50 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY The first step to be taken was the establishment of a great military center somewhere on the Ohio river, and the insistent appeals of the settlers in the Miami purchase, pointed to that locality as the proper place. Judge Symmes, who so eloquently voiced these cries for help, desired and expected that when a sufficient military force was ordered to the scene of danger it would be located at North Bend, as a matter of course. To meet his wishes was no doubt the desire and intention of the military authorities in those plans which were slowly maturing for the defense of the whole region, by the construction of an imposing a sufficient fortification. All previous defenses had proved inadequate. A considerable fortress had been erected at Columbia (one link in a chain of such defenses scattered all the way from Pittsburgh to Louisville, at such points Marietta, Maysville, etc.), and one had been built at the mouth of the Big Alia in 1785-1786. But all were too small and too remote to meet the needs of the population centering about the region "opposite the mouth of the Licking." Let it be remembered now that the advance guard of the army which was slowly being' assembled came down the river with Symmes on the 29th of January 1789, under command of Captain Kearsey ; that he had gone off down the river to Louisville; that Ensign Luce had deserted North Bend for Cincinnati a had actually begun to construct some sort of works for the defense of that rapidly growing town. About his actual achievements little is now known except that they were so inadequate as to cause their abandonment in favor of the final plat for a first-class fortification. Lieutenant Drury. It was to carry out these plans that during July and August of 1789 several competent officers of the United States army (Lieutenant Drury, Captain Strang, Lieutenant Kingsbury, Ensign Hartshorn, Captain Ferguson and Lieutenant Pratt) left Fort Harmar and went down the river to Losantiville. The man who had been selected to lead and to manage the enterprise was Major Doughty. the designer and constructor of Fort Harmar, under whose guns the city of Mariett had been so safely founded. At this time he was next in command to Genera Harmar himself and was regarded as a most patriotic and capable officer. The preliminary investigations for a proper site had eliminated North Bend and al Columbia, the latter because of a flood in the river, which the soldiers saw. All signs pointed to the predestined-spot, "opposite the Licking" and here, at last the constructive agents assembled and the actual work began. By the 20th of August, 1789, they had located the site on a point of land enough to be above the floods of the river, whose extraordinary rises had already begun to be significant features in the life of the people who lined its banks. This site lay upon a spot immediately east of the land platted for the town, an on the second or upper of the two levels which nature had apparently grad for the purposes -to which they now were being set apart. It was about four hundred and fifty feet back of the river and eighty or ninety feet above it (between Broadway and Ludlow), and contained about fifteen acres of ground, the locality being marked at present by a worthy monument. It was the purpose of the government that this fortification should not on be impregnable against Indian attacks, but ample enough to contain a number soldiers adequate to the protection of the whole region and. dignified enough a CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 51 to be the headquarters of General Harmar, conicander-in-chief of all the scattered forces. The day when the first tree was cut to clear a space for the new fort was one of great rejoicing for the struggling and timid community. The delighted pioneers did not need to be told that their protection was soon to become complete, for the work was evidently being laid out on a large and, for that time, magnificent scale. In fact, it rapidly grew into an affair of no inconsiderable magnitude, and, one might almost say, of beauty, for it was constructed upon truly artistic lines. It would be a waste of time to describe it minutely, as the accompanying picture will give a far more accurate impression to. the average reader than the most detailed and eloquent verbal account could possibly do. Let it suffice to say that it consisted of two principal parts, the fortification itself, constructed of hewn logs and capable of accommodating fifteen hundred soldiers, and adjoining this, the artificer's yard, where the mechanical operations of the garrison were performed. The front and sides were whitewashed, and just outside, at the eastern end, the officers located and cultivated beautiful gardens, so that the whole affair was according to general testimony both "handsome and imposing," and General Hamar, when he arrived, expressed himself as. delighted with the situation and the prospects. It was not, however, for "ornamental" purposes that this fortress ,was constructed. Its mission was warlike, and its garrisons were expected to protect the people who were pouring down the Ohio river and settling its shores, even though it cost the extermination of the Indian race. Before resorting to this drastic and revolting extreme, the government, in accordance with the merciful purpose of Washington, determined to exhaust every possible means to settle the antagonisms of the two races without war ; and so sent Major Hamtrank, the commandant at Vincennes, an able and efficient officer, to see if the Indians on the Wabash and Miami were willing to come to some peaceful agreement. A single careless phrase in the invitation to hold a council for this purpose is generally supposed to have defeated the project. Without foreseeing the effect of the words upon the minds of the sensitive sav-ages, the blunt soldier. told the Indians to "accept the offers or reject them, as they pleased," an expression which roused their high spirit's to resentment, and they drove the messengers out of their villages. in a rage. After this failure another effort was made through Antoine Gamelin, a French trader whom they loved; but the Indians informed him that the Americans had not kept their faith and had done nothing but "send them speeches; (proposals and promises), no:two of which were alike," so that they were determined never to repose their confidence in them any more. Scarcely had this discouraging report come back before the rumors of a general uprising began to echo along the whole frontier. War parties were formed and moved stealthily toward the Ohio; the erection of Fort Washington in Cincinnati 'having stirred them to a frenzy of antagonism. The news of these movements roused Governor St. Clair to the greatest activity. Dropping; all other affairs he hastened from St. Louis to arrange for the first serious campaign against these savage opponents of the occupation of the Ohio valley. 52 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY Harmar's Campaign, At Cincinnati he met General Harmar, just promoted to the rank of brigadier general, and they immediately organized two separate forces one under the command of Major Hamtrank and the other under that of General Harmar himself. The first moved up the Wabash, but was unable to carry out the plan for the conquest of the region through which it flowed, for lack of sufficient soldiers and equipments. The second began immediately to assemble at Fort Washington; and was expected to contain fifteen hundred militia from Pennsylvania and Kentucky (at that time a part of Virginia). General St. Clair himself, aroused by the exigencies of the situation, hurried east on a flying trip to make all the necessary arrangements with the central government, while Harmar remained at Fort Washington to organize and discipline the troops. By the 26th of September, 1790, preparations were far enough advanced to warrant the beginning of the enterprise, and with drums beating and colors flying, the little army of one thousand, four hundred and fifty-three soldiers disap-peared (a part on the 26th and a part on the 29th) into the vast and somber wilderness that surrounded the village on its northern side. Their route lay along an Indian trail, which was afterwards known as "Harmar's Trace."' It ran up Main street and through Mount Auburn along its central avenue ; and then down Reading road through Avondale. Swiftly and safely the soldiers made their way to the neighborhood of Chillicothe, and reports began to come in at this point that the Indians were flying before them. On this account General Harmar detached Colonel Hardin with six hundred light troops, with orders to hasten toward the Indian villages on the Miami, the goal of his movements. It was a difficult and dangerous march through a hostile country and over trails, that were rough and ill-defined; but the courageous soldiers pushed grimly forward through the solemn forests, determined to conquer or to die. The ndian villages lay at the junction of the St. Joseph and St. Mary; one' hundred and seventy-two miles from Cincinnati and (to the disappointment of the more youthful of the invaders) were found to have been deserted. In their vexation they burned the villages to the ground and destroyed the crops, thus seriously crippling the power of their enemies by cutting off their base of supplies. The principal design of the enterprise had been accomplished; but so bloodless a campaign did not satisfy the more daring spirits, who insisted upon some sort of fighting. To this childish clamor Colonel Hardin foolishly yielded, and a conflict was precipitated in which the vain glorious militia were so panic-stricken that the Indians repelled the attack with what proved to be crushing blow. They were not, however, in any condition to follow up their victory, and it was good luck rather than good soldiership that prevented the disaster from be coming fatal. The humiliated and \badly shattered columns reassembled themselves when the fighting was over and hastened back to Cincinnati, apologizing as best they could for their disgrace, and making as much as they were able of the fact that, at an rate, they had burned the villages and destroyed the revenues of the Indians. n this brief campaign many incidents transpired Which are full of romantic interest and reveal a personal valor of the highest type. In what chapter of CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 53 ancient history, where the greatest records of huma.n bravery and achievement are supposed to be contained, can anything be found to surpass the deed of an unnamed soldier who, being surrounded by a circle of savage foes, drove his bayonet through the bodies of six, knocked down the seventh with his musket and then fell dead upon the bodies of his enemies. Or what story can outshine. that of the ndian father whose two sons were wounded as they were wading a stream in the face of a deadly fire, and who, picking them up in his arms, carried them to shore; set one on either side of him and then with calm and majestic mien awaited the attack before which he fell, an invincible hero. The return of the army, both victorious and defeated, was not hailed with undivided approval. Severe strictures were passed upon General Harmar for not going to the aid of Colonel Hadin; but later investigations revealed the fact that it was impossible for him to control the actions of the militia, and he has been exonerated from all blame. Nevertheless, the campaign as a military movement was not successful. It crippled, but did not destroy, the Indian power. The pioneers were still in bondage to their fears, and it was necessary to make a second and even more determined effort to win a decisive victory. In order to accomplish this end, two minor campaigns were organized for the purpose of keeping the Indians occupied while extended preparations were being made for the final coup. The first was under the command of General Charles Scott, who marched to the mouth of the Kentucky river and from thence made forays among the villages on the upper Wabash. The second, led by Brigadier General James Wilkinson, left Fort Washington, August 1, 1791, and headed for Detroit. It was gone twenty-one days and did considerable damage on its march of four hundred and fifty miles. St. Clair. Trivial as these two forays were in themselves, they served their purpose and gave time for the equipment of the new army, which Congress had enlarged by the addition of another regiment of regulars, and the enlistment of fifteen hundred militia. Of this really important and effective force, St. Clair (to whose disgust at the hybrid word "Losantiville" we owe the nobler name of Cincin-nati), took command as major general, having General Richard Butler as second in command; William Duer as commissary and contractor, and Samuel Hodgson as quartermaster. From the beginning everything went wrong. These two men, Duer and Hodgson, were so incompetent and dishonest that General Butler could not provision and equip his recruits with sufficient rapidity. They were not ready until the 7th of September, 1791, although they were expected to be upon the march by the loth of July. Impatient over the delay, the authorities at Washington egged on the commander-in-chief to a premature start on the 17th, and as he departed General Harmar warned him that he was on his way to all but certain disaster. Nevertheless, he had to go and did so bravely, although everything looked dark. He was sick, himself ; the time of service for the six months' men was almost 54 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY ready to expire and famine stared the army in the face. One of the remaining months of comfortable weather was consumed in the construction of two forts; the first at Hamilton and the second at Jefferson, six miles south of Greenville. The marching was bad; the spirits of the army low and discipline the poorest. Desertion became almost an epidemic and three hundred militiamen vanished mysteriously from view. Never was an invading army so illy prepared for so serious a task as this miserable aggregation, when upon the 3d. day of November it was suddenly forced to fight. On that ill-starred day General St. Clair ordered the straggling horde to encamp upon a stream whose name he did not know. proved to be the Wabash and he had accidentally chosen a situation as favorable to his vile foes as if he had selected. it for the purpose of giving them all the advantage. Through the shadows of the night a thousand warriors under the leadership of Little Turtle, one of their most invincible chiefs, crept stealthily; through the pathless woods and formed a circle round the camp. At the break of day they rushed upon an outpost of militia and scattered the terrified soldier like chaff. Pursuing them as they fled, the savages stormed the main camp and turned it into a slaughter house. For four hours the battle raged, the white men fighting desperately but hopelessly, and at their close those who could escape fled wildly, leaving eight hundred and ninety-four of their companions dead, upon a battlefield which consisted of no more than ten acres of ground. The accounts of the frightful 'tragedy read more like those of a massacre than a battle. It seems a wonder that anyone got away alive. The command in-chief did so, but by the skin of his teeth. Ill and exhausted, he mounted of of the few surviving horses, and joined the miserable throngs who were crowing pell-mell over the narrow forest road. For miles and miles they poure along like a river in a freshet, and found their first relief from despair who they encountered Major Hamtrank, who was leader of a delayed detachment the fort, to their relief. Perceiving the utter impossibility of trying to rally this disorganized army, he turned back in the almost forlorn hove of securing Fort Jefferson (thirty mile. from the field of battle) as a refuge for the shattered and scattered columns. that he was successful; but the terrified soldiers stayed within its hospitable walls just long enough to breathe and started homeward "like a flock of frightened sheep." With a swiftness animated by terror they made their way straight 1, Fort Washington and arrived there, the ghost of an army. Language can scarcely exaggerate the despair that settled down upon Cincinnati at sight of their shattered legions and the accounts of their terrible Washing Indeed, a stouter heart than theirs is said to have quailed,—the heart of Washington himself. The news of the disaster was carried to the commander-in-chief at the national capital by Lieutenant Drury of the regular army. He knocked at the door the president's home in Philadelphia, then the seat of government, and urgent requested an immediate interview. Being informed that the president was dinner, he insisted that his errand was too important for delay, and the president came out, at last, in response to his impetuous demands. To the terrible stories he listened with that self-command by which he was enabled to endure so man and such oft repeated shocks ; went back to his company and passed the evening CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 55 in apparent tranquility and happiness. But when the guests had departed and he was alone with his wife and secretary, he gave vent to his pent-up emotion : "It's all over. St. Clair's defeated, routed! The officers nearly all killed, the men by wholesale; the rout complete—too shocking to think of and a surprise in the bargain. Yes! Here on this very spot I took leave of him; I wished his suc-cess and honor. 'You have your instructions,' I said, 'from the secretary of war. I had a strict eye to them and will add but one word—beware of surprise.' I repeated it, 'beware of surprise—you know how the ndians fight us.' He went off with that as my last solemn warning thrown into his ears. And yet !! To suffer that army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, tomahawked by a surprise—the very thing I warned him against ! O God! O God! It's worse than a murderer! How can he answer for it to his country ! The blood of the slain is upon him—the curse of widows and orphans—the curse of heaven !" The giant frame of the great Virginian quivered with emotion, and as he threw himself upon the couch, the two spectators regarded him with pity and astonishment. The storm passed, at length, and in an altered voice the president said : "This must not go beyond this room." (a long pause and then) "General St. Clair shall have justice; I looked hastily through the despatches, saw the whole dis-aster ; but not all the particulars; I will receive him without displeasure; I will hear him without prejudice; he shall have full justice." A promise honorably and perfectly fulfilled. The first unfavorable reports were followed by others which modified them not a little, and Washington concluded (as have all impartial students) that General St. Clair was the victim of an impossible situation rather than the author of an inexcusable disaster. But disaster it was, and upon a colossal scale, con-sidering the possible consequences. That backwoods struggle seems a trifling affair to those of us- who look back upon the vast number of soldiers engaged in the "Civil," "Franco-Prussian" and "Russo-Japanese" wars. The conflict between a thousand white men and as many Indians in an almost forgotten corner of an almost inaccessible wilderness appears more like a neighborhood scrimmage in a back alley than an engagement upon which the destinies of two races appeared to the people of that day to hang. t to millions of people, in that young nation, it seemed as if the powers of hell were about to be let loose. The thoughts of an ndian invasion with all its horrors became a sort of nightmare through regions hundreds of miles away from the spot where the defeat was suffered. What then must have been the emotions of the pioneers themselves, the people on the tiring line? They felt themselves to be upon the very brink of despair, and for a time they could do little else but recount the stories of individual heroism and suffering which made up the narrative of the great disaster, and prognosticate the evils which were sure to follow. They discussed the responsibility of the tragedy with bitterness, and took sides with or against the unfortunate general and the cowardly soldiers. They followed, in imagination, the march of the little army that was dispatched in January,. 1792, to the battle ground to give an honorable burial to the dead. This force was under the leadership of General Wilkinson and consisted of one hundred and fifty men who volunteered for the purpose. It was an under- 56 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY taking full of dangers, and prompted by love and heroism. The winter wal severe and the Indians defiant; but the small contingent made its way bravely to the scene of carnage, and overpowered by emotions of horror and sympathy, committed the bodies of the dead soldiers to the earth, with all the rites of Christian burial. Wayne's Campaign, 1792.  As a matter of course this victory over General St. Clair's army excited among the ndians the highest hopes of being able, at last, to drive the whit men out of the great central portions of the continent. The enthusiasm kindle! by this hope diffused itself in ever widening circles and constantly included new tribes. Depredations multiplied. The attacking parties became larger and larger Their resources, crippled by previous struggles, were reinforced by the British traders who secretly but persistently endeavored to maintain the hostile feelings of the Indian, in order to keep their trade and perhaps eventually regain the region for the crown. These serious facts were not permitted by the settlers to remain unknown or unconsidered in the national capital. Judge Symmes and all the other promoters and speculators protested and petitioned, until at last steps were taken which resulted in the final elimination of the danger of Indian depredations. It may seem strange, but there were not a few nor unimportant American citizens (mostly at points farthest removed from the danger zone) who did not believe it worth while to spend the scant wealth of the infant nation upon an effort to retain its hold upon the great northwest. "Let the Indian have they it, “ said, "or at least secure it by peaceful means. It is not worth its cost in human life." In order to conciliate these remonstrants (and to fulfill their manifest duty to exhaust all other measures before continuing the war) several important embassies were sent out by Congress in the summer of 1792 to counsel with the Indians. Everywhere they encountered the settled determination on the part of the savages to repudiate any proffers of peace that did not recognize the Ohio river as the boundary over which the white men should not pass. They did agree, however, to hold a conference to discuss the general situs. tion, and this conference, after long delays, took place in Detroit. Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph and Timothy Pickering represented the government and many days were spent in discussion of the great questions involved; but the Indians were immovable in their determination and inexorable in their demands. On the 16th of July they gave ultimatum which was signed by sixteen nations, the substance of which was summed up in these words: "Brothers, we shall believe you mean to do us justice if you agree that the Ohio river shall remain the boundary between us." The commissioners retired at once, of course, and hastily forwarded notice of their failure to General Washington. The issue did not surprise that astute president nor catch him napping. He had foreseen the result, as had all the be informed observers, and been busily engaged in making preparations for a fine struggle. In fact, Congress had, in the midst of these pacific movements, au CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 57 thorized the appointment of "Mad Anthony Wayne" as major-general of the army, and that gallant officer had accepted, upon condition that he should be given ample time and means for the hazardous enterprise of utterly subduing, the stubborn Indians. He would have no six months' men, he said, for it would require (he believed) two years for drilling his army. While the negotiations were in progress he had gone resolutely to work in the formation of his now famous organization, which was known as "The Le-gion," and which when fully completed consisted of five thousand infantry ar-tillery and cavalry. None were enlisted but Americans and they were drilled with the utmost care in the use of all arms; but particularly the bayonet, and taught to convert themselves into lines and hollow squares and to. meet the wily foes by every method known to frontier fighting. The recruiting and drilling were begun in and near Pittsburgh, and the work went forward so rapidly that by April, 1793, the thoroughly compacted little army descended the Ohio to Cincinnati, and while the four companies of cavalry (the sorrels, grays, chestnuts and bays) were sent over to Kentucky for their quarters in "Bellerophontia" the infantry and artillery went into camp on the outskirts of Cincinnati which "because it was located in the only available place" was christened "Hobson's Choice." The gay humor displayed in the choice of names was not indicative of lively but of grim determination. General Wayne felt his responsibility profoundly. He knew what issues hung upon success or failure, and left no stone unturned to insure a final triumph. This sense of the gravity of their business, he Suc-ceeded in infusing into his soldiers, who caught their leader's spirit to such a degree and responded so enthusiastically to his appeals for perfect discipline that when they set forth upon their great enterprise they composed an army as fit for its business as ever went to war. These features in the military preparations and plans of General Wayne have excited the admiration of all who understand the art of war. n the first place he completed the academical training begun in camp by actual evolutions in the wilderness (not far from Fort Jefferson). In the second place he organized a group of scouts and spies composed of the most famous Indian fighters to be found, whose exploits became the pride of the army as they have been the won-der and delight of subsequent generations. In the third place he bewildered his foes by construction of roads in so many directions that they found it utterly impossible to decide over which of them all the wily general meant to move. So great was the admiration and so profound the respect which the great strate-gist excited in the minds of his enemies that before the battle the ndians dubbed him "Black Snake" and afterward "Big Wind" on account of the craft of his tactics and fury of his assault. Engaged in these maneuvers and in road building, the winter was profitably passed by the little army, and in December, about Christmas day, a detachment was sent forward to the battle field which had witnessed the slaughter of St. Oak's army, for the purpose of erecting a fortification to which the name Fort Recovery was given because the ill-fated spot had come once more into the pos-session of the government. In June, 1794, believing themselves capable of over-powering the diminutive garrison, Little Turtle, an ndian chief, attacked their stronghold with a large force of his own people accompanied, as was believed, CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 58 by a number of British officers. For two days the savages threw themselves with a desperate valor against those wooden walls, only to be met by so murderous a fire by the brave defenders as to. be finally driven off and compelled to mourn their failure as the worst misfortune of the whole campaign. Battle of Fallen Timbers. By the 28th of July General Wayne was ready to strike the blow for which he had forged his military thunderbolts. His purpose was to march out from Fort Recovery, and then turn suddenly down the Auglaize river, surprise a, spring upon his foes. In this attempt he was, however, foiled by the treacher of one of his own men who deserted to the enemy and betrayed his plans. changed them, therefore, and went as far as Girtystown on the St. Marys a then, in a single day, threw up a strong blockade; and sent a flag of truce the Indians to. give them another chance to surrender. But, in order to prevent their attributing this move to timidity, he flung his columns across the Maumee and pushed forward. On his way, he met the returning embassy who reported their failure, and at the Rapids, .on the 20th day of August, he encountered the enemy. Its lines extended along the. river for two miles scattered through and, sheltered by a forest recently prostrated by a tornado, a circumstance which gay to the fierce conflict which presently took place, the well known name, "The Battle of Fallen Timbers." About a mile in the rear of the Indian lines stood a British fort, the garrison of which was undoubtedly in sympathy with the savages and ready to a them, if the circumstances made it safe. Realizing that the moment of destiny had come, Wayne quietly made his first move upon the checkerboard of fortune by pushing his first rank of milita forward. They were met with a scathing fire from their hidden enemies a staggered backward, a contingency for which the great commander was prepared. His supports .were ready and the charge was sounded. It was the signal for a terrible and resistless movement. With swords drawn and, bayonet fixed, the legions broke into a run, scaled the logs, crept through the defience along the river, swept their enemies before them like wild animals before forest fire and in a single hour of fighting drove the astonished and terrific fugitives more than two miles ahead of them. In this dire extremity the India sought the shelter of the British fort; but its gates were mercilessly dos against them by treacherous friends, who saw that the end of their hopes for securing the country for their government had been forever dashed by this with and irresistible onset. The discomfited ndians, denied the refuge, fled to the woods and were scattered, never to be reunited again in any other import effort to resist the advances of the whites. "So, in an hour, the pride and power of the ndian confederacy and the scheme of reclaiming the Northwest Territory to the British domains broken." There remained but one more deed to put the finishing touch upon a No business thus speedily and valiantly accomplished. It was the securing of authoritative treaty of peace, and to accomplish this difficult undertaking eral Wayne began most serious preparations. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 59 Having erected a fort at the head of the Maumee, to make sure of holding the prize he had won, he summoned the various tribes of warriors to a great council at Greenville. Treaty of Greenville. He knew that several of the most persistent leaders were still in arms and trying to form another confederation ; but realized that their power was broken. He was not disappointed, therefore, in his expectation that his invitation would be accepted, and on the loth of June, a great crowd of warriors assembled to discuss the situation with their conquerors.' Clothed with the power of a com-missioner plenipotentiary, General Wayne was ready to meet their threats with courage and their demands with wisdom and authority. The chiefs protested against his propositions for a while; but one after another acknowledged. the hopelessness of a further struggle against the inevitable. Little Turtle was the last to succumb; but he yielded finally and on the 3rd day of August, 1795, the treaty of Greenville was signed by General Wayne and ninety chiefs and delegates of the tribes. There are many events in history whose magnitude reveals their importance ; but there are others whose significance is veiled from unobservant eyes by their very minuteness. Concerning these (and this battle won and treaty made through the genius of General Wayne is one) it is only necessary to remember that their influence consists in the fact that they occurred so near to the actual. fountain springs of history. It is this fact which renders the little fracas between a few British soldiers and a handful of farmers at Lexington and Concord, a matter of such magnitude. And, measured by the tremendous consequences which followed the open-ing of the Northwest Territory to peaceful settlement, this battle of Fallen Timbers and the treaty of Greenville must be placed high upon the list of events that have made epochs in our history. The Sudden Influx of Population. Decisive as was the victory and final as was the treaty, it took almost a year to persuade the settlers along the Ohio and the multitudes of those who stood on tiptoe in the east, waiting to migrate, that the danger was really past ; but, when at last they were actually convinced, a movement westward set in that was like nothing so much as a tidal wave. With that general immigration which thus entered every possible opening into the great northwest, we may not concern ourselves because our particular task is limited to the life and fortunes of those who floated down the Ohio and landed at the hospitable wharfs of the little village whose growth into a great city it is, alone, our duty to describe. The battle and the treaty meant as much or more to it than to any other place, perhaps. That embargo which fear of Indians had laid upon all its enterprises being lifted, the ambitions and energy of the people suddenly found channels in which to expend themselves. Farmers pushed out into the wilder-ness and made clearings. Merchants took advantage of the military roads to extend commerce. Manufactures were begun; buildings were hastily erected ; a new stir of life was felt ; great expectations were aroused and hope set every heart on fire. Vol. I-5 60 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY Problem II—.1778-1779. We have announced that it was as a series of serious problems to be solved that we should consider the history of Cincinnati. The first of these (that of securing exemption from Indian invasions) was disposed of by the military prowess of General Anthony Wayne and his invincible "Legion ;" but those which we turn to now had to be solved by the ingenuity and determination of the citizens themselves. For the removal of these new obstacles to their growth and their happiness they had no right to call upon the central government. They must,: like the young nation itself, "Live or die; sink or swim; survive or perish" by their own genius and effort. Those problems were, of course, the way to secure the actual necessities of life—food, clothing and shelter ; the way to establish law and order; the way to open lines of travel and to build up, commerce; the way to secure educational and religious institutions; the way to create a social life and a thousand others not so pressing; but not less important. Those of us who were born into an environment where the solution of all the problems has been rendered easy by experience, wealth and custom cannot but find it difficult to appreciate the immensity of their task. If, however, it has fallen to our lot to have helped build some western town upon the very stumps of the trees of a primeval wilderness. (as it has to mine) the comprehension will be far more sympathetic and complete. To have found a spot in a wilderness for a great city ; to have slept under the stars for lack of a roof ; to have lived upon oatmeal with irregular bites of crackers and cheese ; to have helped survey road and carve them out with an axe; to have raised money in distant places to buil schoolhouses and churches; to have- struggled with lawless and desperate men to have waited years for means of transportation; to have raised crops and failed to find a market—are experiences which ought to fit an author (whether the really do or not) to interpret the struggles of these brave and determined pioneer who now began in deadly earnest their great effort to build a city in the wildness. These problems, it will be seen at a glance, were the primitive and element ones. They belong, therefore, to the earliest period, and we shall confine our attention to the years between the landing at Yeatman's Cove in 1788 and the establishment of the "town" in 1802. This was the era of the "Village" (it be remembered) a part of whose internal history was traced and then abandoned in order that we might study the three great military campaigns which, however vital to the life of the community, were in a sense external. Those campaign were terminated in 1795 and, having described them, we now go back upon our tracks and take up, the story of the evolution of the village from within. All we have told, thus far, are the bare facts that attempts were made to locate the city at Columbia and North Bend ; that they failed ; that all circumstances conspired to make Losantiville (or Cincinnati now) the center of new life; but that this new life was hampered in its growth by fear of the Indians. We are now to observe those restrained efforts which they put forth only under the compulsion of sheer necessity (up to the Indian conquest in 1795) their liberation and enlargement, after those fears were finally relieved. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 61 Problem of Shelter. The first "internal" problem, then, was that of finding shelter, which was, of course, comparatively a simple one. The earliest houses were constructed from the trees which stood upon the town site, and rude affairs they were, log cabins chinked with mud; dirt floors; chimneys made of sticks or stones; generally without windows except when the light came in through paper smeared with lard. However, they afforded protection from the storms of winter, and around the enormous fireplaces, fed with the fuel of inexhaustible forests, family life began. The furniture was as rude as the home, of course. Tables and chairs were constructed of puncheons, with split sticks at the corners for legs. Beds were made of poles, and mattresses of leaves or sraw.. Cooking was done over an open fire, with a few rude utensils—a skillet, a tea-kettle, a few old pots and a crane. If there was a loft in the house, it was reached by a rude ladder or pegs driven in the wall, and up there under the roof the children slept on pallets of skins. Some time during the first year, it is thought, Robert Benham erected the first frame house and not long afterwards one or two others were built of bricks. Food. The problem of food was not so easily managed. Months elapsed before crops could be reaped and at times provisions became so scarce that the inhabitants of the village, and even the soldiers of the fort, were ready to decamp. They were saved from this in one of the greatest crises by a loan of corn from a farmer by the name of Luke Foster who happened to have a supply and who, in consequence of his generosity, was reduced by springtime almost to starvation. Luke Foster! Let us star his name as the very first of our public benefactors; the first man to put the community under obligation for an unselfish gift. It would have been a great and bounteous gift, however he had come to have it to bestow but it had an added virtue because he had raised the grain himself from thirteen pints of seed which he had planted with an almost miserly care—three grains to a hill! Apart from what they received through this generous donation, the settlers purchased all their first year's supplies from crops raised on Turkey Bottom by the farmers of Columbia; but in the second year they raised their own grain. Their meats were more easily obtained, for game abounded in the forest and fish in the river. The stories of this abundance excite astonishment and incredulity today. Buffaloes roamed the region in enormous herds. Deer, squirrel, rabbits, wild turkeys and pigeons existed in numbers beyond all calculation, and catfish were taken from the river, which must have resembled small whales, accord-ing to common report, a fact which lends acute interest to the following letter just received from the bureau of fisheries : "SIR::This bureau has been advised by the department of agriculture that you desire information regarding the cause of the decrease of food-fishes in the Ohio river, and whether there is any way in which the fishes of that river may be increased so as to furnish an important addition to the food supply. "The causes of the decrease of food-fishes in the Ohio are many and complex. Among the more important may be mentioned the following: over-fishing, that is, the taking out of the river of more fish annually than natural reproduction is 62 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY able to make good ; stream. pollution, which in the Ohio river is, and has been, . for many years very serious indeed ; and inadequate laws and regulations governing the fisheries. "This bureau has done a great deal in years past and it is continuing its efforts toward keeping the Ohio river stocked with useful food-fishes. These efforts have been directed chiefly to such species as the black bass, pike, perch, catfish, etc. "The fact that the Ohio river borders on a number of states requires that there should be uniform action taken by all of the states concerned in order to properly protect its fisheries. Concurrent action on the part of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, ndiana and Kentucky is hardly to be expected as possible. "The only way in which the fisheries of interstate streams can be properly conserved is by means of federal control. With federal control the question of pollu- tion could be handled, closed seasons could be established to protect the fished at the times when they most needed protection, and regulations prohibiting over fishing could be provided. Respectfully, J. L. M. SMITH, Acting Commissioner." Clothing.  There was but little danger of actual starvation, it will have been seen, an the problem of securing clothing was not even so difficult as that of procuring food. The skins of the wild animals they shot supplied the latter: or it was spun woven and made into warm if not elegant suits of wool or hemp by the women one of whom, in lack of other material, cut the nettles round her cabin and out of them made two hundred yards of cloth. Having found the means of securing food and clothing, the inhabitants the little village undertook to increase their comforts and to lay the foundation of their wealth by some form or other of business enterprise. Business. Nothing can be simpler than the first beginnings of commerce. Always a everywhere it is barter—the exchange of an article produced by one person that produced by another. In these early days the whites exchanged the manufactured articles which they could spare out of the small store imported from the east, for the skins brought in by the Indians. By and by, as the gen of the settlers began to express itself in the productions of the implements which they could make with their own hands, these exchanges became more numerous and more complicated. Skins, as usual, were the first media of exchange. Who little money they had brought with them mysteriously disappeared—as it alway does through that irresistible gravitation which carries it like water to the natural reservoirs, our great cities. Practically, therefore, they were without a medium of exchange for a long time, but when the soldiers came, they brought Spanish coins and these were cut up into little pieces to take the place of small change. Their original value suffered much, of course, from every sort of shrinkage ; but even so imperfect a medium possessed an immense advantage over none at all. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 63 As business grew (and it did, even in the first few years of terror from the Indians) these primitive transactions began both to multiply and to ramify. They were principally carried on upon the) river in flatboats and pirogues, although now and then a trader ventured over the dangerous trails in the wilderness to the north and south, but was lucky to return with his scalp in its proper place. As the volume of trade increased it demanded the widening of the trails and road building of a very primitive type began. Slight bridges were thrown over the smaller streams; a ferry was established across the Ohio ; Colonel John Bartle opened a store and Griffin Yeatman a tavern. Property was bought and sold. The first feeble palpitation of that great heart of commerce which now throbs with such steady, insistent beatings in Fountain Square were faintly heard. Education. Shelter, food, and the means of livelihood ! Thew are the three primitive necessities having secured them, all civilized communities begin to attempt the satisfaction of a different order of needs. In Cincinnati the first arrivals were grown up men and women ; but before long little children's faces were seen upon the streets, and the problem of education arose. No American community has ever been compelled to await for any great length of time the coming of a schoolmaster and as early as 1792, an Irish pedagogue by the name of Lloyd established an educational institution of a very primitive character down on the public landing, and soon the murmurings of the small scholars conning their lessons resounded in the still air, varied now and then by the screams of disobedient youngsters as they felt the bite of the switch in the hands of the stern master who whipped them, so they testified, until he made them "jump clean from the floor." In 1794 another school was opened by a Mr. Stuart to meet the exigencies of the ever increasing number of children and from thence, onward, these institutions multiplied. Religion In America, the craving of the human soul for religious truth makes itself felt in every new community, almost from the first day of its existence. Among these sturdy forefathers of ours, so many of whom, it must be confessed, were profane, intemperate and reckless, there were men and women of the finest natures, alert and eager for instruction in the divine life. One auspicious day in 1791 a few of them, armed with rifles, went over into Kentucky to offer safe convoy to a clergyman by the name of James Kemper, whom they desired to have settle among them for the preaching of the gospel. He. had already made a visit or two in the region, and so won their respect as to render them eager for his presence and his influence. He came with his family, and on October 2, 1792, was formally installed as pastor of the Presbyterian churches here and in Columbia. It so happened in the divine Providence that this devout clergyman arrived at that tragic moment when the shattered army of St. Clair came streaming into town with their wretched story of defeat and their wild prognostications of danger. Never was a man of faith in God more needed, and Mr. Kemper threw himself into the breach with energy and zeal. He gave succor to the needy; helped to heal the sick ; offered consolation to the sorrowful and calmed the fears 64 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY of the terror-stricken. He was a man of God, and during his pastorate excited a powerful influence for good. The Presbyterian church which he founded, being the first upon the ground, became, of course, prominent ; but it was not long before others were established and most of the leading denominations were early represented in the field. Law. For a few weeks or months in the life of frontier communities, the problems of law and order excite but little attention. Such settlements are a natural refuge for criminals fleeing from justice and possess a magnetic attraction for the loose and reckless elements of the social system. Every individual in them (good, as well as bad) finds it for his interests, temporarily at least, to encounter no re-straints of any kind in the full pursuit of his own purposes and plans. But it does not take long to discover that liberty produces license and that anarchy is the most intolerable of tyrannies. This was speedily found to be true in the little settlement by Yeatman's Cove, for in a short time interests began to conflict; a the public peace was rudely broken, not only by the Indian forays, but by quarrels, robberies, drinking bouts and fightings amongst the whites themselves. It did not take long for this state of affairs to become intolerable and because the were neither courts of justice, executors of laws, or even laws of any kind, better element determined to establish order upon their own responsibility a in their own way. The citizens, therefore, assembled in public conclave and made a simple set of rules to govern conduct, and after having sworn to render obedience themselves and to see that others did the same, they elected William McMillan judge an John Ludlow (a brother of Israel) sheriff. The first case which came before this simple court, where trial was to be by jury, was that of a charge against Patrick Grimes for stealing cucumbers from the truck garden of one of his neighbors The frightened culprit was arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and punished - twenty-nine strokes of the lash being laid on his bare back. It appeared, no doubt, to the villagers that they had settled the problem of law and order easily and perhaps permanently; but they were not long in discovering that such an achievement was far. more difficult than they had thought little before this incident occurred, Fort Washington had been completed a , its officers had taken it for granted that the whole region was under military authority. The punishment of a criminal by this voluntary court seemed an infringement of their prerogative. When, therefore, the second crime was committed and the criminal fled for refuge to the fort to escape the swift vindication of law at the hands of this resolute, quick-acting, civil tribunal, an abusive lett was sent from that seat of power to Mr. McMillan,. commanding him to refrane from any further exercise of' his functions. A spirited reply (the purport which was that the petty officer who issued it should mind his own business brought a sergeant and a file of three men to Mr. McMillan's door with an or for his arrest. A short parley ensued in which McMillan asserted his determination to discharge his duty even at the cost of his life, and thereupon the soldiers burst into the room. The young judge was an athlete and with a blow his fist. all but broke the sergeant's head, at which, the soldiers fell upon CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 65 and dragged him to the floor. With a herculean effort he threw them off, and rising, drove them from the room. It was a great triumph of courage and strength, but it cost him dear. One of the blows which were showered upon hitn in the melee was the cause of a disorder which pursued him through life and terminated in a premature and much lamented death. So great, however, was the respect which this courage and devotion to duty inspired, that when the court of quarter sessions organized in January, 1790 (immediately after the county had been defined and named in honor of Alexander Hamilton) he, together with William Goforth and William Wells, was appointed one of its judges. Society. Those who merely watch the surface play of events in phenomena like that of a city's growth, imagine, if they think at all, that the various phases unfold in accordance with some inherent necessity—coming and going like the changes in the sky when the forms and colors of the clouds alter, without the intervention of human brains or hands. This is but a shallow view and a deeper insight discloses the influence of individual minds and hearts and wills. The great forces which play upon the social system originate in the sentiments, the opinions, the passions of those who are the natural leaders. It happens generally, no doubt, that a few remarkable individuals, or an institution, or an organization give complexion to the social life in the early stages of the community's existence. In Cincinnati it was, undoubtedly, the garrison of the fort which performed this most important function. Had there been a considerable population of refined and moral people whose habits had been formed, and whose customs had already crystallized, the influence of the reckless soldiery might have been resisted. But the very opposite was the fact. During the brief period preceding the ndian conquest there were at most only a few hundred residents, and these, in the main, were very ordinary people. Not only were they without that preliminary culture which is necessary to successful resistance of a strong influence for evil; but all the circumstances of life had tended to harden and coarsen their natures. While their conditions had made them brave, they certainly had not made them considerate and gentle. Every day and almost hour they were either taking part in, or beholding, or hearing about violent and bloody deeds. n the wilderness around them, people were being constantly massacred by the ndians, while in their streets the reckless and quick-tempered frontiersmen were frequently engaged in bloody altercations. A few stories, taken at random almost, from those early annals of this chaotic period will reveal the influences which shaped the social life of the little village. One day, John Bartle, a leading citizen, was betrayed into the walls of the fort by Lieutenant Symmes, with whom he had had a controversy, and there, surrounded by a circle of hostile witnesses, set upon and beaten ! A drama of swiftly moving scenes followed. Bartle haled the lieutenant into court, where a certain attorney by the name of Blanchard riddled him with such a skilful argument as to excite his uncontrollable enmity. Retiring to the fort from the court, the officer gathered up a crowd of thirty soldiers and hastened back to thrash the attorney, as he had the merchant. Thereupon John Riddle and Mr. McMillan, together with eighteen angry citizens, seized their guns and put the soldiers to an ignominious flight. 66 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY At another time a detachment of Kentucky volunteers on their way to join General Wayne's army, stopped to encamp near the city. With them were about one hundred friendly Indians who had possession of the person of a white women. Believing that they knew who,she was and desiring to restore her to her friend some of the citizens ransomed her with a barrel of Monongahela whiskey course, the Indians drank the whiskey and, having nothing to show therefor a visible evidence that they had been paid, concluded they had been robbed tried to get the woman back. But the white men were Pennsylvania Irishmen, who hated all Indians instinct, and they resorted to the common method of settling such differences free fight for possession. Down at the lower end of Broadway they encountered the Indians, and a pitched battle of so violent a nature took place that a company of soldiers from the fort had to come down and stop the fighting. Such incidents might be multiplied indefinitely ; but a few will show as well as many that physical rather than moral heroism was the ideal of both the individual and community life and that, therefore, the citizens would be peculiarly suscepible to the influence of the military garrison. . To the soldiers they looked for protection and, in consequence, drew them their inspirations. In all ages and places, sternest measures are required keep the passions of the young men who compose the army' under any restraint. In a frontier post like this but little could be done to bring about end. They were dissolute and reckless to the highest degree. They mixed free among the citizens and spread their vices. The effects were disastrous and recorded in tragically eloquent language by Judge Jacob Burnet : “Idleness, drinking and gambling prevailed in the army to a greater extend than it has at any other period. This may be attributed to the fact that (the soldiers) had been several years in the wilderness cut off from all so but their own, with few comforts and conveniences at hand, and no amusements but such as their own ingenuity could invent. Libraries were not to found ; men of liberal minds or polished manners were rarely to be met and they had long been deprived of the advantage of modest and accomplished female society, which always produces a salutary influence on the feelings moral habits of men. "Thus situated, the officers were urged by an irresistible impulse to tax wits to fill up the chasms of leisure which were left on their bands after a discharge of their military .duties ; and as is too frequently the case in circumstances, the bottle, the dice box and the card table were among the pedients resorted to because they were the nearest at hand and the most easy procured. It is a disastrous fact that a very large proportion of the off under General Wayne and subsequently under General Wilkinson were drinkers. Harrison, Shonberg, Clark, Ford and Strong were the only tions. Such were the habits of the army when they began to associate with city of Cincinnati and of the western settlements generally and to give ton public sentiment. As a natural consequence the citizens fell into the same habits and formed the same practices." In order to demonstrate the truth of, his assertion Judge Burnet relates fact that when he began to practice law in Cincinnati there. were nine other CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 67 attorneys arid that all of them but his own brother became confirmed drunkards and descended to premature graves. The testimony of Mr. Cist is to the same effect and appears in detailed citations of the miserable lives and deaths of the early residents. In substantiation of these charges General Wm. Eaton has left a startling list of the names of companions who "were damned and dead through brandy," and in 1811, himself died a drunkard. Judge Goforth of Columbia testifies to the same lamentable state of affairs in the post and out of it, and a record of court proceedings renders it indubitable. In a meeting of the court to inquire into the matter of the sale of liquors (William Goforth, William Wells, William McMillan and John S. Gano being present), there appeared as witnesses, Captain Ferguson, Captain Pratt, Captain Strong, and several other officers (at General Harmar's command), and gave public testimony that "in consequence of the troops being debauched by spiritous liquors, punishment had become frequent in the army and that the men were sickening fast, and that the sickness, in the opinion of the officers, was in a great degree brought on by excessive hard drinking, and the officers complained of three houses, to wit: Thomas Cochran, Matthew 'Winton and John Scott." These men were, in consequence, forbidden to sell any more liquor and were bound over, each with security, to appear at the next term of the court for further advice. It does not take a long array of facts of some kinds to give correct conceptions of a state of human society, and from such as these the intelligent student of history can complete the picture.. After all due allowances have been made for the errors and exaggerations common to the judgment of men about their contemporaries it is sufficiently certain that the morality of the infant community was not of the highest. While there were exceptional individuals who held out for sobriety and virtue, it is indubitable that the early inhabitants of Cincinnati were dissolute and of a degraded type. Upon this fact the philosopher and moralist are bound to reflect.. They know that nothing could be more unfortunate for a city than such an inauspicious beginning. Neither can they doubt that this inauspicious beginning affected the entire life of a city, for it is as true of a city as of an individual that, "the way a twig is bent the tree inclines." There was never an institution (any more than there has been a person) without ineradicable birth-marks--physical, mental and moral. Cincinnati received some of her most in-delible ones from that garrison. She has suffered from them and always will. To the habits of violence fixed at that formative period, we owe, no doubt, the disposition (so manifest for decades) to settle disagreeable problems by the torch and the pistol. There is a riotous strain in our nature. Not democracy nor aristocracy, but mobocracy has been the ideal of government, in the minds of the lower strata of our population. Be on the watch for this, as the panorama slowly enrolls and presents strategic incidents to view, for nothing can be more important than to become familiar with the moral nature of a city. The history of any nation or any community, so far as it is worth writing at all, is a history of the public conscience. 68 - CINCINNATI-THE QUEEN CITY The Leading Men. Consideration of the dominant influence of an institution (the fort) naturally to the consideration of that other great factor in town buildim "leading men." Much depends, in the origin of every community, upoi mental and moral characteristics of the few individuals who possess the talent for moulding public opinion. The city is in reality; its citizens. You may convey a fairly correct idea of a colony of beavers by describing their dam ; but not of a community of men by describing their habitations or their public buildings. The men and women themselves are everything, and, particularly, "the leading men !" Such individuals inevitably "go to the front" and become the moulders of opinion and of character. The masses are more easily moved to noble living by noble lives than by logical arguments, because the imagination has more power than the philosophic reason in shaping character. Not that the virtues of a few leaders can suffice for an entire community ! A few great geniuses can do the thinking for a whole race ; but they cannot practice their virtues for them. Each individual must be virtuous for himself, for nobody else can be virtuous for him. Nevertheless, a group of noble individuals is a tremendous asset for any community and we venture the assertion that very few have ever had, in their infancy, a nobler group than a few of those who helped to lay the foundations of the Queen City. In trying to do them justice and to put them in their proper place in our hall of fame, a certain distinction will be carefully observed. There is a class of people who merely confer a luster on the city of their residence by books they have written, deeds they have done, or lives they have lived, without the conscious purpose, or at least an overmastering determination to do it for the city where they dwell. In this way, for example, Shakespeare shed his glory at Stratford-on-the-Avon. But there is another type of citizen—the individual who loves the town he lives in with a sort of passion and devotes himself to its welfare with a conscious purpose and. an unselfish love. Savanarola of Florence stands out against the dark background of the evils he tried to reform, as one the greatest examples of this highest type of citizenship. In the story of our city's development we are constantly compelled to notice this distinction. Both types are important ; both are worthy of our honor and both have added richness to our life. "If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, write something worth writing; or do something worth writing," was the ringing advice of Benjamin Franklin to his contemporaries. Our heroes have done much in one line or the other, and the group of men who first appear upon the stage may challenge comparisons for talents or achievements with the founders of any city in America—bar none. In a resume, so brief as this it will not be possible always to so present them as to see them actually playing their parts. "Do not tell me that your characters are acting! Let me see them act !" said one of the great French critics. Obedience to this divine law of literature is the greatest achievement of art and beyond our power, we fear. There still remains, however, a method less noble; less effective but not without its value. It is to outline their achievement and characterize their personalities in a few brief, words. This is not easy, nor is it easy even to select the really great, outstanding men ; but we shall do our best CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 69 If we omit some who deserve mention we shall at least hope not to introduce any who deserve to be omitted. According to the best judgment, the leading spirits of the earliest period of our city's life, the men who. helped to solve the problems of shelter, clothing, food, business, law and order, religion and society were: Hon. John Cleves Symmes, General Arthur St. Clair, Gen. William Henry Harrison, Hon. Jacob Burnet, Hon. Israel Ludlow, Hon. William McMillan, General Jared Mansfield, James Kemper, Martin Baum, Peyton Short, Hon. William Goforth, Hon. John S. Gano, Col. Winthrop Sargent, David E. Wade,. David Ziegler, William Ruffin, and Dr. Goforth. John Cleves Symmes. John Cleves Symmes was born July 21, 1742, at River Head on Long Island, the eldest son of Rev. Timothy and Mary (Cleves) Symmes. He began his active life as a surveyor and teacher. Removing from Long Island to New jersey, he was swept along by the great revolutionary movement and entered the army as Colonel of the Third Battalion of Militia. He served through a large part of the war and was at the battle of Saratoga. He was elected delegate to the New Jersey state convention and helped draft the constitution. Subsequently he became lieutenant governor, and was a member of the Continental congress from 1785-1786. He served twelve years as judge of the Supreme court. He had married the daughter of Governor Livingstone of New York, and was connected politically and socially with all the leading men of his time. It was to him that Benjamin Stites appealed for assistance in his scheme to purchase a body of land between the Miamis, and his success in the gigantic undertaking must forever stand as the measure of his talents. It is an only too palpable fact that he had his limitations, and among his defects was a, lack of a certain quality of heroism. He did not push forward upon his project to estab-lish a city, depending upon his own resources; but hung back until protected by a military guard. He was disposed, also, to demand the aid of. others in all his projects. There is a note of complaint pervading his correspondence. He fell a little short, we cannot help but think, in all his undertakings. His arrow often dropped before it reached the target. And yet, there was in him a sort of determination which, although it did not achieve the highest success, would not suffer him to make a complete failure. He certainly accomplished much, over coming, slowly and patiently, apparently immovable obstacles. All through his struggles he lived earnestly and, in many senses, nobly. It was a sad life; a life of bitter disappointment. He saw great opportunities slip through his fingers, but he maintained a noble dignity through a semi-tragic career. Inhabitant of a cabin in a back woods, he lived like a gentleman and a scholar. Around his bountiful table men of talent gathered, drawn to the home and its owner as by powerful magnets. His wife was a true helpmeet, and his two daughters possessed charms which enabled them to make famous marriages one to Peyton Short and the other to William Henry Harrison. It is true that distinguished and remarkable man was not an actual resident of Cincinnati; but as it waxed and North Bend waned, his interests were more and more drawn into its larger life. Much of his time was spent here. His association with the citizens was intimate. Upon the character of the city his talents and his virtues laid a moulding hand. CHAPTER V. ILLUSTRIOUS PIONEERS. GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR BECOMES GOVERNOR OF THE TERRITORY- GENERAL WILL-IAM HENRY HARRISON, MILITARY HERO AND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES -JUDGE JACOB BURNET, ISRAEL LUDLOW, WILLIAM MCMILLAN AND OTHERS WHO FIGURE LARGELY IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF CINCINNATI. General St. Clair. Amongst the notable figures to be seen upon the streets of the little village during its earliest period, was that of General Arthur St. Clair, who was born in Cathness, Scotland, in 1734, and died in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1818. He was grandson of the Earl of Roslyn and was educated at the University of Edenborough. Inheriting a fortune from his mother, he purchased a commission in the army and came to America with Edward Boscaren's fleet. He served at the capture of Lewisburg and of Quebec. Resigning from the British army in 1762, he cast his lot in with the builders of America ; settled in Ligonier; Pennsylvania, where he purchased land and erected mills. In 1775, when the rumblings of the Revolution began to be heard, he was made Colonel of a militia regiment. Through the whole war he fought valiantly and earnestly, suffering only one great defeat, which damaged but did not destroy his reputation. Rising steadily from one position to another, he at last became a major-general, was with Washington at Brandywine and enjoyed his fullest confidence. He was a. member of the court martial that tried Major Andre; a commander at West Point and present at the great surrender at Yorktown. At the formation of the Northwest Territory in 1789, General St. Clair was appointed governor, and in that capacity came to Cincinnati ; gave the town its name ; took part in its youthful activities, and exerted a powerful influence over. it, even after his defeat and up to the time of his removal from the governorship by Thomas Jefferson in 1802. That a man so refined, so highly educated and so. famous should have been so many years in such a squalid little town ; be embroiled in so many petty little quarrels ; suffer so terrible a defeat ; suffer so tragic an old age, and die such a pathetic death, excites a pity which almost passes into tears. Few scenes in the life of any great man are more full of pathos than those of his last years, when, cast down from his elevated position, and poor even to poverty, he retired to a little hut amidst the scenes of his success and power in Pennsylvania; raised a little garden truck; subsisted on a beggarly pension awarded him by the government; maintained an unbroken dignity and died in obscurity by the side of the road, where, an infirm old man, he had fallen from a wagon. Such a character lends a melancholy glory to the life of any community, but especially to a little frontier town; and those of us who read this always touch- - 71 - 72 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY ing story of a truly noble, but. most unfortunate man, must always remember that however little other part he took in our municipal affairs, it was he who changed our city's name from Losantiville to Cincinnati. "What in hell does, that word mean?" he asked indignantly, and conferred upon it one that is beautiful and full of dignity, however much we may dispute as to its grarnmatical correctness. William Henry Harrison. Another character which sheds unfading luster upon the little hamlet, was the ninth President of the United States. William Henry Harrison was born in Berkeley, Va., February 9, 1773 ; was educated at Hampden Sydney college and studied medicine as a preparation for a professional career. In the midst these midst of studies there came news of Indian outbreaks on the frontier, and young student rushed to arms. He received an ensign's commission and reported at Fort Washington. When General Wayne became commander of the a organized to undo the fatal consequences of St. Clair's defeat, Harrison became his aide-de-camp, and after the brief but bloody campaign was terminated, received the commendation of the commanding general for heroic and efficient, service, and in May, 1797, was made captain and given command of Fort Washington. It was during this period that he linked his fortunes permanently the village and the region, by falling in love with, and afterwards marry, Anna, the daughter of John Cleves Symmes. The partial old judge opposed union, but it was consummated during an absence of his from home, and the good sense in a short time to appreciate and be reconciled to his illustrious, son-in-law. After the treaty of peace at Greenville, Captain Harrison resigned his military commission and was immediately appointed to a high civil position as secretary of the Northwest Territory under Governor St. Clair. In this capacity he served about a year and was then made one of the territorial delegates to congress. During the session he accomplished so much in so many directions, that when the Northwest Territory was sub-divided, he was appointed governor of that portion which then contained the great states of Indiana, Michigan Wisconsin. So satisfactory were his services in this responsible position he Was reappointed by President Madison. His administration of this important trust drew him into a great national current. n his desire to gain the greatest good for the greatest number, he became the friend of the Indians, but Tecynseh, their most distinguished chief, and his brother "The Prophet" did thing they could to snatch their brethren from his influence. Their efforts, suited in a war in which the governor crushed their forces at the battle of Tippecanoe, an achievement which won him. such prestige that in the War of 1812 he was made (after other promotions) a major-general. In that war he achieved, so great a victory over the British, at the battle of the Thames, as to win possession of "the chain of lakes above Erie and put an end to the war in Upper Canada." Honor after honor followed—election to the senate of Ohio: dential elector, 1824; election to United States senate ; and United States , minister to United States of Columbia. From this position he resigned and retied to North Bend, Ohio, where he lived quietly, filling the offices of clerk of the County court and president of the Agricultural society. In 1835 he came near to being nominated for the presidency of the. United States, and four years CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 73 later he was actually elected. He had won the honor fairly, through his great achievements, the nobility of his character and the republican simplicity of his life, the latter virtue being celebrated in the "log cabin and hard cider" features of the campaign. He was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1841, but died on the 4th of April following, and his body now reposes in a tomb erected not far from the rural home which he loved, and Cincinnati, the citv for which he did so much and which did so much for him. Judge Burnet. One of the most prominent persons in the history of Cincinnati was Judge Jacob Burnet. For many years he is to be met with at every turning point in our history and his ideas certainly helped to shape the character of the ever expanding community. Born on the 22nd of February, 1770, he graduated from Princeton College and was admitted to the practice of law in 1796, the year of his arrival in Cincinnati. As a member of the legislative council, he drew most of the important laws of the territory. He was afterwards a member of the supreme court of the State of Ohio, but soon resigned to take the seat in the Senate formerly occupied by William Henry Harrison. It was he who chiefly organized the campaign in which Harrison was elected president, and he was always his faithful friend. During all the years of his professional life he was the acknowledged leader at the bar of the state, and was principal attorney in most of the greatest cases. For example, he was Blennerhasset's leading counsel. He accumulated a considerable fortune and his residence standing in the ground now occupied by Third, Fourth, Race and Vine streets, was one of the finest ever erected in the city. Within its hospitable walls were entertained more distinguished guests than were ever gathered in any other. lib "History of the Northwestern Territory" is an almost sacred treasure, and is acknowledged to be one of the greatest authorities. He lived until 1853, revered and admired by his fellow townsmen and regarded in the nation at large as one of the leading men. You have but to look at his stern and sharply chiseled features to appreciate how like a rock he stood for justice and duty through all his long career, and to conclude that any city which had a man like him to help rock its cradle was fortunate indeed. Israel Ludlow. Israel Ludlow was the only one of the three original proprietors of Cincinnati (Denman, Patterson and Ludlow) who actually took part in shaping the life of the town they founded. Patterson threw in his lot with Lexington, Ky., and Denman returned to the east. Ludlow, who had taken the place in the partnership made vacant by the death of Filson,' stuck to the spot which had lured him to the investment. He was born at Little Head near Morristown, N. J.. in 1765, and at the age of twenty came to the Ohio valley to practice his chosen calling, and was appointed by the U. S. geographer to survey the "Miami" and "Ohio company" purchases. These tasks he had accomplished by 1792, and his work had been accepted as faithfully performed and authori-tative. ln 1790 he had located a fertile piece of land several miles to the north of the village in Cummingsville, and being a man of courage and resources, de-termined to occupy it in spite of danger from the savages. To protect himself 74 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY. and his family he erected a formidable block house, which at once became, and for a long time remained, a haven of refuge and a place of safety to the scattered farmers. Ludlow himself did not occupy it until after the treaty of Greenville. During this intervening period he lived at the northwest corner of First and Main in the first frame built house in Cincinnati. In 1796, however, after things had quieted down, he built a house known to several generations as the Ludlow mansion, and remembered as the abode of a hospitality and refinement of which any community might be proud. "It was a large two story dwelling with wings—the best looking and largest in Cincinnati the lawn sloped down toward Mill creek and it had a large apple orchard; a kitchen and flower garden." Mrs. Ludlow was a woman of remarkable personal charm, and all the important people who resided in the region, or who came to it as visitors, .were entertained by these two unusually interesting people. John Cleves Symmes, Arthur St. Clair, Anthony Wayne, William H. Harrison, Governor Worthington, Salmon P. Chase, Jacob Burnet, Nicholas Longworth, Oliver M. Spencer, Judge Goforth, Governor Meigs, Governor Brown, Lewis Cass, General John S. Gano, Judge D. K. Este, General William Lytle, General J. H. Pratt, the ndian chiefs, "Little Turtle" and "Bok-on-ja-ha-his" were all, at one time or another (many at a much later period than one now under discussion, of course) guests beneath the hospitable roof. Israel Ludlow died in 1807; but the influence which he had acquired lived after him in his wife, who subsequently married the Rev. David Risk, and; their granddaughters one became the wife of Salmon P. Chase; another of Randall Hunt; and a third of John McLean, a judge of the supreme court oft United States. William McMillan. William McMillan was a member of the party which landed at Yeatman's cove on the 24th of December, 1798, and became one of the. most powerful tors in the development of the community, dying at the early age of forty-four, beloved, admired and lamented. His physical, mental and moral powers tested early. During the first year of the life of the settlement, before any of justice had been organized, the lawless elements began to get the upper hand. It was evident enough to the better people that some sort of order must be brought out of the chaos, and therefore they assembled beneath one of the majestic trees, so many of which were still standing, and entered into an agree to establish, obey and execute a simple code of laws. A rude court was organized; trial by jury established; William McMillan appointed judge and John low sheriff. What followed, has already been told; how the first criminal whipped; how the soldiers who tried to arrest the Judge for infringing upon' tary prerogatives were thrashed; and how a blow was struck by one of which shortened that noble life. It was long enough, however, to have ex a profound influence and left an unfading impression of its beauty and strength Many years afterward his old friend William Corry said of him: "So our distinguished lawyers of that day were admirable public speakers; he not. Some of them were able in the comprehension of their cases and skllful to a proverb in their management; of these he ranked among the first. opinions had all the respectability of learning, precision and strength. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 75 commanded acquiescence; they challenged opposition when to obtain assent was difficult and to provoke hostility dangerous." The added words of Mr. Cist will serve to complete the impression of a character, which if fully portrayed would stand a comparison with that of many men whose fame has encircled the globe. "There can be no doubt that Mr. McMillan was the master spirit of the place, and a man who would have been a distinguished member of society anywhere. It is impossible to contemplate his career and character without being deeply impressed with his quiet superiority over everyone around him, even of the influential men of the day, and there were men of as high character and ability in Cincinnati in those days as at present," said Mr. Cist. Jared Mansfield. Jared Mansfield was, in a way, but a bird of passage in our midst; but left his mark forever on the place. Born in New Haven, Conn., 1759, he died there on February 3, 1830. He was graduated at Yale in 1777, and made a. reputation as a teacher by his unusual talents for the higher mathematics. He entered the regular army as Captain of Engineers in 1802, was promoted Major in 1805. and lieutenant-colonel in 1808. When it became necessary to find someone to survey the new Territory of the Northwest, he was regarded as the only person in the country adequate to this great and important task, and gave his whole strength to its perfect accomplishment from 1803-1812. It is with these few years of a full and beautiful career that we have to. do, for they told powerfully upon the life of our city. He brought his family along with him when he came to Cincinnati, and rented the house which Israel Ludlow had built about five miles north of Fountain Square. It was a grand place in those days, and during Mr. Mansfield's occupancy the scene of a most attractive social life. In that log house he set up his astronomical instruments and so founded the first observatory in America. After remaining in this residence for several years, he went back to his old home for a visit, and upon his return occupied the Bates house, two miles nearer the city. It had been built by Colonel Isaac Bates, a teamster in the army of Wayne, and was a comfortable two-story brick structure with a fine lawn and garden. The charm of the Ludlow life was reproduced here and the social circle was enlarged by the addition of many charming people. Three cars longer Mr. Mansfield stayed, diffusing the influence of a most highly cultivated mind and heart and giving to the place, a little later, as an invaluable legacy, his son Edward, whose early memories of those romantic days drew him back into the region long years after his father had returned east for good.  Rev. James Kemper. Rev. James Kemper was born in Cedar Grove, Va., November 23, 1753. On July 16, 1772, he married Judith Hathaway, daughter of a distinguished injurist and soldier of the Revolution. At first he was a farmer and then a school-leacher. He was baptized into the Episcopal church but one rainy day read the: \Vest Confession and became a Presbyterian. Finding farming and schoolteaching unprofitable, he became a surveyor and was sent to Tennessee in 1783. In 1785 he decided to become a minister, and with his wife and six children on horseback and attended by a military escort, he emigrated to Kentucky near Vol. I-6 76 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY Danville. The people were poor and he was compelled to combine farming! schoolteaching and surveying with preaching in order to live. In 1789 he was granted a restricted license and made a journey to Cincinnati to supply the churches of the Miami, at discretion. Determining to settle there he brough his family on October 25 or 26, 1791, about nine days before St. Clair's defeat. As the broken army began to arrive, he threw himself into the work of relief for wounded soldiers, and encouragement of a frightened populace. On April 2, 1792, the presbytery ordered Kemper to supply North Bend, Columbia al Cincinnati. "When he came to Cincinnati he measured five feet nine inches, weigh, one hundred and sixty pounds and was full of health, strength and endurance. He wore knee breeches, silver knee and shoe buckles, a queue, a voluminous net cloth and was a careful dresser. He was unsurpassed as a horseman. He was winning in his manners and slow to speak. His eye was dark, commanding al attractive. His countenance was open, serious, preoccupied and expectant. personal appearance attracted attention. He was not pretentious, brilliant profound ; but plain, simple, unassuming, ready and reliable and endued with exquisite common sense. He shrank from personal controversy, yet never chose the line of least resistance for its own sake. In his family he was gentle, qui. revered and obeyed. n his habits he was regular, abstemious, temperate and total abstainer from spirits and tobacco. He was hopeful and cheerful, never cast down:" Winthrop Sargent. One of the most charming figures of this period was Winthrop Sargent, for a short time secretary of the Northwest Territory. He was a man of the highest, cultivation and deeply interested in scientific and historical study. He was member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Historical society, to the journals of which he contributed numerous articles. He secured an entire block of land just north of the fort and east of Broadway where the best house in town was erected for him and the grounds laid out' . charming fashion. The Sargent family has occupied a great place in the life of our country, John S. being. regarded as one of the greatest of our portraits painters; Epes, as one of our most prolific and effective writers, and Charles Sprague, one of the greatest arboriculturists. Winthrop was certainly highly endowed and must have acted powerfully on the life of the community. He and St. Clair did not pull together smoothly, however ; the former being conservative the latter progressive and ready to seize upon any practicable Plan to promote the interests of the young life springing up about him. Unfortunately for place, his stay was short, for he was transferred to Mississippi as the governor of that new territory, and his place filled by W. H. Harrison. Griffin Yeatman. Griffin Yeatman, a name that occurs oftener almost than any other in the earliest annals of Cincinnati, was born in Westmoreland county, Virginia, on March 8, 1769; came to Cincinnati in June, 1793, and immediately became the return proprietor of the famous old hostelry bearing his name, on the northeast corner of Front and Sycamore, the favorite inn of the time and the gathering place for all town meetings and social functions. In 1795 young Mr. Yeatman wedded CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 77 Jane, daughter of Matthew Winton, for whom Winton Place is named, and by this alliance became connected with the Sedam, Rowan, and Anderson families. Nineteen years later, his spouse having died, Griffin married Mrs.. Margaret Rowan, the first wife's sister. He was recorder for twenty-two years, was a notary, and held positions of importance in the city and county till his death, 4th of March, 1849. For all his name occurs so often, very little has been said definitely of Griffin Yeatman—he was evidently of the sort that is' taken for granted because they are so dependable—and he is to be praised more for his deeds than words. He was the kindly, quiet, genial "mine host," the capable public man, the one who kept the wheels of life well oiled for all those about him. Dr. William Goforth. In the first year of the century, 1800, a genuine physician and a notable char-. acter, Dr. William Goforth by name, appeared upon the stage. He was born in 1776 in New York and came West with his brother-in-law, General John S. Gano, in 1788, settling at Washington, Ky., and practising for eleven years. After-wards he settled in Columbia, where his father, Judge Goforth, resided, and in 1800 came to Cincinnati, locating in Dr. Allison's "Peach Grove" house. The accounts of his personal characteristics and achievements are charming. "He never left his house in the morning till his hair was powdered by an itinerant barber, John Arthurs, and his gold-headed cane was grasped in his gloved hand. His kindness of heart was as much a part of his nature as hair powder was of his costume. . . . In conversation he was precise yet fluent, and abounded in anecdotes which he told in a way that others could not imitate. He took a warm interest in the politics of the Northwest Territory. He introduced vaccination. He was interested in antiquities and dug up a most remarkable collection of fossils at Blue Lick, Ky. These he permitted an adventurer to take for exhibition to Europe, and there the scoundrel sold them and pocketed the money. But the doctor took it in good part and began seeking for gold in the neighborhood, spending no little time peering through a wonderful piece of glass owned by a villager named Hall, by means of which he was personally able to see thousands of feet into the earth. At the same time he was planning to ship ginseng to China, and believed himself to have discovered the East Indian Columbo root in the sur-rounding woods. On one of his expeditions of discovery he nearly froze to death. Among his other fads was a passion for French. manners and society, and when President Jefferson purchased Lousiana from the French, he hurried down to New Orleans to enjoy them to as great a degree as this country could afford. It did not take him long to be disillusioned, .and he wrote back that if ever there vas a Hell on earth it was New Orleans; and after returning to Cincinnati later in he declared that he would father be in jail anywhere in Ohio than a guest of honor in New Orleans. Here was a man to be loved and the reader of his experiences cannot but wish hat lie might have lived forever instead of perishing almost immediately upon his return. The greatest benefit which he conferred upon the village which he loved and served unselfishly was the introduction of the youthful Daniel Drake to the mysteries of medical practice, for it was in office and drug store that at Is years 78 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY of age this remarkable boy began to study and continued so to do for four long years. An ordinary visit by a Doctor; even such as Goforth, would not be an expensive luxury in our day at the schedule price of 25 to 50 cents. Every physician kept his own drug store, ordering his medicines directly from the East once or twice a year. They pulled teeth for a quarter and plugged them when decayed with tin foil instead of gold. * * * . Are you tired ? Nothing is so tedious as a mere mathematical enumeration of even the most beautiful scenes, exciting incidents and wonderful people. I must not weary you, although it goes against the grain to pass by a score other men as intersting if not as great as these. As they rise before the mind's eye, rugged, purposeful, masterful men, all ; setting the stamp, of their personality ineffaceably upon the sensitive material of the city's character, one is tempted to adopt words of the sacred author and, in despair, sum up by crying out "What shall I more say, for the time would fail me to tell of" Martin Baum, Peyton Short, John S. Gano, David E. Wade, David Ziegler, William Ruffin, Judge William Goforth, and a host of others whom (if the world was not unworthy) it may be truly, they must be named among the worthies of the world. I tell you these were men : "all wool and a yard wide !" "They stood four square to every wind that blew." We shall not see their like again, for the conditions that produced them have passed away forever. They stand out clear and strong against the commonplace background of their daily lives. Than the crude stage on which they played their parts none could furnish fewer accessories of a great drama. They are like the actors of Shakesperian tragedies and comedies in the rude theaters of that primitive They must either be great in themselves or be made contemptible by their roundings. No individual character and no community can be properly conceived without a more or less clear conception of its immediate environment. Whether we are the products of environment to so complete a degree as the scientist would us believe, we are to a great degree, at least. The air produces the bird; the the fish; the forest the lion ; the desert the cactus and the swamp the fern; a Virginia plantation a Washington ; a Kentucky wilderness a Lincoln. Concerning the development of individual genius we may not dogmatise, but of this we feel assured, that the effect of the institutions, the people, the builings, the stage of culture prodigiously modify, if they do not wholly create the soul personality of a community. Attempt then to form a mental concept of those surroundings—a half completed clearing in a wilderness, with logs lying scattered about like jack straws; charred tree trunks rising like stakes at which giant martyrs had been bunrned; Stumps standing in. the streets like snags in a river ; the roads hub-deep with mud; the side walks mere trails along which foot passengers could make their It wet weather only by jumping from board to board; or rock to rock, and crawling along a rail fence; a rivulet running here; a. frog pond lying there rude log cabins scattered irregularly. in every direction ; drunken Indians reeling through the streets ; rough and tumble fights breaking out in the saloons; maudlin soldiers picking quarrels with the citizens ; horses, cattle and hogs wandering at will; the people clad in skins and homespun ; a mail from the CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 79 arriving but once a week or two; a book, a newspaper, a magazine as rare. as. hen's teeth ; no luxuries ; no arts ; nor conveniences. Can any good come out of such another Nazareth? Let us see ! Its inhabitants had abandoned civilization ; but only to reproduce it. They had but little of the machinery necessary to do so ; but were fertile in crude expedients and substitutes. Lacking palaces and temples ; mahogany furniture and gold plate ; silks. and satins ; they didpewterr best with log houses, ewter dishes and homespun. A! grotesque appearance they made (to cynical observers) clad in blue jestreets;llowing through muddy streets sitting in meeting houses with rifles on their knees ; carrying water in buckett suspendd from Their shoulder yonkes; counting the scalps of Indians ; dancineneathloors which creaked b1Deneath their heavy tread to music that was probably barbaric. But such are the crude begin-nings from which all culture springs. CHAPTER VI. INCIDENTS. THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH ERECTED IN I 792-THE FIRST SCHOOL ESTABLISHED-A NEWSPAPER, TV CENTINEL, IS STARTED--JAIL BUILT OF LOGS-COURTS INAUGURATED-ENSIGN WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON LICKS DANIEL RYAN AND KNOCKS DOWN A DEPUTY SHERIFF WHEN ATTEMPTING TO ARREST HIM-CRIMES-THE POST OFFICE. How difficult it is in the first place to conceive and in the second place to por-tray a situation so remote; people so different and incidents so unfamiliar! After spending many months or years in poring over the original documents which have preserved forever the records of such distant days, the vanished life begins to reappear ; and the. scenes to reconstruct themselves before the student's mind. He no longer beholds the metropolis of the present day, for it has somehow vanished and in its place he sees a scattered hamlet of log houses. The people who walk its streets have been dead for many, many years ; but, are alive again. It is with those ghostly beings and not the breathing people of today that he con-sorts. So long have I contemplated the buildings and the citizens of that little Losantiville that I can see them and it as plainly as Covington or Dayton ; Avondale or Clifton ! But you are to bestow only a passing glance on that which I have stared at until its image remains upon the mind like that of the sun upon the eye. To so present these pictures that you, also, shall behold it—this is the problem of art ! A Thucydides, Tacitus, Gibbon, Macaulay may accomplish the miracle: but how impossible is it to the tyro! I have daubed in a background consisting of geologic preparations extending over aeons; and of catastrophic movements of tribes and nations covering decades: and now the characters and incidents rush pell mell upon and over them, and I do not know how in the. world to arrange the min order and fix them in their places! I have marched the heroes across the stage in a stiff and informal procession and now shall introduce some disconnected scenes and independent facts in which they acted, in the desperate hope that by some good fortune (in the place of a perfect art) a true conception of the life of those vanished days may form itself within your minds. Incidents, etc. In 1791 about half of the able bodied men were compelled to join the army and several had been killed, while a few of those remaining at home had been frightened by the Indian troubles and slipped away. The only commercial development of importance was the erection of a primitive horse mill for grinding corn. - 81 - 82 - CINCINNATI—THE OUEEN CITY In 1792 there was a very considerable development and a traveler by the name of Heckwelder estimated that the population outside the garrison had rise to go0. The town was over run with merchants and overstocked with goods, he affirmed. It teemed with idlers and the place "resembled Sodom!" But this element of desperate characters were likely to be pushed across the river into Kentucky, he thought, and would probably "drift down to New Orleans !" Heckwelder took several trips into. the surrounding country and was entertained by Judge Symmes, and also in Fort Washington, where he witnessed the hanging of a murderer. On the next Sunday Winthrop Sargent gave him - dinner, and on the 28th General Wilkinson did the same in the Fort. Heckwelder was interested, astonished and horrified all together ; but hopefull and confident that he knew how to improve the situation! "I believe. it will in my power to advise them (the colonists) on the methods they are to take to have justice done them!" Events crowded upon each other in 1792. It was in it that the First Presbyterian Church was erected; a little, rude building constructed from the logs cut upon the spot. Several log cabins and three or four frame' houses were put up. The first. school was established and attended by about thirty scholars. The "Centinel newspaper was started. The first of the great floods swept down the channel of the river, causing destruction and exciting terror. The first fire took place, resulting in the burning of a hundred acres of fall. timber and brush, and frightening the citizens into clearing- up their lands. In 1793 the first jail was erected, a rude log cabin one story and a half high. In 1793 Wm. McCash made the first water cart (?) consisting of two long poles fastened together for support of barrel, rear ends dragging and front end serving as shafts for horse. Soon afterwards his brother made a real cart broad wheels fastened to axle which rolled in staples. Kenneth Morton, a school teacher (in a blacksmith shop near the landing "whipped grown young men and women with a hickory gad until they jump from the floor." Francis Menessier, at the foot of Main Street, in a coffee house,. taught French. James White, in a building next to Thomas Williams (skin dealer) tau nightschool four evenings each week for three months at $2.00 "per" and pupil was to find fire-wood and candles ! R. Haughton taught minuet, cotillions, country dances and Scotch reels. In 1801 Levi McClean taught a singing school. Amusements were early attempted. The soldiers had a band and gave el concerts. Theatrical entertainments and horse races were held as early as 1801. Dr. Richard Allison, the surgeon at the garrison answered calls for citizens. and after the fort was abandoned, settled down and practiced in the village. Dr. Adams, Dr. John Carmichael, Dr. Joseph Philips, Dr. John Elliot,' Joseph Strong, Dr. John Selman, Dr. William Burnet, Jr., Dr. Calvin Morrill, Dr. John Holt, Dr. Robert McClure and Dr. John Crammer are only names-us; but they did their work and passed on. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 83 The Courts. As we have already seen, it became imperative to establish a rude system of protection from crime, by means, of laws which were in substance merely voluntary agreements before the machinery of government could be gotten into working order. This method of self-defence proved inadequate, of course, and as early as January 5th, 1790, the Governor ordered that the Justices of the Peace, then recently appointed, begin to set the machinery of law and order going. The Court sat first, for a brief session, in Cincinnati, on February 2nd, and in May for a larger and more important term, and then at intervals, continuously. There met Judges and Clerks and constables and Juries, with all the formalities and dignities possible in that crude environment where their solemn work was done. At first, the sessions were held in the barrooms of the various tavern' taverns, of which there were, from the first, a plenty. In front of one of them (that of George Avery), stood the instruments of justice,—a pillory, stocks, whipping post and, at times, a gallows. In 1795, however, affairs had gone forward so rapidly that a structure 30x40, made of logs, two stories high, was erected to nine the legal divinities, at the corner of 5th and Main. It was replaced, however, by one of bricks in 1802, where until 1814. the legal business of the County was done ; and at that time it was burned through the carelessness of some soldiers who were using it for barracks. The Temple of Justice may have been rude, but 'it does not follow that the lwyers were ignorant. It was in places of justice no more dignified and splendid that Lincoln first displayed his gifts; and among the legal lights of that early period, there were in Cincinnati luminaries of the first magnitude. In courts where a Burnet ,and a McMillan practised there was no belittling of the majesty of law and justice. It is true that the element of grotesqueness', introduced itself more often then than now—not so much because the difficulties in which he pioneers became involved were less serious and dignified than those of today ; Put because they are far enough off. to disclose in the necessary perspective the essential triviality of most of those disagreements that so agitate the surface of our daily lives. To think of Jacob Burnet and William McMillan and John Cleves Symmes and Arthur St. Clair and other worthies scarcely less great being wrought up to a pitch of frenzied eloquence over the rights and wrongs of drunken Indians ; militant soldiers; grasping merchants and loose tongued house-wives, seems absurd. Charges were made against Scott Traverne that a pair of overalls and a woolen vest belonging to the federal service were found in his possession! Abel Cook pleaded guilty to punching the head of Haines Soward! Samuel Ralston was fined $93.00 for forgery ! John Cleves Symmes ( !) was fined for "selling liquor: contrary to statute." Ensign William Henry Harrison (!) had a warrant sworn out against him 1r licking Daniel Ryan; but the Commandant of the Fort forbade its being pied! Judge Goforth instructed the officers of the Court to arrest him wherever found—which a young Deputy Sheriff attempted to do and was promptly knocked down by the hardy young soldier, who (coming to his senses) subsequently delivered himself up, was soundly scolded and locked up in McHenry's tavern for twenty--four hours—which he, spent "in jollification with some boon companions." 84 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY John Ludlow sued Archibald Johnson and William Woodward for a debt of $3.50, which they refused to pay—(our dear and honored Woodward !). Samuel Dick was sued by James McKean "for being assaulted with starves swords, guns, pistols and fists, which greatly endangered his life!" A discharged soldier, Peter Kengan, married Mary Murphy without publishing the banns, whereupon the editor of the "Spy," feeling defrauded of a fee caused him to be arrested; to be whipped; to stand in the public pillory and to go to jail for three months. Rev. Joab Monten announced himself, upon the street, to be the Savior and being incarcerated, delivered an address from the jail window (every day) offering to prove his Divinity by performing miracles—for which offence he received fifty lashes, although he was undoubtedly insane. There were far more serious crimes, of course. James Mays and Matthew Sullivan quarreled, in their cups, and fell to fighting. Sullivan was getting the better of Mays, a much larger man, and was finally pulled off by his assoeiates. Mays, chagrined at being whipped by an inferior in size, threatened to kill his antagonist at sight. Not long afterward both were at a party given by Hardin Smith in a log cabin at the corner of 6th and Main. Sullivan offered his hand to Mays; but the latter plunged a knife into his heart. For this he was tried, committed and hung—an occasion which was turned into a holiday ; people coming as far as fifty miles to see the execution. Two soldiers were shot by their companions in arms "for crimes committed against the State" on the ground where Peebles' Store now stands. Six soldiers fired first, killing one; and the other was shot by the second squad. Such were the troubles which the lawyers had to settle for the pioneers. Their practice was crude ; their fees small; their labors arduous. For some time the General Court consisted of three Judges appointed by the President, and Sessions were held in Marietta, Detroit, Cincinnati, Vincennes and Kaskaskia ; and trips over those immense distances through interminable forests, upon roads which at best were only trails, and across rivers which they had to ford or swim, were difficult and dangerous. The accounts of these passages form the pen of Jacob Burnet read like another Odyssey. The lonely travelers were often threatened by Indians ; compelled to sleep on the ground; drenched with rains ; thrown from. horseback into rivers swollen with freshets, and subjected to every hardship incident to frontier existence. It was a difficult and dangerous life ; but it had its compensations. When they reached their destinations the tired travelers enjoyed the society of their companions with a zest unknown to modern practitioners. They lived on the fat of the land, and at their banquets broke the feet from their glasses so that every drinker would have to quaff his glass to the dregs. Crudeness, inconvenience, ugliness, difficulty, danger—these were the characteristics of life. on the site of our present abode of grace, comfort, beauty, safety. The incidents already narrated prove it ; but a brief description of the efforts of this little, isolated colony to secure for themselves some of those conveniences, which civilized people covet most, (when the first pressing necessities of life are met), will still more perfectly set forth their hardships and their limitations. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 85 The Post-Office. Some sort of contact with the outside world is necessary to the happiness of all civilized beings, and is so easy today that its difficulties a hundred years ago are all but inconceivable. Communication then was uncertain and irregular. Letters, papers and parcels were entrusted to travelers. It was, therefore, a great day in Cincinnati when on the 28th of June, 1794, after five years of such meager means of sending and receiving intelligence, it was announced that regu-lar postal communication, to and from Pittsburgh had been established by the Government. A couple of weeks afterwards Abner M. Dunn opened the Post Office in his private residence at the corner of Butler and Second streets. But it was still inevitable that mail transmitted by men on horseback, traveling through primeval forests and crossing rivers without bridges, should be very irregular, and as it was often unconscionably delayed, in such cases the "Sentinel" used to fill up the columns devoted to news with the laws of the territory. The first postmaster died in 1795 and was succeeded by Mr. Maxwell, the printer, during whose administration M. T. Green of Marietta contracted to carry the mail by river instead of horseback. Arrangements were made for the post-man to arrive on Monday at noon and to wait until the next morning before returning, in order to give people time to. answer their letters ! Maxwell was succeeded by Daniel Mayo, and he by William Ruffin, who was appointed in 1796 and served through the administrations of Washington, Adams Jefferson and a part of Madison's. The Newspapers. If some sort of communication with the outside world is necessary to civilized communities, so is a medium of the exchange of items of local interest, and the newspaper became in America, early in its history, of supreme importance. But a newspaper dated in 1793 and printed in a backwoods town is to a modern daily what a log cabin is to a sky scraper. It was on November 9th, 1793, that the very first newspaper ever printed in Cincinnati, "The Sentinel of the Northwest Territory," appeared. It was pub. ished by William Maxwell at the corner of Front and Sycamore, and its matt( vas "Open to all parties—but influenced by. none!" It consisted of four page: 8 ½ inches by 10 ½ inches, but by July, 1794, it had grown to 8 ½ inches by 4 inches, and in September, 1795, to 972 inches by 15 inches. Its subscription price was $2.50 per annum. It underwent, of course, the usual vicissitudes of such ventures, and changed its editors, publishers and title with frequency. In 1796 it appeared as "Freeman's Journal" and ran until November, 1800 There was some foreign and domestic news and a little that was local ; but till advertisements were the chief features and reflect the life of the community a no other mirror can. They consisted of rewards for the return of lost or stolen property ; or for deserters from the army. Notification of the irresponsibility of husbands for the debts of wives who had proved unfaithful. Passages to be had on River Boats. Lands to be sold to settlers. Volunteers to serve in the Army. 86 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY Goods just received from the East. Four or five buffalo calves of each sex to be sold. Opportunities for tradesmen or mechanics. Reward for the scalps of Indians. The return of runaway negroes. Proclamations of public auctions and Fourth of July celebrations. In these primitive organs there were no manifestations at all but of that higher life and of those nobler aspirations which crowd the columns of our modern journals. If there were no other way of discovering the existence of the aspirations of the individual soul for a divine life, and of the community for a finer development than that afforded by these first issues of the press, we should think existence around Yeatman's Cove, during its history as a village, barren and wretched indeed. Evidently such vapid productions found it hard to exist in early Cincinnati. The "Freeman's Journal" was moved from Cincinnati to Chillicothe in 1800 and called "Chillicothe Gazette." In 1799 another, paper called "The Western Spy and Gazette was launched, under editorial conduct of Joseph Carpenter of Massachusetts, a strong man. He became a prominent citizen; took part in the War of 1812 under General Harrison, and dying from exposure in that patriotic service, was buried with military and civil honors in the city of his adoption. It was the last of the papers published in Cincinnati during its existence as a village. And this is also the last of our own struggles to portray the life of Cincinnati in that embryonic period, as impotent, perhaps, as those of the editors themselves. It is fortunate, however, that this portrayal has been achieved in an all but perfect manner by some one who was an eye witness of the places, the people and the events whose co-operations compose the web of this history. Not only did he see the play ; but he acted a noble part upon the stage. Coming to Cincinnati in the first year of the last century as a country lad of fifteen or sixteen years, Dr. Daniel Drake continued to take part in all its great affairs for than fifty years, and the description which follows, extracted from a noble address delivered before the Cincinnati Medical Society in the Hall of the Mechanical Institute, January 9th, 1852, will forever remain our most valuable municipal classic. Dr. Drake's Description.* "In the first year of this century, the cleared lands at this place (Cincinnati), did not equal the surface which is now completely built over. North of the Canal and west of the Western Row there was forest, with here and there a cabin and small clearing, connected with the village by a narrow, winding road. Curved lines, you know, symbolize the country, straight lines, the city. South of where the Commercial Hospital now administers relief annually to three times as many people as then composed the population of the town, there were half cleared fields, with broad margins of blackberry vines ; and I, with other young persons, frequently gathered that delicious fruit at the risk of being snake bitten where the Roman Catholic Cathedral now sends its spire into. the lower clouds. Further *Drake's Discourses, p. 31. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 87 south, the ancient mound near Fifth Street on which General :VVayne planted his sentinels seven years before, was overshadowed with trees which, together with itself, should have been preserved ; but its dust, like that of those who there delighted to play upon its slopes, has mingled with the remains of the unknown raee by whom it was erected. The very spot on which we are now assembled (6th and Vine) but a few years before the time of which I speak, was part of a wheat field of sixteen acres owned by Mr. James Ferguson and fenced in without reference to the paved streets which now cut through it. "The stubble of that field is still decaying in the soil around the foundations of the noble. edifice in which we are now assembled. Seventh Street, then called Northern Row, was almost the northern limit of population. Sixth Street had a few scattering houses ; Fifth, not many more. Between that and Fourth there was a public square, now built over one corner, the northeast, stood the Court House, with a small market place in front, which nobody attended. In the north-' west corner was the jail, in the southwest, the village schoolhouse ; in the south-east, where a glittering spire tells the stranger that he is approaching our city, stood the humble church of the pioneers, whose bones lie mouldering in the center of the Square, then the village cemetery. Walnut, called Cider Street, which bounds that Square on the west, presented a few. cabins or small frames ; but Vine street was not yet opened to the river. Fourth Street, after passing Vine, branched into roads and paths. Third Street, running near the brow of the upper plain, was on as high a level as Fifth Street is now. The gravelly slope of that plain stretched from east to west almost to Pearl Street. On this slope, between Main and Walnut, a French political exile whom I shall name hereafter, planted, in the latter part of the last century, a small vineyard. This was the beginning of that cultivation for which the environs of our city have at last become distinguished. I suppose this was the first cultivation of the foreign grape in the Valley of the Ohio. Where Congress, Market and Pearl Streets since opened, send up the smoke of their great iron foundries, or display in magnificent warehouses Ate products of different and distant lands, there was a belt of low, wet ground which, up to the settlement of the town twelve years before, had been a series of beaver ponds, filled by the annual overflow of the river and the rains from the upper plains. Second, then known as Columbia Street, presented some scattered dirty within and rude without ; but Front Street presented an aspect of considerable pretension. It was nearly built with log and frame houses, from Walnut Street to Eastern Row now called Broadway. The people of wealth and ;the men of business, with the Hotel de Ville, kept by Griffin Yeatman, were chiefly on this street, which even had a few patches of sidewalk pavement. In front of the mouth of Sycamore Street, near the hotel, there was a small market house built over a cove into which pirogues and other craft, when the river was were poled or paddled to be tied to the rude columns. "The Commons then stretched out to where the land and water now meet, when -he river is at its mean height. It terminated in a high, steep, crumbling bank bneath which lay the flat boats of the immigrants or traders in flour, whiskey and apples from Wheeling, Fort Pitt, or Red Stone Old Fort. Their winter fires burning in iron kettles, sent up lazy columns of smoke, where steamers now darken the air with hurried clouds of steam and soot. One of these vessels has cost , more than the village would have then brought at auction ! From this Common 88 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY The future Covington in Kentucky appeared as a corn field, cultivated by the Kennedy family, which also kept the ferry. Newport, chiefly owned by two Virginia gentlemen, James Taylor and Richard Southgate, but embracing the Majors, Fowlers, Berrys, Stubbs and several other respectable families, was a drowsy village set in the side of a, deep wood, and the mouth of the Licking River was over arched with trees, giving it the appearance of a great tunnel. "After Front Street, Sycamore and Main were the most important streets of the town. A number of homes were built upon the former up to Fourth, beyond which it was opened three or four squares. The buildings and business of Main Street were on the northwest corner, where there was a brick house owned by Elmore Williams, the only one in town. Beyond Seventh, Main Street was a mere road, nearly impassable in muddy weather, which at the foot of the hills divided into two, called the. Hamilton Road and the Mad River Road. The former now a crooked and closely built street, took the course of the Brighton House; the latter made a steep ascent over Mount Auburn, where there was not a sing habitation. Broadway, or Eastern Row, was but thirty-three feet wide. The few buildings which it had were on the west side where it joins Front street ; on the site of the Cincinnati Hotel there was a low frame house with whiskey and a billiard table. It was said that the owner paid $700.00 for the house and lot in "nine pences ;" that is, small pieces of "cut money" received from Indians. North this, toward Second Street, there were several small houses inhabited by disorderly persons who had been in the army. The sidewalk in front was called Battle Row. Between Second and Third Streets near where we now have the eastern end of the market place, there was a single frame tenement in which I lived with my preceptor, Dr. Epworth, in 1805. In a pond directly in front, the frogs gave us regular serenades. Much of the square to which this house belonged was fent. in and served as a pasture. ground for a pony which I kept for country practice. * * * "Between Third and Fourth Streets, on the west side of Broadway, there was in 1800 a cornfield, with a rude cornfield fence, since replaced by mansions of such magnificence that a Russian traveler, several years ago, took away drawings one as a model for the people of St. Petersburg. Above Fourth Street, Broach had but two or three houses and terminated at the edge of a thick wood before reaching the foot of Mount 'Auburn. "East of Broadway and north of Fourth Street, the entire square had , enclosed, and a respectable frame house erected by the Hon. Winthrop Sargent, Secretary of the Northwest. He had removed to Mississippi territory, of which he was afterwards Governor ; and his house and grounds the best improved in village, were occupied by Charles Williams Bird, his successor in office. Governor Sargent merits a notice among the physicians of the town as he was the who made scientific observations on our climate. "Immediately south of his residence from Fourth Street to the river east of Broadway, there was a military reserve. That portion of it which laid on upper plain was covered by Fort Washington with its bastions, port holes, stockades. tall flag staff, evening tattoo. and morning reveille. Here were the quart of the military members of our profession and for a time, one of its civil mem also, for after its evacuation in 1803 my preceptor moved into the rooms which had been occupied by the Commander of the post. In front of the fort, where CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 89 Congress Street now runs, there was a pond in which ducks and snipe were shot; and from this pond to the river, the tract through which Second and East Front Streets now run was overspread with long low sheds of the Commissaries. quartermasters and artificers of the army. "The Post Office was then and long after kept on the east side of the military common, where Lawrence Street leads down to the Newport Ferry. Our quiet and gentlemanly post master, William Ruffin, performed all the duties of the Ace with his own hands. "East of the Fort, on the upper plain, the trunks of large trees were still lying in the ground. A single house had been built by Dr. Allison where the Lytle house now stands and a field of several acres stretched off to the east and north in my arrival, this was the residence. of my preceptor. The dry corn stalks of winter were still standing near the door. But Dr. Allison had planted peach trees and it was known throughout the village as Peach Grove. The field extended to the bank of Deer Creek, thence all was deep wood. Where the munificent expenditures of Nicholas Longworth, Esq., have collected the beautiful exotices of all climates—on the very spot where the people now go to watch the unfolding of the night-blooming cereus—grew the red bud, crab apple and gigantic lip tree, or the yellow poplar, with wild birds above and nature flowers below. here the Catawba and Hebermont now swing down their heavy and luscious clusters, the climbing winter vine hung its small snow branches from the limbs of high trees. The adjoining valley of Deer Creek, down which, by a series of locks, the Canal from Lake Erie mingles its water with the Ohio, was then a receptacle for driftwood from the back water of that river, when high. The boys ascended the little estuary in canoes during the June floods and pulled flowers from the lower limbs of the trees or threw clubs at the turtles, as they sunned themselves on floating logs. n the whole valley there was but a single house and that was a distillery. The narrow road which led to. it from the garrison-- and I am sorry to say from the village also—was well trodden. "Mount Adams was then clothed in the grandeur and beauty which belongs to our own primitive forests. The spot occupied bv the reservoir which supplies city with water, and all the rocky precipices which. stretch from it up the river, were buried up in sugar trees. On the western slope we collected the Sanguinaria canidensis, geranium maculatum. gillenia trifoliata and other native medicines, when supplies failed to reach us from abroad. The summit on which Observatory now stands was crowned with lofty poplars, oaks and birch; the sun in summer could scarcely be seen from the spot where we look into valleys of the moon or see distant nebulae resolved into their starry elements. "Over the mouth of Deer Creek there was a crazy wooden bridge, and where depot of the railroad which connects us with the sea has been erected, there was but a small log cabin. From this cabin, a narrow rocky and stumpy road made its way, as best it could, up the river, where the railway now stretches. At the distance of two miles there was another cabin—that from which we ex-led the witch. Beyond this, all was wilderness for miles further, when we reached the residence of John Smith, who was afterwards mixed up in Burr's conspiraey and died in exile in Pensacola. The new village of Pendleton now covers that spot. Thence came the early but now extinct village of Columbia of which our first physicians were the only medical attendants." CHAPTER VII. CINCINNATI AS A TOWN. THREE STAGES IN THE IIISTORY OF TIIE CITY—GENERAL ST. CLAIR CHANGES THE' NAME OF THE FUTURE CITY FROM LOSANTIVILLE TO CINCINNATI—THE TOWN IS INCORPORATED—MAYORS OF THE TOWN AND ITS RAPID GROWTH—EARLY BUSINESS AND SOCIAL LIFE, ETC. 1802-1819. There have been three stages in the history of our city. The first as a village (1788-1802) the second as a town 1802-1819) the third as a city 1819- ). It is the second of these to which we turn attention now, and it is important to understand in what the nature of the change from village to town, consisted. Of course, a change of this character is purely formal and is nothing more nor less than a matter of legal statutes, for a village may become a town or a town a city without so much as altering a single feature of its real self. n order, then, to understand the legal aspects by which the alteration was accomplished, 'we must go back again to 1790. The County. It will be remembered that the first political unit in the territory (acquired by the struggles recorded in the early portions of the narrative) was the county. This unit was established by a proclamation of Governor St. Clair, (prepared on the 2nd, but not) promulgated until the 4th of January, 1790. The Naming of Cincinnati. To John Cleves Symmes the honor of naming it was cheerfully conceded and he called it Hamilton after the great Secretary of State. At the same time St. Clair changed the name of the squalid collection of houses which became the county seat, from Losantiville to Cincinnati. No better explanation of the. rea-sons which dictated this choice has been given than that given in a recent article in the "Enquirer," the substance of an interview with Hon. Wade Cushering. As these reasons are of great interest they will justify a considerable digression from our train of thought, to which we shall return again in a moment or two. "The Society of the Cincinnati Was organized on May 13, 1783. The Revolutionary War was ending, and many, in fact, most, of the officers in that war had exhausted their private estates and were heavily in debt for money they had expended and obligated themselves for to support and maintain their commands in the field. They appealed to the General Government to. assume these personal obligations, but it was found that the government had not the power to levy and collect sufficient taxes to defray its own expenses, let alone repay the officers Vol. 1-7 - 91 - 92 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY of the continental army who had bankrupted themselves to make possible the Government that we are now enjoying. "The colonies also refused to pay the debts that had been contracted for their general good, and as each colony then had laws providing for the imprisonment of persons for debt, the officers of the victorious army realized that they had in only given up some of the best years of their lives, but had devoted their private wealth to the cause, and were now in debt and were returning home only to be imprisoned because they had bankrupted themselves and were unable to pay their debts. "The laws then permitted the imprisonment of a debtor, but neither the creditor nor the colonies provided anything more than the place of confinement, no provision being made in the law for heat or clothing for the winter nor for food at any time. Therefore if the family or friends of the unfortunate debtor JP into prison did not furnish the necessities of life or pay his debts and secure his release, starvation and exposure were his lot. "It was at this critical time that General Lee issued an address to the army, proposing that it take military possession of the Government until such time as the obligations were paid. Fortunately, Washington, La Fayette and other officers foresaw the disaster that was sure to follow such military possession of the Government, and that such control would defeat the establishment of the form of government—a republican representative government—for which they had fought so hard and risked so much: So this coterie of officers, headed by General Washington the Society of the Cincinnati, the object of which was to assist any one imprisoned for debts contracted on account of the war, and also to free the people from military control, so that they might be at liberty to select a form of government that measured up to their standard. "Branches of the Society of the Cincinnati were established in nearly all of the 13 colonies, and the Government which was first espoused by the founders of the society proved to be the representative form of government, divided into the three branches that we have today—legislative, executive and judicial. "General George Washington was the first President of the Society of the Cincinnati. The society's membership was limited to the Continental officers who had served-three years or who had received honorable discharges, and to the eldest male descendants of such officers. Governor St. Clair, Rufus Putnam, Nathaniel Cushing and two other members of the Massachusetts chapter of the society came, to Ohio and were among the first settlers at Marietta. "On January 2nd, 1790, Governor St. Clair, the first territorial Governor of Ohio, came to Losantiville and remained for three days. Hamilton County was then organized and named, and Losantiville was made its "county town,” as it was then called, but Governor St. Clair renamed the town Cincinnati, in honor of the Society Of the Cincinnati." The original boundaries of the county of which Cincinnati was the seat, were as follows: "Beginning with the mouth of the Little Miami; thence down the river to the mouth of the Big Miami, and up said stream to the standing stone forks; thence in a straight line due east to the Little Miami, then down that stream to the place of beginning." This vast domain comprised about one-eighth of the present State of Ohio, but was speedily reduced in size by the creation from it of Clermont County in CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 93 1800; Montgomery in 1803; Warren in 1803; Greene in 1803; Butler in 1804; Champaign in 1805; Miami in 1807; Preble in 1808; Drake in 1809 and Clinton. in 1810. As now constituted Hamilton is bounded on the east by Clermont County, on the south by the Ohio River, (the line being the low water mark on the north side) on the west by Dearborn County, Indiana, and on the north by' Butler and Warren Counties.. The present area is about 355½ square miles or 227,516 acres. The county having been established by proclamation, the next step was the. appointment of court officers in order that the machinery of local government might be set in motion. The men "upon whom the first political honors were conferred were William Goforth, William Wells and William McMillan, who were named as judges of the court of common pleas and. justices of the court of quarter sessions of the peace; Israel Ludlow who was made clerk of the several courts; Jacob Topping, Benjamin Stites and John Stites Gano, who became justices of the peace ; and John Brown, sheriff. Cincinnati was decreed to be the county seat when these other steps were. taken. It was under the laws of the Northwest Territory and those of the county that the government of the little village. was, therefore, administered until the great changes which transpired when that territory was divided into states. Because of its prosperity and its strategic location, all eyes turned towards Cincinnati as the probable capital of the state which everybody knew would be constituted as soon as the population reached the required number. Already, in 798, the first territorial legislature had met there, and the citizens felt entitled ) hope and plan for the permanent location. in their rapidly growing community of the seat of law and government. But, as a matter' of fact, there had. never been any decision to this effect by a properly constituted. authority and the Cincinnatians were doomed to a bitter disappointment. In the years 1796-8 a mighty wave of population had flowed into the Northwest Territory in consequence of the subjugation of the Indians. Towns sprang [p like mushrooms—such places as Dayton and Chillicothe, for example, attaining an almost instantaneous importance. In 1798 a rude census was taken and it vas manifest that there was a population of at least 5,000 free white male inhabitants of full age, the number necessary for the establishment of that political organization, called, in our scheme of government, a state. In consequence, an election of representatives by counties was advised by the governor, in' the.. proportion of one for every five hundred population. A meeting of these representatives was held in Cincinnati on February 4, 1799, and ten persons .were nominated as fit to form a legislative council. Of these the President of the United States chose and appointed five for the office, viz., Jacob Burnet and James Findlay of Hamilton County; Robert Oliver of Washington ; David Vance of Jefferson and Henry Bandenbaugh of Knox. The assembly, consisting of the governor and the two bodies, then chosen, was convened at the arbitrary will of the governor at Cincinnati on September 3, 1799. The individuals who composed this assembly Were men of the highest char-acter and ability and their meeting was formal and serious. They grappled with many hard problems, most of which arose out of the jealousies engendered by the struggles of localities for prominence, and the session terminated on Decem- 94 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY ber the 19th, after William Henry Harrison had been chosen as the delegate to Congress. The problems which began to be discussed in this first meeting of the men who. were called upon to lay the foundations of law and order multiplied and grew in complexity, with alarming rapidity, when they reassembled (at the order of Congress) in Chillicothe on November 26, 1801. At the bottom of them all lay the fundamental one of the lines which were to run through the territory when its division into states was brought about. Opinion as to whether there should be two or three new states carved out at once, grew hot and hotter. General St. Clair, unfortunately for himself,. chose the latter alternative, animated, it is generally believed, by party prejudices and animosities, while William Henry Harrison chose the former and successfully advocated his idea in Congress. The act by which the lines were established embodied also an authoritative selection of Chillicothe as the capital of the state of Ohio. This was a hard blow to Cincinnati and a wild protest resulted, based upon the prerogatives of the legislature recently elected. The resentment was natural; but the contention unsound, for "the power that could divide the territory could certainly select the seat of government." The wails and protestations died away at length, but only after the little village began to discover that commercial was after all a greater object to be striven for than politicai prominence. What the people really needed most was a reorganization of their own local govern A phenomenal development had set in and it was clearly seen that they had grown the simple laws and regulations of their rude and primitive village life. What they now demanded was incorporation as a town, and their demand granted on the 1st day of January, 1802, by an act of legislature in which David Ziegler was designated as the president and Jacob Burnet the recorder. The provided: Incorporation-- A Town. First. That such parts of the township of Cincinnati, in the county of Hamilton, as are contained in the following limits and boundaries, that is to beginning on the Ohio river at the southeast corner of the fractional section thence west with the township line to Mill creek thence down Mill creek with the meanders thereof to its north ; thence up the Ohio river with the meanders the to the place of beginning; shall be and the same are hereby created into a corporate, which shall henceforth be known and distinguished by the name of town of Cincinnati. Second. That the officers are to be a president, vice-president, recorder, seven trustees, an assessor, a collector and a town marshal who shall be appointed and sworn * * * which president, vice-president, recorder trustees shall be one body corporate and politic with perpetual succession known and distinguished by the name of "the president, recorder and trustees of the town of Cincinnati." Third. Provides for the powers of said officers and for a seal. Fourth. That all the inhabitants of the town who are freeholders or householders paying an annual rent of thirty-six dollars, shall and may assemble at such place within said town as the president, recorder and any four of the trustees shall appoint, on the first Monday of April yearly and then and there by a plural- CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 95 ity of suffrages to elect a president, recorder and seven trustees, an assessor, a mllector and town marshal to hold their respective offices during one year and from thence until their successors shall be elected and serve, etc. Fifth. That the president, recorder and trustees shall be called "The Select Council of the Town of Cincinnati" and gives the said Council power to adopt regulations for securing the town against injuries by fire, to keep the streets, lanes and alleys open and in repair, to regulate markets and protect animals from run-ning at large, etc. Sixth.. That the freeholders and householders shall at their annual meeting vote such sums of money as they think proper to be raised for the town for the ensuing year which shall be assessed by the assessor on objects of taxation in the town as shall be yearly subject to taxation for county purposes and on such other objects as the said meeting shall direct, provided that no poll tax be imposed by the said corporation on persons not entitled to vote. Seventh. Gives the council power to fill vacancies, appoint subordinate oferficers, impose fines for refusal to accept office, and the like. The council is given the exclusive right to. license taverns, ale houses and public houses of entertainment. Eighth. Provides that persons feeling aggrieved by an officer or individual of the council may appeal to the court of the general quarter sessions of the peace. Ninth. Gives the use of the county jail to the corporation provided "that no person shall be imprisoned under .the authority of the said corporation unless for the non-payment of taxes, fines or penalties assessed or imposed and all persons so imprisoned shall be under the charge of the sheriff of the county. Tenth. Appoints David Ziegler, president ; Jacob Burnet, recorder ; Willeriam Ramsey, David E. Wade, Charles E. Avery-, John Riley, William Stanley, Samuel Dick, William Ruffin, trustees ; Abraham Casey, collector ; James. Smith, town marshal. This act was signed by Edward Tiffin, speaker of the house of representatives, Robert Oliver, president of legislative council, and General Arthur St. Clair, governor. It was a significant and even momentous change, although not revolutionary in the least. The rivulet of village life did not become the river of a town existcence by plunging over a precipice, but by simply rounding a bend. It flowed serenely on; but expanded and deepened rapidly, after the turn. To, form a menerpicture of the town is as necessary as of the village, and not less difficult. We !gin with the facts connected with the activities of the new Council, duly impressed, it seems, with its dignity and power. From 1802 to 1815 its meetings were held in private residences or in one of the many taverns —Columbia Inn, Yeatman's, McHenry's, Wingate's and The Green Tree. There was plenty of business to be attended to by the men upon Those shoulders rested the responsibility of bringing order out of the confusion of the loose-ended life of the little village, and they and their successors wrestled bravely with their problems. There is a primitive charm in reading the accounts of their meetings, proceedings and enactments, and the little world of that distant day rises before us in vivid and life-like reality as we hear the vigorous discussions of those serious-minded men over questions whose solutions resulted 96 - CINCINNATI - THE QUEEN CITY in ordinances (of not. so small importances as they seem to us, in our large world) "to prevent swine from running at large upon the streets" "to compel citizens to remove logs and other obstacles from the roads." "to provide themselves 'black-jack' leather fire buckets and be ready to render personal assistance in case of conflagration." "to permit lot owners to pave: the sidewalks in front of their houses with brick or flat stones not to exceed nine feet." "to forbid them to extend their cellar doors into the sidewalk." "to authorize them to plant Lombardy poplars or black locusts in front of lots:" "to organize a night watch consisting of all citizens over twenty-one to be divided into classes of twelve, who should patrol the streets at night." "to prevent disturbances and riots fomented generally by the free passage and repassage of slaves across the Ohio." "to try to get the grounds of Fort Washington set aside for educational purposes."' "to establish a market and see that the goods were sold at full weight." "to prevent spread' of small pox through segregation and vaccination." "to provide that chimneys should be built of brick or stone." "to elevate, grade. and pave from sidewalks." "to tax any theatrical or puppet show." "to prevent chickens from trespassing." "to stop gambling."  "to compel property :owners to fill up places where stagnant water stood pools." "to lay a tax for a fire engine." "to compel doctors to fill out death certificates." "to secure a quiet Sabbath:" "to regulate public celebrations which had become noisy and offensive!'   Charter of 1815.  As time progressed, imperfections in the original charter were discovered, and in 1815 a new one was substituted, with changes which seemed far more important then than now, no doubt. The president became the mayor; the town was districted into wards; the tenure of office was extended to two years, etc., provisions :which met the needs of the expanding community until it became city in 1819, and there remains in order to complete the general survey of political situation only the enumeration of the men who held the honorable position of the head of government through this first and most critical period. These men were David Ziegler, 1802-03; Joseph Prince, 1803-04; James Findlay, 1805-06; John S. Gano, 1807; Martin Baum, 1807; Daniel Symmes 1808-09; James Findlay, 1810-11; Martin Baum, 1812; William Stanley, 1813; Samuel W. Davis, 1814, and William Corry (under new charter). 1815-19. The most authoritative sources of information concerning the city in the political sphere of its activities are of course, the records of the proceedings its archives. They give, however, but a partial picture of its existence, and of fortunately there are other sources. of information by means of which it may be graphically reproduced. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 97 To be familiar with those sources is not the least obligation of the citizen as well as the historian, and we give them here for ready reference. a Letters.—b Reminiscences of Old Men.—c Descriptive Essays, E. G. Drake, Mansfield.—d Paintings. I. There are the letters of travelers, many of whom stopped long enough :and became interested deeply enough in the town) to record their impressions. They are often conflicting, as a matter of course, but the resultant of these individual observations possesses remarkable value as evidence. Josiah Espy- 1805 ; S. P. Hildreth-1805; Thomas Ashe, an Englishman 1806; a German tourist by the name of Schultz-1807; F. Carmanning of Philadelphia-1807; John Melish, an Englishman-1811; Timothy Flint-1816 ; David Thomas-1816 ; Morris Burbeck-1817; John Palmer-1817 ; have all contributed something of importance to our knowledge of the period of our city's existence as a "town." They commented on the rudeness of the architecture ; the primitive conditions socially and commercially ; the boundless hopes of the people; the rapid growth ; the unrivaled situation of the town and the respectable quality of the citizens. II. There are, in the second place, pictorial representations, among which :here was an original sketch by a painter of some note. The lack of knowledge of perspective on the part of the artist detracts some from the accuracy of :he picture and "there are not enough houses to hold the 900 inhabitants," but :he general effect is evidently realistic in a high degree. An effort was made to correct the inaccuracies by Rudolph Tschudi (for the history written by Mr. Greve) and the picture painted by this artist is now the property of William Bullock. There is also another picture called "Cincinnati in 18̊9" painted by Lieuten-ant James Cutler, stationed for a time on the Newport barracks, and the view known as "Cincinnati in 1810" is probably developed from a section of this picture. III. A third source of information are the reminiscences which have from time to time been given in conversations, or addresses by pioneers who lingered long upon the stage. S. S. L'Hommedieu, for example, president of the Pioneer association, in his inaugural address April 7, 1874, graphically describes the city as it appeared at the time of his arrival in 1810, and Dr. Daniel Drake, in his "Notices Concerning Cincinnati" furnishes us with information so vivid and detailed as to possess the most unquestionable value and authority. From these original sources of information each historian will naturally select those items which possess the deepest significance from his personal point of No two people ever yet beheld even the simplest incident of daily life, or contemplated any particular object, who did not see it from different angles or derive different impressions. The scientist, the philosopher, the artist, the moralist and the financier will each extract from the mass of recorded facts in the life of the city or country which he describes the elements which appeal most convincingly to his individual experience and interest in life—as the birds, the in-sects, the butterflies, the toads and the worms take out of the same garden those substances which minister most effectively to their tastes and needs. 98 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY To me, growth, development, evolution are the most significant of phenomena; for they are the indubitable indications of life, and I begin my effort to convey to the minds of my readers a true conception of the town of Cincinnati with census, because, in this way, best of all, it may be seen that there was a steady increase of population. In 1800 there were, roughly, 750 people. In 1805 there were, roughly, 960 people. In 1807 there were, roughly, 1,500 people. In 1810 there were, roughly, 2,320 people.  In 1813 there were, roughly, 4,000 people. In 1815 there were, roughly, 6,000 people. In 1819 there :were, roughly, 10,283 people. Among the arrivals, in that progressive period, were many men whose lives greatly enriched the community. In 1802 came Ethan Stone, Samuel Perry and William Pierson. 1803—C Christopher and Robert Carey, grandfather and father of the Carey sisters; Thou and Thankful Carter, grandparents of A. G. W. Carter. In 1804, Colonel Stephen McFarland, General Findlay, Jadeciah Ernst and his sons, H. M., Jacob and Andrew Ernst; Peyton S. Symmes, Benjamin Smith, P. A. Springman, Georg. Torrence, Jonathan Pancoast, Robert Richardson, James Perry, Peter M. Adam Moore, William Moody, Benjamin Mason, Casper Hopple, Andrew Johnston, Ephraim Carter, James Crawford, William Crippen, Henry Craven, General Mansfield and his little son E. D., and Joseph Coppin. After this time beginning with 1806, (the year when the little town began to boom) the arrivals were too numerous to mention en masse and a process of sifting must begin. In 1806 Rev. Adam Hurdus, founder of the Swedenborgian church, arrived. In 1807, Evans Price; 1816, General W. H. Lytle and the L'Hommedieu, Fosdick and Roger families came. In 1813, James W. Gazley and Thomas Price. In 1814, David K. Este. In 1817, Bellamy Storer, Joseph Jonas, the first Jew, and William Robean, a ship carpenter who had worked on Fulton's steamboat the "Clermont"—afterwards the head of the copper and brass works of the city. It was not all, however, for the community was impoverished by the deaths of William Millan, 1804; Major Ziegler; 1811; Rev. John W. Brown, 1813; John Symmes, 1814; and by the permanent removal of General St. Clair and the temporary absence of General Mansfield and his family. If the personelle of the community was thus radically altered this during period we may be sure that its physical condition was subject to changes quit as great. In 1802 the little hamlet consisted of an old fort falling into decay, many houses of logs, and a few clapboarded or of brick or stone, irregular and rambling, isolated from the world, a mere sentry box on the frontier, inhabited by nine hundred independent, carelessly-dressed, loose-moraled and, too often ill mannered people. As the years pass, closer connections with the east, constantly increasing numbers, better houses, expanding business, slow refinement of social life un- CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 99 folding spiritual experience, artistic advancement and growing self-consciousness, ill told for the betterment of the place. The changes of seventeen years are not easy to keep track of even when we observe them with our own eyes, but when they are covered with the dust of an entire century, it is a difficult task indeed to form a true conception of them. It is not, however, an impossible task, and he who accomplishes it will find reward in the richness of his reflections on that most fascinating of phenomena, a city's life and growth. He will observe, for example, three facts of the greatest possible interest among a thousand others. In the first place, that the inhabitants will certainly reproduce the elemental, human traits. No change of environment and no wealth of opportunity can alter the original instincts and tendencies of our common human nature. People will work and play ; sow and reap ; marry and be given in marriage ; love and late; do good and evil ; be happy and miserable ; and die and be buried in pretty much the same ways, in one place as another. In the second place that they will be most likely to reproduce the idiosyncrasies of the localities from. which they came, rather than originate new ones of their own. The manner of life which they lived in Germany, France or England came to have for them a certain authority which they cannot altogether shake off. The ways in which their parents and neighbors conducted their individual and public affairs in Boston, New York or Philadelphia continue to appear the solely proper ones upon the shores of Lake Erie or Lake Michigan ; upon the banks of the Ohio or the Mississippi. In the third place, they will strike out to a limited degree an original scheme Of existence and a distinct type of character. The exigencies of the new situation; the combination of the dissimilar and contradictory elements ; the freedom for personal initiative, all combine to produce a personal and community life of a distinct novel and unique character. We may take the reproduction of the elemental characteristics for granted ; but must pause to investigate and comprehend the ones which grew out of the new conditions into which the circumstances of life had forced the citizens of the frontier town. Social. In the period which begins with 1802 the influence of military life waned and the town began to develop its own inner life rather than take the color of extraneous influences. People became, in the main, temperate and industrious. Wealth was pretty evenly divided and there was not much luxury or extravagance in any strata of the social world. All classes were, to a reasonable degree,. orderly, decent, sociable, liberal and unassuming.. The town was small enough for every individual to be known and to shine. There were no conventions strong enough to restrain the animal spirits of the healthy and robust inhabitants, and even the leading citizens did not hesitate to indulge in the sports of youth. There were no sleighs, for example, and so we read of a "straw ride" where ten horses were hitched to an old river boat placed on runners—ten outriders—flags flying—two fiddlers and two flutes—a bottle of "Black Betty" circulating freely and a ball at the end with the dancers dressed in linsey woolsey and buckskin suits.