OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 46 *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 03 : Issue 46 Today's Topics: #1 [OH-FOOT] Ch. 10 - Hamilton county [Tina Hursh To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.20030326195933.01649c9c@clubnet.isl.net> Subject: [OH-FOOT] Ch. 10 - Hamilton county Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Part 1a 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. ~pg 70~ CHAPTER X Progress of Hamilton County Sweet clime of my kindred, blest land of my birth__ The fairest, the dearest, the brightest on earth ! Where' I may roam, howe' blest I may be, My spirit instinctively turns into thee. --Anonymous THE FIRST ELEVEN YEARS. About two thousand people were in the Miami Country, which may be considered as practically identical with Hamilton county at this time, by 1790 although the first settler had pitched his camp at Columbia but thirteen months before. It was a humble and modest beginning that the infant county had, except in reach of fertile territory and the possibilities of the future. Had a census qualification been required for the erection of a county in that day, as now for the admission of a State to the Federal Union, it must needs have been a very moderate one, or the Northwest Territory would have waited longer for the birth of the county which has since become as great in wealth and population, in arts and arms, and in the higher arts of civilization, as it was then great in area and resources waiting to be developed. In a very few years, howeveras soon as the peace of Greenville gave assurance of safety to the immigrant against Indian massacre or the plunder of his propertythe country began to fill up with some rapidity. The census of 1800, the first taken in the county, although its enumerators probably missed many of the settlers in so wide and sparsely settled a tract, exhibited the goodly number of fourteen thousand six hundred and ninety-one persons as the white population of Hamilton county. It is interesting to note, in this early day, when the conditions of life were so different from those prevailing in the older communities, how this number was divided between the sexes, and also between the different ages of which the census makes record. There were, of children under ten years of age, three thousand two hundred and seventy-three males, three thousand and ninety females; young persons between ten and sixteen years, one thousand three hundred and thirty-five males, one thousand and sixty-five females; between sixteen and twenty-six, one thousand five hundred and two males, one thousand two hundred and ninety-seven females; adults between twenty-six and forty and forty-five years, one thousand two hundred and fifty-one males, nine hundred and fifty-four females; over forty-five, four hundred and eighty males, three hundred and forty-four females; total, fourteen thousand six hundred and ninety-one, of whom seven thousand eight hundred and forty-one were males, and six thousand eight hundred and fifty females. The noticeable facts in this brief statement are: 1. The disparity of the sexes, which was particularly marked in this country when new. Usually, in a long-settled community, notably in the State of Massachusetts, as the census shows, the gentler sex is somewhat in the majority, and sometimes very much so; but here we find, at the end of the first eleven to twelve years of colonization, that the males led by the very nearly one thousand in less than fifteen thousand, or by about six and eight-tenths per cent of the whole. Or, to make the difference appear more striking, there were nearly one-sixth more males than females, or about fifteen per centa considerable and important difference. Even with young children, and through all the ages noted, the disparity is marked; but particularly so in the more vigorous working ages, from sixteen to twenty-six, and hence to forty-five, where the percentages of difference are over sixteen and nearly thirty-one, respectively. Still more striking is the inequality of numbers where we should least expect it, among adults over forty-five years of age, where it amount, in this case, to forty per cent advantage in point of numbers, in favor of the men. These facts argue well for the material foundations in Hamilton county, in the laying of which the male mind, in its maturity and strength, as well as the muscle of the man in his prime, were imperatively needed. 2. The comparative paucity of old persons, or of men and women distantly approaching old age, is to be noted. Of really aged persons there were probably very few; but as to this we have no exact data. The census figures show that, reckoning all down to the age of forty-five, there were but eight hundred and twenty-four, or only ~pg71~ five and six-tenths per cent of the whole; while of those in the hardier laboring ages there were over nineteen and fifteen percent respectively, leaving for the youngest children and the younger youth sixty percent of the whole. 3. The last statement offers a fact of considerable interest. Three of every five in the total population were children under sixteen years of age. This demonstrates how large a share of the early settlers brought their families with them, apparently coming to stay and aid in laying the foundations of stable communities, in which law and order should ever abide. Contrast with this the immigration at mining camps and settlements, which usually consists, with almost absolute exclusiveness, of men only. The beginnings were certainly well made in Hamilton county. THE SECOND DECADE In 1810 the census exhibited a population for the county of but little more than the enumeration of 1800 had shownfifteen thousand two hundred and four, or but five hundred and thirteen more than were in the county ten years before. It must be borne in mid, however, that the Hamilton county of 1800 was still, for the most part, the great county of Governor St. Clair' second creationthat it might be said, indeed, in a general way, to be pretty nearly coterminous with the broad and long " country," since that was estimated to contain fifteen thousand white people at the beginning of the century, while the county itself was shown by official count to have fourteen thousand six hundred and ninety-one. Ten years later Hamilton had been shorn of its fair proportions, and reduced to be, as it is now, one of the smallest counties in the State in territorial dimensions, having, as we have seen, less than four hundred square miles. A population of fifteen thousand two hundred and four, or forty to the square mile, represented a very creditable growth for a county just coming of age in its twenty-first year. It is also noteworthy, when placed against the figures of 1800, which showed scarcely three white persons to the section in the vast county. In 1810 the Miami tract, formerly almost identical with Hamilton county, was estimated to contain seventy thousand civilized inhabitants, or about one-fourth of the entire white and colored population of the State, indicating that growth of settlement throughout this region was by no means confined to the Ohio valley, but extended far up the Miami valleys as well. Within this decade were founded three of the oldest villages in the countyReading, in 1804; Montgomery, in 1805; and Springfield, in 1806. THE THIRD DECADE The map prefixed to DR. DRAKE' Picture of Cincinnati, published in 1815, shows the towns and villages of the county at the time to have been Cincinnati (three miles east of Mill Creek), Columbia, Cleves, Colerain, Crosby, Springfield, Reading, Montgomery, and Newtown, with roads running from Cincinnati to each of these points, and one other road making into Indiana. Four years later Cincinnati had become a chartered city, and Carthage and Miami were added to the list of villages. Nearly all places in the county were considered worthy of mention in the State Gazetteer of that year only as " towns," with their respective locations and distances from Cincinnati. The county had now twelve townshipsCincinnati, Crosby, Colerain, Springfield, Sycamore, Anderson, Columbia, Mill Creek, Delhi, Green, Miami, and Whitewater. The aggregate valuation of property in the county, for purposes of taxation, was five million six hundred and four thousand nine hundred and fifty-four dollars. By 1815 the beginnings of the Miami and Erie canal had been projected; so far as an artificial water-way up the valley of Mill creek to Hamilton will go. The text of DR. DRAKE' Picture notes the mills on this stream as " but the loose and unstable composition of its bed renders the erection of permanent dams as difficult and expensive, in proportion to its width, as on the Miamis." Prices of land had greatly appreciated throughout the county. Judge Symmes and his associates, twenty-seven years before, had bought the Purchase for sixty-six and two-thirds cents per acre (really for sixteen cents per acre, in specie), and sold most of it, at a uniform price of two dollars, except at auction, when it often commanded higher rates. The reserved sections also formed an exception: they were at one time fixed to be sold at eight dollars per acres, but afterwards sold at four. In 1815 DR. DRAKE observes: Within three miles of Cincinnati, at this time, the prices of good unimproved land are between fifty dollars and one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, varying according to the distance. >From this point to the extent of twelve miles, they decline from thirty dollars to ten dollars. Near the principal villages of the Miami country, it commands from twenty dollars to forty dollars: in the remaining situations it is from four to eight dollarsimprovements in all cases advancing the price from twenty-five to four hundred per cent. An average of the settled parts of the Miami country, still supposing the land fertile and uncultivated, may be stated at eight dollars; if cultivated, at twelve dollars . . These were not the prices in 1812, the war, by promoting immigration, having advanced the nominal value of land from twenty-five to fifty per cent. MR. BURNET (not the judge) a traveler through this region two years afterwards, in a published account of his journeyings, supplies the following interesting note: The land round Cincinnati is good. Price, a mile or two from the city, fifty, eighty, and one hundred dollars per acre, according to quality and other advantages. This same land, a few years ago, was bought for two and five dollars per acre. Farms with improvements ten miles from the town, sell for thirty and forty dollars per acre. Fifty, sixty, and one hundred miles up the country, good uncleared land may be bought for from two dollars to five dollars per acre. The farms are generally worked by the farmer and his family. Labor is dear, and not to be had under fourteen or sixteen dollars per month and board. They have but little machinery and no plaster or compost, but what is made by the farmer is used for manure. Taxes, in the country, are a mere nothing. Farmers, in any part of the State of Ohio, who have one hundred acres of their own, well stocked, do not pay above five to ten dollars per annum. ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 14:01:52 -0600 From: Tina Hursh To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.20030326200152.0165a9bc@clubnet.isl.net> Subject: [OH-FOOT] Colerain twp - Hamilton co. pt 1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Trancribed by Karen Klaene *********************************************************************** Colerain Township - pgs 255-262 *********************************************************************** 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. ~pg 255~ COLERAIN TOWNSHIP GEOGRAPHY. Colerain is bounded on the west by the Great Miami river; on the north by that stream and Butler county; on the east by Springfield township; and on the south by Green and Miami townships. Its eastern boundary is the range line; the range line next to the westward cuts across about four and a half miles of the township until it intersects the Great Miami near New Baltimore, between sections four and thirty-four. The north line of this township between the river and the northwest corner of Springfield township, is much more regular and more nearly on a right line east and west than the devious boundary of Springfield on the north. It is about two-fifths of a mile north of the dividing line between Crosby and Harrison townships and Butler county, the "jag" occurring at the Great Miami. The lands of Colerain lie in three entire ranges--those numbered one and two in township one, and range number one in township two. It hence results that there are in its territory three sections numbered one, being one in each corner of the township except the northwest; and two each numbered two, three, four, seven, thirteen, and nineteen; besides fractional sections numbered eight, nine, ten, and twenty-five, duplicates of entire sections similarly numbered. There are thirty-five whole and eleven fractional sections in the township. The section lines are much more nearly straight in this township than in Springfield and Sycamore, but they more remarkably diverge in many cases from the true direction. The vicious system, or careless want of system of Judge SYMMES' surveys, is nowhere in the Purchase more glaringly exhibited than here. Some of the sections, as those numbered from twenty to the north line of the county, are by the divergence of their lines on the east and west approached closely to thrice the dimensions of those next them on the west. The township is seven sections, or about as many miles, in length from north to south, and nearly eight miles in its greatest breadth, from the westernmost point of the fractional section nine, nearly opposite the terminus at the river of the south line of Crosby township, across to a point in the eastern line of Colerain opposite the north part of Mount Pleasant village, in Springfield township. Its breadth at the northern boundary is four miles, at the southern seven; its average width about six. The surface of the township, near the Great Miami, which washes its western and northern fronts for about twelve miles, partakes in part of the general character of the Miami valleys near the rivers. It is broad, flat, and fertile, except where the hills impinge closely upon the river bank, as they do for some miles. Back of this belt of lower country is the highland, or the ancient plateau, which extends upon a general level, to the eastern and southern boundaries, near which it overlooks the valleys of Mill creek and the West fork. It is deeply cut through, in the southernmost part of the township, by the course of TAYLOR' creek, whose headwaters take their rise toward the southwest corner, in sections thirteen and fourteen, and, after uniting their streams in section nineteen, dip down over a mile to the southward in Green township, near the northwest corner of which the stream emerges again in Colerain, and flows in an exceedingly tortuous course toward every point of the compass for about two miles, until it reaches the Great Miami exactly at the southwest corner of Colerain. Another stream of modest size, the Blue Rock creek, cuts nearly across the township on a general east and west line about three miles north of the southern line; another, with numerous branches, flows through the northern part of the township until it makes its exit into Butler county, a little over a miles east of the Great Miami; and several other and more petty brooks, tributaries of the Great Miami on the west or the West fork of Mill creek on the east, aid to diversify the topography and water the fertile lands of Colerain. The township is pretty well provided with wagon-roads; but the great highway through it is the famous Colerain pike, which intersects it almost in a diagonal from Mount Airy, first beyond the southeast corner of the township to a point upon the river-road in the direction of Venice, Butler county, very near the northwest corner. It is described in KING' Pocket-book of Cincinnati, as "a continuation of Central avenue. At the junction of Central avenue with DENMAN street, the site of the old BRIGHTON house, it takes a northerly direction, passing through Camp WASHINGTON by the workhouse and the house of refuge, through Cumminsville (by the Wesleyan cemetery) and Mount Airy, on to Colerain township, from which it received its name Continuing, it passes through Venice and Oxford, in Butler county, which his known as the Cincinnati pike. The road is well macadamized." After leaving Mount Airy at a mile's distance,. it passes the village of GROSBECK, in Colerain township; a little more than two miles further it passes through BEVIS, and at about three miles' distance the old village site of Georgetown. All the villages of the township, except Pleasant Run, a hamlet in the northwest corner, are situated upon this fine road. Although Colerain is one of the largest townships in the county, the peculiarity of its topography and of its ~pg 256~ situation, with reference to Cincinnati, the inevitable and only railway centre in the county, have hitherto prevented the laying of iron road on its soil. Two railway lines have been projected to intersect it, however, one, the Cincinnati & Venice railroad, to enter the township at the wagon-bridge near Venice, thence southeastward and southward with a general parallelism to the Colerain pike, until it leaves the township, near St. Jacobs, in Green township, and passes nearly due South by Weisenburgh, to a junction with the Cincinnati & Westwood narrow-gauge, a little south of Cheviot. Its entire course through Colerain, if built upon this line, will be a little more than seven miles. Another route, known as the Liberty, Connersville & Richmond railroad, is planned to enter the county in Crosby township, three miles west of the Great Miami, which it will cross at New Baltimore and run southward and eastward about three and one-half miles in Colerain to a junction with the Cincinnati & Venice road, near BEVIS. The prospects of these schemes are not just now very hopeful. Other lines have at tithes been in discussion, and not many years are likely to pass before the township is supplied with railway facilities. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V03 Issue #46 ******************************************