St. Clair.

St. Clair, the first Governor, was a Scotchman of good family.  He had been a patriotic but unsuccessful general in the Revolutionary army.  He was a friend of Washington, and in politics a firm Federalist; he was devoted to the cause of Union and Liberty, and was a conscientious, high-minded man.  But he had no aptitude for the incredibly difficult task of subduing the formidable forest Indians, with their peculiar and dangerous system of warfare; and he possessed no capacity for getting on with the frontiersmen, being without sympathy for their virtues while keenly alive to their very unattractive faults.

    The Miami Purchase.

In the fall of 1787 another purchase of public lands was negotiated, by the Miami Company.  The chief personage in this company was John Cleves Symmes, one of the first judges of the Northwestern Territory.  Rights were acquired to take up one million acres, and under these rights three small settlements were made towards the close of the year 1788.  One of them was chosen by St. 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.  Like the New England founders of Marietta, very many of them, if not most, had served in the Continental army.  They were good settlers; they made good material out of which to build up a great state.  Their movement was modelled on that of Putnam and his associates.  It was a triumph of collectivism, rather than of individualism.  The settlers were marshalled in a company, instead of moving freely by themselves, and they took a territory granted them by Congress, under certain conditions, and defended for them by the officers and troops of the regular army.

    Establishment of Civil Government.

Civil government was speedily organized.  St. Clair and the judges formed the first legislature; in theory they were only permitted to adopt laws already in existence in the old States, but as a matter of fact they tried any legislative experiments they saw fit.  St. Clair was an autocrat both by military training and by political principles.  He was a man of rigid honor, and he guarded the interests of the territory with jealous integrity, but he exercised such a rigorous supervision over the acts of his subordinate colleagues, the judges, that he became involved in wrangles at the very beginning of his administration.  To prevent the incoming of unauthorized intruders, he issued a proclamation summoning all newly arrived persons to report at once to the local commandants, and, with a view of keeping the game for the use of the actual settlers, and also to prevent as far as possible fresh irritation being given the Indians, he forbade all hunting in the territory for hides or flesh save by the inhabitants proper. [Footnote:  Draper MSS.  Wm. Clark Papers.  Proclamation, Vincennes, June 28, 1790.] Only an imperfect obedience was rendered either proclamation.