USA > Ohio > The picturesque Ohio : a historical monograph > Part 15
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Through an existence of over a century, first as an isolated settlement, far beyond the frontier; then as a fort, for the pos- session of which was fought the last battle of the Revolution ; later a trading village, whose position on the Ohio River gave her prominence and prosperity ; a town on the great National Road; after that ceased to be the great thoroughfare between the East and the West, a thriving city at the western terminus of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; and since a growing community, with increased facilities of communication with the world at
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large,-in this varied existence as village, town, and city, Wheeling has steadily held her own in the contest for the sur- vival of the fittest.
The construction of the National Road gave to her an impor- tance she had not possessed before. Her position as the point of tranfers for the people of the whole Western country, from the palatial steamers which plied the Ohio, to the swinging stages which climbed and descended the slopes of the Alleghenies, gave her advantages among towns of the country envied by many a larger sister. The laying of the Baltimore & Ohio track to the river assured the continuance and increase of those advantages, and the city gradually changed from a trading and shipping post to a considerable manufacturing and mercantile community, and the little town on the bluff spread out into a good city, with neighboring towns above and below and across the river. Gradually she assumed the position of the metrop- olis of Western Virginia; and when from the throes of civil war a new State was born, she was its only city, and she has remained among the increasing list of thriving towns of the Mountain State in manufacturing and commercial interests as well as population, far in advance of all her rivals. She has seen cities grow up in her suburbs rivaling in importance the Wheel- ing of less than a generation ago; and when her citizens look back over the record of enterprise and progress, increasing with the years, no era stands distinct, in beginning or ending, from the years which preceded or those which followed; for her growth has been so steady and so constant as to be almost imperceptible.
Her lanterns, her calico, her furniture, äre known and used far and wide. Her iron and steel is fashioned into thousands of
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shapes, thousands of miles away. Her queensware from her pottery has won for the city new laurels as a manufacturing center. Her leather, her calico, her iron, and glass and china ware, have an enviable name in all parts of the country.
Beyond "McCulloch's leap," and beautifully situated in a natural amphitheater of rounded hills, is the Mount de Chantal, for more than forty years celebrated as a boarding-school, and presided over by the Sisters of the Visitation. This order was founded three hundred years ago in France, by the Baroness Jane de Chantal, grandmother of Madame de Sévigné.
The scenery below Wheeling is thoroughly typical of the Ohio River; the rolling country, the rich land, bordered with the tender green of the river willows, hanging protectingly over the banks, while at Moundsville, a distance of ten and one-half miles, another Indian mound, planted here and there with trees, overlooks the village. Further down beautiful and richly cultivated islands divide the river, and one is everywhere passing little villages.
Marietta, Ohio, is the next town of any importance. It has fine views of the Ohio and Muskingum Valleys. Situated at the junction of the Muskingum with the Ohio River, and centrally in as valuable deposits of sandstone as can be found in the country, and in one of the best agricultural counties in the State, that of Washington, Marietta has many advantages, not the least of which are those that make it a shipping port .*
* Marietta has, as an early and useful settlement, a certain historic importance ; but in two points she overestimates her claims. Pittsburgh was a fort in the middle of the century, and a thriving village when the expedition to Marietta was planned. Geographically and historically, Pittsburgh was, and is, the Gateway of the West (which Marietta claims to be in her centennial issue). Marietta was settled by the New England successors to the title of Virginia Ohio Land Company, organized by the Lees and Washingtons. The previous battles of the Virginians and the Scotch-Irish Pennsylvanians, made peace secure, and thus was inaugurated the advent of what an early writer calls the "long-vested, stiff-collared,
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Twelve miles below Marietta lies the city of Parkersburg, first called " The Point," the second city in size in West Virginia, and the county-seat of Wood, pleasantly situated on the southern bank of the Ohio, at and above the mouth of the Little Kanawha River. Here, at a cost of between two and three millions of dollars, an iron bridge has been built across the Ohio River, resting upon solid piers of stone a hundred feet above the bed of the stream, giving access to the State of Ohio, and from which a fine view can be ob- tained of Parkersburg, the Ohio Valley, the beautiful Island of Blennerhassett, and the heights of Fort Boreman. In December, 1800, the survey of the town of Parkersburg was completed, the streets of which are made to intersect each other at right angles, running from the Ohio River in a south-easterly direction, and from the Little Kanawha north-east. This river is a stream of considerable importance, navigable for fully twenty-eight miles, and now being surveyed so as to be navigable for sixty miles, and, with its lumber, makes the principal trade of Parkersburg, which is pre-eminently a manufacturing city.
The Island of Blennerhassett, situated in a heavy bend in the Ohio River to the west, a mile below the mouth of the Little Kanawha, and in full view of the city of Parkersburg, presents a most attractive appearance. The island now contains
broadcloth-clothed " New Englander. The first white man whose foot ever touched the soil of the Ohio Valley was La Salle, who reached Louisville in 1667, and would have proceeded to the Mississippi, except for the desertion of his men. He was encamped on the " Knobs," at New Albany, and made his way back by land to Lake Erie with the few Indians, who were all that remained of his original large following. Thus Louisville has a certain and established priority of date over every settlement south-west of Pittsburgh, as the town was laid out in 1777 by Thomas Bullitt; but the first settlement on the island at the mouth of " Bear Grass Creek," which, from its position, was much more secure from Indian raids, was made in 1773. This little fort was the center where the fighting contingents were collected whenever Indians were to be repulsed, or a raid of reprisal was to be made into their coun- try, and these dates certainly outrank Marietta.
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about two hundred acres of the best bottom-land of the Ohio River, and one of the best farms in this country ; it is in a good state of cultivation, and possesses orchards of fine fruits, and, from its natural location and advantages, is most valuable. Ravenswood, West Virginia, is passed near the " Big Bend " of the river, and Portland, Ohio; New Haven, West Virginia; and Mason City, and, opposite, Pomeroy, Ohio, with its great salt- works, sixty-three miles below Parkersburg; then the little towns of Middleport and Sheffield. Another sixteen miles, and the Big Kanawha River empties into the Ohio at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, the scene of a memorable Indian battle in 1774.
Gallipolis, laid out by French settlers in 1791; Chambers- burgh and Bladensburgh, on the right bank of the Ohio; Apple Grove and Mercerville, on the left; Millersport, Haskelville, Ohio, and Proctorville, and, opposite, Guyandotte, West Virginia, at the mouth of the Guyandotte River; and these, with Brad- ricksville and Frampton, Ohio, bring us to Huntington, West Virginia, a new town below the mouth of the Guyandotte River. Catlettsburg, eight miles below Huntington, is at the mouth of the Big Sandy River, which forms the Kentucky State line ; and in Kentucky, at a distance of three miles, is the pretty little town of Ashland. The site possesses great natural advantages, being upon a broad plateau, sufficiently undulating to afford good natural drainage, and having as its entire front the finest deep-water harbor above Cincinnati. The survey of the town provided beautiful streets and avenues, those at right angles from the river being eighty feet wide, and those parallel to it being one hundred feet in width. It was named for the home of Henry Clay.
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Nearly opposite Ashland, on the Ohio side of the river, is the very progressive town of Ironton. The town was founded by the Lawrence County iron-masters of forty years ago, as a manufacturing and shipping point for their product. The iron industry of the county, starting with the building of Union Furnace in 1826, had expanded till, in 1848, some nine charcoal-furnaces were shipping from Hanging Rock-a village lying at the foot of bold, sandstone escarpments, three miles be- low the present site of Ironton-a grade of iron of such admit- ted superiority in Western markets, as to give its name, the name of the village, to the entire region. In 1848 and 1849 the iron masters wisely organized two companies, the Iron Railroad Company, to build a line tapping the furnace region, the Ohio Iron and Coal Company, to establish a town at the railroad's river terminus. The real estate company bought three hundred and twenty-four acres, lying near the center of the broad bot- tom, which stretched, some seven miles long, from Hanging Rock to opposite where Ashland, Kentucky, now lies, and on it in June, 1849, laid out the town of Ironton, which was incor- porated January, 1851, and the same year became the seat of Lawrence, now the most populous county on the Ohio River from the Miami to the Muskingum.
The scenery of the Ohio River is here filled with striking characteristics. The hills are more rugged, and, passing the bold ledge called Hanging Rock, wilder than at any other point, while the smoke and flame from a hundred chimneys announce the center of a great manufacturing region, Burke's Point, Wheelersburg, and Scioto Village, we reach Portsmouth, Ohio, twenty-eight miles below Ironton, one of the most interesting towns on the river, on account of its age, lying at the mouth of
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the Scioto River. Two miles below Portsmouth it is believed that a French fort existed as early as 1740. It is probably true that four families came down the Ohio from the Redstone settle- ment in 1785, and settled where Portsmouth now stands, but were driven away by the Indians. That Alexandria was built, flour- ished, and afterwards died, is a well-known historical fact. The land on which Portsmouth now stands was partly cleared, and a plat made for a town in 1803, but a new plat was made in 1805, and with that the town really began. The original proprietor of the patent received from government, and signed by John Adams, President, was Colonel Thomas Parker. This patent bears date of February, 1798, and the following year the town was laid out. It was supposed to be an excellent location in the large, fertile valley of the Scioto, which was selected for its agri- cultural advantages, but the Ohio and its great floods were then an unknown quantity, and it afterwards proved that the town plat was only fifty feet above low-water mark, so that an over- flow was an annual certainty. Alexandria was of some use for the short time of its existence to persons going to Maysville and Cincinnati; so some few good buildings were erected, and one or two of these two-story stone houses were in existence long after the village had been abandoned.
Henry Massie, whose brother laid out the town of Chillicothe, purchased in 1802 several sections of lands on the east side of the Scioto, and in 1803 made the plat of Portsmouth, named for Portsmouth, Virginia, the home of the Massies in Colonial days. To get his new town settled he made several liberal offers to the Alexandrians, who, up to this time, had preferred the west bank, as the east bank was but a dreary-looking forest. A sudden flood of the Ohio convinced them that Alexandria was not a safe
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place of residence, and most of the families immediately crossed the river.
The death of the old town decided the prosperity of the new. Log cabins and frame dwellings were scattered over the plat, a substantial hewed log house afterwards weatherboarded, and most of the business houses were built on Front Street, then called Ohio Street; and a few of these old buildings still remain.
The settlers were principally from Virginia, West Virginia, and New Jersey, and in 1810 the population was between 300 and 400. The first court-house was finished in 1816. "The first steamboat was builded through a privilege given to Aaron Fuller by the town council to construct a steamboat on the commons in front of the town, in 1829."
In this era flourished a literary institution called the Frank- lin Institute, which gave giant minds a chance to expand, and in- spired the weaker ones. The first of the young Ciceros, in his speech before this assembly, in eulogizing the merits of Wash- ington, said : "He fought, bled, and died for his country, and then retired to private life." (From the History of the Lower Scioto Valley, by S. W. Cole.)
Passing a number of comparatively small villages, we reach Maysville, Kentucky, fifty-two miles below Portsmouth, and one of the prosperous river towns, settled about the same time as Cincinnati. Then the river banks become more thickly settled, and the towns of Ripley, Levanna, Dover, Higginsport, Augusta, Chilo, Neville, Point Pleasant, California, Palestine, and Co- lumbia, are passed in rapid succession, while the hills, thickly studded with suburban homes, indicate the proximity of the Queen City, the Metropolis of the Ohio Valley.
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Cincinnati, to which now is universally acceded the title of "QUEEN CITY OF THE WEST," was first known as Lo- santiville-the village opposite the mouth-L-os-anti-ville, more really the mouth opposite the village; so named on account of the Licking River, on the Kentucky side, of which the banks were a favorite hunting resort. Traces of occupation by an un- known race were found by the early settlers, notably a tablet on this spot-probably the grave of a mound-builder; but the first positive date recorded is that of 1780, when "Colonel George Rogers Clark, with an army of about one thousand men, crossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Licking, and erected two block- houses, on the Ist day of August, upon the ground now occupied by Cincinnati." These served as store-houses, and in 1785 a short military settlement occurred. In 1779 Captain Robert Patterson, one of the most daring and gallant of the early fron- tiersmen, had built a solitary block-house where now is the center of Lexington, Kentucky; and in the winter of 1788-89, with Denman and Israel Ludlow, he laid out the town of Losan- tiville. In September of the same year, at the instigation of the officer in command, the site of Fort Washington was changed from North Bend to Losantiville, which, after St. Clair's defeat, became the head-quarters of the North-western Territory. By the close of 1789, eleven families and twenty-four unmarried men were residents of the village; and in 1790, “Cincinnati began to live, and Losantiville was no more." In 1800 the village was composed of a few frame and log houses, with a population of seven hundred and fifty inhabitants; and in 1808 the fort was · condemned and ordered to be sold.
The Centinel of the North-western Territory was the first newspaper published north of the Ohio River, in 1793, and
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already in early days Cincinnati stood pre-eminent as the book market of the West, the distributing point for the entire Valley of the Mississippi. The first book-store in the city was opened in 1819.
In 1812 Fulton introduced steamboats on the Ohio, and in 1816 the first steamboat was built in Cincinnati. With the growth of steamboat-building Cincinnati at once became the center of a vast commerce, and traded with the most distant parts of the Mississippi Valley. The number of steamboats built in Cincinnati amounted to one-fifth of the whole number built in the United States, and she became the point of receipt and dis- tribution of the immense surplus products of a great region. To this large steamboat commerce is also due the fact that Cincinnati had for many years a population of prosperous river-men, grow- ing rich, year by year, from the enormous river-traffic, and, be- ginning with positions on the boats plying to and fro on the Ohio, retired middle-aged men, possessed of handsome fortunes.
From "an early visit to Cincinnati," we learn that in 1823 "there were no houses where Newport and Covington now are, and the city hardly reached above Second Street, parallel with the Ohio River. The principal buildings were on the street perpendicular to the upper river wharf, on the right of which was the hotel. There were few brick buildings, and on Second and Third Streets the houses were few and scattering, with small yards in front.
The plan of Cincinnati is similar to that of Philadelphia, and the streets are named in nearly the same way. It is well built, and said to be the most compact city in the United States. Its situation, on a natural plateau surrounded by an amphitheater of hills three hundred feet in height, with Covington and New-
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port, separated by the Licking River, on its southern half, and the resources of the entire Ohio River at its feet, is an enviable as well as a unique one. Nowhere are there such facilities for business, or such sites for handsome residences.
That Cincinnati is in great part a home for a large class of German-speaking people, is evident from the appellation of " Over the Rhine," belonging to that portion of the city sepa- rated from the main part by the Miami Canal, and seemingly a piece of the "Vaterland " set down in the midst of one of our most progressive American cities. Here, surrounded by a home-loving people, is the great Music Hall, justly the pride of the Queen City, with the handsome Exposition buildings, due also in a degree to these German citizens, whose love for music demanded a proper hall in which to hold their "Sängerfest." Over eight thousand people fill this great auditorium every two years, to hear the best orchestral and vocal music in the world, and in every part of the United States the Cincinnati Musical Festivals are treats to look forward to and be proud of. In this, the centennial year of the Ohio Valley, the city will be crowded to its utmost capacity.
To make the plan of Cincinnati definite, to turn back for a moment that we may present it as it is to eyes that have never seen it, is a difficult problem to work out in a necessarily lim- ited space, where words are used to construct a sketch which appeals to the mind's vision. Yet to leave this unattempted would be unjust to the Cincinnati which crowns the chain of hills encircling the city proper; for in these linked heights we find a singularly perfect exhibit of the peculiar characteristics which define and illustrate the RIVER.
From where Mt. Adams juts out into the broken cliffs which
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edge the river and overlook the crescent-shaped valley and the distant hills inclosing the twin cities that lie along the curv- ing edge of the Kentucky shore, and from where its rugged flanks push backward into the chain, a continuous succession of swelling ridges environ the Cincinnati of trade, which is half hidden in the dense smoke that shrouds its countless indus- tries. This sweep of the circling heights goes backward and onward, broken only by the deep and narrow valley of Deer Creek, and the wider valley of Mill Creek, which divides the steeps of Clifton from the bold escarpment of Price Hill, where the chain once more touches the river. This environment of hills for many years formed a barrier to the city's growth on the eastern, northern, and western sides. Villages and farm- houses found place here and there upon the summits, and vine- yards covered the slopes that were not too steep to till. As soon as the advantages of their higher situation began to be appreciated, their growth increased with the multiplied and improved modes of travel to and from the city. The ravines which formed di- viding lines have been filled up or bridged over, and the village names now serve to denote different localities of a breezy hill- top city of homes. To-day the inclined-planes and cable and electric railways carry many thousands of people up the heights, and the quondam rural villages are now the crown-jewels of the Queen City.
Beginning with the first point in the eastern chain of hills just sketched in outline, we return to MT. ADAMS. This was the site of the first Cincinnati Observatory, and here, in 1843, the corner-stone of that building was laid by ex-President John Quincy Adams. The observatory was managed by the Cincinnati Astronomical Society until 1872, when it became a department
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of the Cincinnati University, and was removed to its new build- ing on Mt. Lookout.
From Mt. Adams, through Eden Park, where are the Art Museum and Art School buildings, substantially built of stone, we come to the residence portion of WALNUT HILLS. The Rev. James Kemper, a Presbyterian minister, who, in 1791, descended the river in a flat-boat, settled on the bold uplands north-east of the village of Cincinnati, and built a strong block-house, which was the only secure parsonage at that date.
The quaint old residence, remodeled from the original struc- ture, still stands, but the lane, which once led down the hill, is now a well-paved street, lined with comfortable homes, and the Kemper lands are covered with a populous part of the suburban city, which still recalls, in name, its groves of native growth.
WALNUT HILLS is called the "Suburb of Churches," from the number and elegance of these edifices. This locality is the site of well-known rural homes, set in beautiful parks, where the changing vistas give charming river views.
AVONDALE, which adjoins Clifton and Walnut Hills, was until recently a model village, with its town hall and village school, its country roads and its shady lanes. Now the cable, electric, and steam railways seem to bring it much nearer the city; new streets are opening in all directions, and the work of building is busily going on.
MT. AUBURN, formerly called Keys's Hill, was early popular as a place of residence, and is now more closely built up than the other hill-top suburbs. The Cincinnati Orphan Asylum and the German Protestant Orphan Asylum are both situated here, and, like Walnut Hills and Avondale, Mt. Auburn boasts the pres- ence of excellent educational institutions, both public and private.
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CLIFTON surpasses all the other suburbs in the number and elegance of its residences and the beauty of its streets. Like Avondale, it is a separate incorporated village, and its citizens and municipality take pride in working for its welfare and im- provement. No shops or factories are found within its limits, and the twenty miles of tree-lined avenues which wend their way between the spacious private estates, unmarred by fence or boundary-wall, unite to form a vast cultivated park. Clifton has a handsome town hall and public-school building, known as "Resor Academy" in front of which stands the beautiful fountain, the recent gift of Mr. Henry Probasco.
BURNET WOODS PARK, the old beech-forest, whose natural beauty has not been marred by artificial means, stands on the southern boundary of Clifton. Near it is the Zoological Garden, which contains over sixty acres of beautiful park, substantial buildings, and a fine collection of four-footed wild animals, birds, and reptiles, which is well worth seeing.
To the west of the city, and across Mill Creek, whose valley separates it from the northern hills, another ridge rises precipi- tously to the height of four hundred feet above the river-bed. Its summit, which is known as PRICE HILL, is reached by an in- clined-plane railway and by the winding Warsaw pike. Here again are magnificent views of the city, river, and surrounding country. Price Hill has many handsome residences, comfort- able homes, and numerous churches and schools.
On the Kentucky shore, opposite Price Hill, the highlands that inclose COVINGTON and NEWPORT fall in broken hill-ter- races to the river; for at Ludlow is the south-east end of the encircling ridge, which crosses the Licking and sweeps around the wide extent of lowlands upon which the river plats of the
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