cres were
committed in their neighborhoods, although the savages were waging a
general war against the frontier, and carrying destruction into
settlements, comparatively in the interior.

In the winter of 1786, Mr. Stites of Redstone visited New York with
the view of purchasing (congress being then in session there) for
settlement, a tract of country between the two Miamies. The better
to insure success to his project, he cultivated the acquaintance of
many members of congress and endeavored to impress upon their minds
its propriety and utility. John Cleves Symmes, then a representative
from New Jersey, and whose aid Stites solicited to enable him to
effect the purchase, becoming impressed with the great pecuniary
advantage which must result from the speculation, if the country were
such as it was represented to be, determined to ascertain this fact by
personal inspection. He did so; and on his return a purchase of one
million of acres, lying on the Ohio and between the Great and Little
Miami, was made in his name. Soon after, he sold to Matthias Denman
and others, that part of his purchase which forms the present site of
the city of Cincinnati; and in the fall of 1789, some families from
New York, New Jersey, and Redstone, descended the Ohio river to the
mouth of the Little Miami. As the Indians were now more than
ordinarily troublesome, forty soldiers under Lieut. Kersey, were
ordered to join them for the [290] defence of the settlement. They
erected at first a single blockhouse, and soon after adding to it
three others, a stockade fort was formed on a position now included
within the town of Columbia.

In June 1789, Major Doughty with one hundred and forty regulars,
arrived opposite the mouth of Licking, and put up four block houses on
the purchase made by Denman of Symmes, and directly after, erected
Fort Washington. Towards the close of the year, Gen. Harmar arrived
with three hundred other regulars, and occupied the fort. Thus assured
of safety, Israel Ludlow, (jointly interested with Denman and
Patterson) with twenty other persons, moved and commenced building
some cabins along the river and near to the fort.--During the winter
Mr. Ludlow surveyed and laid out the town of Losantiville,[10] but
when Gen. St. Clair came there as governor of the North Western
Territory, he changed its name to Cincinnati.[11]

[290] In 1790, a settlement was made at the forks of Duck creek,
twenty miles up the Muskingum at the si