Miami Township
THE HISTORY OF MIAMI TOWNSHIP
Written by Dennis W. Collins, Three Rivers Historical Society [posted here with permission]
In 1791, the Court of General Sessions set up three Townships in Hamilton County, one of which was Miami. At that time it was larger, including part of the present Green, Delhi and Colerain Townships. The boundaries have been pretty much fixed since 1804.
Miami Township is an interesting combination of hills and valleys bordered on two sides by the Ohio and Great Miami Rivers. The tills that adorn the hilltops were for the most part left by the Illinoisian Glacier which visited us probably 350,000 years ago. This was the one that so drastically changed that drainage patterns of the Ohio and Miami Rivers. Later, about 100,000 years ago the Wisconsin Glacier headed south, stopping just short of Miami Township, but providing us with great deposits of gravel found in the river valleys. The gravels were sorted and layered by the outwash as the ice sheets retreated.
We do not know where the first human inhabitants of Miami Township lived, but it could have been near the "Point," the juncture of the Great Miami and Ohio Rivers. On the bluff in Shawnee Lookout Park there is an ancient fortification with a calculated construction date of about 270 A.D. A nearby village site was excavated by scientists from the University of Cincinnati some years ago. General William Henry Harrison examined the fort at one time and remarked on the way the defensive structure was laid out. Later, historic Indians had no knowledge of the ancient fort or its people.
The French explored the Ohio and Miami valleys in the 1700's. In 1749, Captain Celoran descended the Ohio River with 20 large birch-bark canoes and 240 men. At each of the major tributaries of the Ohio, he buried a lead plate claiming the land for the King of France. He buried his last plate at the mouth of the "Riviere De La Roche" or Great Miami where it joins the "Riviere Oyo" on the 24th day of August, 1749. He then proceeded up the Miami and back to Canada.
After the French and Indian War, the French lost most of their possessions in the new world, including the Ohio Valley. The British were the masters of the territory. The Indians of the area were allied with the British. After the Revolutionary War, the Treaty of Paris in 1784 gave the land north of the Ohio to the new republic, the United States of America.
In the summer of 1781, Colonel Archibald Lochry was requested by Colonel George Rogers Clark to raise a detachment of men and join him in a military operation against the Indians in the Northwest. Lochry and his men came down the Ohio and landed on the north shore about 10 miles below the mouth of the Miami River. The men were suddenly assailed by a volley of rifle balls from the bluff. Indians appeared and the party was compelled to surrender. Colonel Lochry and others were then massacred. Lieutenant Isaac Anderson kept a log of his time with the expedition. He says the massacre occurred on the 24th day of August, 1781. On August 25th "We marched 8 miles up the Meyamee River." The prisoners and their captors encamped at the mouth of Jordan Creek in Miami Township until the 15th of September, when they started north. Anderson arrived in Detroit on October 11th. Later he was taken to Montreal, where he escaped and returned to Pennsylvania in 1782. Anderson came back to Ohio, bought land and lived in Butler County.
In 1785 Fort Finney was erected near the mouth of the Miami for the purpose of negotiating a treaty with the Shawnee Indians. The Commissioners for the United States were Generals George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler and Samuel Parsons. Representing the Indians were Half King, Red Pole, Crane, Pipe, Wingman and White Eyes. The treaty was finally settled and signed on the 31st of January, 1786. The Shawnee recognized the claims of the United States to the Iands received from the British at Paris.
In 1788, Judge John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey petitioned Congress for a million-acre grant of land between the Great and Little Miami Rivers. He actually bought much less than a million acres and began to sell plots to developers and settlers. The land between the Miamis became known as the "Symmes Purchase" or the "Miami Purchase.”
On the 2nd of February, Symmes and his small band of settlers landed at North Bend, this being the third settlement in Hamilton County. In 1795, Symmes’ daughter, Anna, was married to William Henry Harrison, who later became territorial Governor of Indiana and President of the United States in 1841. Their grandson, Benjamin, was born in North Bend in 1833 and became President in 1889. Benjamin's boyhood was spent at “The Point,” near the location of old Fort Finney and the prehistoric fort on the bluff. North Bend was platted in 1868 and incorporated as a hamlet in 1874.
Cleves was laid out in 1818 by William Henry Harrison on land inherited from his wife's father, John Cleves Symmes. Miami Township Hall on Miami Avenue in Cleves was built in 1866. Tradition says it was financed with money left over in a Civil War soldiers' war aid fund. The hall became the home of the Charles S. Hayes Post of the G.A.R. It continues, today, to be the meeting place of many organizations.
The village of Addyston takes in places earlier known as Short's Station, Coal City and Sekitan. Here in 1889, Matthew Addy established his Addyston Pipe Foundry which was to become the largest cast iron foundry in the world. Addy's town grew and was incorporated in 1891. Today, Bayer occupies the site of the former foundry.
Miami Heights, an unincorporated area east of Cleves on the Old State Road has grown greatly in the past several decades. The Zion Church and the Burr School in the area have long histories.
In the northern end of the Township along the Miami River is the community of Grandview. This area was platted over 60 years ago and was known as Gieringer's Subdivision. The well-known Edgewater Park Speedway is located there.
In the 1830's the Ohio branch of the Whitewater Canal was constructed through the Township. It crossed the Miami River on an aqueduct, followed the west edge of Cleves, went through the hill by way of a 1700-foot tunnel to North Bend, following the Ohio River valley to Cincinnati. The canal was abandoned in the 1850's. The Cincinnati and Indiana Railroad took over the right of way of the canal in 1862. This later became a part of the Big Four Railroad Company and later the New York Central. The 0 & M Railroad, later the B & 0, first ran in Miami Township in 1854. It followed the Ohio River through North Bend and crossed the Miami River at "The Point."
The street railway came to Miami Township in 1900. The Cincinnati, Lawrenceburg and Aurora Traction Line had its eastern terminus at Anderson Ferry and its western end at Aurora, serving Addyston, North Bend and Cleves on its way to Indiana. Service was discontinued in 1931.
Mention has been made of General William Henry Harrison, hero of Tippecanoe, whose tomb is located in North Bend. Judge Symmes who made the Miami Purchase is also buried at North Bend. Benjamin Harrison, grandson of William Henry, was a general during the Civil War. Later, Miami Township produced two more generals: General Benjamin Chidlaw, served the U.S. Air Force. More recently, General John Oblinger served with the United States Army.
Some of the more prominent residents of Miami Township in addition to those already mentioned: Dr. John Aston Warder, physician, naturalist and horticulturist; John James Piatt and his wife Sarah, poets; Dr. John King; Dr. William Colby Cooper; Charles W. Karr; Judge John S. Connor; Congressman A.E.B. Stephens; Judge Stanley Strubble and many others in all walks of life.
For a more complete account of the happenings in Miami Township, everyone is urged to consult It Happened 'Round North Bend by Marjorie Byrnside Burress. This telling of the story is indebted greatly to this book.