Warren County
Local History by Dallas Bogan |
Contributor: |
Dallas Bogan on 13 September 2004 |
Source: |
The following is taken from Dallas Bogan's book, "The Pioneer writings of Josiah Morrow." |
Return to Index to see a list of other articles by Dallas Bogan |
After writing five articles on the earliest settlements of the Miami country
I received an invitation to the celebration of the 135th anniversary of the
first of these settlements and the dedication of a monument over the grave of
Major Benjamin Stites in the Columbia Baptist Graveyard on
November 18, 1923. It was on Wednesday morning November 18, 1788, that twenty-six
persons including three women and two girls, landed on the north bank of the
Ohio and founded the town of Columbia, now a part of Cincinnati.
The grave of the leader of the band which made the first white settlement between
the Miami rivers has been without a monument and James P. Orr,
President of the Potter Shoe Company, furnished the means for the one now erected.
Several business men of Cincinnati have financed the celebration. As a writer
for a weekly paper, this article on Benjamin Stites must be
ready for the printer before the celebration and before I can read the address
of Major Robert Ralston Jones at the dedication of the monument.
The inscription on the monument follows:
"Major Benjamin Stites born at Scotch Plains, N.J., 1734. Died August 30, 1804, in Columbia, now a part of Cincinnati.
"A Revolutionary soldier.
"Was a pioneer in this section having brought the first boatload of pioneers down the Ohio River. Landed on the bank near this spot and founded the town of Columbia on November 18, 1788.
"It was Major Benjamin Stites who induced Colonel John Cleves Symmes to purchase the land between the two Miami Rivers. Major Benjamin Stites is entitled to the credit of being the originator of the settlement of Cincinnati and Hamilton County."
The word pioneer was first a military term applied to one of a company who
marched before an army clearing the way of obstructions and was afterward applied
to any- one who goes before and prepares the way for others coming after. In
its original sense Major Stites was truly the pioneer of the
Miami settlements.
He was the first explorer of the Miami country who made known to prominent men
of his native state of New Jersey, the wonderful excellence of the Miami lands.
In the summer of 1786, he was on a trading expedition to Limestone, Ky., and
joined a party of Kentuckians in pursuit of some Indians who had stolen horses.
The thieves were traced down the Ohio and far up the Little Miami. The horses
were not found but Stites saw for the first time the rich Miami Valleys. This
led to an association in New Jersey for the purchase of the lands between the
Miamis.
He became the owner of ten thousand acres on the Ohio below the mouth of the
Little Miami and on this land he laid out Columbia, the oldest town between
the Miamis. He brought down the Ohio the first boatload of pioneers and they
made the first settlement of white men in this part of Ohio.
He deeded to the Baptists of Columbia township the ground on which was erected
the first house of worship in the Miami country in 1792, and where are still
to be seen the gravestones of many pioneers.
For a few years Columbia grew in population more rapidly than either of its
two rivals, Cincinnati and North Bend, and its first settlers were of a better
class than those at Cincinnati where there was a military force stationed at
Fort Washington and idleness, drinking and gambling prevailed both among officers
and men. Soon after Wayne's treaty of peace, however, Major Stites
saw his town almost depopulated by its settlers moving to farms up the Miamis
and Cincinnati because the chief town of Ohio and finally absorbed Columbia.
It is proper to state here that while the recently dedicated monument is the
first erected over the grave of Major Stites, on July 4, 1889,
a monument was erected on the site of the First Baptist church at Columbia on
which were inscribed the names the twenty-six pioneers who landed to make the
first settlement and at the head of the list was Major Benjamin Stites.
It will be thus seen that in the achievements of Benjamin Stites
the word "first" is to be written more frequently than of any other
pioneer of the Miami valley.
In making a large collection of autographs of Ohio men and chiefly of those
prominent in the early history of the Miami valley, I found only one of Major
Stites and this I placed first on my collection. Fortunately this autograph
is not a deed or legal document written by a lawyer and signed by the pioneer,
but the paper is a "holograph," that is, wholly in the handwriting
of the signer. It is dated less than a year after he came to Columbia and is
a receipt for the purchase money of two lots in the town he founded.
The following is an exact copy:
August 8d, 1789
then resevid of John Wick-
ersham one pound ten shilings
for one sold lot No 487 and
one donashen lot No 514 in the
sity of Columbia I say received
by me.
Benjamin Stites
The word "donashen" in this receipt is evidence that in founding
the first town between the Miamis lots were given to those who would clear and
build upon them, a custom that was nearly universal in the settlement of early
western towns.
The original shows that the pioneer could do more in the way of writing than
sign his own name; he could write a legible hand which was more than many of
his associates could do. He was not a good speller, five words being misspelled
in this receipt. In a facsimile of a few lines written by Stites in 1787, I
find "Desember," "litle miami" and "fractnel,"
the last being intended for "fractional."
But Benjamin Stites could both write and spell better than
the most distinguished pioneer of Kentucky whose name has been placed in the
Hall of Fame for great Americans.
A facsimile of a brief letter of Daniel Boone's before me shows
that his hand writing was not good and that he misspelled forty words.
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This page created 13 September 2004 and last updated
28 September, 2008
© 2004 Arne H Trelvik
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