volume 1, page 516.

The name given a little later to Filson's settlement was conferred on it by General St. Clair, Governor of the Territory, in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES: A. D. 1788-1802.

ALSO IN: _F. W. Miller, Cincinnati's Beginnings._

CINCINNATI: A. D. 1863. Threatened by John Morgan's Rebel Raid.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: KENTUCKY).

CINCINNATI: End----------

{471}

CINCINNATI, The Society of the.

"Men of the present generation who in childhood rummaged in their grandmothers' cosy garrets cannot fail to have come across scores of musty and worm-eaten pamphlets, their yellow pages crowded with italics and exclamation points, inveighing in passionate language against the wicked and dangerous Society of the Cincinnati. Just before the army [of the American Revolution] was disbanded, the officers, at the suggestion of General Knox, formed themselves [April, 1783] into a secret society, for the purpose of keeping up their friendly intercourse and cherishing the heroic memories of the struggle in which they had taken part. With the fondness for classical analogies which characterized that time, they likened themselves to Cincinnatus, who was taken from the plow to lead an army, and returned to his quiet farm so soon as his warlike duties were over. They were modern Cincinnati. A constitution and by-laws were established for the order, and Washington was unanimously chosen to be its president. Its branches in the several states were to hold meetings each Fourth of July, and there was to be a general meeting of the whole society every year in the month of May. French officers who had taken part in the war were admitted to membership, and the order was to be perpetuated by descent through the eldest male representatives of the families of the members. It was further provided that a limited membership should from time to time be granted, as a distinguished honour, to able and worthy citizens, without regard to the memories of the war. A golden American eagle attached to a blue ribbon edged with white was the sacred badge of the order; and to this emblem especial favour was shown at the French court, where the insignia of foreign states were generally, it is said, regarded with jealousy. No political purpose was to be subserved by this order of the Cincinnati, save in so far as the members pledged to one another their determination to promote and cherish the union between the states. In its main intent the society was to be a kind of masonic brotherhood, charged with the duty of aiding the widows and the orphan children of its members in time of need. Innocent as all this was, however, the news of the establishment of such a society was greeted with a howl of indignation all over the country. It was thought that its founders were inspired by a deep-laid political scheme for centralizing the government and setting up a hereditary aristocracy. ... The absurdity of the situation was quickly realized by Washington, and he prevailed upon the society, in its first annual meeting of May, 1784, to abandon the principle of hereditary membership. The agitation was thus allayed, and in the presence of graver questions the much-dreaded brotherhood gradually ceased to occupy popular attention."

_J. Fiske, The Critical Period of American History, chapter 3._

_J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the U. S.,