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At first, it was a race between these three colonies. A few miles below North Bend, Fort Finney had been built in 1785-86, hence the Bend had at first the start; but a high flood dampened its prospects, the troops were withdrawn from this neighborhood to Louisville, and in the winter of 1789-90 Fort Washington was built at Losantiville by General Harmar.
The neighborhood of the new fortress became, in the ensuing Indian war, the center of the district. To Losantiville, with its fort, came Arthur St. Five years of Indian campaigning followed, the features of which were the crushing defeats of Harmar and St. Clair, and the final victory of Mad Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers.
Clair to be the seat of government. This little town had been called Losantiville in its first infancy, but St. Clair re-christened it Cincinnati, in honor of the Society of the officers of the Continental army. The men who formed these Miami Company colonies came largely from the Middle States.
Clair, descended the river Ohio from Marietta, opposite Fort Harmar, to Losantiville, opposite the mouth of the Licking river. Here was located Fort Washington. He changed the name of Losantiville to Cincinnati, organized the county of Hamilton, and proceeded to Fort Steuben or Clarksville, at the Falls of the Ohio.
The Fates work quickly, for in October poor Filson was scalped by the Indians in the neighborhood of the Big Miami, before a settler had yet been enticed to Losantiville. But the survivors knew how to "boom" a town; lots were given away by lottery to intending actual settlers; and in a few months Symmes was able to write that "It populates considerably."
To him was entrusted the task of inventing a name for the settlement which the company proposed to plant here. The outcome was "Losantiville," a pedagogical hash of Greek, Latin, and French: L, for Licking; os, mouth; anti, opposite; ville, city Licking-opposite-City, or City-opposite-Licking, whichever is preferred. This was in August.
The hamlet opposite the mouth of the Licking was first known as Losantiville, a name made up of Greek and Latin words describing its situation, but this was soon changed to Cincinnati.
A few weeks previous to the planting of Losantiville, a party of men from Redstone had settled Columbia, at the mouth of the Little Miami, about where the suburb of California now is; and, a few weeks later, a third colony was started by Symmes himself at North Bend, near the Big Miami, at the western extremity of his grant; and this, the judge wished to make the capital of the new Northwest Territory.
"Losantiville" was this wonderful compound, in which the initial L stood for "Licking," while os signified "mouth," anti "opposite," and ville "town;" and the whole read backwards as "Town-opposite-mouth-of-Licking." In 1790 General St. Clair, then governor of the northwest territory, changed this name to Cincinnati, in honor of the military order to which he belonged.
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