like this. Such streams are liable to leap into unexpected uses, even. In 1910 the Seine threatened to become the destroyer of Paris, by a freshet in which she overflowed her banks and invaded the city with irresistible power. A few months later, however, in the great railroad strike, she became the city's savior, because where other means of transportation had been closed, the little vessels plying up and down her quiet waters carried the provisions which prevented famine.

What service beside furnishing water, drainage and transportation great rivers are to play in the future we may only conjecture; but the part which the Ohio did actually play in the location and evolution of the great Metropolis of the Middle West demands more than a passing notice.

The Ohio.

The Ohio river is the greatest of the affluents of the Mississippi with respect to its discharge of water, averaging 158,000 cubic feet per second, while that of the Missouri is only 120,000. It has its origin at the point where the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers unite, and there cradles its first great Child City-Pittsburgh. A straight line drawn from Pittsburgh to the point where it debouches into the Mississippi measures 615 miles; but in its meanderings the waters of the great stream traverse 975 miles, and at its mouth stands the city of Cairo, as Pittsburgh does at its source. Between these two cities and lining its shores, innumerable other towns of greater or less importance may be seen-Steubenville, Wheeling, Marietta, Parkersburg, Pomeroy, Point Pleasant, Gallipolis, Huntington, Cartersburgh, Ironton, Portsmouth, Maysville, New Richmond, Covington, Cincinnati, Lawrenceburgh, Madison, Louisville, Evansville and Paducah. These are only the larger and better known; but others, full of life and business might be named. Past these busy and prosperous centers of human activity the mighty river flows at the rate of about three miles an hour, and rising at irregular intervals under the swelling pressure of some great flood to the height of 60 or 70 feet above low water mark.

According to one authority it drains 202,400 square miles, and to another 214,000, while with its tributaries it has at least 5,000 miles of navigable waters. These facts and figures feebly indicate the immensity of the region whose past and future, even more than its present, are indissolubly linked with the Ohio river. They serve to illustrate and prove its value as a factor in the selection of the site of Cincinnati. For, somewhere in a region so vast, a great metropolis was certain to arise and could not arise except upon its shores. For, it was the natural highway for the army of pioneers who were so soon to invade this wilderness. A road cut through the forests over the Alleghany mountains admitted a large contingent, it is true. So also did another, winding through the southern edge of the great Northwestern Territory. But those who travelled these wild and dangerous pathways were but a handful to those who floated easily down the swift current of the great river.

If then it was valuable for travel, it was not less so for commerce. The difficulty of carrying heavy burdens up stream was immense; but in order to populate the region it was only of importance that they should be carried down. Than this nothing could be easier, and having once been loaded on the primitive craft constructed for the purpose, not a penny of expense was afterwards incurred for transportation.

CHAPTER II.

A TERRA INCOGNITA—MARQUETTE AND JOLIET AND THEIR DISCOVERIES-ENGLISH DISPUTE POSSESSION WITH THE FRENCH AND THE ABORIGINES TAKE A HANDGENERAL BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT-WAR WITH THE INDIANS-GEORGE ROGERS CLARK WINS THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY-DIVISION OF THE TERRITORY INTO STATES.

The Previous History.

Such, then were the natural advantages of this site for a city and the methods of its preparation by Nature. But, if it is necessary to know about these in order to comprehend the city in which we dwell, it is not less so to be familiar with the essential facts concerning the early history of the great region, of which it was destined to be the metropolis.

A Vast Wilderness—1673-1763.

We must, therefore, now begin to trace a long and complicated series of events which began to take place as far back as 1673, by means of which the Middle West was fitted for the white man's residence and for a central community from which the influences of the new civilization should radiate. To do this intelligently, we must keep in mind the vast extent of this territory, and be prepared to co-ordinate events occurring anywhere and everywhere between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi; the Cumberland river and the great lakes.

1673.

Up to the year 1673, or thereabouts, the Middle West was a terra incognita to the whites; but, at that time restless and adventurous spirits began to wander about and to investigate the secrets of this mysterious region. This period belongs almost exclusively to French history and covered nearly a century of time. It is fabulously rich in romance and of the greatest importance to general history, even in minute details; but brief notices of a few, only, of its brilliant achievements must suffice to disclose its significance, as related to the foundation and development of Cincinnati.

1676.

On the 17th day of May in the year of our Lord 1676, Marquette and Joliet began that memorable journey which resulted in the discovery of the Mississippi. Down it they floated until they reached the Arkansas river, and on the 17th of June began their return by the way of the Illinois, thus passing through the western edge of that region which is the object of our investigation, but learning little if anything about it.

1682.

Not long afterward Robert LaSalle began that famous voyage on which he completed the work of Joliet by passing down the Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico, where on the 9th of April, 1682, he planted fleur-de-lis and claimed the region to the east of his line of travel for his native land by the right of discovery.

1687-1700.

This title was regarded by Frenchmen as quite sufficient to warrant them in taking possession, and the vanguard of their adventurers pressed on in everincreasing numbers. Joliet founded a colony at St. Louis in 1687. The Wabash valley was occupied in 1700; Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and many other trading posts were established in the same period. The Indians, who numbered twenty or thirty thousand, were treated kindly and became the staunch friends. of the Frenchmen whose influence was soon extended over the entire region. No attempt was made to colonize and settle, for barter with the native hunters was their only thought and purpose except to make the Indians serve as a sort of buffer between themselves and the English. In carrying out their plans they showed a wonderful sagacity. They acquired an intimate knowledge of the peculiarities of the aboriginal inhabitants; they thoroughly mastered the topography of the country; they located their trading points with a knowledge that resembled instinct.

1748.

In 1748 the first regular settlement by English-speaking men on. Western waters was made in Draper's Meadow, on the New River, a branch of the Kanawha in Virginia, and in the same year Thomas Walker with a company of Virginia hunters forced his way into Kentucky and Tennessee. Trivial as those two events may seem in the great movements of history, they were epochal in fact, because the first slight tricklings of that stream of immigration westward which was so soon to be a flood. But that illustrious year was not to close without another event of even greater significance for, it was during its progress, that "The Ohio Company," an organization consisting of thirteen Marylanders with one London merchant was formed to speculate in Western lands, and secured a grant of 500,000 acres in the Ohio valley, to be located mainly between the Kanawha and the Monongahela.

1749.

The peaceful possession by France of this wilderness empire continued long; but began to be perceptibly disturbed after the close of King George's war in 1749. In that critical contest, the English had struggled with the French for supremacy along the Atlantic coast, and the result was so favorable to them as to release their energies for new and bolder enterprises upon the unexplored wilderness to the west, than any they had undertaken, hitherto. Before that time, it is true, that the Pennsylvanians and Virginians had worked their way to the foot hills of the Alleghanies and already the Men from Connecticut had begun. to break through into New York and to take possession of the Susquehanna. But the truly momentous hour now struck and one of the most impressive movements in history began; the movement of an irresponsible, unorganized mass of adven

turers extending over hundreds of miles along the sparsely populated western fringes of the colonies, into an unexplored wilderness.

1750.

In 1750 Christopher Gist was sent by these farsighted and ambitious men, to examine and report upon their holdings, and the account of his expedition is the first one concerning the region, by men of the English speaking race. the year following Gist went down the southern side of the tract and found the whole region occupied by Indians and a few roving and reckless Scotch-Irish traders.

These startling evidences of a determination on the part of the English to dispute the possession of this terra incognita with the French were rapidly multiplied, and before long efforts began to be made to negotiate treaties with the Indians by which important holdings could be peacefully secured. These efforts, as a matter of course, produced violent dissensions and antagonisms of all sorts between the three peoples contending for the prize. The French could see as far into a mill stone as anybody and, realizing how much they had at stake, began to put every possible obstacle in the pathways of the obtrusive and aggressive English. Glasconiere, the sagacious governor of Canada, sent Celeron de Bienville across Lake Erie; from thence over the Portage to Lake Chautauqua ; then down the Ohio as far as the Miami, by whose waters he began his return home via the Maumee river and Lake Erie to Montreal. It was a journey of exploration, of pacification and of preparation, its object being to devise ways and means to stem the tide of English advancement.

1753.

In 1753, also, the Marquis Duquesne, who succeeded Glasconiere, dispatched a strong military force to seize the head waters of the Ohio-a master stroke in the great game, then being played. These hardy and determined soldiers constructed Fort Venango at the confluence of French Creek and the Alleghany, thus fastening a secure rivet in the barriers with which they were determined to surround their precious possession. This was an act of aggression too bold to be overlooked by the English, and Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia sent a company of soldiers (piloted by Christopher Gist), to remonstrate threateningly against it. The bearer of his message was a young Virginian by the name of George Washington, and he presented it so convincingly that Le Boef, the commander of the French, felt called upon to ask for time to communicate with the Government at Montreal.

This dilatory treatment of his remonstrance was little to the taste of the irate Governor and he sent Washington back, to construct a fort at the forks of the two great rivers whose junction forms the Ohio. It was found impossible to do this, under the circumstances, but the frontier men of the region, dissatisfied at the failure, undertook to accomplish the deed themselves. The difficulties were greater than they imagined and they also, were compelled to desist by the French, who finished the structure begun by their enemies and made out of it the most strategic stronghold in the entire country.

From a place so important it was imperative that the French should be dislodged, even at the expense of war, and Governor Dinwiddie acted promptly.

He sent Washington to accomplish its conquest or destruction but furnished him with so insufficient a force that the brave young soldier succeeded in escaping from the horrors of the battle of "Great Meadows" only with the "honors of war." His discomfiture and retirement left the French in absolute control, and at that dark moment not an English flag was waving in the whole Northwest. This situation was intolerable and the English Government planned a counter stroke. An army of very considerable size and power was raised and put under the command of General Braddock, a soldier of renown. He took Washington upon his staff; but ignored the advice of the young man whose experience with the Indian mode of warfare entitled him to be heard. As a result of this fatuous indifference to counsel, he was surprised by his wily enemies; his army was cut to pieces and himself slain,—a catastrophe which sent a shudder along the whole Atlantic coast and through the mother country, also.

"We shall know better how to deal with the Indians another time," said the dying Braddock, but did not live to demonstrate that he had learned the great lesson; and those who came after him repeated the blunder which he had made, not only, but were guilty of a hundred others.

1758.

It was so necessary to avenge this insult to English valor and, as well, to conquer this obstinate Fort that still another expedition was organized in 1758 and it set out determined to succeed, whatever the cost might be. This time the commander was General Faber and his triumph was rendered easy and certain by the temporary absence of the Indians from the encampment. This weakening of the garrison was fatal to the French. The stronghold was captured; its name was changed from Fort Dusquesne to Fort Pitt and it became the defense and hope of the whole frontier.

The Treaty of Paris.

The conquest of this little frontier post, may be considered the first act in the great political drama which we are watching. Distant as its staging was from that spot on the Ohio where our city was to have its birth, it was of critical importance and so were other events, more distant still. The "Seven Years" war between Austria, England and France was terminated by the treaty of Paris in 1763. In that far away city, a few pen strokes transferred the sovereignty of the French empire in America to the absolute control of the English. A victory that seemed possible to be achieved alone by fighting over every foot of ground in that immeasurable area was secured by the signatures of a few individuals in a quiet chamber across a stormy ocean!

"America is to be English-not French! What a result (of the Seven Years' War) is that, if there were no other!" exclaims Carlyle. "France beaten, stript, humiliated; sinful, unrepentant (governed by mere sinners and at best mere fools) collapses like a creature whose limbs fail it; sinks into bankrupt quiescence; into nameless fermentation generally; into dry rot."

For us the significance of this far off collapse of French power lies in the fact, of course, that it opened the door to the appropriation of one of the most fertile regions in the world, to the agriculture, commerce, government, religion and city building of the Anglo Saxon race. Upon their ability to conquer the wilderness and that of others to propitiate or eliminate its Indian population,