300
RIDDELLS OF SOMERSET COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
and died Jan. 11, 1834, leaving nine children, of whom hereafter. Mr.
Riddle married Jane Ross, his fifth wife, Sept. 30, 1834; she was born in
New Jersey, Feb. 25, 1787, and died at Spring Dale, Hamilton County, O.,
Jan. 4, 1859, without issue.
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The subject of this notice was a very remarkable man, a good type
of the first Western pioneers. From New Jersey he emigrated to Ohio
in October, 1790, twelve years before that State was admitted into the
Union, and located on a tract of land about one mile from the Ohio River,
on what is now a part of the city of Cincinnati, a city boasting of nearly
three hundred thousand inhabitants. At the time of Mr. Riddle's settle-
ment it was only a small village, known as "Losantville," in the territory
northwest of the Ohio River, opposite the point where the Licking River
disembogues into the Ohio, and contained a population of about fifty souls.
The territory around the old village was thickly timbered with heavy
oak, walnut, elm, sycamore, and, indeed, all the hard-woods indigenous.
to the soil where forests abound in the West. At that period, and for
fifteen years afterwards, the Indians were exceedingly troublesome to the
white settlers; and in addition to braving the privations and hardships
of frontier life, usually the lot of pioneers, the early settlers of Ohio had
to encounter the cunning and craft of the merciless red-man. Volumes
could be filled with legends and stories of dangers encountered by the
settlers around Cincinnati, of rapacity and cruelty of the Indians, — of
bloody fights and midnight massacres, of startling and hair-breadth es-
capes; but only two will be submitted, in which our subject took an ac-
tive part.
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In the spring of 1791, on the 21st of May, John Riddle (or Riddell),
William Harris (a relative), Joseph Cutter, and Benjamin Van Cleve,
were out clearing a four-acre lot, -near where the Cincinnati Hospital
now stands, preparing to sow wheat upon it. Van Cleve, as was his
custom, came without his rifle. Mr. Riddle had frequently remonstrated
with him relative to his imprudence, but being a large, powerful, very
active and fearless man, his reply invariably was that no red-skin's
bullet could catch him." The four men had sat down at the roots
of a large tree to rest and lunch about noonday, and while thus en-
gaged noticed that the jay-birds were unusually noisy, and hearing
a slight rustling in the spice-wood bushes, Riddle remarked that he
believed some Indians were near. The others laughed at him, but
having a small dog with them, it was urged on in the direction of the
noise, and bounded fiercely into the bushes; but soon returned, manifest-
ing every canine symptom of fear. Van Cleve at once started for the
corner of the lot in a path leading toward the village, and although sev-
eral shots were fired at him by the Indians, he escaped unhurt. The others
took a circuitous route through the bushes, as each thought best. Cutter
was captured, carried off, and never afterwards heard from. A moment
after Mr. Riddle had struck the path leading to the village, he remem-
bered that he had left behind a fine four-gallon keg. Determined, to use
his own words, "not to let the rascally red-skins have that," he hastened
back to secure it, and thrusting his thumb into the bung-hole, he looked
and saw the Indians on the full jump toward him; but he was then young
and fleet of foot, and reaching his horse, mounted and returned to his
home in safety.
On the first of June following, Riddle, Van Cleve, and Harris, while
working near the same place, were again attacked by Indians. Van Cleve
