USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 85
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Within Miami township the Ohio receives from the northward the waters of Muddy creek and the west fork of Muddy, the latter of which lies altogether in the south- eastern part of this township; also Indian creek, which enters the river at North Bend station, and several minor streams. Along the northwestern borders of the town- ship flows the South fork of Taylor's creek, leaving the township at the northwest corner, just opposite to which, at the northwest corner, the main stream of Taylor's creek, flowing down from Colerain township, discharges its waters. A mile due north of Cleves Jordan creek debouches also into the Great Miami, after flowing nearly three-fourths of the way across the township. One or two petty and probably unnamed brooks are also affluents of this river on the Miami side. Beside this river, above Cleves, the valley is wide and low, yielding great crops of corn in favorable seasons; below Cleves Ritenhouse Hill, Fort Hill, and the general ridge between the two rivers close down pretty closely upon the banks of the streams, until their junction is neared, when the country again becomes low and flat, and subject in part to fre- quent overflow. The highlands continue along the Ohio to the southeast boundaries of the township; but have ample room at the foot for the tracks of the railroads, a fine wagon road, and the sites of several villages and rail-
way stations. They afford many picturesque views up and down the river, and across to the Kentucky shore; and some of the finest suburban residences in the county, as that of Dr. Warder near North Bend, have conse- quently been located upon these heights. The general character of the hill country of Hamilton county is main- tained to the northward and westward until the valley of the Great Miami is reached-much broken and diversi- fied, however, by the numerous streams that cut through and down the hills. Across them, from the direction of Cincinnati, comes in the Cleves turnpike, having the vil- lage of that name on the west for its terminus. There is a singular scarcity of north and south roads in the town- ship, but a sufficiency of highways, with a general direc- tion of east and west. The Ohio & Mississippi, and the Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis & Chicago railroads run parallel to each other and to the bank of the Ohio in this township until just past North Bend station, where the track of the latter diverges rapidly to the northward, passes under the ridge between North Bend and Cleves by a tunnel, and leaves the township, going westward, by a bridge over the Great Miami, half a mile northwest of Cleves. The Ohio & Mississippi continues its course along the Ohio beyond North Bend about five miles, to a point about half a mile above the mouth of the Great Miami, when it passes into Indiana.
TOWNSHIP OFFICERS, ETC.
The first officers of the Miami township, named by appointment of the court at the time of its erection, were in part as follows: Lynde Elliott, clerk; Darius C. Orcutt, overseer of roads; Henry Brazier, overseer of the poor. The cattle brand for the township was fixed by the court as the letter D.
By the order of 1803 the voters of Miami were to meet at the house of Joseph Coleby, and there vote for two justices of the peace.
On the twenty-fourth of April, 1809, the governor of the State commissioned Garah Markland and Stephen Wood as justices of the peace for the township of Miami, each to serve during a term of three years.
We have also the following memoranda of justices elected by the people in later years: 1819, John Pal- mer, Daniel Bailey; 1825, William Harrell, James Martin; 1829, John Scott Harrison, J. L. Watson, Isaac Morgan; 1865, John D. Matson, A. R. Lind; 1866, A. R. Lind, James Carlin; 1867-9, James Carlin, James Herron; 1870-2, James Carlin, William B. Welsh, 1873-4, James Carlin, James Herron, William Ayr; 1875, Carlin and Ayr; 1876-8, William Jessup, A. R. Lind; 1879-80, Carlin and Lind.
ANTIQUITIES.
The famous ancient work which gives the name to Fort Hill, near the Great Miami river, is an irregular enclosure surrounding about fifteen acres. It is between the brows of precipitous ascents two hundred and sixty feet high on the Miami side and two hundred feet high towards the Ohio, which is about a mile distant; and is in a position well calculated for outlook and defence. The wall is now about three feet high, is composed of
CHRISTOPHER FLINCHPAUGH.
Christopher Flinchpaugh, born April 26, 1799 in Wurtemburg, Eu- rope. Jacob, his father, was a common farmer ; Agnes Phyle, his mother was of common stock. Both his parents died when Christopher was a young man of fifteen summers, he coming to America in 1817, land- ing in Philadelphia. Out of a family of three brothers and two sisters, all of whom are dead, he was the youngest. One of the great associa- tions and memorable events of his life, is the vivid recollection of Na- poleon's campaign in 1816. The great disaster which followed his re- treat, the Cossacks, the Russians, the Prussians, the French-left food scarce, and distress followed which beggars description.
Christopher, who was a passenger, worked his way in a sail vessel which was three months and two weeks in crossing. At the end of the journey, he worked one year and six months to repay the expense. However, the agreement to school Christopher nine months, furnish him with two suits of clothes from head to foot, and forty dollars in money, was not kept and our young German failed to receive his reward. From near Harrisburgh he 'came to Miami town- ship in the fall of 1819, and remained ever since.
Previous to his mar- riage in the spring of 1821 to Elizabeth Columbia, he worked at stilling in Miamitown for one year and six months for Ma- jor Henrie. His wife was born December 20, 1801, was of Welsh extraction, and whose father was a Revolutionary soldier. By this marriage five sons and seven daughters were born : Jacob, Henrietta, Susanna, William, Mary, Caleb, Chris, Simon, Char- Intte, Christina, Hannah, Elizabeth. Out of this family only six live. From this family thirty-nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren have been born. Young Chris- topher was brought up in the Lutheran faith; was baptized in infancy, and confirmed when fourteen years of age, but of prac- tical religion he knew nothing. Educationally, he had eight years of schooling, but being of a careless disposition, failed to receive any benefit. Marvelons as it may seem the first year or two he preached he was unable to read English. Dur- · ing his employment in the distillery at Miami, he re- ceived the first impres- sions of sin, while work- ing a copper still. But the first convictions of sin hung overhead, and in one year and six months after he was converted. But previous to this time a few months, he joined
the United Brethren church, under the influ- ence of Rosalia Fageley, a pious woman in whose house the meeting ·was held. He passed from a rough, blasphemous character to a min- ister of the gospel. Being of a determined nature, full of good impulses, he grasped the hand of all alike-the wicked and good-and im- plored them to turn to Christ. His conversion was in a cornfield while plowing corn, and from thence, the Sunday following, by agreement with the still-house hands, he preached his first sermon in Chamberstown, in Miami. Great results followed, and from thence he preached to many distinguished men. Among his andience at different times were Gener- al Harrison, Governor Bebb, Daniel Howell, the first male child in Miami township, and many others who long since have passed to their reward. Soon after beginning to preach in 1824, he was licensed by the United Brethren church, and travelled throughout the country, preach- ing in barns and log dwelling houses.
Soon after, when poverty and hardship were gathering in great
clouds over head, and when the devil tempted him to cease preaching, he came from Venice, where he preached in a cooper-shop in the morning, and in the evening at a school-house, to his home a distance of twelve miles. He had had his breakfast and went without dinner and supper. Coming home about 9 or 10 o'clock, and . reflecting on his hard trials, and tempted to retire from the ministry, their came a voice-a song of angels from Heaven singing, "How happy are they," exhorting him to continne. In all his he memorable life, neither has seen or heard so much melody, so great a choir, and so much of God's power to save. The matter of recompense was very small and dis- tance in circuit very great. One circuit was four hundred miles in length, and consisted of thirty-two appointments.
Sometime in 1841 or 1842, a call was made to go to Germany. For six months he debated and prayed over the question, and at one time was tempted to drive God's spirit away by drink, but finally, on account of lack of funds, did not leave America. He re- grets now his failure to accept the call, but God forgives him. Once while visiting a layman-which is a dream-he was in- vited by the member to go out and see his sheep. After going ont, the sheep proved to be long wooly dogs which were sheared for sheep, illus- trating a paradox in re- ligion.
At different periods he travelled from Pittsburgh to the north of Ports- mouth Evansville. The presiding elder's office was held and common preaching done every- where. Both German and English pulpits were fillled, and both English and German converts baptized and taken into the church.
One unacquainted with pioneer life; the travel- ling through swamp and bog : through forest and stream, and all their dif- ferent parts, knows noth- ing of early ministerial preaching.
The following are per- sons and where they were baptized : one hun- dred children, twenty persons in Ohio river, twenty persons in Mill creek, sixty persons in Taylor's creek, ten per- sons in Muddy creek, fifty persons in Big Miami, river, ten persons in Lo- gan creek, seventy per- sons in Johnson's fork, fifty persons in Dry fork, five persons in Indian creek, forty persons in Elk creek, fifty persons in Little and Big Twin, fifty persons in Brown's run, twenty persons in Beaver creek, and ten persons in East Little
Miami.
In the matter of deaths it is believed that over three thousand fu- neral sermons have been preached and marriage ceremonies performed -
Now, in old age, after a life full of great trial, and one ladened with the choicest fruits, he, though not wealthy, but left in good circum- stances, is left without a helpmeet. About him, all up and down the country, are hosts of friends. Many are in Heaven and many more are homeward bound. To him God has been gracious; life with him has been a success. God, he fully believes, called him to preach. Every one to his notion is selected by his Master to go forth and meet sin.
The forest has faded before his ax as well as immorality. May God continue to bless him in the future as in the past. The present is short, but the future will find him in the best calling in our land.
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
stone and earth, and has a narrow gateway at the north- east corner, near a rocky tract on the hillside. There are prominent salients or bastions at both the northeast and southeast corners. A ditch upon the inside follows the wall throughout. A spring within would keep a besieged force well supplied with water, and a channel of another stream also intersects the wall, which might be damned in case of rainfall. The tableland within the fort is ten to twenty feet above the wall, the earth in which was scooped from the brow of the hill, while the stone was also collected from the locality. The former farm of General Harrison approached near the fort by its west line; and the residence of his son, the Hon. J. Scott Harrison, was directly south of the work. The former in his discourse on the Aborigines of the Valley of the Ohio, delivered before the Historical Society of Ohio in 1838, printed in its transactions and also separately, thus uses this ancient work by way of illustration in an argument for the high antiquity of the Mound Builders' remains :
The sites of the ancient works on the Ohio present precisely the same appearance as the circumjacent forest. You find on them all the beautiful variety of trees which gives such universal richness to our forests. This is particularly the case on the fifteen acres included within the walls of the work at the mouth of the Great Miami, and the relative proportions of different kinds of timber are about the same. The first growth, on the same kind of land, once cleared and then abandoned to nature, on the contrary is more homogeneous after stinted to one or two, or at most three kinds of timber.
Other remarks of the general concerning this work in the same address are as follows:
The engineers who directed the executing of the Miami work, ap- pear to have known the importance of flank defences. And if their bastions are not as perfect as to form, as those which are in use in modern engineering, their position, as well as that of the long lines of curtains, are precisely as they should be.
I have another conjecture as to this Miami fortress. If the people of whom we have been speaking were really the Aztecs, the direct course of their journey to Mexico, and the facilities which that mode of retreat would afford, seem to point ont a descent of the Ohio as the line of that retreat. This position (the lowest which they appear to have fortified on the Ohio), strong by nature and improved by the expenditures of great labor, directed by no inconsiderable degree of skill, would be the last hold they would occupy and the scene of their last efforts to retain possession of the country they had so long inhab- ited. The interest which every one feels who visits this beautiful and interesting spot, would be greatly heightened if he could persuade him- self of the reasonableness of my deductions, from the facts I have stated. That this elevated ridge, from which are now to be seen flourishing little villages and plains of unrivalled fertility, possessed by a people in the full enjoyment of peace and liberty, and all that peace and liberty can give-whose nations, like those of Spata, have never seen the smoke of an enemy's fire-once presented a scene of war, and war in its most horrid form, where blood is the object and the de- ficiencies of the field are made up by the slaughter of innocence and imbecility. That it was here a feeble band was collected, remnant of mighty battles fought in vain, to make a last effort for the country of their birth, the ashes of their ancestors and the altars of their gods; that the crisis was met with fortitude and sustained with valor, need not to be doubted. The ancestors of Quitlavaca and Gautimozin, and their devoted followers could not be cowards.
FORT FINNEY.
This work, the first erection for human habitation made by white men upon the territory afterwards covered by the Miami purchase, except only the transient block- houses erected by the war parties of Kentuckians upon the site of Cincinnati, stood upon the soil of Miami township, in the point of the peninsula. It was upon
the west bank of a small creek, about three-quarters of a mile above the mouth of the Little Miami, and near the mouth of the creek, not far from what is now the south- east corner of the former farm of the late John Scott Harrison. The site is still pointed out by residents of that neighborhood, and a writer in 1866 said that some remais of the fort were then still to be seen, though they have now wholly disappeared.
We have elsewhere, in the chapter Before Losantiville, in the second division of this work, told the story of Fort Finney, down to and including the settlement and signature of a treaty with the Indians, February 2, 1786. It remains only to give its subsequent brief history. This we are happily enabled to do by the aid of the journal of Major Denny, which has been published in one of the valuable volumes issued by the Pennsylvania Historical society. It begins October 22, 1785, before the work was built, and a little before the movement of troops to that quarter began. From this clear and intelligent ac- count we learn that General Butler and his fellow com- missioners left the fort soon after the treaty was conclu- ded, going away on the eighth of February, 1786, in three large boats, with their messengers and attendants, all apparently well tired of the place, where their life and duties had been by no means pleasant. Their voy- age was up the Ohio on their return to civilization. The soldiers remained, however, with Major Finney, Captain Zeigler (afterwards Major Zeigler, commandant at Fort Washington), Lieutenant Denny, and other well known officers in command. St. Patrick's Day was duly cele- brated by the bold Irish boys of the garrison, with all hands taking part in such festivities as included the dis- posal of festive liquids, and also in the observance of the Fourth of July, which followed in due course of time. Lieutenant Denny does not say just when the fort was evacuated, but the treaty of the Indians of the Miami and Maumee valleys was supposed to obviate the neces- sity for a military post here, and, all remaining quiet in this region, the commanding officer was presently directed to evacuate the place, which he did some time before January, 1789, taking his force to the Indiana side of the Ohio opposite Louisville, where a small work was also erected, and likewise called Fort Finney. We have no record that the work was occupied again by a military force, although General Harmar, 'in a letter of January 22, 1789, just before Symmes reached North Bend, said it was "not improbable that two companies would be ordered to be stationed at the mouth of the Great Mi- ami, not only as a better cover for Kentucky, but also to afford protection to Judge Symmes in his intended settle- ment there." But it was doubtless standing when Judge Symmes came upon the premises, since the locality about the mouth of the Great Miami is commonly referred to by him as the Old Fort, and doubtless took its name from Fort Finney, not from the ancient work on the hills overlooking the Great Miami.
THE INDIAN PERIOD.
The following narrative was related by the Hon. J. Scott Harrison, son of President Harrison, in an address
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
to the Whitewater and Miami Valley Pioneer association, at Cleves, September 8, 1866:
A party of men residing at the Point (mouth of Big Miami), were returning from a small mill near North Bend, and with one exception, stopped at the old log house lately occupied by Andrew McDonald, where a tavern was then kept; and as this was before the days of tem- perance societies, it is a very fair inference that they stopped to take a drink. One man (Demoss), more temperate, perhaps, than his fellows, continued on his way up the hill-the trace to the Point then running over the hill, near the old graveyard, and on the bluff of the ridge. The revelers had hardly time to accomplish the object of their stop be- fore the report of a rifle was heard on the hill. The party at the tav- ern, supposing it was only an intimation from their more sober com- panion to cease then revels and continue their way home, rushed out of the house with a wild whoop, mounted their horses, and rode up the hill. But what must have been the horror of the party, on arriving at the crown of the hill, to find their companion dead and weltering in his blood! The undischarged rifle of Demoss, and the missing meal- bag, too plainly explained the manner and cause of his death. Pur- suit was immediately given, in a northwesterly direction, and the meal, but not the Indian, found. The Indian, in order to save his own life, had dropped that which had evidently incited him to commit the murder.
This tale of Indian murder has always had a peculiar personal inter- est to me. My mother, then unmarried and living with her father, Judge Symmes, at North Bend, had been on a riding excursion (horse- back, of course), to the Point, the very afternoon of this murder, and has often told me that the horses of their party were still at the door after their return, when the fatal shot that killed Demoss was plainly heard. My mother was always under the impression that the Indian saw her party pass, but that bread, rather than blood, was the object of the murderer.
THE PIONEER SETTLEMENT
in Miami township, and the third in the Miami purchase, was made, as all careful readers of this work well know by this time, by Judge John Cleves Symmes-not at the mouth of the Great Miami, as he intended, and as Gen- eral Harmar and others expected, but at North Bend. Who Judge Symmes was, in his family origin and early career, and what were his preliminary movements before reaching the Purchase with his colony, are narrated in Chapter IV of the first part of this book. Major Denny who had returned to the garrison at Fort Harmar, thus wrote in his journal August 27, 1788, of the appear- ance of Judge Symmes and party at the post, during the movement westward. The gallant young officer's atten- tion seems to have been specially and worthily attracted by the principal young lady of the party, the daughter 1
of the proprietor :
Judge Symmes, with several boats and families, arrived on their way to his new purchase at the Miami. Has a daughter (Polly) along. They lodge with the general and Mrs. Harmar. Stayed three days, and departed. If not greatly mistaken, Miss Symmes will make a fine woman. An amiable disposition and cultured mind, about to be buried in the wilderness.
This "Polly" is the daughter who afterwards became the wife of Peyton Short, the millionarie son-in-law of Judge Symmes. General Harrison's wife was Annie Symmes, also daughter of the judge.
Arriving at Limestone Point, later Maysville, Symmes found himself detained there during a tedious fall and early winter by the delay of the authorities in concluding with the Indians the treaty of Muskingum, and so pro- viding reasonable security for settlers in the wilderness further down the river. Major Stites, however, got off about the middle of November with his party for the mouth of the Little Miami, and Colonel Patterson, the
twenty-fourth of the next month, for the famed and coveted spot "opposite the mouth of the Licking," but the chief proprietor of the Purchase was still detained. December 12th, Captain Kearsey and forty-five troops came down the river from Fort Harmar, and reported to him as an escort. They were for the time being of no service, but rather an annoyance, since they brought but limited supplies, and the judge had to subsist them. In November he had ordereda few surveyors down the Ohio, to traverse the two Miami valleys as high up as they could get. Some of these formed the advanee guard of Sym- mes's immigration to the Great Miami country. The judge intended to remain at Limestone until spring, having taken, as he said, "a total house of my own," but he doubtless became restless at the success of Stites and Patterson in founding their settlements while he delayed, and was also assured by repeated messages from Stites of the friendly disposition of the Indians and their eager desire to see him. There was some danger that his red brethren would go off in anger and disgust at the refusal or neglect of Symmes to meet them; and so, during the latter part of January, 1789, he collected with difficulty a small commissariat of flour and salt, placed on boats his family and furniture, with other members of the colony and such of Kearsey's soldiers as had not been sent to Stites, and embarked from Limestone January 29th. The season was inclement. A few weeks before this time, about the last of December, a sergeant and twelve men of the command had been dispatched for the Old Fort with a party of settlers. The weather changed soon after they left Limestone, becoming very cold, and filling the river with ice, so that there was danger they would be frozen up in the stream. They reached Columbia, however, and there paused, expecting soon to go on to their destination. But while here, the floating ice forced their boats from the shore, stove in, and carried away the side of one bearing live stock, part of which was drowned, and the rest saved with difficulty. Most of the provisions on hand for the settlers and sol- diers was also lost. This broke up the intended emigra- tion to the Old Fort, the party remaining at Columbia, or returning to Limestone when the weather and river per- mitted.
When Symmes started, January 29th, it was at a time of the greatest freshet in the Ohio that had been known since Kentucky was settled-the greatest, indeed, be- tween 1773 and the tremendous flood of 1832. When his flotilla reached Columbia he found the little settle- ment under water except one house, which was on the higher ground. The soldiers had been driven by the water to the garret of the block-house, and thence to the boats. Floating rapidly with the swollen stream to Lo- santiville, he found it "had suffered nothing from the freshet," as he afterwards wrote. He doubtless stopped and spent some hours, very likely a night, at each of these places; although speeded by the flood and not in- terrupted by ice, as the Losantiville voyagers were, he occupied about the same time in the journey that they did, namely, four days. Leaving the last outpost of civ- ilization on the Upper Ohio in the morning, be landed,
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