History of Cincinnati

In 1790, Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, changed the name of the settlement to "Cincinnati" in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati, of which he was a member. The Society honored General George Washington, who was considered a latter-day Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who was called to serve Rome as dictator, an office which he resigned after completing his task of defeating the Aequians in no less than 16 days, and was considered the role model dictator. To this day, Cincinnati, in particular, and Ohio, in general, are homes to a statistically significant number of descendants of Revolutionary War soldiers who were granted lands in the state as payment for their war service.

Germans were among the first settlers. General David Ziegler succeeded General St. Clair in command at Fort Washington and became the mayor of Cincinnati in 1802. Cincinnati was incorporated as a city in 1819. The introduction of steam navigation on the Ohio River in 1811 and the completion of the Miami and Erie Canal helped the city grow to 115,000 residents by 1850.

Construction on the Miami and Erie Canal began on July 21, 1825, when it was called the Miami Canal, related to its origin at the Great Miami River. The canal became operational in 1827. In 1827, the canal connected Cincinnati to nearby Middletown; by 1840, it had reached Toledo. The name was changed to the Miami and Erie Canal, signifying the connection between the Great Miami River and Lake Erie.

During this period of rapid expansion, residents of Cincinnati began referring to the city as the "Queen" city. In his poem "Catawba Wine", Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote that the city was "the Queen of the West".