One by one the other important centers of trade in the great
valley beyond began to show evidences of life
One by one the other important centers of trade in the great
valley beyond began to show evidences of life. Marietta, Ohio,
founded in 1788 by Revolutionary officers from New England,
became the metropolis of the rich Muskingum River district, which
was presently sending many flatboats southward. Cincinnati was
founded in the same year as Marietta, with the building of Fort
Washington and the formal organization of Hamilton County. The
soil of the Miami country was as ‘mellow as an ash heap’ and in
the first four months of 1802 over four thousand barrels of flour
were shipped southward to challenge the prestige of the
Monongahela product. Potters, brickmakers, gunsmiths, cotton and
wool weavers, coopers, turners, wheelwrights, dyers, printers,
and ropemakers were at work here within the next decade. A
brewery turned out five thousand barrels of beer and porter in
1811, and by the next year the pork-packing business was
thoroughly established.
