Tour to the Western Country

[232] Vol. IV
p255 Chapter XXXVIII
Columbia — Newport — Cincinnati — Port William — Louisville and the falls.

May 7th, at 8 P.M. despaired from Maysville — 8th, the Ohio is safe and clear of obstructions from Maysville to the Little Miami river, fifty-six miles.

Little Miami is a beautiful river, sixty or seventy yards wide, falling into the Ohio on the right from the northward.  p256 The village of Columbia just below, is beautifully situated on an extensive bottom. Seven miles lower we passed on the left the village of Newport, containing a large brick arsenal and magazine, the property of the general government. It is just above the conflux of the Licking river, which is about one hundred yards wide. The banks of the Ohio display a great sameness so far, they having a gentle slope, and rich soil, thickly wooded and thinly inhabited.

We stopped at Cincinnati which is delightfully situated just opposite the mouth of Licking river.​166 — This town occupies more ground, and seems to contain nearly as many houses as Lexington. It is on a double bank like Steubenville, and the streets are in right lines, intersecting at right angles. The houses are many of them of brick, and they are all in general well built, well painted, and have that air of neatness which is so conspicuous in Connecticut and Jersey, from which latter state, this part of the state of Ohio is  p257 principally settled. Some of the new brick houses [233]are of three stories with flat roofs, and there is one of four stories now building. Mr. Jacob Burnet, an eminent lawyer, has a handsome brick house beautifully situated just outside the west end of the town.​167 Cincinnati, then named Fort Washington, was one of the first military posts occupied by the Americans in the western country, but I observed no remains of the old fort. It is now the capital of Hamilton County, and is the largest town in the state.

After remaining at Cincinnati from three o'clock until half past five, we then proceeded, passing Col. Suydam's very handsome stone house with piazzas and balconies, in the French West India style, three or four miles below.

May 9th, having passed the Big Miami, the boundary between Ohio and the territory of Indiana in the night, at seven in the morning we were abreast of Big Bone Lick creek, so called from a skeleton of the mammoth being found here.​168 This is fifty-nine miles below Cincinnati. The tiresome sameness of the banks continued until noon when being abreast of one Reamy's, thirty-two miles further, the settlements became thicker on the Kentucky side, and the river assumed a more cheerful appearance. I observed some farms on the opposite shore of Indiana, at one of which I was informed was a vineyard.

At three P.M. we stopped at Port William, delightfully situated just above the embouchure of Kentucky river,  p258 which is from eighty to a hundred yards wide. This is the capital of Gallatin county, and contains twenty-one houses, many of which are of brick, but all rather in a state of decay.​169 The lands appear good, but probably the country is not in a sufficient state of improvement to admit of a town here yet. Frankfort the capital of the state, is on the Kentucky, only sixty miles above Port William.

[234]At four we gave our boats to the stream, and after floating all night seventy-eight miles, past some islands and some thinly scattering settlements, we rowed into Bear Grass creek, which forms a commodious little harbour without current for Louisville, May 10th, at 9 A.M.

Louisville is most delightfully situated on an elevated plain to which the ascent from the creek and river is gradual, being just slope enough to admit of hanging gardens with terraces, which doctor Gault at the upper, and two Messrs. Buttets at the lower end of the town have availed themselves of, in laying out their gardens very handsomely and with taste. From the latter, the view both up and down the river is truly delightful. Looking upwards, a reach of •five or six miles presents itself, and turning the eye to the left, Jeffersonville, a neat village of thirty houses, in Indiana, about a mile distant, is next seen. The eye still turning a little more to the left, next rests upon a high point where general Clark first encamped his little army, about thirty years ago, when he descended the river to make a campaign against the Indians, at which time Louisville, and almost the whole of Kentucky was a wilderness covered with forests. The rapids or falls (as they are called) of the Ohio, are the next objects which strike the observer. They are formed by a range of rocks and low islands, which extend across the  p259 river, the deepest channel through which is near the Indiana shore, and has only six feet water, and that even very narrow when the river is low. The fall here has been proved by a level to be twenty-two inches and a half in two miles, from Bear Grass creek to Shipping Port, which causes a velocity of current of about twelve miles an hour in the channel. Clarksville, a new village in Indiana at the lower end of the rapids, is next seen, beyond which Silver creek hills, a moderately high and even chain, bounded the view •five or six miles distant.​170 Continuing [235]to turn to the left, Rock island, and the same chain of hills appearing over it, finish two thirds of a very fine panorama. The town and surrounding forests form the other third.

Louisville consists of one principal and very handsome street, about half a mile long, tolerably compactly built, and the houses greatly superiour to any I have seen in the western country with the exception of Lexington. Most are of handsome brick, and some are three stories, with a parapet wall on the top in the modern European taste, which in front gives them the appearance of having flat roofs.

I had thought Cincinnati one of the most beautiful towns I had seen in America, but Louisville, which is almost as large, equals it in beauty, and in the opinion of many excels it. It was considered as unhealthy which impeded its progress, until three or four years ago, when probably in  p260 consequence of the surrounding country being more opened, bilious complaints ceased to be so frequent, and it is now considered by the inhabitants as healthy as any town on the river. There is a market house, where is a very good market every Wednesday and Saturday. The court house is a plain two story building with a square roof and small belfry. There are bells here on the roofs of the taverns as in Lexington, to summon the guests to their meals. Great retail business is done here, and much produce is shipped to New Orleans.

May 11. — At four P.M. Mr. Nelson, a pilot, came on board and conducted the boats through the falls, by the Kentucky schute, and in forty-five minutes we moored at Shippingport, where we found commodore Peters's boat and officers, and captain Nevitt's gun boat, all bound to New Orleans in a few days.

[236]Shippingport is a fine harbour, there being no current in it, but the banks are rather low, so as to be inundated at very high floods.

Mr. Berthoud, who has a handsome house here, is connected with Mr. Tarascon of Louisville in one of the finest rope walks in the United States. It is twelve hundred feet long, of which seven hundred and fifty are covered.171

A little above the port is a mill wrought by the Ohio, the race being formed by a small bank, which has been cut through purposely.

---

The Editor's Notes:

166 The Licking was explored by Harrod's party in 1774, and five years later Bowman's unfortunate expedition rendezvoused at its mouth. The next year (1780) George Rogers Clark in his raid against the Chillicothe Indians built two blockhouses on the site on Cincinnati; and again in 1782 started from hence against the Miamis. In 1785‑86, the Federal Government built Fort Finney above the mouth of the Great Miami, where Clark held a treaty in the latter year. After the erection of the Northwest Territory, and the opening of the district to landholders, John Cleves Symmes bought a million acres between the two Miami rivers, and towns were soon formed. Matthias Denman (1788) purchased of Symmes for two hundred dollars a square mile opposite the mouth of the Licking, and forming a partner­ship with Robert Patterson of Lexington, and John Filson, a Kentucky schoolmaster, founded a town which the latter entitled Losantiville, "town opposite the mouth of the Licking." This fantastic compound was retained until Governor St. Clair (1790) changed the name to Cincinnati in honor of the military society. Fort Washington, government post, built in 1790, protected the infant settlement.

Meanwhile Symmes had platted a town on the Great Miami, which he called North Bend, and desired to have established as the capital of the new Northwest Territory. Columbia was also laid out at the mouth of the Little Miami, and the three towns contended for leader­ship until Cincinnati was made capital of the Territory in 1800, and began to flourish apace. The garrison was removed from Fort Washington to Newport barracks in 1804. The residence of Colonel Suydam has given its name to Suydamsville, a western suburb of Cincinnati. — Ed.

167 Jacob Burnet, born in New Jersey in 1770, was of Scotch descent. When a young man of twenty-six he came to the Northwest Territory to practice law, and settled at Cincinnati. His public services were as member of the territorial council (1798), as supreme judge of the State, and as United States Senator. He was the author of Notes on the Early Settlement of the Northwestern Territory (Cincinnati, 1847), a valuable pioneer history. Burnet's home was the scene of noteworthy hospitality, all prominent visitors to the region being there entertained. A portion of his estate is now a public park for Cincinnati, known as Burnet Woods. — Ed.

168 For note on Big Bone Lick, see Croghan's Journals, vol. I of this series, p135, note 104. — Ed.

169 Port William is now called Carrollton, and is the county-seat of Carroll County, erected out of the limits of Gallatin in 1838. — Ed.

170 On the early history of Louisville, see Croghan's Journals, vol. I of this series, p136, note 106.

Clarksville was established (1783) on the grant of lands given by the Virginia legislature to the soldiers who had served in Clark's campaign in the Illinois. Much was expected of this new town opposite the Falls of Ohio; but it never flourished, and gradually declined before its more prosperous neighbor, Jeffersonville (founded in 1802), and has now become but a suburb of the manufacturing town of New Albany. General George Rogers Clark had a home on a point of rocks near Clarksville. — Ed.

171 Shippingsport — now a portion of the city of Louisville — was incorporated under the name of Campbellville in 1785. The name was changed when James Berthoud became its proprietor in 1805. Shippingsport was an important starting place for traffic west and south from Louisville, until the construction of the Louisville and Portland Canal in 1832.

The Tarascons were brothers who came from France to Kentucky, early in the nineteenth century. They built large mills at Shippingsport (1815‑19), and were known as enterprising and public-spirited citizens. — Ed.

Images with borders lead to more information. The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)
UP TO:	Cuming's Tour	American History	Home
A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY if its URL has a total of one *asterisk. If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use. If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer. See my copyright page for details and contact information.