(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) 50 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO. CHAPTER VII. THE MIAMESE. I hear the tread of pioneers, Of nations yet to be ; The first low wash of waves, where soon Shall roll a human sea. The elements of empire here Are plastic yet and warm, And the chaos of a mighty world Is founding into form. —J. G. WHITTIER. "THE Miamese (so we call ourselves)," wrote Symmes to Dayton in 1789. They were the noble men and women of the earliest Miami immigration. Very fortunate was the Purchase, from the beginning, in the character of its settlers. The general expression of those who met them personally, or have known them as represented in their descendants, concurs with the testimony of Mr. F. W. Miller, in his valuable work on Cincinnati's Beginnings: Whoever traces his lineage up to the early emigrants to the Miami Purchase comes of a stock which may be extolled on grounds that will bear scrutiny. Of course, those who were the first to seek homes in this section of the country, while yet in its primitive condition, were not so self-sacrificing as to suppose they were coming to a field which was likely to prove ungrateful to the laborer's toil. On the contrary, the idea was universally entertained that the field was one of great p10mise. Still, the promise was not of a nature to attract, to any considerable extent, a kind of adventurers who abound in some of our new settlements nowadays—people who come merely with a view of making a sudden impact on some oleaginous deposit, and, in the pursuit of their object, are usually more or less affected with an apprehension of contingencies which may render an expeditious change of their location desirable or necessary within a brief period, and such like carpet-baggers of the worst description. The early emigrant hither sought here a permanent abode, looking forward to a time when he might expect to repose in peace and plenty under his own vine and fig-tree, yet well aware that there was a great preliminary work to be performed—the work of reclaiming a wilderness , and naturally a goodly portion of the first-comers were such as came with characters and capacities adapted to the task which they saw before them. Moreover, those who projected and managed the commencement of the civilizing process in this quarter were persons who could have given, as well as any Sir Wiseacre, the answer to the question, "What constitutes a State?" The late E. D. Mansfield, in his Life of his brother-in-law, Dr. Daniel Drake, published in 1855, gives yet more glowing and eloquent testimony to the valor and virtues of the Ohio pioneers: The settlement of the Ohio valley was attended by many circumstances which gave it peculiar interest. Its beginning was the first fruit of the Revolution. Its growth has been more rapid than that of any modern colony. In a period of little more than half a century, its strength and magnitude exceed the limits of many distinguished nations. Such results could not have been produced without efficient causes. It is not enough to account for them by referring to a mild climate, fertile soil, flowing rivers, or even good government. These are important. But a more direct one is found in the character and labors of its early citizens ; for in man, at least, consists the life and glory of every State. This is strikingly true of the States and institutions which have gone up on the banks of the Ohio. The first settlers had no such doubtful origin as the fabled Romulus, and imbibed no such savage spirit as he received from the sucklings of a wolf. They were civilized—derived from a race historically bold and energetic ; had naturally received an elementary, and in some instances a superior, education ; and were bred to free thought and brave actions in the great and memorable school of the American Revolution. If not actors, they were the children of those who were actors in its dangers and sufferings. These settlers came to a country magnificent in extent and opulent in all the wealth of nature. But it was nature in her ruggedness. All was wild and savage. The wilderness before them presented only a field of battle or of labor. The Indian must be subdued, the mighty forest leveled, the soil in its wide extent upturned, and from every quarter of the globe must be transplanted the seeds, the plants, and all the contrivances o life which, in other lands, had required ages to obtain. In the midst of these physical necessities and of that p10gress which consists in conquest and culture, there were other and higher works to be performed. Social institutions must be founded, laws must be adapted to the new society, schools established, churches built up, science cultivated, and, as the structure of the State arose upon these solid columns, it must receive the finish of the fine arts and the polish of letters. The largest part of this mighty fabric was the work of the first settlers on the Ohio—a work accomplished within the period of time allotted by Providence to the life of man. If, in after ages, history shall seek a suitable acknowledgment of their merits, it will be found in the simple record that their characters and labors were equal to the task they had to perform. Theirs was a noble work, nobly done. It is true that the lives of these men were attended by all the common motives and common passions of human nature ; but these motives and passions were humbled bv the greatness of the result, and even common pursuits rendered interesting by the air of wildness and adventure which is found in all the paths of the pioneer. There were among them, too, men of great strength and intellect, of acute powers, and of a freshness and ,originality of genius which we seek in vain among the members of conventional society. These men were as varied in their characters and pursuits as the parts they had to perform in the great action before them. Some were soldiers in the long battle against the Indians ; some were huntsmen, like Boone and Kenton, thirsting for fresh adventures ; some were plain farmers, who came with wives and children, sharing fully in their toils and dangers ; some lawvers and jurists, who early participated in council and legislation ; and with them all, the doctor, the clergyman, and even the schoolmaster, was found in the earliest settlements. In a few years others came, whose names will long be remembered in any true account (if any such shall ever be written) of the science and literature of America. They gave to the strong but rude body of society here its earliest culture, in a higher knowledge and purer spirit. THE ELEMENTS. It was a hopeful mixture of elements and stocks in this part of the valley of the Ohio. Various States and nationalities had their representatives here, and some of the "crosses" of blood were fortunate for the history of their succeeding generations. New Jersey, at first and later, contributed such representative men as Judges Symmes and Burnet; New England appeared by her distinguished son, Jared Mansfield, and by others before and after him; Pennsylvania sent citizens of the mental and moral stature of Jeremiah Morrow, Judge Dunlavy, and Major Stites; the Old Dominion had worthy sons among the pioneers in the persons of William H. Harrison, William McMillan, and others; while Kentucky spared to the rising young empire beyond its borders a few noted and useful citizens like Colonel Robert Patterson, one of the original proprietors of Cincinnati for a time, and later and more permanently, the Rev. James Kemper, one of the founders of Lane seminary. In the one settlement of Columbia, among its founders or very early settlers were not only Stites and Dunlavy, but the Rev. John Smith, afterwards United States Senator, Colonels Spencer and Brown, Judges Goforth and Foster, Majors Kibby and Gam, Captain Flinn, Messrs. Jacob White. and John Reiley, and others equally worthy of mention—all of them men of energy and enterprise, and most of whom were then or subsequently distinguished. The letters interchanged by Symmes and his associates of the East Jersey Company show that many people of the best class, as Senator Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, the Rev. Dr. David Jones, of Pennsylvania, and others, were inquiring with a view to purchase or settlement in the new country. Those who actually did so, as the HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 51 event has proved, were the very sort of persons, in the words of Judge Symmes himself, already quoted, "to reclaim from savage men and beasts a country that may one day prove the brightest jewel in the regalia of the nation." In much of the material of the succeeding immigration the purchase was equally fortunate. Dr. Drake, a careful and conscientious writer, was able to say in 1815: "The people of the Miami country may in particular be characterized as industrious, frugal, temperate, patriotic, and religious; with as much intelligence as, and more enterprise than, the families from which they were detached." Such were the "Miamese," the pioneers of one of the grandest armies the earth ever knew, an army whose hosts are still sweeping irresistibly op, and which now, after more than ninety years, has hardly yet fully occupied the country it has won. It was the army of peace and civilization, that came, not to conquer an enemy with blood and carnage and ruin, but to subdue a wilderness by patient toil, to make the wild valleys and hills to blossom as the rose, to sweep away the forest, till the prairie's pregnant soil, make fertile fields, and hew out homes, which were to become the abodes of happiness and plenty: The pioneers were the valiant vanguard of such an army as this. They came not, as has already been suggested, to enjoy a life of lotus-eating and ease. They could admire the pristine beauty of. the scenes that unveiled before them; they could enjoy the vernal green of the great forest and the loveliness of all the works of nature spread so lavishly and beautifully about them ; they could look forward with happy anticipation to the life they were to lead in hte midst of all this beauty, and to the rich reward that would be theirs from the cultivation of the mellow, fertile soil—but they had, first of all things, to work. The seed-time comes before the harvest, in other fields than that of agriculture. THE DANGERS to which these pioneers were exposed were serious. The Indians, notwithstanding their peaceful attitude at first, could not be trusted, and, as will be detailed in the next chapter, often visited the early settlements with devastation and slaughter. The larger wild beasts were often a cause of dread, and the smaller were a source of constant and great annoyance. Added to these was the liability, always great in a new country, to sickness. In the midst of all the loveliness of the surroundings, there was a sense of loneliness that could not be dispelled; and this was a far greater trial to the men and women who first dwelt in the western country than is generally imagined. The deep-seated, constantly recurring feeling of isolation made many stout hearts turn back to the older settlements and to the abodes of comfort, the companionship and sociability they had left in the Atlantic States or in the Old World. PRIMITIVE POVERTY. Many of the Miamese arrived at their new homes with but little with which to begin the battle of life. They had brave hearts and strong arms, however; and they were possessed of invincible determination. Frequently they came on alone, to make a beginning; and, this having been accomplished, would return to their old homes for their wives and children. It was hard work, too, getting into the country. On this side of Redstone and Wheeling there were for a long time no roads westward, and the flat- or keel-boats used in floating down the Ohio Were so crowded with wagons, horses, cows, pigs, and other live stock, with provisions, and with the emigrant's "plunder," that there was scarcely room for a human being to sit, stand, or sleep. There was much inevitable exposure to the weather and many dangers from ice, snags, and other perils of the stream. THE BEGINNINGS. The first thing to be done, after a temporary shelter from the rain or snow had been provided, was to prepare a little spot of ground for some crop, usually corn. This was done by gir.dling the trees, clearing away the underbrush, if there chanced' to be any, and sweeping the surface with fire. Ten, fifteen, twenty, or even thirty acres of land, by a vigorous arm, might thus be prepared and planted the first season. In autumn the crop would be gathered carefully and garnered with the least possible waste, for it was the food supply of the pioneer and his family, and life itself depended, in part, upon its preservation. Their table was still largely furnished, however, from the products of the chase, and supplies of the minor articles of food, of salt, etc., were often only to be obtained at a distance. In this respect the settlers in the southern part of the Purchase were more favored than those in the interior, since merchants were in all their towns almost from the beginning, and with stocks pretty well supplied. By January, 1796, Judge Symmes wrote, "we have twenty or more merchants in Cincinnati." At first there was much difficulty in getting grain ground, as it had to be done often at a great distance, and in a clumsy and rude way by floating mills, whose wheels were turned by the current of a stream or by horse-power. Some had hominy hand-mills at home, or grated the grain or pounded it into the semblance of meal or flour with an extemporized pestle. In default of cultivated breadstuffs, as sometimes happened, certain roots of wild grasses and plants served for food. This was particularly true of the beargrass, which grew abundantly on the Turkey bottom and elsewhere in similar places. Its bulbous roots were gathered by the women, washed, dried on smooth boards, and pounded into a kind of flour, from which bread and other preparations were made. Many families at Columbia, at one time of scarcity, lived on this food. Sometimes even this was wanting. One person, who was a boy in the first days of Columbia, long afterward averred that he had subsisted for three days together upon nothing more than a pint of parched corn. Crops were liable to be damaged or destroyed, if near a stream, by its overflow; and sometimes serious inconvenience to the settler and his family resulted. It was hard to keep one's horses, and most other portable property, from being stolen by the Indians; and from this fact, as late as 1792, according to a note in one of Judge Symmes' letters, "more than half the inhabitants were obliged to raise 52 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO. their corn by the hoe, without the aid of ploughs," The redskins commonly refused, however, to meddle with the slow ox. While the first crop was growing, the settler busied himself with the building of his cabin, which must serve as shelter from the coming storms of winter and from the ravages of wild animals, and, possibly, as a place of refuge from the savage. If he was completely isolated from his fellows, his lot in this was apt to be hard, for without assistance he could construct only a poor sort of habitation. In such cases the cabin was generally made of light logs or poles, and was laid up roughly, only to answer the temporary purpose of shelter, until others had come into the neighborhood, by whose help a more solid structure could be built. In the Miami country, however, as has been observed, the plan at first was to gather in small clusters of population at fortified stations, where sufficient help was always available. Assistance was readily given one pioneer by others, whether near or far removed, within a radius of many miles. The usual plan of erecting a log cabin was through such union of labor. The site of a cabin home was generally selected with reference to a good water supply, often by a stream or never-failing spring, or, if such could not be found, it was not uncommon first to dig a well. When the cabin was to be built, the few neighbors gathered- at the site, and first cut down, within as close proximity as possible, a number of trees as nearly of the same size as could be found, but ranging from a foot to twenty inches in diameter. Logs were chopped from these, and rolled to a common centre. This work, and that of preparing the foundation, would consume the greater part of the day in most cases, and the entire labor would very likely occupy two or three days, and sometimes four. The logs were raised to their places with handspikes and skid-poles, and men standing at the corners notched them with axes as fast as they were laid in position. Soon the cabin would be built several logs high, and the work would become more difficult. The gables were formed by beveling the logs, and making them shorter and shorter as each additional one was laid in place. These logs in the gables were held in position by poles, which extended across the cabin from end to end, and served also as rafters, upon which to lay the rived clapboard or "shake" roof. The so-called "shakes" were three to six feet in length, split from oak or ash logs, and made as smooth and flat as possible. They were laid side by side, and other pieces of split stuff laid over the cracks so as to keep out the rain effectually. Upon these logs were laid to hold them in place, and these in turn were held by blocks of wood placed between them. The chimney was an important part of the building, and sometimes more difficult to construct, from the absence of suitable tools and material. In the river valleys, and wherever loose stone was accessible, neat stone chimneys were frequently built. Quite commonly the chimney was made of sticks, and laid up in a manner very similar to the walls of the cabin. It was, in nearly all cases, built outside of the cabin, and at its base a huge opening was cut through the wall to answer as a fireplace. The stakes in the chimney were held in place, and protected from fire by mortar, formed by kneading and working clay and straw. Flat stones were procured for back and jambs of the fireplace, and an opening was sawed or chopped in the logs on one side the cabin for a doorway. Pieces of hewed timber, three or four inches thick, were fastened on each side by wooden pins to the ends of the logs, and the door, if there were any, was fastened to one of these by wooden hinges. The door itself was apt to be a rude piece of woodwork. It was made of boards, rived from an oak log, and held together by heavy cross-pieces. There was a wooden latch upon the inside, raised by a string which passed through a gimlet-hole, and hung upon the outside. From this mode of construction arose the old and familiar hospitable saying, "You will find the latch-string always out." It was pulled in only at night, and the door was thus easily and simply fastened. Many of the pioneer cabins had no doors of this kind, and no protection for the entrance except such as a blanket or skin of some wild beast afforded. The beginners on the banks of the Ohio frequently enjoyed the luxury of heavy boat-planks and other sawed material obtained from the breaking up of the boats in which they came (a quite customary procedure), from which floors, doors, or roofs, and perhaps other parts of the cabin, were constructed. The window was a small opening, often devoid of anything resembling a sash, and seldom glazed. Greased paper was not infrequently used in lieu of the latter, but more usually some old garment constituted a curtain, which was the only protection at the window from sun, rain, or snow. The floor of the cabin was made of "puncheons"—pieces of timber split from trees about eighteen inches in diameter, and hewed tolerably smooth on the upper surface with a broadaxe. They were made half the length of the floor. Some of the cabins first erected in this part of the country had nothing but the earthen floor which Nature provided. At times they had cellars, which were simply small excavations for the storage of a few articles of food or, it may be, of cooking utensils. Access to the cellar was readily gained by lifting a loose puncheon. There was generally a small loft, used for various purposes, among others as the guest-chamber of the house. This was reached by a ladder, the sides of which were split pieces of sapling, put together, like everything else in the house, without nails. It is worthy of note that Judge Symmes, writing from North Bend New Year's day, 1790, some description of his new houses at that place, took pains to mention those that were "well-shingled with nails," and the "good stone chimney" and "sash-windows of glass" that several of them had. THE FURNITURE of the pioneer cabin was in many cases as simple and primitive as the cabin itself. A forked stick, set in the floor and supporting the poles, the other ends of which rested upon the logs at the end and side of the cabin, formed a bedstead. A common form of table was a split slab, supported by four rude legs, set in auger-holes. Three-legged stools were made in a similar simple man- HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 53 ner. Pegs, driven in auger-holes in the logs of the wall, supported shelves, and others displayed the limited wardrobe of the family not in use. A few other pegs, or perhaps a pair of deer's antlers, formed a rack where hung rifle and powder-horn, which no cabin was without. The cradle for the pioneer babe was more likely than not to be a bee-gum or a sugar-trough. Some who became prominent citizens of Cincinnati and other parts of the Purchase were rocked in sugar-troughs. These, and perhaps a few other simple articles brought from the old home, formed the furniture and equipment of many a pioneer cabin. The utensils for cooking and the dishes for table use were few. The best were of pewter, which the careful housewife of the olden time kept shining as brightly as the more pretentious plate of our latter-day fine houses. It was by no means uncommon that wooden vessels, either coppered or tinned, were used upon the table. Knives and forks were few, crockery scarce, and tinware by no means abundant. Food was simply cooked and served, but it was, in general, very excellent of its kind and wholesome in quality. The hunter kept the larder supplied with venison, bear meat, squirrels, wild turkeys, and many varieties of smaller game. Plain corn-bread, baked in a kettle, in the ashes, or upon a board in front of the great open fireplace, answered the purpose of all kinds of pastry. The wild fruits in their season were made use of, and afforded a pleasant variety. Sometimes a special effort was made to prepare a delicacy, as, for instance, when a woman experimented in mince-pies, by pounding wheat to make the flour fo rthe crust and using crab-apples for fruit. In the cabin-lofts was usually to be found a miscellaneous .collection that made up the pioneer's materia medica, the herb medicines and spices, catnip, sage, tansy, fennel, boneset, pennyroyal, and wormwood, each gathered in its season; and there was also store of nuts and strings of dried pumpkin, with bags of berries and fruit. THE HABITS of the Miamese were of a simplicity and purity in conformity with their surroundings and belongings. The men were engaged in the herculean labor, day after day, of enlarging the little patch of sunshine about their homes, cutting away the forest, burning off brush and debris, preparing the 'soil, planting, tending, harvesting, caring for the few animals which they brought with them or soon procured, and in hunting. THE FEMALE MIAMESE. While the men were engaged in the heavy labor of the field and forest or in following the deer or other game, their helpmates were busied with their household duties, providing for the day and for the winter coming on, cooking, making clothes, spinning, and weaving. They Were commonly well fitted, by nature and experience, to be consorts of the brave men who first came into the western wilderness. They were heroic in their endurance of hardship, privation, and loneliness. Their industry was well directed and unceasing. Woman's work, then, like man's, was performed under disadvantages since removed. She had not only the common household duties to perform, but many now committed to other hands. She not only made the clothing of the family, but also the fabric for it. The famous old occupation of spinning and weaving, with which woman's name has been associated throughout all history, and which the modern world knows little, except through the stories of the grandmother, which seems surrounded with a halo of romance as we look back to it through tradition and poetry, and which always conjures up visions of the graces and virtues of a generation gone—that was the chief industry of the pioneer women. Every cabin resounded with the softly whirring wheel, and many forest homes with the rhythmic thud of the loom. The pioneer woman, truly, answered the ancient description of King Lemuel in the Proverbs: "She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands: she layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." Almost every article of clothing not made of deerskin, as many a hunting shirt and pair of leggins was, and, indeed, about all the cloth to be found in some of the old cabins, was the product of her toil. She spun flax and wove linen and woolen for shirts and pantaloons, frocks, sheets and blankets. . Linen and wool, the "linsey-woolsey" of the primitive day, furnished most of the material for THE CLOTHING of the men and women, though some was obtained from the skins of wild beasts. Men commonly wore the hunting shirt, a kind of loose frock reaching half-way down the thighs, open before, and so wide as to lap over a foot or more upon the chest. This generally had a cape, which was often fringed with a raveled piece of cloth of a different color from that which composed the garment. The capacious bosom of the shirt often served as a pouch, in which could be carried the smaller articles that a hunter or woodsman needs. It was always worn belted, and was made of coarse linen, linsey, or buckskin, according to the taste or fancy of the weaver. In the belt was worn a hunting or "scalping knife," unhappily too ready at hand, as was sometimes proved at the cost of a human life, upon occasions of deadly quarrel. Breeches were made of heavier cloth or dressed deer-skin, and were often worn with leggings of the same material or some kind of leather, while the feet were frequently encased in moccasins after the Indian fashion, which were quickly and easily made, though they often needed mending. The buckskin breeches or leggings were very comfortable when dry, but seemed cold when wet, and were almost as stiff as wooden garments would be when next put on. Hats or caps were generally made of coonskin, wildcat, 'or other native fur. The women, when they could not procure "store duds," dressed in linsey petticoats, coarse shoes and stockings, and wore buckskin mittens or gloves, not for style, but when any protection was required for the hands. All of her wearing apparel, like that of the men, was made with a view to service and comfort, and was quite commonly of home manufacture throughout. Other and finer articles were worn sometimes, but they were brought from former homes or bought at the stores in the settlements along.the river, in the former case being 54 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO. often the relics handed down from parents to children. Jewelry was not common; but occasionally some ornament was displayed. PIONEER LITERATURE. In the cabins of the more cultivated pioneers were usually a few books—the Bible and a hymn-book, the Pilgrim's Progress, Baxter's Saint's Rest, Hervey's Meditations, Esop's Fables, Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, and the like. The long winter evenings were spent partly in poring over a few well-thumbed volumes by the light of the great log fire, and partly in curing and dressing skins, knitting, mending, and other employments. Hospitality was simple, unaffected, hearty, and unbounded. The latch-string was "always out" at nearly every cabin. WHISKEY was in common use, and was furnished on all occasions of sociability. It was brought in from Kentucky and the Monongahela country, and down the Ohio and Licking rivers. A few years later many of the settlers put up small stills, and made an article of corn whiskey that was not held in so high esteem, though used for ordinary drinking in large quantities. Nearly every settler had his barrel of it stored away. It was quite the universal drink at merry-makings, bees, house-warmings, and weddings, and was always set before the traveller who chanced to spend the night or take a meal at a pioneer cabin. In this the settler but followed the custom of other pioneer communities. SOCIETY. As settlements increased, the sense of loneliness and isolation was dispelled, the asperities of life were softened, its amenities multiplied, soda gatherings became more numerous and enjoayble, the log-rolling, harvesting, and husking bees for the men, and the apple-butter making and quilting parties for the women, furnished frequent occasions for social intercourse. The early settlers took much pride and pleasure in rifle-shooting, and, as they were accustomed to the use of the gun in the chase and relied upon it as a weapon of defence, they exhibited considerable skill. A wedding was the local event of chief importance in the sparsely settled new country. The young people had every inducement to marry, and generally did marry as soon as able to provide for themselves. When a marriage was to be celebrated, all the neighborhood turned out. It was customary to have the ceremony performed before dinner, and, in order to be on time, the groom and his attendants usually started from his father's house in the morning for that of the bride. All went on horseback, riding in single file along the narrow trails. Arriving at the cabin of the bride's parents, the ceremony would be performed, and after that dinner was served. This was a substantial backwoods feast of beef, pork, fowls, and deer or bear meat, with such vegetables as could be procured. The greatest hilarity prevailed during the meal. After it was over, dancing began, and was usually kept up till the next morning, though the newly made husband and we were, as a general thing, put to bed by the company in the most approved old fashion and with considerable formality, in the midst of the evening's rout. The tall young men, when they went on the floor to dance, had to take their places with care between the logs that supported the loft floor, or they were in danger of bumping their heads. The figures of the dances were three and four-handed reels, or square sets and jigs. The commencement was always a square four, which was followed by "jigging it off." The settlement of a young couple was thought to be thoroughly and generously made when the neighbors assembled and raised a cabin for them. AGRICULTURE. During all the early years of the settlements, varied with occasional pleasures and excitements, the great work of increasing the tillable ground went slowly on. The implements and tools were few, compared with what the farmer may command nowadays, and of a primitive kind; but the soil, that had long held in reserve the accumulated richness of centuries, produced splendid harvests, and the husbandman was well rewarded for his labor. The soil was warmer then than now, and the seasons earlier. The bottom lands, if not flooded by the freshets, were often as green by the first of March as fields of grain now are a month later. The wheat was pastured in the spring, to keep it from growing up so early and fast as to become lodged. The harvest came early, and the yield was often from thirty-five to forty or more bushels per acre. PIONEER MONEY. The first circulating medium in the new country was composed mainly of raccoon and other skins from the forest. Mr. John G. Olden says, in his entertaining Historical Sketches and Early Reminiscences: "A deer-skin was worth and represented a dollar; a fox-skin, one-third of a dollar; a coon-skin, one-fourth of a dollar;—and these passed almost as readily as the silver coin. The buffalo and bear-skins had a more uncertain value, and were less used as a medium of trade." Spanish dollars, very likely cut into quarters and eighth pieces, sometimes appeared, and in time constituted, with the smaller pieces of Mexican coinage, the greater part of the currency afloat. Smaller sums than twelve and a half cents were often paid or given in change in pins, needles, writing-paper, and other articles of little value. A Cincinnati merchant named Bartle brought in a barrel of copper coins to "inflate the currency" in 1794, but his fellow-merchants were so exasperated at his action that they almost mobbed him. These troops at Fort Washington were paid in Federal money, commonly bills of the old Bank of the United States; of which a three-dollar note was then the monthly pay of a private. The bills were usually called "oblongs," especially at the gaming tables, which many of the officers and soldiers frequented. The funds disbursed at Fort Washington made valuable additions to the currency of the lower Miami country, and greatly facilitated its commercial and mercantile growth and business operations there. PRICES. From some parts of the Purchase long journeys had to be made upon occasion, and very likely on foot, when HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 55 medicines or delicacies were required for the sick, or some indispensable article for the household or farm' was to be procured. The commonest goods at first commanded large prices, from the distance of the wholesale houses in the Eastern cities where they were purchased, and the cost of transportation. In parts of Ohio, if not in the Miami Purchase, in the early days coffee brought seventy-five cents to a dollar; salt five or six dollars 'a bushel of fifty pounds; and the plainest calico one dollar a yard. What was raised in the country, however, was cheap enough. Judge Symmes notes in August, 1791, that "provisions are extremely plenty; corn may be had at Columbia for two shillings cash per bushel; wild meat is still had with little difficulty; and hogs are increasing in number at a great rate, so that I expect any quantity of pork may be had next killing time at twenty-five shillings per hundred." A WAR-PERIOD. During the War of 1812 many of the pioneer husbands and fathers volunteered in the service of the United States, and others were drafted. Women and children were left alone in many an isolated log-cabin all through Ohio, and there was a long reign of unrest, anxiety, and terror. It was feared by all that the Indians might take advantage of the desertion of these homes by their natural defenders, and pillage and destroy them. The dread of robbery and murder filled many a mother's heart ; but happily the worst fears of this kind proved to be groundless, and this part of the country was spared any scenes of actual Indian violence during the war. After it ended, a greater feeling of security prevailed than ever before. A new motive was given to immigration, and the country more rapidly filled up. An ERA OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY was fairly begun. Progress of the best kind was slowly, surely made. The log houses became more numerous in the clearings; the forest shrank away before the woadman's axe; frame houses began to appear in many localities where" they were before unknown; the pioneers, assured of safety, laid better plans for the future, resorted to new industries, enlarged their possessions, and improved the means of cultivation. Stock was brought in greater numbers from Kentucky and the east. Every settler now had his horses, oxen, cattle, sheep, and hogs. More commodious structures about the farm took the place of the old ones. The double log cabin, of hewed logs, or a frame dwelling, took the place of the smaller one; log and frame barns were built for the protection of stock and the housing of the crops. Then society began more thoroughly to .organize itself; the school-house and the church appeared in all the rural communities; and the advancement was noticeable in a score of other ways. The work of the Miamese pioneers was mainly done. Their hardships and privations, so patiently and even cheerfully borne in the time of them, were now pleasantly remembered. The best had been made of what they had, and they had toiled with stout hearts to lay the foundations of the civilization that began to bloom about them. Industrious and frugal, simple in their tastes and pleasures, happy in an independence, however hardly gained, and looking forward hopefully to an old age of plenty and peace which should reward them for the toils of their earliest years, and a final rest from the struggle of many toilsome seasons, they were ready to join in the song which was pleasantly sung for them long after by the Buckeye poet, William D. Gallagher, dedicated to the descendants of Colonel Israel Ludlow, and entitled SIXTY YEARS AGO. A song of the early times out west and our green old forest home, Whose pleasant memories freshly yet across the bosom come! A song for the free and gladsome life in those early days we led, With a teeming soil beneath our feet and a smiling heaven o'erhead ! O, the waves of life danced merrily and had a joyous flow, In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago! The hunt, the shot, the glorious chase, the captured elk or deer! The camp, the big, bright fire, and then the rich and wholesome cheer; The sweet, sound sleep at dead of night by our camp-fire blazing high, Unbroken by the wolf's long howl and the panther springing by, O, merrily passed the time, in spite our wily Indian foe, In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago! We shunn'd not labor; when 'twas due, we wrought with right good-will; And for the homes we won for them, our children bless us still. We lived not hermit lives, but oft in social converse met; And fires of love were kindled then that burn on warmly yet. O, pleasantly the stream of life pursued its constant flow, In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago! We felt that we were fellow-men, we felt we were a band Sustain'd here in the wilderness by Heaven's upholding hand ; And when the solemn Sabbath came we gather'd in the wood, And lifted up our hearts in prayer to God, the only good. Our temples then were earth and sky; none others did we know In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago! Our forest life was rough and rude, and dangers closed us round ; But here, amid the green old trees, we freedom sought and found. Oft through our dwellings wintry blasts would rush with shriek and moan: We cared not, though they were but frail ; we felt they were our own. 0, free and manly lives we led, 'mid verdure or 'mid snow, In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago! But now our course of life is short; and as, from day to day, We're walking on with halting step and fainting by the way, Another land, more bright than this, to our dim sight appears, And on our way to it we'll soon again be pioneers; Yet, while we linger, we may all a backward glance still throw To the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago! Without an iron will and an indomitable resolution, they could never have accomplished what they did. Their heroism deserves the highest tribute of praise and admiration that can be awarded, and their brave and toilsome deeds should have permanent record in the pages of history. 56 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO. CHAPTER VIII. THE MIAMESE AND THE INDIANS. Let us welcome, then, the strangers, Hail them as our friends and brothers, And the heart's right hand of friendship Give them when they come to see us, Gitche Manito, the Mighty, Said this to me in my vision. H. W. LONGFELLOW, "Hiawatha." Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was hatred. Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war-whoop, And, like a flurry of snow in the whistling wind of December, Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery arrows ; Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud came the lightning, Out of the lightning thunder, and death unseen ran before it. LONGFELLOW, "Courtship of Miles Standish." SYMMES' PROCLAMATION. It was remarked in the last chapter that, while Judge Symmes was detained with his party at Limestone, he had repeated information from Major Stites, then just getting settled in his block-houses and cabins at Columbia, that Indians had come in to see him (Stites) and share his hospitality, and that they had expressed a strong desire to seethe great man of the Miami Purchase and make a peace compact with their new white brethren. Tnis information was evidently considered important by the pioneer Columbian, since he dispatched two messengers on foot, in the inclement days of early December, to make their way for sixty miles along the banks of the Ohio, to convey his tidings to the leader still tarrying at Limestone. Symmes not appearing, and the Indians continuing their visits and beginning to express some impatience at his delay, another message was sent to him, which, as we have seen, had the effect of hastening his departure with the colony for the settlement contemplated near the mouth of the Great Miami. Before his expedition set out, however, he, remembering, perhaps, the great example of Penn in his dealings with the Indians, prepared and dispatched the following unique proclamation or letter to the red men of the Miamis: Brothers of Me Wyandots and Shawanees: Hearken to your brother, who is coming to live at the Great Miami. He was on the Great Miami last summer, while the deer was yet red, and met with one of your camps ; he did no harm to anything which you had in your camp ; he 'held back two young men from hurting you or your horses, and would not let them take your skins or meat, though your b10thers were very hungry. All this he did because he was your brother, and would live in peace with the red people. If the red people will live in friendship with him and his young men, who came from the great salt ocean, to plant corn and build cabins on the land between the Great and Little Miami, then the white and red people shall all be brothers and live together, and we will buy your furs and skins, and sell you blankets and rifles, and powder and lead and rum, and everything that our red b10thers may want in hunting and in their towns. Brothers! a treaty is holding at Muskingum. Great men from the thirteen fires are there, to meet the chiefs and head men of all the 'nations of the red people. May the Great Spirit direct all their councils for peace. But the great men and the wise men of the red and white people cannot keep peace and friendship long, unless we, who are their sons and warriors, will also bury the hatchet and live in peace. Brothers ! I send you a string of beads, and write to you with my own hand, that you may believe what I say. I am your brother, and will be kind to you while you remain in peace. Farewell ! JNO. C. SYMMES. Jan. the 3d, 1789. What was the immediate effect of this epistle upon the aboriginal mind has not been recorded; but a few months . afterwards a white man, Mr. Isaac Freeman, going in from the Maumee towns with several captives released by the Indians, was charged in reply with the delivery of the following address to Judge Symmes : MAWME, July 7, 1789. Brothers ! Americans ! of the Miami Warriors ! Listen to us warriors what we have to say. Now, Americans ! Brothers ! we have heard from you, and are glad to hear the good speech you sent us. You have got our flesh and blood among vou, and we have got yours among us, and we are glad to hear that you wish to exchange. We really think you want to exchange, and that is the reason we listen to you. As the Great Spirit has put your flesh and blood into our hands, we now deliver them up. We warriors, if we can, wish to make peace, and our chiefs and yours will then listen to one another. As we warriors speak from our hearts, we hope you do so too, and wish you may be of one mind, as we are. Brothers, Warriors—when we heard from you that you wished to exchange prisoners, we listened attentively, and now we send some, as all are not here nor can be procured at present, and therefore we hope you will send all ours home; and when we see them, it will make us strong to send all yours, which cannot now all be got together. Brothers, Warriors—when we say this, it is from our hearts, and we hope you do the same; but if our young men should do anything wrong before we all meet together, we beg you to overlook it. This is the mind of us warriors, and our chiefs are glad there is hope of peace. We hope, therefore, that you are of the same mind. Brothers, Warriors—it is the warriors who have shut the path which your chiefs and ours formerly laid open; but there is hope that the path will soon be cleared, that our women and children may go where they wish in peace, and that yours may do the same. Now, Brothers, Warriors—you have heard from us; we hope you will be strong like us, and we hope there will be nothing but peace and friendship between you and us. In explanation of a part of this missive it should be said that Symmes held at North Bend ten Indian women and children, who had been left with him by Colonel Robert Patterson, as captives taken in a raid from Kentucky to the Indian towns, to be exchanged for whites when the opportunity should offer. Freeman had been sent by Symmes to the Maumee, with a young Indian for interpreter, to arrange such exchanges. Subsequently, while under a flag of truce approaching the Indians on a friendly mission, Freeman was fired upon and killed. THE MURDER OF FILSON. The reference of Judge Symmes' letter to his visit to the Great Miami the preceding "summer" seems rather to refer to his tour of exploration in that valley in the early fall, thus mentioned in a letter of his dated October, 17 88 : "On the twenty-second ultimo I landed at Miami, and explored the country as high as the upper side of the fifth range of townships." About forty miles inland, at some point on the Great Miami, his party came upon a small camp of the savages, so small that they could easily have destroyed it and its inhabitants. In his company were a number of Kentuckians, who had accompanied Colonel Patterson and the surveyor Filson, two of the projectors of Losantiville, in the "blazing" of a road, through the forest from Lexington to the mouth of the Licking, as one of the preliminary steps to the proposed settlement opposite that point, and had incited him to make the exploration by promising him their escort until it was finished. These men, sharing the inveterate hostility of their people to the red man, desired HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 57 to make away with this little band of wandering savages and their humble property at once. Symmes prevented them, however, and would not allow the Indians to be harmed or their stuff to be taken. About half the Kentuckians, therefore, after giving him all the trouble they dared by their disorderly conduct, deserted his party and started for home, leaving him almost defenceless in the perilous wilderness. The rest of the men of Kentucky soon also showing an intention to desert, he was obliged to leave his exploration but partially accomplished, and make his way as rapidly as possible back to the Ohio, up which he pushed again to his headquarters at Limestone. Filson, who, together with Patterson, had accompanied the expedition, also deserted it about the time the first Kentuckians went, through fear of remaining longer with either detachment of the party; but, strange to say, in his eagerness to make greater haste out of the wilderness, he decided to confront its dangers solitary and alone, and so swung away from even the feeble protection which he had with Symmes and the remainder of the escort. He was never seen or directly heard from again. Within three hours from the time of his abandonment of the party, it is supposed he had fallen a victim to the ferocity of the Indians. The locality of the occurrence, thinks Mr. Miller, author of Cincinnati's beginnings, was "probably not far from the northern boundary line of Hamilton county, and the northeast corner of Colerain township." With Filson also perished his plan of Losantiville, which had been carefully prepared at Lexington, and is believed to have been on his person at the time. FRIENDLINESS AND HOSTILITY. Notwithstanding subsequent hostilities between the Indians and the whites of the Purchase, the feeling of the sons of the forest toward Judge Symmes personally appears to have been kind and friendly—perhaps in memory, if not of his proclamation or letter, yet of his restraint of the Kentuckians when some of their people were threatened with pillage and murder, and of his subsequent kindness to them. He does not appear ever to have been attacked or otherwise molested by them in his own person or property; and nearly seven years afterwards, at the negotiation of the treaty of Greenville, some of the Indians assembled there told him that they had often been on the point of shooting him, but had recognized him in time to save his life. Nevertheless the kind-hearted and hospitable judge was sorely tried and troubled by their hostility to his settlers on the Purchase —a feeling which early developed in cruel and bloody deeds. The traditions of the region were those of inveterate warfare and hatred between the races. Only ten years before Symmes' settlement at North Bend, Colonels Bowman and Logan had led a hundred and sixty Kentuckians up between the rivers against the Shawnee towns on the Little Miami, within the present limits of Greene county, in retaliation for atrocities committed by the Indians in Kentucky shortly before, and had experienced some sharp fighting. The Indians pursued them to the mouth of the Little Miami, where they recrossed the Ohio on tneir homeward march, The next year after this expedition the redoubtable George Rogers Clark headed a troop of a thousand Kentuckians against the Little Miami and Mad river towns, and destroyed the Indian village at Piqua and much corn of the growing crops of the Indians. It is said that after crossing the Ohio at the mouth of the Licking, on their northward march, they built two block-houses on the present site of Cincinnati, and that the force was disbanded there on their return, homeward bound. BLOCK-HOUSES, OR FORTIFIED STATIONS, were destined to play an active part in the Indian and pioneer affairs of the Symmes Purchase. They were erected by associations of colonists for mutual safety, upon a plan of settlement proposed by Judge Symmes as best for the development of the country. A strong log block-house being put up, it was surrounded by the cabins of the settlers, rather closely crowded together, and the whole was then encircled by a stout stockade or picket, made of tree trunks or logs set pretty deep in the ground, and making, in some cases, a really formidable work of defence. Not until this was completed did the settlers venture to begin clearing land and planting crops. Even then they were obliged to work with-their rifles near and sentinels constantly on the alert. At sunset all returned to the stockade, taking everything portable and of value with them. These stations were made as numerous as the number of settlers, and more particularly the number of troops that could be obtained for each from the military commander in this region, would warrant. It might be presumed that, in the exposed state of the country, nothing would have been easier than to get or retain soldiers for the protection of the settlers, since that was precisely for what the forces of the United States were sent to the valley of the Ohio.' But it was not always so. We have recorded the difficulties and detentions which beset Judge Symmes at Limestone, while endeavoring to get his colony to its destination, through the failure of General Harmar to send him an escort promptly. After he had secured the protection of Captain Kearsey and the small remnant of his troop, and had made his settlement at North Bend, he was very soon unceremoniously deserted by Kearsey and all but five of his command, the rest putting off down the river to Louisville, without even building him a stockade or block-house. It was then nearly a month before the earnest persuasions of Symmes prevailed with Major Wyllys, the commandant at that place, to secure him a garrison, consisting of an ensign and eighteen men, which speedily, by desertion and Indian attack, was reduced to twelve, and Luce, after building a tolerable block-house and remaining four months, transferred his little force to Losantiville, again leaving Symmes' hamlets nearly or quite unprotected. The country had no adequate protection, indeed, until the early part of the following summer, when Major Doughty arrived from Fort Harmar with two companies of soldiers and began the erection of Fort Washington. Even then, and for some time after, troops were arbitrarily sent to or withdrawn from the stations. In a letter from North Bend, January 17, 1792, Symmes 58 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO. relates how "General St. Clair, by much importunity, gave Mr. Dunlap a guard of six soldiers. With these the settlers returned to Colerain [Dunlap's station]. In a very few days after the station was re-settled, the Governor ordered the six soldiers back again to Fort Washington. But the next day General St. Clair set out for Philadelphia, and Major Zeigler came to the command. His good sense and humanity induced him to send the six men back again in one hour's time, as I am told, after General St. Clair left Fort Washington, and he assured Mr. Dunlap that he should have more soldiers than six, rather than the station should break. Majors sometimes do more good," he naively adds, "than generals." Dr. Goforth, then of Columbia, wrote September 3, 1791: The number of militia at these stations, from the best accounts I have received, are at Columbia, 200; Cincinnati, 150; South Bend, 20 ; City of Miami, 80; Dunlap's, 15 ; and Covalt's, 20. A considerable number of these stations, more or less strongly fortified, are known to have existed within the present limits of the county during the period of Indian warfare; and it is quite possible that the memory of others has disappeared. So far as known, they were as follows: 1. Covalt's Station, at Round Bottom, twelve miles up the Little Miami, below the present site of Milford. This was erected in 1789, and Mr. John G. Olden, author of Historical Sketches and Early Reminiscences of Lock-land and Reading, is disposed to place it first in chronological order, although similar claims have been made for Clemens', Gerard's, Dunlap's, and Ludlow's stations. 2. Clemens' station, also on the Round Bottom, about half a mile below Covalt's. 3. Gerard and Martin's station, on the west side of the Little Miami, and about two miles from its mouth, near the present Union bridge. 4. Dunlap's station, established in the early spring of 1790, in Colerain township, on the east side of the Great Miami and in the remarkable bend of that stream which begins about half a mile south of the county line. 5. Campbell's station, also on the east bank of the Great Miami and in Colerain township, opposite the present site of Miamitown. 6. Ludlow's station, whose site is now embraced within the limits of Cincinnati, about five miles from Fountain square, in the north part of Cumminsville. It Was also established in the spring of 1790. This was the most famous of all the stations. 7. Wnite's station, probably established in 1792, on the bank of Mill creek, northeast of the present site 0f Carthage, near the aqueduct, and about where tne ice-pond now is. 8. Tucker's station, on section four, Springfield township, east of the old Hamilton road and about a mile and a half northwest of Lockland. 9. Runayn's station, also of 1792, on section nineteen, Sycamore township, about a mile and a half north of Sharonville, and near the present county line. This was the outpost in that direction. 10. Griffin's station, established, probably, in the fall of 1793, about half a mile west of White's station, where the Carthage and Springfield turnpike now crosses Mill creek. 11. Voorhees' station, in the south part of section thirty-three, Sycamore township, on the west bank of Mill creek, built early in 1794 12. Pleasant Valley station, on the line between sections four and ten, Springfield township, near the "Station Spring." Also built in the spring of 1794, by the builders of Tucker's station, to protect them and another party which had moved in to the westward. 13. McFarland's station, in Columbia township, near the site of Pleasant Ridge, established in the spring of 1795, and believed to be the last founded of the pioneer stations in this county. Some of these stations were the scene of fierce Indian attacks, and others of cowardly murders by the savages. Their story will be more particularly related in the histories of the townships. In 1794-5 Mr. Benjamin Van Cleve, then of Cincinnati, but soon afterwards of Dayton, made many interesting memoranda of affairs in the Miami country, among which we find the following, made in the latter year: On the twentieth [of August], seventeen days after the treaty [of Greenville], Governor. St. Clair, General Wilkinson, Jonathan Dayton, and Israel Ludlow contracted with John Cleves Symmes for the purchase and settlement of the seventh and eighth ranges, between Mad River and Little Miami. One settlement was to be at the mouth of Mad River, one on the Little Miami in the seventh range, and one on Mad River above the mouth. Two parties of surveyors set off [from Cincinnati] on the twenty-first of September—Mr. Daniel C. Cooper, to survey and mark a road and cut out some of the brush, and Captain John Dunlap to run the boundaries of the Purchase. I went with Dunlap. There were at this time several stations on Mill Creek : Ludlow's, White's, Tucker's, Voorhees's, and Cunningham's.* The last was eleven miles from Cincinnati. We came to Voorhees's and encamped. A limited number of regulars was stationed at several of these by General Harmar or his subordinate officers. All together they afforded protection and food to a large number of pioneer families, who must otherwise have been driven out of the country. They were of use elsewnere among the early settlements, as well as for local defence, and the pioneers in other parts of southern Ohio were less annoyed after their establishment, because the Indians had to spend a part of their time in watching the stations, instead of taking the war-path against the scattered and isolated settlers. They regarded these defences, indeed, with peculiar disfavor. Judge Burnet accompanies an interesting paragraph upon the stations, in his Notes, with these remarks: The Indians viewed these stations with great jealousy, as they had the appearance of permanent military establishments, intended to retain possession of their country. In that view they were correct ; and it was fortunate for the settlers that they wanted either the skill or the means of demolishing them. The truth is, they had no idea of the flood of emigration which was setting towards their borders, and did not feel the necessity of submitting to the loss to which immediate action would subject them. . . Their great error consisted in permitting those works to be constructed at all. They might have prevented it with great ease, but they appeared not to be aware of the serious consequences which were to result, until it was too late to act with effect. Several attacks were, however, made at different times, with an apparent determination to destroy them ; but they failed in every in stance. * Cunningham's settlement, according to Mr. Olden, " was not a regular station in the proper sense of that term. No block-house or other defensive work were erected, and there was no organized community. HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 59 "CAPTAIN BLACKBEARD." Shortly after the permanent location of Judge Symmes upon the Purchase, he had the honor to entertain, in his rude shelter at North Bend, a Shawnee chief bearing the English piratical name of "Captain Blackbeard," who lived some scores of miles to the northward, near Roche de Bceuf, on the Maumee river. The Judge has left the following entertaining account of the interview: The chief (the others sitting around him) wished to be informed how far I was supported by the United States, and whether the thirteen fires (States) had sent me hither. I answered in the affirmative, and spread before them the thirteen stripes which I had in a flag then in my camp. I pointed to the troops in their uniform, then on parade, and informed the chief that those were the warriors which the thirteen fires kept in constant pay to avenge their quarrels, and that, though the United States were desirous of peace, yet they were able to chastise any aggressor who should dare offend them, and to demonstrate this I showed them the seal of my commission, on which the American arms are impressed, observing that while the eagle had a branch of a tree as an emblem of peace in one claw, she had strong and sharp arrows in the other, which denoted her power to punish her enemies. The chief, who observed the device on the seal with great attention, replied to the interpreter that he could not perceive any intimation of peace from the attitude the eagle was in, having her wings spread as in flight, when folding of the wings denoted rest and peace; that he could not understand how the branch of a tree could be considered a pacific emblem, for rods designed for correction were always taken from the boughs of trees; that to him the eagle appeared, from her bearing a large whip in one hand and such a number of arrows in the other, and in full career of flight, to be wholly bent on war and mischief. I need not repeat here my arguments to convince him of his mistake, but I at length succeeded, and he appeared entirely satisfied of the friendship of Congelis (for so they pronounce Congress) to the red people. Captain Blackbeard staid a month or so in the neighborhood of Judge Symmes, with whom he had frequent friendly conferences, and whose hospitality he accepted, especially when it took the form of whiskey, without reservation or stint. Notwithstanding subsequent martial events, some of wnich must have come very near to his lodge on the Maumee, Blackbeard seems to have remained friendly to the whites, and long afterward he repaid with interest the kindness and hospitality he had received from Symmes by requitals to Judge Burnet and other lawyers and federal officials on their way through the wilderness from Cincinnati, to attend the courts in Detroit. TREACHERY AND MURDER. Much of the promise of the Indians to them, however, was to be broken to the hope. Their expressed friendliness was undoubtedly, in some cases, used to mask treachery. Scarcely more than two months after the departure of Blackbeard, namely, on the ninth day of April, 1789, one of Symmes' exploring parties was fired upon by the savages while leaving its camp, and two of its number—a man named Holman, from Kentucky, and Mr. Wells, from Delaware—were instantly killed. John Mills and three others, staying not to fight the foe and standing not upon the order of their going, escaped to the settlements.* A straggler into the forest from the * The year before Symmes came with his colony, about the twentieth of May, a large party of whites, descending the river in three boats was attacked by the Indians a little below the mouth of the Great Miami, and cut off or captured to a man. Samuel Purviance, a prominent citizen of Baltimore, was one of the company, and was never afterwards heard of, though General Harmar caused a long and careful villages had now and then also been picked off, and on the twenty-first of May an attack was made in some force from the Ohio shore upon a boat-load of settlers whom Ensign Luce, the officer then stationed at North Bend, was escorting with a detachment of his men from that place up the river to South Bend. The boat was not captured with its precious freight ; but by the fire one of the soldiers—Runayn, a New Jersey recruit—was killed, and four others of the troops were wounded. Mills, also a Jerseyman, who had escaped the previous disaster, was now among the wounded, being shot through the lungs; but was taken in hand by friendly squaws and cured without much difficulty. One of the settlers—William Montgomery, of Kentucky—was also hurt, and so badly as to be sent to Louisville for treatment. The affair created intense excitement and fear at North Bend, where the garrison was now felt to be utterly inadequate; and Symmes, in an indignant letter to Dayton, bitterly renews his complaints of the neglect of the commanders to send him troops enough for protection. He says: "We are in three defenceless villages along the banks of the Ohio, and since the misfortune of yesterday many citizens have embarked and gone to Louisville; and others are preparing to follow them soon; so that I fear I shall be nearly stripped of settlers and left with one dozen soldiers only. Kearsey's leaving the Purchase in the manner he did, ruined me for several weeks." Five days later he writes: "I believe that fifty persons of all ages have left this place since the disaster of the twenty-first. The settlers consider themselves as neglected by the Government. . We are really distressed here for the want of troops." About this time the jealous and angry Kentuckians, before mentioned, began to designate the Purchase as "a slaughter-house," from the danger of massacre they really had some reason for representing as existing there. TROUBLE BREWING—THE BRITISH. At this time the settlers at Losantiville and Columbia were tilling their in lots, as well as out-lots, with firearms at their elbows and sentinels carefully posted. Weeks before the pacificatory letter of the Indians at "Mawme" to Symmes, it became evident that, as soon as they could prepare for serious inroads, the tribes would show their thorough-going antagonism to the new settlements being planted upon the Ohio, whatever their verbal or written words might be. The most alarming reports were brought in by Mr. Isaac Freeman, who had penetrated the Indian country on an errand from Symmes, and had returned in safety and with several released captives, and also the olive-branch missive from "Mawme," but, writes the judge, he "brings such terrifying accounts of the warlike preparations making at the Indian towns, that it has raised fresh commotions in this village, and many families are preparing to go down to the Falls" [Louisville]. British influence was busy in stirring up the Indians to acts of hostility. In the same letter Symmes writes: While Mr. Freeman was at the Indian towns he was lodged at the search to be made for him. It was one of the most terrible and sweeping disasters from Indian attack that ever occurred in the valley of the Ohio. 60 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO. house of a chief called Blue Jacket, and while there he saw the packhorses come to Blue Jacket's house loaded with five hundred weight of powder and lead equivalent, with one hundred muskets; this share he saw deposited at the house of Blue Jacket. He says the like quantity was sent them from Detroit, to every chief through all their towns. Freeman saw the same dividend deposited at a second chief's house in the same town with Blue Jacket. On the arrival of the stores from Detroit, British colors were displayed on the housetop of every chief, and a prisoner among the Indians who had the address to gain full credit with them and attended at their council-house every day, found means to p10cure by artifice an opportunity of conversing with Freeman. He assured Freeman that the Indians were fully determined to rout these settlements altogether; that they would have attempted it before this time, but had no military stores; but these being then arrived, it would not be long before they would march. Confirmation of tnese reports was received about the same time from two widely separated p0ints at the east and west, from Vincennes and from Pittsburgh. INDIAN OUTRAGES. We can find in Mr. Freeman's account one reason at least why the infant settlements along the Ohio were for so many months spared from Indian outrage, conflagration, and general massacre. Individual cases of capture, maiming, or murder were not wanting, however. Judge Symmes writes, January 1, 1790: "We have already had a man murdered by the Indians within the squares of the city." This may refer to the case of a young son of John Hilliers, a settler at the Bend, who had gone out on the morning of the twelftn of December next previous, to drive home the cows, and, ..when scarcely half a mile from the block-house, was tomahawked and scalped, and his gun and hat were carried off. On the seventeenth of the same month two young men from the settlement, James Lafferty and Andrew Vaneman, hunting along the river, were surprised by Indians while sitting at night by their campfire, and were both killed at the first shot. Their bodies were then stripped of clothes, and toma hawked and scalped in the most barbarous manner. A letter from Judge Symmes, written in May following, referring to matters at North Bend, says: "Things were prosperous, considering the mischief done there this spring by the Indians. They plant considerable corn, though much more would have been planted if no mischief had been done. Many fled on those occasions—two men have been killed. The Indians ape universally hostile, and the contrary opinion is ill-founded." On the other side of the Purchase, the settlers at Columbia were greatly troubled after the depredations and attacks once began, which was not until nearly a year after the founding of the colony. In time too soon, however, the dreaded blows fell. Among the cultivators of the soil to whom Major Stites had leased the rich clearing known as Turkey Bottom was one James Seward, who occupied a lot upon, it for his daily labor, but had his residence on the hillside near the village. Two sons of his, Obadiah and John, aged respectiely twenty-one and fifteen years, were at work in this field one afternoon, September 20, 1789, when they were surprised by a small party of Indians, at a hickory tree which had been felled for nuts, whose bushy top gave the savages an excellent opportunity for concealment and stealthy approach. Obadiah gave himself up at once, and was securely bound by withes or twigs; but the other ran for his life, in a cir cuitous course towards home. The Indians easily gained upon him, however, and one of them hurled his tomahawk at the boy with such force as to cleave his skull immediately behind the right ear. He dropped in his tracks, and, when overtaken an instant later, was again tomahawked and was then scalped. His mangled form was not found until the next morning, when John Clawson, one of the pitying neighbors who gathered around, carried it on his back to the bereaved home. Strange to say, young Seward was not yet dead, though unconscious, and in his delirium, as his clothing and the surroundings showed, he had dragged himself round and round upon his knees. He actually survived the terrible injury for thirty-nine days, his senses returning to him, and even cheerfulness and good spirits, so that he was able to give a correct and detailed account of the affair. Obadiah was for some time unheard from; but a captive returning at length from the Indian country brought word that he had been killed by a bloodthirsty and drunken Indian, simply for taking the wrong fork of a trail. The young man, it is said, had long cherished a presentiment that he should perish at the hands of the savages. The doubly bereaved father afterwards removed to Springdale, where he suffered the loss of another son by the fall of a tree. The captive just mentioned was Ned Larkin, an employe of Mr. John Phillips who was seized and taken by the Indians the same day the young Sewards were attacked. He was alone in the field at the time, cutting and binding cornstalks for fodder, and was bound and marched through the wilderness to Detroit, where his captors sold him to a French trader. By this man, who seems to have had a heart in his bosom, Larkin was liberated not long after, and with other released captives made his way to Pittsburgh, whence he found conveyance down the river to Columbia. In 1790 there were further outrages by the Indians at this place. At one time the families, of whom there were several, located on that part of the face of the hill afterwards called Morristown, lost all their clothes hung out to dry. A party of the thieving redskins being suspected, was pursued, the property found in their possession and partially recovered; but they had already destroyed the coverlets to make belts. James Newell, one of the most valued of the early settlers of Columbia, also lost his life by the red hand of Indian murder—at just what date we have not ascertained. One of the most interesting incidents of the Indian period in Hamilton county occurred July 7, 1792, on the river between Cincinnati and Columbia, and about four miles from the present Broadway, then Eastern Row. It was the custom of boats on the river, both large and small, to hug pretty closely the Kentucky side, as being the safer from Indian attack; but a canoe which left Cincinnati for Columbia on the afternoon of the day named, had neglected this precaution, and was proceeding up what was designated, from its perils, as the "Indian shore." It contained one lady, Mrs. Coleman, wife of a settler at Columbia, two men named Clayton and Light, and another whose name has not been preserved, and a HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 61 young lad, Oliver M., the only son of Colonel Spencer, a prominent pioneer then residing at Columbia, and who had served gallantly in the war of the Revolution. The boy had been to Cincinnati to spend the Fourth of July, and had remained for two or three days after. The stranger, a drunken soldier from the fort, presently lurched overboard, nearly upsetting the canoe; but managed to get ashore, and was soon left behind, thus escaping massacre, although his late companions, looking back at him, remarked that .he "would be good food for Indians." The boy also took to the water-side path, and walked along near the party remaining in the canoe. A pair of Indians had concealed themselves near the path which connected the two villages, and as the boat approached fired a volley upon its occupants. Clayton was wounded at the first fire, fell overboard, was at once dragged ashore by the Indians, killed and scalped. Light was also wounded in the arm, but not severely, and throwing himself into the stream, swam off with one arm through the fire of the Indians and escaped. Mrs. Coleman likewise flung herself into the water, and the Indians, saying, "squaw must drown," left her to her fate. She was buoyed up by her clothing, however, and floated down a mile, to a point where she could get ashore, thentook the path for Cincinnati, crossing Deer creek at its mouth, went to the house of Captain Thorp, at the artificer's yard near Fort Washington, Where she obtained dry clothing, and remained until recovered from her fright and fatigue. The Indians had seized young Spencer, without doing hini injury, and hastily departed with him, carrying him into captivity. He was taken to their towns on the headwaters of the Great Miami, where he was adopted into an Indian family, and lived with them several months, when he was ransomed for one hundred and twenty-five dollars through the intervention, it is said, of President Washington, who had a very high regard for his father, Colonel Spencer, and secured the ransom of the son through the British Minister and the commandant of the British forces at Detroit. Young Spencer afterwards became a distinguished citizen, a clergyman and bank officer in Cincinnati. Inhis manhood he wrote and pub-- lished a narrative of his capture and captivity. The settlers at Columbia became exceedingly hostile to the red men, and with reason, as these narratives show. Their labors were greatly interrupted by the constant necessity for the exercise of vigilance against the onset of the wily foe. For a time they had to work and watch in equal divisions, as many as one-half standing guard, while the other half labored, the divisions being exchanged in the morning and afternoon. Their annoyances, and the outrages from which they suffered, bore their natural fruit in an intense and abiding desire for revenge. On the principle, we suppose, that the devil must be fought with fire, they even adopted some of the Indian methods. Colonel Whittlesey, of Cleveland, contributes this corroborative paragraph in one of his valuable historical pamphlets: In 1844 I spent an evening with Benjamin Stites, jr., of Madisonville, Ohio, the son of Benjamin Stites, who settled at Columbia, near Cincinnati, in 1788. Benjamin, junior, was then a boy, but soon grew to be a woodsman and an Indian fighter. Going over the incidents of the pioneer days, he said the settlers of Columbia agreed to pay thirty dollars in trade for every Indian scalp. He related an instance of a man who received a mare for a scalp, under this arrangement. The frontier men of those times spoke of "hunting Indians," as they would of hunting wolves, bears, or any other wild animal. I met another old man who then lived near Covington, on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, who said he had often gone alone up the valley of the Miami on a hunt for scalps. With most of these Indian hunters the bounty was a minor consideration. The hatred of the red man was a much stronger motive. A tradition goes that on one occasion a reeking scalp, just torn from the head of an Indian, was brought on the Sabbath into or near the house of God in Columbia, breaking up the meeting and sending the inhabitants home to prepare against an attack from the savages. The settlers of Cincinnati of course shared the general peril. Some fifteen or twenty of them were killed by the Indians in the one year 179o. Not only was it necessary to post sentinels when at work in the out-lots or improving the town property, but rifles were carried to service by the congregation of the First Presbyterian church, whose place of meeting was close by where the the same society worships now, near the corner of Main and Fourth streets. A fine of seventy-five cents was imposed upon male attendants neglecting this precaution; and it is said to have been actually inflicted upon Colonel John S. Wallace,.. a noted hunter and Indian fighter of those days, and perhaps upon others. In 1790 the road from Cincinnati eastward crossed the mouth of the water-course near the then eastern limits of the town, as noted in the account of the adventure to Mrs. Coleman. At the point of crossing there was a dense forest of maple and beech, with tangled grape-vines and a heavy undergrowth of spicewood. Mr. Jacob Wetzel, of the village, had had a successful day of hunting, October 7th, of that year, and on his way home to get a horse with which to bring in his heavier spoils, sat down here upon a decayed tree-trunk to rest. He shortly heard a rustling in the woods; his dog pricked up his ears, growled, and a moment afterwards barked loudly as he saw an Indian presenting his rifle from behind a large oak tree. Wetzel caught sight of him at the same instant, and, springing behind another tree, both fired together. He received the Indian's fire unharmed, and succeeded in wounding his enemy's left elbow: Before the Indian could reload, Wetzel took the offensive and charged upon him with his hunting knife, and the Indian drew his to defend himself. The conflict that ensued was sharp and desperate, a life-ordeath struggle. The white man made the first blow as he rushed, but the red One parried it, knocking the other's knife from his hand to a distance of thirty feet or more. Nothing daunted, Wetzel seized him with a vicelike grasp about the body, holding down and tightly against it the arm with the knife. In the struggle both were thrown, but the Indian got uppermost and was about to use his knife with deadly effect, when the dog sprang at his throat with such a savage attack as made him drop the weapon, which Wetzel seized and instantly stabbed his antagonist to the heart. The Indian so far had maintained the contest on his side alone; but after 62 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO. the victor had despoiled his body of its armament and gone a little distance on his way home, he heard the whoop of a party of savages, and ran hastily to the river, where he seized a canoe and escaped to the cove then existing at the foot of Sycamore street. He afterwards learned that the Indian killed was one of the bravest chiefs of his tribe, by whom he was greatly lamented. The savages were also making mischief this year on the other side of the river, in the interior. Judge Symmes wrote the last of April : The Indians are beyond measure troublesome throughout Kentucky. They have destroyed Major Doughty and a party of troops on the Tennessee. If the President knew of half the murders they commit, he surely would rouse in indignation and dash those barbarians to some other clime. After the defeat of General Harmar in two actions by the Indians, in October; they grew bolder, but still made no concerted attacks upon the settlements on the Symmes Purchase until January, when Dunlap's station was attacked, as will be presently narrated. November 4th the judge writes : The strokes our away has got seem to fall like a blight upon the prospect, and for the present seem to appall every countenance. I confess that, as to myself, I do not apprehend that we shall be in a worse situation with regard to the Indians than before the repulse. What the Indians could do before, they did, and they now have about one hundred less of their warriors to annoy us with than they had before the two actions; besides, it will give them some employment this winter to build up new cabins and repair by hunting the loss of their corn. . . The settlers at them [the stations] are very much alarmed at their situation, though I do not think that the houses will be attacked at those stations; yet I am much concerned for .the safety of the men while at work, hunting, and travelling. Judge Symmes did not divine with his usual prescience in this case. Scarcely more than two months had passed after this deliverance before the Indians appeared in force but a few miles from his home and made a desperate attack upon one of his stations. On the eighth of January, 1791, Colonel John S. Wallace, of Cincinnati, lately mentioned in this chapter, together with Abner Hunt, who was a surveyor, John Sloane, and a Mr. Cunningham, engaged in exploring the country, fell in with this war-party, or a detachment of it, somewhere on the west bank of the Great Miami, where the whites had encamped the night before. When setting out that morning to explore the bottoms above their camp, towards Colerain, or Dunlap's station, they had got but about seventy ayrds away when tney were assailed by savages from the rear, an ambuscade having evidently been prepared for them. Cunningham was shot down instantly; Hunt was violently dismounted by the fright of his horse, and made prisoner; and Sloane was shot through the body, but managed to keep his feet and effect his escape. Wallace also dashed off, but on foot, and was followed by two In-_ dians, when he overtook Sloane and mounted Hunt's riderless horse, which had kept along with its companion. Both Wallace and Sloane thus escaped safely and uninjured to Dunlap's station. Colonel Wallace had a narrow escape, however. He was repeatedly fired upon in his flight, and at the first shot his leggings became loose, the fastenings perhaps cut by the missile, when he tripped and fell. Coolly but rapidly he retied the strings, in time to resume his flight without being overtaken. Hunt's fate was terrible, being that which too often befell the captive among the savages. During a lull in the siege of Dunlap's station, the third night after the capture, they occupied themselves in the torture 0f the hapless prisoner. He was prostrated across a log with his legs and arms stretched and fastened in painful positions to the ground; he was scalped, his body agonized by knife-wounds, and the cruel work completed, as one account relates, by building a fire upon his naked abdomen, or, as others have it, by thrusting blazing firebrands into his bowels, which had been exposed by the cutting and slashing to which he had been subjected. In this dreadful situation his remains were found after the Indians had retired, and were taken up decently and buried by the garrison. The attack on Dunlap's began in the early morning of January 10th. About five hundred Indians appeared before the stockade, with three hundred more in reserve in the neighborhood, and demanded its surrender, promising the garrison and settlers safety. They are believed to have been led by the notorious white renegade, Simon Girty, who was guilty of so many atrocities and, barbarities toward the whites, and is said to have died, himself, in the centre of a blazing log-heap, where he was placed by a party of avengers, who recognized him long after Indian hostilities had ceased. Girty's brother was also in the attacking force, with Blue Jacket and other well-known chiefs. During the parley with Kingsley, which lasted two hours, Simon Girty was seen holding the rope with which the prisoner's (Hunt's) arms were tied, and sheltered behind a log. Lieutenant Kingsley was in command, but had only eighteen regulars, who, with eight or ten armed residents, made but a feeble garrison in point of numbers. Nevertheless the Indian demand was refused and fire was opened by the garrison, being promptly returned by the besiegers. As soon as possible a runner was got off to Fort Washington for reinforcements, and the defence continued to be stoutly maintained. The women in the station kept up the supply of bullets to their defenders by melting spoons and pewter plates and running them into balls; and the fire on both sides was scarcely intermitted for hours. The Indians entirely surrounded the stockade on the land side, their flanks resting on the river; and their fire was hot and distressing. It was kept up until late in the afternoon, when the Indians drew off and during the night put Hunt to the torture in full view of the garrison, between the fort and an ancient work remaining near. The attack was renewed in the evening and maintained in a desultory way until midnight, when the beleagured people again had comparative rest, but no refreshment in their weariness and terror except parched corn, their supply of water being cut off by the merciless foe. The Indians in this attempt set fire to the brush about the station and threw many blazing brands upon the structures within it, but they were happily extinguished before serious mischief was done. Again the Indians came on the next day, but were met with the steady, unrelenting fire of the garrison, and hastily withdrew, probably hastening their retreat from the report of their scouts that relief was HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 63 marching from Fort Washington. In their retreat the Indians shot all the cattle within their reach. A force of thirty regulars and thirty-three volunteers had been dispatched from Fort Washington, under the command of Captain Timmons, reaching. the neighborhood of the station the next forenoon about ten o'clock, but finding the Indians already gone. They went in pursuit at once, but with little effect, the detachment not being numerous enough to make an effective attack. This heroic defence of Colerain against an overwhelming force of savages is one of the most noteworthy incidents in the history of the county. Sometime before the fight David Gibson and John Crum, of the station, had been— taken prisoners by the Indians, and Thomas Lawison and William Crum driven to the stockade, to the imminent danger of their lives. The inhabitants there were kept in a pretty constant state of alarm, and, after the defeat of General St. Clair the following November, the settlers at Dunlap's, vividly remembering the attack which followed Harmar's misfortune, and reasonably expecting a similar sequel to St. Clair's, abandoned the station, and were only persuaded to return with considerable difficulty. It was important that this station should be maintained. Judge Symmes wrote in January, 1792: "Colerain has always been considered the best barrier to all the settlements, and when that place became re-peopled the inhabitants of the other stations became more reconciled to stay." At North Bend, during the same year, there were fresh attacks by the Indians. In September, 1791, a Mr. Fuller and his son William, employes of John Matson, sr., were accompanied by Matson's mother and George Cullum to a fish-dam that was planted in the Great Miami, about two miles from North Bend. Towards night Fuller sent his son away alone, to take the cows to the settlement, when he disappeared, and was seen no more until -after Wayne's victory, or nearly four years after he was taken by the Indians, when he was restored to his friends by Christopher Miller, a white man who was among the savages at the time of his capture. The outrages at Cincinnati were also numerous in 1791. In May of this year Colonel Wallace, whose misfortune it was to figure considerably in the Indian history of this period, was at work with his father and a small lad, hoeing corn upon the subsequent site of the Cincinnati hospital, while two men named Scott and Shepherd were plowing corn upon a spot near the corner of Central avenue and Clinton street. To them suddenly appeared five or six Indians, who jumped the fence and raised a yell, whereupon the plowmen took to their heels, and were fortunately not caught by the pursuing savages, though they were chased as far as the corner of Fifth and Race streets: Colonel Wallace may have been forgetful, as before noted, about taking his rifle to church; but he had it with him on this occasion, lying in an adjacent furrow, and telling the rest to escape to town as quietly as possible, snatched it up and fired at an Indian about eighty ayrds distant, who took himself off at once. The other Indians rode away on the plow-horses at the top of their speed. Contrary to their usual custom, however, they, in the haste of their flight, unintentionally, of course, left something by way of exchange. Light blankets and blanket capotes, a leg of bear meat, a horn of powder, and some other small articles, were the spoils from the raiders; but they hardly made up an equivalent for the horses taken. As soon as the alarm could be given and preparations made, the best foresters and hunters in town started in pursuit, mounting all the horses available, a party going ahead at once on foot. The chase was followed up the Great Miami valley to where Hamilton now stands; but unavailingly, as the Indians had just crossed, and the pursuers were turned back by tremendous rains and floods. On the twenty-first of the same month Benjamin Van-Cleve and Joseph Cutler, while engaged in clearing an out-lot, were fired at, and the latter captured, carried off, and never heard of afterwards. The trail of the party was easily followed, as Cutler had lost a shoe, and was kept at full run till dark, and resumed the next day; but the Indians got off safely with their captive. Eleven days after, on the first of June, Mr. VanCleve, again working in his out-lot, with two others, was attacked and pursued. He started first in the retreat; but was stopped instant by a fallen tree-top, giving an Indian time to seize him. VanCleve threw his assailant, but the savage rose at once and stabbed him, following this by the usual barbarity of scalping. He then took himself out of the way of th.e two white men who were running some distance in VanCleve's rear, and who found their companion lifeless when they reached the spot. On the same day Sergeant Michael Hahn, of the garrison, with --a corporal and a young man from Colerain, taking a cow to Dunlap's station, the party was attacked soon after starting, within the present limits of the city, and all were killed and scalped. These are recorded as the last cases of assassination by the red men in Cincinnati; but they continued to prowl about the outlying streets and roads, and sometimes killed cattle; in one case, it is said, an Indian shot his stone-headed arrow clean through the body of an ox. 'They also stole horses from time to time, and committed other depredations, until Anthony Wayne instituted his energetic measures for the protection of this region in 1793 and 1794. In the spring of the latter year, however, John Ludlow, brother of Colonel Israel Ludlow, of the station, left his late residence in Cincinnati to return to his farm, near the junction of the old Hamilton road with the hill road to Carthage. An attack had been made on White's station, in the country, which, with a defeat sustained by Lieutenant Lowrey near Eaton, Preble county, had greatly alarmed the Cincinnatians. Mr. White himself was in this party, which was escorted by Colonel Ludlow and his company of militia. They reached the farm without molestation, and began unloading the wagon with them, while White, mounted on a sick horse, went on toward his station. When he reached a point about two hundred ayrds from the stream since called Bloody run, he heard rifle-shots, and presently saw four pack-horses where as many whites had been waylaid by the Indians. 64 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY. OHIO. One of them was killed, tomahawked, and scalped; his body was found in the river. Another was mortally hurt, but managed to get to Abner Benton's place, at Ludlow's Ford on Mill creek, where he died of his wounds. A third was slightly wounded, and the fourth escaped unhurt. White now, abandoned the journey to his station, and returned to Ludlow's party to give the alarm. Pursuit was promptly taken up by the whole company and the Indians followed vainly for five .or six miles, when the party rode back to the scene of the attack and buried the dead. One of the saddest incidents of this time occurred while Wayne's campaign was in progress. Colonel Robert Elliott, a Pennsylvanian born, but a resident of Hagerstown, Maryland, was a contractor for the supply of General Wayne's army, and was in person superintending the delivery of supplies. While on the way from Fort Hamilton to Cincinnati, on the present Winton road, he was fired upon and killed by the enemy, his servant escaping in safety with both horses. An attempt was made to scalp the Colonel, which, from the absence of his natural capillary covering and the adoption of a substitute, led the Indian attempting it to the exclamation, as is reported in English, "big d—d lie!" Mr. Elliott's body was recovered the next day, -put in a box, and started for Cincinnati in one of his own wagons. Near or exactly at the place where the Colonel was shot, the servant, by a singular fatality, received a second fire from the savages, and was this time killed. The escort was stampeded, and the Indians seized the box and broke it, but did not further disturb its contents, though they took away the horses that drew it. An armed party was then detached from Fort Washington, which went but and brought the body in. It was buried in the old Presbyterian cemetery at the corner of Main and Fourth streets, and afterwards removed to the new "God's acre" of that church on Twelfth street. A monument was erected many years after, to commemorate the tragedy, by Commodore Elliott, his son, with an inscription as follows: "In memory of Robert Elliott, slain by a party of Indians near this point, while in the service of his country. Placed by his son, Commodore J. D. Elliott, United States Navy, 1835. Damon and Fidelity." Several outrages whose history we have found recorded, and doubtless many others so far unnoticed to the writer, occurred during the period of Indian warfare, some of whose dates we are not able to fix with certainty. Judge Symmes, in April, 1790, notes that a lad had been "captivated" by the Indians a few weeks before at the Mill creek (Ludlow's) station ; but adds: "Otherwise not the smallest mischief has been done to any, except we` count the firing by the Indians on our people mischief, for there have been some instances of that, but they did no hurt." Not a great many years ago a large elm might still be seen on one of the roads leading north from the city, about three miles from the old corporation line, behind which a small party of Indians had been concealed, to await the approach on horseback of a man named Baily, whom they halted, seized, and took prisoner. At Blue Bank, a locality on the. Great Miami near Dunlap's station, while Michael Hahn, one of the early settlers of Cincinnati, Martin Burkhardt, and Michael Lutz, were viewing lots on the second of January, 1792, Lutz was killed and scalped, and finally stabbed by the Indians. " Hahn was shot through the body, but ran for the station, within sight of which the Indians followed him, and there, seeing they were otherwise likely to lose the chance of his scalp, shot a second time and brought him down. Burkhardt was shot through the shoulder and took to the river, where he was drowned and his body found near North Bend six weeks subsequently. Thus perished this whole party by Indian massacre. About two miles below the same station, at a riffle in the Great Miami, a canoe in which John McNamara, Isaac Gibson, jr., Samuel Carswell, and James Barnett were taking a millstone up the river, was fired upon with mortal effect. McNamara was killed; Carswell wounded in the shoulder and Gibson in the knee, Barnett alone escaping unhurt. Elsewhere in the county, at Round Bottom, two settlers named Hinkle and Covalt, while engaged in hewing logs in front of their own cabin, were instantly killed by the barbarians. An interesting narrative of the captivity of Israel Donalson, contributed to the American Pioneer for December, 1842, contains a passage which is of some local value, especially as illustrating the character of a famous old-time citizen, long since passed away. Donalson was captured by the Indians April 22, 1791, while on a surveying expedition with Massie and Lytle, four miles above Manchester, on what was .called from that day Donalson creek, and escaped a few days afterwards, reaching the Great Miami, and following down Harrnar's trace until he arrived at what he called "Fort Washington," now Cincinnati. Mr., Donalson says: On Wednesday, the clay that I got in, I was so far gone that I thought it entirely useless to make any further exertion, not knowing what distance I was from the river ; and I took my station at the root of a tree, but soon got into a state of sleeping, and either dreamt or thought that .I should not be loitering away my time, that I should get in that day ; which, on reflection, I had not the most distant idea. However, the impression was so st10ng that I got up and walked on some distance. I then took my station again as before, and the same thoughts occupied my mind. I got up and walked on. I had not travelled far before I thought I could see an opening for the river ; and getting a little farther on I heard the sound of a bell. I then started and ran, at a slow speed, undoubtedly ; a little farther on I began to perceive that I was coming to the river hill, and having got about halfway down, I heard the sound of an axe, which was the sweetest music I had heard for many a day. It was in the extreme out-lot ; when I got to the lot I crawled over the fence with difficulty, it being very high. I approached the person very cautiously till within about a chain's length, undiscovered ; I then stopped and spoke ; the person I spoke to was Mr. William Woodward, the founder of the Woodward high school. Mr. Woodward looked up, hastily cast his eyes round, and saw that I had no deadly weapon ; he then spoke : "In the name of God," said he, "who are you?" I told him I had been a prisoner and had made my escape from the Indians. After a few more questions he told me to come to him. I did so. Seeing my situation, his fears soon subsided ; he told me to sit down on a log and he would go and catch a horse he had in the lot, and take me in. He caught his horse, set me on him, but kept the bridle in his own hand. When we got into the road, people began to enquire of Mr. Woodward, "Who is he—an Indian?" I was not surprised nor offended at the enquiries, for I was still in Indian uniform, bareheaded, my hair cut off close, except the scalp and foretop, which they had put up in a piece of tin, with a bunch of turkey feathers ; which I could not undo. They had also stripped HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 65 off the feathers of about two turkeys, and hung them to the hair of my scalp ; these I had taken off the day I left them. 'Mr. Woodward took me to his house, where every kindness was shown me. They soon gave me other clothing ; coming from different persons they did not fit me very neatly ; but there could not be a pair of shoes got in the place that I could get on, my feet were so much swollen. But what surprised me most was, when a pallet was made down before the fire, Mr. Woodward condescended to sleep with me. The next day, soon after breakfast, General Harmar sent for me to come to the fort. I would not go. A second messenger came : I still refused. At length a Captain Shambrough came ; he pleaded with me, told me I might, take my own time,' and he would wait for me, At length he told me if I would not go with him, the next day a file of men would be sent, and I would then be compelled to go. I went with him; he was as good as his word, and treated me verv kindly. When I was ushered into the quarters of the commander, I found the room full of people waiting my arrival. I knew none of them except Judge Symmes, and he did not know me, which was not ;uprising, considering the fix I was in. The General asked me a great many questions; and when he got through he asked me to take a glass of liquor, which was all the aid he offered ; meantime had a mind to keep me in custody as a spy, which, when I heard, it raised my indignation to think that the commander of an army should have no more judgment when his own eyes were witnessing that I could scarce go alone. RELIEF AT LAST. The glorious victory of General Wayne brought infinite relief to the harassed people. They no longer trembled with anxiety and fear of Indian outrage. One immediate effect of the victory and the treaty of Greenville' was the partial abandonment of the river villages and the stations, by the desire of the -people to settle in the open country. *August 6, 1795, Judge Symmes wrote from Cincinnati : This village is reduced more than one-half in its numbers since I left it to go to Jersey in February, 1793. The people spread themselves into all parts of the Purchase below the military range since the Indian defeat on the twentieth of August, and the cabins are of late deserted by dozens in a street. Another letter of his the next year, however, shows that the Indians were again giving trouble, though not very serious this time: They now begin to crowd in upon us in numbers, and are becoming troublesome. We have but one merchant in this part of the Purchase [North Bend], and he will not buy their deer-skins. The next result is to beg from me; and I was compelled last week to give them upwards of forty dollars value, or send near forty of them away offended. They must have a market for their skins, or they can purchase nothing from us. Though we have twenty or more merchants at Cincinnati, not one of them is fond of purchasing deer-skins. Some attention of Government is certainly necessary to this object. Some of our citizens will purchase horses from the Indians. The consequence is that the Indians immediately steal others, fo rnot an Indian will walk if he can steal a horse to ride. I wish it was made penal by Congress to buy horses directly or indirectly from the Indians. But these annoyances and losses were petty, compared with the awful dangers of the earlier years. The Miami country, though not without occasional alarms, especially during the Indian war of 1811 and the war with Great Britain that began the next year, was thenceforth almost exempt from savage atrocities. "Poor Lo," with the inevitable destiny of his race, was being crowded westward and to eventual extermination. CHAPTER IX. CIVIL JURISDICTION—ERECTION OF HAMILTON COUNTY. What constitutes a State? Not high-raised battlements or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness Wafts perfume to pride. No;—men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued, In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold 10cks and brambles rude,— Men who their duties know, But know theft rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain ;— These constitute a State. --SIR WILLIAM JONES. "IROQUOIS." IN chapter IV it was remarked that upon some of the early maps of the territory which includes the present State of Ohio, a geographical district was marked and entitled "Iroquois," since the confederated tribes called by that generic, name claimed jurisdiction over it. It is not probable that their government was represented here by satrap, prior, viceroy, or other governor; but theirs is, we believe, the first authority distinctly recognized by geography or history as existing over this region. One of the maps of 1755 designates this as Tunasoruntic, or "the deer-hunting country," a part of "the country of the confederate Indians," covering the present territory of New York, Ohio, and Canada, and thus signifying about the same thing as the former "froquois." "NEW FRANCE." The Ohio country, however, was long before this time claimed by the French, as an integral part of their great North American possessions, "New France," by virtue of the discoveries of her brave explorer, Robert, Cavalier de la Salle, and the earlier voyage (1640) of the Jesuit Fathers Charemonot and Breboseeuf, along the south shore of' Lake Erie. With the Iroquois they were constantly at war, and the claims of the confederated tribes to the territory weighed nothing with the aggressive leaders of the French in the New World. When, some time in the first half of the eighteenth century, the French built a fort on the Iroquois lands near Niagara falls, the governor of Canada proclaimed their right of encroachment, saying that the Five Nations were not subjects of England, but rather of France, if subjects at all. But, by the treaty of Utrecht, April 11, 1713, Louis XIV, Le Grand Monarque, renounced in favor of England all right to the Iroquois country, reserving only the St. Lawrence and Mississippi valleys to France. Boundaries were so vaguely defined, however, that disputes easily and frequently arose concerning the territories owned by the respective powers; and in 1740, the very year after that in which the Ohio Land company of the Washingtons, Lee, and others was organized under a grant from George II, to occupy half a million acres west of the Alleghanies, De Celeron, the French commandant of Detroit, led an ex- 66 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO. pedition to the Ohio dispatched by the Marquis de la Gallissoniere, commander-in-chief of New France, buried a leaden tablet "at the confluence of the Ohio and Tchadakoin" (?) "as a monument of the renewal of possession which we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those that therein fall, and of. all the lands on both sides, as far as the sources of said rivers"—a sweeping claim, truly. He ordered the English traders out of the country, and notified the governor of Pennsylvania that if they "should hereafter make their appearance on the Beautiful River, they would be treated without any delicacy." The territorial squabbles which then ensued led up to the French and Indian war of 1755-62, which closed by the cession to England, on the part of France, of Canada and all her American possessions east of the Mississippi, except some fishing stations. Thus the Ohio region at length passed into the undisputed possession of the British crown. IN THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC. In 1766 (though some confidently say 1774*), the British Parliament insisted upon the Ohio river as the southwestern boundary, and the Mississippi river as the western limit of the dominions of the English crown in this quarter. By this measure the entire northwest, or so much of it as afterwards became the Northwest Territory, was attached to the province of Quebec, and the tract that now constitutes the State of Ohio was nominally under its local administration. BOTETOURT COUNTY. In 1769 the colony of Virginia, by an enactment of the house of burgesses, attempted to extend its jurisdiction over the same territory, northwest of the river Ohio, by virtue of its roayl grants. By that act the county of Botetourt was erected and named in honor of Lord Botetourt, governor of the colony. It was a vast county, about seven hundred miles long, with the Blue Ridge for its eastern boundary, and the Mississippi for its western. boundary. It included large parts of the present States of West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and was the first county organization covering what is now Hamilton county. Fincastle, still the seat of county.for the immensely reduced Botetourt county, was made the seat of justice; but so distant from it were the western regions of the great county, that the thoughtful burgesses inserted the following proviso in the creative act : Whereas, The people situated on the Mississippi, in the said county of Botetourt, will be very remote from the court house, and must necessarily become a separate county as soon as their numbers are sufficient, which will probably happen in a short time, be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the inhabitants of that part of the said county of Botetourt which lies on the said waters, shall be exempted from the payment of any levies to be laid by the said county court for the purpose of building a court-house and prison for said county. "WEST AUGUSTA." In 1776, the present territory of Ohio was included in what was known as the "District of West Augusta, f but we are not informed to what State or county authority it was subordinated—though probably to that of Virginia, as was the Kentucky region at this time. * As Isaac Smucker, in Secretary of State's report for 1877. + Bryant's Popular History of the United States, Vol. I., 610. ILLINOIS COUNTY. Government was still nominal, however, so far as the county organization' was concerned, between the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers ; and the Indians and few white settlers within those borders were entirely a law unto themselves. After the conquest of the Indiana and Illinois country by General George Rogers Clark in 1778 the county of. Illinois was erected by the Virginia legislature out of the, great county of Botetourt, and included all the territory between the Pennsylvania line, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the northern lakes. Colonel John Todd was appointed the first county lieutenant and civil commandant of the county. He perished in the battle of Blue Licks, August 18, 1782; and Timothy de Montbrun was named as his successor. At this time 'there were no white men in Ohio, except a few Indian traders, some French settlers on the Maumee, and the Moravian missionaries on the Tuscarawas. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. After the title of the United States to the wide tract covered by Illinois county, acquired by the victories of the Revolution, had been perfected by the cession of claims to it by Virginia and other States and by Indian treaties, Congress took the next step, and an important -one, in the civil organization of the country. Upon the thirteenth of July (a month which has been largely associated with human liberty in many ages of history), in the year 1787, the celebrated act entitled "An ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio," was passed by Congress. By this great organic act "the last gift," as Chief Justice Chase. said, "of the Congress of the old Confederation to the country, and it was a fit consummation of their glorious labors"—provision was made for various forms of territorial government to be adopted in succession, in due order of the advancement and development of the Western country. To quote Governor Chase again: "When the settlers went into the wilderness, they found the law already there. It was impressed upon the soil itself, while it yet bore up nothing but the forest." This measure was succeeded, on' the fifth of October of the same year, by the appointment by Congress of General Arthur St. Clair as governor, and Major Winthrop Sargent as secretary of the Northwest Territory. Soon after these appointments, three territorial judges were appointed—Samuel Holden Parsons, James Mitchell Varnum, and John Armstrong. In January the last named, not having entered upon service, declined his appointment, which now fell to the Hon. John Cleves Symmes, the hero of the Miami Purchase. The appointment of Symmes to this high office gave much offence in some quarters, as it was supposed to add to his opportunities of making a great fortune in the new country. It is well known that Governor St. Clair's appointment to the Northwest Territory was promoted by his friends, in the hope that he would use his position to relieve himself of pecuniary embarrassments. There is no evidence, however, that either he or Judge Symmes prostituted the privileges of their places to such ends. HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 67 All these appointments being made under the articles of confederation, they expired upon the adoption and operation of the Federal constitution. St. Clair and Sargent were reappointed to their respective places by President Washington, and confirmed by the senate on the twentieth of September, 1789. On the same day Parsons and Symmes were reappointed judges, with William Barton as their associate. Meanwhile, on the ninth of July, 1788, the governor arrived at Marietta, and proceeded to organize the territory. He and the judges, of whom only Varnum and Parsons were present, constituted, under the ordinance, the territorial legislature. Their first law was proclaimed July 25th, and on the twenty-seventh Governor St. Clair issued a proclamation establishing the county of Washington, to cover all the territory' to which the Indian title had been extinguished between Lake Erie, the Ohio and Scioto rivers, and the Pennsylvania line, being a large part of the present State of Ohio. Marietta, the capital of the Territory, was made the seat of justice for Washington county. The next civil division proclaimed was HAMILTON COUNTY. On the second of January, 1790, in the thirteenth month and second year ab urbe condita, the governor arrived at Losantiville. His august approach was duly heralded, and as he stepped ashore from his flat-boat, pirogue, or barge, he was received with a salute of fourteen guns, and fourteen more were fired as he moved with his suite to the embattled precincts of Fort Washington. He dispatched a message to North Bend for Judge Symmes, who arrived the next day, and, after consultation, the ensuing day (the fourth) was signalized by the erection, as the Judge put it in a subsequent letter, of "this Purchase into a comity." St. Clair's proclamation established the following as the boundary lines of the new creation : "Beginning on the bank of the Ohio river, at the confluence of the Little Miami, and down said Ohio river to the mouth of the Big Miami, and up said Miami to the Standing Stone forks, or branch of said river, and thence with a line to be drawn due east to the Little Miami, and down said Little Miami to the place of beginning." This was a long and narrow county, decidedly inconvenient in shape, if it had been settled throughout all its borders; but it was no doubt formed in accordance with the suggestions of Judge Symmes, and its northern boundary was much better defined than was that of the Miami Purchase at that time, or at any time until the patent for the Purchase was issued. The Judge writes: "His excellency complimented me with the honor of naming the county. I called it Hamilton county, after the Secretary of the Treasury"—Colonel Alexander Hamilton, the distinguished revolutionary and cabinet officer, now but thirty-three years old, in the prime of his powers, and considered the pride of the Federal party, perishing miserably fourteen and a half years afterwards, from a mortal wound received in the duel with Aaron Burr. It is altogether probable that Judge Symmes may have desired to do the secretary fitting honor; but it is also not impossible that, since the negotiations for the Purchase were still incomplete, and the duties of the late treasury board, in regard to the sales of the public lands, had now, under the new constitution and before the organization of the general land office, devolved upon the Secretary of the Treasury, he was also prompted by a lively sense of favors to come. He adds, in his notes of this affair: "The governor has made Losantiville the county town by the name of Cincinnata [thus Symmes spells it, for reasons that will appear by and by], so that Losantiville will become extinct." St. Clair soon afterwards made it the capital of the Northwest Territory, and in 1799 the first session of the territorial legislature was held there. On the same day that Hamilton county was proclaimed commissions were issued by the governor for a county court of common pleas and general quarter sessions of the peace, for said county. Messrs. William McMillan, William Goforth, and William Wells—a triumvirate of Williams—were appointed judges of the court of common pleas and justices of the court of general quarter sessions of tne peace. They were also appointed and commissioned as justices of the peace and of the quorum in said court. Other justices of the peace were appointed for the new county, in the persons of Benjamin Stites, our old Columbia pioneer, John Stites Gano, another Columbian, and Jacob Topping. J. Brown, "Gent.," was commissioned sheriff "during tne governor's pleasure;" Israel Ludlow, esq., was made prothonotary to the court of common pleas and clerk of the court of general quarter sessions of the peace. Some appointments were also made at this time to commands in the "First Regiment of Militia in the County of Hamilton." Israel Ludlow, John S. Gano, James Flinn, and Gershom Gerard, were commissioned as captains; Francis Kennedy, John Ferris, Luke Foster, and Brice Virgin, as lieutenants; and Scott Traverse, Ephraim Kibby, Elijah Stites, and John Dunlap, as ensigns. Provision seems to have been made by these appointments for the formation of but four companies. On the twenty-fourth of the following May the organization of the county was furthered by the appointment of William Burnet as register of deeds, and on the next fourteenth of December Mr. George McCullum was added to the justices of the peace. The boundaries of the county were afterwards changed by the governor, as the settlements widened; and its area was greatly enlarged. By his proclamation September 15, 1796, erecting Wayne county (now, as reduced, in Michigan), with Detroit as its seat of justice, St. Clair described the eastern boundary of Hamilton county as a "due northern line from the lower Shawnees' town upon the Scioto river," which was a long remove to the eastward from the Little Miami. By proclamation June 22, 1798, an alteration was made in the boundaries of Hamilton, Wayne, and Knox (now, as reduced, in Indiana) counties, by which the western line of Hamilton was laid down as follows: The western boundary of the county of Hamilton shall begin at the spot on the bank of the Ohio river where the general boundary line between the lands of the United States and the Indian tribes, established at Greenville the third day of August, ins, intersects the bank of that river, and run with the general boundary line to Fort Recovery, 68 - HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO. and from thence by a line to be drawn due north from Fort Recovery until it intersects the south boundary line of the county of Wayne; and the said line from the Ohio to Fort Recovery, and from thence to the southern boundary line, of the county of Wayne, shall also be the eastern boundary of the county of Knox. Fort Recovery was a stockade upon a bend of the Wabash, very near the present western boundary of Ohio, and also near the line dividing Darke and Mercer counties. The mouth of the Kentucky river is at Carrollton, fifty miles in a direct line southwest of Cincinnati, though much further by the winding river. The treaty of Greenville defined the "general boundary line" mentioned above, as to run thence (from Fort Recovery) southwesterly in a direct line to the Ohio, so as to intersect the river opposite the mouth of Kentucke or Cuttawa river. Hamilton county, then, by this time, comprised a considerable triangular tract in the southeastern part of what is now the State of Indiana. It was a very large county that was enclosed between the east and west lines above described, the Ohio, and the southern boundary of Wayne county. It is estimated to have included five thousand square miles, or over three millions of acres, and to have been equal to about one-eighth part of the tract that became the State of Ohio. Just before the creation of a number of new counties from its territory, by one of the first acts of the first State legislature, the county is said, somewhat vaguely, to have stretched from the Ohio one hundred miles northward to the headwaters of the Great Miami, and west ward frdm a meridian line drawn from the eastern sources of the Little Miami to the Ohio, to a meridian from the mouth of the Great Miami to the parallel drawn from the headwaters of that stream. These boundaries, if correctly stated, represent a vast enlargement of the original county, and included the present counties of Hamilton, Clermont, Warren, Butler, Montgomery, Preble, Darke, Miami, Champaign, Clark, Clinton, and Greene. The Western Annals, third edition, says that the county "comprehended the whole country contiguous to the Ohio, from the Hocking river to the Great Miami." A gubernatorial proclamation, dated September 0, 1798; attached a part of Hamilton to Adams county— To begin on the bank of the Ohio, where Elk river, or Eagle creek, empties into the same, and run from thence due north until it intersects the boundary of the county of Ross, and all and singular the lands lying between said north line and Elk river, or Eagle creek, shall, after the said twentieth day of September next, be separated from the county of Hamilton and added to the county of Adams. From the great county of Hamilton, or from counties carved out of it, there are said to have been organized, by 1815, the counties of Clermont, Warren, Butler, Preble, Montgomery, Greene, Clinton, Champaign, Miami, and Darke. St. Clair undertook to erect Belmont, Fairfield, and Clermont sometime before his resignation in 1802, but Congress refused to, recognize his action, holding him not endowed with such power, in view of the existence of the territorial legislature. Early in 1802 the inhabitants of Hamilton residing north of the south boundary of the third 'or Military Range, petitioned Mr. Charles Willing Bird, then secretary of the territory and acting governor in the absence of General St. Clair; for a division of the county. He replied in a respectful letter, of the fifteenth of May, 1802, saying that he could not grant the petition, but promising that it should be laid before the territorial legislature and recommended to their serious consideration—which was undoubtedly the proper course in the premises. The people in all the northern parts of Hamilton county, above a line pretty nearly the same as the present north boundary of the county, had their wishes promptly gratified. Part of the Northwest Territory became the Spate of Ohio in the winter of 1802-3; and one of the first acts passed by the new legislature, in session at Chillicothe, was that of March 24, 1803, erecting from Hamilton the counties of Warren (named from General Joseph Warren, the Revolutionary hero), and Butler (named from General Richard Butler, also a distinguished Revolutionary and Indian fighter, who fell in St. Clair's defeat); and from Hamilton and Ross the counties of Montgomery (named from General Richard Montgomery, who fell in the attack on Quebec December 31, 1775), and Greene (named from General Nathniel Greene, still another hero of the Revolution). The act was to take effect May 1, 1803, which is therefore the proper natal day of these. counties. In the separation of the new counties it was made lawful for the coroners, sheriffs, constables, and collectors of Hamilton and Ross counties "to make distress for all dues and officers' fees unpaid by the inhabitants within the bounds of any of the said new counties, at the time such division shall take place, and they shall be accountable in like manner as if this act had not been passed." The courts of Hamilton and Ross were to maintain jurisdiction in all actions pending at the time of the separation, try and determine them, issue process, and otherwise conclude the pending matters. Temporary seats of justice were established for the new counties: For Warren, at the house of Ephraim Hathaway, on Turtle creek; for Butler, at the house of John Warrener, in Hamilton; -for Montgomery, the house of George Newcum, in Dayton; and for Greene, the house of Owen Davies, on Beaver creek. The boundaries of Butler county, that one of the new erections which is Hamilton's next neighbor on the north, were defined as follows: "Beginning at the southwest corner of the county of Warren, running thence west to the State line; thence with the same north to a point due west from the middle of the fifth range of townships in the Miami Purchase ; thence east to the northwest corner of the aforesaid county of Warren; thence bounded by the west line of the said county of Warren to the place of beginning." The south line thus described, being the boundary between the counties of Hamilton and Butler, appears not to have been satisfactory, no doubt owing to the irregularity in the early surveys, and the consequent cutting across many sections or parts of sections by a straight east and west line, and an act was passed by the legislature February 0, 1808, re-establishing the boundary line thus: "Beginning at the southwest corner of the county of Warren and at the southwest corner of section numbered seven, in the HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO - 69 third township of the second entire range of townships, in the Miami Purchase; thence westwardly along the line of said tier of sections to the Great Miami river; thence down the Miami river to the point where the line of the next original surveyed township strikes the same; thence along the said line to the west boundary of the State." This act allowed Hamilton county to retain the irregular north line to be seen upon the later as well as earlier maps. THE TOWNSHIPS. Some of the townships of Hamilton county at or near its beginnings can hardly be identified now. There is not muck trouble in recognizing Cincinnati, Columbia, Miami, Anderson, Colerain, and Springfield. "South Bend" included the tract which afterwards became Delhi and the major part of Green; and Dayton, Fairfield, Franklin, Ohio, Deerfield, Washington, and St. Clair, were no doubt on territory now belonging to other counties. The erection of townships in the early day is among the most difficult topics for the local historian. Prior to the formation of the State constitution they were created in the several counties by 'order of the courts of general quarter sessions of the peace; after that by the county commissioners and the associate judges of the court of common pleas, acting with concurrent jurisdiction, until the act of the legislature of February 19, 1810, which gave the county commissioners the exclusive jurisdiction in the matter they have since retained. Sources of information are thus, in an old county, widely dispersed through the offices and records, and full and satisfactory data are exceedingly difficult, and in this instance probably impossible to reach. So long ago as 1839, near the middle year of the c0unty's history, when it would seem to have been much easier to prosecute the inquiry than now, Mr. H. McDougal, then county auditor for Hamilton, in answer to a circular from the Hon. John Brough, State auditor, issued in pursuance of a legislative requirement of that year, reported as follows: "I find it almost impossible, from the data in my possession, to give all the required information. Most of the townships within the lines of this county were organized under the Territorial Government. I cannot tell when they were organized." He was able to furnish only the dates of the organization of Fulton and Storrs, respectively, as 1830 and 1835; and in regard to the former of these he was clearly mistaken, as Fulton appears in the list of townships so early as 1826, and it was created, as was also the township of Symmes, at some time between 180 and that year. The other township he mentions disappeared some years ago, through the growth of the city to the westward, which absorbed it; and Fulton was previously absorbed by its extension to the eastward; so that these two of the "second growth" townships are already wiped out. The original townships in the old Hamilton county were only Cincinnati, Columbia, and Miami, the three representing the three settlements on the Ohio in the Purchase, and together extending the whole distance between the rivers, their north boundaries being at the Military Range, on a line six miles north of the present Springdale. The townships, named in the records, down to 1796-7, were, in the order of their mention ; Cincinnati, Columbia, Miami, Anderson, Fairfield, Deerfield, Dayton, Iron Ridge (taken into Adams county in 1797), South Bend, Colerain, and Springfield. Iron Ridge township was created on the application of Nathaniel Massie to the quarter-sessions court in 1793, to be received among the townships of the Hamilton county group. The request was granted, and officers for it duly appointed; but the township soon disappeared from Hamilton county history. It lay north of the Ohio river, east of White Oak creek, around the town of Manchester, in what is now Adams county. Washington township is found mentioned in 1798, also Ohio and St. Clair; and Franklin township was recognized in 1797. The following table of 1799 (which, of course, omits Iron Ridge, but includes all the others), representing the assessment for taxation on the several duplicates of the townships and their acting constables at that time, has some interest just here: