoga–Tuscarawas corridor first recognized in the treaty boundary.
The treaty line lost its practical effect as additional agreements with Native American tribes opened lands west of the Cuyahoga to settlement. Most significant for northeastern Ohio was the Treaty of Fort Industry (1805), which extinguished Native claims to the tract west of the river and removed the principal restriction on expansion affecting the Western Reserve.
William Barrow