Located along the Ohio River, the villages of New Richmond and Susanna enjoyed a superior location southeast of Cincinnati with legendary economic sparring between founders. In 1828, an act of the Ohio General Assembly joined them officially as New Richmond. In this steamboat hub and abolitionist wellspring, a riverboat captain regularly dropped off his laundry and picked up a basket of food. Dr. Rogers delivered future president Ulysses Grant. James Birney printed the Philanthropist abolitionist newspaper on Walnut Street. Harriet Beecher Stowe's brother preached on occasion, and John Rankin was hired at Cranston Memorial to preach for two years after decades of midnight visitors. Additionally, a freed slave ended her cross-country fundraising campaign by purchasing her mother and settling here. New Richmond also nurtured Betsy Ross's nephew, a nationally known opera singer, an early feminist, a Hollywood screenwriter, and an accomplished composer.