History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 7

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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Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of- HENRY OWEN, ABR. MCCONNELL.

MATTHIAS DENMAN, R. PATTERSON, JOHN FILSON.

The Virginia pound of those days was equivalent to three dollars and thirty-three cents in Federal specie, so that, since Denman sold two-thirds of his tract for sixty- six dollars and sixty-seven cents, the cash value he ap- parently put upon the whole was but one hundred dollars.

"LOSANTIVILLE."

The general plan of the town was agreed upon, and Filson was to proceed as quickly as possible to get a plat made, and all things in readiness for early settlement and sale. It was also agreed to call the new place LOSANTI- VILLE. This extraordinary designation was undoubtedly the product of the Kentucky schoolmaster's pedantic genius. An analysis of the word soon discovers its meaning. "L" is sometimes supposed to be simply the contraction of the French le, making the entire name to read "the town opposite the mouth." It is more gener- ally believed, however, to have been intended by Filson as an abbreviation for Licking, leaving the article before ville in construction to be understood. Os is the Greek word for mouth, anti Latin for opposite, and ville French for town or city. The whole term would thus signify the town opposite the mouth of the Licking. It fur- nishes a remarkable instance, not only of an eccentric, polyglot neologism, but of the power of synthetic lan- guages to express in one word what an analytic language like ours must express in a much longer circumlocution and with somewhat numerous words. It has been doubted whether the village was ever really so called, except in the original plans of Filson, Denman, and Patterson; but there can be no doubt in the mind of one who looks well into the question, that the plan and village had that title continuously from the day they were agreed to, in August, 1788, to the day, January 2 or 4, 1790, when Governor St. Clair changed it to Cincinnati, "so that," as Judge Symmes wrote, "Losantiville will become extinct." There was never a post office or municipality here of that name; but letters were written from here under it; the town seems to have been familiarly so designated in correspondence and conversation ; it has come down in almost unquestioned tradition associated with that title; and, to crown the evidence, it so appears upon some of the earliest maps of Ohio, and one of the plats recorded fifteen years after the settlement, while bearing the name Cincinnati, is also remarked in the explanations as "formerly called Losanterville." The orthographic blunder noted suggests the spelling adopted by Mr. Julius Dexter in his prefatory historic note to King's Pocket-book of Cincinnati, and which may occasion- ally be seen in print elsewhere-"Losanteville," for which there are some good arguments to adduce. The name appears originally to have been written with considerable carelessness, since among the papers of Patterson, after his death, was found a copy of the "conditions" present- ly to be recited, though not in his handwriting, in the heading of which the name appears as "Losantiburg." It was probably the heedless work of some clerk of Pat- terson's. The right name appears in the nomenclature of Cincinnati only in "Losantiville Hall," a place of as- sembly on Front street, many years ago, north of Deer Creek bridge, mentioned in the Cincinnati Almanac for 1850. Nothing else like it appears in all the geographical nomenclature of the world, except in a single instance- the name of the postoffice at Losantville, Randolph county, Indiana, probably named from a pioneer settler or proprietor.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OIHO.

THE ROAD TO THE LICKING.

After the execution of the agreement, Denman re- turned to Limestone to meet Judge Symmes, leaving an understanding with his partners that they were soon to "blaze" a road through the wilderness in the direction of their purchase and establish a ferry across the Ohio there, if practicable. The former part of this arrangement ap- pears conspicuously in the following advertisement, in- serted by Patterson and Filson in the Kentucky Gazette, published at Lexington, for the sixth of September, 1788

NOTICE .- The subscribers, being proprietors of a tract of land op- posite the mouth of the Licking river, on the northwest side of the Ohio, have determined to lay off a town on that excellent situation. The local and natural advantages speak its future prosperity, being equal, if not superior, to any on the bank of the Ohio, between the Miamis. The in-lots to be, each, half an acre, the out-lots four acres, thirty of each to be given to settlers upon payment of one dollar and fifty cents for the survey and deed of each lot. The fifteenth of Sep- tember is appointed for a large company to nieet in Lexington and mark a road from there to the mouth of the Licking, provided Judge Symmes arrives, being daily expected. When the town is laid off lots will be given to such as may become residents before the first day of April next.

MATTHIAS DENMAN. ROBERT PATTERSON. JOHN FILSON.

A company was gathered without much difficulty in those restless and adventurous days. It was, probably, not large, but sufficient for the purpose, and did not in- clude Judge Symmes, who was proceeding to "Miami" by way of the river. Without waiting for him, the party found its way to the Ohio-doubtless aided much of the way by old Indian trails and military traces-and must have arrived there in a few days, since it there met Den- man and Judge Symmes, who records that he "landed at Miami" on the twenty-second of September. Fil- son is rather doubtfully said to have spent a day or two here, marking out streets through the dense forest. He, with the rest of the Kentuckians, accompanied Symmes on the exploring expedition up the Miami country, which they penetrated "as high as the upper side of the fifth range of townships," as the judge after- wards wrote. The adventures of this party, and the un- happy death of Filson, have been related in our chapter on the Miami Purchase. While Symmes and Patter- son were absent on this excursion, Denman, Ludlow- who happened to be with the party, though not yct a proprietor-and others, followed the meanderings of the Ohio between the Miamis, and pushed their way about ten miles up onc of the Miami rivers.

THE VOYAGE FROM LIMESTONE.

After the death of Filson and the return of the explor- ing party to the Ohio, Denman and Patterson went with Symmcs back to Limestone, where they decided upon just the individual needed to take the place of Filson in the partnership, in the person of the young surveyor, Israel Ludlow; and an arrangement was made in Octo- ber by which he should take Filson's interest in the Lo- santiville enterprise. The latter's plan of the town had perished with him. His brother, who was with the party of Kentuckians when John Filson was killed, consider- ing that he had yet paid nothing and had established lit- tle valid claim upon the property, informed the surviving

partners that the legal representatives of the deceased would demand nothing under the contract of August 22d. Ludlow prepared a new plan of the village, differing, it is supposed, in some important respects from Filson's, par- ticularly as to the public square to be donated for church and school purposes, the common or public landing, and the names of streets. It is quite possible that some of these differences appear in the discrepancies observable between the recorded plats of Ludlow and of Joel Wil- liams, which will be presently noted. The drafting of plans, the gathering of a colony, and other preparations for the settlement, employed the time of the proprietors at Limestone and elsewhere for many weeks, and they were further hindered for a time by the same obstacles which delayed Symmes, as recited in our chapter on the Purchase. At length, on the day before Christmas, in the year of grace 1788, the courageous founders of Lo- santiville and Cincinnati packed themselves in the rude flat or keel-boats and barges of the timc, took leave of the party still at Limestone that was shortly to settle North Bend (the Columbia adventurers had been gone more than a month), and swept out on the broad bosom of the Ohio, now swelled beyond its usual limits, and covered thickly with floating ice.

They were all men, twenty-six in number. The fol- lowing, by the best authorities, is the

ROLL OF HONOR.

Noah Badgeley, Samuel Blackburn, Thaddeus Bruen, Robert Caldwell, Matthew Campbell, James Carpenter, William Connell, Matthew Fowler, Thomas Gizzel (or Gissel), Francis Hardesty, Captain Henry, Luther Kitch- ell, Henry Lindsey, Israel Ludlow, Elijah Martin, Wil- liam McMillan, Samuel Mooney, Robert Patterson, John Porter, Evan Shelby, Joseph Thornton, Scott Traverse, Isaac Tuttle, John Vance, Sylvester White, Joel Williams.

The list given in the Cincinnati Directory of 1819, which is usually repeated as the roll of founders, does not include the names of Ludlow and Patterson, which is ob- viously incorrect; nor of Henry, Matthew Campbell, or Elijah Martin. It includes the name of Ephraim Kibby, who was subsequently of the'Columbia colony, and was very likely of this party, as also Daniel Shoemaker, who is not on the list of 1819, but appears, like Kibby among the original proprietors of donation lots. Martin and Campbell were also such proprietors; but not Henry. The names of all the others appear in the list of those who drew donation lots, except those of the proprietors of the town and of Brucn, Caldwell, Connell, Fowler, Hardesty, Shelby, and Tuttlc. The fact is, not all who came with the party staid as colonists, while others arrived subsequently to share in the distribution of the donation lots. Tuttle, Henry, and probably others, joined Symmes' voyagers to North Bend in February; Kibby and Shoe- maker, though drawing lots at Losantiville, were with Stites' party at Columbia, and at least Kibby subsequently removed there; one other at least, Mr. Hardesty, went elsewhere, probably on the Kentucky shore, since there were Hardestys in Newport; and others drifted away without making permanent settlement herc.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

Judge Symmes' account of the voyage of the Losanti- ville argonauts from Limestone was communicated to his fellows of the East Jersey company, in a letter from North Bend, about five months afterwards. It is as follows:

On the twenty-fourth of December last, Colonel Patterson of Lexing- ton, who is concerned with Mr. Denman in the section at the mouth of the Licking river, sailed fromn Limestone in company with Mr. Tuttle, Captain Henry, Mr. Ludlow, and about twelve others, in order to form a station and lay out a town opposite Licking. They suffered much from the inclemency of the weather and floating ice, which filled the Ohio from shore to shore. Perseverance, however, triumphing over difficulty, they landed safe on a most delightful high bank of the Ohio, where they founded the town of Losantiville, which populates consid- erably, but would be much more improved by this time, if Colonel Pat- terson or Mr. Denman had resided in the town. Colonel Patterson tarried about one month at Losantiville, and returned to Lexington.

The time of the departure from Limestone is indispu- table; the date of arrival at "Miami" has been much disputed. For many years the twenty-sixth of Decem- ber was celebrated as the anniversary of the landing; and to this day the city directory notes that as the day observed by the Cincinnati Pioneer association, though we are informed that their practice in this particular has changed. It does not seem at all probable that, in the face of difficulties experienced, the voyage from Lime- stone to Yeatman's cove, sixty-five or more miles, was accomplished in two days. An English traveller, noting his arrival here in 1806, records that "travelling is so very good between Limestone and the town, a distance of sixty-eight miles, that I descended in two short days' run, without meeting with any obstacles." Bad weather and other hindrances, as floating ice, which Symmes says "filled the Ohio from shore to shore," would undoubtedly delay the trip beyond two days, and very probably until the day now generally accepted as the true date-De- cember 28, 1788. William McMillan, a man of native talents and classical education, of strong memory and clear, judicial brain, testified years afterwards, in a chan- cery case involving the right of property, as between the city and Joel Williams, in the Public Landing, that he landed here with the party on that day. Denman also, in another case, testified that they came "late in Decem- ber," though he could not remember the precise day; while Patterson and Ludlow thought the landing was early in January, which is quite certainly too late. Mr. McMillan's testimony, we think, now commands general acceptance. The tradition is probably correct that the party, occupied in completing the preparations, did not get away from Limestone until somewhat late in the day, and made but nine miles before tying up for the night; that the third day they sighted Columbia, but were una- ble to reach it or stop on account of the ice ; that the same cause prevented their landing here upon arrival opposite the spot on the evening of the same day, but that, after remaining in or near the mouth of the Licking through the night of the twenty-seventh, they effected a crossing with their boats the next morning, and trium- phantly entered the little inlet at the foot of Sycamore street, afterwards known as Yeatman's cove. Fastening their frail barks to the roots and shrubs along the bank, they step ashore, collect driftwood and other dry frag- ments, strike the steel and flint, and provide themselves

with their first necessity to comfort and cookery-ample fires. Very likely, the fatigues of the voyage over, they soon realize, even long before night, the graphic picture drawn by Dr. Daniel Drake more than sixty-three years afterwards: "Setting their watchmen around, they lay down with their feet to the blazing fires, and fell asleep under the music of the north wind whistling among the frozen limbs of the great sycamores and water maples which overhung them."

It was no time for prolonged rest or sleep, however. The depth of winter is not the season for open-air bivou- acs, when shelters are at hand. The readiest expedient for the supply of material for dwellings-one already sug- gested by the practice of the boatmen of the age in breaking up their vessels and selling their constituent parts when the destination was reached-naturally occur- red to the newly arrived, and their first cabin was con- structed of boat-planks and other breakage from the craft in which they came. This is the statement of Judge Burnet, in the historical preface he wrote in Mr. George Henry Shaffer's Business Directory of 1840, and which Mr. Shaffer, who is still living, assures us is trustworthy in every particular. If so, the picture of the first cabin (represented as a log one, standing below the cove), used in a mayor's message some years ago as an advertisement for a forthcoming History of Cincinnati, must be revised and reconstructed in the light of this fact. The first was built on the present Front street, a little east of Main, and of course northwest of the cove or place of landing ; and others soon put up, two or three in number, were in the immediate vicinity, where the dense, wild forest bor- dered upon the surging waters.

THE ORIGINAL TOWN PLAT.

While his companions occupied themselves in build- ing, hunting, scouting, and other employments, Ludlow, doubtless assisted by Badgeley, who was one of Symmes' surveyors, and other trusty aids, engaged in the survey of the town, which was substantially completed by the seventh of January, 1789, when the drawing took place for the donation lots. The survey extended from the river to Northern row, now Seventh street, and from Eastern (now Broadway) to Western row (Central ave- nue), with out-lots of four acres each, or a present square, beyond Northern row to the north limits of the Losanti- ville purchase, at Liberty street. The out-lots numbered eighty-one. The street corners were marked upon the trees. There was and is, as everybody remarks, an interesting association between the two. The Jerseymen and Penn- sylvanians of the party had clearly in mind, in the regu- larity with which the town was laid off and the names they gave its avenues, their favorite Quaker City-

Where the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the forest, As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they invaded.

The survey was not recorded until April 29, 1802, when the law of the Territory required it, under heavy penalties. The entry may be found in Book E-2, pages 62-63. The following documents, on page 60, introduce and ex- plain it:

References to the plan of the Town of Cincinnati, in page No. 62, exhibited by Colonel Israel Ludlow (as one of the proprietors), on the

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

fore-noon of the twenty-ninth day of April, 1802, and recorded agree- ably thereto.

N. B .- The following certificate is attached to the original :

This may certify that I consider myself as having been one of the original proprietors of the Town of Cincinnati, and hereby authorize Israel Ludlow to make or copy a plan according to the original plan or intention of the firm, and cause to be recorded as such, agreeably to the Laws of the Territory in that case made and provided.

November 20, 1801.

MATTHIAS DENMAN.

Test :

P. P. STEWART,

D. C. COOPER.

The following notes from another Nota Bene may be of interest :

The lots in the regular squares of the town contain seventy-two square perches, are twelve poles in length and six poles wide. The out-lots, which are entire, contain each four acres, are in length from east to west six chains and fifty links.

The six long squares between Front and Water streets contain lots ten poles long and six poles wide.

All the streets in the town are four poles wide, excepting Seventh street* and the Eastern and Western row, which are but two poles wide.

The corners of the streets are north sixteen degrees west, and others crossing at right angles south seventy-four degrees west .- Streets through the out-lots four poles wide.

Then, on pages 62-3 of the record, follows the Ludlow plat. The streets thereon are named as now, except East- ern row (Broadway) and Western row (Central avenue). The name of Plum street is spelt "Plumb." None of the alleys or narrower streets now existing within the tract platted were in this survey. The space now occupied by the Public Landing is left blank, except for the well known cove of that day, which is figured as extending to the south line of Front street, a little east of the foot of Syca- more, and a little wider at its junction with the river than it was long. Colonel Patterson, in a deposition made in 1803, in the suit between Williams and the town of Cin- cinnati, said that this ground "in front of Front .street was declared at that time a public common for the use of the citizens of the said town, excepting and reserving only, for the benefit of the proprietors, the privilege of establishing a ferry on the bank of the Ohio on said com- mon."

All lots in the south half of the squares between Sec- ond and Third streets, and all below them, are laid out lengthwise north and south; all others in an east and west direction. Lots one hundred and fourteen to seventeen, and one hundred and thirty-nine to forty-two, are indi- cated in Ludlow's appended notes, and by a boundary of red ink in the plat, as "given to public uses." They con- stitute the block bounded by Fourth and Fifth, Walnut and Main streets, which was afterwards divided between the First Presbyterian church, the Cincinnati college, and the county of Hamilton.

East of Eastern row, between extensions of Third and Fifth streets, were sixteen in-lots, and immediately north of these was the first range of out-lots, numbered from one to eight. The ranges of out-lots on the northwest, two in number, began also north of Fifth street. Some in- truding hand has marked "canal" upon the north line of the third range of out-lots, above Seventh street, then the

narrow, two rod street forming the north boundary of the town.

Another and rival plat, surveyed by whom we know not, was exhibited to the recorder by Joel Williams, on the same day, "at six o'clock P. M.," of "the town of Cin- cinnati (formerly called Losanterville)," by Samuel Free- man and Joel Williams, assignees of Matthias Denman and Robert Patterson. It was also recorded by the ac- commodating register of that official term, immediately after the Ludlow and Denman plat. The general changes in the names of streets, as indicated by letters upon this map, referring to notes prefixed, possess special interest, and exhibit the most pointed difference between the two. The present Water to Seventh streets are thus designated, in order: Water, Front, Columbia [Second], Hill [Third], High [Fourth], Byrd [Fifth], Gano [Sixth], and Northern row. At least one of these names, Columbia, prevailed in the local usage for many years. The intersecting streets, from Eastern row (which retained its name, west- ward, were Sycamore, Main, Cider [Walnut], Jefferson [Vine], Beech [Race], Elm, Filson [Plum], Western row. The space devoted by the original proprietors to a pub- lic landing is shown as filled with in-lots, numbered four hundred and sixty-one to four hundred and sixty-eight. The numbers of other lots and the general features of the survey are the same as in the other plat. The same square, bounded by Main, Cider, High, and Byrd streets, is marked and noted as "reserved for a court house, a jail, a church, and school." There is also some.differ- ence observable in the boundary lines of sections.

This was made, as the appended affidavit of Williams shows, in the absence from the territory of Denman and Patterson, "the two other original proprietors of said town"-other than Filson, Colonel Ludlow not being recognized in the affidavit-and Williams' consequent be- lief, as he swore, "that they had no intention of recording in person the· plat of said town, agreeable to a late act of the said territory, entitled 'an act to provide for the recording of town-plats.'" The affidavit goes on to aver that " this deponent further saith that he possesses, as he believes, sufficient information. in the premises to enable him to make a plat of said town of Cincinnati, agreeable to the original plat, design, and intentions of the aforesaid original proprietors of said town, in man- ner and form as the same was originally laid out and de- clared by the proprietors aforesaid; and this deponent further saith that the within is a true and accurate map or plat of the said town of Cincinnati, agreeable to the or- iginal plat, plan," etc. The divergences from Ludlow's survey are thus partly accounted for. Williams' claims, under this plat, made without any reference to Colonel Ludlow, the original surveyor, who was still living and readily accessible within five miles of the Cincinnati of that day, were subsequently made the subject of litigation between himself and the public authorities, in which his plat was invalidated and his case lost. The property in- volved in the determination of this case was that which Williams' plat covers with town lots, but which has been continuously occupied, save a small part on the west side once covered with a building or buildings, as a public

*This was undoubtedly originally designated as Northern row.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

landing. This tract Williams had bought in 1800 from Judge Symmes, who made the usual guarantee of his right to sell it, and gave Williams some color for his claim. As to the comparative correctness of the two plats, it is worth notice that Colonel Patterson, in his deposi- tion of 1803, declared that he had examined both plats, and believed "the one recorded by Israel Ludlow to be agreeable to the original plan."

Some years before this, in 1794 or 1795, Williams had come into possession by assignment of Denman's remain- ing interest, and claimed as an original proprietor. The remainder of Patterson's third, about the same time, passed by assignnient to Samuel Freeman. The colonel remained here but a short time, and then returned; while Denman, who did not even come with the colony in De- cember, did not remove from New Jersey. Of the four worthies originally associated with the founding of Cin- cinnati, only Colonel Ludlow became identified with the place as a resident; and he lived at his station some miles out. To all intents, however, he was a Cincinnatian.

THE DONATION LOTS.

Losantiville was now ready for regular settlement. It remained for the proprietors to fulfil their generous pledges of free in-lots and out-lots to the expectant colonists. The survey having been completed, or suf- ficiently advanced for the purpose, by the seventh of January, the proprietors, represented by Colonel Ludlow, promulgated the following :

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 7

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