Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 04.djvu/106

 FILSOX

FINCH

Jersey; that he had some knowledge of Latin, Greek and French; and that besides being a farmer he taught school and was a land sur- veyor. He appears to have made his way on foot from Chester county to Pittsburg across the mountains and thence by boat down the Ohio river to Limestone, and through the forests to Lexington, Ky., where he taught school in 1783, and the same year wrote down the narrative given by Daniel Boone of his expedition up the Chillicothe. In 1783 he acquired 13,000 acres of land in Fayette county on warrants brought from Pennsylvania, and he also purchased 1500 acres in Jefferson covmty from Squire Boone. He made lasting friendships with Daniel Boone, Levi Todd, James Harrod, Christopher Greenup, John Cowan and William Kennedy, and from these pioneer settlers received much needed infoiination in preparing his book " The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke " and his '"Map of Kentucke " to accompany the work. His visit to the neighborhood of Louisville at this time is set down by Isaac Hite as the spring of 1784, when Hite met him at an assembly of neighbors who had gathered to assist in raising the timbers for his mill on Goose creek. There being no printing office west of the Alleghanies, Filson made the journey to Philadelphia, where his map was engraved by D. H. Pursell and printed by T. Rook, and to Wibniugton, where James Adams printed the book, both bearing the im- print of 1784. He returned to Kentucky, leaving Piiiladelphia Ai^ril 30, 1785, and reached Pitts- burg May 36, having made the journey in a wagon with John Rice Jones and his wife and child as passengers. They then took a flat-boat to the Falls of the Ohio, and landed at Beargra.ss Creek, June 10, 1785. In July, the same year, he made a canoe voyage down the Ohio and up the Wabash to Port St. Vincent, returning through the woods to the Falls in August. On Oct. 14, 1785, he sold his farm at East Fallowfield to Daniel Henry of Louisville, and made a second trip to Port St. Vincent, 450 miles by canoe, reaching Vincennes by Christmas. He left Vin- cennes June 1, 1786, for the Falls of the Ohio in a large boat with a crew of three men. They were greatly harassed by the Indians, and lost their boat and most of their baggage. He then left Louisville for Pennsylvania, on horseback, making the 800 miles in about sixty days. Early in 17S7 he returned to Kentucky, where he had innu- merable lawsuits and other troubles about his land. He proposed the establishment of a semi- nary at Lexington, and in August, 1788, he en- tered into a contract with Matthias Denman of Essex .county, N.J., and Robert Patterson of Lex- ington, Ky,, by which the three men were to become joint owners of 640 acres of land and

were to lay out a town on the north bank of the Ohio river opposite the mouth of the Licking river. The place was named by Filson, Losanti- ville. He marked out the road from Lexington to the site of the new town, and the party- left September 23, reaching the mouth of the Licking in September, 1788, their route being the exact one subsequently chosen by the Cincinnati southern railroad between that city and Lexington. It is not certain to what extent Filson conducted the sm'vey of the new town, as he mysteriously disajjpeared and his successor, Isaac Ludlow, laid out the futui-e city and changed the name from Losanti- ville to Cincinnati. He left impublished MSS. : A Diary of a journey from Philadelphia doton the Ohio and up the Wabash rivers to Fort St. Vincent in the Spring and Summer of 1785 ; An account of a trip from Vincennes to Louisville by land in Art- gust, 1785 ; A journal of two voyages from the Falls of the Ohio to Fort St. Vincent on the Wa- bash river, etc., and An account of an attempted trip by ivater from Vincennes to Louisville, Aiigrisf, 1786, the attack tipon him by the Indians on the Wa- bash and his subsequent trij) to the Falls of the Ohio by land. Dr. Lyman C. Di'aper was the preserver of these MSS. and used them in preparing his Life of Gen. George Fogers Clark. John Filson's brother Robert wrote in a small arithmetic the following: "This book was given me by my brother, John Filson, who was killed by an In- dian on the north side of the Ohio, October the First, 1788, about five miles from the Great Mi- ami River and 30 or 25 from the Ohio. " See Life and »-/vY/»;/.s of .Tiihn Filson by R.T. Durrett (1884). FINCH, Francis Miles, jurst, was born in Ithaca, N.Y., June 9, 1837; son of Miles and Tryphena Finch. He was a student at the Ithaca academy and graduated at Yale in 1849, having become the class poet. He was ad- mitted to the bar in 1850 and began prac- tice in Ithaca. He was collector of in- ternal revenue for the 26th district of New York, 1861-65. He became the trusted coimselor of Ezi-a Cornell, and during the organiza- '

tion of Cornell uni- ' ', '*

versitj' his advice

and judgment were ^^f,^„^JCJ(^;^.4^.c/i:> always consulted,

and he helped to refute the many slanders which assailed the founder. In May, 1880. lie was ap- pointed by Governor Cornell judge of the court of