Note 166 — Chapter XXXVIII

The Licking was explored by Harrod’s party in 1774, and five years later Bowman’s unfortunate expedition rendezvoused at its mouth. The next year (1780) George Rogers Clark in his raid against the Chillicothe Indians built two blockhouses on the site of Cincinnati; and again in 1782 started from hence against the Miamis. In 1785-86, the Federal Government built Fort Finney above the mouth of the Great Miami, where Clark held a treaty in the latter year. After the erection of the Northwest Territory, and the opening of the district to landholders, John Cleves Symmes bought a million acres between the two Miami rivers, and towns were soon formed. Matthias Denman (1788) purchased of Symmes for two hundred dollars a square mile opposite the mouth of the Licking, and forming a partnership with Robert Patterson of Lexington, and John Filson, a Kentucky schoolmaster, founded a town which the latter entitled Losantiville, “town opposite the mouth of the Licking.” This fantastic compound was retained until Governor St. Clair (1790) changed the name to Cincinnati in honor of the military society. Fort Washington, government post, built in 1790, protected the infant settlement.

Meanwhile Symmes had platted a town on the Great Miami, which he called North Bend, and desired to have established as the capital of the new Northwest Territory. Columbia was also laid out at the mouth of the Little Miami, and the three towns contended for leadership until Cincinnati was made capital of the Territory in 1800, and began to flourish apace. The garrison was removed from Fort Washington to Newport barracks in 1804. The residence of Colonel Suydam has given its name to Suydamsville, a western suburb of Cincinnati.—Ed.