Ryan Knuckles was a simple man who enjoyed simple things. One of them being the ability to marry your first cousins. Unfortunately the state of Ohio did not allow first cousins to marry at the time (nor to this day). Ryan took matters into his own hands and contacted longtime friend Jimbo James. James who was a police officer for the Ravenna Department agreed to help in any way possible. So on the United States Holiday "Labor Day" in the year 1963, James helped Knuckles to infiltrate the Ravenna Courthouse thereby taking control of the County of Portage. Knuckles then wrote for Portage County a declaration of independence, which stated that Portage had from that day forward seceded from the Union, and that he was "Supreme Macho Dictator Uno Number One".
But the victory was short lived, for just six hours after the independence of Portage had been established, Jimbo James turned traitor and helped the U.S. Government to remove Ryan Knuckles from power.
Not only did the U.S. Government treat the leader of a nation like his whole country didn't matter, they also tried him as nothing more than a common criminal. Ryan Knuckles was found guilty for breaking and entering.
Then in the year 2003 two patriotic souls took it upon themselves to free the land of Portage once more. So again on Labor day, two men by the names of N.W. Samuelson and Jack Handsome, found their way into the Ravenna court house with their trusty goat Murphy. They re-independenced Portage and started measures to keep power, including being self-sufficient by bring Murphy the goat so that they would have a near endless supply of milk.
But bad fortune struck again however, when just one hour after the re-independesizing of Portage, Murphy died of Leukemia. N.W. Samuelson and Jack Handsome tried desperately to hold their nation together but after 12 hours of struggling with starvation they were forced to hand their country back over to the United States.
So far in the grand history of the world, our nation had been free a total of 18 hours. Long live the United Townships Of Portage In America!
