USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1 > Part 52
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Strangely enough, Mr. Williams, moved by a similar desire to benefit the public and obey the law, took steps on the same day and filed his plat as late as six o'clock in the evening. The real explanation is given by Judge Burnet in describ- ing the lawsuit and the annoyance of Colonel Ludlow at the claim of Williams. Mr. Williams was as particular as Mr. Ludlow not to print on- the plat the name. His plat, as Judge Burnet says, contained the name Cincinnati but the statement in his letter that it affirmed "Cincin- nati to be the true original name of the town" is a remarkable one in view of the fact that it pur- ports on its face to be a plat "of the town of Cin- cinnati formerly called Losanterville." That statement in fact is not true with regard to the Ludlow plat even, which contains merely a re-
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cital of the name Cincinnati and no statement as to whether or not it was the original name.
Judge Burnet's argument that the omission of the name Losantiville in the evidence is signifi- cant because there was no motive to leave it out applies with equal strength the other way. It was not mentioned because there was no motive to mention it, as the name of the town was not in controversy. It may be said that his interest then was that of the advocate and that this point did not arise. When the time came for him to be interested in it as a matter of history, years had elapsed. Dr. Drake began his study over a quarter of a century before Burnet gave any at- tention to the matter as a historian.
Ludlow's plat was finally held to be the true plat but prior to that time there is no question but that the Williams' plat was accepted by many as authoritative. The names of the streets given thereon were commonly used. Dr. Drake refers ycars afterwards to the name of Walnut street as Cider strect as it was designated in Williams' plat and Fifth street was called Byrd for many years afterwards.
So much for the inconclusive character of the statements of Mr. Cist and Judge Burnct. The positive evidences are much stronger. 1
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In the original article of agreement that was entered into by the proprietors at Limestone in December, 1788, after the death of Filson at which time the name Losantiville is claimed to have died, the introduction reads: "The Condi- tions for settling the town of Losantiburg are as follows." Shortly afterwards, after the survey had been completed on January 7, 1789, Col. Is- rael Ludlow himself publicly affixed his own sig- nature to the conditions of the donation. The caption of this reads as follows: "Conditions on which the donation lots in the town Losantiville are held and settled." This would seem suffi- cient to estop Mr. Ludlow or any one for him from disputing the' name. The merc variation between Losantiburg and Losantiville is of no consequence. It is clear that at this time the name Cincinnati had never been heard of.
Judge Syinmes, the principal person interest- ed in the purchase, himself a lawyer of many years' standing, in his letter to Dayton from North Bend, May 18, 1789, writes as follows :
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"On the 24th of December last, Colonel Pat- terson, of Lexington, who is concerned with Mr. Denman in the section at the mouth of the Lick- ing River, sailed from Limestone in company with Mr. Tuttle, Captain Henry, Mr .. Ludlow, and about twelve others, in order to form a 'sta-
tion and lay out a town opposite Licking. They suffered much from the inclemency of the weather and floating ice, which filled the Ohio from shore to shore. Perseverance, however, triumphing over difficulty, they landed safc on a most delightful high bank of the Ohio, where they founded the town of Losantiville, which populates considerably, but would have been more important by this time if Colonel Patterson or Mr. Denman had resided in the town. Colonel Patterson tarried one month at Losantiville, and returned to Lexington."
It is possible that had Mr. Denman or Colonel Patterson remained in the town any length of time, their recollections as to the name might have been more specific. Denman never saw the town until years later and Patterson as is seen remained but a short time. However Mr. Denman in his deposition given many years af- terwards, August 1, 1833, to be used in the case of the city against the First Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati, refers to his selection of the entire section and the fractional section as "being the same on which the town first called Losantiville and afterwards Cincinnati is laid out and where the city of Cincinnati now stands." His grand- son, D. F. Denman of Coshocton, Ohio, in his sketch furnished for this work says particularly that Judge Burnet is mistaken in assuming that the name Losantiville was proposed but was not adopted. His language which is quoted else- where is "I think Judge Burnet mistaken as I know positively that Matthias Denman said that the town was so called (that is Losantiville) un- til the coming of Governor St. Clair in 1790."
So great an authority as Robert Clarke quotes the deposition of Denman in his communication published in the Commercial of this city in the year 1873, in which he takes to task the late li- brarian, John M. Newton, for perpetuating in a paper read by him before the Literary Club of Cincinnati the error that the settlement was never called Losantiville.
Judge Symmes as late as June 14, 1789, in a letter to Dayton, forecasts the future of the set- tlement as follows :
"One remark I have hitherto omitted, viz: it is expected, that on the arrival of Governor St. Clair, this purchase will be organized into a county ; it is therefore of some moment which town shall be made the county town. Losantf- ville, at present, bids the fairest : it is a most ex- cellent site for a large town, and is at present the most central of any of the inhabited towns; but if Southbend might be finished and occupied.
JOHN CLEVES SYMMES.
MATTHIAS DENMAN.
COL. ROBERT PATTERSON.
JOHN FILSON.
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that would be exactly in the centre, and probably would take the lead of the present villages until the city can be made somewhat considerable."
The statements with regard to the change of the name are no less significant. Here we have the evidence in writing of Judge Symmes, the proprietor, Major Sargent, the Secretary of the Territory, and General Harmar, commander of the army of the United States then located at Fort Washington.
Judge Symmes speaks first of the change of name in a letter from North Bend, of January 9, 1790 :
"Governor St. Clair arrived at Losantiville on the 2d instant. He could be prevailed on to stay with us but three nights. He has organ- ized this purchase into a county. His excellency complimented me with the honor of naming the county. I called it Hamilton County, after the Secretary of the Treasury. General Harmar has named the new garrison Fort Washington. The Governor has made Losantiville the county town by the name of Cincinnata, so that Losanti- ville will become extinct."
See also the letter to Dayton, describing the death of Badgley, the surveyor, "who had been for some time an industrious citizen of Losanti- ville." The name Losantiville is used twice in this connection.
In Major Sargent's official journal we find this entry :
"LOSANTIVILLE, January 2, 1790.
"The Governor arrived here this morning and will probably be detained by public business until the 4th, when he expects to take his departure for Kaskaskia."
This entry of Sargent's is a part of the official record of the trip made by the Governor and himself through the Territory.
General Harmar in his letter to the Secretary of War of January 14, 1790, giving official notice of the arrival of the Governor of the Northwest Territory and of his proceedings while at head- quarters states first that he has named the fort Fort Washington. Then in describing the lo- cality he uses the following language :
"The distance between the Little Miami and Great Miami is twenty-eight measured miles. Near the Little Miami there is a settlement called Columbia ; here (seven miles distant from Coltunbia), there is another named Losanteville, but lately changed to Cincinnati, and Judge Symmes himself resides at the other, about fif- teen miles from hence, called the Miami City, at the north bend of the Ohio River. They are,
in general, but small cabins, and the inhabitants of the poorer class of people."
In a paragraph from Symmes' letter of Janu- ary 9, 1790, already referred to, Symmes reports that "Mr. Denman has paid for two or three sec- tions at most and his section and fraction at Los- antiville." Dayton as late as March 20, 1790, still knows the settlement as Losantiville for in a letter of warning already quoted he states that "it seems that Denman had never covered with any warrant the section on which they are build- ing Losantiville" and he suggests that Symmes should "prevent his covering the Losantiville section with any warrant" except such as he should buy from the Judge.
In addition to these officials there is the evi- dence of a well known citizen, first of Cincin- nati, then afterwards of Dayton. Benjamin Van Cleve arrived in Cincinnati in 1790, where he re- mained until his removal to Dayton in 1796. Hc speaks of his arrival as follows :
"We landed at Losantiville, opposite the mouth of Licking River, on the third day of January, 1790. Two small, hewed-log houses had been erected, and several cabins. General Harmar was employed in building Fort Washington, and commanded Strong's, Pratt's, Kearsey's, and Kingsbury's companies of infantry, and Ford's artillery. A few days after this Governor St. Clair appointed officers, civil and military, for the Miami country. His proclamtion, erecting the county of Hamilton, bears date January 2, 1790, on the day of his arrival. Mr. Tappan (Tapping), who came down with us, and who remained only a short time, and William McMil- lan, esq., were appointed justices of the peace for this town, of which the Governor altered the name from Losantiville to Cincinnati."
To the foregoing may be added the definite statement of Symmes, contained in his letter to Dayton already quoted in this chapter, discussing the proper termination of the new town name to the effect that he gave it its name.
It is not unlikely that a more complete search through the carly correspondence of this neigh- borhood would disclose many more instances of the use of the name Losantiville. The general belief of the carly residents is indicated by such statements as that in the Directory of 1819 that "the town was first named Losantiville. *
The name .was afterwards altered to Cincin- nati by Governor St. Clair."
The Directory of 1829 contains a similar state- ment and this was certainly the general belief in the early days. It is not necessary however to
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CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI
cite any further evidence. The distinct state- ment of the most prominent people in the Terri- tory made at the time of the change can not be disposed of by such negative evidence as that in- troduced by Judge Burnet or the recollection of a very few old men taken many years after the occurrence. The evidence seems therefore to be conclusive that the year 1789 belongs to the his- tory of Losantiville and that the history of the settlement of Cincinnati under that name docs not begin until 1790.
THE FIRST YEAR OF THE SETTLEMENT.
The first year of the life of the settlement -- the formative period when it was known as Los- antiville-was taken up with the ordinary inci- dents that are so well known in the life of every new settlement. The site with which the set- tlers had to deal, although at that time a wilder- ness and to-day a large city covered with the streets and buildings necessary to accommodate a busy population, was in its main topographical features the same as it is at present. Dr. Drake in his first book published in 1810 gives a de- scription of it which has been included in the first chapter of this book. Very much the same description is reprinted in his later book, the "Picture of Cincinnati," published in 1815: It was the eastern part of a tract of alluvial or bot- tom land bounded by the hills on the north, Mill creek on the west, the river on the south and Deer creek on the east. In this plain were in- cluded approximately speaking four miles. It was of unequal elevation and the two plateaus which formed it were known as the Hill and Bottom. The lower plateau of but the average breadth of about eight hundred feet ran from Deer creek to Mill creek; it was rather high at the east, at the west it was subject to frequent overflow. In March, 1793, the whole of this plain was inundated. The Hill arose by a stcep ascent about fifty feet above the Bottom and then "continues the distance of nearly a thousand feet when the surface declines gently to the base of the adjoining highlands. The medium breadth of this table is about one mile. Its western por- tion is uneven and towards Mill creek descends to the level of the Bottom."
At that time said the Doctor "the prospect along the river was limited and uninteresting but from the river itself or from the banks opposite the appearance of the town was beautiful; and in the future period when the streets shall be grad- uated from the hill to the river shore promises to become magnificent."
The month after the settlement was spent largely in making surveys and marking out the lots allotted to the purchasers. The street lines were marked by blazing the trees. We are told that the first effort was made to lay out the city simply as far west as Main street, but the plan was a definite one and the survey proceeded with rapidity. The plan was modeled after that of the city of Philadelphia. Between Broadway and Western row there were six streets, each 66 feet wide, running from the river north 16 de- grees west and lying 396 feet apart. These were intersected at right angles by others of the same width and the same distance apart except Water and Front streets which are nearer and Second and Third streets farther apart on ac- count of the brow of the Hill. Not a single al- ley, court or diagonal strect was laid out. The blocks or squares were each divided into eight blocks, 99 by 108 fect, except those lying be- tween Second and Third streets which made ten lots each ; and those between Front and Water streets, which contained four lots each, not quite so deep. The out-lots, 81 in number, contained four acres each and in that part of the city, sub- sequently laid out by Symmes cast of Eastern row, the streets were but 60 feet wide. The do- nations, as has been stated, in addition to the common or Public Landing, including the square between Fourth, Fifth, Walnut and Main. These lots were paid for by the purchaser at about the same price as other lots were paid for.
Immediately after the assigning of the lots, the settlers proceeded to make their improve- ments and to get them ready for crops. A large part of the bottom land between Walnut street and Broadway was cleared at once, although the trees in many cases were allowed to remain where they had fallen. Stumps were to be seen throughout the settlement for some years to come. As is stated elsewhere, the principal re- liance for food was upon the settlers of Colum- bia who had the advantage of the fertile valley of Turkey Bottom. The population of the place in May of this year is said to have included II families besides 24 unmarried men, together with the officers and soldiers of the garrison. (Di- rectory of 1819, p. 19; Cincinnati in 1859, p. 25. )
There were some twenty cabins built, in the main, in the neighborhood of the present Public Landing. The. difficulties with regard to food, which continued in spite of the plenty of fish and game together with the fear of the Indians wlio up to this time had made no hostile demon-
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strations but showed their continued unfriendli- ness, made the future of the settlement very un- certain. The coming of the soldiers, however, in the early part of June and the subsequent erec- tion of Fort Washington settled the question of the permanency of the settlement. More log houses were built and also a frame house at the corner of Front and Main which was occupied by Colonel Ludlow. Some of the out-lots be- yond Seventh street were also cleared.
"About twenty acres in different parts of the town were planted with corn. The corn, when ripe, was ground in hand-mills. Flour, bacon, and other provisions, were chiefly imported. Some of the inhabitants brought with them a few light articles of household furniture, but many were mostly destitute. Tables were made of planks, and the want of chairs was supplied with blocks; the dishes were wooden bowls and trenchers. The men wore hunting-shirts of linen and linsey-woolsey, and round them a belt, in which were inserted a tomahawk and scalping- knife. Their moccasins, leggings, and panta- loons were made of dieer skins. The women wore linsey-woolsey, manufactured by them- selves. The greatest friendship and cordiality existed among the inhabitants, and a strong zeal for each other's safety and welfare." (Direc- tory of 1819, p. 22.)
INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF THE SETTLERS.
During the early days of the settlements, be- fore the crops matured there was great scarcity of vegetables and particularly of corn. The roots of the beargrass are constantly referred to as one of the resources of the settlers. Jesse Coleman stated that repeatedly he had nothing more for three days' subsistence than a pint of parched corn. The first mill was built by Mr. Coleman at Columbia by making fast two flat- boats side by side and placing the water-wheel between the two. Grindstones were put in one boat with the grain and the flour and the ma- chinery in the other. Before this time the set- tlers had relied upon hand-mills or upon sending to the settlements in Kentucky. It was on one of these trips for bread that the Surveyor Badg- ley lost his life, as described by Judge Symmes in a letter to Dayton :
"The business of surveying has been carried on with great spirit and enterprise, by the young gentlemen who have been employed in that serv- ice. They plunged into the woods in mid-win- · ter, when the snow was considerably deep on the ground and the cold very severe; nor were these
inconveniences all which they suffered : the stock of flour which I purposely provided for them in the fall of the last year, was appropriated to the use of Captain Kearsey's company, nor was it possible to replace it at any rate. The survey- ors, therefore, and their attendants, were put to great shifts for bread. Many had their limbs frost-bitten, but none lost their lives by any hardships, except Noah Badgley, of Westfield, in New Jersey ; a very worthy young man, who had been for some time an industrious citizen of Losantiville. This young gentleman was in- duced to repair to Kentucky for a supply of bread-corn; he, with three other inhabitants of the same town with him, embarked in a canoe with their provisions, near Bourbon, on Licking River, when the water was high and the weather cold. They proceeded down the river for many miles, when coming into a very difficult place, where the stream broke off into several very crooked channels, the canoe was driven against drift logs and trees with such violence as to overset her. The four men saved themselves from the water by climbing on a tree, one of them soon swam out and escaped; Mr. Badgley next attempted to cross the stream by swimming, but was so rapidly hurried down the current that he was not able to gain the shore, and perished. The remaining two men continued on the tree for three days and nights-as one of them in- formed me-before they were taken off by the people who were following them down the river to Losantiville."
One instance of the ingenuity which was de- veloped by the necessities of the time occurred in the family of Alexander Guard, who settled at North Bend in 1790. Three years later he leased some of the land below the Bend at a point four or five miles below the blockhouse and erected a cabin there. One spring day when the Miami River was quite high, he started to remove his household effects down the river in a pirogue. His wife and children made the trip on foot. Unfortunately the pirogue capsized and all the contents were swept away by the flood and lost. As a result the Guard family were en- tirely without clothing. Mrs. Guard however, who had been accustomed to the cultivation of cotton and its manufacture into materials for clothing, noticed that the wild nettle which grew in great profusion about the river bottoms seemed to have a good fibre. She had a quan- tity of this collected and from it made one sea- son more than two hundred yards of cloth.
Mr. Cist's description of the city as it ap-
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peared within a few months after this settlement is specific and well worth quotation :
"From the hill which skirts the present line of Third street, to the river bluffs, lay a broad swamp, which occupied, principally, the space from Second to Lower Market streets, although, from its irregular shapc, parts of it extended even further south. This was originally a thick- et of beech and sugar-trees, and grape-vines, in- terspersed with a heavy undergrowth of spice- wood and papaws. On the second table, now lying between Third street and the hills in the rear of Cincinnati, the ground was more un- broken in its surface, and heavily timbered with beech, sugar-tree, and poplar, some of them of immense size. The river bank was a high bluff, extending, opposite the present Public Landing, about one hundred and fifty feet south of the upper line of Front street, and falling off north to the swamp rather rapidly. At Sycamore strcet a large cove put in, reaching within a foot of what is now the northeast corner of Sycamore and Front streets. Here Griffin Yeatman kept one of our carlicst public houses. It is difficult now to realize the fact, that the north line of the river at this point nearly reached that of Front street. At the corner of Ludlow was another of tlcse coves, and another still higher up, just be- low the mouth of Deer creek. The first of these was called the Stone Landing, and the second Dorsey's Cove. The ground fell off all the way from the banks of the Ohio to Second, then called Columbia strect. The covcs referred to, in early days, were the usual landing places for cmigrants, as they probably had been to the various expeditions which the settlers, in Ken- tucky, from time to time, sent over to retaliate on the Shawanese Indian settlements to our north, tlicir incursions across the Ohio. The old Indian war-path from the British garrison, at Detroit, crossed the river at this point, whichi was also the regular avenue by which the sav- agcs on the northern side of the Ohio approached the Kentucky stations." (Cincinnati in 1859, pp. 139 and 140.)
Maj. Jacob Fowler in his reminiscences given at the age of 84 to Mr. Cist, already quoted, states that at the time he arrived in Cincinnati in 1789, while Major Doughty was building the fort "there appeared forty or fifty cabins in the town, and but one or two stone chimneys among them all. The timber on the site of the built parts had been a heavy growth of sugar-tree, becch, and oak, with a few black walnuts, mostly large, and the cabins were surrounded with
standing timber, as well as with large butts of logs, considered too difficult and unprofitable to split, and which were therefore left to decay. The corners of the streets, as far as practicable, were blazed on the trees.
"Our hunting-ground was usually some ten or fifteen miles in the interior of Kentucky. Occa- sionally we hunted on Mill creek, four or five miles from the town, where there was a good supply of game. Our usual crossing-places from Kentucky, were at Yeatman or Sycamore street . cove, or at the Stone Landing, a cove higher up, so called because the stone wanted for Fort Washington was landed there." (Cincin- nati in 1859, p. 76.) Major Fowler appcars to have purchased in-lot 242, which is the southeast corner of Fifth and Race streets, for 30 shil- lings.
This statement with regard to the number of cabins does not agree with that of the writer of the historical part of the Directory of 1819. Fow- ler also states that at the time when he first saw it, the place was called Cincinnati and it is upon this statement that Mr. Cist and Mr. Tcetor basc their conclusion that the town of Losantiville never existed except in the mind of Filson. The two statements taken together probably explain each other and fix the timc referred to as the year later, 1790.
During this first year of the settlement, before the formal erection of a civil government, the community had been obliged to shift for itself under a sort of "Lynch Code" as it was called by Judge Burnct. The looseness of the man- ners and morals that always prevails in a new settlement subjected the well disposed citizens to constant annoyance and they felt that some ways and means must be devised to protect them- selves. As a result at Losantiville word was cir- culated throughout the settlement that the people would meet on the following day to consult and determine what should be donc for the common safety. At the proper time the populace met "under one of the majestic trccs which shaded the plain. They elected William McMillan chairman, appointed a secretary, whose namic I forget, and proceeded to business. They fornicd a code of by-laws, fixing the punishment to be inflicted for certain offences. They organized a court, established a trial by jury, appointed Mr. McMillan judge, and Jolin Ludlow sheriff. Before the mecting adjourned, every person present agreed to the regulations, and gave a solemit pledge that he would aid in carrying them into effect. It was not long before a
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