The elder John Cleves Symmes (1742-1814) took a prominent role in Revolutionary military and political activities in New Jersey. Through the influence of Benjamin Stites, Symmes had become interested in western lands by 1787 and negotiated from Congress the Miami Purchase embracing a million acres between the Miami rivers. Upon appointment in 1788 as a judge of the newly created Northwest Territory, he moved to Ohio, established his home at North Bend, and devoted much time and effort to promoting the colonization and settlement of this extensive tract. With other territorial magistrates, he journeyed to Illinois in 1790. From 1793 to 1795, he was in the East arranging his business affairs and securing confirmation of more than 311,000 acres for which he had raised payment. After his North Bend house burned in 1811, he spent the last years of his life at the home of his son-in-law William Henry Harrison in Cincinnati, the leading metropolis within the Miami Purchase.
His nephew known as John Cleves Symmes, Jr. (1780-1829) came to Ohio from New Jersey, perhaps accompanying his uncle on his return from the East in 1795. From 1802 to 1815, the younger Symmes made the army his career, was stationed at posts in Arkansas and Missouri, and served in the battle of Lundy's Lane and the siege at Fort Erie during the War of 1812. After his discharge in 1815, he served as sutler in several Mississippi River posts for three years. The later period of his life (1818-1829) he spent in Newport, Kentucky, and Hamilton, Ohio. About 1818 he published in St. Louis a pamphlet expounding his novel theory that the earth was composed of concentric spheres with a habitable interior which could be entered at either pole. To the promotion of this theory, he devoted the remainder of his life writing, lecturing, and petitioning Congress without success for funds to outfit an expedition to the North Pole. Although his theory attracted a few adherents, it was usually ridiculed, and “Symmes Hole” became a widely understood term of derision.
In 1845 the papers composing this series were acquired by Draper from John Cleves Short, grandson of the elder Symmes.
