University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

—Rev. J.H. Clinch.

On the banks of the beautiful
Ohio, some five or six miles above
the large and flourishing city of
Cincinnati, can be seen the small
and pleasant village of Columbia,
once laid out and designed to become
the capital of the great West.
This village stands on a beautiful
plain, which stretches away from
the Ohio in a north-easterly direction,
between two ridges, for a
goodly number of miles, and at the
base of what is termed Bald Hill—
a hill of a conical shape, from the
summit whereof you can command
every point of compass, and some
of the most delightful views in the
western country.

Standing upon this hill, with
your face toward the south, you
first behold, immediately below
you, a cluster of dwellings, mostly
white, with their green lawns in
front, and their flowery gardens in
the rear, with one or two neat, unostentatious
looking churches rising
above them, as if to give a
quiet and moral beauty, if we may
so express it, to the scene. Beyond
these buildings, which constitute
the principal village of Columbia,
the eye at once falls upon
an open, variegated and fertile
plain, over which it wanders for
something like a mile, to rest again
for a moment upon a few brick and
wood-colored houses, half hid amid
a grove of beautiful trees, then upon
the smooth, silvery Ohio, which
here comes sweeping past with a
graceful bend, and, lastly, upon the
green and romantic looking hills of
old Kentucky. Turning to the left,
or eastward, you behold, some mile
or two miles distant, a woody
ridge, which intersects the Ohio at
right angles, and, stretching away
northward, forms the eastern boundary
of the plain. At the base of
this ridge, can be seen, here and
there, a quiet farm-house, and portions
of the Little Miami, as it rolls
its silvery waters onward through
a most delightful grove, to unite
with, and be lost in, the placid bosom
of La Belle Riviere. Between
you and the Little Miami, and for
many a mile up toward its source,

lies the plain we have mentioned,
now divided as far as you can see,
into lots of four or five acres each,
all of which, being under cultivation,
present, in the summer season,
with their different products, a
pleasing variety of colors, as if to
enchain the attention of the beholder
with an unspeakable sensation
of delight. Following the course
of the plain away to the north-east,
you behold, some few miles distant,
another pleasant village, with
its neat, white houses peeping from
among the green foliage of the surrounding
trees. Turning again to
the south and west, and following
the windings of the Ohio, you can
perceive the village of Fulton along
its banks, some two miles away,
with here and there an elegant
mansion, all standing out in bold
relief against the green background
of a neighboring ridge, and not unfrequently
finding themselves mirrored
in the river's placid bosom.
A view of the delightful city of Cincinnati
is here cut off by a bend in
the ridge and river; but notwithstanding,
the landscape, taken as a
whole, is one of the most pleasing
that can be found on the globe.

Such is an outline, only, of the
scene which is presented to the beholder
of modern days; but very
different was it sixty years ago,
when along the banks of the river
and over the plain and hills, instead
of the quiet village and its
hum of civilization, and the many
pleasant farms under cultivation,
and the farm-houses sending up in
graceful wreaths the smoke of their
peaceful fires, there was a vast,
unbroken forest, inhabited by the
barbarous, untutored savage, and
the thousand wild beasts of the
wilderness. As it is with the early
settlement of this portion of the
country we have to do, we must
leave the scene as it now exists,
and go back to the period when
the hardy pioneer left his comfortable
and well-protected home, to
venture hither, and dare all the
dangers and suffer all the privations
of frontier life.

As early as November, 1788, a
party, consisting of some twenty
persons, conducted by Major Benjamin
Stites, landed at the mouth
of the Little Miami, and began a
settlement upon the purchase of
ten thousand acres, which the Major
had previously made from Judge
Symmes. Among this party were
many whose names afterward became
noted in history, and whose
descendants still occupy prominent
positions in the community whereof
they are citizens. They were
the first adventurers into this region
of country, and were a month
in advance of the party which
landed at, and erected the first log
cabins on, the present site of Cincinnati.
On their arrival, they immediately
constructed a log fort,
built several cabins or huts, and
then proceeded to lay out the town
of Columbia into streets or lots, on
the plain we have described—believing
at the time, that it would
eventually become the great capital
of the West.

Beginning at Crawfish Creek, a
small stream which was to form
the north-western boundary of the
city, ascending the Ohio for more
than a mile, and extending back
from the river for three-quarters of
a mile, taking in a portion of what
is now called Bald Hill, they laid
out the ground in streets and
squares. The residue of the plain,
between this imaginative city and
the Little Miami, and for three miles
up this stream, was cut up into lots
of four or five acres each, intended
for the support of the town, when

it should come to maturity. These
lots have since been divided by
trenches, and so remain at the present
day; and as you view them
from Bald Hill, one covered with
greensward, another with a crop of
wheat, a third with corn, a fourth
with oats, and so on, the whole
plain appears like a many-colored
carpet of beautiful squares.

The first pioneers of the Miami
Bottom were soon joined by others;
and, in the course of a few years,
Columbia became quite a flourishing
place, and, for a time, took the
lead of its sister towns, Cincinnati
and North Bend—the last since
noted as the residence of General
Harrison. At this period, these
three villages, with the exception
of Marietta, higher up the river,
were the only white settlements in
Ohio; and as it was more than suspected
by the inhabitants of each,
that one of them was destined to
become the great emporium of the
West, each looked upon the advancement
of its neighbor with a
jealous eye, and sought, by every
means, to push itself forward to
the grand desideratum. For a
time, Fortune seemed bent on playing
her pranks, by now favoring
this one, now that, and so alternately
raising and depressing the
spirits of each; but, at last, as the
world already knows, she yielded
the palm to Cincinnati, by establishing
there a fort and garrison,
which rendered it, with its natural
advantages, a place of greater security
than either of the others, and,
consequently, a more desirable location
for those venturing into the
Western Wilds.

About the period when rivalry
between the places named was at
its height—and when the momentous
question was pending, as to
which would be the favored spot
of fortune, the Queen City of the
West—our story opens. Columbia,
as we said before, had already
made rapid advances, and taken
the lead of her rival sisters, in point
of business and population. Over
the broad plain, between Bald Hill
and the Little Miami, were now
scattered some forty or fifty log
cabins, and at the southern base of
this hill, on a little knoll—where, at
the present day, can be seen a neat
grave-yard, with its marble and
sand-stone slabs recording the
names of many who, since then,
have gone to the shadowy realms
of death—stood a rude sanctuary,
the first building erected solely to
the worship of God by the pioneers
of the Miami Valley. Around this
humble sanctuary was a grove of
beautiful trees, in whose branches
a thousand merry songsters, of all
hues, sang blithely. Side by side
with this place of worship, on the
same knoll, amid the same delightful
grove, was erected a block-house,
for the protection of the inhabitants
in the immediate vicinity.
Hither, on a Sabbath morning,
when the toil of the week was over,
the villagers of both sexes, and all
ages, would repair, to listen to the
word of God, as it fell from the lips
of the venerable Stephen Gano
(father of the late General Gano),
whose mild, noble, benevolent
countenance, his long, white flowing
locks, and his solemn, tremulous
voice, as he raised his eyes to
Heaven in supplication, or forcibly
pointed out to his hearers the way
to eternal life, made his remarks
deep, grand and impressive. And
the more so, it may be, that each
felt himself to be in the wilderness,
surrounded by the hostile savage,
and knew not at what moment he
might be called to his last account,
a victim to the fatal rifle, or the

bloody tomahawk and scalping-knife.

To avoid a surprise and be prepared
for any emergency, during
the hours of worship, sentinels were
stationed without the walls of the
sanctuary, who, with loaded rifles
on their shoulders, paced to and
fro with measured tread, examining
minutely every object of a suspicious
character; while those within
sat, with their weapons by their
sides, ready, at a moment's warning,
a given signal, to rush from the
house of quiet devotion, to the field
of blood and slaughter. Not only
to church, but to their places of
labor, where they repaired in companies,
and, in fact, on all occasions,
the early settlers went armed.

Besides the block-house on the
knoll, there were one or two others
nearer the river, and one some half
a mile further up the plain, close by
where now winds a broad and
beautiful turnpike, and on the site
of which now stands a private
dwelling. Bald Hill (now owned
by N. Longworth, one of the wealthiest
gentlemen in the country, and
by him devoted to the cultivation
of the grape) was, at the period referred
to, covered by a dark, dense
forest, where prowled the wild
beasts, and not unfrequently lurked
the murderous Indian, seeking his
“great revenge” on his more civilized
and less wily foe.

Such, reader, is an outline view
of the scene where our story is
laid, and the condition of the country
at the time of its opening.
Having said this much of general
facts, we shall now proceed to detail.