FOOTNOTES:
[166] 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.
[167] Jacob Burnet, born in New Jersey in 1770, was of Scotch descent. When a young man of twenty-six he came to the Northwest Territory to practice law, and settled at Cincinnati. His public services were as member of the territorial council (1798), as supreme judge of the State, and as United States Senator. He was the author of Notes on the Early Settlement of the Northwestern Territory (Cincinnati, 1847), a valuable pioneer history. Burnet’s home was the scene of noteworthy hospitality, all prominent visitors to the region being there entertained. A portion of his estate is now a public park for Cincinnati, known as Burnet Woods.—Ed.
[168] For note on Big Bone Lick, see Croghan’s Journals, vol. i of this series, p. 135, note 104.—Ed.
[169] Port William is now called Carrollton, and is the county-seat of Carroll County, erected out of the limits of Gallatin in 1838.—Ed.
[170] On the early history of Louisville, see Croghan’s Journals, vol. i of this series, p. 136, note 106.
Clarksville was established (1783) on the grant of lands given by the Virginia legislature to the soldiers who had served in Clark’s campaign in the Illinois. Much was expected of this new town opposite the Falls of Ohio; but it never flourished, and gradually declined before its more prosperous neighbor, Jeffersonville (founded in 1802), and has now become but a suburb of the manufacturing town of New Albany. General George Rogers Clark had a home on a point of rocks near Clarksville.—Ed.
[171] Shippingsport—now a portion of the city of Louisville—was incorporated under the name of Campbellville in 1785. The name was changed when James Berthoud became its proprietor in 1805. Shippingsport was an important starting place for traffic west and south from Louisville, until the construction of the Louisville and Portland Canal in 1832.
The Tarascons were brothers who came from France to Kentucky, early in the nineteenth century. They built large mills at Shippingsport (1815-19), and were known as enterprising and public-spirited citizens.—Ed.