History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 9

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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Work, then, was pretty certainly begun upon Fort Washington about the twentieth of September, 1789.

The site selected was a little east of Western row, or Broadway, between that and the present Ludlow street, just outside the village limits, as then surveyed. It was upon the hill, but not far removed from the brow of it as the second terrace then existed-right upon the line of Third street, pretty nearly around the location of the Trollopean Bazaar for more than fifty years, and extend- ing near sixty feet on each side of the present extension of Third street. The entire reservation, as subsequently made by the Government for the purpose in the patent to

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

Symmes, was fifteen acres, upon which the fort stood near the west and north sides. The position which it occupied, with reference to present blocks and streets, may be readily seen by reference to the old maps of Cin- cinnati, in the books descriptive of the city in the early day.

In February, 1841, Mr. Samuel Abbey, then a resi- dent of New England, but a sergeant in Doughty's com- mand at the time of the erection, revisited the site while on a visit to Cincinnati, and emphatically identified the spot between Broadway and Ludlow streets, where Third street begins to change direction northwardly, as the sta- tion of the flagstaff of the fort. Mr. Abbey had reached the advanced age of seventy-five years, but his faculties were still in vigorous action, and his recollections of persons and places in the early day of Cincinnati seemed undimmed.

THE MAIN STRUCTURE

of the fort was square in shape, a simple fortification of hewed and squared timbers, about one hundred and eighty feet long on each side, with barracks two stories high, connected at the corners by means of high and strong pickets with bastions, or more properly block- houses. These were doubtless the "four block-houses" spoken of in one of Timothy Flint's books as observable here in the early day; though it is singular that he does not speak of the fort as an entirety. They were also of hewed timbers, and each projected about ten feet in front of the sides of the fort, so as to command com- pletely, by the direct and raking fire of cannon and mus- ketry, every wall and front of the fortification. In the centre of the south side, upon the main front of the fort, was its principal gateway, about twelve feet wide and ten feet high, secured by heavy wooden doors of correspond- ing dimensions. This passage into the fort was through the line of barracks. Upon the north side of the work and somewhat without it, but connected with it by high palisades extending to the block-houses at the northeast and northwest corners, was a small triangular space filled with workshops of artificers attached to the garrison.

Harmar's own description of the fort, as it existed when he occupied it as his headquarters, though in an unfinished state [January 14, 1790], is as follows :

This will be one of the most solid, substantial wooden fortresses, when finished, of any in the Western Territory. It is built of hewn timber, a perfect square, two stories high, with four block-houses at the angles. The plan is Major Doughty's. On account of its su- perior excellence, I have thought proper to honor it with the name of Fort Washington. The public ought to be benefited by the sale of these buildings whenever we evacuate them, although they will cost them but little.

The general was led to make this remark by the fact that much of the material of the fort was made up, con- trary to the usual impression and statement, not of green logs from the woods, but of the already seasoned and sawed or hewed timbers and boat-boards from the flat or "Kentucky boats" then navigating the Ohio. He says in the same letter :

About forty or fifty Kentucky boats have begun and will complete it. Limestone is the grand mart of Kentucky ; whenever boats arrive there they are scarcely of any value to the owners ; they are frequently set adrift in order to make room for the arrival of others. I have con-

tracted for the above number for the moderate price of one to two dol- lars each ; thus much for the plank work. All other expenses (wagon- hire, nails, and some glass excepted) are to be charged to the labor of the troops. The lime we have burned ourselves, and the stone is at hand.

ARIFICERS' YARD, ETC.

An enclosure of some size, separate from the fort and at no great distance from it, toward the river and a little east of Broadway, just in front of the site of the great nine-story stcam-mill so well known here in the early day, was called the Artificers' Yard, in which were materials for their work, sheds for working and the pro- tection of articles from the weather, and a pretty good dwelling, the residence of Captain Thorp, head of the quartermaster's department at the fort. Between the fort and the yard, on the Government reservation, near the southeast corner of Second street and Broadway, were several log houses, occupied as barracks by a part of the soldiers.

A spacious and smooth esplanade, about eighty feet wide, stretched along the entire front of the fort, and was bordered by a handsome paling on the river side, at the brow of the hill, which then sloped about thirty feet to the lower bottom adjoining the stream. The exterior of the buildings and stockade was whitewashed, and pre- sented from a distance an imposing and really beautiful appearance, notwithstanding the rudeness of the material that mainly entered into it. The officers of the garrison had their gardens upon the fertile grounds east of the enclosure, ornamented with elegant summer-houses and finely cultivated, yielding in the season an abundance of vegetables. *

ARMY HEADQUARTERS.

One object of the new post between the Miamis was to furnish an eligible headquarters for the army, nearer that part of the Indian country likely to cause the settlers fear and annoyance. As early as September 28, 1789- probably at once upon receiving Major Doughty's letter of the twenty-first-Harmar wrote to General Butler at Pittsburgh :

Your humble servant is a bird of passage. Some time the latter part of next month or beginning of November, I shall move down the river, bag and baggage (leaving Ziegler's and Heart's companies at the post for the protection of our New England brothers), and shall fix my head- quarters opposite Licking river.

He was delayed, however, probably by the unfinished condition of the fort; for, November roth of the same year, we find Major Denny making the following entry in his journal :

The general intends removing to headquarters very shortly, to the new fort building by Major Doughty, opposite the mouth of Licking creek.

He did not then get away from the Muskingum until the twenty-fourth of December, when he left Fort Har- mar with a small fleet of boats and three hundred men, with whom he landed safely at Losantiville on the twenty- eighth, and settled his officers and men as best he could in and about the fort. It is a coincidence of some inter- est that the first colonists here in like manner left their point of embarkation December 24th, just two years pre-

* Substantially from Cist's Cincinnati in 1841.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

viously, were also four days upon the voyage -- though they had only about one-fifth the distance to traverse, being delayed by ice in the river-and similarly landed on the twenty-eighth. Upon the general's arrival, he took command at the fort, relieving Major Doughty, who be- came commandant of the small force left at Fort Har- mar. Fort Washington was now the headquarters of the United States army.

MILITARY OCCUPATION.

This was the most important and extensive military work in existence at that period in any of the territories of the United States. It made a conspicuous figure in the Indian wars of the closing decade of the last century. Here, in the summer and fall of 1790, the first year after its construction, rendezvoused the three hundred and twenty regular troops and eight hundred and thirty-three Kentucky and Pennsylvania militia of General Harmar's ill-starred command, from which they marched Septem- ber 30th of the same year, to their disastrous defeat near St. Mary's. Upon the retreat, the exultant savages fol- lowed their broken columns until they were almost under the guns of the fort. Hither, too, in the middle of the next May, came the confident St. Clair with his legions, burn- ing for revenge upon the red-skinned and red-handed en- emy, and remained here and at Ludlow's station, recruit- ing and equipping his forces, until the seventeenth of the succeeding September, when it likewise marched away to defeat. Lively times, also, the frontier garrison saw in 1793-the "bloody '93" of the French Revolution -- while the forces of Mad Anthony Wayne lay at " Hob- son's Choice," in the Mill creek valley, preparing most effectually to reverse the fortunes of war by its trium- phantly successful campaign against the Indians of the Miami and Maumee valleys. Soon after its departure a terrible visitation of small-pox swept off nearly one-third of the garrison remaining, as well as of the citizens of the village.

To Fort Washington, also, April 3, 1792, came Major Trueman, of the United States army, as a commissioner from President Washington to negotiate a treaty with the western Indians. He brought instructions from the Sec- retary of War, and reported formally to Colonel Wilkin- son, then commanding at the fort. The colonel detailed Colonel Hardin to proceed with him into the Indian country, for which they left some time in June. During the summer information was received by the comman- dant at Vincennes from a Wea chief that four white men, who were approaching the Indians under a flag of truce, had been fired upon, three of them killed, and the fourth, who was bearing the flag and had on his person the cre- dentials and other papers of the expedition, had been, taken a prisoner and barbarously murdered the next day. On the third of July Colonel Vigo brought the intelli- gence from Vincennes to Cincinnati. The sad news was soon confirmed, and the party identified as that of True- man and Hardin, by prisoners escaping from the Indians and coming in to Fort Washington. Colonel Hardin, before his departure, had told a friend in Cincinnati, Captain James Ferguson, that his presence in the party

would prompt the savages to violate the flag and assas- sinate him, whom they had long feared and hated. One of the attendants of the officers was a son of Mr. A. Freeman, one of the pioneers of Cincinnati. His story has further notice in the first division of this history. This incident has been made the groundwork of one of the most interesting sketches in Benjamin Drake's Tales of the Queen City.

A STARVATION PERIOD.

In the fall of 1789, even before the entire completion of the fort, there was danger that the troops would be forced to abandon it, on account of the scarcity of food. In this exigency Colonel John S. Wallace, a noted hunter and Indian fighter, came forward and made a contract with the military authorities to supply the garrison with wild meat. He was assisted by two hunters named Drennan and Dement, and, about ten miles below Cin- cinnati, on the Kentucky side, they found game in great quantity-buffalo, deer, and bear -- which enabled them without special difficulty to fulfil their engagements. At one hunt they secured enough to keep the seventy men then in the garrison supplied with this kind of food for six weeks. The troops were also kept in good heart by a sufficient supply of corn from Columbia, where the crop of the year was abundant, and contributed largely, as is elsewhere noted, to the safety of Losantiville and the fort.

Major Jacob Fowler and his brother Matthew are also said to have had a contract to furnish the garrison, as well as the village, with the spoils of the chase, from the establishment of the fort till some time after St. Clair's arrival there. They received twopence per pound for buffalo and bear meat, and two and half for venison-in Pennsylvania currency, seven shillings and sixpence to the dollar. They hunted some in Mill Creek valley, where the game was reputed good, but extended their hunting grounds ten to fifteen miles into Kentucky. The skins of animals killed were sold to a man named Archer, who kept a tannery in or near the town. After a time the authorities got behindhand in their payments, and the hunters would sell only to the citizens and the offi- cers of the garrison.

Writing of the currency of the times, it is worth noting that the soldiers at Fort Washington were paid in bills of the old Bank of the United States-a currency locally called "oblongs," especially at the gambling tables, which were much frequented by the officers, as well as the enlisted men and hangers-on of the garrison. A three- dollar bill was at that day sufficient for the monthly pay of a private soldier.

CITIZEN AND SOLDIER.

The troops at Fort Washington naturally were some- what at feud with the citizens of the village, notwithstand- ing their mutual dependence, to some extent, upon each other. Record will elsewhere be made of a serious af- fray in the early years of the settlement, in which a party of soldiers participated. It is very likely that there were some cases of insolence and tyranny in the conduct of the officers and their subordinates toward the civilians,

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

and that in various ways there were reprisals from the villagers. In 1790, at all events, Governor St. Clair. thought fit to issue a proclamation declaring the existence of martial law for some distance about the fort; which, with other alleged high-handed acts, is thus sharply dealt with in one of the letters of Judge Symmes to his friend and associate Dayton :

The governor's proclamations have convulsed these settlements be- yond your conception, sir, not only with regard to the limits of the Purchase, but also with respect to his putting part of the town of Cin- cinnata [sic] under military government. Nor do the people find their subordination to martial law a very pleasant situation. A few days ago a very decent citizen, by the name of [Knoles] Shaw, from New Eng- land (and one, too, who lived with his family a considerable distance beyond the limits assigned by proclamation round Fort Washington, for the exercise of the law martial), was put in irons, as I was yesterday credibiy informed, his house burned by the military, and he banished the Territory. I hear his charges are that of purchasing some of the soldiers' clothing and advising in some desertions ; but of this he was no otherwise convicted (for he asserts his innocence), than by the sol- dier's accusation after he had deserted and been retaken, which he might do in order to shift the blame in some degree from himself in hopes of more favor. There are, indeed, many other acts of a despotic complexion, such as some of the officers, Captain Armstrong, Captain Kirkwood, Lieutenant Pastures, and Ensign Schuyler, very recently, and Captain Strong, Captain Ford, Captain Ashton, and Ensign Harts- horn, while General Harmar commanded, beating and imprisoning cit- izens at their pleasure. But here, in justice to the officers generally of the levies, I ought to observe that, as yet, I have heard no complaint of any severity or wantonness in them. The violences of which I speak are found among the officers of the regular troops, who, in too many instances, are imperiously haughty, and evidently affect to look down on the officers of the levies. I hear there are several officers with their corps arrived at headquarters, but I have not seen any of them, as I had left Cincinnata a day or two before their arrival, and have not been there since. It really becomes a very unpleasant place to me, for I have always had something in my nature which was shocked at. acts of tyranny, and when at that place my eyes and ears are every day sa- luted with more or less of those acts which border hard on it.

POST COMMANDERS.

The first commandant of Fort Washington was its founder and builder, Major Doughty, who was super- seded, of course, by his superior officer, General Har- mar, upon the arrival of the latter late in December. Harmar named the fort, which had theretofore been with- out special designation, upon the arrival of Governor St. Clair in January, at the same time Hamilton county and · Cincinnati were named-Judge Symmes and St. Clair having, respectively, the privilege of naming these. Gen- eral Wilkinson assumed command after Harmar's de- feat, continuing the fort as headquarters of the army. Captain William Henry Harrison, whose earliest military life was identified with the fort, was in command from 1795 until his resignation, three years thereafter. Cap- tain Edward Miller was commandant in May and June, 1799; but how long before and after we have been unable to ascertain. The next year Lieutenant Peter Shiras "held the fort," and he is the last of the post comman- ders of whom we have certain information, though Major Zeigler doubtless came near him as post commandant, either before or after that date.

OTHER OFFICERS.

One of General Harmar's letters, dated June 9, 1790, furnishes a full roster of the commissioned officers then at the fort. They were: General Harmar, Captain Ferguson, Captain Strong, Captain M'Curdy, Captain

Beatty, Lieutenant Armstong, Lieutenant Kerney (Kear- sey?), Lieutenant Ford, Lieutenant Pratt, Lieutenant Denny, Ensign Sedam, Ensign Hartshorn, Ensign Thomp- son, Doctor Allison. Some of these, as Sedam, Allison, and one or two others, will be recognized as well known names in the annals of Cincinnati.

ABANDONMENT.

In 1803 the United States acquired, by gift and pur- chase, from General James Taylor, a part of the ground upon which Newport barracks were built and now stand. General Charles Scott acted for the Government, took the deed and paid the purchase money. The barracks were ready for the reception of the troops the next year, when Fort Washington was evacuated and its garrison transferred to the opposite shore. The history of Fort Washington is thenceforth quite uneventful, though some noted citizens of Cincinnati, as Dr. William Goforth and his promising young student, Daniel Drake, from time to time occupied rooms or dwellings in it.

THE BREAK-UP.

In 1808, in pursuance of an order of Congress, the military reservation at Cincinnati was condemned and ordered to be sold with the structures thereon. General Jared Mansfield, then surveyor-general of the Northwest, was directed to supervise the sale. He had the tract of fifteen acres subdivided into lots and sold in early March through the land office at Cincinnati. The old site of the fort, near the Trollopean Bazaar, is now among the most thickly built districts of the city. The demolition and sale of the buildings took place on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, was at public vendue and attended by the entire population of the city and vicinity, who made a gala-day of the event. Little of the material was valuable except for firewood, and much of it was sold for this purpose. Colonel Stephen McFarland, father of the venerable Isaac B. McFarland, who is still residing on Park street and well remembers this day, lived adjacent to the fort, and bought the logs of the cabins between it and Artificers' Yard, which fed his fires for some years. Mr. Joseph Coppin, of Pleasant Ridge, late president of the Cincinnati Pioneer association, was also present at the sale and thus describes a ludicrous inci- dent of it:

During the taking down of the fort, two men got into a fight, and upset a barrel of soft soap. Here they were down in soap, and then in the dirt; and when the people thought they had fought enough and were fit for the river, they marehed them down to the tune of the "Rogue's March," and in the river they had to go and wash off in presence of the erowd that followed.

NOTES AND INCIDENTS.

The first well in Cincinnati was dug at the fort in 1791, by an eccentric wanderer calling himself John Robert Shaw, who afterwards published a little book in Kentucky, giving an account of his adventures, with rude illustrations, probably designed and executed by himself. He was called by the early settlers "the water-witch," from his skill in divining water by the forked rod, and was sent for from long distances to find it.

So late as 1802, a book published in Paris, entitled Voyage a la Louisiane, par B- D --- , gives Fort

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

Washington a place by name upon the map prefixed, but no Cincinnati appears, nor either of the Miami rivers. Upon other old maps Fort Washington is sometimes given as a locality in the neighborhood of Cincinnati, which is also set down, but generally in its proper place.

In 1789 two soldiers, named John Ayers and Matthew Ratmore, were shot at the southeast corner of the fort, for desertion. These were the first executions in the place.

In a description of Cincinnati, as he first saw the vil- lage in February, 1791, the Rev. Oliver M. Spencer in- cludes the following notice of the fort :

On the top and about eighty feet distant from the brow of the second bank, facing the river, stood Fort Washington, occupying nearly all the ground between Third and Fourth streets, and between Ludlow street and Broadway. This fort, of nearly a square form, was simply a wooden fortification, whose four sides or walls, each about one hun- dred and eighty feet long, were constructed of hewed logs, erected into barracks two stories high, connected at the corners by high pickets, with bastions or block-houses, also of hewed logs and projecting about ten feet in front of each side of the fort, so that the cannon praced. within them could be brought to rake its walls. Through the centre of the south side or front of this fort was the principal gateway, a passage through this line of barracks about twelve feet wide and ten fect high, secured by strong wooden doors of the same dimensions. Appended to the fort on its north side, and enclosed with high palisades extend- ing from its northeast and northwest corners to a block-house, was a small triangular space, in which were constructed shops for the accom- modation of the artificers. Extending along the whole front of the fort was a fine esplanade, about eighty feet wide and enclosed with a hand- some paling on the brow of the bank, the descent from which to the lower bottom was sloping, about thirty feet. The front and sides of the fort were whitewashed, and at a small distance presented a handsome and imposing appearance. On the eastern side were the officers' gar- dens, finely cultivated, ornamented with beautiful summer houses, and yielding in their season abundance of vegetables. *

Judge Burnet gives the following account of the fort, as he remembered seeing it first in 1795:

In Cincinnati, Fort Washington was the most remarkable object. That rude but highly interesting structure stood between Third and Fourth streets produced, east of Eastern row, now Broadway, which was then a two-pole alley, and was the eastern boundary of the town, as originally laid out. It was composed of a number of strongly built, hewed log cabins, a story and a half high, calculated for soldiers' barracks. Some of them, more conveniently arranged and better fin- ished, werc intended for officers' quarters. They were so placed as to form a hollow square of about an acre of ground, with a strong block- house at each angle. It was built of large logs, cut from the ground on which it stood, which was a tract of fifteen acres, reserved by Con- gress in the law of 1792, for the accommodation of the garrison.

The Artificers' Yard was appended to the fort, and stood on the bank of the river, immediately in front. It contained about two acres of ground, cnclosed by small contiguous buildings, occupied as work- shops and quarters for laborers. Within the enclosure there was a large, two-story frame house, familiarly called the 'yellow house,' which was the most commodious and best-finished edifice in Cincinnati. On the north side of Fourth street, immediately behind the fort, Colonel Sargent, secretary of the Territory, had a convenient frame house and a spacious garden, cultivated with care and taste. On the east side of the fort Dr. Allison, the surgeon-general of the army, had a plain frame dwelling in the centre of a large lot, cultivated as a garden and fruitery, and which was called "Peach Grove."

The anniversary of Washington's birthday, February 22, 1791, was celebrated by a ball at the fort, preceded by an exhibition of fireworks, the booming of cannon, discharge of rockets, and other demonstrations of joy and honor.

The rule at the fort must have been at times pretty

severe, if one may judge from the closing part of a letter written by General Wilkinson, May 11, 1792, while he was commandant of the fort, to Captain John Armstrong, commanding at Fort Hamilton. He thus instructs Armstrong :

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 9

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