Ohio Shapes A Nation

Ohio Shapes A Nation. The heart of it all was the start of it all. The Division of Natural Areas and Preserves, in partnership with the Ohio Biological Survey, is celebrating Ohio's unique role in America's westward expansion by highlighting the natural heritage of the region in the 18th century. Updating the 1966 pre-settlement vegetation map of Ohio created by Robert Gordon, a team of staff and partners are building on the original map by reviewing first-hand accounts of colonial surveyors who traversed the Ohio Country in the 1780s to early 1800s. When complete, Ohio will have a highly-detailed, free, digital interactive vegetation map of the Buckeye State's landscape before European settlement., Ohio's Northwest Expansion , After the Revolutionary War, Congress approved the surveying, selling, and settling of the Northwest Territory-the Ohio River became the doorway to these uncharted lands. To prepare the land for sale, surveyors measured and marked township boundaries, and described soils, vegetation types, and tree species in their journals as they hiked the rugged terrain., Colonial Surveyor Journals - Treasure Troves of Ohio's Natural Heritage , The journals of the 18th century surveyors contained detailed notes of natural features and vegetation cover in beautiful (and often challenging to read) cursive handwriting. These are examples of notes of surveyor Maxfield Ludlow and his team, from 1807, in Sandusky Township, Crawford County. These notes have been painstakingly transcribed and georeferenced by staff to facilitate mapping the vegetation cover., The surveyors' descriptions of the vegetation and landscape such as "swampy prairie" provided important information for settlers who were often purchasing Ohio Country land sight unseen. Today, those descriptions offer a glimpse of the landscape for botanists and ecologists., Transcribed notes like these (above) are used to define detailed vegetation cover types, which are then illustrated in shapes on the developing map., Mapping Ohio's Natural Vegetation , The maps to the left are a comparison of the 1966 map and our progress on the new map. When completed, the new map will become a research and educational tool for Ohio and beyond.