When Cleveland Used to Belong to Connecticut (Ep. 77)

In the 1600s and 1700s, Connecticut owned a wide swath of land all the way across the country, ending at the Pacific Ocean. They gave all of it to the federal government – except for 3 million acres in Ohio (the so-called Western Reserve). Today, many town names in northeast Ohio are based on Connecticut namesakes – including Cleveland. This very early “wild, wild west” story includes land speculators, wagon train settlers, and distasteful tactics to push Native Americans off the land, to make way for European settlers. Hear the story from expert Alex Dubois, Curator of the Litchfield Historical Society.