USA > Ohio > Butler County > Hamilton in Butler County > The centennial anniversary of the city of Hamilton, Ohio, September 17-19, 1891 > Part 5
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Three years later the town of Hamilton was laid out on the same spot. Wayne's victory at the battle of Fallen Timbers ended the Indian war. The Fort was dismantled, the town grew into a city, and now, after the lapse of a hundred years we have met to celebrate the inauspicious event which cul- minated in making this one of the most enterprising and beautiful cities of the land.
One hundred years ago the spot on which we stand was an unbroken wilderness. The woodman's axe had not resounded in the solitude of the woods, except in clearing a pathway for the invading army of St. Clair, or in cutting timbers for the Fort. The drum beat at break of day had not aroused the soldier from his sleep, nor had the trumpet sound at sunset given notice for him to retire.
The banks of our beautiful river were fringed with noble trees. Its waters were undisturbed except by the flutter of numerous flocks of water fowl, and the deer, elk and bison slaking their thurst in the stream, and by the paddle of the Indian canoe.
But the building of the Fort, the march of the armies, the dreadful bat- tles fought, resulting sometimes in disastrous defeat but eventually in triumphant victory, put an end to the Indian title and savage rule, and gave this beautiful Miami valley to civilization.
We look back from this day through a hundred years-through a century of marvelous growth and development. The same sky is overhead, the same sun shines upon us, the same river that in January, 1791, bore upon its bosom the canoes of Simon Girty with three hundred Indian warriors to the attack upon Dunlap's Station, and in September of the same year flowed past the site of Fort Hamilton, still flows in its channel. The same hills that stood sentinel over the valley, and looked down upon the old Fort are still here, but stripped of the magnificent oaks that were their glory.
But how changed everything else. The old Fort has disappeared and in its stead we have a city of twenty thousand inhabitants. The noble forests have disappeared beneath the stroke of the woodman's axe and in their place are farm houses, orchards and cultivated fields. The military roads cut out with so much labor for the passage of St. Clair have been succeeded by turnpikes, canals and railroads.
We contrast today the rude Fort with our new Court house, our school buildings, churches and private residences-models of comfort and of archi- tectural beauty. We contrast the simple tools used in building the stockade
NONPAREIL ENG CO.
SCENE ĮN PARADE.
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THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O.
Fort in 1791, with the products of the manufacturing shops of our city, with the Corliss Steam Engine-with the machines for bending steel armor plates for ocean vessels -- with the power punches and shears-with the paper-mill machinery,-wood working machinery-with every variety of agricultural implements-with the safe works and stove works and tile works-with the flouring and woolen mills-and with the various other products of our shops, all of which have justly given to this city, not only a State and National reputation, but a reputation throughout the civilized world, as a great manu- facturing center.
We make this contrast not so much in boast of our own achievements but as a greatful recognition of the services of our forefathers, who laid the foundation and gave us the opportunity for success.
In the year 1835 the citizens of Hamilton celebrated the forty-fourth an- niversary of the building of the Fort. It was conducted exclusively by "Buckeyes," but all other citizens were invited to attend and participate in the celebration.
The term "Buckeye" was defined to embrace all who were born in the State, or who emigrated to Ohio under the age of five years, and all who re- sided in Ohio previous to the adoption of the Constitution in 1802.
Those who were prominent in conducting the celebration were : Lewis D. Campbell, Henry S. Earhart, William B. Van Hook, Ezekiel Walker, William Bebb, Joseph Lee, William Taylor, Charles K. Smith, Jeremiah, Morrow, Jr., Samuel Walker, William C. Woods, Samuel Johnson, John B. Weller and James Rossman.
But one of these prominent and patriotic citizens survive. That one is James Rossman, one of the venerable Vice Presidents of this assembly-a man whose life is without reproach, who now bearing the infirmities of eighty-nine years, unites with us with what strength remains to him in pay- ing a just tribute to the memory of the pioneers, and in celebrating the cen- tennial of the building of Fort Hamilton.
There were present upon that occasion-fifty six years ago-many sur- viving soldiers of the war of the American Revolution-men who fought at Camden, Eutau Springs, Kings' Mountains-who wintered with Washington at Valley Forge-crossed with him the Delaware at midnight, and at break of day won the signal victory at Trenton-men who fought at Brandywine, Saratoga and Yorktown. These veterans, when the revolutionary war ended had come to this Northwest Territory to locate their military land warrants, given to them in payment for their services. The third range of townships on which the City of Hamilton now stands-six miles wide and extending from the Great to the Little Miami River-having been set apart for that purpose by Congress.
There were, likewise, many present in the celebration of 1835 who were soldiers under St. Clair and Wayne, who had personal knowledge of Dunlap Station and Girty's attack upon it -- who were at Fort Hamilton-who were
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in the disastrous defeat of St. Clair on November 4, 1791, and who were with Wayne when his legion with fixed bayonets and trail arms, charged and completely routed the Indians ot Fallen Timbers in 1794.
These soldiers and pioneers were living witnesses of the memorable event we have met this day to celebrate, and their presence added greatly to the interest of the occasion. Not one of them are with us today.
In the Buckeye celebration of fifty-six years ago the accomplished orator of the day, William Bebb, an eminent member of the bar of this county, and at a subsequent period Governor of the State, in his eloquent oration com- paring the progress of this country to that of the old, said :
"If our career of national greatness commenced at a later period than that of the nations of the old world, does it not follow that the last may be first, and the first last? If we have fewer towers crumbling to ruin, we have more states rising to grandeur. If we have less in the past to boast of, we have more in the future to hope for."
And then with prophetic inquiry he asked :
"Who, looking at our progress during the last half century, shall set limits to the improvements of the next? What imagination shall now dare set bounds to the resources of this great valley of the West, as it will appear to our children, when fifty six years hence, they assemble on this spot to cele- brate the first centennial of the completion of Fort Hamilton? When the villages of the West shall have grown into cities, and the population shall have increased to many millions ; when its rivers shall have been united at their sources by canals and railroads, with the Atlantic rivers on the East, with the lakes of the North, and, perhaps, with the Oregon of the far West ; when all our territory east of the Rocky Mountains shall have heen formed into States, and admitted into the Union."
The voice of the orator has long since been stilled in death. The fifty- six years have elapsed, and the children of those who participated in the cele- bration of 1835 have assembled on this spot to celebrate the first Centennial Anniversary of the completion of Fort Hamilton.
They are here to answer the prophetic inquiry and to say that the imagination of the eloquent orator fell far short of what has become reality. We exhibit today an indestructable union of States, extending from the At- lantic Ocean not only to, but over and across the Rocky Mountains, and to the shores of the Pacific. We exhibit the villages of the West grown into magnificent cities, and the population increased to many millions. We ex- hibit a country rich in everything that should make it great and respected- the North and South, the East and West bound together by a written Con- stitution, imparishable only by the will of the people-bound together by the same illustrious ancestry and national history, by a brotherly love and by a common interest. We exhibit a happy, contented, intelligent and pros- perous people.
For this grand result of a hundred years growth and development we would give a large share of gratitude and praise to those who gave us the «ordinance of 1787-who subdued the wilderness, and the savage foe, to the Western Pioneer, to the builders of Fort Hamilton.
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L. M. LARSH
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THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O.
HAMILTON, 1791 -- 1891.
ADDRESS BY L. M. LARSH.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Citizens of Hamilton :
I CONGRATULATE you on this auspicious occasion. At this time you are endowed with as many of the attributes of genuine happiness as any community within the limits of the civilized world. You are blessed with good health, renumerative employment, excellent schools and churches, with good laws well administered, with prosperous manufactories and other business occupations, with superior railroad and other transportation facili- ties, with excellent farm lands surrounding and which are well cultivated, and with every facility for social, intellectual and moral enjoyment you are freeest of the free, richest of the rich and proudest of the proud. Your men bravest of the brave, and your women, fairest of the fair. In this your De- cennial year 1891 you are most prosperous of the prosperous, and may I not also truthfully add the happiest of the happy.
Will you for a few moments take a retrospect with me for one hundred years to the initial period of our city's organization, whose centennial we are now so joyously celebrating. Until the year 1791, no community existed here, no whiteman had habitation or home. The savage man and savage beast held undisputed sway, their will through perpetual warfare was the ruling power. No progress was or could be made in any place under such domination and that condition of existence would have continued until now had not the whiteman obtruded upon this savage solitude. The savage man was as incapable as the savage beast of intellectual or moral progress without contact with extraneous reformatory influences. Our pioneer fore- fathers were not idealish and perhaps they were not properly speaking reform- ers, they were practical eradicationists. They acted upon their well founded belief that the most certain road to successful competition with savage man and beast was to exterminate them, and they acted energetically and per- sistantly to secure that end, and as a consequence the community was soon rid of both, and the joy of prosperity and happiness took root and grew apace. The power of military dictation, first controled in the stead of the savage man and his contemporary, the savage beast, then quickly followed the organization of the civil polity-organization took the place of the military dictum. The court house became the successor to the military camp, in- dustry succeeded idleness, the forests disappeared and in their stead came cultivated fields the inclosure that constituted the Military Fort erected by General Arthur St. Clair and afterward enlarged by General Anthony Wayne formed the first nucleus of our now prosperous and pleasant city, as time rolled on, the then feeble village added to its growth, it did not like Johna's Gourd spring into full existance in one night, but rather like the sturdy oak that from small acorns grow. It grew slowly at first and more gradually afterwards and still more vigorously as surrounding influences operated in its behalf, until now it has become a prominent factor in the aggregation of communities that constitute the great State of Ohio.
Citizens of Hamilton, Ladies and Gentlemen and Mr. President before- taking my seat I again cordially congratulate you.
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JUDGE SAMUEL F. HUNT.
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THE MIAMI VALLEY, 1791 -- 1891.
RESPONSE BY HON. SAMUEL F. HUNT.
The President then presented Hon. Samuel F. Hunt, Presiding Judge of the Superi- or Court of Cincinnati, as one of the Ohio Valley boys, and known to every one present. Judge Hunt said :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
IT is most interesting, after one hundred years have passed, to look back over the history and progress of a people, and trace the civilization which began in the clearings of the seemingly unending forests, until it has reached almost imperial power. These frontier people, who won this Valley from the wilderness, were strong and freedom-loving, and characterized by a bold defiance of hardship and danger. They realized that they had been ordained for a great work, and they possessed the faith that enabled them to pass under the hard conditions of life only to be found in the fathomless depths of the woods. They cleared the acres with the axe, and defended them with their rifles. They believed, in the language of the great Ordi- nance, that religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good gov- ernment and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education should ever be encouraged. The soil, too, had never been cursed by the unrequited toil of the bondman. Civil jurisdictions were established on the broad foundations of justice and humanity,
THE VALLEY AT THE TIME OF THE PURCHASE.
When the original contract had been entered into for the Miami Pur- chase, John Cleves Symmes, the purchaser, issued an address concerning the country. It was dated at Trenton, New Jersey. November 26, 1787, and is addressed to the "respectable public," and it is evident from the character of this immense gathering that their descendants are present to take part in these interesting exercises.
John Cleve Symmes had been an officer in the Army of the Revolution, Chief Justice of the State of New Jersey, and a member of the Continental Congress. He says, in that address, that from his own view of the land bor- dering on the Ohio river, and the unanimous report of all those who have traveled over the tract in almost every direction, it is supposed to be equal to any part of the Federal Territory in point of quailty of soil and ex- cellence of climate. The winters were represented as moderate, while there was no extreme heat in summer. He pictured the situation as one to com- mand the navigation of several fine streams, and boats were frequently pass- ing by the land as they ply up and down the Ohio. There were no mountains in the track, and excepting a few hills the country was generally level and free from stone on the surface of the earth ; but there were plenty of stone-
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«quarries for buildings. It was described to be well watered with springs and rivulets, while several fine mill-streams fell from the dividing ridge into the two Miamis, which were about thirty miles apart. These rivers were supposed to be navigable higher up in the country than the northern extent of the Purchase, so that the interior farms would have navigation, in the boating season, within fifteen miles at furtherest. He added that, for the quantity, a large proportion of the land, in the Miami Purchase, was sup- posed to be of the first quality, and the whole equally good compared gener- ally with the land of Kentucky.
The Secretary of War had given the assurance of a friendly disposition to support the settlers against the Indians, by replacing a garrison of Fed- eral troops in the Fort which was then remaining on the land at the mouth of the Great Miami, and would greatly facilitate the settlement, and in some measure render safety to the first adventurers.
The mill-streams as are thus described as falling from the dividing ridge of the Miamis are doubtless Mill Creek, the dry fork of the Whitewater, In- dian Creek, Four Mile and Seven Mile, and Twin Creek, and others, while the rivulets are those which to-day sing as merrily as they flow from the up- per lands of the Valley as they did one hundred years ago.
THE NAVIGATION OF THE GREAT MIAMI ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
We are accustomed to associate the Great Miami with only the light canoe of the Indian, and picture the quiet expanse of water as only broken by the graceful motion of innumerable wild fowl. Probably the first printed notices of the Miami rivers will be found in the explorations made in the Western wilderness, between the years 1764 and 1775, by Captain Thomas Hutchins, of His Arittanic Majesty's Sixteenth Regiment of Foot, and pub- lished in London in 1788. The writer says that the Little Miami is too small to navigate with bateaux; its high banks and gentle current prevent its much overflowing the surrounding lands in freshets. But the Great Mineami Afferemet, or Rocky River, has a very strong channel, a swift stream, but no falls. It has several large branches, passable with boats a great way.
It is not strange that the two Miamis were supposed to be navigable for some distance in the country at that time, for it was not until some years afterwards that Robert Fulton conceived the design of propelling vessels by steam, and a number of years elapsed before even his views were put into practical operation.
John Cleve Symmes, as early as May 18, 1789; in a letter to one of his associates, hesitated whether the great commercial emporium of the Miami country should be located on the Ohio river, or on the bank of the Great Miami, in a large bend, some twelve miles from its mouth, or near the present site of Miamitown. He was ready to grant that more trade would pass up and down the Ohio, and many more boats would constantly ply on a river thirteen hundred miles in length, but with a just pride in the
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Purchase, he urged that the extent of country, spreading for many miles, on both sides of the Great Miami, was, beyond all dispute, equal, if not superior in point of soil, water and timber, to any tract of equal contents in the United States. In a very few years, from this Egypt on the Miami, would be poured down its stream to the Ohio the products of the country from two hundred miles above the mouth of the Great Miami, with no rival city or town to divide the trade of the river.
Judge Symmes again refers to the Great Miami river in a letter on Sep- tember 17, 1791, from North Bend, to Jonathan Dayton. He speaks of the army of St. Clair having advanced some twenty-five miles and then building a fort on Boudinot's land-the City of Hamilton of to-day. The day before a boat with one hundred and twenty barrels of flour attempted to ascend the Miami river. This should have been done he thought in progues, or large canoes of one ton or one and a half tons burden, and it would have succeeded.
Some of the wounded at the defeat of St. Clair were brought down the Miami from Fort Hamilton to Fort Washington, for General St. Clair, under date of November 20, 1791, writes to Captain John Armstrong, then in com- mand at this place, that the boat which should have replaced the one that brought the wounded, after struggling some days against the current of the Miami, making but two or three miles, had returned that night. There are those here to-day who have seen keel-boats, tied to the banks of the Great Miami, at Hamilton, to bear the produce of the Valley to distant points on the Ohio.
It may not now carry the commerce of a great people on its bosom, and its peaceful waters may not be ruffled by the keel boat or even the progue, but the gently-flowing Miami, as it winds through this fertile valley, rustling with standing corn and expectant with golden harvests, is dearer to us than the blue Danube with all its poetry or the Rhine with all its legends.
THE VALLEY AS IT APPEARED IN 1791.
In a letter to Jonathan Dayton, written as early as 1789, Judge Symmes refers to the country as healthy, and that it looked like a mere meadow for many miles, and Oliver M. Spencer, in an interesting narrative, furnishes a glowing picture of the Valley as it impressed him in 1791. This was before the axes range in all the woodlands, and before the towns smoked in all the Valley. This was before the log-rollings and house-warmings and barn- raisings and corn-schukings and country-quiltings had been exchanged for the latest waltz or progressive euchre. He says "the winter of 1791-2 was followed by an early and delightful spring; indeed, I have often thought that our first Western winters were much milder, our Springs earlier, and our Autumns much longer than they now are. On the last of February some of the trees were putting forth their foliage; in March the red-wood, the hawthorn and dog-wood, in full bloom, checkered the hills, displaying
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their beautiful color of rose and lily ; and in April the ground was covered with May-apple, blood root, ginseng, violets, and a great variety of herbs and flowers. Flocks of paroquets were seen, decked in their rich plumage of green and gold. Birds of various species and every hue, were flitting from tree to tree, and the beautiful red bird, and the untaught songster of the West made the woods vocal with their melody. Now might be heard the plaintive wail of the dove, and now the rumbling drum of the partridge or the loud gobble of the turkey." He then speaks of the. clumsy bear, moving doggedly off, and the timid deer, aroused from his thickest and clear- ing logs and bushes at a hound. There was, however, still the apprehension of the wily copperhead, waiting to strike his victim, and the horrid rattle- snake, more chivalrous, but ready to dart upon his foe, and the still more fearful and insidious savage, who, crawling upon the ground or noiselessly approaching behind trees or thickets sped the deadly shaft or fatal bullet.
CHARACTER OF THE EARLY SETTLERS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY.
The pioneers of the Miami Valley were compelled to act largely with- out precedent and to meet contingencies which could not have been antici- pated. These back-woodsmen were the van-guard of that great army of the advance which won the territory from the Alleghenies to the Rio Grande and. the Pacific. It is true that the pioneers from Virginia and North Carolina had crossed the mountains into Kentucky and East Tennessee, but they did not reach the Ohio river until some time afterwards. There was some in- terest manifested in the lands between the Miami rivers as early as the sum- . mer or fall of 1788, but the first attempt for the settlement of the Miamii country set out from the older districts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania .- There was no settlement before that time for fear of the Indians and the total want of military protection. Judge Symmes left New Jersey, late in July, 1788, with a train of fourteen-four-horse wagons, and with sixty persons, in wagons and on horseback, including his own family.
The descendants of the men who settled the Miami Country can trace their lineage to a good stock. They came, in the first place, from a race historically bold, and some of them were officers and soldiers who had been educated in the severe and patriotic school of the Revolution. They came from New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, while Kentucky gave one of the original proprietors of Cincinnati and one of the founders of Lane Seminary. The "crosses" of blood are shown in the generations that have peopled this Valley, and in the social institutions, which were founded, and in the sacredness which everywhere invests life and liberty and property.
Mansfield in his life of Dr. Drake pays this just tribute to the pioneers who settled the Miami Country. "There were among them, too, men of great strength and intellect, of acute powers, and of a freshness and original- 1ty of genius which we seek in vain among the members of conventional society. Some were soldiers in the long battle against the Indians ; some
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THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF HAMILTON, O.
were huntsmen, like Boone and Kenton, thirsting for fresh adventures ; some were plain farmers who came with wives and children, sharing fully in their trials and dangers ; some were lawyers and jurists, who early participated in council and legislation ; and with them all, the doctor, the clergyman, and even the schoolmaster was found, in the earliest settlements. In a few years others came whose names will long be remembered. They gave to the strong and rude body of society here its earliest culture, in a higher knowledge and a purer spirit."
Many of them brought their religion with them, too, for it has been said that the early Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the Miami Valley were the kins- men of the Covenanters.
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