USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 17
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Fort Recovery was a stockade upon a bend of the Wabash, very near the present western boundary of Ohio, and also near the line dividing Darke and Mercer counties. The mouth of the Kentucky river is at Car- rollton, fifty miles in a direct line southwest of Cincinnati, though much further by the winding river. The treaty of Greenville defined the "general boundary line" men- tioned above, as to run thence (from Fort Recovery) southwesterly in a direct line to the Ohio, so as to inter- sect the river opposite the mouth of Kentucke or Cut- tawa river. Hamilton county, then, by this time, com- prised a considerable triangular tract in the southeastern part of what is now the State of Indiana. It was a very large county that was enclosed between the east and west lines above described, the Ohio, and the southern boun- dary of Wayne county. It is estimated to have included five thousand square miles, or over three millions of acres, and to have been equal to about one-eighth part of the tract that became the State of Ohio.
Just before the creation of a number of new coun- ties from its territory, by one of the first acts of the first State legislature, the county is said, somewhat vaguely, to have stretched from the Ohio one hundred miles north- ward to the headwaters of the Great Miami, and west- ward from a meridian line drawn from the eastern sour- ces of the Little Miami to the Ohio, to a meridian from the mouth of the Great Miami to the parallel drawn from the headwaters of that stream. These boundaries, if correctly stated, represent a vast enlargement of the original county, and included the present counties of Hamilton, Clermont, Warren, Butler, Montgomery, Preble, Darke, Miami, Champaign, Clark, Clinton, and Greene. The Western Annals, third edition, says that the county "comprehended the whole country contigu- ous to the Ohio, from the Hocking river to the Great Miami."
A gubernatorial proclamation, dated September 20, 1798, attached a part of Hamilton to Adams county-
To begin on the bank of the Ohio, where Elk river, or Eagle creek, empties into the same, and run from thence dne north until it intersects the boundary of the county of Ross, and all and singular the lands ly- ing between said north line and Elk river, or Eagle creek, shall, after the said twentieth day of September next, be separated from the county of Hamilton and added to the county of Adams.
From the great county of Hamilton, or from coun- ties carved out of it, there are said to have been organ- ized, by -1815, the counties of Clermont, Warren, Butler, Preble, Montgomery, Greene, Clinton, Champaign, Miami, and Darke. St. Clair undertook to erect Bel- mont, Fairfield, and Clermont sometime before his resignation in 1802, but Congress refused to recog- nize his action, holding him not endowed with such power, in view of the existence of the territorial legis- lature. Early in 1802 the inhabitants of Hamilton residing north of the south boundary of the third or Military Range, petitioned Mr. Charles Willing Bird, then secretary of the territory and acting governor in the
absence of General St. Clair, for a division of the county. He replied in a respectful letter, of the fifteenth of May, 1802, saying that he could not grant the petition, but promising that it should be laid before the territorial legislature and recommended to their serious consider- ation-which was undoubtedly the proper course in the premises.
The people in all the northern parts of Hamilton county, above a line pretty nearly the same as the present north boundary of the county, had their wishes promptly gratified. Part of the Northwest Territory became the State of Ohio in the winter of 1802-3; and one of the first acts passed by the new legislature, in session at Chillicothe, was that of March 24, 1803, erecting from Hamilton the counties of Warren (named from General Joseph Warren, the Revolutionary hero), and Butler (named from General Richard Butler, also a distinguished Revolutionary and Indian fighter, who fell in St. Clair's defeat); and from Hamilton and Ross the counties of Montgomery (named from General Richard Montgomery, who fell in the attack on Quebec December 31, 1775), and Greene (named from General Nathaniel Greene, still another hero of the Revolution). The act was to take effect May 1, 1803, which is therefore the proper natal day of these counties. In the separation of the new counties it was made lawful for the coroners, sheriffs, constables, and collectors of Hamilton and Ross counties "to make distress for all dues and officers' fees unpaid by the inhabitants within the bounds of any of the said new counties, at the time such division shall take place, and they shall be accountable in like manner as if this act had not been passed." The courts of Hamilton and Ross were to maintain jurisdiction in all actions pending at the time of the separation, try and determine them, issue process, and otherwise conclude the pending matters. Temporary seats of justice were established for the new counties: For Warren, at the house of Ephraim Hathaway, on Turtle creek; for Butler, at the house of John Warrener, in Hamilton; for Montgomery, the house of George Newcum, in Dayton; and for Greene, the house of Owen Davies, on Beaver creek.
The boundaries of Butler county, that one of the new erections which is Hamilton's next neighbor on the north, were defined as follows: "Beginning at the southwest corner of the county of Warren, running thence west to the State line; thence with the same north to a point due west from the middle of the fifth range of townships in the Miami Purchase; thence east to the northwest corner of the aforesaid county of Warren; thence bounded by the west line of the said county of Warren to the place of beginning." The south line thus de- scribed, being the boundary between the counties of Hamilton and Butler, appears not to have been satis- factory, no doubt owing to the irregularity in the early surveys, and the consequent cutting across many sections or parts of sections by a straight east and west line, and an act was passed by the legislature February 20, 1808, re-establishing the boundary line thus: "Beginning at the southwest corner of the county of Warren and at the southwest corner of section numbered seven, in the
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
third township of the second entire range of townships, in the Miami Purchase; thence westwardly along the line of said tier of sections to the Great Miami river; thence down the Miami river to the point where the line of the next original surveyed township strikes the same; thence along the said line to the west boundary of the State." This act allowed Hamilton county to retain the irregular north line to be seen upon the later as well as earlier maps.
THE TOWNSHIPS.
Some of the townships of Hamilton county at or near Ats beginnings can hardly be identified now. There is not much trouble in recognizing Cincinnati, Columbia, Miami, Anderson, Colerain, and Springfield. "South Bend" included the tract which afterwards became Delhi and the major part of Green; and Dayton, Fairfield, Franklin, Ohio, Deerfield, Washington, and St. Clair, were no doubt on territory now belonging to other counties.
The erection of townships in the early day is among the most difficult topics for the local historian. Prior to the formation of the State constitution they were created in the several counties by order of the courts of general quarter sessions of the peace; after that by the county commissioners and the associate judges of the court of common pleas, acting with concurrent jurisdiction, until the act of the legislature of February 19, 1810, which gave the county commissioners the exclusive jurisdiction in the matter they have since retained. Sources of information are thus, in an old county, widely dispersed through the offices and records, and full and satisfactory data are ex- ceedingly difficult, and in this instance probably impossi- ble to reach. So long ago as 1839, near the middle year of the county's history, when it would seem to have been much easier to prosecute the inquiry than now, Mr. H. McDougal, then county auditor for Hamilton, in answer to a circular from the Hon. John Brough, State auditor, issued in pursuance of a legislative requirement of that year, reported as follows: "I find it almost impossible, from the data in my possession, to give all the required information. Most of the townships within the lines of this county were organized under the Territorial Gov- ernment. I cannot tell when they were organized." He was able to furnish only the dates of the organization of Fulton and Storrs, respectively, as 1830 and 1835; and in regard to the former of these he was clearly mistaken, as Fulton appears in the list of townships so early as 1826, and it was created, as was also the township of Symmes, at some time between 1820 and that year. The other township he mentions disap- peared some years ago, through the growth of the city-to the westward, which absorbed it; and Fulton was pre- viously absorbed by its extension to the eastward; so that these two of the "second growth" townships are al- ready wiped out.
The original townships in the old Hamilton county were only Cincinnati, Columbia, and Miami, the three representing the three settlements on the Ohio in the Purchase, and together extending the whole distance be- tween the rivers, their north boundaries being at the Military Range, on a line six miles north of the present
Springdale. The townships named in the records, down to 1796-7, were, in the order of their mention: Cincin- nati, Columbia, Miami, Anderson, Fairfield, Deerfield, Dayton, Iron Ridge (taken into Adams county in 1797), South Bend, Colerain, and Springfield.
Iron Ridge township was created on the application of Nathaniel Massie to the quarter-sessions court in 1793, to be received among the townships of the Hamilton county group. The request was granted, and officers for it duly appointed; but the township soon disappeared from Hamilton county history. It lay north of the Ohio river, east of White Oak creek, around the town of Manchester, in what is now Adams county.
Washington township is found mentioned in 1798, also Ohio and St. Clair; and Franklin township was rec- ognized in 1797.
The following table of 1799 (which, of course, omits Iron Ridge, but includes all the others), representing the assessment for taxation on the several duplicates of the townships and their acting constables at that time, has some interest just here :
TOWNSHIPS.
ASSESSMENT.
CONSTABLES.
Columbia .
$660 56
James Spears.
Cincinnati.
723 30
John Bailey.
South Bend.
55 69
Robert Levy.
Miami .
192 88
John Wilkinson.
Anderson
326 62
Josiah Crossly.
Colerain
106 81
Allan Shaw.
Springfield
281 15
John Patterson.
Fairfield
260 48
Darius Orcutt.
Dayton
233 72
Samuel Thompson.
Franklin
282 83
Enos Potter.
Deerfield .
371 74
William Sears.
Washington
339 61
William Laycock.
Ohio .
109 88
Isaac Miller.
St. Clair
134 72
John Newcomer.
Total
$4,079 99
Fairfield township was laid off by the quarter-sessions in 1795. It began at the northwest corner of Spring- field township, thence north along the then Colerain six miles to its northeast corner; thence west to the Miami ; thence up that stream to a meridian which is the eastern boundary of township numbered three, in the first entire range; thence south to Springfield; thence west six miles to the place of beginning. The brand of its cattle was ordered to be "H." Its first officers in 1795 were : John Greer, town clerk; William B. Brawnes, constable ; Patrick Moore, overseer of the poor; Darins Orcutt, supervisor of highways; Charles Bruin, Patrick Moore and William B. Brawnes, viewers of enclosures and ap- praisers of damages. Fairfield is, of course, now in But- ler county. Dayton, of the present county of Mont- gomery, was also established by the Hamilton County court in 1795. Benjamin Van Cleve says in his memor- anda, published in McBride's Pioneer Biography, in a volume of the Ohio Valley Historical Series, that Day- ton township included all the Miami country from the fifth range of townships upward. He took the returns of taxable property for it in 1801, and found three hun- dred and eighty-two free male persons over the age of twenty-one between the two Miamis, from-the south line of the township to the heads of Mad river and the Great Miami. West of the latter stream there were twenty-
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
eight such inhabitants in the township, and east of the Little Miami less than twenty. He received less than five dollars in fees for his immense toil and exposure in rendering this public service.
The names of some of the constables previous to this date have been preserved: Cincinnati township, Abraham Cary, 1797; Levi McLean, 1798; Columbia, Amos Mun- son, 1796; James Spears, 1797-8; Miami, Andrew Hill, 1797-8; Anderson, Josiah Crossly, 1797-8; Fairfield, George Codd, 1797; Darius Orcutt, 1798; Deerfield, Isaac Lindly, 1797; Joshua Drake; Dayton, Cyrus Os- born, 1797; James Thompson, 1798; Iron Ridge, Damon McKinsey, 1796; . South Bend, Isaac Wilson, 1797; William Cullum, 1798; Colerain, Allan Shaw, 1797; Springfield, James Lowes, 1797; Washington, Jacob Williams, 1798; Franklin, Jos. Henry, 1798.
Colerain township was created in 1794, and Springfield in 1803. Cincinnati, Miami, and Springfield townships had important changes made in their boundaries in 1809, by the creation of Mill Creek and Green townships in that year. In 1800 Sycamore township appears to have been in existence. Whitewater township was erected in 1803, to include all the territory of Hamilton county west of the Great Miami river. Its boundaries were more elaborately defined the next year, when Crosby town- ship was also mentioned, and probably erected at that time. This is about the sum of the knowledge possessed in this year of grace 1881, concerning the old townships of Hamilton county. But more may appear in the township histories.
CHAPTER X. PROGRESS OF HAMILTON COUNTY.
Sweet clime of my kindred, blest land of my birth- The fairest, the dearest, the brightest on earth ! Where'er I may roam, howe'er blest I may be, My spirit instinctively turns unto thee. -ANONYMOUS.
THE FIRST ELEVEN YEARS.
About two thousand people were in the Miami coun- try, which may be considered as practically identical with Hamilton county at this time, by 1790, although the first settler had pitched his camp at Columbia but thirteen months before. It was a very humble and modest beginning that the infant county had, except in reach of fertile territory and the possibilities of the future. Had a census qualification been required for the erection of a county in that day, as nowfor the admission of a State to the Federal Union, it must needs have been a very mod- erate one, or the Northwest Territory would have waited longer for the birth of the county which has since be- come as great in wealth and population, in arts and arms, and in the higher arts of civilization, as it was then great in area and resources waiting to be developed. In a very
few years, however-as soon as the peace of Greenville gave assurance of safety to the immigrant against Indian massacre or the plunder of his property-the country began to fill up with some rapidity. The census of 1800, the first taken in the county, although its enumerators probably missed many of the settlers in so wide and sparsely settled a tract, exhibited the goodly number of fourteen thousand six hundred and ninety-one persons as the white population of Hamilton county. It is interest- ing to note, in this early day, when the conditions of life were so different from those prevailing in the older communities, how this number was divided between the sexes, and also between the different ages of which the census makes record. There were, of children under ten years of age, three thousand two hundred and seventy- three males, three thousand and ninety females; young persons between ten and sixteen years, one thousand three hundred and thirty-five males, one thousand and sixty-five females; between sixteen and twenty-six, one thousand five hundred and two males, one thousand two hundred and ninety-seven females; adults between twenty-six and forty-five years, one thousand two hundred and fifty-one males, nine hundred and fifty-four females; over forty- five, four hundred and eighty males, three hundred and forty-four females ;- total, fourteen thousand six hundred and ninety-one, of whom seven thousand eight hundred and forty-one were males, and six thousand eight hun- dred and fifty females.
The noticeable facts in this brief statement are :
I. The disparity of the sexes, which was particularly marked in this country when new. Usually, in a long- settled community, notably in the State of Massachusetts, as the census shows, the gentler sex is somewhat in the majority, and sometimes very much so ; but here we find, at the end of the first eleven to twelve years of coloniza- tion, that the males led by very nearly one thousand in less than fifteen thousand, or by about six and eight- tenths per cent. of the whole. Or, to make the differ- ence appear more striking, there were nearly one-sixth more males than females, or about fifteen per cent .- a considerable and important difference. Even with young children, and through all the ages noted, the disparity is marked; but particularly so in the more vigorous working ages, from sixteen to twenty-six, and thence to forty-five, where the percentages of difference are over sixteen and nearly thirty-one, respectively. Still more striking is the inequality of numbers where we should least expect it, among adults over forty-five years of age, where it amounts, in this case, to forty per cent. advantage in point of numbers, in favor of the men. These facts ar- gue well for the material foundations in Hamilton county, in the laying of which the male mind, in its maturity and strength, as well as the muscle of the man in his prime, were imperatively needed.
2. The comparative paucity of old persons, or of men and women distantly approaching old age, is to be noted. Of really aged persons there were probably very few; but as to this we have no exact data. The census figures show that, reckoning all down to the age of forty-five, there were but eight hundred and twenty-four, or only
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
five and six-tenths per cent. of the whole; while of those in the hardier laboring ages there were over nineteen and fifteen per cent. respectively, leaving for the youngest children and the younger youth sixty per cent. of the whole.
3. The last statement offers a fact of considerable in- terest. Three of every five in the total population were children under sixteen years of age: This demonstrates how large a share of the early settlers brought their fam- ilies with them, apparently coming to stay and aid in lay- ing the foundations of stable communities, in which law and order should ever abide. Contrast with this the im- migration at mining camps and settlements, which usually consists, with almost absolute exclusiveness, of men only. The beginnings were certainly well made in Hamilton county.
THE SECOND DECADE.
In 1810 the census exhibited a population for the county of but little more than the enumeration of 1800 had shown-fifteen thousand two hundred and four, or but five hundred and thirteen more than were in the county ten years before. It must be borne in mind, how- ever, that the Hamilton county of 1800 was still, for the most part, the great county of Governor St. Clair's second creation-that it might be said, indeed, in a general way, to be pretty nearly coterminous with the broad and long "Miami country," since that was estimated to contain fifteen thousand white people at the beginning of the century, while the county itself was shown by official count to have fourteen thousand six hundred and ninety-one. Ten years later Hamilton had been shorn of its fair proportions, and reduced to be, as it is now, one of the smallest counties in the State in territorial dimensions, having, as we have seen, less than four hundred square miles. A population of fifteen thou- sand two hundred and four, or forty to the square mile, represented a very creditable growth for a county just coming of age in its twenty-first year. It is also noteworthy, when placed against the figures of 1800, which showed scarcely three white persons to the section in the vast county. In 1810 the Miami tract, formerly almost identical with Hamilton county, was estimated to contain seventy thousand civilized inhabitants, or about one-fourth of the entire white and colored population of the State, indicating that growth of settlement through- out this region was by no means confined to the Ohio valley, but extended far up the Miami valleys as well.
Within this decade were founded three of the oldest villages in the county-Reading, in 1804; Montgomery, in 1805; and Springfield, in 1806.
THE THIRD DECADE.
The map prefixed to Dr. Drake's Picture of Cincin- nati, published in 1815, shows the towns and villages of the county at that time to have been Cincinnati (three miles east of Mill Creek), Columbia, Cleves, Colerain, Crosby, Springfield, Reading, Montgomery, and New- town, with roads running from Cincinnati to each of these points, and one other road making into Indiana. Four years later Cincinnati had become a chartered city,
and Carthage and Miami were added to the list of vil- lages. Nearly all places in the county were considered worthy of mention in the State Gazetteer of that year only as "post towns," with their respective locations and distances from Cincinnati. The county had now twelve townships - Cincinnati, Crosby, Colerain, Springfield, Sycamore, Anderson, Columbia, Mill Creek, Delhi, Green, Miami, and Whitewater. The aggregate valua- tion of property in the county, for purposes of taxation, was five million six hundred and four thousand nine hundred and fifty-four dollars.
By 1815 the beginnings of the Miami and Erie canal had been projected, so far as an artificial water-way up the valley of Mill creek to Hamilton would go. The text of Dr. Drake's Picture notes the mills on this stream as "numerous, but the loose and unstable composition of its bed renders the erection of permanent dams as difficult and expensive, in proportion to its width, as on the Miamis." Prices of land had greatly appreciated throughout the county. Judge Symmes and his asso- ciates, twenty-seven years before, had bought the Pur- chase for sixty-six and two-thirds cents per acre (really for sixteen and two-third cents per acre, in specie), and sold most of it at a uniform price of two dollars, except at auction, when it often commanded higher rates. The reserved sections also formed an exception: they were at one time fixed to be sold at eight dollars per acre, but afterwards sold at four. In 1815, Dr. Drake observes:
Within three miles of Cincinnati, at this time, the prices of good unimproved land are between fifty dollars and one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, varying according to the distance. From this point to the extent of twelve miles, they decline from thirty dollars to ten dol- lars. Near the principal villages of the Miami country, it commands from twenty dollars to forty dollars: in the remaining situations it is from four to eight dollars-improvements in all cases advancing the price from twenty-five to four hundred per cent. An average of the settled parts of the Miami country, still supposing the land fertile and uncultivated, may be stated at eight dollars; if cultivated, at twelve dollars. These were not the prices in 1812, the war, by promoting immigration, having advanced the nominal value of land from twenty-five to fifty per cent.
Mr. Burnet (not the judge), a traveller through this region two years afterwards, in a published account of his journeyings, supplies the following interesting note :
The land round Cincinnati is good. Price, a mile or two from the city, fifty, eighty, and one hundred dollars per acre, according to qual- ity and other advantages. This same land, a few years ago, was bought for two and five dollars per acre. Farms with improvements ten miles from the town, sell for thirty and forty dollars per acre. Fifty, sixty, and one hundred miles up the country, good uncleared land may be bought for from two dollars to five dollars per acre. The farms are generally worked by the farmer and his family. Labor is dear, and not to be had under fourteen or sixteen dollars per month and board. They have but little machinery and no plaster or compost, but what is made by the farmer is used for manure. Taxes, in the country, are a mere nothing. Farmers, in any part of the State of Ohio, who have one hundred acres of their own, well stocked, do not pay above five to ten dollars per annum.
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