History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 10

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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Should any men desert you, the scouts are to take the track, pursue, overtake, and make prisoners of them; and for every one so appre- hended and brought back, you may engage them twenty dollars, If the deserter is discovered making for the enemy, it will be well for the scout to shoot him and bring his head to you ; for which allow forty dollars. One head lopped off in this way and set upon a pole on the parade might do lasting good in the way of deterring others.

Society in the infant Cincinnati largely took its tone from the official society in Fort Washington. Here, it must be remembered, were quartered, at various times, four eminent commanders of the American army, under the President-Generals Harmar, St. Clair, Wayne and Wilkinson. In the staffs of these men, and in more immediate command of the troops, were officers of culture and polished manners, some of European education, many of luxurious habits. The living at the officers' mess tables was generous. It is shrewdly sus- pected that St. Clair's defeat was due quite as much to his gastronomic indulgences as to any misconduct of his men or officers; for he was so afflicted with the gout during his campaign that he had to be carried in a litter to the fatal field, and was quite incapable of the most efficient action. General Wilkinson, who succeeded him, was a gentleman and scholar who delighted in surround- ings of beauty and refinement; and in the schemes for adornment and social pleasure he was ably and cordially seconded by his wife. Here, in the wilds of the west, besides frequent balls and other festivities at the fort, Wilkinson had a superb barge built and decorated as a pleasure-boat, upon which he gave banquets and other entertainments to his officers and friends. Mr. H. M. Brackenridge, author of Recollections of Persons and Places in the West, saw this barge in its heyday, and thus writes of it:

The general's lady and several ladies and gentlemen were on board of the boat, which was fitted up in a style of convenience, and even magnificence, scarcely surpassed by the present steamboats. It was propelled against the stream by twenty-five or thirty men, sometimes with the pole, by the cordelle, and often by the oar. There was also a band of musicians on board, and the whole had the appearance of a mere party of pleasure. My senses were overpowered-it seemed an Elysium! The splendor of the furniture, the elegance of the dresses, and then the luxuries of the table, to a half-starved creature produced an effect which cannot casily be described. Every repast was a royal banquet, and such delicacies were placed before me as I had never seen, and in sufficient abundance to satiate my insatiable appetite.

The general's countenance was continually lighted up with smiles, · and he seemed the faire le bonheur of all around him. It seemed to be his business to make every one happy.

· And Herr Klauprecht writes, in his German Chronicle of the History of the Ohio Valley:

Ilis lady, a charming being, assisted her husband in a truly estim- able manner, by enlivening the entertainments with the sprightliness and grace of her amiable soul.

Judge Burnet also writes, in his Notes on the Settle- ment of the Northwestern Territory :

During a large portion of the year, they had to endure the fatigues and privations of the wiklerness; and as often as they returned from those laborious excursions, they indulged most freely in the delicacies of high living. Scarcely a day passed without a dinner-party, at which

* This is undoubtedly the source from which Mr. Cist drew his de- scription.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

the best of wine and of other liquors, and the richest viands furnished by the country and by commerce, were served up in great profusion and in fine taste. Genteel strangers who visited the place, were generally invited to their houses and their sumptuous tables. At one of those sumptuous dinners, given by Angus McIntosh, the bot- tom of every wine-glass on the table had been broken off, to prevent what was called heel-taps; and during the evening many toasts were given, which the company were required to drink-in bumpers.

CHAPTER VII. CINCINNATI'S FIRST DECADE.

SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY.

The great local events which opened this year were the visit of Governor St. Clair, the consequent erection of Hamilton as the second county in the Northwest Territory, and the re-christening of the chief town of the Miamis as its county-seat and the prospective capital of the Territory. Let it be borne in mind, however, that Hamilton county was not in being, and that Cincinnati was Losantiville, so far as public knowledge, at least, was concerned, during the first three days of this year. The testimony is express to the effect that the Gov- ernor arrived at Fort Washington January 2d, sent for Judge Symmes to North Bend the next day, and on the fourth issued his proclamation erecting "this Purchase into a county," as Symmes said, at the same time that he, as the judge put it in another letter, "made Losantiville the county-town by the name of Cincinnata, so that Lo- santiville will become extinct." It is altogether probable that while St. Clair left to Symmes the designation of the county (and the judge, in a letter cited below, seems also to claim the re-christening of Losantiville), he assumed himself the entitling of its seat of justice, the Queen City to-be, and named it from the famous society of which both himself and Colonel Hamilton were members- that society which, in the old words, was "instituted by the Officers of the American Army at the Period of its Dissolution, as well to commemorate the great event which gave Independence to North America, as for the Laudable Purpose of inculcating the Duty of laying down in Peace Arms assumed for public Defence, and of uniting in Acts of brotherly affection and Bonds of Per- petual Friendship the members constituting the same." This society received its nanie, as is well known, from Cincinnatus, the noble Roman agriculturist who, 458 B. C., was called from his plow to become the Dictator of Rome, in a great public emergency. Its honors are still shared by a few citizens of the metropolis whose greatness has helped to give its name renown-gentlemen who have the blood of Revolutionary heroes. Only seven other places in the United States or in the world bear the same title-in Washington county, Arkansas; Pike coun- ty, Illinois; Greene county, Indiana; Appanoose county, Iowa; Ralls county, Missouri; Pawnee county, Nebraska; and Walker county, Texas ;- all wholly unimportant places, except for their great name. There is also a Cin- cinnatus in Cortland couny, New York.

A paragraph may well enough be given here to Judge Symmes' spelling of the word as Cincinnata. He retained this in the date-line of such of his letters as were written from this place, and in other of his writings, for some years, when he adopted the orthography which has always been standard. His letters of 1795. bear the heading "Cincinnati." Long before this he was troubled with doubts as to the word, whose spelling seems to have been the result of his own reasonings and inventions, prompted by his classical knowledge, rather than to rest upon any recognized authority. In a letter of his, dated June 19, 1791, having written the word once in his epistle, he diverges from his topics of business into the following excursus :

Having mentioned Cincinnata, I beg, sir, you will inquire of the liter- ati in Jersey whether Cincinnata or Cincinnati be most proper. The design I had in giving that name to the place was in honor of the Order of Cincinnati, and to denote the chief place of their residence; and, so far as my little acquaintance with cases and genders extends, I think the name of a town should terminate in the feminine gender where it is not perfectly neuter. Cincinnati is the title of the order of knighthood and cannot, I think, be the place where the knights of the order dwell. I have frequent combats in this country on this subject, because most men spell the place with ti, when I always do with ta. Please to set me right, if I am wrong. You have your Witherspoons and Smiths, and indeed abound in characters in whose decision I shall acquiesce.

Well reasoned, no doubt, from the standpoint of the linguist and the expert in geographical nomenclature; but the voice of the vast majority, he confesses, was against him, and the usage in favor of Cincinnati soon became too strong for him to resist.

January 4, 1790, Losantiville was no more, and Cin- cinnati, as a "name to live," began. The wheels of civil government were soon in motion; the courts of justice began to sit; the little community came readily under the forms of law and order; and the great career of the Queen City, in a humble way, was opened. The gov- ernor remained at the fort during three days, received the compliments and respects of such of the citizens as chose to call and pay them, completed his schedule of civil and military appointments, and then re-entered his barge and went on his tedious way to Marietta.

One day before St. Clair issued his proclamation estab- lishing the county of Hamilton, Benjamin Van Cleve be- came a resident of Cincinnati, remaining here until his re- moval to Dayton early in 1796. He was a prominent and valued citizen, and has left important contributions to -the memoirs of his times, in the clear and well-written mem- oranda he then made, some of which have been published in the second volume of the American Pioneer. He thus notes the arrival here, with other items of interest:

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. Gencral Harmar was employed in building Fort Washington, and commanded Strong's, Pratt's, Kcarsey'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 proclamation, erecting the county of Hamil- ton, bears date January 2, * 1790, on the day of his arrival. Mr. Tap- pan [Tapping], who came down with us, and who remained only a short time, and William McMillan, esq., were appointed justices of the peace for this town, of which the governor altered the name from Lo- 1 santiville to Cincinnati.

Mr. Van Cleve served in the quartermaster's depart-

* It was not issued, however, until the fourth.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

ment in St. Clair's unfortunate campaign; but, contrary to the custom of quartermasters' employes, fought bravely in the action, and got away with much difficulty, though unharmed. The next spring he was sent by Colonel Wilkinson, on horseback, as an express to the seat of government at Philadelphia by way of Lexington and "the Crab Orchard," reckoned in his instructions as "the most direct route to Philadelphia," whence he brought dispatches from General Knox, Secretary of War, to General Wayne, then at Pittsburgh. He was at Dayton in November, 1795, when the place was laid off by Colo- nel Ludlow, and drew town lots for himself and several others in a lottery held by the proprietors, engaging to move thither the next spring, which he did, reaching there with several other persons, including two families, in a large pirogue from Cincinnati. He says in his diary: "I raised a good crop of corn this year. In the meantime flour cost me nine dollars a barrel, and corn meal a dol- lar a bushel in Cincinnati, and the transportation to Day- ton was two dollars and a half per hundred weight." In April, 1797, he removed to Little Beaver creek, seven miles from Dayton. In 1801 he was appointed to take returns of all taxable property in Dayton township, which then included a large tract, as elsewhere noted. In the War of 1812-15, he commanded a company of riflemen, and received orders direct from Governor Meigs, May 26, 1812, to march to the frontiers west of the Miamis, and assist the frontier inhabitants in erecting block-houses and otherwise preparing for their defense. He never re- turned to reside in Cincinnati.

On St. Patrick's day of this year, March 17th, by a tra- dition generally received, the first white child was born here -William Moody, son of a baker from Marietta-in a cabin on the southwest corner of Fourth and Main streets. He is so considered by Mr. Julius Dexter, secretary of the Historical society, in his introductory note to King's Pocket-book of Cincinnati; and when he was sergeant- at-arms to the city council, he was always mentioned in the city reports and the Directory as "the first white child born in Cincinnati." He died in the early spring of 1879, shortly after passing his eighty-ninth year, and was made the subject of the following remarks in the mayor's message of that year:

Within a few days has died, on Barr street, William Moody, who, as extraordinary as it may appear, was generally accredited with being the first white child born in this city. Mr. Moody was born in a log cabin which stood not far from the corner of Fourth and Main streets. Cin- cinnati, or Los-anti-ville, as it was then called, consisted of a few log cabins mostly located south of Third street, and had a population of less than two hundred people, the soldiers stationed in Fort Washington included; yet this child grew to manhood and lived long enough to see Cincinnati become the Queen City of the West, teeming with an active, energetic, thrifty population of over three hundred thousand people. How hard it is to realize the fact that such wonderful, marvelous changes could take place within the lifetime of a single citizen.

Mr. Moody did not wear the honor unchallenged, however. Claims have been put forward in behalf of another, of whom, in a public address, after remarking that the infant village, in its first year, began to be a vil- lage of infants, Dr. Drake said: "The eldest-born, of a broad and brilliant succession, was David Cummins, whose name is appropriately perpetuated in our little

neighbor Cumminsville, the site of which was then a sugar-tree wood, with groves of papaw and spice-wood bushes." He was born in a log cabin, in front of the present site of the Burnet house; but at what date we know not. He is probably the same one who is men- tioned in Timothy Flint's Indian Wars of the West as John Cummins, and as the first white born here. It is also claimed in Nelson's Suburban Homes, published in 1873, that the first child born of white parents here was she who became Mrs. Kennedy, aunt of Mrs. Dunn of Madisonville, and daughter of Samuel Kitchell. Judge Carter, too, in his late book on the Old Court House, in a paragraph devoted to Major Daniel Gano, so long clerk of the courts here, avers that "he was, I believe, among the first white children, if not the very first white child, born in the city of Cincinnati." It is not probable the person lives who can definitely decide this knotty ques- tion of precedence.

The first marriage ceremonies in Cincinnati were per- formed this year by 'Squire William McMillan. He united two couples in 1790, and several more in 1791. His first marriages were Daniel Shoemaker and Miss Elsy Ross (called Alice Ross in Flint's book), Darius C. Or- cutt and Miss Sally McHenry. The next wedded couple were Peter Cox and Miss Francis McHenry. Mr. Cox was killed soon after by the Indians. The records of the general court of quarter sessions of the peace, to which transactions of such grave importance to the State were then required to be reported, do not exhibit these unions, but do set out the weddings of Benjamin Orcutt and Ruth Reynolds, of Columbia, by Judge McMillan, March 17, 1790; and of Joseph Kelly, of Cincinnati, and Keziah Blackford, of Columbia, April 22d, by 'Squire John S. Gano; besides two Columbia couples wedded through the agency of the latter. It was a very hopeful beginning for Hymen in the little hamlet.

On the Fourth of July, a national salute of thirteen guns was fired from the fort, and there was a special mili- tary parade in honor of the day.

In September came Samuel Dick, his wife and two small children, from Washington county, Pennsylvania. He was one of the party that marched to relieve Dun- lap's station the next January, when beleaguered by the Indians. He purchased the lot at the northeast corner of Front and Walnut, and built himself a residence upon it. He also bought other lots and various property, opened a grocery, engaged afterwards in forwarding sup- plies to Fort Hamilton and other forts in the interior, and also kept a tavern in his house. He did not, how- ever, become a permanent resident, but in 1801 removed to Indian Creek, Butler county, where he died August 4, 1846.

In October, from Stony Hill, New Jersey, came Eze- kiel Sayre and family-four sons and two daughters- one of whom, Huldah, afterwards became the wife of the esteemed Colonel John S. Wallace, and survived until November 29, 1850, being at the time of her death the oldest continuous resident of Cincinnati. Mr. Sayre ul- timately removed to Reading, in this county. He was the father of Major Pierson Sayre, a soldier of the Revo-

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

lution, who removed from Pennsylvania to Butler county in 1809, and presently to Cincinnati, where he suc- ceeded Isaac Anderson in keeping the "Green Tree" inn. He did not remain long, however, but returned to Butler county, where he became sheriff and filled other offices, living to a great age. He died about April 4, 1852. Benjamin, another son of Ezekiel Sayre, became sheriff of Warren county.

The same month Colonel John Riddle came also from New Jersey. He worked at his trade of blacksmith for a few years, and earned enough, mainly by shoeing horses for the garrison at Fort Washington, to buy from Judge Symmes, at sixty-seven cents an acre, a section of land then two miles northwest of the village, but now embraced in the city. One corner of his tract was near the site of the Brighton House. Here he settled in 1793, and lived the remainder of his years in the same house, surviving until June 17, 1847.

About forty families in all were added to the popula- tion this year, and about the same number of dwellings, among which were two frame houses. There were now in the village two blacksmiths, two carpenters, one shoe- maker, one tailor, and one mason. The progress of the place alarmed the great Miami Purchaser at his un- promising home down the river, and he wrote in a let- ter of November 4, 1790:

The advantage is prodigious which this town is gaining over North Bend. Upwards of forty framed and hewed log two-story houses have been and are building since last spring. One builder sets an example for another, and the place already assumes the appearance of a town of some respectability. The inhabitants have doubled within nine months past.

This progress, however, was not unalloyed with sor- row and loss. The Indian depredations were fearful, and cost the infant Cincinnati fifteen to twenty lives.

Judge Symmes this year laid out an addition of town lots on the fractional section twelve, next east of the en- tire section eighteen, upon which Cincinnati, in part, was originally laid out. The streets through them on this, the east side of Broadway, were but sixty feet wide, some diverging from a north and south line forty-four degrees, and the streets intersecting these running east and west on lines parallel with the general course of the river.

The directory of 1819 follows its summary of the simple statistics of this year in the little settlement in the woods, opposite the Licking, with this interesting paragraph:

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 pantaloons were made of deer skins. The women wore linsey-woolsey, manufactured by themselves. The greatest friendship and cordiality existed among the inhabitants, and a strong zeal for each other's safety and welfare.

SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY-ONE.

The Rev. Oliver M. Spencer, in the little book on his Indian captivity, thus describes the village as he saw it on his first visit, soon after the advent of his father and family at Columbia :

About the twenty-second of February, 1791, when I first saw it, it contained not more than forty dwellings, all log cabins, and not exceed- ing two hundred and fifty inhabitants. In the southeastern part of the town, near the site of his present dwelling, stood the cabin of Mr. D. E. Wade, in the midst of the forest trees, and just below, on the first bank, between the mouth of Deer creek and Lawrence street, were scattered among the trees four or five more cabins. Between Eastern row (a narrow street now enlarged into Broadway) and Main street, on Front and Columbia streets, there were about twenty log houses; and on Sycamore and Main, principally on the second bank or hill, as it was called, there were scattered about fifteen cabins more. At the foot of this bank, extending across Broadway and Main streets, were large ponds, on which, as lately as the winter of 1798, I have seen boys skat- ing. All the ground from the foot of the second bank to the river be- tween Lawrence street and Broadway, and appropriated to the fort, was an open space on which, although no trees were left standing, most of their large trunks were still lying.

His description of Fort Washington, omitted here, will be found in our chapter on that work.

At this time, says another writer, there was but one frame dwelling in Cincinnati, which belonged to Israel Ludlow, and stood at the lower end of Main street. The room in front was occupied as a store. Matthew Winton kept tavern on Front street, nearly opposite to David E. Wade, rather to the west. Ezekiel Sayre was exactly opposite Wade. John Barth kept the first store in Cincinnati. This was on the site of the present Cin- cinnati hotel, and was a hipped-roof frame house. A German named Becket had a dram-shop opposite Plum street, between Front street and the river bank. John S. Wallace resided on Front street, below Race. Joel Wil- liams kept tavern at Latham's corner.

The twenty-second of February is celebrated in grand style this year by officers at the fort, in salutes from the cannon, the discharge of rockets and other firearms, and a ball in the evening, which was attended by at least a dozen ladies from the village and Columbia.

In November the fort had a noteworthy arrival in the person of one William Henry Harrison, a young medical student from Virginia, who had been studying in Phila- delphia, but had decided to enter the army, and secured a humble appointment as ensign in the Sixteenth United States infantry. He was but a mere stripling, not yet nineteen years of age; and was at first coldly received by his fellow-officers, to whom he was a total stranger, and who had recommended another to the place he had obtained. He won his way in all good time, however. The next year he was promoted to lieutenant, in the spring of 1793 became an aid on the staff of General Wayne, and was made a captain in 1794, after the bat- tle of the Fallen Timbers. He will appear in this history hereafter.

Legal temperance gets its first record in Cincinnati this year. On the fourth of July Joseph Saffin receipted to Squire McMillan, justice of the peace, for sixteen dol- lars, received by his honor, in full of a fine imposed by him upon Reuben Read, of Cincinnati, on the informa- tion of Saffin, who thereby became entitled to it, upon the charge of "selling spirituous liquors contrary to an act of the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the river Ohio."

This was the year of St. Clair's disastrous defeat; and the savages, before and after that affair, committed many

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OIHO.

depredations in and about the village. Mr. Benjamin Van Cleve, who was a young man here that year, has left the following notes in his memoranda:

The Indians had now become so daring as to skulk through the streets at night and through the gardens around Fort Washington, Besides many hairbreadth escapes, we had news daily of persons killed on the Little Miami or on the Great Miami, or between the settlements. One morning a few persons started in a pirogue to go to Columbia, and the Indians killed most of them a little above the mouth of Deer creek, within hearing of the town. David Clayton, one of the killed, was one of our family .*

On the twenty-first of May, 1791, the Indians fired on my father, when he was at work on his out-lot in Cincinnati, and took prisoner Jo- seph Cutter, within a few yards of him. The alarm was given by hal- looing from lot to lot until it reached town. I had just arrived from Leach's [Leitch's] station. The men in town were running to the pub- lic ground, and i there met with one who saw the Indians firing on my father. I asked if any would proceed with me, and pushed on with a few young men without halting. We, however, met my father after running a short distance, and got to the ground soon after the Indians had secured Cutter. While we were finding the trail of the Indians on their retreat, perhaps fifty persons had arrived, most of whom joined in the pursuit. But by the time we had gained the top of the river hills we had only eight. Cutter had lost one of his shoes, so that we could frequently distinguish his track in crossing water courses, and we found there was an equal number of Indians. We were stripped, and a young dog belonging to me led us on the trace, and generally kept about a hundred yards ahead. We kept them on the full run until dark, thinking we sometimes discovered the shaking of the bushes. We came back to Cincinnati that night, and they only went two miles fur- ther from where our pursuit ceased. The next day they were pursued again, but not overtaken.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 10

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666