History of Cincinnati
Cincinnati began with the settlement of Columbia, Losantiville, and North Bend in the Northwest Territory of the United States beginning in late December 1788. The following year Fort Washington, named for George Washington, was established to protect the settlers.
It was chartered as a town in 1802, and then incorporated as a city in 1819, when it was first called "Queen of the West". Located on the Ohio River, the city prospered as it met the needs of westward bound pioneers who traveled on the river. It had 30 warehouses to supply military and civilian travelers — and had hotels, restaurants and taverns to meet their lodging and dining needs.
Cincinnati became the sixth largest city in the United States, with a population of 115,435, by 1850. Before the Civil War, it was an important stop on the Underground Railroad. Due to the Defense of Cincinnati, there was never a shot fired in the city during the Civil War.
Important industries throughout its history include meatpacking, iron production, steamboat repair and construction, carriage manufacturing, woodworking, cloth production, and engines. During World War I and II, Cincinnatians rallied to serve in the military, manufacture and produce supplies needed by the military, conserve scarce goods, buy Liberty Bonds, and donate to relief funds. There were increased opportunities for women and blacks during World War II, which ultimately shifted their social position after the war. The city is now a regional and national headquarters for many organizations.
Early history
Native Americans
From about 900 to 1600 CE, during the Late Prehistoric Period, a cultural group called the Fort Ancient people lived in southwest Ohio. Shawnee, as well as Siouan speakers such as the Mosopelea and Tutelo are believed by some scholars to be their descendants, were hunter-gatherers who established villages during the summers and followed and hunted animal populations in the winter throughout the Ohio River Valley. Men hunted and protected their tribes, while women gathered food and farmed crops. They constructed wigwams for lodging in the villages. Like other tribes in Ohio—the Ojibwe, Miami and Lenape people—their language is of the Algonquian languages family.Their way of life changed, beginning in the mid-1600s, as people of European descent encroached on their hunting and summer lands and became competitors of Europeans and other Native American tribes in the ensuing fur trade of British and French fur traders. Their options for redress were to search for unoccupied land, destroy colonial settlements, or fight. Many Shawnee and other tribes were temporarily driven out of Ohio beginning in the 1640s by the Iroquois Confederacy who hunted deer, beaver, and other fur-bearing animals. According to the State of Ohio’s “Ohio Memory” historical research site, “The Shawnee, and other tribes with claims to Ohio lands, could return in 1701 when the Treaty of Grande Paix ended the Iroquois’ campaign in the Ohio Country, but American Indians continued to struggle with other tribes against the colonies over land disputes.”
The Shawnee supported the French during the French and Indian War. There were continued land disputes and treaties in the 18th century. Members of the Ojibwa, Lenape, Ottawa, Wyandotte and Shawnee tribes formed an alliance with the Miami tribe, led by Little Turtle in the fight for their land. Ultimately, after the Battle of the Wabash and Battle of Fallen Timbers, eleven tribes signed the Treaty of Greenville in 1794 which forced them to relinquish most of their land.
Symmes Purchase
With the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, the country expanded westward to frontier land north of the Ohio River and within the confines of the Northwest Territory. In 1786, Benjamin Stites traveled to the Little Miami Valley and noticed that there was fertile land for settlement and conveyed that information to eastern speculators. Hearing of the possibilities, a Continental Congress delegate John Cleves Symmes, purchased one or two million acres in 1787 from the Congress of the Confederation that was called Symmes Purchase. Also called the Miami Purchase, the land between the Great and Little Miami Rivers, ultimately became Warren, Butler, and Hamilton Counties. Of Symmes Purchase, Stites purchased 10,000 acres, 800 acres of which he sold to Mathias Denman. Denman's land was along the Ohio River and across from the mouth of the Licking River.Three initial settlements
Pioneers came on flatboats along the Ohio River to settle what would become Cincinnati, located between the Little Miami and Great Miami rivers on the north shore of the Ohio River. The city began as three settlements: Columbia, Losantiville, and North Bend.Columbia, a mile west of the Little Miami River, was settled when a group of 26 people led by Benjamin Stites arrived on November 18, 1788. Stites had arranged parties of pioneers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They settled at the present site of Lunken Airport, where they built a blockhouse and log cabins, partially using wood from their flatboats. More people arrived over time, and more cabins were built. They struggled to get enough food to feed themselves and the new arrivals, but they did what they could by fishing, hunting, making a flour out of bear grass, farming, and acquiring some food from traders from Pittsburg. Of the three settlements, Columbia grew the fastest at first. It was initially the center of trading and the granary of the area. The first Protestant church in the Northwest Territory was erected in Columbia.
Losantiville
On December 28, 1788, eleven families with 24 men landed across from Licking River at what would be Sycamore Street and at present-day Yeatman's Cove. Losantiville, the central settlement, was named by the original surveyor, John Filson, who scouted the area on September 22, 1788 with Mathias Denman, and Colonel Robert Patterson. The name which means "The city opposite the mouth of the river" is composed of four terms, each of different language. Filson disappeared in October 1788, perhaps killed by Native Americans. The group, led by Patterson, who founded Lexington, Kentucky, originated in Limestone. When they arrived, Israel Ludlow became the settlement's surveyor and he laid out the town in a grid plan, which went from Northern Row to the river, where land was set aside for a public landing. Its eastern and western borders are now Central Avenue and Broadway.Before April 1, 1789, 30 lots were given to people so the settlement would grow. It was attractive for its town layout along the waterfront. Aside from what they attained through hunting and fishing, they grew corn, beans, squash, cucumbers, and pumpkin. The town soon had a tavern and ferry service that carried people across the Ohio River to Kentucky. A justice of the peace, William McMillan was installed.
By 1790, there were 700 people in the town due to an influx of new settlers and military troops posted at Fort Washington. Symmes wrote that Losantiville, then a settlement of forty two-story log houses, "assumes the appearance of a town of some respectability".
File:Photo 02 North-Bend-blockhouse.jpg|thumb|North Bend blockhouse illustration from Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, 1847.
North Bend on the Great Miami and a few miles west of Losantiville was founded by Symmes in February 1789. He had arranged a group of pioneers from Limestone, Kentucky that included soldiers and his family members to travel to the area. Like the people of Columbia and Losantiville, North Bend settlers struggled to get enough food initially. North Bend provided 24 lots to new settlers by May 1789.
Fort Washington
Symmes and St. Clair were concerned about Native American tribes, who would provide resistance to settlement by whites. There were over 260,000 square miles of the Northwest Territory—including the present-day states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin—that were protected by just 300 soldiers of the First Infantry Regiment. Native American tribes of the Ohio Valley were hostile to the encroachment by white people and there were "back-and-forth raids" among the cohabitating peoples. Most of the Native Americans in the Northwest Territory received aid from the British and generally sided with them—and they were not party to the Treaty of Paris that ceded land to the United States.In 1789, Fort Washington was constructed under the direction of General Josiah Harmar and was named in honor of President George Washington. It was built in the north-east corner of Losantiville and served all of the Northwest Territory for five years. During that time, 613 troops under the command of St. Clair were lost during a battle with Miami chief Little Turtle. The Treaty of Greenville was signed in 1795 after Major General Anthony Wayne won the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The fort, no longer needed, was torn down in 1808.
Society of Cincinnati
On January 4, 1790, Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, changed the name of the settlement to "Cincinnati" in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati, of which he was president, possibly at the suggestion of the surveyor Israel Ludlow. The society gets its name from Cincinnatus, the Roman general and farmer who saved the city of Rome from destruction and then quietly retired to his farm. The society was composed of Continental Army officers of the Revolutionary War.Early settlers
Among the settlers, rabbit and deer pelts were used to barter for goods.Cincinnati was populated by Revolutionary War soldiers who were granted lands in the state. This included men like John Cleves Symmes who acquired large parcels of land and sold off tracts for a profit. Some former officers were given large parcels of land in payment for their service. There were also civilians that came to the area seeking an opportunity for a successful life based upon the purchase of affordable land.
Hamilton County was established on January 4, 1790 by Arthur St. Clair. Tensions between pioneers and Native Americans increased over time, and Hamilton County issued a proclamation forbidding reckless shooting and barring the sale of liquor to Native Americans. All men were subject to military duty and people made preparations to defend their settlements. In addition, more soldiers arrived at Fort Washington. Some people moved to safer Kentucky communities in 1790.
File:Gilbert Stuart Portrait of Winthrop Sargent.jpg|thumb|left|upright|1805 portrait of Winthrop Sargent by Gilbert Stuart
The frontier town had houses of ill-repute and a number of taverns, neither of which were regulated and were frequented by the fort's soldiers. Winthrop Sargent, the Northwest Territory Secretary beginning in 1787 and for a time was acting governor, found the city's residents were "licentious" and "extremely debauched". He issued a proclamation in 1790 to ban the sale of liquor to soldiers. There was not support, though, from the townspeople to regulate business at bordellos and taverns. He was "so despised by his own men that his home was the subject of artillery practice while he was away." A sheriff was hired and a court was established, but the sheriff was generally unable to maintain control within Cincinnati. This was due to drunkenness of the fort's soldiers and tensions with the Shawnee and other local Native Americans. Often the military established martial law to maintain order.
The population of the settlement grew, and a wide range of businesses were established by 1795, including furniture manufacturers, a butcher, a brewer, and a French pastry chef. To meet the needs of pioneers and soldiers heading west on the Ohio River, there were 30 warehouses that supplies the needs of the travelers.
Cincinnati was chartered as a town on January 1, 1802. Cincinnati established James Smith as the first town marshall; the following year the town started a "night watch". There were about 1,000 civilian residents in 1803, the military abandoned Fort Washington. By 1820, there were nearly 10,000 residents. The introduction of steam navigation on the Ohio River in 1811 helped the city grow.
In addition to providing supplies for travelers, in the early 19th century there was a wide range of service-based businesses—including restaurants, taverns, and hotels—to meet traveler's needs. Transportation on the Ohio River also assisted in the city's growth. Crops were sent to one of Ohio's major markets, New Orleans, along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Transportation costs were reduced for shipping crops or goods from western Ohio to Cincinnati due to the Miami and Erie Canal. Steamboats were repaired and built in the city. It became a meatpacking center, where livestock was slaughtered and butchered and sold in Cincinnati or shipped. Cincinnati became known as the "Porkopolis" when it became the pork-processing center of the country.