USA > Ohio > Ohio's progressive sons; a history of the state; sketches of those who have helped to build up the commonwealth > Part 4
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four months at least before the expiration of the time of service of the members of the council, the said house shall nominate ten persons, qualified as aforesaid, and return their names to Congress, five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as mem- bers of the council five years, unless sooner removed. And the Governor, Legislative Coun- cil and House of Representatives shall have authority to make laws in all cases for good government of the district, not repugnant to the principles and articles in this ordinance established and declared. And all bills having passed by a majority in the house, and by a majority in the council, shall be referred to the Governor for his assent; but no bills or legislative act whatever shall be of any force without his assent. The Governor shall have power to convene, prorogue and dissolve the general assembly when, in his opinion, it shall be expedient.
The Governor, Judges, Legislative Council, Secretary and such other officers as Con- gress shall appoint in the district shall take an oath or affirmation of fidelity, and of office, the Governor before the President of Congress, and all other officers before the Governor. As soon as a legislature shall be formed in the district the council and house, assembled in one room, shall have authority, by joint ballot, to elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress, with a right of debating, but not of voting, during this temporary government.
And for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which forms the basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions are erected; to fix and estab- lish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory-to provide also for the establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and for their admission to a share in the Federal councils on an equal footing with the original States, at as early periods as may be con- sistent with the general interest.
It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid, that the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original States and the people and States in the said territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, towit :
Article I. No person, demeaning himself in a peaccable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments in the said territory.
Article II. The inhabitants of the said territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writs of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the Legislature, and of judicial proceedings, according to the course of the common law; all persons shall be bailable unless for capital offenses, where the proof shall be evident or the presumption great ; all fines shall be moderate, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted; no man shall be deprived of his liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land; and should the public exigencies make it necessary for the common preservation to take any person's property, or to demand his particular services, full compensation shall be made for the same-and in the just preserva- tion of rights and property it is understood and declared that no law ought ever to be made or have force in said territory that shall in any manner whatever interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bona fide and without fraud previously formed.
Article III. Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights and liberty they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars author-
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ized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.
Article IV. The said territory, and the States which may be formed therein, shall for- ever remain a part of this Confederacy of the United States of America, subject to the Articles of Confederation, and to such alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made; and to all acts and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled, conformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in the said territory shall be subject to pay a part of the Federal debts, contracted or to be contracted, and a proportional part of the expenses of government, to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States; and the taxes for paying their proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the Legislatures of the district, or districts, or new States, as in the original States, within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. The Legislatures of those districts, or new States, shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, nor with any regulations Congress may find neces- sary for securing the title in such soil to the bona fide purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands the property of the United States; and in no case shall non-resident proprietors be taxed higher than residents. The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and Saint Lawrence and carrying places between the same shall be common highways, and ยท forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into the Confederacy, without any tax, impost or duty therefor.
Article V. There shall be formed in the said territory not less than three nor more than five States; and the boundaries of the States, as soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession and consent to the same, shall become fixed and established as follows, towit: The western State in said territory shall be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Wabash Rivers, a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Post Vincents, due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada and by the said territorial line to the Lake of the Woods and Mississippi. The middle State shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Port Vincents to the Ohio; by the Ohio, by a direct line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami to the said territorial line, and by said territorial line. The eastern State shall be bounded by the last-mentioned direct line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania and the said territorial line: Provided, however, and it is further understood and declared, that the boundaries of these three States shall be subject so far to be altered, that if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient they shall have authority to form one or two States in that part of said territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan; and whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatsoever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government: Provided, the constitution and government so to be formed shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles, and so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, and such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the State than sixty thousand.
Article VI. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said terri- tory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly
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convicted: Provided, always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be law- fully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or services as aforesaid.
Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, that the resolutions of the 23d of April, 1784, relative to the subject of this ordinance, be and the same are hereby repealed and declared null and void."
The great concessions of the States that possessed the grant of land made possible the constitution, fostered the national spirit and was one of the most potent agencies in welding together the disjointed States. By virtue of it the first government of the territory was
LANDING OF PIONEERS ON THE SITE OF CINCINNATI DECEMBER, 1788
inaugurated in October, 1787. General Arthur St. Clair was made the first Territorial Gov- ernor. Winthrow Sargeant the first Secretary, and Samuel Holden and James M. Varnum the first Judges. The necessary laws were framed by these gentlemen. Treaties-none too binding and often broken-were made with the various Indian tribes, and settlement in real earnest began in the land that is now the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The first settlement of the territory followed immediately after the ordinance and pre- ceded the actual establishment of the newly-authorized government. There was one mili- tary post within the limits of what is now Ohio-Port Hamar, built in 1785 by United States troops under the direction of Major John Doughty, and named in honor of his Colonel, Josiah Hamar, whose regiment occupied it for several years. This outpost was situated on the west bank of the Muskingum River at its conjunction with the Ohio. It was in no sense of the word a settlement, or even a permanent garrison, but the fact that it existed was doubtless the main reason why Secretary Sargeant, as one of the agents of the New England Ohio Company, selected a tract of land in this vicinity in arranging for a large purchase from the United States Government. The deed was issued on the 27th of October, 1787. and the first settlers arrived on the scene on the 7th of April the year following, and began to build houses on the east bank of the Muskingum, opposite the fort. This was
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The Beginning of Marietta
the first permanent settlement in Ohio. Just three years before that event several families from Pennsylvania had attempted to establish themselves on the site of what is now Portsmouth, but the Indians drove them back. The government of Ohio began at Marietta. On the 2d of July the city was christened in honor of Maria Antoinette, and the 4th of July celebrated in fitting style-orations from the new judges and general jubilation on the part of fifty pioneers as well as the garrison of Revolutionary veterans. The Governor arrived on the 9th of the month, organized his cabinet, and on the 25th published his first law, estab- fishing the militia. The next day the first county was erected, including what is now more than the eastern half of the State, and appropriately named Washington. On the 2d of September the first court was held.
All the settlers at Marietta were shareholders in the Ohio Company, which had been organized in Boston on the Ist of March, 1786, and which had secured a big tract of land. The purchase made by the representative of the Ohio Company comprised 1,500,000 acres, and the contract for its sale was duly signed on behalf of the Treasury of the United States on the 27th of October, 1787, by Samuel Osgood and Arthur Lee, and on behalf of the Ohio Company by Mannasseh Cutler and Winthrow Sargeant. Payment was to be made "in specie, loan office certificates reduced to specie, or certificates of the liquidated debt of the United States." The price was one dollar an acre, liable to a reduction by "allowance for bad land and all incidental charges and circumstances whatever; provided, that such allow- ance shall not exceed one-third of a dollar per acre." Rights for bounties, or what have since been known as soldiers' land warrants, might be used in payments, but not for more than one-seventh of the whole tract. The contract authorized the settlers to enter at once upon half of the tract. The company paid one-half the purchase money, the gov- ernment agreeing to make a deed when the second half was paid, but this payment was never made. The fail- ure of some of the share- holders to pay for their shares in full, the expense incurred by the company in waging war against the In- dians on their lands, to- gether with the losses sus- tained by the defalcation of their treasurer, Richard Platt, of New York, so em- barrassed the company that it was impossible for them to pay the five hundred thousand dollars required ON THE MUSKINGUM RIVER for the final payment. Con-
sequently the directors met at Philadelphia early in 1792 and asked Congress for relief. So well pleased were the public generally with the conduct of the company that the com-
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mittee of the House of Representatives, to whom the company's memorial had been referred, recommended a release and deed for the whole tract; but this proposition was modified by making a deed for that half of the tract the money received had paid for, a conveyance of 214,285 acres or one-seventh of the original purchase, to be paid for within six months by warrants issued for bounty rights, "military land warrants," and another conveyance for 100,000 acres, which was to be distributed in tracts of one hundred acres as a bounty to each male person of not less than eighteen years of age who should become an actual settler. The act of Congress, as it passed the House, further provided that the company might receive the remainder of the original purchase by paying for the same within six years at the rate of 25 cents an acre, but the provision was stricken out by the Senate and that respecting the "Donation Lands," as they were subsequently called, was only saved from a like fate by the casting vote of the Vice President. Approved on the 21st of April, 1792, the three patents were issued on the 10th of May to Rufus Putnam, Manassch Cutler, Robert Oliver and Griffin Green, in trust for "The Ohio Company of Associates," and signed by George Washington, President, and Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State. These three grants and one made to the State of Pennsylvania during the month of March in the same year, conveying to that State the northern half of the territory claimed by the State
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ON THE SHORE OF LAKE ERIE, NEAR CLEVELAND, OHIO
of Connecticut, were the first land patents ever issued by the United States Government.
The settlement of the company's lands was conducted with system. They were care- fully surveyed and laid off and subdivided into townships of one hundred-acre divisions. and when. subsequently, these latter were under the terms of the patent donated to those settlers who entered the new territory under the auspices of the Ohio Company, the con- ditions of the patent were strictly complied with. The settler was to release to the com- pany any land in his tract required for highways; to build a substantial house within five years : to plant not less than fifty apple trees and twenty peach trees within five years; to be constantly provided with a rifle or musket and ammunition for same, and to be subject to perform militia duty when called upon by proclamation. They were to settle in com- panies of not less than twenty men on as many subdivisions of one hundred acres, so as to be able to defend themselves against hostile savages, and cach settlement was to have
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a block-house, within which, in case of general attack, they all could assemble in safety. Under the liberal policy of the Ohio Company many emigrants were induced to settle near and in Marietta. The settlements on the Muskingum River proving most attractive to those who ventured into the new territory. Besides that at Marietta, other settlements on the lands of the company increased in importance, notably those in Waterford, Belpre and Big Bottom. The largest accession at one time to the population occurred in 1790.
A number of persons, moved by the example of the Ohio Company, organized them- selves into what they called the Scioto Company for the purpose of securing a part of the Marietta purchase. The original promoters met with little success, until they became allied with an English adventurer, who pointed out that the project would at that time be more favorably received in France. The Bastille had fallen, the French Revolution had begun and Frenchmen were coming to America every day. Accordingly, a most elaborate and generally untruthful prospectus was printed and circulated in Paris, and, as the new promoter had predicted, purchasers were frequent. Many paid money in good faith and received their deeds; others gave sufficient security, and early in 1790 more than four hun- dred left Havre de Grace for their new homes. In the meantime, however, a juggling of titles had begun, and when the foreigners arrived at Marietta they were informed that their deeds were worthless. The unfortunate emigrants who had expended their money buying land for which they could get no lawful title were, after also paying the expenses of their
CINCINNATI IN 1802 - FROM AN OLD SKETCH
See Explanatory Notes
emigration to where their lands should have been, in destitute circumstances. The Scioto Company, to secure so advantageous a lot of settlers, had agreed to build houses for and furnish a year's provisions to them, and otherwise provide for them until they could clear fields and grow crops for their own support; but that company being, as it proved, totally unable to fulfill its contract, the emigrants besought the Ohio Company to assign them land, and, this being done, they soon erected a village on the bank of the Ohio River in the most southern part of the company's purchase and named it Gallipolis. Most of these emi- grants were artisans and trades people from the capital of France, wholly unaccustomed to farm work, consequently life in the wilderness was more pleasing in imagination to them than in reality, and during the years of Indian wars upon the settlers they suffered much from privation. They were not molested by the Indians upon their making themselves known as
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.......
CINCINNATI
people from France. but were treated and accepted as friends. Some years later Congress. knowing how these French settlers had been defrauded, donated them a tract of 24,000 acres of land in what is now the southeastern part of Scioto County, fronting on the Ohio River. to which a number of the French emigrants removed, while others remained where they had first settled in what subsequently became Gallia County. Some of them returned to their native land, and others sold or rented their allotment and removed to other settlements. The "Scioto Company" failed utterly because, it has been alleged, the English promoter embezzled the funds from the sales in France, and this failure brought on the first disturb- ance in financial circles in New York, for in that city much speculation was rife in refer- ence to this project of the above-named company. As far as history notes. this was the first "slump on Wall street."
The Birth of Cincinnati
Between 1783 and 1785 the lands lying between the two Miami Rivers were, by various ineffective treaties, ceded to the whites by the Indians. Among others whose attention was attracted to this territory was Benjamin Stites, of Redstone. now Brownsville, Pennsyl- vania. He visited New York to purchase for himself and others interested a tract of these lands, and there proposed to John Cleves Symmes, a member of Congress from New Jersey. to join him. Mr. Symmes decided to visit the country before perfecting the arrangement, and consequently made a journey to the territory, and upon his return entered with Mr. Stites in the purchase of what was supposed to be about one million acres of land lying between the Great and Little Miami Rivers, but which was proven to contain, upon survey, some six hundred thousand acres. Of this purchase ten thousand acres below the mouth of the Little Miami River was sold by Symmes to Stites, and in January, 1788, the whole of Section 18, in the fourth township, first range, and a fraction of Section 17, lying between it and the river, were sold to Matthias Denman, of New Jersey. These, with a fraction of Section 12. in the same range and township, composed the site of Cincinnati,
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N 1900
as originally laid out. In the summer of 1788, Denman and his associates entered into an arrangement to lay out the town and establish a ferry opposite the mouth of the Licking River. As an inducement to settlers, the proprietors agreed to give an inlot, six rods by twelve-nearly half an acre-and an outlot of an entire square of four acres to each of the first settlers on condition that they would make certain improvements to promote the growth of the settlement. In September, 1788, John Cleves Symmes, Robert Patterson and John Filson-the acquaintance of the two latter having been made and brought into the arrangement at Maysville, Kentucky, then called Limestone-arrived at the site of their intended settlement. There they separated, Symmes, Patterson and Filson, with others of the party, going to examine the country back from the river, while Denman, with Israel Ludlow, who was a surveyor, and three others, explored the north bank of the Ohio between the two Miami Rivers, and ascended the Great Miami about ten miles. After three days thus spent the two parties again met at the site of the future metropolis of Ohio, with Filson missing. He was never heard of afterwards, and it was believed that he, separating a short distance from the others, had been killed by Indians who were observed within sight. The Denman party returned to Maysville, and in October a new agreement was made, and in which contract Ludlow took Filson's place. Ludlow was empowered to act for the others in laying out the settlement. On the 26th of December, 1788, Patterson and Ludlow, with a small party, arrived at the site of the projected settlement. In the course of the winter a town was surveyed and laid out by Israel Ludlow, and the streets of the future city were marked on the trees of the primeval forest. The name first given to the place was Losantiville, intended to signify "a town opposite the mouth of the Lick- ing," but this name was not long after, by Governor St. Clair, changed to Cincinnati, in honor of the Order of Cincinnatus. The site selected was extremely beautiful. Seen in the summer it presented a vast amphitheatre, enclosed on all sides by hills, wooded to their summits. The Ohio, "La Belle Riviere" of the French, came into the valley from the Northeast, and, sweeping gracefully around the settlement, departed to the Southwest. From the South the Licking brought its moderate tribute and a little to the west Millcreek
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flowed silently from the inland country to its confluence into the Ohio. The luxuriance of the vegetation and the majestic size of the forest trees covered with thickest foliage, with which the wild grape vines were frequently intermingled, astonished and delighted the eye of the emigrants. Even in winter, when the settlement was made, the scene, though divested of its summer glories, was far from being unattractive or uninteresting. The climate, it is true, was inclement ; but that very inclemency was a protection against sav- age incursions. Game of every description abounded in the woods, and the waters teemed with fish. The emigrants, therefore, suffered little of the hardships usually encountered by the first pioneers in a new country. In November, preceding the arrival of Patterson at Cin- cinnati, Major Stites, with a little party of twenty-six persons, had erected a few block- houses and commenced a settlement at the mouth of the Little Miami, where Columbia, now a part of Cincinnati, is situated. From the red men this modest settlement received no injury, but, by reason of a flood of the Ohio River, every house in the little settlement, save one, was deluged and the unfortunate inhabitants had to escape from the roof of their block-house in a boat. This flood, which occurred in January, 1789, showed the danger which the other villages on the Ohio River were exposed to and led to the settlement of Losantiville, which was situated on a higher elevation. In February, 1789, Judge Symmes, with a party of citizens and soldiers, descended the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Miami, where he proposed to found a city, which he fondly imagined would become the great metropolis of the West. But the site of his future city was inundated by the river, and he was compelled to abandon his cherished project. It is true that he after- wards laid out the town, but it did not occupy the site originally selected, and never attained any considerable importance. On the ist of June, 1789. Major Doughty arrived in Cincinnati with one hundred and forty soldiers. A lot containing fifty acres, sloping from the upper bank to the river, was selected, on which Fort Washington was erected. A few months afterwards General Hamar arrived with three hundred men and took command of the fort. Governor St. Clair arrived on the 2d of January, 1790. The General, a Revolu- tionary veteran, was a member of the famous Order of Cincinnatus, and it was in deference to his expressed wish that the present name of the city was adopted. With the advent of St. Clair the seat of government of the territory came to Cincinnati, for there was no per- manent capital and laws were made and promulgated from any place at which the Governor and Judges happened to be or chose to reside. On the same date Hamilton County was erected-the second county in the Northwest Territory-and named in honor of the promi- nent statesman, Alexander Hamilton.
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