Columbia Baptist Cemetery / Columbia

Columbia Baptist Cemetery, also, Columbia. First Settlement in Hamilton County. , Columbia Baptist Cemetery , On the higher ground at the end of this lane is Columbia Baptist Cemetery, the last resting place of many of the pioneers who came with Major Benjamin Stites and founded Columbia, November 18, 1788, the first settlement in Hamilton County and the second in the “Old Northwest”. Here in 1792 was built the meeting house for the Columbia Baptist Church, organized in 1790. the first Protestant Church in the Northwest Territory. Land for the cemetery was part of Major Stites’ purchase and was deeded by him to the Baptists of Columbia Township., Columbia , In this vicinity Major Benjamin Stites and 26 men and women from New Jersey founded the town of Columbia, November 18, 1788. Major Stites, intending to establish a great city, had purchased in the previous year, 20,000 acres of land at the mouth of the Little Miami River. Columbia was typical of many of the early wilderness settlements. It consisted of a cluster of log houses protected from Indian attack by a stockade and strategically placed block- houses. Beyond the town to the east, the pioneers planted their crops on the fertile river bottoms of the Little Miami, still known as Turkey Bottom.