A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

Chapter 3 The Land and PeopleThe first settler was Aaron Waggoner who built a log cabin in 1796, slightly south of today’slocation of North Bend and Argus Roads. This was the forfeit of section 30. What was land worth at thattime? Land near Cincinnati was being sold for a cow, or an axe worth one dollar, seventy-eight acres for19 pounds and 10 shillings, and one property lot with a 100 foot front was exchanged for a pair of $2moccasins.In the same year (1796) Richard Hankins petitioned John Cleves Symmes for the forfeit of section36, having already built a house and lived there for the required seven years. Near North Bend Road andOakwood he built his two-story log cabin. This cabin remained there for more than 100 years, hiddenunder weather boarding until around 1900, when it was moved to Betts Avenue in West College Hill.This land was later the residences of the Henshaw, McCrea, Emerson and Wild families.The forfeit was 106 2/3 acres located in the northeast corner of every section of the Miami Purchase.To purchase the forfeit, the settler must have lived on the land and build a house within two years or hewould forfeit this land to any other pioneer who met the qualifications and applied for the land fromSymmes.In October of 1796, John C. Symmes sold a large tract of land to Nehemiah Tunis. Nehemiah sold apotion to his nephew Jabez, who in turn sold 491 acres of section 30 to William Cary, Sept. 8, 1813, for$7 an acre and 75 adjacent acres north of North Bend Road.Some of the pioneers came in a wave from Vermont. The Vermont and northeast weather wasunusually severe in 1816, leading to that time being referred to as “Eighteen Hundred and Froze toDeath.” The first two weeks of September had the first warm weather of that year (70 degrees) which was25 degrees higher than in May. Farmers, devastated by a year of no crops, left for warmer climates.College Hill was known for being healthy. The valley below was filled with crowded housing andindustry which was polluting the Mill Creek even back then. Because of the elevation and the frequentbreezes, ‘the Hill’ was known for the longevity of its residents. By the 1850’s College Hill containedmany summer homes of Cincinnati’s wealthy.Samuel Cary describes in his Historical Sketch of College Hill and Vicinity 103 the forests ofCollege Hill as: “...trees large, of great variety, and superior quality. The variety embraced white, red,black and chestnut oak, white and yellow poplar, white and blue ash, hard and soft maple, cherry, 11 blackwalnut, butternut, linn, beach (sic), hickory, buckeye, gum, sassafras, black and honey locust, mulberry,coffee nut, hackberry, and iron wood, with a thick undergrowth of dogwood, red bud, sumac, andpawpaw. Among the exuberant smaller vegetation were May apples, ginseng, ferns, dog fennel,pennyroyal, burdock, yellow dock, plantain, black berries, milk and iron weed, red and black haws, wildgrapes, hazelnuts and wild plums.The timber on these two sections (30 and 36), if restored to their primitive condition, would sell formore money than the land is now worth, even with its proximity to a great city. The best black walnut,ash, and oak timber were split into fence rails. Trees which could not be thus utilized were cut and piledinto large heaps and burned...Your historian has aided in burning single walnut trees which were toomuch curled to make rails, that would now readily bring two thousand dollars (1886).”Game was abundant and “made to succumb by the flint lock musket or rifle, were deer, wild turkeys,wolves (occasionally a bear), raccoons, opossums, squirrels, rabbits, quail and pigeons. The howling ofthe wolves at night was terrible. To protect sheep and other stock from becoming a prey, they were driveninto a rail pen built around the cabin. The light of the fire showing through the chinking between the logskept them at bay. With all this care and precaution these pests sometimes decimated our flocks.The raccoons and opossums often played havoc with our poultry. At certain seasons of the yearsquirrels gray and black were very abundant, and made their raids upon our patches of corn, completely10 History of College Hill and Vicinity, Samuel Fenton Cary, 1886.11 Cherry was prized for furniture and later, black walnut was the favorite wood used.20