scendant of Morton Wise and GWENDOLYN BURNET, great great great granddaughter of Isaac Burnet.
This chapter on the history, especially the women’s part in it—of early Cincinnati may well end, as fitting climax, with the Kemper family. No name is better known in the Cincinnati of today. Telephone directories carry more than a solid column of Kempers, not all, of course, but many direct or indirect descendants of the Rev. James Kemper, the fame of whose work as a licentiate of the Presbyterian Church was such that he was urged to come from Danville, Kentucky to Cincinnati by an imposing group of residents in 1790. Among those who subscribed to build a church for him were General Wilkinson, Dr. Allison, U . S. surgeon at Ft. Washington, Winthrop Sargeant, Captain Robert Elliot and many others.
On April 27, 1791 , the Presbytery examined Kemper and authorized him “to supply in the settlements of the Miami at discretion.” This was the first eccesiastical appointment made by any church for regular ministrations north of the Ohio and the Rev. Mr. Kemper was the first duly authorized preacher in Cincinnati. He accepted the Cincinnati ministry in June, 1791 and went back to Kentucky for his family.
The church at Fourth and Main, when completed in 1792, was of frame, 30 by 40 feet. It had clapboards for roof and weatherboarding. There were no laths, no ceiling. The floor was of planks laid upon sleepers, the latter something like the railroad ties you see today. The seats were logs covered with rough boards. The pulpit was unplaned cherry wood. The preacher stood upon a plank resting on blocks.
The Rev. Mr. Kemper was ordained October 23, 1792 and became constituted pastor of “Cincinnati and Columbia churches.”
The pastor of this first Presbyterian Church in the southern part of what became the state of Ohio was from the first a power for good in the entire community. The congregation lent itself to the furtherance of secular education as well as to the fostering of religion and morality, need of which was great in what was, at the beginning, largely a military post, with all the conditions inseparable from concentration of a forceful soldiery.
The Rev. Mr. Kemper was by nature fearless. As soon as possible, he built his home in what was then a forest, Walnut Hills, on the still dangerous outskirts of the city. This log cabin home still stands, the oldest house of the Miami Purchase now in existence. It is no longer on its former site. When Kemper Lane, where the Kemper house had held its own throughout the years, was about to be rebuilt by a subdivision, the Cincinnati Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution saved the historic residence.
Mrs. Lowell Fletcher Hobart, who later became president general of the D.A.R., was at the time regent of the Cincinnati Chapter and Mrs. James R. Murdoch, a former regent, was chairman of the historic sites committee, in charge of the project.
