Note 11 — CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE (continued 8)

In 1788, John Cleves Symmes––uncle of he of “Symmes’s Hole”––the first United States judge of the Northwest Territory, purchased from congress a million acres of land on the Ohio, lying between the two Miami Rivers. Matthias Denman bought from him a square mile at the eastern end of the grant, “on a most delightful high bank” opposite the Licking, and––on a cash valuation for the land of two hundred dollars––took in with him as partners Robert Patterson and John Filson. Filson was a schoolmaster, had written the first history of Kentucky, and seems to have enjoyed much local distinction. To him was entrusted the task of inventing a name for the settlement which the partners proposed to plant here. The outcome was “Losantiville,” a pedagogical hash of Greek, Latin, and French: L, for Licking; os, Greek for mouth; anti, Latin for opposite; ville, French for city––Licking-opposite-City, or City-opposite-Licking, whichever is preferred. This was in August; the Fates work quickly, for in October poor Filson was scalped by the Indians in the neighborhood of the Big Miami, before a settler had yet been enticed to Losantiville. But the survivors knew how to “boom” a town; lots were given away by lottery to intending actual settlers, who moved thither late in December or early in January, and in a few months Judge Symmes was able to write that “it populates considerably.”

A few weeks previous to the planting of Losantiville, a party of men from Redstone had settled at the mouth of the Little Miami, about where the suburb of California now is; and a few weeks later, a third colony was started by Symmes himself at North Bend, near the Big Miami, at the western extremity of his grant, and this the judge wished to make the capital of the new Northwest Territory. At first it was a race between these three colonies. A few miles below North Bend, Fort Finney had been built in 1785-86, hence the Bend had at first the start; but a high flood dampened its prospects, the troops were withdrawn from this neighborhood to Louisville, and in the winter of 1789-90 Fort Washington was built at Losantiville by General Harmar. The neighborhood of the new fortress became in the ensuing Indian war the center of the district. To Losantiville, with its fort, came Arthur St. Clair, the new governor of the Northwest Territory (January, 1790), and making his headquarters here, laid violent hands on Filson’s invention, at once changing the name to Cincinnati, in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati, of which the new official was a prominent member––“so that,” Judge Symmes sorrowfully writes, “Losantiville will become extinct.” It was a winter of suffering for the Western Cincinnati. The troops were in danger of starvation, and three professional hunters were contracted with to supply them with game, till corn could come in from Columbia and other older settlements on the river.––R. G. T.