Page:Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state (Vol. I).djvu/43

Rh by the resignation of William Henry Harrison as U. S. Senator. So Judge Burnet may certainly be accepted as an able and interested historian of his day and place. But you learn nothing about early Cincinnati women from Judge Jacob Burnet. You learn as little about women from Daniel Drake, the outstanding authority for virtually all we know today of Cincinnati’s infancy and growing pains. Dr. Drake was an all round genius. He was a geologist, a medical scientist, a civic leader, a patron of the arts, an authority on literature —and a writer of the first order. One might say that Dr. Daniel Drake WAS early Cincinnati. He was simply all over the place, into everything, mentioned everywhere. But it took real sleuthing among the records to discover anything at all about his wife and daughters.

In “Memoirs of the Life and Services of Daniel Drake, M. D.. . .” by E. D. Mansfield, 1860, on pages 74-76 , was finally found the following:

“About this time, he (Drake) was led to that acquaintance which terminated in his marriage. Two of his friends. . . were relatives and living in the house of Colonel Jared Mansfield, then Surveyor-General of the United States for the Northwestern Territory. Drake. . . became a visitor. It was in the spring and summer of 1807, when rides into the country and walks in the woods were pleasant to townspeople. The Mansfield home at “Ludlow Station” had a large garden, an extensive orchard and a green lawn, leading down to Mill Creek. . . woodland walks were succeeded by evenings flowing with cheerful conversation. . . Among the members of Colonel Mansfield’s family was HARRIET SISSON, a sister’s daughter, then in her nineteenth year. She was a person of much native grace, refined tastes, ardent temperament, of quick intelligence, but without a fashionable education. It was quite natural that they should become attached to each other.

“As the Doctor had rapidly enlarged his practice, there was nothing to prevent their union, and the marriage took place at Ludlows Station, in the autumn of 1807. Soon after they went to housekeeping, on Sycamore Street, in a two story frame building, between Third and Fourth Streets, on the east side. . . Dr. and Mrs. Drake were admirably suited to one another in their genial dispositions, their buoyant spirits, their love of nature, and their ambitious aspirations. Their married life continued eighteen years, attended with a large share of human vicissitudes and not a little of trouble and adversity; yet in the whole period, with a mutual confidence and devotion seldom equaled, so much as to seem quite remarkable to those who observed it. Mrs. Drake, with quick perceptions of her husband’s natural talents, and ambitious for his future distinction, ardently assisted him in all his efforts and exercised much influence over his future career.”

One of the homes occupied by the Drakes is on E. Third St., right behind the Washington monument and is now the St. Anthony Syrian Maronite Church. It is still beautiful today. Their dwelling on Fourth St. near the old