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"THE Miamese (so we call ourselves)," wrote SYMMES to DAYTON in 1789. They were the noble men and women of the earliest Miami immigration. Very fortunate was the Purchase, from the beginning, in the character of its settlers. The general expression of those who met them personally, or have known them as represented in their descendants, concurs with the testimony of Mr. F. W. MILLER, in his valuable work on Cincinnati's Beginnings:
Whoever traces his lineage up to the early emigrants to the Miami Purchase comes of a stock which may be extolled on grounds that will bear scrutiny. Of course, those who were the first to seek homes in this section of the country, while yet in its primitive condition, were not so self-sacrificing as to suppose they were coming to a field which was likely to prove ungrateful to the laborer's toil. On the contrary, the idea was universally entertained that the field was one of great promise. Still, the promise was not of a nature to attract, to any considerable extent, a kind of adventurers who abound in some of our new settlements nowadays - people who come merely with a view of making a sudden impact on some oleaginous deposit, and, in the pursuit of their object, are usually more or less affected with an apprehension of contingencies which may render an expeditious change of their location desirable or necessary within a brief period, and such like carpet-baggers of the worst description.. The early emigrant hither sought here a permanent abode, looking forward to a time when he might expect to repose in peace and plenty under his own vine and fig-tree, yet well aware that there was a great preliminary work to be performed - the work of reclaiming a wilderness, and naturally a goodly portion of the first-comers were such as came with characters and capacities adapted to the task which they saw before them. Moreover, those who projected and managed the commencement of the civilizing process in this quarter were persons who could have given, as well as any Sir Wise acre, the answer to the question, "What constitutes a State?"

The late E. D. MANSFIELD in his Life of his brother-in-law, Dr. Daniel DRAKE, published in 1855, gives yet more glowing and eloquent testimony to the valor and virtues of the Ohio pioneers:
The settlement of the Ohio valley was attended by many circumstances which gave it peculiar interest. Its beginning was the first fruit of the Revolution. Its growth has been more rapid than that of any modern colony. In a period of little more than half a century, its strength and magnitude exceed the limits of many distinguished nations. Such results could not have been produced without efficient causes. It is not enough to account for them by referring to a mild climate, fertile soil, flowing rivers, or even good government. These are important. But a more direct one is found in the character and labors of its early citizens; for in man, at least, consists the life and glory of every State.

This is strikingly true of the States and institutions which have gone up on the banks of the Ohio. The first settlers had no such doubtful origin as the fabled Romulus, and imbibed no such savage spirit as be received from the sucklings of a wolf. They were civilized - derived from a race historically bold and energetic; had naturally received an elementary, and in some instances a superior, education; and were bred to free thought and brave actions in the great and memorable school of the American Revolution. If not actors, they were the children of those who were actors in its dangers and sufferings. These settlers came to a country magnificent in extent and opulent in all the wealth of nature. But it was nature in her ruggedness. All was wild and savage. The wilderness before them presented only a field of battle or of labor. The Indian must he subdued, the mighty forest leveled, the soil in its wide extent upturned, and from every quarter of the globe must be transplanted the seeds, the plants, and all the contrivances of life which, in other lands, had required ages to obtain. In the midst of these physical necessities and of that progress which consists in conquest and culture, there were other and higher works to be performed. Social institutions must be founded, laws must be adapted to the new society, schools established, churches built up, science cultivated, and, as the structure of the State arose upon these solid columns, it must receive the finish of the fine arts and the polish of letters. The largest part of this mighty fabric was the work of the first settlers on the Ohio - a work accomplished within the period of time allotted by Providence to the life of man. If, in after ages, history shall seek a suitable acknowledgment of their merits, it will be found in the simple record that their characters and labors were equal to the task they had to perform. Theirs was a noble work, nobly done.

It is true that the lives of these men were attended by all the common motives and common passions of human nature; but these motives and passions were humbled by the greatness of the result, and even common pursuits rendered interesting by the air of wildness and adventure which is found in all the paths of the pioneer. There were among them, too, men of great strength and intellect, of acute powers, and of a freshness and originality of genius which we seek in vain among the members of conventional society.

These men were as varied in their characters and pursuits as the parts they had to perform in the great action before them. Some were soldiers in the long battle against the Indians; some were huntsmen, like BOONE and KENTON, thirsting for fresh adventures; some were plain farmers, who came with wives and children, sharing fully in their toils and dangers; some lawyers and jurists, who early participated in council and legislation; and with them all, the doctor, the clergyman, and even the schoolmaster, was found in the earliest settlements. In a few years others came, whose names will long be remembered in any true account (if any such shall ever be written) of the science and literature of America. They gave to the strong but rude body of society here its earliest culture, in a higher knowledge and purer spirit.
 

THE ELEMENTS.

It was a hopeful mixture of elements and stocks in this part of the valley of the Ohio. Various States and nationalities had their representatives here, and some of the "crosses" of blood were fortunate for the history of their succeeding generations. New Jersey, at first and later, contributed such representative men as Judges SYMMES and BURNET; New England appeared by her distinguished son, Jared MANSFIELD, and by others before and after him; Pennsylvania sent citizens of the mental and moral stature of Jeremiah MORROW, Judge DUNLAVY, and Major STITES; the Old Dominion had worthy sons among the pioneers in the persons of William H. HARRISON, William MCMILLAN and others; while Kentucky spared to the rising young empire beyond its borders a few noted and useful citizens like Colonel Robert PATTERSON, one of the original proprietors of Cincinnati for a time, and later and more permanently, the Rev. James KEMPER, one of the founders of Lane seminary. In the one settlement of Columbia, among its founders or very early settlers were not only STITES and DUNLAVY, but the Rev. John SMITH, afterwards United States Senator, Colonels SPENCER and BROWN, Judges GOFORTH and FOSTER, Majors KIBBY and GAM, Captain FLINN, Messrs. Jacob WHITE and John REILEY, and others equally worthy of mention - all of them men of energy and enterprise, and most of whom were then or subsequently distinguished. The letters interchanged by SYMMES and his associates of the East Jersey Company show that many people of the best class, as Senator Richard Henry LEE, of Virginia, the Rev. Dr. David JONES, of Pennsylvania, and others, were inquiring with a view to purchase or settlement in the new country. Those who actually did so, as the

Such were the "Miamese," the pioneers of one of the grandest armies the earth ever knew, an army whose hosts are still sweeping irresistibly on, and which now, after more than ninety years, has hardly yet fully occupied the country it has won. It was the army of peace and civilization, that came, not to conquer an enemy with blood and carnage and ruin, but to subdue a wilderness by patient toil, to make the wild valleys and hills to blossom as the rose, to sweep away the forest, till the prairie's pregnant soil, make fertile fields, and hew out homes, which were to become the abodes of happiness and plenty. The pioneers were the valiant vanguard of such an army as this. They came not, as has already been suggested, to enjoy a life of lotus-eating and ease. They could admire the pristine beauty of the scenes that unveiled before them; they could enjoy the vernal green of the great forest and the loveliness of all the works of nature spread so lavishly and beautifully about them; they could look forward with happy anticipation to the life they were to lead in the midst of all this beauty, and to the rich reward that would be theirs from the cultivation of the mellow, fertile soil - but they had, first of all things, to work. The seed-time comes before the harvest, in other fields than that of agriculture.
 

THE DANGERS

to which these pioneers were exposed were serious. The Indians, notwithstanding their peaceful attitude at first, could not be trusted, and, as will be detailed in the next chapter, often visited the early settlements with devastation and slaughter. The larger wild beasts were often a cause of dread, and the smaller were a source of constant and great annoyance. Added to these was the liability, always great in a new country, to sickness. In the midst of all the loveliness of the surroundings, there was a sense of loneliness that could not be dispelled; and this was a far greater trial to the men and women who first dwelt in the western country than is generally imagined. The deep-seated, constantly recurring feeling of isolation made many stout hearts turn back to the older settlements and to the abodes of comfort, the companionship and sociability they had left in the Atlantic States or in the Old World.
 

PRIMITIVE POVERTY.

Many of the Miamese arrived at their new homes with but little with which to begin the battle of life. They had brave hearts and strong arms, however; and they were possessed of invincible determination. Frequently they came on alone, to make a beginning; and, this having been accomplished, would return to their old homes for their wives and children. It was hard work, too, getting into the country. On this side of Redstone and Wheeling there were for a long time no roads westward, and the flat- or keel-boats used in floating down the Ohio were so crowded with wagons, horses, cows, pigs, and other live stock, with provisions, and with the emigrant's "plunder," that there was scarcely room for a human being to sit, stand, or steep. There was much inevitable exposure to the weather and many dangers from ice, snags, and other perils of the streams.
 

THE BEGINNINGS.

The first thing to be done, after a temporary shelter from the rain or snow had been provided, was to prepare a little spot of ground for some crop, usually corn. This was done by girdling the trees, clearing away the underbrush, if there chanced to be any, and sweeping the surface with fire. Ten, fifteen, twenty, or even thirty acres of land, by a vigorous arm, might thus be prepared and planted the first season. In autumn the crop would be gathered carefully and garnered with the least possible waste, for it was the food supply of the pioneer and his family, and life itself depended, in part, upon its preservation. Their table was still largely furnished, however, from the products of the chase, and supplies of the minor articles of food, of salt, etc., were often only to be obtained at a distance. In this respect the settlers in the southern part of the Purchase were more favored than those in the interior, since merchants were in all their towns almost from the beginning, and with stocks pretty well supplied. By January, 1796, Judge SYMMES wrote, "we have twenty or more merchants in Cincinnati." At first there was much difficulty in getting grain ground, as it had to be done often at a great distance, and in a clumsy and rude way by floating mills, whose wheels were turned by the current of a stream or by horse-power. Some had hominy hand-mills at home, or grated the grain or pounded it into the semblance of meal or flour with an extemporized pestle. In default of cultivated breadstuffs, as sometimes happened, certain roots of wild grasses and plants served for food. This was particularly true of the beargrass, which grew abundantly on the Turkey bottom and elsewhere in similar places. Its bulbous roots were gathered by the women, washed, dried on smooth boards, and pounded into a kind of flour, from which bread and other preparations were made. Many families at Columbia, at one time of scarcity, lived on this food. Sometimes even this was wanting. One person, who was a boy in the first days of Columbia, long afterward averred that he had subsisted for three days together upon nothing more than a pint of parched corn. Crops were liable to be damaged or destroyed, if near a stream, by its overflow; and sometimes serious inconvenience to the settler and his family resulted. It was hard to keep one's horses, and most other portable property, from being stolen by the Indians; and from this fact, as late as 1792, according to a note in one of Judge SYMMES' letters, "more than half the inhabitants were obliged to raise

While the men were engaged in the heavy labor of the field and forest or in following the deer or other game, their helpmates were busied with their household duties, providing for the day and for the winter coming on, cooking, making clothes, spinning, and weaving. They were commonly well fitted, by nature and experience, to be consorts of the brave men who first came into the western wilderness. They were heroic in their endurance of hardship, privation, and loneliness. Their industry was well directed and unceasing Woman's work, then, like man's, was performed under disadvantages since removed. She had not only the common household duties to perform, but many now- committed to other hands. She not only made the clothing of the family, but also the fabric for it. The famous old occupation of spinning and weaving, with which woman's name has been associated throughout all history, and which the modern world knows little, except through the stories of the grandmother, which seems surrounded with a halo of romance as we look back to it through tradition and poetry, and which always conjures up visions of the graces and virtues of a generation gone - that was the chief industry of the pioneer women. Every cabin resounded with the softly whirring wheel, and many forest homes with the rhythmic thud of the loom. The pioneer woman, truly, answered the ancient description of King Lemuel in the Proverbs: "She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands: she layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." Almost every article of clothing not made of deerskin, as many a hunting shirt and pair of leggins was, and, indeed, about all the cloth to be found in some of the old cabins, was the product of her toil. She spun flax and wove linen and woolen for shirts and pantaloons, frocks, sheets and blankets. Linen and wool, the "linsey-woolsey" of the primitive day, furnished most of the material for
 

THE CLOTHING

of the men and women, though some was obtained from the skins of wild beasts. Men commonly wore the hunting shirt, a kind of loose frock reaching half-way down the thighs, open before, and so wide as to lap over a foot or more upon the chest. This generally had a cape, which was often fringed with a ravelled piece of cloth of a different color from that which composed the garment. The capacious bosom of the shirt often served as a pouch, in which could be carried the smaller articles that a hunter or woodsman needs. It was always worn belted, and was made of coarse linen, linsey, or buckskin, according to the taste or fancy of the weaver. In the belt was worn a bunting or "scalping knife," unhappily too ready at hand, as was sometimes proved at the cost of a human life, Upon occasions of deadly quarrel. Breeches were made of heavier cloth or dressed deerskins and were often worn with leggings of the same material or some kind of leather, while the feet were frequently encased in moccasins after the Indian fashion, which were quickly and easily made, though they often needed mending. The buckskin breeches or leggings were very comfortable when dry, but seemed cold when wet, and were almost as stiff as wooden garments would be when next put on. Hats or caps were generally made of coonskin, wildcat, or other native fur. The women, when they could hot procure "store duds," dressed in linsey petticoats, coarse shoes and stockings, and wore buckskin mittens or gloves, not for style, but when any protection was required for the bands. All of her wearing apparel, like that of the men, was made with a view to service and comfort, and was quite commonly of home manufacture throughout. Other and finer articles were worn sometimes, but they were brought from former homes or bought at the stores in the settlements along the river, in the former case being

In the cabins of the more cultivated pioneers were usually a few books - the Bible and a hymn-book, the Pilgrim's Progress, Baxter's Saint's Rest, Hervey's Meditations, Esop's Fables, Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, and the like. The long winter evenings were spent partly in poring over a few well-thumbed volumes by the light of the great log fire, and partly in curing and dressing skins, knitting, mending, and other employments. Hospitality was simple, unaffected, hearty, and unbounded. The latch-string was "always out" at nearly every cabin.
 

WHISKEY

was in common use, and was furnished on all occasions of sociability. It was brought in from Kentucky and the Monongahela country, and down the Ohio and Licking rivers. A few years later many of the settlers put up small stills, and made an article of corn whiskey that was not held in so high esteem, though used for ordinary drinking in large quantities. Nearly every settler had his barrel of it stored away. It was quite the universal drink at merry-makings, bees, house-warmings, and weddings, and was always set before the traveller who chanced to spend the night or take a meal at a pioneer cabin. In this the settler but followed the custom of other pioneer communities.
 

SOCIETY.

As settlements increased, the sense of loneliness and isolation was dispelled, the asperities of life were softened, its amenities multiplied, social gatherings became more numerous and enjoyable, the log-rolling, harvesting, and husking bees for the men, and the apple-butter making and quilting parties for the women, furnished frequent occasions for social intercourse. The early settlers took much pride and pleasure in rifle-shooting, and, as they were accustomed to the use of the gun in the chase and relied upon it as a weapon of defence, they exhibited considerable skill. A wedding was the local event of chief importance in the sparsely settled new country. The young people had every inducement to marry, and generally did marry as soon as able to provide for themselves. When a marriage was to be celebrated, all the neighborhood turned out. It was customary to have the ceremony performed before dinner, and, in order to be on time, the groom and his attendants usually started from his father's house in the morning for that of the bride. All went on horseback, riding in single file along the narrow trails. Arriving at the cabin of the bride's parents, the ceremony would be performed, and after that dinner was served. This was a substantial backwoods feast of beef, pork, fowls, and deer or bear meat, with such vegetables as could be procures. The greatest hilarity prevailed during the meal. After it was over, dancing began, and was usually kept up till the next morning, though the newly made husband and wife were, as a general thing, put to bed by the company in the most approved old fashion and, with considerable formality, in the midst of the evening's rout. The tall young men, when they went on the floor to dance, had to take their places with care between the logs that supported the loft floor, or they were in danger of bumping their beads. The figures of the dances were three and four-handed reels, or square sets and jigs. The commencement was always a square four, which was followed by "jigging it off." The settlement of a young couple was thought to be thoroughly and generously made when the neighbors assembled and raised a cabin for them.
 

AGRICULTURE.

During all the early years of the settlements, varied with occasional pleasures and excitements, the great work of increasing the tillable ground went slowly on. The implements and tools were few, compared with what the farmer may command nowadays, and of a primitive kind; but the soil, that had long held in reserve the accumulated richness of centuries, produced splendid harvests, and the husbandman was well rewarded for his labor. The soil was warmer then than now, and the seasons earlier. The bottom lands, if not flooded by the freshets, were often as green by the first of March as fields of grain now are a month later. The wheat was pastured in the spring, to keep it from growing up so early and fast as to become lodged. The harvest came early, and the yield was often from thirty-five to forty or more bushels per acre.
 

PIONEER MONEY.

The first circulating medium in the new country was composed mainly of raccoon and other skins from than forest. Mr. John G. OLDEN says, in his entertaining Historical Sketches and Early Reminiscences: "A deer-skin was worth and represented a dollar; a fox-skin, one-third of a dollar; a coon-skin, one-fourth of a dollar; --- and these passed almost as readily as the silver coin. The buffalo and bear-skins had a more uncertain value, and were less used as a medium of trade." Spanish dollars, very likely cut into quarters and eighth pieces, sometimes appeared, and in time constituted, with the smaller pieces of Mexican coinage, the greater part of the currency afloat. Smaller sums, than twelve and a half cents were often paid or given in change in pins, needles, writing-paper, and other articles of little value. A Cincinnati merchant named BARTLE brought in a barrel of copper coins to "inflate the currency" in 1794, but his fellow-merchants were so exasperated at his action that they almost mobbed him. These troops at Fort Washington were paid in Federal money, commonly bills of the old Bank of the United States, of which a three-dollar note was then the monthly pay of a private. The bills were usually called "oblongs," especially at the gaming tables, which many of the officers and soldiers frequented. The funds disbursed at Fort Washington made valuable additions to the currency of the lower Miami country, and greatly facilitated its commercial and mercantile growth and business operations there.
 

PRICES.

From some parts of the Purchase long journeys bad to be made upon occasion, and very likely on foot, when

During the War of 1812 many of the pioneer husbands and fathers volunteered in the service of the United States, and others were drafted. Women and children were left alone in many an isolated log-cabin all through Ohio, and there was a long reign of unrest, anxiety, and terror. It was feared by all that the Indians might take advantage of the desertion of these homes by their natural defenders, and pillage and destroy them. The dread of robbery and murder filled many a mother's heart; but happily the worst fears of this kind proved to be groundless, and this part of the country was spared any scenes of actual Indian violence during the war. After it ended, a greater feeling of security prevailed than ever before. A new motive was given to immigration, and the country more rapidly filled up. An

ERA OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY

was fairly begun. Progress of the best kind was, slowly, surely made. The log houses became more numerous in the clearings; the forest shrank away before the woodman's axe; frame houses began to appear in many localities where they were before unknown; the pioneers, assured of safety, laid better plans for the future, resorted to new industries, enlarged their possessions, and improved the means of cultivation. Stock was brought in greater numbers from Kentucky and the east. Every settler now had his horses, oxen, cattle, sheep, and hogs. More commodious structures about the farm took the place of the old ones. The double log cabin, of hewed logs, or a frame dwelling, took the place of the smaller one; log and frame barns were built for the protection of stock and the housing of the crops. Then society began more thoroughly to organize itself; the school-house and the church appeared in all the rural communities; and the advancement was noticeable in a score of other ways. The work of the Miamese pioneers was mainly done. Their hardships and privations, so patiently and even cheerfully borne in the time of them, were now pleasantly remembered. The best had been made of what they had, and they had toiled with stout hearts to lay the foundations of the civilization that began to bloom about them. Industrious and frugal simple in their tastes and pleasures, happy in an independence, however hardly gained, and looking forward hopefully to an old age of plenty and peace which should reward them for the toils of their earliest years, and a final rest from the struggle of many toilsome seasons, they were ready to join in the song which was pleasantly sung for them long after by the Buckeye poet, William D. GALLAGHER, dedicated to the descendants of Colonel Israel LUDLOW, and entitled
 

SIXTY YEARS AGO.

A song of the early times out west and our green old forest home,
Whose pleasant memories freshly yet across the boom come!
A song for the free and gladsome life in those early days we led,
With a teeming soil beneath our feet and a smiling heaven o'erhead!
O, the waves of life danced merrily and had a joyous flow,
In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago!

The hunt, the shot, the glorious chase, the captured elk or deer!
The camp, the big, bright fire, and then the rich and wholesome cheer;
The sweet, sound sleep at dead of night by our camp-fire blazing high,
Unbroken by the wolf's long howl and the panther springing by,
O, merrily passed the time, in spite our wily Indian foe,
In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago!

We shunn'd not labor; when 'twas due, we wrought with right good-will;
And for the homes we won for them, our children bless us still.
We lived not hermit lives, but oft in social converse met;
And fires of love were kindled then that burn on warmly yet.
O, pleasantly the stream of life pursued its constant flow,
In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago!

We felt that we were fellow-men, we felt we were a band
Sustain'd here in the wilderness by Heaven's upholding hand;
And when the solemn Sabbath came we gather'd in the wood,
And lifted up our hearts in prayer to God, the only good.
Our temples then were earth and sky; none others did we know
In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago!

Our forest life was rough and rude, and dangers closed us round;
But here, amid the green old trees, we freedom sought and found.
Oft though our dwellings wintry blasts would rush with shriek and moan;
We cared not, though they were but frail; we felt they were our own.
O, free and manly lives we led, 'mid verdure or 'mid snow,
In the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago!

But now our course of life is short; and as, from day to day,
We're walking on with halting step and fainting by the way,
Another land, more bright than this, to our dim sight appears,
And on our way to it we'll soon again be pioneers;
Yet, while we linger, we may all a backward glance still throw
To the days when we were pioneers, sixty years ago!

Without an iron will and an indomitable resolution, they could never have accomplished what they did. Their heroism deserves the highest tribute of praise and admiration that can be awarded, and their brave and toilsome deeds should have permanent record in the pages of history.