History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 4

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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The hills surrounding this alluvial tract form an imperfectly rhom- boidal figure. They are between three and four hundred feet high; but the angle under which they are seen, from a central situation, is only a few degrees. Those to the southwest and northwest, at such a station, make the greatest and nearly an equal angle; those to the southeast and southwest also make angles nearly equal. The Ohio enters at the eastern angle of this figure, and, after bending considerably to the south, passes out at the western. The Licking river enters through the south- ern, and Mill creek through the northern angle. Deer creek, an incon- siderable stream, enters through the northern side. The Ohio, both up and down, affords a limited view, and its valley forms no consider- able inlet to the east and west winds. The valley of the Licking af- fords an entrance to the south wind, that of Mill creek to the north wind, and that of Deer creek (a partial one) to the northeast. The other winds blow over the hills that lie in their respective courses. The Ohio is five hundred and thirty-five yards wide from bank to bank, but at low-water is much natrower. No extensive bars exist, however,

near the town. Licking river, which joins the Ohio opposite the town, is about eighty yards wide at its mouth. Mill creek is large enough for mills, and has wide alluvions, which, near its junction with the Ohio, are annually overflown [sic]. Its general course is from northeast to north- west, and it joins the Ohio at a right angle. Ascending from these valleys the aspects and characteristics of the surrounding country are various. No barrens, prairies, or pine lands are to be found near the town.

Some notices of the site of Cincinnati in the early day have been inserted in the first chapter of this divi- sion of our work, and need not be repeated here. A glowing paragraph by Mr. J. P. Foote, concerning the hills in their pristine freshness, will be particularly re- membered. The ground on the "bottom" was quite broken and uneven; that on the "hill," or second ter- race, was somewhat smoother. The bank which sepa- rated them was sharp and abrupt ;* and it was a serious question with the fathers whether it should be cut through by the streets with a steep or gentle gradient. Happily for the horses and men employed in the im- mense transfer business since that day, the problem was solved in the sensible way that might have been expected of the founders of the Queen City, although the cost- lier. The grade of Main street, for example, was thus in process of time extended along three squares, from . Second to Fifth streets (Third street being about one hundred feet north of the original line of the bank), with an angle of ascent of but five to ten degrees. The constant change of level in the streets, in the progress of improvement from year to year, made sad work with the relations of sidewalks and pavements (or the spaces where pavements ought to have been), and left many buildings of the early day far above the streets on which they once immediately fronted. Interesting anecdotes are related of the foresight of some of the early business men, who, at once upon the planning and laying founda- tion of their buildings, went low enough with the latter to meet the future exigencies of improvement. A writer in the first number of Cist's Cincinnati Miscellany, prob- ably Mr. Cist himself, making some notes of "city changes," says :

In the early part of the present century, Broadway, opposite John's cabinet warchouse, was the center of a pond, three or four acres in ex- tent, to which the carly settlers resorted to shoot plovers. .

'The general level of upper Main street extended as far south as nearly the line of Third street, part of the original surface of the ground being preserved in some of the yards north of Third street to this date (Oe- tober, 1844). It will readily be imagined what an impediment the bluff bank overhanging the lower ground to the south, and repeatedly caving in on it, must have created to the intercourse between the two great divisions of the city-Ilill and Bottom. But this statement, if it were to end here, would not give an adequate idea how far the brow of the hill overhung the bottom region ; for it must be observed that, while the hill projected nearly forty feet above the present level where its edge stood, the ground on Main street, opposite Pearl and Lower Market streets, corresponded with the general level of these streets, which must have been between thirteen and fourteen feet below the present grade. The whole ground from the foot of the hill was a swamp, fed partly. from a cove which put in from the Ohio near what is now Harkness' foundry, and in high water filled the whole region from the hill to with- in about one hundred and fifty yards of the Ohio in that part of the city from Walnut to Broadway-in early days the dwelling ground,

* An interesting remnant of the old bank at the brow of the hill- the only one left, we believe-is still to be seen at the northwest corner of Third and Plum streets. It is now a back yard, heaped up with okl iron.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

principally, of the settlers, as it still is the most densely built-on and valuable part of Cincinnati.

The writer then relates some interesting facts of Casper Hopple's old tobacco warehouse, on Lower Market street, which was built upon boat-gunnels many years before- material obtained by the breaking up of the primitive river vessels. In his plan of building, Mr. Hopple had the foresight to place the joists of the second story just fourteen feet above the sills of the door to the first, say- ing that that would be the proper range of the floor, when Lower Market should be filled to its proper height; which proved, quite remarkably, to be the case, so that his second story became a first, and the first a cellar of the right depth, as originally planned.

This entertaining antiquary also makes mention of Captain Hugh Moore's building, nearly opposite this, on the subsequent site of Bates & Company's hat warehouse, which likewise had boat-gunnels for foundation, with boat-plank for the inside walls, lined with poplar boards, and a clapboard roof. It was, he thinks, perhaps thirty- six feet deep and twenty feet front. Captain Moore se- cured this building for the sale of his merchandise, it being the only one he could secure for the purpose. . And now comes in the remarkable part of the narrative, which makes it germane to this chapter:

"When he had bargained for the house, which he rent- ed at one hundred dollars per annum, and which, with the lot one hundred feet on Main by two hundred on Pearl street, he was offered in fee simple at three hun- dred and fifty dollars, he brought the flat-boat which was loaded with his store-goods from the Ohio, via Hobson's Choice, not far from Mill creek, up Second or Columbia street, and fastened the boat to a stake near the door, as nearly as can be judged the exact spot where the Museum lamp-post now [1844] stands, at the corner of Main and Pearl streets."

Upon the lower slope was a broad swamp, occupying the larger part of the space between Second and Lower Market streets, though a part stretched still further to the south.

CHAPTER IV. BEFORE LOSANTIVILLE.

AN INDIAN VILLAGE.

It is said, upon the authority of the late Hon. E. D. Mansfield, who makes the remark in his Personal Me- mories, that the Indians had anciently a town upon the site of Cincinnati. Its natural advantages for the pur- .

poses of savage as well as civilized man, would of them- selves argue that fact, though no other evidence should exist in corroboration of the statement. Whatever that evidence may be, the history of Indian occupancy at this point has faded out as completely as that of the older and more civilized Mound Builder in this garden spot of the Ohio valley. Neither left a record in literature-not

even in that of the sculptured monument, if we except the remarkable little object known as the "Cincinnati stone," discovered in 1841 in the large mound near the intersection of Fifth and Mound streets; and tradition is equally silent, so far as the details of human life in a re- moter Losantiville or Cincinnati are concerned. There were the earthworks-most of them low and insignificant in appearance, as they rose in slight eminence or wound their way amid the monarchs of the forest-some so di- minutive as to be scarcely distinguishable above the sur- face ; and they were all that told of the presence of man in congregated communities upon this area until Colonel Patterson led his little band to their new homes in the wilderness. Except for those, this was the forest prime- val. Anything more would certainly have been noted and recorded by the shrewd, intelligent men who were the founders of the city.

TWO BLOCK-HOUSES.

The statement is made, however, by Mr. Isaac Smucker, of Newark, in one of his interesting historical papers published by the secretary of State in the official volumes of Ohio Statistics .(that for 1877 containing this), that Colonel George Rogers Clark, with an army of about one thousand men, all Kentuckians, "in 1780 crossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Licking, and erected two block-houses on the first day of August, upon the ground now occupied by Cincinnati." Clark had organized the expedition during the previous month, to march against the Indian villages on the Little Miami and the Mad rivers, to punish the Shawnees for their marauding in- roads into the Kentucky settlements. After the reputed erection of the block-houses-which must have been very rapidly accomplished-he resumed the march, and on the fifth day thereafter struck the Indian towns at the site of Old Chillicothe, on the Little Miami. The Indians had anticipated Clark's arrival, however, and themselves applied the torch to their village, leaving little mischief for the Kentuckians to do, except to destroy the ripening corn. But at Piqua, a larger town and the birthplace of the renowned Tecumseh, on the Mad river, about five . miles west of the present Springfield, the savages made a stand, preparing an ambuscade in the high grass of a prairie adjoining their lodges, and opened an unexpected and deadly fire upon the invaders. The latter speedily rallied and charged the Indians, who, after a desperate fight, fled the field, losing about twenty dead, and the Kentucky volunteers as many. The village and several hundred acres of standing corn were laid waste. Colonel Clark then returned to the mouth of the Licking, and disbanded his force.

One member, and but one, we believe, of that band of Indian fighters has left express testimony to the building of the block-houses. Mr. Thomas Vickroy, who was afterwards an assistant in the survey of the site of Pitts- burgh, was out in this expedition. He says:

In April, 1780, I went to Kentucky, in company with eleven flat- boats with movers. We landed, on the fourth of May, at the mouth of Beargrass creek, above the falls of Ohio. I took my compass and chain along to make a fortune by surveying, but when we got there the Indians would not let us survey. In the same summer Colonel Byrd

2 I

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

came from Detroit with a few British soldiers and some light artillery, with Simon Girty and a great many Indians, and took the forts on the Licking. Immediately afterward General Clark raised an army of about a thousand men, and marched with one party of them against the Indian towns. When we came to the mouth of the Licking we fell in with Colonel Todd and his party. On the first day of August, 1780, we crossed the Ohio river and built the two block-houses where Cincinnati now stands. I was at the building of the block-houses. Then, as General Clark had appointed me conimissary of the cam- paign, he gave the military stores into my hands and gave me orders to maintain that post for fourteen days. Heleft with me Captain Johnson and about twenty or thirty men, who were sick and lame.

Nothing more is said in history, so far as the writer of these pages is aware, of these block-houses. The use of the structures, during Clark's brief campaign to the northward, is sufficiently indicated in Mr. Vickroy's statement. As his force was not regularly recruited and paid by the United States or any other constituted au- thority, there is not the least probability that a garrison was left in it when his march was done and he recrossed the Ohio. In that case the red men would make short work of the obnoxious buildings as soon as they obtained access to them. Such works were not commonly suf- fered to remain upon lands unoccupied and undefended, as defiant monuments of the hated "Long Knife." Fire would speedily cause them to vanish in air, and the lapse of more than eight years, with floods probably inunda- ting their sites repeatedly, would so cover them with soil and nature's tangled wildwood that the very clearings made for them could not be recognized. We do not learn that there is the faintest clue to the exact locality of these block-houses. But the brief story of them is exceedingly interesting, as that of the first occupancy in houses of the site of Cincinnati by the white man, August 1, 1780.

ONE BLOCK-HOUSE.

The fact that another block-house stood upon the site of Cincinnati, more than six years before the Ludlow and Patterson party came, seems to be clearly established by similar testimony; not only that of a single person- Mr. John McCaddon, for many years a respected citizen of Newark, in this State, who was present at its building -- but also by that of two persons of far greater renown, no less personages than General Simon Kenton and Major James Galloway. General Clark was then making a sec- ond expedition against the Miami towns, to avenge the defeat of the Kentuckians at the battle of the Blue Licks August 15, 1782. That disaster had aroused a fierce de- sire for reprisals upon the Ohio Indians; and, as soon as a force could be collected from the widely scattered settle- ments, it marched in two divisions, under Colonels Lo- gan and Floyd, for the mouth of the Licking. Clark crossed here with one thousand and fifty men, threw up a block-house rapidly, and marched with such speed one hundred and thirty miles up the Miami country, that the Indians were thoroughly surprised. The principal Shaw- nee town was destroyed November roth; also the British trading post at Loramie's store, in the present Shelby county-the same locality visited by Christopher Gist in 1752-and he destroyed a large quantity of property and some lives, with little loss. It was a very effective expe- dition, especially as relieving Kentucky against formida- able invasion.

Fifty years afterwards an address issued by the vener- able pioneers and Indian fighters, Kenton and Galloway, to call their comrades together for the semi-centennial celebration of theis occupation opposite the Licking, con- tained these words :

We will no doubt all recollect Captain McCracken. He commanded the company of light horse, and Green Clay was his lieutenant. The captain was slightly wounded in the arm at Piqua town, when within a few feet of one of the subscribers, from which place he was carried on a horse litter for several days ; his wound produced mortification, and he died in going down the hill where the city of Cincinnati now stands. He was buried near the block-house we had erected opposite the mouth of Licking, and the breastworks were thrown over his grave to prevent the savages from scalping him.

We have also the separate confirmatory testimony of Major Galloway, who was of the party of 1782, and re- sided long afterwards in Greene county. Ht was well known to many old citizens of Cincinnati. In a letter written to acknowledge the receipt of an invitation to at- tend the fifty-fifth anniversary of the settlement of Cin- cinnati, in 1833, he says:

In October, 1782, I accompanied General Clark on an expedition against Pickaway and Loramie's town, and was within a few feet of the lamented William McCracken when he received the wound of which he died on his return, while descending the hill near which Cincinnati now stands, and was buried near a block-house opposite the mouth of Licking.

These cumulative testimonies would seem to place the question of a pre-Losantiville block-house here in 1782 be- yond doubt or cavil. But if further testimony was needed, it is supplied by Mr. McCaddon, the old resident of New- ark before mentioned, who was vouched for by the editor of the American Pioneer as "a man of sterling integrity." He wrote a letter to thai magazine May 16, 1842, in which he gives some account of the second expedition of General Clark against the Miami Indian towns, and says :

At the place where Cincinnati now is, it was necessary to build a block-house, for the purpose of leaving some stores and some wounded men we got of McGary's company. I may therefore say that, although I did not cut a tree or lift a log, I helped to build the first house ever built on that ground, for I was at my post in guarding the artificers who did the labor of building When this was done we penetrated into the interior in search of Indians.

Mr. McCaddon's letter has especial value, as showing the immediate purpose of the block-house. It is to be regretted that neither he nor either of the other eye-wit- nesses of its construction gives any hints of its location upon the terraces of Cincinnati, nor any intimation that he saw vestiges of the block-houses of 1780, or even the spots where they stood, which must, within little more than two years after their erection, have been easily rec- ognizable. It is not a pleasant thought, also, that the grave of Captain William McCracken, the brave soldier who died of his wounds while being borne in a rude lit- ter over the height afterward known as Key's Hill, and later Mount Auburn, has remained wholly unmarked and unrecognizable for near a hundred years. Somewhere along the river front of Cincinnati rest his bones; unless, indeed, they have been disturbed by the excavating and unsparing hand of city improvement, and thrown out undistinguished from the Indian and Mound Builder re- mains, which command simply the curiosity and specu- lation of the antiquary. The concealment of his re-

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

mains, to prevent their desecration by the ruthless toma- hawk or scalping knife, no doubt aided in the consign- ment to oblivion of the place of his sepulture. But it is singular that the "breastworks" noted by General Kenton as having been thrown over his grave were not remarked by the first colonists here nor by the subse- quent inquirers ; since they must have been of a charac- ter quite distinct from the remains of the Mound Build- ers. They were probably but slight, and may soon have become obliterated by the action of rain and flood.

Captain McCracken, when at this point on his way northward with the command, believed he had a clear presentiment of approaching death in a remarkable dream the night before he left the spot, and desired all his associates who might be living fifty years from that date, in case he should be killed on that expedition, to meet at the same place, and celebrate their brief occupa- tion as a mark of respect to his memory, and mark the wonderful changes which would probably then have oc- curred. It was agreed to by nearly all present; and an attempt was made in 1832, as we have seen, to get the surviving comrades together for the celebration; but it was the cholera year in Cincinnati and elsewhere in the west, and only a few old men gathered, under circum- stances of depression and sorrow, to honor the memory of the departed soldier. They, however, banqueted at one of the hotels, at the expense of the corporation, and spent a few hours with interest in the interchange of reminiscences and notes of more recent personal expe- rience.

ANOTHER BRIEF MILITARY OCCUPATION

probably occurred somewhere upon or near the site of Losantiville three years later-a very brief and unim- portant one just here, but more prolonged and of con- siderable consequence elsewhere within the bounds of Hamilton county. As the story forms a very interesting episode in pre-Losantiville annals, it may well be told here, although most of it has little immediate relation to the famous site opposite the mouth of the Licking.

In the early fall of 1785, General Richard Butler, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, one of the commissioners of the United States Government (Generals Samuel H. Parsons and George Rogers Clark being the others) appointed to make treaties with the western and northern Indians, left his home, under instructions to proceed to the Mi- amis and negotiate a treaty there. He kept a full diary of his journey, which has been preserved, and is thor- oughly entertaining and valuable in all parts. He left Carlisle in company with "the Hon. Colonel James Monroe, a member of Congress from the State of Vir- ginia, a gentleman very young for a place in that honor- able body, but a man well-read, very sensible, highly im- pressed with the consequence and dignity of the Federal Union, and a determined supporter of it in its fullest lat- itude." The world heard something more of this young "Hon. Colonel" afterwards. He continued with the general's party in the voyage down the Ohio until Lime- stone was reached, where he obtained horses and went to Lexington. They got on prosperously in the pleasant autumn weather, and in due time.neared the Miami

country. The following extracts are from General But- ler's entries of Friday, October 2 Ist:

Sailed at half-past two o'clock; passed the mouth of the little Mi- amis at thrce o'clock. It is so low there was no water running [!]; above the sand-bank, which is off its mouth, the land is quick, and the little water which issues from it passes through the sand. The bottoms, both above and below, is very flat and low, and I think inundated with small floods. About two miles below is a piece of high ground, which I think will be the site of a town, as will be the case at the mouths of all the principal rivers and creeks of this great country.

Below the mouth of this little river about two miles is a very large bank of sand, at which Mr. Zane came in for people to bring in two deers.

Pushed on to the mouth of Licking creek, which is a pretty stream; at the mouth, both above and below, is very fine bottoms. The bottom below the mouth [the site of Covington] seems highest and most fit to build a town on; it is extensive, and whoever owns the bottoms should own the hill also. Passed this at five o'clock; and encamped two miles below on the north side [of course far within the present limits of Cin- cinnati. This was the most distinguished company this locality had so far had the honor to entertain.]

There is great plenty of limestone and coal appears on every strand [what could the general have mistaken for coal here?]. Here is a very fine body of bottom land to a small creek four miles below Licking creek. [This may have been Mill creek; but, if so, the general was far out in his reckoning of distance. If his measure is to be taken with approximate exactness, the stream was of course Bold Face creek, which enters the river at Sedamsville. ]

A noteworthy bit of local tradition, relating to the Kentucky side, comes here in Butler's journal :

I am informed that a Captain Bird [Colonel .Byrd], of the British, came in the year 1780 from Detroit, down the big Miamis, thence up the Ohio to the mouth of Licking creek, thence up it about fifty miles with their boats. At this place they took their artillery, and cut a road fifty miles into the country, where they attacked several places, and took them; they then carried off the poor, distressed people with their little ones to Detroit in triumph.

This was the expedition spoken of by Vickroy, of six hundred Canadians and Indians, with six cannon, in the summer of 1780, against Rüddell's Station, below the mouth of Hinkston fork, on the south fork of the Lick- ing. It was mainly remarkable for its approach to the station, cutting its way through the dense woods for twelve days, without the advance being noticed by the garrison. The post was surrendered, on condition that the British should protect the prisoners from the Indians, which they were unable to do, as the savages, at once after possession was given, rushed upon the hapless people, and divided them as captives among themselves. So dis- gusted was Colonel Byrd by their conduct that he refused to move against Martin's Station, unless they would leave all prisoners taken there to him. They agreed to this, and for once kept their word, upon the surrender of the station without resistance. It was intended also to at- tack Bryant's Station and Lexington; but Byrd, who seems to have been a humane and brave man, decided to end the expedition without their capture. It was the seizure of Rüddel's and Martin's Stations, however, with the carrying of a large number of men, women and chil- dren into Indian captivity, that prompted Clark's first expedition against the Miami towns.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 4

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