The Firelands (Sufferers' Land)
Bowling Green, Wood County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
When Benedict Arnold in the late days of the American Revolution ravaged the state of Connecticut he burned the farm houses along his route. In 1792 these farmers were given land grants in the "Firelands"- Erie and Huron counties, Ohio.
The Story
This marker recalls a lesser-known chapter of the Revolution: when British forces led by Benedict Arnold raided coastal Connecticut and burned its farms and towns, ruined families were left with nothing. As compensation, in 1792 Connecticut set aside a half-million acres at the western edge of its Reserve in Ohio — the 'Firelands' of Erie and Huron counties — for these 'sufferers.' The grant helped carry New England families westward into the Ohio country.
Why it matters
The Firelands tie the destruction of the Revolutionary War to the settlement of the Old Northwest, showing how eastern loss helped seed westward expansion.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
This marker in Bowling Green sits in the flat, fertile farm country of northwest Ohio — the same corner of the state where, in the 1790s, surveyors laid out a tract of land with an unusual name and an even more unusual origin story. To understand it, you have to look back east, to the closing chapter of the American Revolution.
In those final years of the war, the Connecticut coast suffered brutal raids, and families along the shore watched their homes and farms go up in flames. When peace came, those "sufferers" were left with the hardest kind of loss — not on the battlefield, but at their own hearths.
Connecticut, which held claims to western lands stretching into what is now Ohio, eventually answered that loss with land. The result was a migration that carried New England families out of the burned-over coast and into the Ohio country, planting Connecticut's culture in the Old Northwest.
People & events
The figure named on the marker is Benedict Arnold — by the late Revolution no longer the celebrated American general but a man who had turned against his own side and taken up arms for the British. In that role he led destructive raids into Connecticut, his native state, burning homes and farmhouses along the route of his march.
The people who bore the cost were ordinary coastal residents, and it was for them that Connecticut acted in 1792, setting aside land grants at the far western end of its holdings. That tract became known as the "Firelands" — the Sufferers' Land — a name that carries the memory of fire and loss straight into the map of Ohio.
So the story braids together two very different places and moments: a traitor's raid on the New England shore, and, a decade later, the quiet arrival of the ruined families' claims in Erie and Huron counties, where the compensation finally took the shape of soil to farm.
Its place in the American story
The Firelands are a vivid example of how the young United States used western land to settle the debts of the Revolution. Rather than cash a struggling nation did not have, states and the federal government paid soldiers and citizens in acreage on the frontier — and in doing so, populated the Old Northwest.
This particular grant links destruction in the East directly to settlement in the West. The burning of Connecticut farms became, by a long administrative path, the seeding of new communities in northern Ohio, as displaced New Englanders carried their names, churches, and town habits into the wilderness.
That pattern helped shape the character of the region. The influence of transplanted Connecticut and New England settlers ran deep through this part of Ohio, and the Firelands stand as a reminder that the map of American westward expansion was drawn, in part, from the losses of the war that made the country in the first place.
If you visit
Bring your imagination, because the drama here is historical rather than scenic. This is level, open northwest Ohio farmland today, and the marker asks you to picture a connection that spans half a continent — burned homesteads on the Atlantic shore, redeemed as fields in the Midwest.
Let the name do its work. "Firelands" and "Sufferers' Land" are among the most evocative place-names in Ohio, and knowing their origin turns an ordinary drive through Erie and Huron counties into a trip across a Revolutionary-era ledger of loss and compensation.
If you're touring the region, treat this marker as a key that unlocks the surrounding landscape. Look for the New England imprint that came west with the sufferers — in town layouts, old church styles, and place-names — and you'll see how a raid on the Connecticut coast still echoes, quietly, across the Ohio countryside.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Benedict Arnold
Related events
- · Burning of the Connecticut coast
- · Connecticut Firelands land grant
Themes & tags
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