It’s hard to believe, but Cincinnati—firmly entrenched in the Midwest—once sat in the heart of the Northwest Territory. In the 1700s this area was the wilds, the untamed and unknown frontier. British policy up through the Revolutionary War, when we were nothing more than “the colonies” to the crown, was to leave the area to the Indians, who were already angry about being pushed from their eastern territories.
Native Americans were prominent here, and their influence is seen in many of the names and historic sites found in the area. Native American artifacts, in fact, are still being discovered during excavations for new buildings. Burial grounds and serpent-shaped mounds are scattered throughout the region. While digging to expand a runway at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, workers unearthed a 2,700-year-old Indian site and 7,000 artifacts.
Shortly after the Revolutionary War, the newly victorious American government declared the territory available for settlement. Ohio and all points west had nothing more to offer settlers than opportunity, although that was plenty to entice explorers, range rovers, and wide-eyed gamblers looking for a chance to strike it rich in real estate.
The westward movement began, and it didn’t take long for people to find the area that would become Cincinnati. Because of its rich soil and abundance of rivers, which were vital to the transportation and livelihood of the day, settlers started arriving as early as 1788. Most of the city’s early settlers arrived by putting several weeks’ worth of food and their life’s possessions on a flatboat—basically a small log cabin sitting on a modified Huck Finn–style raft—and drifting down the Ohio River. The current was their source of power, and travel was slower than on an L.A. freeway during rush hour.
John Filson, one of the area’s first settlers, originally named the area Losantiville, a compilation of Latin, Greek, French, and Delaware Indian meaning “town opposite the mouth of the Licking River.” Shortly after coming up with the name, Filson wandered into the nearby woods and was never heard from again.
As a base for Northwest Territory exploration and a defense against Indian attacks, Fort Washington was built in 1789. The fort, demolished in 1808, was located on what is now Third Street, on a hill just above the river basin. A small park near the intersection of Third and Broadway marks the site. A plaque on a nearby parking garage on Broadway notes the site of the fort’s powder magazine. The five-sided, 15-foot-deep magazine was discovered when the garage was being built in 1952.
The name Losantiville lasted about as long as Filson in the woods. In 1790, two days after Gen. Arthur St. Clair arrived to assume command of Fort Washington and the Northwest Territory, he invoked his newly given powers and renamed the area Cincinnati in honor of the Society of Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary War officers to which he belonged. The society drew its name from Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, a farmer who rescued the Roman army after it became trapped by the Aequi during the early period of the Roman Empire. After Cincinnatus saved the army (and possibly the Roman Empire), he decided he didn’t like military life and returned to farming.
General St. Clair didn’t have as much success militarily as Cincinnatus, however. After recruiting a militia in Pittsburgh, he set out to take on the Indians. Desertion and illness depleted St. Clair’s army, and the Miami Indians, led by Chief Little Turtle, whupped him, inflicting upon the U.S. Army its worst defeat ever. The boys in Washington summoned “Mad” Anthony Wayne in relief, and he eventually defeated the Indians.