THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 101 along to visit her father, sat behind my grandfather on a pillion, with a baby in her arms, and there came a courier, his horse covered with foam, galloping down the muddy roads crying out to the houses on the right and the left, and to those whom lie met, the terrible tidings of Hull's surrender. The men went at once to the conflict, and the women remained at home in dread. After this war the people turned their attention to the arts of peace, and were soon running steamboats down the Ohio river, to the intense surprise, and in some cases alarm of the untutored people of the country. The wilderness was opened, roads and canals were built, and, with the exception of the Mexican war, which gave to Ohio Hamer and Morgan, and a few other heroes, there was scarcely a break in the peaceful growth and improvement of the country until railroads and telegraphs seemed to crown the summit of human achievement. Then came the great war, in which on the muster rolls of the Union, Ohio wrote three hundred and twenty thousand names. She wrote them AT THE TOP. I need not recount then—Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, McPherson, the fighting McCooks, Costar, Hazen, Steadman, Rosecrans, Lytle, time forbids a cursory mention even of the greatest. When the battle above the clouds was fought forty-three Ohio regiments reached the top of the famous mountain. In the last year of the war, when she was depleted of her resources, and her best and bravest were either in the field, the hospital, or the grave, in ten clays she raised, equipped, and sent to the front forty thousand men. There is but one episode in history like it, and that is the hundred days between Elba and Waterloo. The motto inscribed upon her banner is, "Imperium in Imperio" an empire within an empire. Whoever suggested that motto for this state must have been gifted with more than ordinary foresight ; for, if there he anywhere on earth an "empire within an empire," it is the State of Ohio as one of the United States of America. She is an empire in commerce. If you track the civilization of this nation across the continent, it trails across the state of Ohio. It is the throat of the country. I need not tell you here in the valley of the Pig Miami what she is in agriculture ; it would be a work of supererogation. She is an empire in mineral wealth. Not only is she supplied bountifully with coal, but she has those wonderful discoveries of these latter days--oil and gas. She is an empire in population, numbering within her borders more people than George Washington ruled over when he was president of the United States. Her history in peace cannot be recited in the brief time at our disposal, but she has done much more than her share towards the government of the country. Presidents, cabinet ministers, chief justices, statesmen and jurists has she furnished to the nation. She has achieved a high name in art and culture. No people in the world are her superiors in popular schools of learning; while her press, pulpit, and other educational influences are unexcelled. Her motto speaks truly when it says she is "An empire WITHIN an empire." I yield to no man in love for Ohio. Upon her soil were born my parents, my wife, my children—everything that makes life worth living and God worth looing. I am proud of her banner, with its beautiful sun-burst and garnered sheaf; but, after all, she is only an empire within an empire. When we turn our gaze from her banner to that other banner—the one that counts upon its folds forty-four stars, each as beautiful, as bright, as eternally fixed in its place as the star of Ohio, then are we all alike, our love for Ohio's banner is merged into an infinite affection for the other. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 103 THE UNITED STATES. BY W. O. THOMPSON D. D. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen OUR watchword from 1791 to 1891 has been progress. Our history has been made possible by the sure foundations laid by our fathers. We stand today on much higher ground than they in 1791. We are not disposed however to cast a reflection upon the fair name of our fathers. We are glad rather that as their sons we have met their brightest anticipations. They met the problems that faced them in 1791 and we are glad to believe that 1891 will not be criticised for its incapacity. Americans were proud of their citizenship one hundred years ago. Today no more honorable crown is worn than that same citizenship. This is, as we believe, the natural result of a free people under a free government. The dates upon either side of my topic suggest some interesting contrasts that I shall briefly name as profitable for our meditation. FIRST, we mention the contrast in territory, In 1791 we had a magnificent territory of 820,680 square miles situated on the eastern slope of the Alleghenies far surpassing in extent and natural resources many of the great nations of the earth. Now we have 2,970,000 square miles not including the territory of Alaska. This wonderful stretch of land reaches from ocean to ocean thus giving us a position of peculiar strength. But four times the area in square miles does not suggest the whole truth. This new territory embraces the richest agricultural lands in the world. The beautiful and fertile Mississippi valley then an unexplored region, is now a fruitful and prosperous empire. Beyond lies the Rocky Mountain region the great silver and mining country that is annually adding to the wealth of the world and supporting a steadily increasing population of happy and prosperous people. Beyond the Rockies toward the Pacific lies the land of flower and oranges—of wheat and gold whose varied climate and industries, together with a soil rich beyond expectation has made the Pacific coast country the wonder of the modern world. The territory thus comprised in the United States has no parallel in history. It is estimated that we have 1,500,000 square miles of arable land. A thousand millions of people would not as heavily tax the producing ability of our soil as some European countries are now taxed. The best clays of Roman Empire never saw a territory of like extent and fertility. Among modern nations the United States has the garden spot of the earth—a moderate climate, fertile soil, unmeasured mineral resources and an expanse of territory well watered, that makes our natural resources surpass those of any country on the globe. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 105 The second contrast may be found in the population. Our growth has been the marvel of history. Patrick Henry eloquently spoke of three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty as an invincible host. We can now plead sixty millions, not less, in love with our country and her institutions. This vast number of people is but a beginning. It has been computed that the State of Texas could support the entire population of the United States and that the whole country could readily support one thousand millions. Such a population would not more densly populate our country than some countries are now settled. To this population we are now adding year by year nearly three-quarters of a million from other lands. Our cities are growing with wonderful rapidity. In 1791 one in thirty of our population lived in cities of 8000. Now nearly one fourth live in such cities. In 1791 there were-not more than half a dozen cities with 8000 population. Now we have nearly 300, so wonderfully has our population grown. This fact alone bespeaks our greatness and offers to the thoughtful man a serious problem. A third contrast is suggested by the progress of government. Then the ship of state was but fairly launched. The experiment of a government of the people and for the people was something new in the world's history. hinny were the prophets of evil who could tell of the perils to which the young nation was exposed and of her sure destruction. But time has put the prophets to shame. We have forever banished slavery from our borders. The spirit of our constitution is now better understood, and more loved than when first written. Eyils have been corrected, provision has been made for development and today the government of the United States is an inspiration to every lover of liberty throughout the world, We have a representative government of the people in which majorities rule while carefully guarding and maintaining the rights of minorities. This doctrine so truly American has not only in the century past brought our own government to great strength, but it has produced a more liberal spirit in other governments. Our principles a century ago were looked upon as experiments. Now they are everywhere regarded as a bulwark to liberty and the key to progress. In 1791 we had just emerged from a war that determined whether such a government as ours should be an experiment. Since then we have emerged from a second war within our own borders that finally tested the question whether that government might live. We have cone out of the struggle purified and strengthened until we stand to day more firmly rooted in the affections of our people than ever before. A fourth contrast is to be found in our wealth. A century ago we possessed a country of possibilities. It is still a a country of possibilities. Meantime we have grown to be the richest country on the globe. Our wealth has been calculated at about forty-five thousand millions. This vast amount too is nearly all a recent product. Great Britain is by far the richest country in Europe but our wealth exceeds hers. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 107 by nearly three hundred millions. Our resources too are but little developed. A large portion of our lands are not yet tilled. Our agricultural population is beginning to learn the advantage of scientific methods and of intelligent farming. No man has yet conceived of the vast wealth that our agriculture may yet produce. Our mineral wealth is yet but little developed. New discoveries are constantly revealing new mineral resources. The wealth of commerce steadily increases and when our ocean commerce shall have been put upon a good basis, our country will be in position to lead the world in producing and gaining wealth. Despite the destructive effects of war, we have constantly increased in our national wealth. The record of the last twenty years in this direction has no parallel in history. A fifth contrast is seen in the matter of applied science. The message of 1891 to 1791 in the field of science as applied to the comfort, happiness and safety of the people reveals a new world. At that day the world knew nothing of the railroad, telegraph, telephone, phonograph, microphone nor the many other inventions of the modern mind. The progress of the world has been greatly facilitated by the application of science. One by one we have unlocked the secret storehouses of nature. We have invented machinery beyond all imagination. The humblest citizen is made the beneficiary of the most important discoveries of science. We have over 150,000 miles of telegraphic lines and almost as many miles of railroad. Telephones connect city with city and village with village. These conveniences have brought every part of the world into close communication with every other part. The modern mail service is the world's wonder for efficiency, rapidity and cheapness. Electricity has become our servant in lighting our homes, and furnishing rapid transit. The weather department of our government has been brought to such efficiencey that by our rapid communication from one part of the country to another we are able to forecast with great certainty changes of temperature and weather—to provide against impending storms, and the destruction of the elements in such way as often to save both life and property. Applied sience has done much to ameliorate the suffering of men and to give increased safety to people. Of all these things 1791 new nothing. The progress of the century in this way has brought a new world indeed. A sixth contrast is suggested in our educational and religious progress. Now here will the contrast seem sharper. The public school, in which is mistured the highest patriotism, has always been a crown of glory to our country. An annual expense of one hundred millions only begins to tell the story of the work done in this direction. Our system has grown and expanded until the average high school now does more for the pupil than some colleges of one hundred years ago. In addition to the public school is the private school, the normal school, the business college, the technical schools of all sorts, the agricultural colleges, the scientific schools, the colleges of kid THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 109 arts, the professional schools and the universities. We are coming to the days of large things in this line. The nation has given liberally to encourage education in the states and the states in turn have given large amounts. The church and private individuals seem to rival one another in their zeal to provide for the education of the people. All this it is important to note is in the interest for the masses and not for the few. One hundred years ago a fair education was a luxury enjoyed by the favored. Now such provision is made that every industrious willing person has within his grasp a good education. This wide spread intelligence is fast giving character to our country. Instead of an occasional man of rare excellence, our system now finds its best product in the higher average of the whole people. Closely allied to our educational development is the religious growth. So impartial an observer as Prof. James Bryce declares the people of the United States the most actively religious people in the world. The religious progress of the century has been a marked feature, not more in the increased numbers professedly allied with religious enterprises, than in the spirit of the work. The religious world is active and aggressive. Every land upon the globe is the subject of religious conquest by the American people. This world wide movement is the distinguishing mark of our century in religious history. We have seen too a growth of the charitable spirit of the church, an elevation of morals and a devotion that brings great satisfaction to the earnest student of our history. It fills the future with hope. Thus briefly have I indicated a few contrasts that suggest the growth of our century. We have, as I believe, a just cause to congratulate ourselves upon the close of the hundred years of history that we today celebrate. We have cause to congratulate ourselves upon the prospect of the future. As a Nation we need but to keep our approved principles in full view and pursue that steady, conservative and progressive course that so far has marked our history, if we would have each succeeding year add lustre to its predecessor. We are full of hope. Our Nation has proved her strength. While therefore we rejoice in 1791, we rejoice yet more on the prosperity of 1891. THE CENTENNIAL AMNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 111 THE WORLD. BY SAMUEL P. CARY. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :  FROM the truthful, brilliant and eloquent addresses to which we have listened on this anniversary occasion, we of the Miami Valley with one accord conclude that "our lines have fallen in pleasant places and that we have a goodly heritage." Not one in this vast assembly if permitted to make his own selection would have chosen any other home, any other country, any other form of government, or any other century in which to pass earthly probation. The theme assigned me is the world in 1791 and 1891. The few venerable natives of the Miami Valley here present who have passed their years of three score and ten if called upon to enumerate the changes they have witnessed since their early recollection would not know where to begin. If it were not for the graves of kindred who have fallen asleep and a few old landmarks it would be difficult to convince them that this is the place of their childhood. Were it not that the milestones are distinctly marked which denote the flight of time, we would be persuaded that a thousand instead of one hundred years had passed since 1791. Important events, and wonderful changes have been crowded into the century, which signalize this as the most wonderful period in the worlds history. We have not time to speak of the changes which have been made in the divisions and sub-divisions of the earth by the different tribes and nations inhabiting it nor of the changes in the forms of government, except that in all of them the tendency has been towards a recognition of the rights of men to govern themselves. Republican forms of government have been established in all the states of Spanish America and in France. Where old forms have been retained, power has been gradually passing from the few to the many and the thrones of tyrants are going into decay. The people instead of being the tools of tyrants, and like the last of Egypt, their existance only known by the desolation which have marked their progress and aperting their manhood and their inalienable rights. The fatherhood of God and brotherhood of men is a principle forcing recognition in all lands. One hundred years ago the right of property in man was claimed by the most highly civilized and christian nations. One hundred years ago the slave trade was regarded as legitimate commerce. Even our christian Mother England was engaged in capturing negroes from the African coast stowing them away in vessels constructed for the purpose and disposing of THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 113 them as human chattels wherever a market could be found. England's sovereigns participated in the profits of the traffic ; now the slave trade is piracy by the law of Nations. By the richest baptism of blood ever poured upon freedom's altar, slavery that greatest impediment in the way of the triumph of christian civilization has been washed out in the land of boasted freedom. England has stricken the shackles from millions of slaves in her colonial possessions. Spain no longer recognizes the right to barter in human flesh. Russia has abolished surfdom. These sudden and eventful changes have been hastened in their coming by a conjunction of causes. By harnessing together steam and electricity distance has been annihilated and the whole human family have been gathered around the same fireside. Heathen and barbarous nations once at an infinite distance are now our neighbors. At the sound of the axe and the hammer, the whistle of the steam engine and the tick of the telegraph, the rude demon of barbarity has fled away and by the benign influence of the christian religion we bow around the same altar worship and pay our vows to a common Lord. The boundaries of science haye been enlarged and the area of human knowledge indefinitely extended since the year of our Lord 1791. Modes of communication, of transacting business, of travel, of living, the implements of peace and of war have undergone an entire change. If those who finished their earthly probation a century ago were permitted to revisit the earth they would find few old familiar landmarks in the physical, intellectual, moral, social or political world. This earth would be a foreign land to them as much as would this beautiful city of Hamilton to those who felled the first tree and built the first cabin on the hank of the Miami one hundred years ago. This is but a type of the changes wrought everywhere in the civilized world. This generation has found that the resources of nature are inexhaustible and that all of them can be made to minister to man's infinite wants, and contribute to his happiness. He can even make the lightning his message boy. The opinion of some and especially among the aged is that while the world is advancing in knowledge it is degenerating in morals. This is a very great mistake. Moral as well as physical and intellectual progress characterize the age in which we live. Formerly our knowledge of events was bounded by our immediate neighborhood. Now the daily events occurring anywhere on the planet are recorded in our daily papers. Whatever is startling or sensational, no matter in what remote corner of the earth is instantly seized by the news gatherer. Events a week old however important are stale and uninteresting. If a city in Egypt is being bombarded by a hostile foe we read an ac- THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON. O. - 115 count of it while it is in progress. If a Russian Emperor is assassinates?, we know the particulars six hours before it occurs, because our messenger has outrun the rapid flight of time. Inventions to subdue and control the forces of nature and compel them to do the will of their master forcibly attest the truth of the declaration that while "the heavens are the Lords, the earth he has given to the children of men." Man cannot make a requisition upon the earth or the atmosphere, or upon any of the elements which will not meet with a ready response. If in the animal world subjected to his will there is a deficiency of oil to lubricate the worlds machinery he only needs to penetrate the earth, and rivers of oil pour forth. If he wants more light or heat, or increased motive power, he utilizes the store houses of gas, or converts the lighting into artificial suns, or harnesses the firy bird of heaven to his car. Dr. Lardner said that the Atlantic Ocean could never be crossed by steam power, that a vessel could not be constructed of sufficient capacity to hold the fuel necessary for so long a voyage. He had hardly recorded his prediction when a steam vessel came puffing into the harbor from distant Europe. So wonderful is the invention of the age that this long journey has been accomplished in six days. Wooden vessels which have been used since the day that Noah built the ark have given place to those of steel and iron. Poor John Fitch a hundred years ago, invented the first boat to be propelled by "fire and steam." Unable to obtain assistance in Europe or America to utilize his invention, he left the abodes of civilization, sought a refuge in the forests of Kentucky where he committed suicide and was hurried in a grave unmarked by a single stone, while Robert Fulton acquired fame and fortune, which belonged of right to John Fitch. This is a fit illustration that the world's benefactors seldom enjoy the fruits of their toil, ingenuity and skill. The improvements, changes and progress of the century are not confined to any one or any hundred departments, but they embrace everything which relates to the advancement and progress of human society. The arts of peace and of war, and the fine arts as well, have undergone a complete revolution. A few illustrations will suggest a thousand equally wonderful and important. The improvements in the printing press within the century have resulted in deluging the world with papers, magazines and books. Ben Franklin could by hard labor turn off 250 papers printed on one side in an hour now by the aid of steam, Hoe's press will print 20,000 in the same time It may be truthfully said "of making of books there is no end." The flint lock rifle or musket with its ramrod and the accompanying powder horn and bullet pouch, which hung upon the cabin wall of our fathers has given place to the breech loader, with the percussion cap and cartridge. The revolver, the gatling gun, the shell and dynamite and the torpedo were unknown a. hundred years ago. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 117 No less marvelous are the changes in the fine arts. When our fathers would procure a likeness of one they loved they employed a limner who after days of skilled and patient labor would produce a picture, which aided by the imagination resembled the original. Now the sun in the heavens is summoned to transfer to a delicately prepared plate every lineament of the contenance, to be thence multiplied a thousand fold. Now every cabin in the land has its picture gallery. Here is found the greyhairs and wrinkles of old age, the freshness and beauty of matured manhood and womanhood, and the dimples on the cheek of childhood all faithfully delineated. By the phonograph the speech of a Clay or the song of a Kellog, with every tone or modulation of the voice is recorded, and reproduced at will in all future time. But why attempt to enumerate the inventions, and discoveries of the century. The hundred thousand models in the patent office representing the triumphs of inventive genius, embracing every calling and pursuit, proves the futility of any such attempt. This is pre-eminently a fast age. The ordinary processes of nature are too slow to satisfy the restless spirit of the people. Even hens are wasting their time sitting three weeks on a dozen eggs. Incubators have been invented to hatch Soo at a time and it is said that artificial eggs are now made superior to the hen fruit. We refer to these instances only to suggest trains of thought, that our hearers may understand and work out for themselves the problems of the century. It is a source of great satisfaction and gratifying to our pride that a large majority of the important discoveries and inventions are American. Some twenty years ago I was on a fast train of cars between Liverpool and London. In the same compartment was Sir Robert Briscoe one of the oldest and the most distinguished Baronets of England whose very pleasant acquaintance I had previously made. He spoke in glowing terms of the wonderful achievements of American genius and enterprise, and of how proud he was that America was the daughter of Great Britain. But said the eminent statesman, the mother takes precedence of her daughter in some things. I replied that may be true Sir Robert but to what do you refer. He said, "in machinery, our skilled workmen outrank all others in the world. I remarked that I had seen in Europe mowing and reaping machines, sewing and knitting machines but they were all American. But said he, look at our locomotives, the works of our skilled mechanics we send them to all parts of the world. He heard from me with apparent incredulity that I had seen upon an English R. R. a locomotive labeled Patterson, N. J. When we stopped for a few moments midway on our journey I asked an Engineer if he had ever seen an American locomotive in England. Oh yes he replied, the one drawing this train was made in the United States. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMLLTON, O. - 119 Sir Robert asked why it had been brought here. The Engineer promptly answered, they make better locomotives in the United States than we do in England added that the London and Great Northern Railway had recentiy ordered fifteen from Philadelphia. Sir Robert bowed to me very low remarking "I beg that you will never mention it." I was so elated at my victory that I boasted of Philadelphia as my home, although I resided boo miles away. I know that my hearers will indulge me in some reflections in reference to the relations our country sustains to the upward march of the race since 1791. America has the proud distinction of leading the way in the struggle to attain a higher and better civilization. Ours is the model after which all the republican forms of Government have been constructed. Those who believe that an overruling Providence superintends and directs human affairs can readily recognize a divine hand in every step of human progress, whether it be in the physical, intellectual, moral, social or political world. May it not be that God kept back the knowledge of this continent from the civilized nations of the earth, on purpose, that here might be established a better form of government, and that the treasure house of nature might be explored, and its wealth brought forth to enrich and elevate the race. Civil and ecclesiastical institutions hitherto had been based upon the idea that a few were born to govern and the masses to serve. The jewell truth of the divine right of manhood and not of kings that like the little stone cut out of the mountain without hands was to fill tho earth came with our pilgrim Fathers to this land. Here God had built his loftiest mountains, had channeled his deepest rivers, had spread out his broadest plans, here he had laid up his richest mineral treasures. Here he had provided everything with which to construct the noblest fabric of human government, and the most gorgeous temple of human freedom. Slavery was permitted to be established here that the two theories of civilization might be tested? Whether to attain the highest civilization man must be relieved from labor, and eat his bread in the sweat of a menials face, or whether for the most perfect development of his physical, intellectual and moral nature, he must imitate the example of the man of Nazarith, who said "my Father worketh hitherto and I work." That there might be no mistaking the benefit of free educated labor, over ignorant, slave labor the hard and reluctant soil and cold climate of the north were assigned to the former while the rich Savannahs, the genial sunshine and mild temperature of the south were given to the latter. The problem was being wrought out for the benefit of all mankind and would have been peacefully solved when by the madness and folly of men in both sections, the war of civilizations was inaugurated. A wicket cruel., fratricidal war. The supreme ruler of the Universe who "makes the wrath THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 121 of man to praise him and restrains the remainder of that wrath" decided the contest. There are such events in human history as "Providential Girths," and when any great result affecting the race is to be attained some nation will be in trayail, and in proportion to the agony and blood of the parturition will be the greatness and glory to the event of the human race. Our nation within a period of one hundred years passed through two of those providential births. The war of the revolution and our civil war—both for the attainment of the same end. That all men are entitled to life and libeaty acquire, and enjoy property pursue and obtain happiness and safety was the issue in both these struggles. While we would not indulge in this joyous occasion in fearful forebodings we should not shut our eyes to the fact that there are clouds in the horrizon of our glory that portend a storm, there are dangers which threaten to lay this noble fabric of Government in ruins. The great and good Lincoln who piloted our ship of state through the storm when the waves of civil commotion threatened to engulph it, and who now occupies the highest niche in the temple of fame, and whose wonderful achievements will be more and more appreciated as the centuries wear away, saw as with a prophets vision breakers ahead. He said, "We may all congratulate ourselves that the cruel war is nearing a close. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. The best blood of American youth has been freely offered upon our country's altar that the nation might live. It has been indeed a trying hour for the Republic, but I see in the near future a crisis arising that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war corporrtions have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high planes will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working up the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in few hands and the republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before in the midst of the war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." Such were the words of the patriot and seer. The rapid accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few and the equally rapid pauperization of the many by ill advised legislation may invite a conflict between capital and labor. When the fact is stated that 30,000 persons are worth more than 60,000000 we can account for the fear and trembling of the sainted patriot. We unite our petition with his that this threatened cup of sorrow m y pass from us. If this nation the favorite child of Providence shall be called again to wade through a sea of blood, and pass through Gethsemanee's agony, we have a christian faith, that it will not only survive but take a higher position among the nations of the earth. Ours shall be the Mesiah of nations leading them all up to greater heights of national glory, where humanity shall. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 123 build her homes, science her temple, justice her shriners and religion of righteousness her altars. The fifteen minutes allowed me are more than exhausted, and the events of the world in the last century remain unenumerated because every day of the one hundred years has been freighted with them. THE FUTURE. BY REV. E. W. ABBEY. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: WHO could have stood one hundred years ago, at the newly located fort on the banks of the Miami, and have predicted the present city of Hamilton, with its 20,000 population, its steaming factories, its busy stores, its comfortable homes, its prosperous schools and churches? Who, then, could have prophesied the Ohio that now is; and the galaxy of forty-four United States, the most prosperous and mightiest nation on the globe ? Who, then, could have dreamed of the present industrial and social and moral condition of the world. These addresses, warranting the historical facts, that we have heard tonight, had they been spoken one hundred years ago as prophecies, would have been accounted the wildest of phantasies. But the undreamed of development has taken place. Here are the facts. And now what of the future? What will the coming century reveal? I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, yet it is made my duty in completing the logical order of addresses of this occasion, to speak prophetically. And I shall be a prophet, not of evil, but of good ; not of despondency, but of hope. I see no setting sun, but a rising sun. I see in the future not only new inventions in mechanics, but new inventions for disseminating. knowledge; not only increased industrial powers, but increase of moral force ; not only improvement in commercial agencies, but improvement in social and moral condition. It called for unusual faith one hundred years ago to prophesygood. things for this land. The best men had scarcely any clear and hopeful outlook for the future. But we have this most remarkable history behind us, through all of which we see the mighty march of agencies, which have not only leveled forests, and plowed prairies, and tunneled mountains, and built cities, and heaped up wealth, but have quite as well torn down abuses that cursed mankind, and have produced a happier social and better moral condition. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 125 But I am not to make a comparison of the past and present, only so far as the facts of the present, in their relation to the past, reveal what we may reasonably expect to see evolved in the future. This city of Hamilton will expand on every side, and presently be a city of 50,000 population ; our manufacturing industries will presently demand the work of ten-fold the number of hands now employed; beautiful parks will adorn our streets, and handsome residences will crown our surrounding hill-tops ; that in every respect, the material prosperity of this city will be all that can be desired for enriching her citizens. This same prosperity will be experienced by the whole land, and by all the sisterhood of nations. The future has wrapped up within its unopened leaves the beauty of hoped for things and the sweet fragrance of a better social condition for mankind. Our prophesy is guided by a considerstion of those forces, which operate with the authority of inviolable law in determining the events of the succeeding years. Hamilton is no city walled in from the busy world about us ; nor is America a nation with doors closed to other continents. We enter the century with the channels of communication such as to bring all men, the world over, into such close contact, that each individual will be quickly affected by what occurs in any quarter of the globe. The railroad, the steamship, the telegraph, constitute the nerve-system of the world. Nothing hereafter can be done in a corner. Nothing in the coming years, will be too far away to escape detection. By this great nerve-system all humanity, all the races of men will be united in brotherhood. Before the sun of any day sets, the thought of one man will become the thought of all mankind ; the deed of one man will be scrutinized by all men the world over; the wheat-field on yonder hillside will as readily be baked into bread in a Chinese or English oven, as in an American ; the boy or girl graduating from the Hamilton High School will anticipate doing his life-work as a teacher in a Japanese College or a Syrian School, or an African Station, as in his own native state. Reciprocity is the great underlying fact of the world today, and the coming century will experience the larger unfolding of the forces, industrial and social which have now appeared. No person weighing the significance of the facts detailed in these historical addresses, and estimating the potency of the coming allegorical procession on the morrow, can doubt whether the sun is rising or setting upon our world. Every year is decking itself with greater glory; every year is illuminating the continents with new visions of hope ; every year is realizing new experiences of freedom, and justice and fraternity. A profound observer of current events recently deceased, seeing the clear evidences of human advancement, and the great strides of progress crowding on with rapid footsteps, was accustomed to say, that he would like to live a hundred years longer, that he might participate in the glories of the grand advancing era. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 127 It is not altogether strange, however, that there should be prophets of evil among us. They have detected the dark spots on the face of the sun, and with microscopic vision they persist in confirming their view to them blind to the larger fact of the warmth and light of the glorious luminary. There are dangers ahead of us, which we do clearly forsee. There is bitter inequality of social condition ; there are grinding despotisms, there are evils and abuses perpetuated by evil and strong hands. Inventions multiply, science implores, art is cultivated, the means of comfort increased, philanthropy extends a well-filled hand elemasanary institutions open wide doors, religion offers a comforting hope ; but with it all, want remains, muscles and brains are taxed to their utmost for daily bread, temptation lurks in a thousand places, spacious forms of evil seek to undermine whatever is good. Many shadows and much poisonous malaria linger on the low lands, yet we do not behold the sun of righteousness and equity rising high above the horizon, moving on toward the zenith, filling the future full to overflowing with the promise of glory to purify and sweeten all the habitations of man. Our poets see this with clear eyes, when they sing of the "world and all the wonders that shall be." We see it in the reasonable signs of the times, as well as the prophecies of our God. In spite, therefore, of all the specters of darkness, which still walk our earth, we make no apology for our gladness and our hopefulness on this centennial occasion. A broad and judicious generalization leaves no room for pessimism. We do not fail to see that our civilization, with all its achievements, has still its under side of terrible menace, just as in ancient Athens, this cave of Tunes was underneath the rock on whose top sat the Court of the Areopagus. But we do not forsee ruin ; we do not fear disaster. We do see trouble, and that much must be done in the coming years. The furies will not be kept chained in their cave and exterminated without vast effort. Heavy duties and arderous toils lie in the future. Stern battles will be fought, and they will be fought successfully. Over every storm cloud we see the bright bow of promise irritating the coming years. Let us specify a little. War with its horrors, is one of the dreadest afflictions of earth. Are wars to continue? We commemorate the locating of a fort—Fort Hamilton, one hundred years ago. That was a time of general war. Europe was in convulsions. American settlements were in constant dread of warlike Indians. Soldiers and forts were a necessity. But as the last century has seen a radical change in the character of war from preceding centuries, so will the coming century see wars pass away altogether. Formerly wars were for mere aggrandisement, or for the succession of reigning dynasties. With the present century cane wars for human rights, marking advance of popular liberty. Revolution has filled the air. Despotisms gave way to written constitutions. In many cases .monarchies have given way to republics. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 129 National sentiment causes the greatest despotisms to bow to its will, and kings plead at the bar of public opinion. These results have been achieved through war, which, while thus a necessary evil, has been an agency of wildest good. And now war is passing away. But you will say that the heart of Europe is one vast military encampment, and that America is different only because the Atlantic ocean rolls between us and the politics of the Eastern hemisphere. Does not this contradict our prophesy ? The cry from the heart of the nations is Disarm. And they will disarm ; and that before long. This is our prophesy. For a little while longer, armaments may be increased ; and the enormous waste be borne. There may be the mighty meeting of armies. The earth will tremble under the shock. Then there will be a settlement. Then, at farthest, these armies of the earth will disband; and the Eastern Hemisphere will be even as our beloved America. The curtain will drop upon that act in the drama of human progress; and the final scene will open, that of arbitration of differences among nations. This is the profound sentiment with which we enter the coming century. The future will show that permanent relations of confidence, respect and friendship can subsist between nations with only an international court of arbitration. This is the promise of the World's Redeemer; and the Prince of Peace will ascend His throne. The fort will give place to the peaceful city ; its armament of spear and sword will be removed to give place to the factory for the plow and pruning knife. "Inequality of social condition," is a familiar term, which expresses one of the bitterest facts of human experience, as well as one of the most troublesome problems of thoughtful men. Classes of men are doubtless wider apart today than they were a hundred years ago. Is the unequal condition increasing? Will it be greater in the future? No; the chasm will be bridged. The peculiar development of the century in material industries have made this a peculiar experience. The present type of our civilization is intensely materialistic. The century was cradeled amidst inventions and discoveries, whose special work has been to subjugate nature. New sciences, newly applied from day to day, have made land and sea vastly move productive than they were. Machinery has multiplied the working force of the world a thousand fold. The result is rapid and vast accumulation of wealth, .)f whose general benefits all men partake in an improved social condition, but which is not distributed in an equitable way. But we do not fear for the future social condition. Much patience will be required from all classes. A way out will be found. It offends the first sense of human brotherhood, that children of the same family should be so wide apart in their fortunes. The chasm between social conditions will never be completely filled. We need look for no realization of any such communistic dream. But the chasm will be bridged. Labor and capital THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 131 will come to understand better their interdependence, and public sentiment will see that justice and equity prevail. They will meet as Esau and Jacob .amid the mountains of Gilead to be reconciled. Each may be selfish, but they will not destroy each other, and they will remember that they are brothers. Already we see signs of the improving condition. The tide has changed. We enter the century with a diminishing inequality in social condition ; and, best of all, with those intelligent forces at work which promise most certainly to make the future a time of plenty and of comfort for all. Our hope for the future is not lessened, when we consider the educational methods and institutions of the coming years. Our public schools are our pride. These guard us from that illiteracy, which is the necessary dependence of superstition and despotism. An immeasurable mass of ignorance and superstition pours upon us from other lands and we sometimes grow faint hearted for our future ; but we thank God and take courage in the fact, that "children of all nations of the earth go into our common schools, and come out Americans." We know there are threats against our public school system. We are not blind to the fact, that it is assailed by insideous methods and political deals. But our common school system was never dearer to the heart of the people than now ; and under no ignorant plea, that children must work at home or in the shop, and under no mask of devotion to liberty of conscience will we allow these nurseries of liberty and enlightenment to be tampered with. There are dangers, which call for the utmost watchfulness, and that we guard with sleepless vigilance the common schools, the school funds, and the constitutional rights of all children in America, whether native or foreign born, to enjoy the advantages, and the American training, of these schools. The future must see our common schools not only open, but actually patronized by all our children, under the most effective compulsary laws. Enlightened, liberty-loving American Citizens must be trained in American Schools. Herein, more than multiplying our industrial agencies, lies the security of our future advancement, and the character of the nation. All children, who aspire to the high privileges and duties of American citizenship must be required by American law to receive the training of her public schools. But more important than all else is the question concerning our future moral and religious condition. In the presence of prevalent immoralities and infidelity, some despair of the future. We refuse to sympathise with that sentiment. The signs of the times are altogether favorable. History has no record of a day, when the moral and religious facts have been so glorious as they are today, and when the signs have been so hopeful for the future. No one can wisely discuss this subject at the close of the nineteenth century, as it was generally discussed in former years. Every movement now in morals, as well as in mechanics, has a world wide significance. No THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 133 one lives to day where his father did, and no one thinks along the lines his father did. The stroke of a piston, a new thing in history, has brought about fraternity, and diffuse knowledge, liberty and religion over all the earth. The Englishman resides in India; the American makes his home in China; the Chinaman dwells in America; the German settles down in Africa; and they all transplant new ideas in their new homes. Old walls are broken down. Until this present century, there was little travel. Men lived in isolated communities. A river or a mountain secluded tribes and nations. A foreignor was a sight for a gaping crowd; a resident of the next town was unknown ; a stranger was not only suspected, lie was an enemy. Under such conditions, a nation necessarily had one settled order of thought; one marked, unchanged moral character for generations; one established religious dogma for centuries. Every community had its homogenous life, socially and morally. Mark now the changed conditions. Everybody has traveled; everybody has crossed the seas and the continents. The term ''stranger" can almost be marked obsolete in our dictionaries. Every bodies opinions, both in the occident and the orient, are published, translated, read. Awakening of intellect is the result ; a questioning of traditional beliefs follows ; change reconstruction is the outcome. The furnace waxes hot; from the seething mass, we behold poisonous vapors exhaling and leaving the earth forever; and in the residuum we behold the refined gold of purified moral condition and religious faith;—not alone for America and Europe, but for Asia and Africa and the Islands of the sea. As in the vision of the Christian Apostle, we behold the city of God, adorned as a bride, in beautiful garments, descending upon the earth. It is no "far-off, divine event ; " it is near. If ever there were a happy, pure condition of life upon this earth since Eden's gate closed, it was at most in some little Acadian valley, secluded from the great warring, illiterate, brutal world. It requires no fanciful dreamer to see, that the world is already within the dawn of an improved moral condition and true religious faith. It requires no inspiration of prophet to foretell this. The spiritual forces at work demonstrate it,—these spiritual forces of the Christian religion, which now walk abroad among the habitations of all mankind. The past has seen no golden era; the future will see it. The scale has changed. We move into the century with our statesmen and merchants recognizing that the Christian religion is the best aid of secular improvement, and the surest hope of world wide prosperity. In the face of appalling difficulties, the Christian Church has not only maintained herself, but increased in a ratio nearly six fold faster than the increase of our population. Where there was but one member of the Evangelical church a hundred years ago to each twenty-eight of population, now there is one to each five; where there were divided denominations with bitter antagonisms, now there is true fraternity of spirit, and THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 135 growing unity in organic life; while the scriptures are being planted on former foundations as the very inspired revelation of God, there is revision of creeds, bringing the church's statement of doctrinal beliefs into accord with her best spirit and life of missionaries have been sent into the pagan world, and tens of millions of dollars have been voluntarily contributed for this work, and numbers and amounts are greater this year than ever. The future means increase. Applied christianity is what the world waits for, and. the century before us will feel its increased spiritual power. We fear naught. A spreading christianity with its multiplied moral and philanthropic agencies, will make all mankind sharers with us of the blessings of the Divine Father, through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Temporary reactions will not stop the mighty current. Progress, materially, socially, morally, religiously, will be vastly accelerated. Opulent cities will fill our land; agriculture will cover our continent, and with us countries now barbarous will resound wirh all the industry of enriching work. while school house and church these hopes of freemen, will fill all lands. The Lord our God shall be with us, and all nations shall be blessed in him ; blessed be His glorious name forever,—the whole earth shall be filled with His glory. ADDRESS BY JUDGE JOSEPH COX. Mr. Chairman Ladies and Gentlemen: FIFTY-SIX years ago one of Ohio's most distinguished sons, Hon. Thomas Ewing, being invited by a committee of the native citizens of Hamilton to attend a celebration of the anniversary of Fort Hamilton, replied, "I like the spirit evinced by the native sons of the West in meeting together to celebrate, and thus keep in remembrance those days which form important epochs in the history of our native land. "ll is time we should feel we are a people and have a history." I would repeat this today with all the emphasis that the additional fifty-six years of our national history has added to our national glory, in that we have forty-seven states now, instead of only twenty-six then, our population increased from fifteen millions to more than. sixty -four millions, and our possessors cover a continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, more than one-eighth the distance round the world. Yes, we are a people today, known and honored among all the nations of the earth, and we have a history of which any nation would be proud one of which this spot forms an interesting part. A history we should THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 137 teach to our children, as the Jews of Old were commanded by God in regard to their great deliverence from the power of Pharaoh, "when we sit in our houses, when we walk by the way,, when we lie down, and when we rise up, that the generation to come may know them. The building of Fort Hamilton a century ago, was no ordinary or trifling matter. It was a necessary factor in the struggle of man to maintain the right to govern himself and to shape his own destiny; a struggle reaching back beyond that of the English people to wrest the principles of Magua Charta from King John at Runnymede. Asserted by our Pilgrim Fathers at Leyden and Plymouth Rock; died for: at Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill; most emphatically proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, and reasserted amid the blood and fire of battle for seven long years thereafter, until an apparent surrender was made by the British at Yorktown, and our nation became Independent. I say an apparent surrender by the British government. For although that government, then and there, ceased to fight us by her acknowledged armed forces, and recognized our independence, she yet covertly by means of ammunition and arms furnished by rhe traders, and Canadian and Indian allies, kept up all the horrors of war with Indian atrocities, until the treaty of 1795, made by Gen. Anthony Wayne with the Indians at Greenville, after he had completely broken their power by the victory of Fallen Timbers, August 20, 1794 ; and the war was until then, merely a continuation of the war of Independence. The part taken by the different Indian tribes in various wars, as coadjutors of the French and English, forms one of the most interesting and at the same time most melancholy and tragical episodes in our history. Anxious to preserve the title and possession of the land, each tribe united and fought with the forces of that country which promised the most favorable advantages to them, and seemed for the time being, most able to fulfill its promises. In the war between the French and English beginning in 1755, when the English had control of of the eastern part of the continent and claimed that bordering on the Ohio and Allegheny river, the powerful six nations leaving their homes in New York and other eastern parts of the land, sided with the English, while the numerous other tribes in the Northwest took part with the French and it was they who contributed to the defeat of Braddock's forces and so long kept the supremacy in the Allegheny country and held Fort DuQuesne afterward Fort Pitt. But the peace of Paris in 1793 ended the war then between England and France, France ceding her entire dominions in North America to England. And now it was supposed that there would be peace with the Indians, but this was followed by a year of most bloody war and the destruction of her frontier posts. A treaty of peace was at length effected with the Indians, but this was violated by them, and they continued their depredations on the western parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia; and so it con- THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON. O. - 139 tinned until 1775 when Great Britain determining to subjugate the Colonies and more effectually compel them to submit to her arbitrary and unjust laws, the colonies rosy in resistance. War ensued, and Great Britain by the influence of her traders, large donations and larger promises, engaged all the Indians of the Northwest on her side, to aid in devastating the frontiers. The Continental Congress by every means seeming feasible, endeavored to appease the Indian tribes and avert the threatened calamity, and at a treaty held with the Delaware tribes at Pittsburg in 1778, proposed that a State should be formed to be composed of the Delaware's and other tribes, and contracted when so formed, to admit them into the confederacy on equal terms. But this tender of co-nationality was far outweighed in their eyes, by the profuse promises and gifts of arms and trinkets by the British, and their hostility was continued toward the Americans until the peace of 1784 was agreed upon between the English and Americans. When the new government of the union was established, it claimed supremacy over the whole territory which before had been claimed by the French and British, except Canada. But this claim to that west of the Alleghenies was resisted by various tribes .of Indians who set up different claims to different parts of it. By treaty and purchase at Fort Stauwix in New York in 1784 between the United States represented by Arthur Lee, Richard Butler and Oliver Wolcott and the six nations with the Wyandots and Delawares, Indian title in Pennsylvania was extinguished. Afterwards in 1785, Mr. Lee together with George Rogers Clark made a treaty at Fort McIntosh ; the nations represented were the Wyandots, Delawares, Chippeways and Ottoways. By this treaty the boundary line between the United States and the Delawares and Wyandots was fixed, beginning at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River (near Cleveland) running up that river to the portage between that and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum, thence down that branch to the forks at the crossing above Fort Lawrence. Thence westwardly to the portage of the big .Miami, thence down the southwardly side of the Maumee river to its mouth, thence along the south shore of Lake Erie to the mouth of the Cuyahoga where it began ; saving and reserving to the United States six miles square at the mouth of the Maumee and the same at the portage of the Big Miami (near Fort Wayne, Indiana) the same at Sandusky, and two miles square on each side of the Rapids of the Sandusky and also the port of Detroit from the mouth of the River Racine six miles tip the south bank of the river, six miles northwest and six miles west until it strikes Lake St. Clair at the port of Michele Mackinack and twelve miles square above the lake. Thus giving to the Indian all right to settle and hunt on lands north of a boundary running from a line drawn from the Cuyahoga River to Sandusky, thee to the rapids of the Maumee, then west to Fort Wayne, then up the Maumee river. Then along the south margin of the lake to Cuyahoga River, reserving lands at the THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 141 mouth of the Sandusky and rapids of Sandusky, and all south of Mal being surrendered by the Indians to the United States. On the 31st of January 1776, another treaty was made at Fort Finney, on the Ohio River near the mouth of the Great Miami River, between George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler and Samuel H. Parsons, commissioners of the United States and the Delawares, Wyandots and Shawanees by which the Shawanees acknowledged the United States to be the sole and absolute sovereign of all the territory ceded to them by the treaty of Peace between them and the kings of Great Britain January 15, 1784. The Wabash Indians were not at this treaty growing out of a spirit of hostility among the savages fostered by the English subagents who were opposed to any treaty. Those Indians who had not come in to sign the treaty were not disposed to cease hostilities and Congress on the application of the Governor of Virginia at once sent two companies down to the falls of the Ohio to protect the inhabitants; and on the 30th of June authorized the raising of militia in Kentucky and the invasion of the country of the hostiles under command of a United States officer, and before winter a thousand men gathered at the falls under command of Gen. George Rogers Clark and marched to Vincennes on the Wabash. Here they remained inactive nine days waiting the arrival of provisions when becoming restive and losing confidence in the General whose mind seemed confined by some disability, they refused obedience to him and returned home. Subsequently another expedition under General Logan marched against the Shawnees who had violated the treaty, wasted their crops and burned their towns. Thus it will be seen that for years the United States had been continually engaged in making treaties with the Indians, only to be broken. A close examination of the history and title of the Indians to the Northwestern territory, I think will convince any unpredjudiced mind that none of them had any title or claim whatever to it, except such as they obtained it by the massacre of a weaker tribe which had no other titled than that of a squatter, a title which they were afraid to assert against a stronger and more warlike title, and so the whole extent of the territory was used as hunting and fishing grounds as by common consent, the only bond of union among them being when they united to resist the occupancy of the territory by the whites. The title of the United States was good without any treaty with the Indians. In the meantime other complications of a most interesting and important character had taken place. Spain had in 1780 asserted her determination to claim control of the Mississippi River, had attacked Fort St. Joseph and taken it and possession of the northwest in the name of her king. On the 15th THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 142 of February 1781, Congress instructed Mr. Jay the Secretary of Foreign Affairs at Madrid not to insist on the use of the Missippi River by America if a treaty could not be affected without giving it up, and through the year I-82 Spain backed by France, labored not only to induce the United States to give up the Mississippi River, but a great part of the west. In 1785 Don Diego Gardoqui as a representative of Spain appeared before Congress and Mr. Jay as Secretary of Foreign Affairs and was authorized to negotiate, and negotiations were commenced Mr. Jay had asked special instruction of Congress, as while he urged the great importance of a commercial treaty with Spain, yet he was strongly opposed to surrendering the navigation of the Mississippi River to her, and the Spanish Ambassador said Spain would never surrender the right to absolute control over it. Mr. Jay then proposed making a treaty for twenty-five or thirty years and during that time (without abandoning our claim,) yielding the use of the river to Spain below the boundary of the United States. This was bitterly opposed in Congress, but the opponents were overthrown and Mr. Jay authorized to continue the negotiations without insisting on the immediate right to the river. But Mr. Jay would not consent to surrendering our right exclaiming, "Poor as we are, yet I know we shall be rich; I would rather agree with Sham to buy at a just price the whole of her right to the Mississippi River, than sell a drop of its water. A neighbor might as well ask me to sell grey street door." Franklin wrote to say "Spain has taken four years to consider whether she will treat with us or not give her forty and let us in the meantime wind our own business." During these attempts at negotiations the wildest excitement pervaded the whole west. The people were determined that the right to navigate the Mississippi should never be surrendered to Spain or any other nation. Under the direction of Gen. Clark it was determined to garrison Vincennes; Spanish property was seized ; soldiers enrolled and steps taken to hold a peace council with all the Indian tribes. A circular addressed to Congress, embodying the views of the people and their determination was distributed. "It declared our situation is as bad as can be; therefore every exertion to retrieve our circumstances must be manly, eligible and just." We can raise twenty thousand troops this side of the Allegheny and Apalachean mountains, and the annual increase of them by emigrants from other parts, is from two to four thousand. We have taken all the goods belonging to the Spanish merchants of Port Vincennes and the Illinois, and determined they shall not trade up the river, provided they will not let us trade down it. Preparations are now making here (if necessary) to drive the Spanish from their settlements at the mouth of the Mississippi. In case we are not countenanced and succored by the United States (if we need it) THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 143 our allegiance will be thrown off, and some other power applied to. Great Britain stands ready with open arms to receive and support us. They have already offered to open their resources for our supplies. When once united to these relations, farewell, a long farewell to your boasted greatness." "The Province of Canada, and the inhabitants of these waters, will be able to conquer you." You are as ignorant of this country as Great Britain was of America. These are hints, which if rightly improved, may be of some service ; if not blame yourselves for it." On the 26th of April I787 Congress disavowed the taking possession of Vincennes and ordered the troops of the United States to disperse the unauthorized intruders and take possession. Kentucky and Virginia having passed strong resolutions against giving up the right to the Mississippi River, the people so bitterly opposing it and Jay refusing to make a treaty on that ground, no further steps were taken in that regard. But a treaty was subsequently made by Washington with Spain, by which the free navigation of the Mississippi was secured. Congress by resolution of September 16th, 1776 and August 12th 1780, had promised land bounties to the officers and soldiers of the Revoluionary array who should continue in the service until the close of the war, or until discharged by Congress. After peace had been declared in 1783, Gen. Rufus Putnam sent to President Washington a memorial signed by a large number of Revolutionary officers and soldiers, asking that their lands might be given to them out of the Northwest territory and suggested to Washington that they would prove the most useful settlers of that region. That as the Indians were yet very troublesome on the frontiers, it would be wise to have a line of fortifications extending from the Scioto River to the Lakes, and these manned by old and tried Revolutionary veterans would serve the double purp :)se of keeping the Indians in subjection, while they themselves would aid in opening tip the forest to cultivation, and thus induce further increase of population from the East to a more productive soil and climate. Washington in a message to Congress endorsed these views. But as Virginia and other states claimed to have some interest in the territory, Congress refused to do anything toward furthering the interest and wishes of the memorialists until these claims were relinquished. At length they were surrendered, the ordinance of 1787 adopted, providing that slavery should never exist in the territory nor in any state carved out of it. That morality and religion should form the foundation of the territory and states therein and that schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged, that the territory might be divided into six states, and providing for Legislative, Judicial and Executive officers to govern it. And now began in earnest the settling of the state. Forty eight officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary war who had served with honor during the THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 145 war, marched over the mountains, took flatboats on the Ohio River and on the 7th of April 1788, landed at Marietta and proceeded to build fortifications for their protection, and homes in which to live, and adopted rules for their goverment until suitable officers should arrive. As Governor of the new territory President Washington appointed Gen. Arthur St. Clair, a man in every way qualified for the position. Born at Thurso, in Carthness, Scotland in the year 1734, edncated at the University at Edinburgh, studying the science of medicine under the famous physician Dr. William Hunter of London, his tastes yet lead him to that of arms. He became an ensign in the British army and in I; 88 arrived at Amherst before Louisburg. There with Wolfe Moncton, Murray and Laurens he found his youthful ardor stirred to deeds of heroism, and for his part in the affair at Louisburg, a lieutenant's commission was issued to him and he assigned to the command of Gen. Wolfe who had been selected to reduce Quebec. On the 13th of September 1759, on the Plains of Abraham was decided the fate of the French nation in America and the thrilling history of that battle has embalmed in history, among the bravest of the brave, both the opposing leaders Wolfe and Moncton. In the fatal struggle on the Plain, Lieut. St. Clair seized the colors which had fallen from the hands of a dying soldier and bore them until the field was won by the British. St. Clair was in all the struggles and privations of the war until the French capitulated Sept. 8, 1760. He then obtained a furlough, came to Boston, married Miss Phoebe Bayard an accomplished lady who brought as her marriage portion $70,000 and this with his own savings made him a wealthy man. Resigning his commission in the army, he moved to the Lagonia Valley in western Pennsylvania where he had a large tract of land, erected a fine residence and a grist mill, the first one in the valley, and entered actively into the duties of civil life in opening up and improving that most beautiful valley. He was appointed surveyor for the district of Cumberland, Justice of the Court of Quarter Sessions, and Common Pleas member of the Governors Council. When the differences arose between Great Britain and the Colonists, he at once espoused the side of the latter. Congress issue to him the commission of Colonel, and President Hancock addressed him a letter pressing him to come at once to Philadelphia and take his command. Although surrounded as lie was with affluence, a rising and happy family, he at once bade them adieu and obeyed the summons, saying: "I hold that no man has a right to withhold his services when his country needs them. Be the sacrifice ever so great it must be yielded up on the altar of his country." It would be interesting, had I time to follow in detail the various events in the life of St. Clair. He was in nearly all the battles of the Revolution side by side with Washington, rose rapidly to the post of Major General for meritorious services, honored by the warm friendship of Washington which 146 - THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. he never lost; a friend and assistant of Lafayette, President of the Continental Congress. Handsome in form, dignified in bearing, he was a national leader winning all hearts. He was brave in battle and fertile in resources. His character is well illustrated by an incident. When our array was in the dead of winter at night pressing on the attack of Princeton, one of the officers rode up and informed him that the guns of his command could not be fired because their powder was all wet, and inquired of the General what he should do, "Push on and charge bayonets" was the ready response. By accepting the Governorship of the Northwestern territory he sacrificed his fortune, the comforts of his home and brilliant political prospects there. He arrived at Marietta on the 9th of July 1788 and organized the new territory in September. Judge John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, who had been a delegate in Congress and was now Chief Justice of that state made application to the Government in August 1787 for the purchase of a large body of lands lying at the mouth of the Big Miami, thence up the Ohio to the mouth of the Little Miami so as to include a million of acres, and after repeated negotiations supposing his contrast closed, he started for the new purchase in July 1788, with a train of fourteen four-horse wagons and sixty persons to seek locations. He cane over the Allegheny mountains and by way of Pittsburgh and Wheeling in flatboats, stopping a brief time at Marietta to confer with the inhabitants there and then came down the river to the mouth of the Little Miami River and exploring the interior of the country afterwards settled at North Bend sixteen miles below Cincinnati. On the 28th of December 1788, Isreal Ludlow, Matthias Denman, Robert Patterson, Joel Williams and twenty-three others amid floating ice that covered the river from shore to shore landed at Cincinnati and proceeded to lay out and survey the town. In the meantime the Indians became very restive under the now apparent determination of the whites to make large and permanent settlements in the territory. So far as history records there had not at any time been in Ohio or Kentucky before that any large or permanent settlements of Indians below a line drawn from Erie, Pennsylvania through where Cleveland now is, through Sandusky, and below Fort Meigs on the Maumee River to Fort Wayne and then to Chicago. The country below was a hunting and fishing ground, claimed by several tribes as I have before said, but each fearing to risk the vengeance of the others by taking exclusive possession. The small settlements on the Miamis, Scioto and Muskingum rivers and at Wapokonetta, Laramie and other points seemed more like sentinel posts, to watch the encoachments of other tribes or that of the whites. The chief headquarters of the various tribes were along the lakes and especially so after the treaty of 1788 restricting them within their boundaries. THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 147 At the junction of the Auglaize and St. Mary's now Defiance, they had a large village; seven large villages between that and the neighborhood of Fort Wayne the Capital, where was the Great Miami villages at the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph Rivers. Their lines of fortification were established at every important point, and these were their permanent habitations, drawing supplies of ammunition and other necessaries from the St. Lawrence River at Quebeck or Montreal, and from the French or English as each had control. Thence they sallied East, South and West down the various streams, and by portages across the land from one river to another down the various streams leading to the Ohio and Mississippi River, when going on the expeditions of war or the chase, and thither as to a citadel they returned bringing back the trophies of the war or the chase. From these strong holds they sent out predatory bands to attack all the settlements in Ohio, and to prevent its permanent occupancy by the whites. To meet these attacks and keep the Indians in subjection, it was determined by the general Government to establish a fort at the best and most convenient point on the Ohio River, as a basis of supply of military aid. The site was selected in 1789 by Capt Strong, Lieut. Kingsbury, Ensign Hartshorn, Capt. Ferguson and Major Doughty, who came down from Fort Harmer with seventy men to clear the ground and erect the Fort. The site selected was opposite the mouth of the Licking at what now is the territory in Cincinnati bounded by Broadway and Ludlow Streets, and Third and Fourth Streets. Gen. St. Clair arrived Jan. 2, 1790, and named it Fort Washington, and thenceforth for a number of Years it was the headquarters of the United States Army in the West, and from it all military expeditions started. During this year, the Indians seemed bent on annihilating every settlement by torch, tomahawk and scalping knife. All efforts at peace or reconciliation appeared useless and the government determined to send a force into their stronghold at Fort Wayne to inflict severe chastisement on them, Gen. Harmer, a brave and meritorious officer was sent with 320 regular troops from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and 1133 drafted militia from Pennsylvania and Kentucky. He proceeded on his toilsome journey and on the 30th of September, 1790, arrived at the Indian towns on the Maumee River, near Fort Wayne and destroyed a number of villages and laid waste their corn fields. On returning he was attacked by a large number of Indians firing from their ambush, and compelled to retreat to Fort Washington, after having lost a large number of men. This has been called in history "Harmers Defeat," but General William H. Harrison, after fully examining the evidence, declares it was not a defeat, but that Harmer was a brave and patriotic officer and had completely accomplished the purpose for which he went and that he made so brave a defense that the Indians had nothing to boast of, inasmuch as they made no effort to attack or even to harass the army in its return to Fort Washington. Gen. Harmer had in the Revolutionary war acquired the confidence in THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O. - 149 a very high degree not only of Washington, but of Wayne and Mifflin and an exaggerated account of his defeat was the cause of his having been suspended from his command by Gen. St. Clair and leaving for Philadelphia. The account of this defeat as it was called, struck terror to all the territory, it revived the old cry that "it had become a slaughter house." The Government became alive to the real danger and determined to send Colonel Thomas Proctor as messenger to the western Indians with offers of peace and to be accompanied by some of the Iroquois chiefs favorable to America; and also to organize an army in the west to strike the Wea, Miami and Shawnee towns, in case the peace message failed. His efforts did fail. He had obtained the consent of a number of Iroquois chiefs to go with him, provided a passage could be had by water; but the British commander at Niagara would not allow an English vessel to be hired to convey the Ambassador tip Lake Erie, and as no other could be obtained the matter failed. To show the feeling of Col. Gordon the British commander, he wrote a letter to Capt. Brant, the mohawk chief, saying the American states "wish to impress the Indians with their own consequence and of the little influence they would willingly believe we possess. Had they requested the British government to bring about; peace the measure would have been fully accomplished long before this. Yes they would have had such a peace as the "Lion maketh with the Lamb." On the 4th of March, 1791, under an act of Congress, President Washington appointed Gen. Arthur St. Clair, Major General of all the troops to be employed on the frontiers, with directions from Gen. Knox, Secretary of War, to march to the frontiers Country, and endeavor to effect a just, liberal and lasting peace with all the tribes, but failing in this to use such coercive means as he saw proper and had the means of using, and he was authorized to establish such posts to communicate with Fort Washington, on the Ohio as he might judge proper. At the same time an expedition was ordered to be made by Gen. Charles Scott of Kentucky, against the Indians on the Wabash. Gen. St. Clair began to organize his forces. All necessary material of men, horses and ammunition were being received at Pittsburgh with intention to be ready to march by the Fourth of July. Gen. St. Clair arrived at Fort Washington on the 15th of May, and found that the entire troops of the United States in the West numbered only two hundred and sixty-four privates and officers. This was doubled by the middle of July. Gen. Richard Butler was appointed second in command, and was employed in raising recruits, but there was no money to pay them, nor to provide provisions. Everything in the Quarter-Masters department was deficient in quanity and quality, the powder poor or injured, the arms and accouterments out of repair, and no tools to repair them. The troops from Pittsburgh were detained upon the River and gathered slowly in detach-