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Urban Street Systems in

Nineteenth-Century Ohio

Towns: An Analysis of

Diffusion

John M. WegnerLecturer

Department of History and PhilosophyEastern Michigan UniversityYpsilanti, MI 48197

ABSTRACT

This study considers the possible “mi-gration” of urban street patterns associ-ated with discrete east coast culture re-gions to America’s trans-Appalachianinterior during the 19th century. Also ex-amined was the possibility that thesestreet patterns became less “culturally-bound,“ or more admixed, over time.Ohio, one of the first (and most culturallydiverse) trans-Appalachian states, wasthe focus of the study. To ascertain an-swers to the above questions, data per-taining to town platting throughout thestate (as well as for four distinct surveyregions associated with discrete eastcoast migration) was culled from countyatlases and histories. Variables were se-lected so as to categorize both the mor-phology of street patterns as well as criti-cal periods in the urban growth of thestate. Cultural transference of street pat-tern morphology was generally found tobe valid; an especially strong demarca-tion between New England and mid-Atlantic source regions was noted innortheast Ohio. Temporally, no “homog-enizing” trends were apparent: distribu-tion of pattern types remained general-ly constant and the discrete regionsexamined retained distinctly differenttypologies.

KEY WORDS: Ohio, street patterns, culturaldiffusion, 19th century, historical geog-raphy, planning.

INTRODUCTION

Geographers have long recognizedvarious aspects of the built environmentas indicators of cultural distribution. Folkhouses, barns, fences, saunas, windmills,and cemeteries have all been examinedfor purposes of tracing patterns of cul-tural dispersion (Mather and Hart, 1954;Mather and Kaups, 1963; Kniffen, 1965;Glass, 1971; Jordan, 1973; Jeane, 1978;Hubka, 1984; Moffett and Wodehouse,1993). Though an important element ofsettlement patterns, comparatively littleattention has been paid to urban streetsystems as cultural analogs. This is all themore surprising since some sporadic

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analyses have revealed conflicting (if attimes superficial) conclusions regardingstreet patterns and cultural diffusion(Wright, 1937; Reps, 1965; Pillsbury, 1970;Lewis, 1994). Nonetheless, it is generallyaccepted that some connection inheres inmorphological variations in street pat-terns and cultural dissimilarities (Pills-bury, 1971).

Heretofore, the principal investiga-tions of street form as a cultural indicatorhave been confined to the east coast(Scofield, 1938; Pillsbury, 1970; Wood,1997). In addition, most systematic inves-tigations have been limited to the colonialand/or early national period of the UnitedStates. The pioneering work of Pillsbury(1970), though among the first to quantifyrelationships between discrete street pat-terns and culture types, was limited toPennsylvania in the period prior to 1815.

Did the characteristics of street pat-terns as cultural indicators persist overspace and time? It is the purpose of thisinvestigation to ascertain whether urbanstreet systems associated with east coastcultural areas remained coincident withpatterns of trans-Appalachian migrationfrom those same areas. In addition, lon-gitudinal analysis will attempt to answerquestions regarding purported forces of“nationalization” of street system typesin the early 19th century (Pillsbury, 1970).As here defined, “nationalization” maybe derived either from movement overtime to domination of patterns by a singletype throughout the state or a more con-sistent distribution of varied types in cul-tural sub-regions of the state.

Selection of the state of Ohio as the lo-cus for this investigation was determinedby spatial and temporal considerations.As the first state to be carved out of theNorthwest Territory of the United States,Ohio’s initial settlement took place in the1780s, at least two generations beforeany alleged “nationalizing” factors in ur-ban street patterns began to emerge. Al-though migration from the east coast toOhio was rapid, settlement proceededunevenly, so that the final “taming of thefrontier” did not occur until about 1850—substantially after the presence of sup-posed nationalizing forces. Ohio thus

serves as a critical linchpin in a time when(it is posited) regional variabilities weregiving way to national homogenization.

In addition, Ohio was the site of one ofthe first substantial admixings of regionalsubcultures in the United States. As oneof the first trans-Appalachian states, Ohioserved as a “funnel” for streams of mi-gration from three principal regions (i.e.,New England, Middle Colonies, theSouth) of settlement in colonial America(Zelinsky, 1973; Knepper, 1989). Particu-larly notable is a cultural “divide” sepa-rating New England-spawned settle-ments in the northern portion of the statefrom those originating in the Middle At-lantic and upper South in Ohio’s southernregion. This major “divide” has beennoted in studies of folk housing, dialects,sociological aspects of community, andarchitecture in general (Kniffen, 1965;Lewis, 1975; Bobersky and Stephens,1988; Stephens, Bobersky, and Cenia,1994). How this “divide” applies to urbanstreet patterns has not been the object ofinvestigation.

PATTERNS OF SETTLEMENT

There is ample reason to suppose aconnection between cultural regions andpatterns of settlement, including streetsystems (Pillsbury, 1971). Studies of suchsystems on the east coast denote uniquecharacteristics within each region and es-pecially differences between those ofNew England and those of the South andMid-Atlantic areas.

New England.

New England settlement patterns,based on the town or “township” system,have been the subject of much specific in-quiry (Scofield, 1938; Norstrand, 1973;Wood, 1982; Wood, 1997). Although notnecessarily denoting a lack of planning,early New England villages were charac-terized by road systems that essentiallydid not have any pattern (Conzen, 1971;Norstrand, 1973).

In the 18th century, a newly emergingstreet system, the “linear” pattern, beganto dominate New England villagesfounded in the period. Apparently in-spired by so-called “highway villages”

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(“reihendorf” or “strassendorf”) of Euro-pean origins, these New England settle-ments featured long, narrow lots placedlinearly along a single highway (Brunhes,1920; Scofield, 1938; Reps, 1965; Wood,1997). Somewhat later, New England vil-lages began to revert to irregular systemsof roads or, especially in the late 18th andearly 19th centuries, a “central” patterncharacterized by the intersection of tworoads lying essentially perpendicular toone another (Scofield, 1938; Wood, 1997).Often giving “focus” or “centrality” tothese road systems was the lot about thePuritan place of worship—the meeting-house. Originally, a simple point of con-nection on an irregular road network, themeetinghouse lot increasingly becamethe focus of nucleated village settlementas new commercial patterns of exchangeemerged in the early nineteenth century.Although not generally affecting the lay-out of street systems, the meetinghouselot as the focal point of an agglomeratedsettlement had evolved by the early1800s as the classic New England “com-mon” or “green” (Wood, 1997).

Mid-Atlantic

Largely dominating the Middle Atlan-tic region was the so-called “grid” (or“gridiron”) town plan, featuring a net-work of streets arranged at right angles.Certainly an ancient form of street plan-ning, the grid pattern probably dates backnearly 5000 years, and has been contin-uously recorded for about 2,500 (Stanis-lowski, 1946; Wheatley, 1971). In 1681,Philadelphia became the first majorAmerican city to be platted on a grid.Other cities of the Mid-Atlantic region, no-tably New York and Pittsburgh, were sur-veyed along similar lines. In the 18th and19th centuries, the “Philadelphia” modelset the standard for town plans in theMid-Atlantic, as well as points west(Wade, 1959; Reps, 1965).

South

Given the quick dispersion of settle-ment and the overwhelmingly rural char-acter of the land, it is somewhat more dif-ficult to ascertain pronounced patterns ofstreet systems in the American South.

Nonetheless, it appears that as in the Mid-Atlantic region, the grid became the fa-vored method for platting towns in the co-lonial period. Virginia towns founded inthe 17th and 18th centuries, for example,usually followed a grid pattern, while Sa-vannah, Georgia provides an example ofa town in the deep South constructed ona somewhat unique grid design (Trewar-tha, 1946; Reps, 1965).

OHIO’S MAJOR SETTLEMENT REGIONS

Patterns of settlement within frontierOhio particularly lend themselves to acritical examination of street patterns asindicators of culture. Despite the “chan-neling” of discrete streams of migrationfrom east coast cultural hearths previ-ously noted, the immediate effects didnot lead to mass homogenizationthroughout the state. Granted, some ar-eas of Ohio did see an appreciable ad-mixing of culture types, but other areasremained dominated by a single group(Knepper, 1989).

The relatively large number of distinctareal surveys within early Ohio make itfairly easy to isolate regions falling undera dominant cultural influence (Figure 1).Four areas in particular appear to havedrawn disproportionate early migara-tions from a single east coast culturesource.

Western Reserve

The Western Reserve, an area extend-ing some 120 miles west from the Penn-sylvania border in the northeast sector ofthe state, was granted to the State of Con-necticut in return for the general cessionof that state’s western lands to the na-tional government in 1786 (Knepper,1989). Encompassing roughly the west-ern third of the Reserve is the so-called“Firelands,” a half-million acre Reservegrant earmarked by Connecticut in 1792as compensation to victims of Tory raidsin the Revolution (Roseboom and Wei-senburger, 1996). Settled very largely byemigrants from New England, the townsof this part of Ohio, often with a central“square” or “green,” appear to be similarin form to the nucleated villages whichemerged in the parent region about the

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FIGURE 1. Land Surveys in Early Ohio

time of Ohio’s settlement (Trewartha,1946; Reps, 1965; Norstrand, 1973; Bob-ersky and Stephens, 1986; Wood, 1997).

Congress Lands

Immediately south of the Reservewere the so-called Congress Lands, anarea surveyed for and commercially con-

trolled by the U.S. government between1799–1804. Stretching west from thePennsylvania border along the continen-tal watershed (or “backbone”) of thestate, the Congress Lands drew immi-grants primarily from the Mid-Atlantic re-gion. Pennsylvanians dominated the flowof population, while those from New Jer-

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sey and the Tidewater South added im-portant secondary contingents. Some-what later, though still in the early periodof statehood, immigrants from foreignlands (chiefly Germany, Switzerland, andthe British Isles) augmented the popula-tion (Knepper, 1989).

Ohio Company Lands

The Ohio Company Lands, located inthe southeast corner of the state, com-prised some 1.5 million acres purchasedby a joint-stock corporation founded inBoston in 1786 (Knepper, 1989; Rose-boom and Weisenburger, 1996). Histori-cally important, the Ohio Company suc-ceeded in founding the first legalsettlements in the Northwest Territory.Marietta, Ohio’s first town, was createdby an advance party of settlers who ar-rived in 1788 to establish claims on OhioCompany lands (Knepper, 1989; Rose-boom and Weisenburger, 1996). Origi-nally dominated by New Englanders, theOhio Company region began to experi-ence a gradual cultural “leavening” dueto the arrival of significant numbers ofother immigrants, mostly from the Up-land South (Knepper, 1989).

Virginia Military District

Located in southwestern Ohio, the Vir-ginia Military District was an area setaside (like Connecticut’s Western Re-serve) for that state’s use when its gen-eral land claims in the Northwest wereceded to the U.S. government in 1784. Ini-tially dominated by the spread of popu-lation from Virginia and Kentucky, theDistrict was morphologically distinctfrom the rest of Ohio (Knepper, 1989).Specifically, land surveys completed inthis region were of the English “metesand bounds” type rather than the rectan-gular “township and range” system usedin other parts of the state. It has beennoted, however, that most towns in theDistrict were platted on a more regular,rectangular pattern and generally super-imposed on a radial system of rural thor-oughfares associated with the “indiscrim-inate locations” of the metes and boundssystem (Wright, 1937).

Early Ohio thus provides an excellent

laboratory for studying the effects of cul-tural dispersion. Analyses are furtheraided by a particularly rich variety of ur-ban places in the state. Riverine settle-ments of the pioneer period were quicklyaugmented by towns in the interior, someof which later evolved due to emergentchanges in transportation such as canals,roads, and railroads (Wright, 1937). Fron-tier Ohio was rife with town speculation,as investors sought to lure prospectivesettlers to their “cities” with lavish andfrequently exaggerated claims as to thesite’s desirability (Wade, 1959). Many ofthe towns boosted by promoters disinte-grated quickly while others, so-called“paper towns,” never materialized at all.Nonetheless, many did develop into cred-ible centers for local trade while a fewemerged as highly significant urbansettlements.

METHODOLOGY

This study seeks to answer two fun-damental questions about urban streetpatterns. First, did regional variations inthese patterns, as derived from cis-Appalachian sources, persist into thetrans-Appalachian West? Second, did ho-mogenizing or “nationalizing” trends de-velop over time, thereby obscuring thesevariations with a more standardized ty-pology? To answer these questions, tworelatively simple, but critical, variableswere constructed for purposes of datacollection—viz., the morphology of streetpatterns and the date of an urban settle-ment’s “founding.”

STREET PATTERN MORPHOLOGIES

Pillsbury (1970), in studying street pat-terns in Pennsylvania between 1685 and1815, posited four distinct types. An ini-tial, cursory examination of materials for19th century Ohio seemed to recommendPillsbury’s classification system for use inthis study. After initial research, however,it was felt advisable to add a fifth categoryto the above to adequately describe thevariety of urban street systems encoun-

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FIGURE 2. An “Irregular” Town, Fallsburgh, Ohio (1875)

tered during the data collection process.A brief description of each morphology isdiscussed below.

Irregular

The “irregular” pattern type is, in es-sence, dependent on the absence of pat-tern. Streets are highly variable in theirlayout and seldom cross at right angles(Figure 2). Settlement patterns in an irreg-ular town may be highly nucleated, witha substantial number of randomly placedroads or widely distended about a fewthoroughfares. Although primarily asso-ciated with early New England settlementpatterns, there is also some evidence thatirregularities in town planning werecaused, in part, by topographic variations(Reps, 1965).

Linear

The linear pattern, also associatedwith the New England culture region,consists of a single street or thoroughfare

with house lots lying on one or both sides(Figure 3). Occasionally, another street oralley, lying perpendicular to the mainthoroughfare, may dissect the linear townplan. Inclusion of a town in this category,however, was dependent on a spatiallyrandom placement of these “side” streetsas well as the complete orientation of lotson the single, main street.

Rectilinear

Undoubtedly the best known townplan in the United States, the rectilineartype consists of a gridiron (or “checker-board”) pattern of streets, regularly ar-ranged and crossing at right angles (Fig-ure 4). Although maintenance of“regularized, right angle” formats was re-quired for inclusion of towns in this cate-gory, at least some allowance was madefor variations on the pattern. In a few in-stances, orginal town plans incorporatedsome existing roads which, by running at

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FIGURE 3. A “Linear” Town, Amsterdam, Ohio (1875)

acute angles, did not conform to a strict“gridiron.” In other instances, town plansthemselves incorporated diagonal orother acutely-angled thoroughfares intothe original design (Reps, 1965). Sincethese were few in number, it was thoughtunnecessary to delineate a separate cate-gory type for their enumeration. In all in-stances, the presence of these anomalieswas easily subordinated to the basic andregularized “checkerboard.”

Linear-R

Essentially a variation on two of theabove formats (linear and rectilinear), thelinear-R pattern consists of a single mainthoroughfare dissected by a series ofevenly-placed, streets (or alleys) (Figure5). Originating in Ulster, Ireland, linear-Rtowns were subsequently platted byScots-Irish immigrants in Pennsylvaniaand the Upland South (Evans, 1969).

In Pillsbury’s (1970) original definitionof the linear-R type, lots extend only onedeep from the main thoroughfare and arebounded (to the rear) by a narrow lanerunning parallel to it. In examining at-lases from 19th century Ohio, it was ad-visable to amend the classificationscheme somewhat to include thosetowns whose lots extended to two (oreven three) rows deep from the mainstreet. Inclusion in this category, how-ever, depended on the presence of certainconsistent typological traits. Amongthem were the presence of a single, mainthoroughfare extending beyond the limitsof the town, evenly-placed streets run-

ning perpendicular to the main thorough-fare, and streets running parallel to themain thoroughfare at the outer edge ofhouse lots which end at the boundaries ofthe town.

At least one variation of the linear-Rtype was frequently encountered: that ofthe so-called “cross-type” linear-R (Pills-bury, 1970). Essentially an interlaying oftwo linear-R towns, the “cross-type” vari-ation consists of two main streets cross-ing at right angles with attendant subor-dinate features, such as, evenly-placedcross streets, remaining intact (Figure 6).

Center

In addition to the categories above de-fined by Pillsbury, a fifth category—thatof a “center” type—was added to theclassification system. Examination ofplat maps, particularly in the WesternReserve, suggested the presence of atown type not readily conforming to theaforementioned categories. “Center”towns consist of settlement patternsgrouped about two intersecting thor-oughfares. Although at first glance mostclosely resembling the “irregular” cate-gory, the “center” town is characterizedby the presence of two (and only two)streets intersecting at right or near rightangles (Figure 7). Center towns may bean adaptation of traditional New Englandlinear systems to the more symmetrical“township and range” surveys used inOhio. It is known that early roads in Ohiofrequently followed the section linesused in these surveys (Knepper, 1989).

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FIGURE 4. A “Rectilinear Town, Kirkersville, Ohio (1875)

Settlement in center towns may not betightly nucleated about the intersection,but may be greatly extended along thethoroughfares. Unlike the linear patternwhich it also resembles, the pattern ofsettlement must proceed along bothhighways. “Center towns” owe their or-igin to the commercialization of ruraltownship “centers” in late 18th and early19th century New England, a fact leadingto the obvious concentration of com-munities with the word “center” affixedto their name in that region (Wood,1997).

CHRONOLOGY

In addition to those pertaining to streetpatterns, variables were demarcated tocategorize a time period corresponding toa town’s founding. Three discrete tem-poral categories were defined: before1820; 1820–1849; and post 1850. Selec-tion of these categories was somewhatarbitrary. Nonetheless, some justificationmay be found in this periodization due topatterns of settlement in the state andpresumed “nationalizing” trends inAmerican street system morphology.

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FIGURE 5. A “Linear-R” Town, Gratiot, Ohio (1875)

FIGURE 6. A “Cross-type” Linear-R Town, New Garden, Ohio (1870)

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FIGURE 7. A “Center” Town, Delphi, Ohio (1873)

Selection of the first category (i.e., be-fore 1820) was determined largely byPillsbury’s assertion that street patternsbegan to achieve a national distributionalpattern sometime between 1820 and 1830(1970). Presuming the existence of re-gional variations, it was believed theywould most likely be noticed in the periodprior to 1820. In addition, this categoryrepresents the earliest i.e., first genera-tion period of settlement in the NorthwestTerritory and Ohio, a time in which re-gional subcultures began to move unbri-dled into discrete areas of the state. Thesecond category, 1820–1849, overlaps the

period of most intense maturation of thestate (Weisenburger, 1942). Betweenthese dates, settlement proceeded apaceinto virtually all regions of Ohio (theNorthwest part of the state being an ex-ception) while a huge number of com-mercial cities were platted in the wake ofan early transportation revolution center-ing on the canal. The final category, thatof “post 1850,” corresponds to a time inwhich the few remaining sparsely popu-lated areas of the state moved to a per-manent stage of settlement. In addition,it is during this final period that severalnewly emerging factors influenced the

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development of towns, and perhaps, theirmorphology. Among them are: the intro-duction and proliferation of railroads, thecreation of urban centers specifically de-pendent on heavy industry, and the firstexodus of city dwellers to planned, sub-urban developments (Wright, 1937; Knep-per, 1989).

PROCEDURE

Investigation of street pattern mor-phologies began with a thorough searchof 19th century atlases published for allOhio counties. There was no paucity ofmaterial. Ultimately, coverage was ob-tained for 86 of the state’s 88 counties.Only the largely rural counties of Meigsand Pike, both in southeast Ohio, wereunobtainable. Without exception, theseatlases were of the type sold by subscrip-tion and commercially produced duringthe mid to late 19th century. Ohio is es-pecially well suited as the locus for suchinvestigation: most counties in the statehad been included in one commercial at-las by 1879, and some areas were cov-ered by up to half a dozen productions bythe 20th century (Thrower, 1961). Al-though some of the atlases surveyed forthis study were produced as early as the1850s and a few as late as the 1890s, thevast majority of publications were datedto the 1870s. This decade was an excep-tional one for county atlas coverage of thestate.

Cursory visual examinations of townplat maps in the atlases were usually allthat was necessary for denotation of towntypes. Town names were recorded in adata base and a symbol pertaining to oneof the five category types describedabove was affixed to the entry. Categorydenotation had to be discrete. Occasion-ally, a “jumbled” plat of several categorytypes was encountered. These (few innumber) were generally discarded. Fromtime to time, however, a town plat mapincluding more than one category typewas included for analysis. In these in-stances, a clearly illustrated portion of themap bore the inscription, “original plat.”Morphologies of these “original plats”were accepted as final while contrastingannexations and additions were ignored.

It must be made clear that actual set-tlement of population in these towns wasa moot point for analysis. As an investi-gation into street pattern types, only asurvey of a town as a planned venturewas required for analysis. As such, many“paper towns” which never actually ma-terialized were included in the data basealong with those that did become urbancenters.

Once towns and attendant street cate-gory types had been entered in the database, an investigation was made to de-termine the date of the town’s platting. Avariety of largely county-based historieswere used for this purpose. Occasionally,the county atlases used to determinestreet pattern types contained abbrevi-ated histories which included informationon survey dates. More often, individualvolumes on county history, generally dat-ing to the period 1880 to 1910, were pe-rused to determine critical dates. Al-though terms such as “incorporated,”“founded,” “surveyed,” and “platted,”were all encountered, the latter two weredeemed especially important to deter-mining a date for use in the data base.“Founding” of a town frequently oc-curred sometime before an actual platwas made of it. Likewise, “incorporation”usually succeeded a town’s platting, of-ten by many decades. Phrases such as“the town was platted” or “the town waslaid out” were routinely accepted as in-dicating the critical date to be included inthe data base.

One particular problem concerned thegeneral lack of a regular survey/plat oftowns conforming to the “irregular” or“center” pattern. In most cases, thesetowns had evolved into centers of popu-lation without ever having been regularlylaid out. To avoid sacrificing a substantialnumber of cases, it was decided to accepta somewhat more vague definition. Inthese instances, the town as “commercialcenter” was deemed to be a critical cri-terion. As such, evidence pertaining tothe founding of mills, taverns, schools,and churches in these places was used todetermine which chronological categoryto assign to the town. This was generallyaccomplished with ease, particularly

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TABLE 1Street System Type for State by Selected Time Periods

Pre-1820 1820–1849 Post-1850 Total

Type % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Rectilinear 65.5 (243) 51.5 (394) 64.9 (211) 58.0 (848)Linear-R 11.3 (42) 19.5 (149) 12.0 (39) 15.7 (230)Linear 4.3 (16) 9.5 (73) 5.5 (18) 7.3 (107)Irregular 6.7 (25) 10.3 (79) 12.6 (41) 9.9 (145)Center 12.1 (45) 9.2 (70) 4.9 (16) 9.0 (131)Total 99.9* (371) 100.0 (765) 99.9* (325) 99.9* (1461)

*Figures do not add to 100.0 due to rounding

given the large span of years in each ofthe categories.

Since initial investigations into streetsystem “homogenization” consideredthe state as a whole, a comprehensivemap of town plats was first constructedfollowing data collection. Each town, asdesignated by the symbol for street sys-tem type and coded to a time category,was fixed on a map of the state. Furtheranalysis examined dispersion of streetpatterns within the four distinct land sur-vey regions mentioned above (i.e., West-ern Reserve, Congress Lands, OhioCompany Lands, and Virginia MilitaryDistrict). As such, the borders of these re-gions were overlaid on the state map tofacilitate further data manipulation. In thecourse of data compilation, it was foundthat eight towns were situated in morethan one county and had initially been in-cluded as cases in both counties. For thefinal analysis, however, these towns werecounted only once and fixed on the mapwith a single symbol. A series of cross-tabulation tables was derived from mapdata to further facilitate analysis.

RESULTS

Examination of source materials re-sulted in a total of 1461 towns for analy-sis. The rectilinear street pattern was byfar the most common type, accountingfor nearly three-fifths of the towns plattedin the state for all time periods examined(Table 1). Broken down by discrete timeperiods, the rectilinear grid plan consti-tuted an absolute majority in each, reach-

ing a nearly two-thirds share in both theperiod before 1820 as well as the post1850 period. The linear plan was the leastcommon, accounting for just over sevenper cent of the state sample. A bit of vari-ation was encountered in the paucity oflinear towns when considered by sepa-rate time periods. In the period of 1820–1849 as well as that of post 1850, the lin-ear town plan was actually the secondleast numerous (second to center in bothperiods) of all platted towns. The differ-ential is minimal, however (barely .5 per-cent) and fails to offset a much larger dif-ference in share between linear andirregular town plats in the pre 1820 pe-riod. The linear-R street system was thesecond most common encountered over-all, although as with linear towns somevariation in this ranking exists as to dis-crete time periods. When considered withthe rectilinear format as the two essen-tially “geometric” town plans, it can beseen that nearly three-fourths of Ohio’stowns conformed to fairly precise pat-terns in the time considered by this study.

Examined in terms of raw numbers, itshould be apparent that the period of1820–1849 was the time of most intensespeculation in town platting. Accountingfor over 50 percent of the towns includedin this study, those platted in the 1820–1849 period exceeded by two times thoseformed in each of the other two periods.Although the initial burst of settlementwas over in Ohio by 1820, the period fromthen to midcentury saw a substantial “fill-ing in” in the older areas of the state aswell as the initial opening of settlement in

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TABLE 2Street System Type for Ohio Company Lands by Selected Time Periods

Pre-1820 1820–1849 Post-1850 Total

Type % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Rectilinear 75.0 (6) 81.3 (13) 88.2 (15) 82.9 (34)Linear-R 25.0 (2) 18.8 (3) 0.0 (0) 12.2 (5)Linear 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0)Irregular 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 11.8 (2) 4.9 (2)Center 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0)Total 100.0 (8) *100.1 (16) 100.0 (17) 100.0 (41)

*Figures do not add to 100.0 due to rounding

newer ones (e.g., west central Ohio), to-gether with all attendant speculation.

Some notable variations are apparentwhen street system types are consideredby the four regions of the state includedin the study. A word of caution, however,must be interjected here. Although sam-ples from three of four regions were sub-stantial enough to permit reasonable in-ferences as to patterns, that of the OhioCompany lands resulted in a much lessextensive return—scarcely 40 townsoverall (Table 2). Due partly to the rela-tively small size of the Ohio Company’sgrant, partly to the somewhat difficult to-pography that no doubt mitigated exten-sive town speculation, and partly due tothe lack of data for one of the counties inthis region, the population as to patterntypes tended to be quite small. No townswere observed in the linear and centercategories for any periods. Within theselimitations, some useful observationsmay proceed.

As with street pattern types through-out the state, the rectilinear grid formatwas the most commonly observed inthree of the four regions and for all timeperiods (Tables 2, 3, and 4). This patterntype constituted an outright majority inthe three observed districts in all time pe-riods, with just two exceptions. In the Vir-ginia Military District, the periods of1820–1849 and post 1850 saw rectilinearpatterns decline to under 50 percent. Inboth cases, however, the share was stillsubstantial; in the post-1850 period par-ticularly, the rectilinear format came

within nearly a point and a half of amajority.

As with results for the entire state, thelinear-R format town was almost alwayssecond to that of the rectilinear in percentshare. The only exceptions are in thepost-1850 periods for both the CongressLands and the Ohio Company grant.When the linear-R populations are com-bined with those of the rectilinear to forma general “geometric” street pattern cate-gory, it may be seen that at least two-thirds of all towns in all three of the abovenoted regions may be so described in allthe time periods.

The major exception to the above ob-servations is the Western Reserve (Table5). Here, the rectilinear pattern consti-tuted scarcely one-fourth of all townsoverall, and reached a majority share inonly one time period (post-1850). The ex-tremely small sample size in this time pe-riod, however, nearly negates the validityof any observation. The Reserve clearlywas not a place of geometric street pat-terns. Witness, for example, a completelack of any linear-R format towns in alltime periods. Conversely, however, theprincipal town types which show a dearthof geometric design i.e., the “irregular”and “center” are substantially repre-sented here. Nearly two-thirds of alltowns for all time periods on the Reserveare either of the “irregular” of “center”type.

One other significant aspect of re-gional variation in pattern types is therelatively frequent occurrence of linear

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TABLE 3Street System Type for Virginia Military District by Selected Time Periods

Pre-1820 1820–1849 Post-1850 Total

Type % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Rectilinear 81.0 (47) 40.3 (54) 48.7 (19) 51.9 (120)Linear-R 10.3 (6) 27.6 (37) 20.5 (8) 22.1 (51)Linear 8.6 (5) 17.2 (23) 7.7 (3) 13.4 (31)Irregular 0.0 (0) 11.2 (15) 15.4 (6) 9.1 (21)Center 0.0 (0) 3.7 (5) 7.7 (3) 3.5 (8)Total 99.9* (58) 100.0 (134) 100.0 (39) 100.0 (231)

*Figures do not add to 100.0 due to rounding

TABLE 4Street System Type for Congress Lands by Selected Time Periods

Pre-1820 1820–1849 Post-1850 Total

Type % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Rectilinear 80.6 (29) 50.6 (39) 55.0 (11) 59.4 (79)Linear-R 8.3 (3) 27.3 (21) 20.0 (4) 21.1 (28)Linear 0.0 (0) 2.6 (2) 0.0 (0) 1.5 (2)Irregular 5.6 (2) 6.5 (5) 25.0 (5) 9.0 (12)Center 5.6 (2) 13.0 (10) 0.0 (0) 9.0 (12)Total *100.1 (36) 100.0 (77) 100.0 (20) 100.0 (133)

*Figures do not add to 100.0 due to rounding

TABLE 5Street System Type for Western Reserve by Selected Time Periods

Pre-1820 1820–1849 Post-1850 Total

Type % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Rectilinear 30.0 (24) 22.4 (24) 50.0 (5) 26.9 (53)Linear-R 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0)Linear 8.8 (7) 10.3 (11) 0.0 (0) 9.1 (18)Irregular 17.5 (14) 29.9 (32) 30.0 (3) 24.9 (49)Center 43.8 (35) 37.4 (40) 20.0 (2) 39.1 (77)Total *100.1 (80) 100.0 (107) 100.0 (10) 100.0 (197)

*Figures do not add to 100.0 due to rounding

street systems in the Virginia Military Dis-trict (Table 3). Although the least commonpattern for the entire state, the lineartown was the third most heavily repre-sented in the Virginia Military District, andfor all time periods except that of post-1850. The percentage share of linear pat-terns in the District far exceeds that of the

Congress Lands and the Ohio Companyand even outdistanced the Western Re-serve by nearly 50 percent.

A somewhat different method of ob-servation is to consider what share ofeach category type (relative to the entirestate) was possessed by the different re-gions for the various time periods. This

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TABLE 7Category Types by Sub-Region as Percent Total for State

Type

VirginiaMilitaryDistrict

CongressLands

OhioCompany

LandsWesternReserve Total

1820–1849 % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Rectilinear 13.7 (54) 9.9 (39) 3.3 (13) 6.1 (24) 33.0 (130)Linear-R 24.8 (37) 14.1 (21) 2.0 (3) 0.0 (0) 40.9 (61)Linear 31.5 (23) 2.7 (2) 0.0 (0) 15.1 (11) 49.3 (36)Irregular 18.9 (15) 6.3 (5) 0.0 (0) 40.5 (32) 65.7 (52)Center 7.1 (5) 14.3 (10) 0.0 (0) 57.1 (40) 78.5 (55)

TABLE 6Category Types by Sub-Region as Percent Total for State

Type

VirginiaMilitaryDistrict

CongressLands

OhioCompany

LandsWesternReserve Total

Pre-1820 % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Rectilinear 19.3 (47) 11.9 (29) 2.5 (6) 9.9 (24) 43.6 (106)Linear-R 14.3 (6) 7.1 (3) 4.8 (2) 0.0 (0) 26.2 (11)Linear 31.3 (5) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 43.8 (7) 75.1 (12)Irregular 0.0 (0) 8.0 (2) 0.0 (0) 56.0 (14) 64.0 (16)Center 0.0 (0) 4.4 (2) 0.0 (0) 77.8 (35) 82.2 (37)

should provide not only a supplementalway of assessing the commonality ofstreet pattern systems in the regions, butalso help to assess the pace of settlementin these discrete areas relative to the stateas a whole.

The four regions considered in thisstudy were settled early (Tables 6, 7, and8). In the period before 1820, nearly halfof all towns platted in the sample werefound in one of these four regions. A stillfairly substantial proportion (43 percent)of sampled towns in the state were foundwithin the borders of these regions in1820–1849. In the period after 1850, how-ever, the four regions’ share of towns de-clined markedly—to just over one-fourthof the total.

The predominance of the Western Re-serve as the locus for non-geometric pat-tern types is clearly in evidence for theperiod prior to 1820 (Table 6). Over three-fourths of all the state’s towns platted onthe “center” type were found here. Only

slightly less substantial was that an out-right majority of “irregular” towns werefound here. The Reserve, and to a slightlylesser degree the Virginia Military Dis-trict, contributed a significant proportionof the “linear” town types throughout thestate (over two-fifths and nearly one-third, respectively).

The trends described above generallycontinued in the period of 1820–1849 (Ta-ble 7). Although proportionate shareswere reduced, the Western Reserve wasstill one of the principal regions for plat-ting “irregular” and “center” towns.Those of the latter continued to constitutea majority of the total population. A no-table decline, however, was experiencedin the platting of “linear” towns on theReserve. Although the number of thesetowns increased in real terms, the pro-portionate share dropped. Clearly, lineartowns were being platted with greater fre-quency elsewhere. One such place wasthe Virginia Military District where the

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TABLE 8Category Types by Sub-Region as Percent Total for State

Type

VirginiaMilitaryDistrict

CongressLands

OhioCompany

LandsWesternReserve Total

Post-1850 % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N) % (N)

Rectilinear 9.0 (19) 5.2 (11) 7.1 (15) 2.4 (5) 23.7 (50)Linear-R 20.5 (8) 10.3 (4) 0.0 (3) 0.0 (0) 30.8 (12)Linear 16.7 (3) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 16.7 (3)Irregular 14.6 (6) 12.2 (5) 4.9 (2) 7.3 (3) 39.0 (16)Center 18.8 (3) 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) 12.5 (2) 31.3 (5)

nearly one-third share of this pattern typebefore 1820 remained almost constant.

The post-1850 period saw a generaldecline in the share of towns platted inthe four regions relative to the entire state(Table 8). There was an especially sub-stantial decline in the proportion of “ir-regular” and “center” towns found on theReserve. Largely insignificant increaseswere found for “irregular” street patterntypes in the Congress Lands and OhioCompany Lands. Percentage shares formost pattern types, especially that oflinear-R remained somewhat significantfor the Virginia Military District. The onlyone of the four sampled regions lying inthe more recently settled area of westernOhio, the District was continuing to ex-perience a respectable pace of town plat-ting after this activity had declined in theolder regions included in this study.

ANALYSIS

Examination of the aforementioneddata leads initially to one unmistakablededuction: no “nationalizing” trends instreet pattern distribution are present.When considered from the somewhat su-perficial perspective of “homogeniza-tion” of pattern types throughout thestate, the proposition must be rejected.Distribution of pattern types remained es-sentially consistent over time, with thepost-1850 period matching closely that ofthe pre-1820 era, that is, street patterntypes were as “jumbled” in the more re-cent period as they were in the earliestone. Whether in the period before 1820,

during 1820–1849, or the post-1850 pe-riod, the essentially “geometric” patterns(i.e., rectilinear and linear-R) comprisedabout three-fourths of the towns platted,while those showing an absence of geo-metric regularity (i.e., linear, irregular,center) constituted the remaining one-fourth.

Distribution patterns ascertained forthe state as a whole, however, may ob-scure temporal trends pertaining to streetsystems in cultural sub-regions. For ex-ample, absence of “homogenization”does not necessarily imply a trend toward“nationalization” unless cultural sub-regions begin to exhibit similar patternsof heterogeneity. This, however, is not thecase. No matter what time period is con-sidered, the distribution of pattern typesin the Western Reserve is different fromthat of the Congress Lands, and these inturn are different from those of the Vir-ginia Military District. The Reserve con-sistently remains a region influenced byirregularities in town platting, the Con-gress Lands gravitate to especially heavydomination by various grid patterns, andthe Virginia Military District, while “griddominant,” contains a not inconsequen-tial admixture of other pattern types (es-pecially the “linear”).

By any measure, street pattern types inthe Western Reserve reflect a pro-nounced derivation from New Englandsources. Settled early, and overwhelm-ingly, by Connecticut and Massachusetts“Yankees,” these people clearly trans-ported dominant town planning patternsto the trans-Appalachian region. It would

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seem especially significant that the “cen-ter” type, emerging as perhaps the mostheavily favored form of New Englandtown at the time of the first migrations tothe Reserve, would comprise a pluralityof town types here through 1849. Linearpattern types, though not inconsequen-tial on the Reserve, nonetheless repre-sent a somewhat earlier incarnation ofNew England town planning, and are lessnumerous than irregular and centertypes. One obvious inference would bethat settlers, upon arrival, would be moreinclined to duplicate recently-emergentthan more antiquated types. In short, theycopied what was “hot.”

There is slight, but highly arguable,evidence that old “Yankee” influence onthe Reserve did begin to wane after themid-19th century. Rectilinear town types,never more than one-third of the total, ex-perienced a notable increase after 1850,while the center town type suffered a ma-jor decline, and (for the first time) failedto constitute a plurality. Any inferencehere must be made with extreme caution,owing to the very small sample size forthe period after 1850. Only a very long-term sample—into the twentieth century(and beyond the scope of this study)—could resolve this question.

While street patterns on the Reserveappear as a natural by-product of NewEngland settlement, those of the Con-gress Lands seem to be strongly influ-enced by the Mid-Atlantic origins of thefirst permanent arrivals in this region.The rectilinear (or “Philadelphia grid”)type constituted an outright majority oftowns in the Congress Lands for all timeperiods, with the modified grid of “linear-R” ranking second in two of three.

Geographic placement of these adjoin-ing regions (Reserve and CongressLands) provides a critical test of the major“cultural divide” noted in previous stud-ies of physical and social features of set-tlement patterns. The boundary betweenthe Western Reserve and the CongressLands compares favorably with thosenoted for demarcating principal “divides”in types of architecture, folk housing, andspeech. It now appears that another facetof culture—street pattern types—should

be considered as conforming to thistrend. The Western Reserve-CongressLands border reflects an abrupt transitionin street patterns, a transition too signifi-cant to be caused by chance.

The Virginia Military District gener-ally—but only generally—conforms to ex-pected patterns. One would expect to findthe grid predominant here, given the pref-erence for this pattern in the few cities ofthe parent Upper South. And so it is, withrectilinear and linear-R types comprisingnearly three-quarters of the total overall.Yet, the District clearly resists any trendtoward a geometric “lock hold” on itstown planning. On the contrary, after1820, greater variation is encountered inpattern types in this region. Especially no-table is a significant number of linear(1820–1849) and irregular (post-1850)towns as a counterpoise to the geometricrectilinear and linear-R.

Two factors may account for this notinconsequential infusion of non-geometric pattern types in the District.First, the undulating topography of theDistrict may have mitigated the applica-tion of geometric-based street systems.Second, the original survey system usedin the District, that of the highly irregular“indiscriminate claims” (or “metes andbounds”), ran at variance with the moreorderly “township and range” systemused throughout the rest of the state. Thepresence of a jumbled land survey mayhave diluted—or cancelled—the effects ofgeometric-based street systems in anumber of instances (Wright, 1937; Knep-per, 1989). Conscious borrowing of pat-tern types derived from a parent regionmay be the rule here, but settlement inthe District proceeded in such a way thattown planning frequently transcendedthe bounds of such rigid antecedents to amore varied and perhaps adaptivesystem.

The only region failing to conform toany expected transference of street pat-tern types from cis-Appalachian sourcesis that of the Ohio Company lands in thesoutheast part of the state. This first areaof settlement, dominated early by NewEnglanders, shows little of that region’sinfluence in demarcating urban street

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patterns. Barely a scant five per cent con-formed to the New England-based irreg-ular system, with none categorized in theother two derived from New Englandsources (linear, center). The grid heredominates as in no other region: rectilin-ear and linear-R pattern types compriseninety-five per cent of the population.

As indicated, much caution must beexercised in extrapolating any conclu-sions regarding street patterns in theOhio Company lands. The sample sizesimply will not permit effective conclu-sions. Nonetheless, it does appear thatany New England influence here was es-sentially muted. Grid dominance washeavy and consistent. Actually, thesefindings are not surprising given the factthat the “Yankee” element here flour-ished only during the earliest (post-Revolutionary) period. As early as thefirst decade of the 19th century, an in-creasing number of settlers were beingdrawn from sources other than the north-east, especially Virginia. In the words ofone author, these new arrivals “broughta social and political leaven to this bas-tion of New England orthodoxy” (Knep-per, 1989, p. 114). It presumably wouldnot be unusual if the leavening includedgreater reliance on geometric-basedstreet pattern types.

CONCLUSION

Two principal issues regarding themorphology of urban street patternswere examined in this study: that of “na-tionalizing” or “homogenizing” trendsover time and that of the transference ofstreet patterns from cis-Appalachiansources to Ohio, and by extension the va-lidity of these patterns as cultural indica-tors. After an extensive examination ofmaterials from 19th century sources, thefirst issue, that of “nationalizing” trends,was rejected while the second (trans-Appalachian transference) was seen asgenerally valid.

Street pattern morphology in 19th cen-tury Ohio did not become increasinglyuniform. Essentially, a similar heteroge-neous mix of types was being platted inthe state at mid-century and thereafter ashad been done prior to 1820. Further,

rather unique and dissimilar characteris-tics existed in various geographic regionsof the state after the alleged period of“nationalizing” trends began about 1820(Pillsbury, 1970).

On the other hand, there is good evi-dence that urban street patterns exist ascultural derivatives and that—at least tosome degree—they were carried acrossthe Appalachians to Ohio by residents ofthe various cultural regions of the easternseaboard. Most striking is the persistenceof a distinct “New England” system ofstreet morphology in the northeast sec-tion of the state. This persistence takes oneven greater credibility since it was foundthat street patterns in a neighboring re-gion (east central Ohio) did not sharethese traits. In short, a fairly distinct cul-tural “divide” between New England andMid-Atlantic sources previously noted inother aspects of the social and physicalenvironment was found to exist for streetpatterns in Ohio.

While the study leaves little doubt asto the general validity of cultural influ-ences on urban street systems, there isstill some reason to believe that factorsother than culture may have had a handin determining morphology. Transferenceof expected street patterns from easternparent regions, while strong in some in-stances, was less so in others. Althoughnot specifically examined in this study, itwas surmised that topographic featuresand original land survey systems mayalso have affected the platting of towns incertain regions of the state.

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