page_title: History of Cincinnati
section_title: Three initial settlements
hierarchical_section_title: History of Cincinnati / Early history / Three initial settlements
caption_attribution_description: English: Replica of a Flatboat at the Ohio River Museum in Marietta, Ohio next to the Muskingum River. It was built in 1975 and re-built in 1996, and is based on the design of boats used to bring the American pioneers to the Northwest Territory of the Ohio Company of Associates to Marietta in 1788.
context_page_description: Cincinnati began with the settlement of Columbia, Losantiville, and North Bend in the Northwest Territory of the United States beginning in late December 1788. The following year Fort Washington, named for George Washington, was established to protect the settlers.
  It was chartered as a town in 1802, and then incorporated as a city in 1819, when it was first called "Queen of the West". Located on the Ohio River, the city prospered as it met the needs of westward bound pioneers who traveled on the river. It had 30 warehouses to supply military and civilian travelers — and had hotels, restaurants and taverns to meet their lodging and dining needs.
  Cincinnati became the sixth largest city in the United States, with a population of 115,435, by 1850. Before the Civil War, it was an important stop on the Underground Railroad. Due to the Defense of Cincinnati, there was never a shot fired in the city during the Civil War.
  Important industries throughout its history include meatpacking, iron production, steamboat repair and construction, carriage manufacturing, woodworking, cloth production, and engines.
context_section_description: Pioneers came on flatboats along the Ohio River to settle what would become Cincinnati, located between the Little Miami and Great Miami rivers on the north shore of the Ohio River. The city began as three settlements: Columbia, Losantiville, and North Bend.
  Columbia, a mile west of the  Little Miami River, was settled when a group of 26 people led by Benjamin Stites arrived on November 18, 1788. Stites had arranged parties of pioneers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They settled at the present site of Lunken Airport, where they built a blockhouse and log cabins, partially using wood from their flatboats. More people arrived over time, and more cabins were built. They struggled to get enough food to feed themselves and the new arrivals, but they did what they could by fishing, hunting, making a flour out of bear grass, farming, and acquiring some food from traders from Pittsburg. Of the three settlements, Columbia grew the fastest at first. It was initially the center of trading and the granary of the area. The first Protestant church (Baptist) in the Northwest Territory was erected in Columbia.
  On December 28, 1788, eleven families with 24 men landed across from Licking River at what would be Sycamore Street and at present-day Yeatman's Cove. Losantiville, the central settlement, was named by the original surveyor, John Filson, who scouted the area on September 22, 1788 with Mathias Denman, and Colonel Robert Patterson. The name which means "The city opposite the mouth of the river" is composed of four terms, each of different language. Denmen died in October 1788, perhaps killed by Native Americans. The group, led by Patterson, who founded Lexington, Kentucky, originated in Limestone (now Maysville, Kentucky). When they arrived, Israel Ludlow became the settlement's surveyor and he laid out the town in a grid plan, which went from Northern Row (now Seventh Street) to the river, where land was set aside for a public landing. Its eastern and western borders are now Central Avenue and Broadway. Before April 1, 1789, 30 lots were given to people so the settlement would grow. It was attractive for its town layout along the waterfront. Aside from what they attained through hunting and fishing, they grew corn, beans, squash, cucumbers, and pumpkin. The town soon had a tavern and ferry service that carried people across the Ohio River to Kentucky. A justice of the peace, William McMillan was installed. By 1790, there were 700 people in the town due to an influx of new settlers and military troops posted at Fort Washington. Symmes wrote that Losantiville, then a settlement of forty two-story log houses, "assumes the appearance of a town of some respectability".
  North Bend on the Great Miami and a few miles west of Losantiville was founded by Symmes in February 1789. He had arranged a group of pioneers from Limestone, Kentucky that included soldiers and his family members to travel to the area. Like the people of Columbia and Losantiville, North Bend settlers struggled to get enough food initially. North Bend provided 24 lots to new settlers by May 1789.
caption: Replica of a flatboat that delivered pioneers to the three settlements: Columbia, Losantiville, and North Bend that would become Cincinnati.
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