USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1 > Part 59
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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
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ries are maintained here, one of them belongs to a German by the name of Pickel."
Curiously enough Heckewelder was at Cincin- nati at the time of the taking of young Oliver Spencer on July 7, 1792, and gives an account of the episode.
The erratic habits of the Ohio showed them- selves even at this carly date, for the river rose II feet on the gth, which enabled a number of boats from Pittsburg to come down.
On the 12th William Wells who had been taken prisoner by the Indians when a boy of 12 years of age some eight years before came in from Louisville. He was pressed into service by General Putnam as an interpreter. He found among the prisoners his adopted mother and sis- ters and their meeting evoked many tears. Wells, it will be remembered, afterwards became one of the most valuable of Wayne's scouts. Two days later two soldiers who had been among the Indians were brought in and described the death of the peace mesengers, Trueman and Freeman. On the same evening the news came of an attack of thirty Indians upon Columbia where three men had been taken captive. A company of cavalry was sent in pursuit and followed the trail for thirty miles but were unable to take the redskins. On the 16th the head chief, one of those who had come in a few days before, died at Fort Washington. "The funeral march was beaten on the drum draped in mourning. They granted him a resting place in the cemetery be- lieving that this might be of advantage to them, among the relatives as well as among the Nation in general. Malicious people dug up the body again at night, tore down the flag and post, threw them into a mud-hole and dragged the body down along the street and stood it up there. The generals had the body buried again immediately in the morning and a flag raised. Governor St. Clair's secretary issued a proc- lamation offering 100 dollars reward for the discovery of the perpetrators. On the following night however the flag and proclamation were torn down, but the body remained unmolested. For a second time a new flag was raised, a guard placed near by, and nothing further happened."
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An incident of the 22nd was the punishment of a soldier who had attempted a revolt. "He was obliged to run the gauntlet, have his head shaved, a collar put around his neck and in this manner be drummed out of the fort and city. He had formerly been tied to the Wheelbarrow in Philadelphia."
Heckewelder took trips across the river from
which side he found Fort Washington in Cin- cinnati presented a very pleasant view. He de- scribes the sermons delivered at various times by the Presbyterian minister ( Kemper) and by a Mr. Clark, a Baptist from Columbia. The ser- mon of the latter in which he depicted the heathen and the calamity of November 4th (St. Clair's defeat ) as a chastisement of the Lord inflicted as a scourge because of the unbelief and dis- obedience of the settlers seems to have been re- ceived very favorably. Mr. Heckewelder's journal makes almost daily mention of reported attacks by the Indians, of the movement of soldiers to and from the Indian country and the passage of boats up and down the river. On August 16th, the Indians who had been prisoners for more than a year at an expense to the United States of sixty thousand dollars were forwarded to Post Vincennes and on the 18th General Put- nam and his party including Heckewelder left the settlement on the way to Louisville. They passed South Bend and North Bend and were impressed with the extent of the settlements along the river where five years before had been a wilderness. There were between three and four hundred people in the neighborhood some living in town and others on farms. These settle- ments had not been troubled by Indian raids for over two years. This was attributed to the friendly feeling of the Indians for Judge Symmes who was regarded by them as a father. Evidently a favorite story with the Judge was the explanation of the United States coat-of- arms given by one of the Indians which he re- ported in. one of his letters already quoted, for he tells this story over again to Heckewelder.
In October the party returned. They stopped at Judge Symmes' where they were delayed by the fact that the Indians of their company were given so much brandy that they could scarcely stand. When the party arrived at Fort Wash- ington on October 24th it was saluted by 15 cannon shots. Two days later they witnessed the hanging of a murderer who with another man in a fit of drunkenness had vowed to mir- der the first man they should meet. A few minutes afterwards they were caught in the act, imprisoned and upon trial one was acquitted and the other condemned to death. As is usual, the murderer on the gallows ascribed his misfor- tune to association with evil companions.
The next day Secretary Winthrop Sargent gave a dinner to the party, including the Indians. On Sunday, the 28th, General Wilkinson gave a similar dinner at the fort. At this meal the
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hcalths of the President, Gencral Knox, Putnam and each of the chiefs present were drank and as cach was named a salute was fired. One of the Indians seemed disturbed by the preparations for war which he noticed all about him and arose from his seat and asked an explanation. Gen- eral Wilkinson reassured him, whereupon the Indians arose and each shook hands with Gen- eral Wilkinson and all the officers and gentlemen present (there were about thirty of them). Each nation separately returned thanks for the Gen- eral's explanation and for the dinner. At this dinner the Indians were scated mixed with the other guests and great cordiality prevailed.
Two days later an Indian prince died and at his funchal all the officers and gentlemen of the city were present. Three salutes were fired over his grave, cach answered by a cannon shot from the fort. After the coffin was lowercd, the In- dians and the others present cach threw a hand- ful of earth upon it. In the coffin were placed the gun of the deceased, his tomahawk, powder- horn and balls, tobacco and pipe, several pairs of shoes and leather wherewith to mend them, a tin flask, knives and such like provisions and a bottle of brandy to be used on the journey in the new country. A long pole stripped of its bark was put up at the head of the grave and a white ' flag suspended from it. The party left the fort on the evening of the Ist of November.
Another account is contained in a letter of a Gallipolis merchant, E. J. D. Le Ture, written at Cincinnati July 6, 1792 :
"I have had the pleasure to receive your last by General Putnam. Would to God. that my anxiety could alleviate yours. Since the open- ing of the store again, except the first days, I do not sell a d-n's worth a day. New stores flock in every day, and with large assortments. The officers at this place give no more company or- (lers. Platt and McPherson, who were my friends, arc out of the service, and all of the storekcepers content themselves with small profits. There is now neither flour nor corn at this place. If some could be got soon somc- where on the river, I am confident I could sell a thousand bushels of the latter. This is worth attending to, for there are many mouths at the settlement who will cat, let it be at what price it will.
"In my opinion the best speculation that could be done in this country would be to have a store in the fall of the year up the Kentucky River, or at Washington, near Limestone, to take corn for the goods, which should be brought here be-
fore planting time. It is astonishing the quan- tity of that produce that is here. The transport in canoes, if proper measures arc taken, will be trifling. Then will be the time that horses will flock in, and the Militia Horse will give their breeches for food. Cheese, bacon, gammons, to- bacco, hemp, and some butter will always find a good market here. Home-made sugar fetches a quarter of a dollar a pound.
"The situation of the colony alarms me much. I can not think so many people will be sacrificed to a few speculators. Should any thing turn up that would oblige- me to go into the settlements, I believe it will be in my power to advise them on the methods they are to take in order to have justice done them." (Quoted by George M. Roc, in Times-Star History.)
EARLY BUILDINGS.
An important building crected in 1792 was the Presbyterian mceting house that stood at the northwest corner of Fourth and Main. It will be remembered that in laying out the town the proprietors dedicated the south half of this block to school and church purposes. During the next year Rev. David Ricc of Kentucky organized a religious society of the Presbyterian faith and proceeded to occupy the premises thus set apart. The society was not able at the time to erect a church edifice and the only use made of the premises at first was that of a graveyard. Their meetings were held at the horse-mill and occa- sionally at private houses.
In 1791 Rev. James Kemper arrived and a subscription was soon set on foot to erect a ineet- ing house. The trees had already been cleared from a portion of the lot at Fourth and Main and within a small circle, seated upon the logs, the people with rifles by their sides met for wor- ship in the open air. After the meeting house was completed in 1792, the whole four lots were enclosed with a post and rail fence. The tim- ber for the building was taken from the spot upon which it was erected. It was a plain frame. about 30 by 40 feet in dimensions, roofed and weatherboarded with clapboards but neither lathed, plastered nor ceiled. The floor was of boat plank laid loosely upon sleepers. The only ornamentation was a small semicircle cut in the. frout gable above the door. The seats were formed by rolling in the necessary number of logs which were placed at suitable distances and covered with boards whipsawed for the purpose at proper spaces for seats. They were of course
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without backs and, for a time it is said, the rough logs served the purpose of seats. On one side of the room a breastwork of unplaned cherry boards was constructed which was styled the pulpit behind which the preacher stood upon a boat plank supported by two blocks of wood. This building was finally removed in 1804 10 Vine below Fifth about the spot where the Emery Hotel is now located and became known for many years as Burke's Church. It was re- placed by a large brick building. (Cincinnati in 1859, pp. 136-139.)
Dr. F. C. Monfort in "One Hundred Years of Presbyterianism in the Ohio Valley" states that the picture usually given as that of the first church is inaccurate. It represents a two-story building with a stone foundation whereas the church was one story and rested on blocks of wood. The picture represents Burke's Church, as it was reconstructed from the material of the old building. Dr. Monfort gives a copy of a sketch of the first church drawn by Isaac Mc- Farland which he says is more accurate though not so pretty. (See also Martin's Schools of Cincinnati, p. 24.)
President L'Hommedieu, in his address to the Pioneer Association delivered in 1874, stated that the pews and pulpit sounding board of the old pioneer meeting house were still in use in a small German Lutheran Church on the river road within the present corporate limits of the city. (Cincinnati Pioneer, No. III, p. II.)
During this same year (1792) about fifty per- sons were added to the population by immigra- tion and several more cabins with three or four frame houses were put up. The first school was also established this year and was attended by about thirty scholars. Two important stores were established, one by James Ferguson who
had been a volunteer under Harmar, another by James Smith and James Findlay under the name of Smith & Findlay. The advertisements of both these stores appear frequently in the carly numbers of the Centinel. Ferguson's store was at the corner of Third and Sycamore while that of Smith & Findlay was on Front near the foot of Broadway.
The first of Cincinnati's many great floods after the year of the settlement itself occurred during this year and as a result the town, that is to say the Bottom which was in fact all of the town, was flooded to the average depth of five feet. The same thing happened the next year.
THE FIRST FIRE. .
Some idea of- the physical appearance of the settlement above the bottoms is given by the account of Goudy's fire which happened in 1794. For three or four years prior to this time, accord- ing to the statement of Judge Matson, there had been a worm fence enclosing a number of out-lots which extended about Sixth street north to Court street and from Main street west to the section line about where is now John street. There were but a few buildings on this space. One of them a small frame east of Main street on what is called the St. Clair square between Seventh and Eighth had been put up by Thomas Goudy, the pioneer lawyer, as an office. He found however that this was too far out of town . and the place was abandoned by him for office purposes. In the carly spring of the year one of the occupants of this enclosure, while engaged in clearing up land for farming purposes, built a brush fire at the west end. The fire spread over the whole clearing and soon had occupied the entire territory, feeding on the dead trees which had been girdled and had become perfect- ly dry. The high wind blew the conflagration castward as far as Main street, carrying in its course large flakes of the sap wood fully ablaze. The sight of more than one hundred acres of dry timber in flames must have been not only mag- nificent but terrifying. The whole population turned out in the endeavor to save the rails but in this they were not very successful. A num- ber of men were stationed on Goudy's building with buckets of water and succeeded in saving it. This was the first important fire in the city and it was most important in its results. It brought clearly to the minds of the settlers the danger in which they lived by reason of the girdled dry trees standing all about and induced them to clear out the out-lots more rapidly than they otherwise would have done.
The defeat of the Indians at the battle of Fallen Timbers and the treaty of Greenville which followed changed very materially the con- ditions of the settlement. Prior to this. time there was no certainty of continued life but front 1794 the uncertainty vanished and the settle- ment's progress though slow was sure. Another element which contributed to the advance of the settlement was the final issue of the patent to Judge Symmes which ended the annoyance about the titles to the section within the town limits. A very important factor as well was the establishment of a line of keel-boat packets by
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Jacob Myers which ran between Cincinnati and Pittsburg. A more complete announcement of this enterprise is contained in the extracts from the Centinel published in another chapter.
The peace of Greenville was "hailed by the infant settlements as the era of peace and seeur- ity. They now looked forward to an exemption from ravage, danger and distress and all the horrors of savage warfare. The return of peace gave them new ambition and new hopes. They removed from their forts into the adjacent coun- try, selected farms, built cabins and began to subdue the forest. They were soon joined by other emigrants who upon the news of peace began to flock across the mountains in great ifumbers. * * In 1795 the town contained ninety-four cabins, ten frame houses and about five hundred inhabitants. In 1800 the popula- tion was estimated as about seven hundred and fifty and five years afterwards, 1805, it amount- ed to only nine hundred and sixty." (Direct- ory of 1819, p. 29.)
THE ARRIVAL OF JUDGE BURNET.
During the year 1796, Judge Burnet arrived and he found a small village of log cabins, in- eluding about fifteen rough unfinished frame houses with stone chimneys. Not a briek had then been seen in the place. His account of the town with its lower and upper plain and the swamp extending at the base of the upper plain has already been given. The chief hotel of the village he tells us was that of Griffin Yeatman and the most remarkable object in the city was Fort Washington with the artificers' yard on the bank of the river. Among other important structures he mentions Colonel Sargent's resi- denee north of Fourth street behind the fort and that of Dr. Allison to the east of the fort on what is now Ludlow street. The Presbyterian Church on Main street and the school house on the north side opposite to where St. Paul's Church afterwards stood ( where now the St. Paul Building stands) are also mentioned by him. The frame school house was unfinished but enclosed at that time. Upon the north side of the publie square, there was a strong log building erected and occupied as a jail. A room in the tavern of George Avery near the frog pond at the corner of Main and Fifth streets had been rented for the accommodation of the court ; and as the penitentiary system had not been adopted and as Cincinnati was the seat of justice it was ornamented with a pillory, stocks and whipping post and occasionally with a gal-
lows. These were all the structures of a public character then in the place. The frog pond re- ferred to by Burnet as at the intersection of Main and Fifth streets was a pond of water and full of alder bushes from which the frogs ser- cnaded the neighborhood during the summer and fall, and rendered it necessary to construct a causeway of logs, to pass it. That morass re- inained in its natural state with its alders and its frogs for several years.
SAMUEL STITT'S REMINISCENCES.
Another arrival of this year who gives us some account of the settlement was Samuel Stitt, who died in 1847 at the advanced age of 78 years. He had been born in Ireland in 1769 and came to America twenty years later. He arrived in Cincinnati, in May, 1796, and settled on the river bank. His description of the town at the time of his arrival is published by Mr. Cist :
"Facing the river, at the time I eame, was entirely a bluff bank, the surface being cleared, excepting a large elm tree, east of what is now Commercial Row (Southwest corner of Main and Water streets), from which, for several years, the martins took their departure. It stood many years, until struck by lightning, when it was eut down to keep it from setting on fire the adjacent houses. There was a large eove opposite Griffin Yeatman's, at the mouth of Sycamore street. This cove, and at Joel Wil- liams', now Latham's Corner ( foot of Main), were the principal landings. There was another cove at Ludlow street. An old woman, named Wright, who did washing for the garrison, had a cabin at this eove, and was obliged to remove to the upper bank when the river was high. There was a duck and snipe pond, a hundred feet across, where Walker kept store, reaching half-way to Sycamore street. A post and rail fence extended along Main from Columbia (Second) street, which, in extremely wet weather, was our only means of getting on foot to the hill. There was no horse-path at this period up the hill, on Main street, which was a bluff, gravel bank; and it required a pretty active man to climb it; but there was a cow-path up Broadway, and a very steep wagon road up Sycamore street. The timber was all eut down on the town plat in 1706, when I first saw it.
"Gibson had a frame house at the corner of Main and Front streets, in which he kept store. D. C. Cooper, who afterward laid out Dayton.
DR. DANIEL DRAKE.
REV. JAMES KEMPER.
JUDGE JACOB BURNET.
EDWARD D. MANSFIELD.
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had the opposite corner, now Bates', which he rented of Israel Ludlow. There were no other houses between Front and Columbia streets, ex- cept a few one-story frames ; at Mitchell's corner there was an uninhabited log house.
"Geo. Gordon kept tavern above Resor's (on Main), and there was no other house on that side toward Second street ; all up to the corner was a pasture-lot, belonging to and occupied by Israel Ludlow.
"William Ramsay kept store where Kilgour & Taylor have since, at the corner of the alley (on Front) below Main street. Isaac Anderson and Samuel Dick owned and occupied the lots, west on Front, as far as Walnut street. William McCann kept tavern at Liverpool's corner (Front and Walnut). Freeman, the printer, resided between Walnut and Vine streets.
"Martin Baum, William Ramsay, and myself, clubbed together and paid one dollar, per year, to a man for mowing down the gympson weeds in front of the houses on the Public Landing. We all had our pasture-lots ; mine was on Deer creek, a little north of Fox's sawmill. On this lot was a large hollow sycamore tree, which was occupied as a dwelling by a woman who washed for the garrison. A large limb had been broken off, and the stump of it left, served for a chim- ney. It was as much blacked by the smoke as any brick chimney I have seen since.
"General . Wilkinson commanded the garrison in 1796. He had a carriage, with two handsome horses. It was the only carriage in the place at that period.
"J. W. Browne kept store where. Manser's iron store now is-William and Michael Jones across the alley ( Front cast of Main). Duffy had a store next east, and Baum where Shoen- berger's iron store has been since built. Major Ziegler kept store next to the corner of Syca- more, where Yeatman had his tavern.
"The first jail was on Water street, west of Main. It could be readily seen from the river. The debtors and criminals were all shut up to- gether ; but in daylight the jailor allowed them the liberty of the neighborhood, they taking care, whenever the sheriff was about, to make tracks to the jail as rats to their holes. There was a whipping-post, when I came to Cincinnati, about one hundred feet west of Main, and fifty feet south of Fifth street, near the line of Church alley. Levi McClean (Mclean), the jailor, did the whipping. I saw a woman whipped for stealing. McClean would get drunk at times, and in these frolics would amuse himself by
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whipping, with a cowhide, the prisoners in jail, all round, debtors as well as criminals.
"The second jail was built at Stagg's corner of Walnut and Sixth streets. It was burnt down, after standing some years. The third was built on Church alley, nigher Walnut than Main street. The court was held on the Gano prop- erty, Main, between Fifth and Sixth streets. The Supreme Court, of which Symmes was a judge, was held at Yeatman's Tavern.
"When I first saw the mound on Fifth street, it had timber on it, like Loring's woods. There were poplars growing of immense size in the hollows below Hathaway's.
"I never saw Indians but once, in early days, and this was a party which came down Main street, in single file-all in a row, like wild geese. The squaws. came last. They were quartered in the artificers' yard, just where Stra- der & Gorman's warehouse now stands." ( Cin- cinnati in 1859, p. 145.)
THE FIRST JAIL.
The first jail referred to had been built in 1793. It was a mere log cabin, a story and a half high and 16 feet square. The ground in its neighbor- hood was cleared out and it was distinctly vis- ible from the river. Most of its occupants were debtors and were not treated with great strict- ness. The erection of the jail was a matter of some considerable discussion as is shown by a letter from Symmes to McMillan, written De- cember 8, 1792. From this we learn that the jail had been begun and was going on briskly but that the people of Cincinnati were voting on the question whether the jail should be built on the first bottom or on the second bank. Symmes gave his voice for the second bank for the rea- son that the ground could be had much cheaper, fuel at less expense and that the situation would be more elevated and healthy, in addition to its more magnificent appearance. The soil was much more dry, the prisoners would at no time be drowned like pigs in a sty and great expense would be saved in carting the timber, and this was already more in the center of the town. This would be "more convenient than Cincinnati for the people of the other villages in the county." Water could be had by digging a well which ought to be within the liberties of the prison and if it stood on the bank of the Ohio a well woukl be necessary that privileged prisoners for debt might draw for themselves. In time the increase in population resulted in an increase of prisoners
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and a new jail of hewed logs with a lapped shingled roof two stories high and larger than its predecessor was erected within less than two years at the southeast corner of Sixth and Wal- nut streets. Its size was 15 by 20 feet. Late in 1795 this building was moved by the public teams of eight yoked oxen in charge of Capt. John Thorpe, the quartermaster, who was as- sisted by Jolin Richardson, to the lot at the corner of Church alley ( now Church place) and Wal- nut street. (Cist's Miscellany, Vol. I, p. 51.) .
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