HAMILTON COUNTY OHIO - History (published 1881) Chapter X Progress of Hamilton county - pgs 70-75 (2) ************************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Tina Hursh ribbit@clubnet.isl.net http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohhamilt/histhc/mnindex.html March 24, 2003 Trancribed by Dorothy Wiland *********************************************************************** Chapter X Progress of Hamilton county - pgs 70-75 *********************************************************************** History of Hamilton County Ohio with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches. Compiled by Henry A. Ford, A.M. and Mrs. Kate B. Ford, L.A. William & Co., Publishers; 1881. SOME FIRST THINGS. The first church built in Hamilton county was that at Columbia, for the Baptist society, organized in that settlement March 24, 1790. It was, further, the first meeting-house erected in the territory now covered by the state of Ohio, except the church building of the Moravian missionaries at Schoenbrunn and Gnadenhutten, in the valley of the Tuscarawas. The first ordination of a clergyman in the Miami country was that of the REV. Daniel Clark, a young Baptist minister at Columbia, by the REV. MESSRS. GANO AND SMITH in a grove of elms near that place, September 23, 1793. ~pg76~ The first school in the county was opened July 2 1, 1790, also in Columbia, by JOHN REILY, afterwards a distinguished citizen of Butler and Hamilton counties. The next. year FRANCIS DUNLAVY was joined in the instruction of the school, taking a classical department, while MR. REILY -confined his labors to the English studies. The first regular school-house was probably there. The first ferry from the front of Hamilton county on the river to the Kentucky shore at the present site of Covington was run. In 1790 ROBERT and THOMAS KENNEDY, one of whom lived at each end of the line. The first to Newport was run by CAPTAIN ROBERT BENHAM, under a license from the Territorial government, granted -September 24, 1792, from Cincinnati to the opposite bank, the present Newport, on the east side of the Licking. The first mill run in Hamilton county was started by MR. NEAIAD COLEMAN, a citizen of Columbia, soon after the planting of the colony. It was a very simple affair, quite, like that known at Marietta in the early day, and figured in DR. S. P HILDRETH'S Pioneer History. The flat boats were moored side by side near the shore, but in the current, and with sufficient space between them for the movement of a water-wheel The grindstones, with the grain and floor or meal handled, were in one boat, and the machinery in another. This rude mill, kept going by the cultivation 'of the rich soil at or near Columbia, was the chief source of supply for the soldiers of Fort Washington and the citizens of Cincinnati for one or two years. Without it, there would at one time, at least, have been danger of, abandonment of the fort, if not of the settlements. Before its construction, settlers who had no access to hand-mills or who wished to economize their labor, went far into Kentucky to get their grinding done. At one time NOAH BADGELEY and three other Cincinnati settlers went up the Licking to Paris, for a supply of breadstuff, and on their return were caught in a flood, their boat overturned, BADGELEY drowned, and the others exposed to peril and privation upon branches of trees in the raging waters for two or three days. It is possible that COLEMAN'S mill is identical with that mentioned in early annals as the property of one WICKERSIHAM (WICKERHAM he is called in SPENCER'S Indian Captivity, probably by error of the types), which is sometimes referred to as the first mill, and was situated at a rapid of the Little Miami, a little below the Union bridge, where PHILIP TURPIN'S mill was afterwards erected. Soon after COLEMAN started his gristmill, another, but of different character, was built on Mill creek, near Cincinnati. A horse-mill existed in that town at a very early day, near the site of the First Presbyterian church, and some of the meetings of that society were held in it. The first cases of capital punishment in the county occurred at the southeast end of Fort Washington in 1789--the execution of two soldiers, JOHN AYERS and MATTHEW RATMORE, for desertion. The first execution by the civil authorities was that of JOHN MAY, in Cincinnati, near the close of the century, by hanging, under sentence for the murder of his friend, WAT SULLIVAN, whom he stabbed with a hunting-knife during a drunken brawl at a party given in a log cabin then standing near the corner of Sixth and Main streets. He was hanged by SHERIFF LUDLOW, at the spot on the south side of Fifth street, east of Walnut, where B. CAVAGNA now has his grocery store, and where the first jail stood. The country for fifty miles around turned out its population to see the execution. Other "first things" will be recorded in connection with the special histories of Cincinnati and other parts of the county, where full notes will be made of these to which we have given rapid mention.