North Bend

• Anna Harrison1775-1864 · tied to this placeNorth Bend pioneer's daughter and wife of William Henry Harrison who was first…
• Benjamin Harrison1833-1901 · born hereTwenty-third president, grandson of William Henry Harrison, born at North Bend…
• Caroline Harrison1832-1892 · tied to this placeOxford-born music teacher and china painter who was first lady from 1889 to…
• William Henry Harrison1773-1841 · lived and buried hereNinth president of the United States, the first to call Ohio home, who died 32…

• John Cleves SymmesPerson · 1742-1814

How North Bend began

North Bend was settled in 1789 at the point where the Ohio River bends north, and was platted as "Symmes City" by land speculator John Cleves Symmes, though that name was never officially adopted; it incorporated as North Bend in 1845, by Wikipedia's date (the 1881 county history gives an 1874 certificate of incorporation). The village is one of the most presidentially significant small towns in Ohio: William Henry Harrison, the ninth U.S. president, lived and was buried here at the William Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial on Mount Nebo, his son John Scott Harrison, the only man in American history to be both the son of a president and the father of one, was born and buried here, and Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president and William Henry's grandson, was born in the village. Symmes himself is buried nearby at Congress Green Cemetery. On May 5, 1865, North Bend was the site of one of the earliest train robberies on record in the United States.

Settled 1789, incorporated 1845 (Wikipedia; the 1881 county history gives 1874), by Settled 1789; platted as "Symmes City" by John Cleves Symmes (name not adopted); incorporated as North Bend 1845 (Wikipedia; the 1881 county history gives 1874).

Where the name comes from

The village is named for its location, where the Ohio River bends to the north; the name Symmes originally platted the site under, "Symmes City," was never officially adopted.

Before the town

No source found records a Native American village, trail or mound specific to the North Bend site itself, though the village sits within the Symmes Purchase tract Judge John Cleves Symmes bought in 1788 from land that had been Miami and Shawnee territory before the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. The nearby Mt. Nebo Archeological District, along the Great Miami River west of North Bend, and the Shawnee Lookout Archeological District, in Miami Township southwest of Cleves, document a wider prehistoric and historic Native presence in the immediate region, though neither site is confirmed as sitting within North Bend's own village boundary.

Nations recorded here: Miami, Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1788 — John Cleves Symmes purchases the tract between the Great and Little Miami rivers that includes the future North Bend site.
2. 1789 — Settlement begins at the site, which Symmes plats as "Symmes City," a name never officially adopted.
3. 1789-02-02 — Judge Symmes lands his settlers at the northernmost bend of the Ohio and names the place North Bend for its position in the most northerly bend between the Muskingum and the Mississippi; 48 one-acre lots are staked out, every other one a donation lot for settlers who build at once.
4. 1789-09-12 — The Symmes Purchase proprietors write to choose North Bend as the site of the city of Miami; Symmes resurveys it that winter, with five-acre in-lots and a forty-rod common, replacing the first village.
5. 1791 — North Bend is given a garrison of eighty soldiers, whose presence fosters the settlement; when they leave, many settlers follow them to Cincinnati.
6. 1795-08 — Symmes writes that North Bend has lost more than half its inhabitants since February 1793, as settlers moved into the interior of the Purchase after the Indian defeat of 1794.
7. 1795-11 — William Henry Harrison marries Anna Symmes, later living at North Bend, the home of the "log cabin" of the 1840 campaign.
8. 1808 — The English traveller Thomas Ashe breakfasts with Judge Symmes in his stone mansion above the Ohio and records his gardens and his niece Miss Livingston's shrubbery.
9. 1811-03 — Symmes's mansion burns, probably by arson; a neighbour named Hart is tried and acquitted.
10. 1814-02-26 — Judge Symmes dies at Cincinnati and is buried at North Bend, in the cemetery about a mile southeast of his house.
11. 1841 — William Henry Harrison dies in office as the ninth U.S. president and is later buried at the site that becomes the William Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial in North Bend.
12. 1845 — North Bend officially incorporates as a village, according to Wikipedia (the 1881 county history gives 1874; see below).
13. 1865 — On May 5, North Bend is the site of an early train robbery on the railroad running through the village.
14. 1874-08-25 — A certificate of incorporation of North Bend for special purposes is filed with the Secretary of State; the 1880 census counts 412 inhabitants.
15. 2000 — The census counts 603 residents in North Bend.
16. 2010 — The census counts 857 residents in North Bend.
17. 2020 — The census counts 835 residents in North Bend.

Stories

A river bend that produced two presidents and one connecting link

North Bend's small size belies an outsized place in presidential history. William Henry Harrison, hero of Tippecanoe and the ninth president, made his home here and was buried on Mount Nebo after his death in office in 1841; his son, John Scott Harrison, was born and later buried in the same village, and holds the singular distinction in American history of being both the son of a president and the father of one. That grandson, Benjamin Harrison, was born in North Bend in 1833 and went on to become the 23rd president himself, a direct three-generation line running through a single Ohio River village. The town's founder, Judge John Cleves Symmes, who had platted the site as "Symmes City" (a name that never stuck), lies nearby in Congress Green Cemetery, tying the village's presidential legacy back to the land speculator whose 1788 purchase made settlement here possible in the first place.

The mansion that burned in 1811

Thomas Ashe, an English traveller, stopped for breakfast with Judge Symmes at North Bend in 1808 and wrote of a noble stone mansion with views of improved farms and the Ohio, a household of the judge, his wife and a young botanist, Miss Livingston, who gathered prairie seeds for a shrubbery of magnolia, catalpa and papaw around a small Indian temple. In March 1811 the house burned, and with it a large number of the judge's papers on the Purchase, including the certificates of the original Cincinnati proprietors on which he had made deeds; the loss was irreparable and embittered his last years. Suspicion fell on a neighbour named Hart, a violent enemy of Symmes because the judge had neglected to vote for him for justice of the peace. Hart was indicted and tried and, though most North Bend people believed him guilty, the jury acquitted him.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org

Every historic place in Hamilton County on the full map

Groundwater wells (3 wells) The water here

• Cleves Village51% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Cincinnati Public Water System49% of residentsOhio River (Miller Plant, ~88%) plus Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer wells (~12%)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 5 of 6 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 3 of 4.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked. The county's results on file run through 2025-11-04; later elections are not loaded yet.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-11-13

Statewide question: State Issue 3: Voter ID

Local questions for North Bend, Hamilton County and its school district:

• North Bend Village: Renews a 5-mill property tax levy for the current expenses of North Bend Village for 5 years, beginning in 2026.
• Hamilton County: Renews and increases a 5.61-mill property tax levy for the care & placement of children & children services of Hamilton County for 4 years, beginning in 2026.

Races, candidates and every question for an address: your ballot. County offices and judges are on your county board's sample ballot.

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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