At the time the Connecticut Land Company were engaged in surveying their purchase, there were several other settlements in a more or less satisfactory condition of progress along the banks of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers.  Immediately on the close of the Revolutionary War, thousands of the disbanded soldiers and officers who had been reduced to poverty in the long and arduous struggle for independence looked anxiously to the Western lands for new homes, or as a means of repairing their shatered shattered fortunes.  Their thoughts had been turned in this direction by the several acts passed by Congress in 1776, and subsequently during the war, providing for land bounties to the Continental soldiers, in quantities proportional to their rank in the service.  Thus, a major-general was entitled to eleven hundred acres, a brigadier-general to eight hundred and fifty, a colonel to five hundred, a lieutenant-colonel to four hundred and fifty, a major four hundred, a captain three hundred, a lieutenant two hundred, an ensign one hundred and fifty, and privates and non-commissioned officers one hundred acres each.  Those who lived in the South were fortunate in having ready access to the lands of Kentucky, Tennessee, and the back parts of Georgia; but owing to the disputes in Congress over the lands of the Northwest, which long delayed the surveys and bounties, the Northern soldiers almost lost hope.  A strong memorial was presented to Congress in June, 1783, asking for a grant of the lands between the Ohio and Lake Erie.  An ordinance for the survey of the public lands west of the Ohio River was passed by Congress two years later, and provided for the system of rectangular surveys by sections, townships, and ranges.  The first surveyor-general was Thomas Hutchins, a man of high scientific attainments, who had served in the West as an officer of engineers in the Sixtieth British infantry.  Assisted by Rittenhause, the official geographer of Pennsylvania, he established a base line extending due west from the point where the north bank of the Ohio River is intersected by the west line of Pennsylvania, and upon this laid out the Seven Ranges which were the beginning of the land system of the United States.  General Rufus Putnam of Massachusetts, who had taken a leading part in preparing the memorial, to which reference has been made, was appointed by that body one of the surveyors; but having work of a similar nature to do in Maine for the state of Massachusetts, he obtained the appointment of General Benjamin Tupper temporarily in his place.  From Tupper General Putnam subse-

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quently received so favorable an account of the country as to cause him to enter with great earnestness into a plan of western colonization.

THE OHIO COMPANY.

     A meeting- of officers and soldiers, chiefly of the Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut lines, was held at Boston on March 1st, 1786, at which a new Ohio Company was formed, in shares of $1,000, for the purchase and settlement of Western lands.  The directors, General Putnam, General Samuel H. Parsons, and Rev. Manasseh Cutler, selected for their purchase the lands on the Ohio River situated on both sides of the Muskingum and just west of the Seven Ranges.  It had been provided by Congress that the Continental currency in which the soldiers had received their pay, and which had greatly depreciated during the war, should be accepted at its par value in payment for public lands.  There were many delays before the grant was finally ratified by Congress.  Some months were spent in waiting for a quorum of that body to assemble, and even after Congress had passed the ordinance, a long and tedious game of politics had to be played before the contract for the purchase was finally signed.  The chief question at issue was the appointment of officers for the territory.  The company wanted General Parsons for Governor, while there was a strong counter influence in favor of General St. Clair, who was then president of Congress, but who seems to have taken no active part in advancing his own interests.  Dr. Cutler, who represented the company, had also to contend against the influence of several rival companies of speculators in Western lands, one of which, composed of a number of prominent New York citizens, was represented by Colonel William Duer, then Secretary of the Treasury Board.  A secret arrangement was at last effected whereby St. Clair was made governor of the territory and the domain of the Ohio Company was enlarged by an addition of land on the west side for the benefit of the New York associates.  After some further delay on the part of Congress the contract for the purchase was finally signed Oct. 27, 1787, by the Treasury Board, with Dr. Cutler and Winthrop Sargent as agents of the Ohio Company.

THE FOUNDING OF MARIETTA.

     In the following months of December and January, two companies, including surveyors, boat-builders, farmers, carpenters, and laborers, were sent forward under the leadership of General Putnam.  Uniting on the Youghiogheny River, they constructed boats, in which after having embarked their stores, they descended the Ohio River, and on the 7th of April, 1788, landed at the Muskingum.  On the upper point, opposite Fort Harmar, they founded their town, which in July following received the name of Marietta, in honor of the French Queen, Marie Antoinette, the word being a compound of the first and last syllables of the Queen's name.  On the arrival of Governor St. Clair, which took place on July 17th, the government of the Northwest territory was formally installed, Washington County, with its courts and officers, was established, and by the end of the year the little capital had a population of one hundred and thirty-two men, be sides women and children.  To these were added in the following year one hundred and fifty-two men, fifty-seven of them with families.  Major Denny, one of the army officers stationed at Fort Harmar, thus describes these settlers in his diary:
     "These men from New England, many of whom are of the first respectability, old Revolutionary officers, erected and are now living in huts immediately opposite us.  A considerable number of industrious farmers purchased shares in the company, and more or less arrive every week. * * * These people appear the most happy folk in the world, greatly satisfied with their new purchase.  They certainly are the best informed, most courteous and civil strangers of any I have yet met with.  The order and regularity observed by all, their sober deportment, and perfect submission to the constituted authorities, must tend much to promote their settlements.
     The population of Marietta was still furth-

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er increased in 1790, owing to the survey and distribution of the Ohio Company's lands, so that the place could now boast of eighty houses.  Settlements were extended to Belpre, to Newbury, twelve or fifteen miles down the Ohio, and to Big Bottom, about thirty miles up the Muskingum.  In January, 1791, there were in all these settlements some 280 men capable of bearing arms.  The danger from Indians was proved by the destruction in that month of the settlement at Big Bottom by a party of Delawares and Wyandots.  Strong block houses were erected at each of these points and all possible measures were adopted to ensure the safety of these infant communities.

THE ABUNDANCE OF GAME.

The settlers were in no danger from hunger.  The land in which they had cast their lot was veritably a land flowing with milk and honey.  The soil was rich, and produced abundant crops; fruit was soon successfully cultivated, and fish, flesh and fowl were to be had in inconceivable quantities.  Buffalo, deer and bear were numerous; geese, ducks and pigeons were everywhere in immense flocks, and the rivers fairly swarmed with fish.  A story is told by Captain May of a pike weighing 100 pounds that was served up at the Fourth of July barbecue, and it was no uncommon thing to catch catfish sixty to eighty pounds in weight.

THE MORAVIAN SETTLEMENTS.

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FOUNDING OF COLUMBIA, CINCINNATI AND NORTH BEND.

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[PICTURES OF:  VIEW OF YOUNGSTOWN, LOOKING EAST FROM COLONIAL HOTEL;
VIEW OF YOUNGSTOWN, SHOWING PUBLIC SQUARE, SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AND MARKET STREET;
LANTERMAN'S MILL AND FALLS; AND PIONEER PAVILION ]

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new territory in the most vivid colors, and farther announced that a contract had been entered into between the associates and the Treasury Board, and offering for sale any township, section, or quarter-section in the 4,600,000-acre tract for which he had applied.  He reserved for himself, as the site of a town that he proposed to lay out, an entire township at the confluence of the big Miami and the Ohio, besides fractional townships on the north, south, and west sides of it.  The land was offered until May 1st following at two-thirds of a dollar per acre; after that the price was to be raised to one dollar.
     The proposition proved attractive, and the best lands were soon taken.  A large number of the purchasers soon found themselves deceived, as the Treasury Board refused to concede the entire front on the Ohio, and would execute no contract at all until Oct. 15, 1788, when, through the influence of General Dayton and Daniel Marsh, they consented to a grant limited to twenty miles along the course of the Ohio, beginning at the mouth of the Big Miami, and with a northerly boundary to include 1,000,000 acres.  This excluded the lands sold to Stites and others, and also dropped a township that had been reserved for the use of an academy.  The result was an immense amount of litigation, arising out of the violated contracts between Stites and his associates and the purchasers; and the contentions in Congress and the local courts, in which latter Stites was a judge, were not ended until May, 1792, when Congress passed acts which extended the limits of the purchase to the original number of acres originally bargained for, though with somewhat different boundaries.  Reservations were set apart in each township for the support of religion, schools, one complete township for an academy and other institutions of learning, a lot one mile square at the mouth of the Big Miami, and one of fifteen acres for Fort Washington.  The people who had purchased lands from Symmes were granted the right of pre-emption on further payment of $2 per acre.  Other schemes of settlement were soon under way.  In November. 1788, Stites, with a strong party of friends and followers, and provided with all necessary implements for clearing and building, landed just below the Little Miami, built a fort or block house, and founded the town of Columbia.
     In the summer of that year, Matthias Denman, of New Jersey, who had taken-up the entire section of land opposite the mouth of the Licking, and who was ambitious to become the founder of a town, met at Limestone, Col. Robert Patterson, the founder of Lexington, Kentucky, who was meditating a purchase from Symmes.  Denman accompanied the Colonel to Lexington, where, in company with John Filson, they formed a partnership in the town site which he had secured opposite the mouth of the Licking.  Filson was a school master from Chester, Penn., who had turned surveyor and emigrated to Kentucky.  The three drew up articles, which were formally executed August 25th, whereby Denman, in consideration of twenty pounds, Virginia currency, to be paid by Patterson to Filson, transferred to each an equal interest with himself in the section of land opposite the mouth of the Licking.  Plans were made for laying out a town which was to be called Losantiville, the name being a forced and pedantic compound of three different languages - Greek, Latin and French - and intended to signify "the town opposite the mouth of the Licking."  On the 22d of September, 1788, Patterson and Filson, with a large company of Kentuckians, arrived on the ground and were there met by Denman, Judge Symmes and Israel Ludlow, chief surveyor of the Miami associates.  This meeting may be regarded as the inauguration of Cincinnati.  Though it was impossible to proceed to the immediate location of the plat.  Ludlow was detached to "take the meanders of the Ohio," which measurement proved that Denman was within the line.  Soon after Filson, who had accompanied Symmes.  Patterson and a party of the Kentuckians on an expedition twenty miles into the country, becoming alarmed at the presence of Indians, separated himself from the party and attempted to rejoin the main body.  He was never more heard of, and undoubtedly met his death at the hands of the savages.  Ludlow acquired Filson's in-

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terest, and became the surveyor and principal agent in the town affair.  Denman returned to New Jersey.  Patterson and Ludlow, with a party of twelve, left Limestone December 24th, to form a station and lay out the town.  The time of their arrival, which is supposed to mark the date of the settlement of Cincinnati is not known.

FLOODS DAMAGE THE SETTLEMENTS.

THE SCIOTO LAND SWINDLE.

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THE VIRGINIA MILITARY DISTRICT.

     When in March, 1784, Virginia ceded to the United States her claims to northwest territory, it was stipulated that she should be reimbursed for the expense of subduing the British posts, that 150,000 acres at the Falls of Ohio were to be granted to Colonel George Rogers Clark and his officers and soldiers, and that "in case there should not be a sufficient quantity of good lands south of the Ohio River to provide for the bounties due to the Continental troops of the Virginia line, the deficiency should be made up by good lands to be laid off between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers."  In the winter of 1790-91 General Nathaniel Massie, who had been appointed by Virginia some time before to make a survey of the district, impressed bv the flourishing

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condition of the settlements on the Muskingum and the two Miamis, determined to plant a Virginia colony north of the Ohio.  Such a settlement, he thought, would enhance the volue of the lands of his State, and incidentally be a means of protection of his party while they were engaged in surveying the wilderness, a work that he had already begun.   A site on the north bank of the river was chosen, and a town laid out which received the name of Massies Station.  This was afterwards changed to Manchester, by which name the place is now known.  Free land was offered to the first twenty-five families who should settle in the town, and this advertisement being circulated widely throughout Kentucky brought responses from some thirty families who were eager to accept the offer.  The settlement was commenced in March, 1791, streets were marked out, a number of cabins built and surrounded by a stockade as a protection against the Indians, and soon the little station was in a flourishing condition.  It enjoyed practical immunity from Indian attacks.  This was mainly due to the character of its inhabitants - all hardy frontiersmen, courageous, watchful, and self-reliant, and long accustomed to brave the toil and dangers of the wilderness.  General Massie subsequently attempted to found a town in the heart of the Virginia Military District, but the attempt was not successful, owing to Indian hostilities.  A later effort in the following year resulted in the founding of Chillicothe, which at the end of two years became the seat of civil government.  Civilization in Ohio had now fairly begun.  Commencing, as we have seen, at the river, it had invaded that long, dark stretch of forest which lay between it and the lake, and through which the native red man had hitherto roamed in undisputed sway.  Soon the busy axe sounded here the knell of his approaching extinction.  In despair he made one last desperate effort to preserve the Ohio as the natural boundary between the white man's territory and his own hunting grounds.  The four years' war, beginning with the destruction of the Big Bottom settlement on the Muskingum, Jan. 2, 1791, and followed by the discomfiture of Harmar and the utter rout of St. Clair, inspired him with a temporary hope that was forever shattered by Wayne's victory of the Fallen Timber, in August, 1795, to which reference has already been made.  The great barrier to white settlement was removed by the subsequent treaty of Greenville, and the full tide of emigration swept in.  Settlers' cabins soon began to dot the landscape; forest shades gave place to open clearings, soon to be transformed into smiling farms and fruitful orchards; thriving towns sprang up as if by magic, and civilization began its march of progress in Ohio, never again to meet with serious interruption.

END OF CHAPTER XII -