"Reconsider the folly of your rebellion against the sovereignty of Great Britain or suffer the consequences". It was July 4, 1779 and the ultimatum went to Connecticut residents along the eastern shore.

With no response from Connecticut the British attacked first New Haven and then up the coast. Killed were 27 colonials, 19 wounded and 30 prisoners taken from burning homes. The coastal towns were left frightened but relieved until 1781 when Benedict Arnold led a wave of 32 vessels and 1,800 troops against his former neighbors. Ten towns burned.

Compensation to the survivors in Connecticut came first in the form of tax abatements followed by the legislation of 1792 that "released and quit-claimed to the Sufferers or their legal representatives or heirs", 500,000 Connecticut-owned acres in Ohio. The section of land was called the Fire Lands.

Settlement of the "Firelands" was not immediate. The claims had to be settled legally. Indians unsympathetic to the Connecticut Sufferers occupied the new land, 700 miles away through uncharted territory. Thirty years elapsed before the children of the original claimants packed up their families to head west.

During that thirty year span the half million acres was surveyed by Almon Ruggles of Danbury into five-mile square "towns" again divided into 4 sections. The land was distributed by lottery to guarantee no man would receive all good or poor locations. Properties were traded or sold and by 1808 the process was complete with the bravest souls heading west.

Among the people who already called the Ohio land home were the "believing Indians", members of several tribes that followed the Moravian missionaries who offered not only Christianity but also an education. French traders were also evident in the area at this time. The Moravians traveled along the south shore of Lake Erie following old Indian trails established by the Eries that occupied the area up to the middle of the 17th century and the Chippewas, Wyandots, Monseys, Delawares and Ottawas that were here when the missionaries arrived in 1787.

David Zeisberger was the leader who arranged for the encampment. Eventually naming the settlement New Salem, the Moravians and their converts kept to themselves, nurturing the land and their families for four years when trouble began to brew between Ohio tribes and the white settlers who were now moving into the southern part of the state. In 1791 Zeisberger's Brethren packed up and headed for Detroit and then on to Ontario,Canada, returning briefly in 1804 only to find the red man's Firelands tract turning white. The Moravians returned to Canada in 1809.