Judge Symmes and the Miami Purchase

North Bend, Ohio sits where the Great Miami River meets the Ohio, and it exists because of one ambitious judge from New Jersey. John Cleves Symmes arrived here in seventeen eighty-eight after contracting for one million acres between the two Miami Rivers from the federal government, though he ended up with only about three hundred twelve thousand. The deal, known as the Miami Purchase, was one of the largest private land transactions in early American history.

Symmes laid out North Bend as the western anchor of his holdings and set about selling lots to settlers. His personal life became entangled with presidential history when his daughter Anna married a young army officer named William Henry Harrison, who would later win the presidency in eighteen forty on the strength of his frontier reputation. Symmes himself died in eighteen fourteen.

Symmes is buried in North Bend, and Harrison's tomb stands nearby, where the Ohio still runs wide below.