It is situated at Latitude 38.88333, Longitude -84.78167, in the southern part of the county on the Ohio River; it is about a mile north of the mouth of Big Bone Creek.

The original trustees were: William Winston Jr., George McGlasson, Joel Hamilton, Henry L. Rose, James Dukan.

The trustees of the town at this time were: Benjamin E. Garnett, John J. Miller, Marshall M. McManama, James R. Hawkins and Richard Johnson.

Lewis Loder (1819–1904), a magistrate and tavern keeper from Petersburg, Kentucky, in the same county, records going downriver to Hamilton on the steamer to purchase barrels of whiskey.

The advance scouts of the Confederate army, from an encampment near Snow's Pond, visited the town in 1862, only to find that several troop transports of Union soldiers had camped there the night before, and were gone already.