FIRST SETTLEMENT OF OHIO. 159 



did not want food after the war was over, as the country pro- 

 duced a never failing abundance. It is hardly possible for any 

 one, who now, for the first time, sees this country, to imagine 

 one half the hardships to which the settlers were then subject- 

 ed; but " the times have changed, and we have changed with 

 them." 



The Indian war commenced, and the Governor was called 

 off into that, as we have seen, until after he resigned the mil- 

 itary command. During that period very little was done in 

 the way of civil government. 



In 1791, some French immigrants settled on the Ohio river 

 at a place, which they appropriately called Gallipolis. They 

 had been swindled out of about one hundred thousand crowns 

 in silver, by a few arch knaves, who, visiting Paris, pretended 

 to own a large tract of land, immediately adjoining on the 

 west of "the Ohio company's land." There was, some 

 few years since, one of the deeds of the pretended " Scioto 

 land company" in existence among these innocent Frenchmen, 

 and we saw it at Gallipolis, signed, Joel Barlow ! These 

 people lived at Gallipolis during the old Indian war, and suf- 

 fered some from the Indinns as well as from sickness, and ma- 

 ny privations in a far wilderness. In consideration of losses 

 by the swindlers, congress gave these settlers, twenty-four thou- 

 sand acres of beautiful land at the "French grant," in Scioto 

 county, and sold them all they wanted elsewhere, at a low price. 

 Many of these immigrants, finding themselves imposed on, by 

 the swindlers calling themselves the " Scioto land company" 

 went off to Vincennes, Kaskaskia, St. Genevieve and St. Louis, 

 and settled there. Some went to Philadelphia, and other places, 

 so that those who remained, and petitioned congress for relief, 

 succeeded very well in tarrying at their town on the Ohio 

 river. 



As we have already stated, on the 2d of January 1790, 

 Hamilton county had been organized by the territorial gov- 

 ernment, and the same authority made what is now Cincinnati, 

 the seat of justice for that county. During the next seven 

 years no new county was organized, but so many persons af- 



