The two million acres Symmes wanted originally was cut down to one million by Congress finally to about 400,000 acres—because in the end, it was all Symmes could pay for.
North Bend—this was the name Symmes approved for his great settle- ment— is today a little town whose “glorious future” is behind it. But there stands today, to emphasize the high hopes of the past, an old family mansion, still in fair preservation, the interior quite intact with winding stairway, brass doorknobs, huge metal locks and hand hewn woodwork.
It is the home of John Scott Harrison, grandson of John Cleves Symmes and son of William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States. It stands on high ground, about 300 yards back from the Ohio River. Closer to the river is the tomb of “Old Tippecanoe” and approximately a quarter of a mile to the west of the first President Harrison’s tomb is the grave of his father-in-law, John Cleves Symmes, the man who dreamed but was no dreamer—who put forth all he had to make his dreams come true —to face, in the end, disappointment and disillusion.
Symmes died in 1814. His North Bend home stood at a point nearly a mile north west of where is now his grave. This home had burned in 1811 and many valuable papers had been destroyed. Think how this must have added to the confusion of his innumerable land transactions. Symmes last wife was SUSANNA LIVINGSTON, the daughter of the governor of New Jersey during the revolutionary period. She is the “pretty Susan” of Major John Andre’s “Cow Chase.”
Susan Livingston preserved her father’s (the governor’s) papers when their house was entered by a party of British on the 28th of February, 1779, according to T. S. Clarkson, who wrote:
“Governor Livingston, informed of the approaching invasion, left home at an early hour to escape capture, having confided his valuable papers to the care of his daughter. She had them placed in a carriage box and taken to a room in the upper story of the house. When the enemy were advancing Miss Livingston stepped from the window of the apartment upon the roof of the piazza to look at the Red Coats. A horseman in front of the detach- ment rode hastily up and begged that she would retire, for there was danger of some of his soldiers from a distance mistaking her for a man and firing upon her. The young lady attempted to climb in at the window, but found it impracticable, though it had been easy enough to get out. The horseman seeing her difficulty instantly sprang from his horse, went into the house and upstairs and leaping out upon the roof lifted Miss Livingston through the window. She asked to whom was she indebted for the courtesy; the reply was ‘Lord Cathcart.’ She then, with admirable presence of mind, appealed to him, as a gentleman, for the protection of the box, which she said contained her private property; promising if that could be secured to open her father’s library to the soldiers. A guard was accordingly placed over the box while
