Report in Memory of Robert Buchanan. 11 



present century, when the great West was taking a place in the commercial 

 history of the country. Cincinnati was the commercial point where busi- 

 ness of the West centered. It will be seen, from what we have said, that 

 Mr. Buchanan was a merchant and a manufacturer devoted to the great 

 idea of increasing the commerce of the great valley of the Mississippi. In 

 his life-time he could go back to the scenes of his early childhood, in Penn- 

 sylvania, where only a few years before he was born, the whole Allegheny 

 ridge was an unbroken mass of wilderness. Trains of pack horses might 

 be seen climbing the mountain sides by the bridal path, threading the mean- 

 ders of the valleys and gorges, trembling on the brinks of precipices 

 and sliding down declivities which scarcely afforded a secure footing to 

 man or beast. They were laden with merchandise for traffic. The con- 

 ductors were men inured to all the hardships which beset the traveler in 

 the wilderness. Men who united the craft of the hunter to the courage 

 and the discipline of the soldier, for the road they traveled was the war 

 path of the Indian. It was the track that had hesn beaten smooth by the 

 feet of them that sought the blood of the white men, and who still lurked 

 in the way bent on plunder and carnage. There was no resting place, no 

 accommodations, no shelter. Throughout the day they plodded on through 

 the forest, scaling steep acclivities, fording rivers, enduring all toils of an 

 arduous march, and encamping at night in the wilderness, observing the 

 precaution and the discipline of a military party in a hostile country. 

 These were merchants carrying their wares to the forts and settlements of 

 the West. They were the pioneers of that commerce which now employs 

 the wealth and controls the resources of an empire. In Mr. Buchanan's 

 boyhood, he was acquainted with the O'Haras, the Irwins, the Semples, 

 and others, who were the pioneers in the commerce of the Ohio valley. 



In reviewing the life of our late member, and tracing the scenes and 

 adventures of the early pioneers, it may be interesting to some of our young 

 menbers to know that the building which we occup}'^ is on part of the ground 

 formerly occupied as Fort Washington, and using the language of a favorite 

 author, we can compare'the early history with the busy scenes of a popu- 

 lous city. 



Eighty-five years ago, the national flag waved over a lone fortress, sur- 

 rounded by a few log huts, on the spot we now occupy. Around it was the 

 unbroken forest, penetrated only by the war path of the Indian and the 

 track of the buffalo. Standing upon the ramparts of that fort, the eye of the 

 beholder would have rested on the pristine verdure of the luxuriant forest, 

 and on the placid stream of the Ohio, seldom disturbed even b}^ the water 



