USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1 > Part 3
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The city more to-day than ever justifies the prophecy made years ago by Judge Hoadly that it would be "a city fair to the sight, with a healthy public spirit, and high intelligence, sound to the core; a city with pure water to drink, pure air to breathe, spacious public grounds, wide avenues; a city not merely of much traf- fic, but of delightful homes; a city of manufac- tures, wherein is made every product of art, ---- the needle-gun, the steam-engine, the man of learning, the woman of accomplishments; a city of resort for the money-profits of its dealings, and the mental and spiritual profit of its cul- ture,-the Edinburgh of a new Scotland, the Boston of a new New England, the Paris of a new France."
ANNEXATIONS.
At the time of the incorporation of the city in 1819 the boundaries were Liberty street and a line continuing that street to the river, the river on the east and south and Mill creek on the west which included an area of three square miles. On April 14, 1849, there was added to this ter- ritory the tract bounded on the south by Liberty street and on the east by Hunt street and the Lebanon turnpike or Reading road and on the west by Millcreek cxtending as far north as McMillan street ; this territory included two and one-fourth square miles. It included within its limits what was called the Northern Liberties, lying immediately north of the old city limits and just west above the Hamilton road, now McMicken avenue.
On the plan of Cincinnati prefixed to the Di- rectory of 1819 are shown within this section a few small lots lying mainly to the east and west of Vine street as continued beyond Liberty to the point where that street connects with the Hamilton road, now McMicken avenue, and an- other line of lots lying along the west side of the Hamilton road south of its junction with Vine street. Parallel with Vine was New street now Brenten and cutting through New street were Green street, then running northwestward- ly, and North street, now West Elder. To the east of Vine were marked Poplar now Huber and Elder street running east and west, and north and south Pleasant street now Hamer. To the southwest of Hamilton road and running parallel was Back street now continued to Walnut, where Moore street joins the two just south of McMicken avenue.
The plat of the Northern Liberties was dated
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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
March 31, 1837, but this section had been known long before this as a subdivision of Mill creek township. In a plat prefixed to the Direc- tory of 1834, were shown two more short streets, Hughes running north and south and Williams now Schiller, parallel to Liberty street, lying east of Main street and the Dayton road west of Sycamore street and north of Liberty. The upper waters of the west branch of Deer creek were shown as going through this tract. In those days the Dayton road ran from the head of Main at the corporation line (Liberty street ) to the northeast, making an angle of about 67 degrees with Hamilton road now McMicken avenue.
Included in this same territory was the sec- tion or village lying north of the original town site and to the west of Vine known as Mohawk. It. was at this point then a striving village along the Hamilton road at the base of Mount Auburn where Mrs. Trollope first set up her household in 1829. She describes it "a little village about a mile and a half from the town, close to the foot of the hills formerly mentioned as the north- ern boundary of it." There was no plat of this section placed on record and its exact limits were very indefinite. The name is preserved to this day in Mohawk bridge and Mohawk street. .
Brighton included that part of the present city reaching from Mill creek to Freeman avenue at the junction of Central avenue. It was here that the stock yards were formerly maintained, and here for many years was the old Brighton House, a popular hotel with stock raisers, and a favorite suburban resort. Ernst Station after- wards Brighton Station and Fairmount were within this suburb.
Texas was in the northwestern part of the city, while Bucktown, still in a general way called by that name, lay cast of Broadway in the Deer creek bottoms.
In the following year by an act of Legislature passed March 22, 1850, there was annexed the territory in section seven of the third township of the second fractional range, bounded on the west by Reading road, on the south by Liberty street, on the east by the west line of Fulton and on the northi by McMillan street, includ- ing three-fourths of a square mile. This be- came by ordinance the Eleventh Ward, March 29, 1850. The act gives the new boundaries of the city as follows :
Commencing at the northeast corner of said section No. 7, thence west along the northi line of sections No. 7, 13, 19 and 25 in said third
township to Mill creek thence down Mill creek with its meanders to the Ohio River; thence eastwardly up the Ohio River with the southern boundary of the State of Ohio to the cast corner of fractional section No. 12 in the first frac- tional range; thence west with the south line of the town of Fulton to the southwest corner thereof; thence northeastwardly with the west line of said town of Fulton to the place of be- 'ginning.
In 1854 another strip including a square mile and then called the Seventeenth Ward was added bv ordinance. This extended along the Ohio River north and east from the line of Liberty street to the village of Pendleton and was known as the village of Fulton. A preliminary ordi- nance submitting the matter of annexation to the voters of the city and to those of the incor- porated village of Fulton, which included almost all of Fulton township, was passed by the Coun- cil on August 23, 1854, and in October follow- ing both the municipalities voted in favor of the plan. The terms of annexations were for- mally approved on December 27th. Fulton was almost entirely made up of a single long street extending eastward between the hills and the river and formed the connecting link between the old city and Columbia, the two earliest settle- ments, being on the direct line of travel be- tween these two points. A large number of people settled there at an early time. The prin- cipal occupation of the people at that time was boat building and it was at the Fulton landing that the explosion of the "Moselle" occurred in 1835.
The year 1869 was noted for extensive annex- ations. The first included the territory three and one-eighth square miles in area, known as Storrs township extending from Mill creek on the east to the river on the south and Liberty street on the north and west to the section line. In this tract were included the villages of Sedams- ville along the river bank and Price Hill along the hills. A small part of the township was in the village of Riverside which was not included.
Sedamsville took its name from Cornelius R. Sedam, who was colonel of the Continental army from New Jersey, who fought at Princeton, Monmouth and Germantown. He came to Lo- santiville with Major Doughty at the time of the building of Fort Washington. Afterwards he took part in the St. Clair campaign and was wounded in the fight. Shortly afterwards he purchased a large tract of land about the mouth of Bold Face creek, in sections 34 and 35, where
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CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI
he built his house in 1795. He was a justice of peace for Storrs township from 1759 until the time of his death in 1824, when his son, Henry F. Sedam, was appointed to succeed him. His son held the office until 1869. Both father and son engaged largely in trading down the river to New Orleans in flat-boats. Probably no two men who ever lived in Hamilton County have been the subject of so many anecdotes and rem- iniscences as the two Sedams. The date of the ordinance authorizing the annexation of Storrs township was September 10, 1869.
In the same year by ordinance of November 12th came the annexation of a two and one-half square mile tract in Spencer township, bounded on the north by Linwood road and Observatory avenue, on the east line by section line 26, the village of Columbia and by Crawfish creek to the Ohio River and on the south by the Ohio River and including the village of Pendleton to the former western line of the former village of Fulton and on the west by said line and the cast line of the village of Woodburn. The fol- lowing year, on March 5, 1870, there was an- nexed the villages of Walnut Hills, Mount Au- burn and Clintonville, including Corryville, and Vernon village, constituting two wards.
The ordinance of annexation was passed Sep- tember 10, 1869, and received the vote of the people on October 12th of the same year. In the same year, 1870, on September 21st was added a large strip of territory to the west, five and one-cighth square miles in area, known as the election precincts of Camp Washiington, Lick Run and Mill creck township, including Mount Harrison, . Barrsville, Fairmount, West Fair- mount, St. Peters, Lick Run, Clifton Heights and Camp Washington west from Clifton avenue and from Mill creek and north from McMillan street to the Liberty street line.
. The territory added by this ordinance was in- corporated into the city under the designation of the Eighteenth Ward which was the old election precinct of Camp Washington and the Twenty- first Ward the former election precinct of Lick Run and the tract in the Spencer township as a part of the twenty-fourth ward. The exact boundaries of these additions are set forth in the ordinance authorizing these annexations. (Coppock and Hertenstein, 16; 17; 18.)
This same year an effort was made to annex Clifton, Avondale, Woodburn, Columbia, Cum- minsville, Spring Grove, Winton Place, St. Bcr- "nard and 'Riverside.
The annexation was carried at the election by
the people but the enabling act was declared unconstitutional by the courts.
The village of Columbia including the oldest settlement in the Miami country, in area one and one-eighth square miles, was added to Cincin- nati on December 13, 1872. Cumminsville the original seat of the Ludlow family was annexed March 12, 1873. This tract including two and three-eighths square miles became known as the Twenty-fifth Ward and so continued until the date that the new code of 1902 became effective. In the same year, March 29, 1873, the village of Woodburn was added to the city; this in- cluded one square mile; this was added to the First Ward. The Zoological Garden and con- tiguous territory including one-fourth of a square mile were added to Cincinnati December 7, 1888.
The Legislature passed an act April 13, 1893, authorizing the annexation to the city of the vil- lages of Avondale, Riverside, Clifton, Linwood and Westwood and their school districts. This annexation was approved of by the voters of the city and villages and the terms thereof were determined by a Board of Annexation Commis- sioners, consisting of Judge C. D. Robertson, W. B. Melish and L. C. Robinson. The annexation went into effect, December 31, 1895, at midnight and added eleven square miles to the territory of Cincinnati.
On April 28th, 1902, there was added section six and the cast half of section twelve of the third township in the first fractional range, be- ing one and sixty-nine hundredths square miles lying west of Price Hill.
The original area of the city at the time of its incorporation was but three square miles. Its present area as a result of the annexations above mentioned is 37.09 square miles.
THE GEOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF CIN- CINNATI. By John M. Nickles.
The geological history of that. part of the earth's crust which underlies Cincinnati and vi- cinity is comparatively simple. The strata which form the framework of Cincinnati's hills consist of alternations of limestone layers and clay shales. The mineral composition and the struc- ture of these strata show that they were formed in a wide sea stretching from the Appalachian highland westward, as far, perhaps, as the back- bone of the Cordilleras. . This sea swarmed with animal life. The remains of these animals, fall- ing upon the floor of the sea, formed the layers
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of limestone. At times the currents swept along their waters surcharged with fine sediment brought from distant shores. This, settling slow- ly down, formed the clayey shales, in which the remains of the creatures of long by-gone ages are often beautifully preserved.
From the great thickness of stratified de- posits formed in this Mississippian sea, of which the present Gulf of Mexico is a much reduced vestige, we may infer that the sea bottom was slowly settling down. After this sinking had continued long enough to permit the accumula- tion of strata two thousand or more feet in thickness, a contraction in the earth's crust pro- duced a gentle fold which brought above the surface of the sea a long, rather narrow island extending north and south. This uplift has been called in geological history the Cincinnati anti- cline, as the strata dip gently away from the crest of this island eastward and westward.
The uplift probably took place about the close of Silurian times and involved formations be- longing to the Silurian period, the Ordovician (or Lower Silurian) period and underlying for- mations. The formations now exposed about Cincinnati belong to the Trenton and Cincin- nati stages of the Ordovician period. Over these were originally, without much doubt, the Clin- ton and Niagara stages of the Silurian period, but in the many millions of years which have elapsed since the anticline was formed, these Silurian formations and a large part of the Cin- cinnati formation have been croded away.
The rocks of the Cincinnati period comprise three stages, the Utica, Lorraine and Richmond. All of the Richmond and part of the Lorraine have been eroded away from Cincinnati and vi- cinity. A small part of the Trenton period, about fifty feet vertically, is exposed in the south bank of the Ohio River from West Covington to Ludlow. A much greater exposure vertically is found between New Richmond and Point Pleasant, Ohio, about twenty miles east of Cin- cinnati, as the axis of the anticline passcs here in its north and south trend. The Trenton con- tains with its shale much good building stone. In the carly days of Cincinnati stone was quar- ried from the south bank of thic Ohio. The name "Low River Quarries " still survives. A" large amount of stone was also formerly quar- ried from the Trenton in the vicinity of Point Pleasant.
The lower parts of the hills around the city expose the Utica. This formation consists main- ly of shale. Some of the limestone layers would
make building stone suitable for cellar work, etc., but nowhere can it be profitably quarried. The thickness around Cincinnati is about two hundred and sixty feet.
Overlying the Utica and forming the upper part of the Cincinnati hills is the Lorraine, which has altogether a thickness of about three hun- dred feet, but at Cincinnati only the lower two hundred feet are shown. All above has been carried away. It is in these beds that the.quar- ries have been opened which have supplied foun- dation work for the residences of Cincinnati's citizens. Several of the churches and other quasi-public buildings show that the stone can also be very tastily employed for architectural purposes. Formerly a large amount of lime was burned from this stonc, but of late years better grades brought into the city have displaced the home-made article except for cellar work.
The Richmond is exposed in a belt from fif- teen to twenty-five miles wide, surrounding Cin- cinnati in a semicircle through Indiana and Ohio at a distance from the city of from thirty to sixty miles.
All the formations about Cincinnati are very prolific in fossils. From the earliest times when the "blue limestone " began to be quarried by the early settlers, Cincinnati has been noted as one of the finest fossil collecting grounds in the world. A host of collectors have brought to light a wealth of animal remains. Over eight hundred species have been described from the Cincinnati period, and two or three hundred more are known that await description. Judg- ing from the large number of before unknown forms discovered within the past two decades, it may be safely predicted that many more wait for the kecn eyes of diligent collectors. Several very large collections, notably those of C. B. Dyer, U. P. James, and E. O. Ulrich, have been gathered, but to the shame of Cincinnati be it said that she has never given the proper en- couragement to scientific labors, and so these large collections, which can never be duplicated, have been allowed to slip away to the large scientific institutions of the East.
Among the many who have helped to un- carth the fossil treasures and make these riches known to the world niay be mentioned Dr. John Locke, who reported upon Southwestern Ohio for the First Ohio Geological Survey in 1836-7, S. T. Carley, Robert Buchanan, U. P. James, R. B. Moore, R. M. Byrnes, H. H. Hill, C. B. Dyer, S. A. Miller, Geo. W. Harper, A. G.
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CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI
Wetherby, E. O. Ulrich, R. S. Bassler, and C. L. Faber.
After the Cincinnati anticline had brought to the surface the new born island, it became the prey of the elements which are unceasingly at work tearing down the land surface and trans- porting the debris to the seas. Many millions of years have elapsed since rain, frost and running water began their work on this new surface. These elements work very slowly, but in the long ages that have elapsed since they began their work, they have brought about great changes in the appearance of the land. Originally the sur- face was almost level, but soon drainage chan- nels were established which were cut deeper and deeper. We do not know how much the sur- face of this old island has been worn down, but probably on an average it has lost between three hundred and four hundred feet vertically.
It is a very interesting study to trace the old drainage channels through which this great mass of rock and shale was carried seaward in the form of mud. Only a beginning has been made. It would seem that it ought not to be difficult, and it would not be, had it not been for a most surprising event in geological history. This was the advance from the north in comparatively re- cent times-geologically speaking-of a great, thick sheet of ice, an immense glacier, which covered over the surface of the land, filled up the hollows, planed off some of the eminences and swept around others, blocked the rivers and often compelled them to carve out for them- selves new channels. When the ice sheet melted away, it left undisturbed over hill and hollow an immense amount of wastage in the form of gravel, sand, silt, bowlders and till. The val- leys around Cincinnati quite generally show this glacial debris and some is found even on some of . the hill tops.
By this ice invasion, which had its southern limit only a short distance south of Cincinnati, the drainage of this region was profoundly modi- fied. The ancient drainage was obliterated, though it has here and there left its traces. The Ohio, at least as far down as Lawrenceburg, Indiana, is a young river, occupying mainly the channels of several very old streams; in some .places, as at Cincinnati, it has carved out for itself a new channel.
An examination of the surface features about 'Cincinnati shows that the older portion of the city occupies a somewhat semi-circular, depressed area, surrounded by hills except on the south where it is bounded by the Ohio River. Coving-
ton and Newport occupy a similar, smaller half- basin intersected by the Licking River and semi- circled by hills. The hills surrounding this basin are comparatively steep, though their surface now is not what it was when the city was first settled. Then the slopes of the hills were dense- ly wooded. Only here and there did the small streams cut through to the bed rock. The growth of the city caused many quarries to be opened into the hillsides, and later, when the city spread out over the hills, many cuts and fills were made for streets and residence sites. All in all, great changes . were thus made, yet the general features are about as they were when the floods caused by the melting of the ice sheet as it finally retreated had done their work.
What are called hills are not really hills, but only the escarpments of a rolling table land in which the Cincinnati-Covington-Newport basin has been hollowed out to a depth of about 300 feet below the general level of the country.
The western part of the basin is occupied by the broad Mill creek valley which continues north, then northeast. Several miles west of the Mill creek is a high ridge running from the Ohio River north through Westwood and Cheviot. From this ridge several spurs extend eastward. The one at the south is quite wide. It is occu- pied by Price Hill. That between Fairmount and North Fairmount is comparatively narrow. The Fairmount valley, drained by Lick run, now changed into a sewer, and the North Fairmount valley, and their side valleys, illustrate finely the amphitheatres which occur at a certain stage in normal erosion. So also does the valley of the West Fork, west of Cumminsville. In fact most of the small valleys about Cincinnati are of this shape. It is easily seen that from Mill creek west was a table land, which, as the result of erosion, has become a series of ridges and valleys.
The high land on the north of the basin forms a watershed from which several short streams in rainy weather flow down into the basin or, rather, did before they were deflected into sew- ers. Ravine street and Vine street occupy two such small water courses. Deer creek, in the valley between Mount Auburn and Eden Park, was another. The high ridge has been utilized in part for McMillan street. The north side of this watershed, occupied by Burnet Woods, Clif- ton, Avondale, Idlewild and Hyde Park, sends its drainage streams off to the north and north- west and eventually their waters find their way
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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
into Mill creek. Walnut Hills occupies the broad eastern end of this high ridge.
The present topography of the Cincinnati re- gion presents some instructive features which serve as clues to the ancient drainage. These are some of them: the very wide valley of the Mill creek with such an insignificant stream flowing in it; the valley of the Little Miami River for several miles above its mouth much wider than that of the Ohio from this point down; a broad low valley extending from the Little Miami at Red Bank westward to the Mill creek, in which are situated the suburbs Madi- sonville, Norwood and Bond Hill.
The explanation of these peculiarities is that in pre-glacial times, a stream, known as Old Limestone, heading somewhere in the vicinity of Maysville, Kentucky, and Manchester, Ohio, and occupying what is now the channel of the Ohio from Maysville down, flowed for several miles through the channel of the Little Miami north- wardly, then westwardly through the low val- ley just mentioned, to the neighborhood of St. Bernard. At that point it was joined by the Licking River which flowed northwardly through the lower part of the valley of the Mill creek. With its volume much augmented by the water of the Licking, Old Limestone continued on up the Mill creek valley to Hamilton, Ohio. Upon its course from this point different views 'are
entertained, but the weight of evidence favors the view that the river continued its course through a now abandoned channel from Hamil- ton southwestward into the valley of the White Water near Harrison, Ohio; thence, through the lower part of the White Water to its junction with the Great Miami River not far from Law- renceburg, Indiana.
Walnut Hills was directly connected with the highlands in Campbell County, Kentucky, lying east of Newport, Kentucky. Price Hill was con- tinuous with the hills of Kentucky lying to the south. When the ice sheet advanced from the north, it blocked up Old Limestone, the stream flowing north in Mill creek valley to Hamilton, damming its waters into a lake until they rose high enough to cut across the lowest parts, or cols, of the old ridges at Walnut Hills and Se- damsville, thus beginning the present course of the Ohio at Cincinnati. During the time which has elapsed since this event the Ohio has cut down these gaps to their present level. The steep slopes of the hills abutting on the Ohio in the First Ward of Cincinnati and the Twentieth Ward, Sedamsville and Riverside, are note- worthy and in very great contrast with the gen- tle slopes of hills carved out of the same kind of rocks which have been subject to normal erosion during long geological ages.
CHAPTER II.
PREHISTORIC INHABITANTS.
ANCIENT REMAINS-MOUND BUILDERS.
The first white man that came to the site of Losantiville could hardly have failed to notice the indications of the numerous presence at this point of an earlier people. The Indian as he has been known within historic times left little or no trace of his occupancy of any part of the land, but on the small table lands that consti- tuted the site of Losantiville were structures which were unmistakably the remains of a dif- ferent race and one whose name, character, his- tory and antiquity are left to mere conjecture. In the excitement of the chase and the dangers that encompassed the pioneers who first must have seen these remains, their presence aroused little or no attention. But after the settlement had located itself there were men who not only became inquisitive as to the peculiar structures but made a record of them. The earliest of these records of any importance is that con- tained in Dr. Drake's invaluable "Picture of Cin- cinnati," published in 1815. As a scientific ob- server, Dr. Drake unquestionably stands at the head of the early residents of the city and his record is so' accurate and at the same time so well expressed that it is best presented in his own words.
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