1 32 HISTORY OF OHIO. 



shut out, almost, from the civilized world, without a mill, a 

 road, a bridge or any thing beyond their own immediate 

 resources. 



No steam boat, then navigated the Ohio river; they had no 

 nearer neighbors than a few settlers, on the Upper Ohio, far 

 above them; none lower on the river, until they descended to 

 Limestone, now Maysville, and these far distant neighbors had 

 enough to do, to defend themselves against the savages. The 

 means of traveling were not then as they are now, and they 

 were surrounded by warlike and savage nations. To one who 

 now sees the growth of any new town, favorably situated, in 

 Indiana or Illinoi?, the true situation of the new settlers on the 

 Ohio Company's Purchase in 1788-9 can hardly be conceived. 

 But we leave them, and descend the Ohio to the mouths of the 

 two Miamies. On the 10th day of November 1789, Major 

 Stites, from Brownsville, Pennsylvania, at the head of twenty- 

 five others, settled near the mouth of the Little Miami river, 

 and erected a blockhouse. They afterwards laid out a town, 

 six miles above Cincinnati, and called it Columbia. 



Symraes and Stites had become acquainted, in New Jersey, 

 and united their interests so far that Stites had purchased a 

 part of Symmes tract, and settled on it, at this early day. 

 Symmes preferred the North Bend near the Great Miami's 

 mouth, and settled there. 



But, leaving these weak settlements just begun, we are call- 

 ed off to treat of the Indian war which followed these settle- 

 ments. 



At the very time, that Stites and his twenty-five brave men, 

 were erecting their blockhouse. Major Doughty was at Fort 

 Washington, nine miles below the mouth of the Little Miami 

 river, and six below the town of Columbia. 



Lieutenant Colonel Josiah Harmar, a brigadier general, by 

 brevet, who commanded the first United States regiment of 

 infantry, had been ordered to this frontier, by the old congress, 

 and he was here at a very early day. He seems to have been the 

 highest military officer, originally, on this frontier, about that 

 time, but his force of regulars, could not have been, scarcely 



