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.
(80)
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 .
82
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
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,
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!
84
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
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
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.
86
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
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,
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
88 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
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.
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
90 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
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
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
92 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
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.
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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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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