It is well-known that Youngstown inherited its name over 200 hundred years ago from its original founder – John Young. The information that follows is a description of the times leading to the submission of the plot by John Young which remains to this day – Youngstown, Ohio.

Following the revolutionary war, the young states struggled amongst themselves for the rights to the vast, uncharted lands to the west. Despite the existence of the indigenous peoples, the uncharted land and resources lying west of the original thirteen colonies was claimed by several of the states. This was during a time of tremendous struggle between the proponents of States Rights versus the rights of the newly formed Republic of the United States. The first specific proposition that the Congress should exercise sovereign jurisdiction over territory to the west of the original Thirteen Colonies came on October 15, 1777 when Maryland submitted “That the United States in Congress assembled shall have the sole and exclusive right and power to ascertain and fix the western boundary of such States as claim to the Mississippi or the South Sea, and lay out the land beyond the boundary so ascertained into separate and independent States from time to time as the numbers and circumstances of the people thereof may require” (Alley, 1975, p 15). Battle lines were drawn between those that thought the territory should belong to states that claimed it and those who believed the territory should be surrendered to the federal government (see Letter from Connecticut Delegates to Jonathan Trumbull, Sr. below).

The area known as the Ohio territory finally began to be surrendered by the states when New York took the first step in January, 1780, granting the cession of her claims to the national government; and with “maneuvering and amendment of one kind an another, together with partial concessions and adjustments, one after another the other states followed her example.” The last state to surrender her western territory was Connecticut. On September 14, 1786 she finally ceded to Congress “all her; right, title, interest, jurisdiction, and claim to the lands north-west of the Ohio [river], excepting the Connecticut Western Reserve” (Alley, 1975, p 15). This Western Reserve was comprised of 3,000,000 acres (5,000 square miles) of land from the western border of Pennsylvania and northward from the Ohio River to Lake Erie. This boundary line is known as the Ellicott Line named after the surveyor (p 16). The Western Reserve extended west by 120 miles (Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, 1897, p 62).

Connecticut held the Western Reserve until 1795 when the state devised a plan to dispose of the territory. The 3,000,000 acres of land was sold to 35 men who became known as the Connecticut Land Company for a sum of $1,200,000.

In 1796 surveyors were sent to the Western Reserve to begin mapping the land. Beginning in the southernmost line of the Reserve, they determined where the forty-first degree of north latitude intersects the western line of Pennsylvania. Using this line as a base, meridian lines of five miles apart were run north to the lake, thus dividing the Reserve into townships five miles square. The land was partitioned among the stockholders of the Connecticut Land Company in January, 1798.

Youngstown Township does not appear in the draft and the name of John Young is not among the names of the stockholders of the Connecticut Land Company.  In an address given to the Mahoning Valley Historical Society in 1874, John M. Edwards infers “that he [John Young] contracted for the purchase of the township directly from the company and prior to the draft.”…”The records, however, do show that on April 9, 1800, the trustees of the company conveyed to John Young township No. 2, in the second range, called Youngstown, containing 15,560 acres of land, for the consideration of $16,085.16. On the same day Mr. Young executed to the trustees a mortgage of the township to secure the payment of the purchase money” (Mahoning Valley Historical Collections, 1876, p 19).

See:

Youngstown's Pioneer Days

Ohio History