Ohio History Journal

CINCINNATI-A       CIVIC ODE.

 

 

WILLIAM   HENRY VENABLE.

[Professor William Henry Venable ranks among the first of Ohio's

most honored educators and authors. For many years he was professor

in the High Schools of Cincinnati. His published works embrace history,

poetry, literature and fiction. He has been a devoted student of the liter-

ature of the Ohio Valley. He delivered the address on Ohio Literary

Men and Women at the Ohio Centennial celebration, Chillicothe, May 20,

1903. His splendid ode herewith printed was recited by his son, Profes-

sor Emerson Venable, at the banquet given by the Cincinnatians at the

Queen City Club, Friday evening, November 29, 1907, to the delegates to

the Central Ohio Valley Historical Conference. - EDITOR.]

 

I.

O not unsung, not unrenowned,

Ere brave Saint Clair to his reward had gone,

Or yet from yond the ample bound

Of green Ohio's hunting ground

Tecumseh faced the Anglo-Saxon dawn,

My City Beautiful was throned and crowned;

Then all Hesperia confest,

With jubilant acclaim,

Her sovereign and inviolable name,

Queen of the West!

II.

Upon the proud young bosom she was nursed,

Of the Republic, in the wild

Security of God's primeval wood:

Illustrious Child!

By Liberty begotten, first

Of all that august civic sisterhood

Born since the grand Ordain of Eighty-Seven

Promulged its mandatory plevin,

Which fain had reconciled

Human decretals and the voice of Heaven.

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Cincinnati - A Civil Ode.              81

 

III.

Baptismal sponsors gave

Her virtuous patronymical and brave,

From hoary chronicle and legend caught,

And blazon of that laureled son of Mars,

Whose purple heraldry of scars,

(From fields of valorous duty brought,)

Enriched patrician Rome with dower

Of ancient honorable power.

The half-tradition old

Of Cincinnatus told,

Who cast aside the victor's brand and took

In peaceful grasp the whetted pruning-hook,

And drave the plowshare through the furrowed mold,

Was golden legend unto Washington

And his compeers in patriotic arms,

Who flung the sword and musket down,

(Their martial fields of glory won,)

Shouldered the ax and spade,

To wage a conquering crusade

Against brute forces and insensate foes:

Beseiged the stubborn shade,

Subdued their savage farms,

Builded the busy town,

And bade the desert blossom as the rose.

 

IV.

Upgrew a fair Emporium beside

Ohio's amber flood, as by the yellow tide

Of storied Tiber sprung, of yore,

On lowland and acropolis,

The elder world's metropolis,

Along the imperial shore!

V.

Yet not of Latian swarm were they

Who hived the early honey of the West;

Vol. XVII--6 .

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They boasted Borean sires of strenuous clay;

Long-striding men of soldierly broad breast,

Of dauntless brain and all-achieving hands,

Fetched out of British and Teutonic lands,

Schooled for command by knowing to obey,

Inured to fight and disciplined to pray,

Columbian leaders of potential sway,

Survivors of the European Best!

 

VI.

With brand desire and purpose vast,

To purge from dross the metal true,

And pour the seven-times-molten Past

In perfect patterns of the New,

They led the migratory van;

And every hero carried in his heart

The constitution and politic chart,

The code, the creed, the high-imagined plan

Of that Ideal State whereunto wend

The hopeful dreams of universal man,

And whither all the ages tend.

 

VII.

Such the stock adventure brought

Over Allegheny ranges,

By the Revolution taught

War and Fortune's bitter changes:

They hewed the forest jungle, broke

The wild, reluctant plain;

With rhythmic sinews, stroke on stroke,

They cradled in the grain;

The masted barge on gliding keel

Rich bales of traffic bore;

The laden steamer's cataract wheel

Befoamed the River shore;

Anon, as rolls the thunder-peal,

As glares the lightning flame,

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Cincinnati -A Civil Ode.

 

O'er trammeled miles of outspun steel

The Locomotive came!-

Electron's viewless messengers, more fleet

Than herald Mercury of winged feet,

Far-flashing, multiplied the thrilling word,

Freedom! and Freedom !-Freedom, evermore!-

Which all the Appalachian echoes heard

And broad Atlantic's rumorous billows bore

Persuasive to his utmost peopled shore,

Tempting shrewd Mammon, and with louder voice

Bidding courageous Poverty rejoice:

Then Westward ho! the Movers found their goal,

Ohio, thine auspicious Metropole!-

Nor landmark-trees blazed by his hatchet blade,

Nor scanty bounds by Filson's chain surveyed,

Might longer then suffice as border-line;

Not Eastern Row nor Western, could confine

Emption of homestead, or sequestered hold

Salubrious Mohawk's northward-spreading wold:

A century's growth, down crashed the 'builder Oak,'

The quarry from Silurian slumber woke,

The town, advancing, saw the farms retreat,

The turnpike rumbled, now a paven street:-

With bold and eager Emulation rode

Young Enterprise; keen Industry and Wealth

Sought new employ and prosperous abode

With blithe Success and robust Hope and Health,

In verdant vale where through Dameta flowed,

Or high upon the crofts and bowery hills,

Above the gardens and the rural mills

Of Mahketewa's brook and affluent rills:

Their palaces adorned each rampart green,

Their cottages in every dell were seen,

O'er which the well-beloved Queen

Holds chartered reign

And eminent domain!

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VIII.

Today wouldst thou behold

What ensigns of magnificence and might

Her spacious realms of urban grandeur show?

Choose for thy belvedere some foreland bold,

Auburn, or Echo, or aerial height

Of Sun-clad Edens' blossomy plateau:-

There bid thy wildered gaze

Explore the checquered maze,

Unending street, innumerable square,

Park, courtyard, terrace, fountain, esplanade,

Gay boulevard and thronging thoroughfare,

Far villas peering out from bosky shade,

Cliff-clambering roads and shimmering waterways:

Lo, Architecture here and Sculpture vie

With rival works of carven wonder shown

In sumptuous granite and marmorean stone;

Behold stupendous where proud citadels

Of legionary Trade aspire the sky,

And where Religion's sanctuaries raise

Their domed and steepled votive splendors high :

(Upon the hush of Sabbath morning swells

How sweet their chime of tolerant bells!)

 

IX.

Seen dimly over many a roofy mile,

Where hills obscure environ vales remote,

Rise colonnaded stacks of chimney pile,

Above whose dusky summits float

Pennons of smoke, like signal flags unfurled

Atop their truce-proclaiming towers,

By the allied triumphal powers

Of Science, Labor and mechanic Skill,

Subduing nature to man's godlike will;

Forth yonder myriad( factories are whirled,

By steam and lightning's aid,

Invention's yield perpetual, conveyed

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Cincinnati- A Civil Ode.              85

 

Beyond strange seas to buy the bartered world!-

Hark, the hoarse whistle, and dull, distant roar

Of rumbling freight-trains, ponderous and slow,

Monsters of iron joint, which come and go

Obedient to the watchful semaphore

That curbs their guided course along the shore.

Edged by the margin of the southern River

Now golden gleam, now silvern flash and quiver

The molten mirrors of its burnished tide

Whereover costly argosies of Commerce ride!

 

X.

Thrice-happy City, dearest to my heart,

Who, showering benizon upon her own,

Endows her opulent material mart

With lavish purchase from each ransacked zone,

Yet ne'er forgot exchange of rarer kind,

By trade-winds from all ports of Wisdom blown-

Imperishable merchandise of Mind:

Man may not live by bread alone,

But every word of God shall be made known!-

Thy voyagers of Argonaut,

Enriched with dazzling ransom of their toil

In ravaged Colchis, costlier guerdon brought

As trophy home than prize of golden spoil:

Gems from the trove of Truth, for ages sought,

Precious beyond appraise in sordid fee;

Audit of Culture, treasury of Art:

Whate'er the Daughters of Mnemosyne

In templed grove of Academe impart:

Heroic Song, Philosophy divine,

Precept oracular, Narration old,

Or aught by sage Antiquity extolled,

Or murmured at Apollo's lucent shrine.

Here Education rounds a cosmic plan,

Enough omnipotent aye to create

From nebulous childhood, ordered worlds of man,

Evolving Scholar, Citizen, and State.

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Each liberal science, every craft austere,

All sedulous joys of book and pen are here,

Delights that charm the reason or engage

Imagination's quickened eye or ear:-

Pencil of limner, sculptor's cunning steel,

And whirling marvel of Palissy's wheel;-

Drama, in pomp of gorgeous equipage,

Ostends upon the applauded stage

Phantasmagoria of the living Age;

And, by celestial votaries attended,

Impassioned Music, from the spheres descended,

Abiding here in the tutelar control,

Commands orchestral diapasons pour

Exalted figue and symphony along

Resounding aisle and bannered corridor;

Or, while the organ's mellow thunders roll,

She bids enraptured voices thrill the soul

With heaven-born harmony of choral song!

 

XI.

O Cincinnati! whom the Pioneers,

How many weary lustrums long ago,

With orisons and dedicated tears,

Blest, kneeling when the pure December snow

Melted, for pity, into drops of Spring,

My heart renews their throbbing fervor now,

Their toil, their love, their hope, remembering,

I breathe their patriotic ardor and their vow,

Their exultation and prophetic faith I sing!-

For they were Freedom's vanguard, and they bore

Her starry flag and led her empire West,

Ere yet the wounds of sacrificial war

Had healed upon thy Mother-Country's breast;

Courageous they and loyal! evermore

Bold for The people! valorous and strong

Against embattled Myrmidons of Wrong:

Forever honorable, true, and just!

Historial years above their crumbling Just,

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Cincinnati- A    Civil Ode.                 87

 

On wings of peace and wings of war have flown.

Returning Aprils green and grateful sod

There where with hands that knew the ax to wield

They pledged a log-hewn temple unto God

Or ere they thrice had husked the ripened field

Or promised harvest o'er the tilth had sown:

Seers, Legislators, Politicians, these,

From ancestors indomitable sprung!

Who, as with brawn of sinewy grip they swung

Their polished helves and launcht the steely edge,

Invading so the monarchy of trees,

Or smote with ponderous maul the iron wedge-

Labored meanwhile within the spacious Mind,

Planning and building, for their fellow-kind,

Futurity colossal, on the vast

Foundations of immemorial past.

 

 

*     *     *

 

 

COMMENTARY ON CINCINNATI ODE.

 

BY AUTHOR OF THE POEM.

 

 

1. SAINT CLAIR. General Arthur St. Clair (1734-1818), a friend

and comrade of George Washington, was an officer in the American

army during the Revolutionary War; was president of Congress in 1787;

governor of the North-West Territory from 1789 to 1802, living in Cin-

cinnati eleven years, 1790-1801. His mansion, the first brick house built

in the Miami settlement, stood on the southwest corner of Eighth and

Main streets.

2. TECUMSEH. Tecumseh, a Shawnee Indian chief, famed for his

courage and eloquence, was born near the site of the city of Springfield,

Ohio, in the year 1768. He made persistent effort to unite the aboriginal

red tribes against their white, American foes, and joined the British

troops when the war of 1812 was in progress. Tecumseh was killed in

the battle of the Thames, Canada, Oct. 5, 1813.

3. QUEEN OF THE WEST. The name "Queen of the West" was ap-

plied to Cincinnati early in the history of the town. Some of Benjamin

Drake's "Tales and Sketches of the Queen City" were contributed to

the Cincinnati Literary Gazette as long ago as 1824. Ten years later,

Charles Fenno Hoffman, in his book "A Winter in the West," employs

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the nomination as if it were then in familiar use. Longfellow gave

world-wide celebrity to the soubriquent by introducing it into his lyric

entitled "Catawba Wine," singing of

 

"The Queen of the West

In her garlands drest,

On the banks of the beautiful river."

 

II.

 

4. UPON THE PROUD YOUNG BOSOM SHE WAS NURSED.

Of the Republic. Cincinnati was founded in 1788, the year in

which the American Republic was organized, and only twelve years sub-

sequent to the date of the Declaration of Independence.

5. BY LIBERTY BEGOTTEN, FIRST.

Of all that august civic sisterhood.  The two settlements, Co-

lumbia, near the mouth of the Little Miami, and Losantiville, opposite

the mouth of the Licking, were begun, respectively, November 18 and

December 28, 1788, nearly six months after the enactment of the ordi-

nance of 1787. The young city was not incorporated until 1802.

6. PROMULGATED ITS MANDATORY PLEVIN. The Ordinance of 1787

was at once an organic law and a political promise. Of that notable

document Daniel Webster used these memorable words: "We are ac-

customed to praise the law-givers of antiquity; we help perpetuate the

fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of

any law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct,

marked and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. We see its

consequences at this moment, and we shall never cease to see them,

perhaps, while the Ohio shall flow."

 

III.

 

7. AND BLAZON OF THAT LAURELED SON OF MARS. Lucius Quincticus,

surnamed Cincinnatus, or the "crisp-haired," a Roman dictator and

legendary hero, is thought to have been born about 519 B. C. The tra-

dition goes that, while on his farm beyond the Tiber, he was summoned

from the plow to take command of an army which defended Rome from

invading enemies; and that, after thus serving his country, he laid aside

the sword and returned to his husbandry. The "Order of Cincinnati,"

named in admiration of this Roman general, was organized in 1784 by

officers of the Revolutionary Army, Washington being its first president.

In recognition of this organization General St. Clair, in 1790, bestowed

the name "Cincinnati" upon the hamlet opposite the mouth of the Lick-

ing, which, up to that time, had borne the name "Losantiville," given

in 1788 by John Filson, one of its founders.

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Cincinnati - A   Civil Ode.                  89

 

 

IV.

8. ON LOWLAND AND ACROPOLIS. "The ranges of hills bordering these

extensive plains, * * * being variously diversified by streams and

rivulets, lying at different distances from the town, and having a dense

covering of trees, afford a pleasant termination to the view. From

Newport or Covington the appearance of the town is beautiful; and, at

a future period, when the streets shall be graded from the hill to the

river shore, promises to become magnificent."-Daniel Drake, in his Pic-

ture of Cincinnati, published in 1815.-"The first impression upon touch-

ing the quays at Cincinnati, and looking up its spacious avenues, termi-

nating always in green acclivities which bound the city, is exceedingly

beautiful."-Charles Fenno Hoffman's A Winter in the West, 1835.

 

VII.

9. THE MASTED BARGE ON GLIDING KEEL. Ohio River barges of the

early period were provided with a mast amidship, carrying square sails

and topsails, and they somewhat resembled small ocean schooners.

10. THE LADEN STEAMER'S CATARACT WHEEL.       The first steamboat

on the Ohio River, the "Orleans," was built by Nicholas J. Roosevelt,

a brother of President Roosevelt's grandfather, at Pittsburg, and her

trial trip was made from that city to New Orleans in 1812.

11. THE LOCOMOTIVE CAME. The work of constructing the first

railroad from Cincinnati was commenced in 1837. The road crept slowly

up the Little Miami. In December, 1841, the track had been laid only

from Fulton to Milford, a distance of fifteen miles. The next year the

road reached Fosters. In July, 1844, the first cars were seen at Deer-

field, now South Lebanon, and before the close of the summer they were

at the mouth of Todd's Fork. In August, 1845, the road was com-

pleted to Xenia, and on the tenth day of August, ten years after the

road was chartered, the first train reached Springfield."-Josiah Morrow,

in his sketch of the life of Governor Jeremiah Morrow, p. 73.

12. ELECTRON'S VIEWLESS MESSENGERS. A line of Morse's electric

telegraph, connecting Baltimore with Washington, was brought into oper-

ation in 1844. The wire was slowly stretched westward, and, on August

21, 1847, the first dispatch to Cincinnati was flashed.

13. FREEDOM  AND FREEDOM - FREEDOM, EVERMORE! That Cincin-

nati was consecrated to Liberty from the first is strikingly attested by

an early Virginia clergyman, Rev. James Smith, who, visiting in Ohio in

1795, wrote in his Journal, on Sunday, September 5, of that year: "We

are now in full view of the beautiful and flourishing town of Cincin-

nati, most delightfully situated on the bank of 'the most beautiful river

on earth.' This large and populous town has risen almost instantaneously

from nothing, it being (as I was told) only four years since it was all

in woods. Such is the happy effect of that government in which every

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trace of vassalage is rooted out and destroyed. To a real republican, as

I am, how grateful, how pleasing the sight which I now behold. To a

man weary of slavery and the consequent evils attending it, what pleasing

reflections must arise."-Ohio Arch. and Hist. Quart., Vol. XVI, p. 376.

14. BIDDING COURAGEOUS POVERTY REJOICE. "It was not to Mont-

mirail they were going-it was to America. They were not flying to the

sound of the trumpet of war-they were hurrying from misery and

starvation. In a word, it was a family of poor Alsatian peasants who

were emigrating. They could not obtain a living in their native land,

but had been promised one in Ohio."-From Victor Hugo's "The Rhine,"

quoted by C. L. Martzolff, in his history of Perry County, Ohio.-"The

poor man (ungoverned, can govern himself), shoulders his axe and walks

into the Western woods, sure of a nourishing earth and an overarching

sky! It is the very Door of Hope to distracted Europe."-Thomas Car-

lyle, in a letter to Emerson.

15. NOR SCANTY BOUNDS BY FILSON'S CHAIN SURVEYED. John Fil-

son (See note 7), whose versatility enabled him to become successively

a teacher, an historian, an explorer and a surveyor, drew the first plan

of Cincinnati, or, as he called it, Losantiville. The original name of

what is now Plum street, was Filson avenue. The Filson Club, of Louis-

ville, Ky., is named in honor of this pioneer of enterprise and of letters,

who well deserves to be remembered by the Queen City.

16. NOT EASTERN ROW NOR WESTERN. The old name, Eastern Row,

was changed to Broadway; Western Row, to Central Avenue; and North-

ern Row, to Seventh Street.

17. SALUBRIOUS  MOHAWK'S    NORTHWARD-SPREADING   WORLD. Mo-

hawk village, a once well-known hill-top suburb of Cincinnati, was on

Hamilton road, now McMicken Avenue. Here, as we learn from an essay

by Elizabeth Haven Appleton, "Mrs. Frances Trollope, in 1828, had her

home in a farm house on the edge of the primeval forest which clad the

country for many miles."-See volume in memory of Elizabeth Haven

Appleton, edited by Eugene F. Bliss, and published in Cincinnati, 1891.

18. BUILDER OAK. "The builder Oake, sole King of forests all."-

Spenser's Faerie Queene.

19. SILURIAN SLUMBER. The Silurian Blue Limestone rocks of the

so-called "Cincinnati Group," including the River quarry beds and the

hill quarry beds, supply unlimited quantities of building stone of great

excellence and beauty. "The advantages that the city of Cincinnati reaps

from the quarries which surround it are immense."-Ford's Hamilton

County, 1881.

20. IN VERDANT VALE WHERETHROUGH. DAMETA FLOWED. "This

sweet valley is bounded toward the rising sun by the gentle stream

Dameta, or the creek of deers; and on the side of the setting sun by the

transparent waters of El-hen-a, or the stream of the green hills."-Tim-

othy Flint, in a story entitled "Oolemba in Cincinnati," contributed to

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Cincinnati- A    Civil Ode.                  91

 

Hall's "Western Souvenir," 1829. Dameta, or Deer Creek, formerly the

pride of local poets and artists, has long been imprisoned in the deep

conduit of a sewer which empties into the Ohio near the foot of Butler

Street, just below the old waterworks. The romantic valley of the once

beautiful stream is now buried from sight by the dumpage of half a

century.

21. MAHKETEWA'S BROOK AND AFFLUENT RILLS. Mahketewa was

the Indian name of Mill Creek. See William G. Gallagher's lyric, "The

Spotted Fawn," which, sixty years ago, was one of the most popular

songs, in the Ohio Valley. It begins with the lines:

"On Mahketewa's flowery marge

The Red Chief's wigwam stood."

 

22. AUBURN, OR ECHO, OR AERIAL HEIGHT

OF SUN-CLAD EDEN'S BLOSSOMY PLATEAU. Each of these lofty

elevations commands a magnificent prospect of Cincinnati and its natural

environs. The Queen City is famed for the picturesque charm of its

suburbs. The following sentences, quoted from an article by James

Parton, written for the Atlantic Monthly, forty years ago, are of interest:

"As far as we have seen or read, no inland city of the world surpasses

Cincinnati in the beauty of its environs. They present as perfect a

combination of the picturesque and the accessible, as can anywhere be

found. There are still the primeval forests and the virgin soil to favor

the plans of the artist in capabilities. The Duke of Newcastle's party,

one of which was the Prince of Wales, were not flattering their enter-

tainers when they pronounced the suburbs of Cincinnati the finest they

had anywhere seen."

23. DAUGHTERS OF MNEMOSYNE. Mnemosyne, goddess of Memory

and mother of the Muses.

24. ALL SEDULOUS JOYS OF BOOK AND PEN ARE HERE. That Cincin-

nati, from the earliest period of its history up to the present time, has

held foremost rank, among Western cities, as a center of literary culture,

is a claim fully justified by the record of achievement of the eminent

writers, past and present, who have been identified with the Queen City

and its literary activities. "Within a period of ten years, counting back-

ward and forward from 1830, there existed a literary circle of which

Cincinnati was the center, which, as a whole, has never had a superior

in America.-Among those who were influential in that circle, I may

mention the names of William Henry Harrison, Timothy Flint, Micah P.

Flint, Daniel Drake, James Hall, Jacob Burnet, Benjamin F. Drake,

Edward D. Mansfield, Milliam D. Gallagher, Otway Curry, S. P. Hil-

dreth, L. A. Hine, Caroline Lee Hentz, Rebecca S. Nichols, Thes. H.

Shreve, F. W. Thomas, Lyman Beecher, Charles Hammond, Elisha

Whittlesey, Albert Pike, L. J. Cist, James H. Perkins, Harriet Beecher

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Stowe, Eliza A. Dupuy, Amelia Welby, Sarah T. Bolton, and John B.

Dillon."-William T. Coggeshall (author of "Poets and Poetry of the

West," 1860), in an address on "The West and Its Literature," delivered

at Ohio University, June 22, 1858.-Among the authors of a later period,

whose distinguished achievement, especially in the domain of poetry, en-

titles them to honored recognition, may be named: Alice Cary, Phoebe

Cary, Thomas Buchanan Read, William H. Lytle, Coates Kinney, John

James Piatt, and Sarah M. B. Piatt.

25. AND WHIRLING MARVEL OF PALISSY'S WHEEL. Bernard Palissy

the renowned potter and enameler, was born in 1510, and he died in the

Bastille, Paris, in 1589. His name is here used, of course, as suggestive

of the ceramic art which has given "Rookwood Pottery" celebrity in

every civilized country.

26. PENCIL AND LIMNER, SCULPTOR'S CUNNING STEEL. Cincinnati has

justly been called the "Cradle of American Art." Among the names of

painters and sculptors who have plied their vocation in the Queen City,

the following may be mentioned: Hiram Powers, 1805-1873; Shobel Clev-

inger, 1812-1843; James H. Beard, 1812-1893; W. T. Matthews, 1821-

1905; T. B. Read; J. O. Eaton; W. H. Powell; Godfrey N. Frankenstein;

John P. Frankenstein; Frank Dengler; W. H. Beard; C. T. Webber;

Thomas Noble; Henry Mosler; C. H. Neihaus; Frank Duveneck; Henry

F. Farny; Moses Ezekiel.

XI.

27. WITH ORISONS AND DEDICATED TEARS. "They made fast their

boat and clambered up the steep bank to a level spot in the midst

of a clump of pawpaw-bushes. Here the women and children sat down,

while the men cleared away the underbrush and placed sentinels near

the thicket to watch out for prowling Indians. Before undertaking to

pitch a tent or build a hut, the little congregation (twenty-six in all)

sang a hymn of praise and then knelt on the ground while their pastor,

Rev. Ezra Ferris, offered a prayer to Almighty God." (See Tales from

Ohio History, W. H. Venable.)  Some poetic license has been taken in

the poem, which places in December the religious ceremony which actually

occurred November 6.-But the second colony, generally regarded as the

first settlers of Cincinnati proper, came to "Losantiville" December 27,

and there can scarcely be a doubt that they also signalized their com-

ing by some suitable observance, most of them being men of piety, like

their leader, Robert Patterson, who, we are told, "was profoundly re-

ligious."

28. THEY PLEDGED A LOG-HEWN TEMPLE UNTO GOD. The first re-

ligious society in the "Miami Country" was organized, by Dr. Stephen

Gano, in 1790. The first house of worship was built in 1792. This, the

Columbia Baptist Church, was torn down in 1835; and upon the site a

pioneer monument was dedicated, July 4, 1889.

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Cincinnati--A Civil Ode.                    93   29. SEERS, LEGISLATORS, POLITICIANS, THESE. What Rev. Henry M. Storrs uttered from a Marietta pulpit, April 8, 1888, may well apply to the ideals of the original settlers of Cincinnati: "Today our minds go back across the century to that band of patriotic pioneers who, for the sake of the nation as well as themselves, broke ground for civilization on this spot beside the 'beautiful river.' Of their heroic character and achievements you have already heard. They came from their Eastern homes with high resolve. Imperial States, one after another, should be dedicated to human freedom. Unfettered religion, pure morals, a broad and universal education, public and private security under protection of equal law, industry, thrift and plenty, should here be the inheritance of their children forever. They were planning great things. Prophetic hope lent them inspiring visions. They were 'building better than they knew'." Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, Vol. II, No. 1, June, 1888.

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