Cincinnati’s Seven Hills Were First Counted By An Utterly Incompetent Charlatan

Everybody knows that Cincinnati is the City of Seven Hills and yet, despite the inability of anyone to actually agree on which hills constitute the canonical heptad, we accept it on faith that there are precisely seven hills; no more, no less. We ignore the geologists who patiently explain there are, in reality, no hills at all in Cincinnati and that the topography we refer to as hills is technically an eroded peneplain and blah, blah, blah. Despite all evidence, we accept it as indisputable truth Cincinnati graces seven hills.It might surprise modern Cincinnatians to learn that the whole concept of seven Cincinnati hills was first proposed by a legendary scoundrel, a notorious charlatan, a con man, a bigamist and, ultimately, a buffoon. His name was George Washington Lafayette Bickley.Bickley was not born in Cincinnati. He was a native of Virginia and seems to have spent some time elsewhere in the South before arriving in Cincinnati, claiming to hold a medical degree from the…