History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 6

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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In 1785, a party which included William West, John Simons, John Seft, a Mr. Carlin, and their families, also John Hurdman, all of Washington county, Pennsylvania, visited this region with a view to settlement. Passing the site of the Queen City to be, they landed at the mouth of the Great Miami, it is thought in April, and explored its valley as far as the subsequent site of Ham- ilton. They made improvements at sundry points where they found bottom lands finer than the rest; but do not appear to have remained permanently in the country. In the fall Hurdman came down the river, and found at its mouth Generals Clark, Butler, and Parsons, with Ma- jor Finney and his soldiers, about to construct the fort and make a treaty with the Indians. Almost the only matter which connects him or this incident closely with the history of Cincinnati is the fact that he was with the party of Symmes, three years afterwards, when there wandered away to his death John Filson, one of the pro- prietors of Losantiville.

In September of 1788 five gentlemen, from a station near Georgetown, Kentucky, came in two canoes to the mouth of Deer creek, up the bank of which they pro- ceeded on foot about one hundred and fifty yards, when they were fired upon by a concealed savage, and one of them, named Baxter, was killed. He was buried at a spot just below the mouth of the creek, where, many years afterwards, a skeleton was found by a party of boys, the skull of which had a bullet rattling inside of it. It is some satisfaction to record that the Indian who shot poor Baxter was pursued by the rest of the party and brought down.

"MIAMI."

The last mention of the Cincinnati region by a geo- graphical designation, before the incoming of Denman's colony, was doubtless by Judge Symmes, in his letter to Dayton, from Limestone (Maysville), October 12, 1788, referring to the unlucky expedition in which Filson was lost. The judge says: "On the twenty-second ult. I landed at Miami, and explored the country as high as the upper side of the fifth range of townships." The point at which he stepped ashore, and to which he casually and temporarily gave the general name of the region, was undoubtedly the Losantiville site, since here he met the party of Kentuckians, led by Patterson and Filson, who, in accordance with the public notice about to be set out in full in the next chapter, had "blazed" a road through the deep woods between Lexington and this place. They made up the major part of the escort which accompanied Symmes in the exploration that immediately followed into the interior.

CHAPTER V. LOSANTIVILLE.

By this time the reader who has followed patiently the pages of this volume will have no difficulty in under- standing the considerations that probably determined the settlement of Losantiville. Probably no intelligent trav- eller had ever passed down the Ohio without noting the eligibility of this beautiful and otherwise singularly fa- vored spot as the site of a settlement which might be- come a great city. The Mound Builder and the Indian had, each in his own time, realized its advantages of residence in clusters of homes; and very early the adven- turous and speculative white man, as we have seen, turned with longing, eager eyes to the fertile tract oppo- site the mouth of the Licking, as the most hopeful spot spot in all the Miami country whereon to plant a colony.

Mr. James Parton, in his article on Cincinnati in the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1867, suggests that the loca- tion of the place was determined by considerations of safety, as this point was the best in this region for the posting of a garrison. He also calls attention to the facts that this is the only site on the Ohio river where one hundred thousand people could live together with- out being compelled to climb very high and steep hills, and that it is also about midway between the source and the mouth of the river-that is, near the centre of the great valley of the Ohio.

Be these things as they may-whether such thoughts entered the minds of the founders of Losantiville or not -it is certain that almost as soon as the proposal for the Miami Purchase had been mooted, long before Judge Symmes or the ostensible proprietors of the village were able to give valid title deeds, the conditional purchase of the tract upon which the town was laid out had been made; and the site had been surveyed and settled. The

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

men whose names, in the first instance, must forever be identified with the initial steps of this enterprise, which has eventuated in such wonderful results as are to be seen in the present city on the shore, were Matthias Denman, Colonel Robert Patterson, John Filson and Israel Ludlow.

DENMAN.

Of him, the original hero of the Losantiville venture, least of all is known. He was, like Symmes, Dayton and others of the company making the famous purchase between the Miamis, a Jerseyman, residing at Spring- field, Essex county, in that State, to which he returned, and where he remained so late as 1830, at least, after his colony had been firmly planted upon the tract he bought from Symmes. He was in that year visited in his home at Springfield by the father of Mr. Francis W. Miller, author of Cincinnati's Beginnings. That he was a man of some intelligence, enterprise and energy, may be in- ferred from the incidents of his connection with this en- terprise in the then wilderness west ; but we do not learn that he attained to any special distinction in his own State, or even where he was born or when he died.

PATTERSON.

Colonel Robert Patterson, a leading spirit in the pro- jecting and founding of Losantiville, was a native of Pennsylvania, born near Cove mountain, March 15, 1753, of Irish stock, at least on his father's side. At twenty-one years of age he served six months on the frontiers of that State defending it against Indian incur- sions. The same year (1774) he and six other young adventurers, with John McLelland and family, made their way to the Royal spring, near Georgetown, Kentucky, where they lived until April, 1776, when they removed to the subsequent site of Lexington. Patterson, how- ever, a few months afterwards assisted in the defence of McLelland's station, at Royal spring, when attacked by Indians; and was severely wounded by the savages in a night attack upon his party, while on their way to Pitts- burgh shortly after, to procure necessaries, and was under a surgeon's care for a year. In April, 1778, at Pittsburgh, he joined the expedition of Colonel George Rogers Clark against the Illinois country, returning to Kentucky in September, and settling at Harrodsburgh. Early the next year, being then an ensign in the Kentucky militia, he proceeded under orders, with twenty-five men, to his former residence north of the Kentucky river, built and garrisoned a fort, and in April laid off the town of Lex- ington. In May he participated in the movement of Colonel Bowman against the Shawnee towns on the Little Miami, and then, probably, for the first time, passed over the wilderness tract that marked the future seat of the Queen City. In August, 1780, he was again here, with the expedition under Colonel Clark against the Indian towns on the Little Miami and Mad rivers; and once more, in the latter part of September, 1782, when Clark marched on his campaign of destruction between the Miamis, to avenge the defeat of the whites at the Lower Blue Licks in August-in which Patterson, now colonel and second in command to Boone, had a very narrow

escape from capture. He must thus have come to know well the advantages of the site opposite the mouth of the Licking, years before the arrangement with Denman and Filson was made. In 1786, Colonel Patterson seems to have made his last visit here, in another expedition against the Shawnees, under General Logan (in which he was badly wounded), before he came with the party in Sep- tember, 1788, to "blaze" a road from Lexington to the mouth of the Licking, in preparation for the settlement of Losantiville. As is well known, he never resided per- manently with his colony here; but returned to Lexing- ton after a month's stay. In 1804 he removed from that place to a farm near Dayton, in this State, where he sur- vived until August 5, 1827, dying there and then at the advanced age of seventy-four years. Says the author of Ranck's History of Lexington :

In person Colonel Patterson was tall and handsome. He was gifted with a fine mind, but, like Boone, Kenton, and many others of his simple hunter and pioneer companions, was indulgent and negligent in business matters, and, like them, lost most of his extensive landed prop- erty by shrewder rascals.

FILSON.

John Filson was a Kentucky schoolmaster and sur- veyor (although he says in the preface to his book, "I am not an inhabitant of Kentucky"), of some literary ability, as is evinced by the articles appended to A Topo- graphical Description of the Western Territory of North America, by George Imlay, a captain in the continental army during the Revolution, and afterwards several years in Kentucky as a self-styled "commissioner for laying out lands in the back settlements." His work was published in London in three editions, 1792-7; and the appendix contains the following entitled articles, "by John Filson," one of our Losantiville projectors:

I. The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucky, and an Essay towards the Topography and Natural History of that Impor- tant Country.

2. The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone, one of the First Set- tlers, comprehending every Important Occurrence in the Political His- tory of that Province.

. The Minutes of the Piankashaw Council, held at Port St. Vin- cents, April 15, 1784.

4. An Account of the Indian Nations inhabiting within the limits of the Thirteen United States, their Manners and Custonis, and Reflec- tions on their Origin.

Filson had already published, in 1784, at Wilmington, Delaware, in an octavo volume of one hundred and eighteen pages, the papers named in the first two titles; and they, with three others, were republished in New York in 1793, as a supplement to an American edition of Imlay's book, and all attributed to Filson. They include a report of the Secretary of State (Jefferson) to the Pres- ident of the United States (Washington), on the quantity and situation of unsold public lands; also Thoughts on Emigration, to which are added Miscellaneous Observa- tions relating to the United States, and a short account of the State of Kentucky-the whole making up a unique and in some respects valuable book. Filson was thus the first to publish a History of Kentucky.

His Adventures of Boone appears to have been written at the dictation of Boone himself, Filson supplying merely the phraseology, with perhaps an occasional reflection. The following document, signed by Boone and others,

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

is printed as an endorsement and advertisement in Fil- son's work on Kentucky:

ADVERTISEMENT .- We, the subscribers, inhabitants of Kentucky, and well acquainted with the country from its first settlement, at the request of the author of this book have carefully revised it, and recom- mend it to the public as an exceeding good performance, containing as accurate a description of our country as we think can possibly be given, much preferable to any in our knowledge extant; and think it will be of great utility to the public. Witness our hands this twelfth of May, Anno Domini 1784.

DANIEL BOONE, LEVI TODD, JAMES HARROD.

Part of Filson's preface is as follows :

When I visited Kentucky, I found it so far to exceed my expecta- tions, though great, that I concluded it was a pity that the world has not adequate information of it. I conceived thata proper description of it was an object highly interesting to the United States; and, therefore, incredible as it may appear to some, I must declare that this perform- ance is not published from lucrative motives, but solely to inform the world of the happy climate and plentiful soil of this favored region. And I imagine the reader will believe me the more easily when I inforni him that I am not an inhabitant of Kentucky, but having been there some time, by my acquaintance in it am sufficiently able to publish the truth, and from principle liave cautiously endeavored to avoid every species of falsehood. The consciousness of this encourages me to hope for the public candour, where errors may possibly be found.

Filson receives the following notice in Collins' History of Kentucky:

The second teacher [in Fayette county] was John Filson, in or before 1784; adventurer, surveyor, fanciful writer of the autobiography of Daniel Boone, and author of the first printed book about Kentucky- first published in 1784 in Wilmington, Delaware; in 1785 translated into French and published in Paris, France; in 1792, 1793, and 1797, thrice republished in London, with additions by Gilbert Imlay, a sur- veyor of Jefferson county, Kentucky, to satisfy the cravings of restless minds in England for information about the newest part of the Old World. [Mr. Collins had apparently not heard of the New York edition. ] He was one of the original proprietors, drafted the first plan, and coined the pedagogical name of the projected town of Losantiville, etc.

In a subsequent part of this history, Judge Collins says :

His fanciful name for the intended town was adopted-Losantiville, which he designed to mean "the village opposite the mouth," Le-os- ante-ville, but which more really signifies, "the mouth opposite the village,"-who, or what induced the change from such a pedagogical and nonsensical a name to the euphonious one of Cincinnati is un- known [! ]; but in the name of the millions of people who live in or within reach of it, or visit it or do business with it, we now thank the man and the opportunity. The invention of such a name was posi- tively cruel in Mr. Filson; we hope it had no connection with his early death. Perhaps that is reason enough why no street in Cincinnati is named after him.

Judge Collins seems also not to have heard that Plum street, in this city, is designated as "Filson street " upon Joel Williams' plat of the original town site, to be seen in the books of the recorder's office. Certainly, to the honor of the real founders and pioneers of Losantiville, the people of Cincinnati have not been neglectful in the matter of street names. There is a Ludlow street, a Ludlow avenue, and a Ludlow alley; Patterson has two streets, and Denman two; McMillan has an avenue; Bur- net both street and avenue; while St. Clair, Gano, and many other early names, have not been forgotten in the street nomenclature. It is true, however, that the mem- ory of Filson has not yet thus been permanently honored.

According to Collins,when Denman visited Lexing- ton in the summer of 1788, he saw "the double power" of Filson as a surveyor and writer, and en! ed him in

the venture with himself and Patterson, on the north side of the Ohio.

Mr. George W. Ranck's history of Lexington notes of Filson that he "was an early adventurer with Daniel Boone, and after the discoverer of Kentucky returned to Lexington in October [1784], from the Chillicothe towns, Filson wrote, at his dictation, the only narrative of his life extant from the pioneer's own lips. This narrative was endorsed at the time by James Harrod, Levi Todd, and Boone himself. Filson taught in Lexington for sev- eral years, and did no little to secure the early organiza- tion of Transylvania seminary."

Filson, it will be remembered, was killed by the In- dians in the Miami country, before the location was made at Losantiville. The circumstances of his death are nar- rated in chapter V, Part I, of this work.

Professor W. H. Venable, one of the latest and best of Cincinnati's songsters, thus, in his June on the Miami and other Poems, sings of our hero :

John Filson was a pedagogue- A pioneer was he; I know not what his nation was Nor what his pedigree.

Tradition's scanty records tell But little of the man,

Save that he to the frontier came In immigration's van.

Perhaps with phantoms of reform His busy fancy teemed,

Perhaps of new Utopias Hesperian he dreamed.

John Filson and companions bold A frontier village planned In forest wild, on sloping hills, By fair Ohio's strand.

John Filson from three languages With pedant skill did frame

The novel word Losantiville, To be the new town's name.

Said Filson: "Comrades, hear my words; Ere three-score years have flown

Our town will be a city vast." Loud laughed Bob Patterson.

Still John exclaimed, with prophet-tongue, " A city fair and proud, The Queen of Cities in the West." Mat Denman laughed aloud. . Deep in the wild and solemn woods, Unknown to white man's track, John Filson went one autumn day, But nevermore came back.

He struggled through the solitude The inland to explore, And with romantic pleasure traced Miami's winding shore.

Across his path the startled deer Bounds to its shelter green; He enters every lonely vale And cavernous ravine.

Too soon the murky twilight comes, The night-wind 'gins to moan; Bewildered wanders Filson, lost, Exhausted and alone.

By lurking foes his steps are dogged, A yell his ear appalls !

Alphonse Saft

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

A ghastly corpse upon the ground, A murdered man he falls.

The Indian, with instinctive hate, In him a herald saw

Of coming hosts of pioneers, The friends of light and law;

In him beheld the champion Of industries and arts.

The founder of encroaching roads And great commercial marts;

The spoiler of the hunting-ground, The plower of the sod, The builder of the Christian school And of the house of God.

And so the vengeful tomahawk John Filson's blood did spill,-

The spirit of the pedagogue No tomahawk could kill.

John Filson had no sepulchre, Except the wildwood dim; The mournful voices of the air Made requiem for him.

The druid trees their waving arms Uplifted o'er his head; The moon a pallid veil of light Upon his visage spread.

The rain and sun of many years Have worn his bones away, And what he vaguely prophesied We realize to-day.

Losantiville the prophet's word, The poet's hope fulfils- She sits a stately Queen to-day Amid her royal hills!

Then come, ye pedagogues, and join To sing a grateful lay For him, the martyr pioneer, Who led for you the way.

And may my simple ballad be A monument to save His name from blank oblivion Who never had a grave.

LUDLOW.

onel Israel Ludlow, the successor of John Filson holder of a third interest in the site of Cincinnati, rn upon the Little Head farm, near Morristown, ... Jersey, in 1765. In his early twenties he came to *Le valley of the Ohio, to exercise his talents as a practi- cal surveyor, and was here appointed by the geographer of the United States, to survey the Miami Purchase and that of the Ohio company, which he mainly accom-

· hed by the spring of 1792, in the face of many diffi- culties and dangers, being generally without any escort of troops, in a country swarming with Indians. Taking the interest of Filson in the Losantiville venture after the death of the latter, he became the surveyor of the own site and the principal agent in disposing of the ots. After the treaty of Greenville he was employed by he Government to run the boundary lines for the Indian country established by treaty, and successfully completed the work, though amid many perils, and sometimes in imminent danger of starvation. He was the only one of the original proprietors who fixed his home at or near Cincinnati, establishing in 1790 Ludlow Station as a cit-

adel of defence against the savages upon a spot within the present limits of Cumminsville, the block-house standing at the intersection of Knowlton street with the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad. It is claimed by his biographers (see Biographical Encyclopedia of Ohio, etc.,) that he gave the name to Cincinnati, in honor of the society of which his father, Commodore Ludlow, was a member. December 12, 1794, he laid out the town of Hamilton as a proprietor; and in No- vember of the next year, in union with Governor St. Clair, Hon. Jonathan Dayton, and William McMillan, he planted the town of Dayton. November 11, 1796, he was married to Charlotte Chambers, of Chambers- burgh, Pennsylvania, a quite extraordinary woman, who is made the subject of a beautiful biography by one of her grandsons. He died at home in January, 1804, after but four days' illness, and was buried in the graveyard adjoin- ing the First Presbyterian church, Cincinnati, in the front wall of which was afterward fixed a tablet in honor to his memory. He was buried with Masonic honors, and an oration was pronounced upon the occasion by Judge Symmes.

THE PRELIMINARIES.

Denman, as a Jerseyman and perhaps a member of the East Jersey company, was early cognizant of the proj- ect of Symmes and his associates to secure the Miami Purchase; and in January, 1788, he located, among other tracts, the entire section eighteen and the frac- tional section seventeen, lying between the former sec- tion and the river, upon which Losantiville was founded in the closing days of the same year. The present boun- daries of the tract are Liberty street on the north, the Ohio river on the south, an east line from the Mount Auburn water works to the river a few feet below Broad- way, and a west line from a point a very little east of the intersection of Central avenue and Liberty street to the river just below the gas works.

The agreed price was the same as the company was to pay the Government-five shillings per acre, or sixty-six and two-thirds cents; which for the seven hundred and forty acres of the tract paid for would have amounted to four hundred and ninety-three dollars and thirty-three cents. (This does not include sixty acres which were in dispute-the entire tract, as finally surveyed, containing eight hundred acres-and which Symmes claimed were not paid for.) But the purchase money, it is said, was paid in Continental certificates, then worth only five shil- lings on the pound, but turned into the treasury of the company at par; so that the actual cost of the entry to Denman, under this arrangement, was a little less than one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Some conjectures have been made that the entire eight hundred acres, now comprising by far the most valuable property in the city, did not cost Denman more than fifty dollars. Jonathan Dayton, one of the company, seems to have been fearful of the negotiation with Denman ; for, after Symmes had gone out to the Purchase, he urged him by letter not to allow the "Losantiville section" to be covered by any warrant, except one bought from Symmes or from Day- ton as his agent, for six shillings threepence, or seven

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

shillings sixpence, to aid in making the second payment on the purchase. As a matter of fact, the section eigh- teen was not covered by one of Symmes' warrants until May, 1790, and the fractional section not until April of the next year; and the old belief was that Denman se- cured both at a very low rate-for a mere song, as we should say now.

DENMAN'S MOVEMENTS.

In the summer of 1788 Mr. Denman found his way westward, and made a personal visit to his purchase op- posite the mouth of the Licking, being thereby confirmed in his previous intentions of founding a station and ferry there, and leading a colony to the spot. On his way back he stopped at Limestone, and is said there to have fallen in with Colonel Patterson, and soon afterwards, at Lexington, with the schoolmaster Filson. Broaching his project to them, he found them eager listeners, and pres- ently agreed to take them into joint partnership with him. In this arrangement Denman appears to have undertaken the chief conduct of the business, while Filson was to do the surveying and staking off of the tract and superintend the sales of lots, and Patterson was to be the main agent in obtaining purchasers and settlers. Denman was un- derstood to be responsible for all matters relating directly to the purchase from the East Jersey company; Filson was already pretty well acquainted with the Miami coun- try; and Patterson was the most influential man in stir- ring up people to the point of removal to the new land of promise. It was thus a very judicious and hopeful ar- rangement.

Soon afterwards, probably at Lexington, the following contract was executed between the parties :

A covenant and agreement, made and concluded this twenty-fifth day of August, 1788, between Matthias Denman, of Essex county, State of New Jersey, of the one part, and Robert Patterson and John Filson, of Lexington, Fayette county, Kentucky, of the other part, witnesseth : That the aforesaid Matthias Denman, having made entry of a tract of land on the northwest side of the Ohio river, opposite the mouth of the Licking river, in that district in which Judge Symmes has purchased from Congress, and being seized thereof by right of entry, to contain six hundred and forty acres, and the fractional parts that may pertain, does grant, bargain, and sell the full two-thirds thereof by an equal, undivided right, in partnership, unto the said Robert Patterson and John Filson, their heirs and assigns ; and upon producing indisputable testimony of his, the said Denman's, right and title to the said prem- ises, they, the said Patterson and Filson, shall pay the sum of twenty pounds Virginia money, to the said Denman, or his heirs or assigns, as a full remittance for moneys by him advanced in payment of said lands, every other institution, determination, and regulation respecting the laying-off of a town, and establishing a ferry at and upon the prem- ises, to the result of the united advice and consent of the parties in cov- enant, as aforesaid ; and by these presents the parties bind themselves, for the true performance of these covenants, to each other, in the penal sum of one thousand pounds, specie, hereunto affixing their hands and seals, the day and year above mentioned.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 6

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