Edward Tiffin Calls Michigan A Swamp In 1812

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Edward Tiffin may have been the first person from Ohio to take shots at Michigan all the way back in 1812. He was the U.S Surveyor-General around the War of 1812, who afterward, was responsible for checking out land which would be gifted to soldiers. The land was what's today Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota, all of which was part of the Old Northwest Territory. Apparently, this guy (from Ohio mind you) visited the Michigan Territory and totally trashed Michigan in a report he sent on November 30, 1816 to the Secretary of War, saying:

The intermediate space between the swamps and lakes, which is probably nearly one-half of the country, is, with a very few exceptions, a poor, barren, sandy land, on which scarcely any vegetation grows, except very small scrubby oaks. … The abandonment of colonization is urged as being dangerous and unnecessary.

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He basically said that Michigan was a giant lake with a swampy top layer crust that would move with every step, covered with swamps and unfit for farming. Because of this hatchet job reporting, it actually took a few years before people started settling in what's now our state. Not only that but apparently school books had the words Interminable Swamp over Michigan maps. It wasn't until Territorial Governor Lewis Cass stood up to what he called the "Gross Misrepresentation" of the state that things slowly started to turn around for our image.

These may be the earliest shots taken at us, in a rivalry that has apparently been going on for 210 years. Here's to 211...losers.