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To say that Colonel John Riddle was an early pioneer of Cincinnati will, to the European, and even the Eastern, reader, but  faintly convey an idea of his character as such ; because at this period the Eastern States are grown old and populous and their pioneers have passed away ;.and the pioneer of European nations, if such a character may be presumed to have ever existed, is forgotten in the history of centuries of the English lexicons define the word pioneer as a soldier who marches in front to clear away obstructions; but in our Western vocabulary, we understand the word to mean a person who not only clears the way for civilization, but one who, in doing so, lays the foundation of cities, States, and nations.

The American pioneer, it has been well said, was "a compound of many noble qualities, with a few that are not quite so respectable.".  He was courageous, independent, self-reliant, adventurous, and scrupulously honest; and by this standard he judged his fellow-men until the contrary was known to him. His courage was necessarily of a high moral as well as physical order.  It was not mere indifference to danger; for, whether floating down the current of an unknown river on a raft containing all that was dearest to him and all the scanty property he owned on earth, seeking a location, or whether he was hunting game for himself and family in the depths of the forest, the pioneer realized fully and at all times the full extent of the peril that surrounded him.  Indeed, if he desired it he could not be insensible to it ; for almost every day "brought some new memento of his savage foe or of the prowling beast of prey." He felled trees, burnt his fallow, plowed, sowed, and gathered, with his trusty rifle slung over his shoulder and his knife on-his hip; and at every turn he halted, listening, with his ear turned toward his cabin—listening for what he expected to hear at any moment—the scream of his wife or the mournful wail of his children, telling of the murderous tomahawk and scalping-knife.  His courage, then, was not the result of ignorance—was not that of  "the child which thrusts its hand within the lion's mouth, innocent of the penalty it braves."  He had an attentive ear and a watchful eye, and his nerves were always strong-for battle, for self-preservation, and in defense of his dear ones and his fellow-adventurers or neighbors, if he had any.  Always on the qui vive, he had to be calm and collected, stout of heart and strong of hand ; and his experiences taught him sagacity and self-reliance. He was independent in the. truest sense of the word, and this feeling was based on a well-grounded estimate of his own talents and capabilities—a clear, manly understanding of his own individual rights, dignity, and relations. It was the early pioneer " who laid the foundation of our social fabric, and it is his spirit which yet pervades our people."

Colonel John Riddle, the subject of this sketch, was a good type of this character.  He was born of Scotch parentage, in New Jersey, and emigrated to Ohio in the month of October,  1790, twelve years before that State was admitted into the Union:  He located on a tract of land about one mile from the Ohio River, on what is now a part of the site of the city of Cincinnati—a city boasting of a population of nearly three hundred thousand inhabitants. At that time it was a very small village, known as "Losantiville, in the territory north-west of the Ohio River, opposite the point where the Licking River embogues into the Ohio," and contained a population of forty or 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 afterward, the Indians were exceedingly hostile to white settlers; and, in addition to braving the privations and hardships of frontier life usually the lot of all pioneers, the early settlers of Ohio had to encounter the cunning and craft of the merciless red man. A book could be filled with legends and stories of dangers encountered by the early settlers at and around Cincinnati, of the rapacity and cruelty of the Indians, of bloody fights and midnight massacres, of startling and hairbreadth escapes; but I will submit only two, in which our subject took an active part.

In the Spring of 1791, on the 21st of May, Mr. Riddle, William Harris (a relative), Joseph Cutter, and Benjamin Van Cleve, were out, as usual, clearing a four-acre lot, about 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 about this imprudence, but being a large, powerful, very active, and fearless man, his reply invariably was that "no redskin's bullet could catch" him. The four men had sat down at the roots of a large tree to rest and lunch about noonday. While thus engaged, they noticed that the blue-jay birds were unusually noisy, and hearing a slight rustling among the spice-wood bushes, Mr. Riddle remarked that he believed some Indians were near. They laughed at him; but having a small dog with them, it was hissed on in the direction of the noise and bounded fiercely into the bushes, but soon returned, manifesting every canine symptom of fear.

Van Cleve at once started for the corner of the lot by a path, leading to Cincinnati, and, although several shots were fired at him by the Indians, escaped unhurt. The other three took a circuitous route through the bushes, each as he thought best. Cutter was captured, carried off, and was never afterwards heard of.  A moment after Riddle had struck the path leading to the village, he remembered that he had left behind a very fine four-gallon keg. Determined, to use his own words, "not to let the rascally redskins" have that, he hastened back to secure it, thrusting his thumb into the bunghole, and as he did so he saw the Indians on the full jump toward him; but Mr. Riddle was young and fleet of foot, and reached his horse, mounted, and reached Cincinnati in safety.

On the 1st of June, following, Riddle, Harris, and Van Cleve, while working near the same place, were again attacked by Indians. Van Cleve had no rifle. Riddle and Harris defended him and themselves as best they could. They fought from behind trees, and killed more than one of the Indians; but being outnumbered, and Riddle slightly wounded, all three took to flight. Van Cleve, being very fleet, was, when more than three hundred yards ahead of his companions, intercepted, at a fallen tree-top, by a savage in ambush, and stabbed. The Indian, seeing the white men approach with guns, escaped to his party in the rear. Riddle found Van Cleve lifeless, and leaving him, he and Harris reached the village safely, closely pursued by the Indians.

For many years, during the early history of Cincinnati, the settlers were compelled to organize for self-defense and protection, to work together or near each other, and, indeed, to worship God standing under arms, "for the Indians were constantly skulking around them, murdering the settlers and robbing their fields and stables." In all these defensive operations Mr. Riddle took a leading part, and for this he was well-fitted by his experience as a soldier and sailor in the Revolutionary war.

Mr. Riddle entered the Revolutionary army in the month of April, 1778, at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, under Colonel, afterward General, Frelinghuysen, in Captain William Logan's company, with whom he served in the army of the United States nearly four years, participating in nearly all the battles fought during that period. In the year 1782, it seems, he left the army to go into the privateering service, a very powerful and useful adjunct of the army, inasmuch as our young government had no navy ; and of Mr. Riddle's adventures and services as a privateersman I will let himself speak from an old memoir found among his papers:

" After I left the army, in the year 1782, I entered the privateering service, under Captain Hiler, a good seaman and a brave and patriotic man, and sailed from New Brunswick on a cruise, hovering along the coast of New York and New Jersey as far as Cape May. The first vessel we captured was a British war-sloop, carrying two guns. We boarded her in the night without loss of life, destroyed her guns and ammunition; and then ransomed her for four hundred dollars.

" Elated with our success, later on the same night we boarded and captured a sixteen-gun frigate, ten eighteen-pounders and six six-pounders, in the midst of the British fleet, and after running our prize past their guard-ships, we ran her aground on a sand-bar. At early dawn next morning we took out of her fifty American prisoners of war and liberated them, and made her crew prisoners. We took out of her all the stores and valuables we could find, including a large amount of ammunition, then set fire to her magazine and blew her up. She was a double-decker, fitted out for a long cruise to harass and destroy our trading-vessels.  We learned from the prisoners that one hundred men were to have been added to her crew the day after we captured her.

"About a month afterward the captain and fourteen of us, who had volunteered our services, took a whale-boat, sailed up the narrows into New York harbor, then occupied by the British fleet, boarded a British trading-schooner, and, having ransomed her for four hundred dollars, returned to our gunboats in Sosbury River, without any injury or the loss of a single man.

"In turn, we were frequently attacked by the enemy, and had some desperate hand-to-hand conflicts; and while on such occasions we sometimes lost some men, none of our crew was ever taken prisoner.

"We had two skirmishes on shore, on Long Island. In one of these conflicts a beloved comrade of mine fell back in my arms, mortally wounded. In the other, we captured a large quantity of dry-goods and clothing belonging to the British, the whole of which we carried away.

"On one occasion Captain Story, who commanded a privateer from Woodbridge, fell in with us in Sosbury River, which was our rendezvous. Captains Hiler and Story, ascending the heights, observed. four vessels, termed London traders, at a distance, moored close to the highlands. One of the vessels, however, was an armed schooner, carrying eight guns, and was used as a. guard-ship to protect the other three. Our captains determined on their capture, and we attacked them within a short distance of the British fleet. The cannonading was very severe on both sides, but after a hard fight the armed schooner struck her colors, and we captured the others without much difficulty. Then the guard-ship the fleet closed on us, and poured her shot into us like hail—a solid shot cutting off our mast just above our heads—but at last we succeeded in running the schooner captured first on a sand-bar, where we burnt her; and the others we bilged and wrecked on the beach, all in view of the fleet.

"A short time afterward two good men and myself, with permission; took a small boat, and in the night we boarded and took a craft laden with calves, poultry, eggs, butter, etc., going to the British fleet. A prize of this kind at the present day would be considered of small account, but at that time it was of great value to troops who were almost starving.

"On another occasion (I can not fix the dates), we attacked a large sloop and two schooners, one of them heavily armed. They gave us a. warm reception. After a running fire of some duration, we closed with the armed schooner, and when about to board her, Captain Hiler cursed the British captain, and told him that if he fired another gun he should have no quarter; whereupon the British captain seized a match from one of his gunners, and directed a shot himself, which, owing to the roll of the sea, did no execution. We then boarded her, and had a desperate hand-to-hand conflict for several minutes, Captain Hiler engaging with the British captain, and I with the first officer. Our captain was soon victorious, and the British captain, badly wounded, cried for quarters, which we generously granted him and all his men. These prizes we ran into a cove on the Jersey shore.

"A few days after, we sailed again, and soon discovered a sail with British colors. Our captain declared we must have her, and after an exciting chase we found she was an American prize which the British had captured off the capes of the Delaware, and were sending her, filled with American prisoners, to New York, then occupied by the British troops and fleet. We soon boarded and recaptured her, threw her dead overboard, put the crew in irons, and I was put in command of her to take her to a place of safety. In the evening we found that we were pursued by a sloop of war and two privateers which had been sent from thy fleet to take us; but the darkness of night enabled us to escape them, and we ran into Shark River, where we released our people and set fire to the ship.

"In a few days after, we dropped out again, flying British colors, for another cruise; but not finding any thing along the coast, we ran into Sandy Hook, alongside the British fleet, and passed through the Narrows about sunset. Here, we spied a craft going across to the guard-ship, in pursuit of which our captain sent the whale-boat, well manned and armed; but perceiving a line of British soldiers marching down the beach, evidently intending to waylay us at the Narrows, we rowed to shore, and landed fifteen men, who were to attack in rear—the enemy having in the mean time crossed the beach, on the side we lay with our boat. We were but thirty strong, including the fifteen we had landed—the enemy about seventy. While we were looking over the beach for them from our boat, they came suddenly around a point within pistol-shot of us. They opened fire on us by a volley from a platoon, and twelve of us returned the fire with muskets, and in such quick succession that the barrels began to burn our hands. The other three men of our boat-party managed a four-pounder loaded with langrage. It was growing very hot on us, when our captain cried, "Boys, land! land! and we will have them all ;" and instantly the four-pounder went off; and we raised the YELL. Our fire was so effective that the enemy became discomfited, broke, and ran; and the fifteen men we had landed coming up, charged on them from the rear, and took the British captain and nine of his men prisoners.

"Captain Hiler's privateer was a terror to the British shipping, because she was considered a very fast sailer, and also because the captain's bravery and accurate knowledge of the coast enabled him to thwart all their efforts to capture us. On one occasion we made a hairbreadth escape from capture. We were chasing and fighting with a large British gun-boat between Sandy Hook and Amboy. In the chase we ran in between a galley and an enemy's brig that carried an eighteen pounder in her bow. The gun-boat had struck her colors, but before we were able to board her, an eighteen-pound ball passed through our ship, which obliged us to make the best of our way to the Jersey shore, and, getting every thing out of any value, under a continued fire of cannon and small arms from the British frigate, 'The Fair American,' which lasted until nine o'clock at night, we left her to the British, our ammunition being all spent, so that we could not blow her up."

After peace he returned to his home at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he followed his trade (blacksmith) until the year 1790, when he emigrated to Cincinnati.

Although quietly pursuing his occupation as farmer and blacksmith, he figured in all the volunteer military organizations of the settlement for its defense Or for offensive operations against the Indians. He was commissioned an ensign by General St. Clair, and was afterward, on the 22d of August, 1797, promoted to lieutenant, and was commissioned as such by Winthrop Sargent, acting governor of the Territory. On the 13th of May, 1804, he was commissioned captain by Edward Tiffin, the first governor of the State, and on the 14th of December, 1806, he was commissioned major by the same governor. On the 17th of March, 1811, he was elected colonel of the first regiment of State militia, and was commissioned as such by Governor Return Jonathan Meigs. In the year 1805 he commanded the troops at Cincinnati and Columbia during the Aaron Burr excitement; and he had the well-deserved honor of commanding the troops at Greenville, Darke County, Ohio, during the making of the second and last treaty with the Indians—a treaty which secured a lasting peace to the people of Ohio, Generals Harrison and Cass being the United States commissioners on the occasion.

Soon after the close of the war of 1812 Colonel Riddle resigned his commission, and thereafter devoted himself to his farm, taking but little part in public affairs: That he was always passionately fond of agricultural pursuits can not be better or more briefly shown than by the fact that he planted and raised the first crop of wheat and the first apple and peach orchard between the Big and Little Miami Rivers.

In the year 1808 he was elected a commissioner of Hamilton County, which office he filled acceptably for one term of three years. His papers show that for many years he held the offices of trustee and treasurer of Millcreek Township. He was, al ways an active friend of popular education. Long before he died he donated a valuable lot of ground upon which to build a schoolhouse, and then subscribed liberally in money to help build the house. This lot and house is now a part of our present eighteenth district graded school. He was one of the original subscribers to the organization of the First Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati, of which Church he remained a member until his death.

He was known all through the Miami Valley as an honest, patriotic, and public-spirited citizen, and when he died, full of honors as well as of years, he left a fair fame behind him of which his numerous. descendants may well feel proud. His career was always prosperous, and his prosperity the result of his own industry, good sense, good habits, and perseverance.

Source:  In Memoriam Cincinnati 1881, Cincinnati, A. E. Jones, Publisher, 1881.