From these fair plains, these rural seats,
So long concealed, so lately known,
The unsocial Indian far retreats,
To make some other clime his own,
Where other streams, less pleasing, flow,
And darker forests round him grow.
Great Sire of floods! whose varied wave
Through climes and countries takes its way,
To whom creating Nature gave
Ten thousand streams to swell thy sway!
No longer shall they useless prove,
Nor idly through the forests rove;
Nor longer shall your princely flood
From distant lakes be swelled in vain,
Nor longer through a darksome wood
Advance unnoticed to the main;
Far other ends the heavens decree—
And commerce plans new freights for thee.
While virtue warms the generous breast,
There heaven-born freedom shall reside,
Nor shall the voice of war molest,
Nor Europe's all-aspiring pride—
There Reason shall new laws devise,
And order from confusion rise.
Forsaking kings and regal state,
With all their pomp and fancied bliss,
The traveller owns, convinced though late,
No realm so free, so blest as this—
The east is half to slaves consigned,
Where kings and priests enchain the mind.
O come the time, and haste the day,
When man shall man no longer crush,
When Reason shall enforce her sway,
Nor these fair regions raise our blush,
Where still the African complains,
And mourns his yet unbroken chains.
Far brighter scenes a future age,
The muse predicts, these States will hail,
Whose genius may the world engage,
Whose deeds may over death prevail,
And happier systems bring to view
Than all the eastern sages knew.
Philip Freneau.
In 1788 Marietta was founded at the mouth of the Muskingum by the Ohio Company, which had bought a great tract of land extending to the Scioto. Later in the same year, Matthias Denman, Robert Patterson, and John Filson laid out the town of Losantiville, now Cincinnati. Filson had been a schoolmaster and was responsible for the strange name, which he thought indicated that the town was opposite the mouth of the Licking. He was soon afterwards killed by the Indians while on an exploring expedition.
JOHN FILSON