John Filson from three languages

With pedant skill did frame The novel word Losantiville

To be the new town's name.

Said Filson: "Comrades, hear my words:
Ere threescore years have flown
Our town will be a city vast."
Loud laughed Bob Patterson.

Still John exclaimed, with prophet-tongue,
"A city fair and proud,
The Queen of Cities in the West!"
Mat Denman laughed aloud.

Deep in the wild and solemn woods
Unknown to white man's track,
John Filson went, one autumn day,
But nevermore came back.

He struggled through the solitude
The inland to explore,
And with romantic pleasure traced
Miami's winding shore.

Across his path the startled deer

Bounds to its shelter green; He enters every lonely vale

And cavernous ravine.

Too soon the murky twilight comes, The boding night-winds moan; Bewildered wanders Filson, lost, Exhausted, and alone.

By lurking foes his steps are dogged, A yell his ear appalls!

A ghastly corpse, upon the ground, A murdered man, he falls.

The Indian, with instinctive hate,
In him a herald saw
Of coming hosts of pioneers,

The friends of light and law;

In him beheld the champion

Of industries and arts, The founder of encroaching roads And great commercial marts;

The spoiler of the hunting-ground, The plougher of the sod,

The builder of the Christian school And of the house of God.

These pioneers found the land northwest of the Ohio remarkably fertile; but it was the huntingground of the warlike Delawares and Shawanese, and the man who attempted to settle there took his life in his hands. In the fall of 1791, a large force was collected at Cincinnati, under General Arthur St. Clair, and marched against the Indians. On the morning of November 4, the Americans were surprised near the Miami villages, and routed, with great loss. A ballad describing the defeat was written soon afterwards, and achieved a wide popularity.