USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > The Cincinnati miscellany, or, Antiquities of the West, and pioneer history and general and local statistics. Volume II > Part 1
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uc 977.102 C49c1 v.2 816462
M. L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
EN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02279 6228
GENEALOGY 977.102 C49CI v.2
THE
CINCINNATI MISCELLANY
OR
ANTIQUITIES OF THE WEST :
AND
PIONEER HISTORY AND GENERAL AND LOCAL STATISTICS.
COMPILED FROM THE
WESTERN GENERAL ADVERTISER,
L 5
FROM APRIL 1ST, 1845, TO APRIL 1ST, 1846.
BY CHARLES CIST.
VOLUME II.
CINCINNATI:
ROBINSON & JONES, 109 MAIN STREET. 1846.
.
2 malo.
PREFACE. 816462
THE editor and publisher of "Cist's Advertiser," at the instance of his friends and subscribers, nearly a year since issued a volume compiled of various histori- cal and statistical sketches, which made their appearance originally in his columns. Of these but a small edition was sold, the editor's other engagements not permit- ting him the opportunity of offering it personally to his subscribers and others. . A new volume is now presented, which, like the former, comprehends many valuable records, both of the past and the present, which will derive still higher interst in the lapse of time, and as subjects of reference in future years.
There is no individual in Cincinnati, expecting to make it his permanent resi- dence, whose gratification and interest it will not be to preserve the information thus afforded, as a means of retracing the past, and thus affording him a source of rich enjoyment in the decline of life, when such gratifications have become few and faint.
CINCINNATI MISCELLANY.
CINCINNATI' JUNE, 1845.
No postponement on account of the Weather.
I observe the following, which forms a regular advertisement in a Hickman (Ky.) newspaper, and put it on record as a trait of the region and the times:
" NOTICE .- The funeral of Mr. Nicholas J. Poindexter, having been postponed on account of the inclement weather, will take place near Tot- ten's Mill, on the 26th April next. The public .are invited.
Ear for Music.
The band of an English Ambassador at Con- stantinople, once performed a concert for the en- tertainment of the sultan and his court. At its conclusion his Highness was asked which of the pieces he prefered. He replied, the first, which was recommenced, but stopped, as not being the right one. Others were tried with as little suc- cess, until at length the band, almost in despair of discovering the favourite air, began tuning their instruments, when his Highness exclaimed, " Inshallah, Heaven be praised, that is it!"
Sentimentality.
The French carry sentiment farther than any other people in the world-in fact they carry it into every thing. The remains of Bichat, one of the most distinguished physiologists and medical writers of France, after having reposed forty- three years in the old Catherine Cemetery at Paris, have been lately removed with great pomp and ceremony to Pere Lachaise. But on exhu- ming the remains, lo and behold! the skeleton was found without a head! The grave digger supposed he had mistaken the grave of the cele- brated professor for that of some decapitated malefactor, but the circumstance served to iden- tify the skeleton as that of the professor; for when Bichat died, his loss caused his friend, Prof. Roux, so much grief, that he procured its ampu- tation to preserve it as a souvenir. The latter was now called upon for the head, and it was finally restored and intered with the body, in situ.
The son of the celebrated Broussais, also, for the purpose of preserving a vivid remembrance of his father, had his head cut off, and it now forms a mantel decoration in his study. Buffon, almost inconsolable for the loss of his wife, allay- ed his grief in the occupation of dissecting her
body as a labour of love! This is an indisputa- ble fact.
Of what individuals but Frenchmen could such traits of sentimentality be, with truth, recorded?
" Doctor," said a wag to his medical adviser one day " isn't there such a disease as the shin- gles?" " Yes, to be sure," replied Galen .- " Then I've got it, for certain," said the patient, " for the roof of my mouth has broken out in a dozen places!"
First born male Child of Ohio.
The question has been repeatedly asked-who is the oldest white male born in Ohio, and still living?
The Marietta Intelligencer gives Judge Joseph Barker, son of Col. Joseph Barker, who was born at Belpre, as having long borne the reputation of the' oldest native, if not the " oldest inhabitant" of the State; and adds, that Lester G. Converse, of Marietta, has a better title to the distinction in being born at Waterford, in Washington county, on the 14th February, 1790.
I cannot find any individual living who was a native of Cincinnati at an earlier date than May, 1793, which was the birth day of David R. Kem- per, who was born on Sycamore street, Cincin- nati, opposite Christopher Smith's present resi- dence.
I am able, however, to furnish the names of the first born who survive to this day, both of males and females. They are probably also the first born male and female in Ohio, among the living or the dead. These are Christian F. Sense- man and Mary Heckewelder, the children of Mo- ravian Missionaries, who were born in 1781, at Gnadenhutten, on the Tuscarawas, now residing both in the same county in Pennsylvania; one at Nazareth, the other at Bethlehem. They were born withiy a day of each other.
While on this subject, let me state a singular fact. Although our city is but fifty-seven years of age, we have as residents a lady who with her son and granddaughter are all born within four miles of Cincinnati, the last two being born in the city itself.
The grandaughter is thirteen years of age. Of course then as far back as 1833, we had indi-
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viduals of the third generation born here. The great grandmother, one of the early pioneers, is also yet alive. This is a state of case probably unparalleled in Ohio, or indced in any settlement no older than our state.
Chancery Delays.
Soon after Mr. Jekyll was called to the bar, a strange solicitor coming up to him in Westmin- ster Hall, begged him to step into the court of chancery to make a motion, of course, and gave him a fec. The young barister looking pleased, but a little surprised, the solicitor said to him, " I thought you had a sort of right, sir, to this mo- tion; for the bill was drawn by Sir Joseph Jekyll, your great-grand-uncle, in the reign of Queen Anne."-Lord Campbell's " Lives of the Chan- cellors."
Early Maps of Cincinnati.
Streets .- West of the Section line separating Section 24 from the rest of the city, there was not a street laid out at the date of 1815. That line followed a due north course from a point at the river Ohio, about half way between Mill and Smith streets, crossing Fifth street just east of the mound which lately stood there, and Western Row about two hundred yards south of the Cor- poration line. Plum, Race and Walnut streets extended no farther north than Seventh street, and Sycamore was not opened beyond the pres- ent line of the Miami Canal. From Walnut street west as far as Western Row not a street wasopened north of Seventh st., nor from Main street east, beyond the bank of the canal already refered to. It was the same case with respect to Broadway from Fifth street to the Corporation line in the same direction. Court street, west of Main, was called St. Clair street, and Ninth street to its whole length, at that time, was laid out as Wayne street. Eighth street, east of Main, was called New Market street.
Public Buildings .- Of churches there were only-the Presbyterian Church which preceded the present building, on Main street; the Metho- dist Church on Fifth, where the Wesley Chapel has since been built; a Baptist Church on Sixth street, west of Walnut, on the scite of what is now a German Church, corner of Lodge street; and the Friends' frame meeting house, on Fifth, below Western Row. Of all these the last only remains on its original scite; the Presbyterian Church having been removed to · Vine, below Fifth, where it still stands under the name of Burke's Church, and the others having been since removed to make way for their successors. The scite of the present Cincinnati College, on Wal- nut street, at that date was occupied by the Lan-
caster Seminary Young as was the place it furnished business for three banks-the . Bank of Cincinnati was on Main, west side, and north of Fifth st .; the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank, on Main, west side, between Front and Second streets; and the Miami Exporting Company on the spot now occupied by W. G. Breese's store , facing the public landing. These, with the Court House and Jail, which stand now where they then stood, made up the public buildings for 1815. The brewery, corner of Symmes and Pike streets; an- other, corner of Race and Water streets; a potash factory on Front street, immediately east of Deer Creek; Gulick's sugar refinery on Arch street; a glass house at the foot of Smith street; a steam saw mill at the mouth of Mill street; and the great steam mill on the river bank, half way be- tween Ludlow street and Broadway, constituted in 1815, the entire manufactories of the place.
Markets .- Besides Lower Market, which occu- pied the block from Main to Sycamore, as well as that from Sycamore to Broadway, in the street of that namc, and Upper Market, which stood on Fifth between Main and Walnut streets, there was ground vacated for markets, which having been found unsuitable for the purpose, was never occupied for that use. One of these embraces the front of Sycamore street on both sides from a short distance north of Seventh, to the corner of Ninth street. Another is on McFarland street, west of Elm, forming a square of two hundred feet in the centre of the block. A slight cxam- ination of these places where the dwellings have been built back from their line of the respective streets, will point out at once the space dedicated for this purpose.
They who will abandon a friend for one error, know but little of human character, and prove that their hearts are as cold as their judgments are weak.
Patronymics.
No man thinks his own name a strange or odd one, however much so it may be to others. We are so familiar with the names of John Taylor, or John Miller, or John Carpenter, or John Ba- ker, that we have lost all sense of the oddity of a surname which signifies simply, in the original who bore it, his occupation or employment.
The Cherokees, in Arkansas, having adopted most of the customs of the whites, their aborigi- nal names are now translated into the English language, furnishing a series of names which seem very singular to our eyes and ears. Of four individuals arrested under a charge of mur- der near Tahlequah lately, the names are Squir- rel, John Potatoe, Wm. Wicked and Thomas
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Muskrat. The chief justice in the Going Snake | head of the table; and in went a large spoonful of district, is Jesse Bushyhead. . . the boiling hot soup to his mouth.
Church Organs.
The lovers of music should witness the per- formance of an organ made by Mr. John Koehnke, of our city, for Zion Church, on Columbia near Vine street, in which building it is now put up. It is wonderful that organs made by Erben and others are brought from the East, when at less expense a far superior article can be obtained of Cincinnati manufacture. I fearlessly challenge comparison here between those made by Erben . and the organ here refered to. There are few finer instruments of the kind and size any where.
The Cincinnati Historical Society.
It is desirable that files of periodieals now in existenee, or that were once published here, should be placed for preservation in the library of this society. Even single numbers, where files cannot be presented, will be acceptable.
The following prints have been deposited with Mr. Randall, Librarian of the Society, as a com- mencement:
1. The Western Washingtonian.
2. The Daily Commercial.
3. Orthodox Preacher.
4. Reformist.
5. Licht Freund.
6. Christliche Apologete.
7. Western Medical Reformer.
8. Youth's Visiter.
9. Christmas Guest.
10. Artist and Artisan.
11. Western General Advertiser.
12. Cincinnati Miscellany.
I trust that our city press will make up files for this commendable purpose.
Au Apt Scholar.
An old chap in Connecticut who was one of the most niggardly men known in that part of the country, carried on the blacksmithing' business very extensively; and, as is generally the case in that State, boarded all of his own hands. And to show he envied the men what they eat, he would have a bowl of bean soup dished up for himself to cool, while that for the hands was served up in a large pan just from the boiling pot. This old fellow had an apprentice who was rather unlucky among the hot irons, frequently burn- ing his fingers. The old man scolded him severe- ly one day for being so careless.
" How can I tell," said the boy, " if they are hot unless they are red?"
" Never touch any thing again till you spit on it; if it don't hiss it wont burn."
In a day or two the old man sent the boy in to see if his soup was cool. The boy went in-spit in the bowl; of course the soup did not hiss. He went back and told the boss all was right.
" Dinner!" cried he.
"Good Heavens!" cried the old man, in the greatest rage, " what did you tell me that lie for? you young rascal !"
" I did not lie," said the boy, very innocently. " You told me I should spit on any thing to try if it was hot; so I spit in your bowl, and the soup did not hiss, so I supposed it was cool."
Judge of the effect on the jours. That boy never was in want of friends among the jour- neymeil.
From the St. Louis Reveille.
A Desperate Adventurc.
[The following adventure of two men, one of them a St. Louis Boy, has been sent us, with a request to publish. The incident is one of those which gave such wild interest to the homeward journey of Lieut. Fremont .- Ens.]
While eneamped on the 24th of April, at a spring near the Spanish Trail, we were surprised by the sudden appearance among us of two Mex- icans; a man and a boy-the name of the man was Andreas Fuentas, and that of the boy (a handsome lad eleven years old) Pablo Hernan- dez. With a cavalcade of about thirty horses, they had come out from Puebla de los Angelos, near the Pacific; had lost half their animals, sto- len by Indians, and now sought my camp for raid. Carson and Godey, two of my men, volun- teered to pursue them, with the Mexican; and, well mounted, the three set off on the trail. In the evening Fuentas returned, his horse having failed; but Carson and Godey had continued the pursuit,
In the afternoon of the next day, a war whoop was heard, such as Indians make when returning from a victorious enterprise; and soon Carson and Godey appeared driving before them a band of horses, recognised by Fuentas to be a part of those they had lost. Two bloody scalps, dang- ling from the end of Godey's gun, announced that they had overtaken the Indians as well as the horses. They had continued the pursuit alone after Fuentas left them, and towards night- fall entered the mountains into which the trail led. After sunset the moon gave light, and they followed the trail by moonlight until late in the night, when it entered a narrow defile, and was difficult to follow. Here they lay from midnight till morning. At daylight thev resumed the pur- suit, and at sunrise discovered the horses; and immediately dismounting and tying up 'their own, they crept cautiously to a rising ground which intervened, from the crest of which they perceived the encampment of four lodges close by. They proceeded quietly, and had got within thirty or forty yards of their objeet, when a move- ment among the horses discovered them to the Indians. Giving the war shout they instantly charged in the camp, regardless of the numbers which the four lodges might contain. The Indi- ans received them with a flight of arrows, shot from their long bows, one of which passed through Godey's shirt collar, barely missing the neck. Our men fired their rifles upon a steady aim, and rushed iu. Two Indians were stretched upon the grouud, fatally pierced with bullets; the rest fled, except a lad, who was captured. The scalps of the fallen were instantly stripped off, but in the process, one of them, who had two balls throngh his body, sprung to his feet, the
All hands run; down sat the old man at the blood streaming from his skinned head, and ut-
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tered a hideous howl. The frightful spectacle appalled the stout hearts of our men; but they did what humanity required, and quickly termi- nated the agonies of the gory savage. They were now masters of the eamp, which was a pretty little recess in the mountain, with a fine spring, and apparently safe from all invasion. Great preparations had been made for feasting a large party, for it was a very proper place for a rendezvous, and for the celebration of such orgics as robbers of the desert would delight in. Sev- eral of the horses had been killed, skinned, and eut up-for the Indians living in the mountains, and only coming into the plains to rob and mur- der, make no other use of horses than to eat them. Large earthen vessels were on the fire, boiling and stewing the horse beef; and several baskets containing fifty or sixty pairs of moceasins, indi- cated the presence or expectation of a large party. They released the boy who had given strong evi- denee of the stoicism, or something else of the savage character, by commeneing his breakfast upon a horse's head as soon as he found he was not to be killed, but only tied as a prisoner.
Their objeet accomplished, our men gathered up all the surviving horses, fifteen in number, re- turned upon their trail, and rejoined us at our eamp in the afternoon of the same day. They had rode about one hundred miles in the pursuit and return, and all in thirty hours. The time, place, objeet and numbers considered, this expe- dition of Carson and Godey may be considered among the boldest and most disinterested which the annals of western adventurc, so full of daring deeds, ean present. Two men, in a savage wil- derness, pursue day and night an unknown body of Indians into the defiles of an unknown moun- tain-attack them on sight without counting numbers-and defeat them in an instant-and for what ?- to punish the robbers of the desert, and revenge the wrongs of Mexicans whom they did not know. I repeat it was Carson and Godey who did this-the former an American, born in Boonsliek county, Missouri; the latter a French- man, born in St. Louis-and both trained to western enterprise from early life.
Fine Feelings.
We knew a blunt old fellow in the State of Maine, who sometimes hit the nail on the head more pat than the philosophers. He onee heard a man much praised for his "good feelings." Every body joined, and said the man was posses- sed of excellent feelings.
" What has he done?" asked our old genius.
" Oh! in every thing he is a man of fine be- nevolent feelings," was the reply.
" What has he done?" cried the old fellow, again.
By this time the company thought it necessary to show some of their favourite's doings. They began to cast about in their minds, but the old man still shouted, " what has he done?" They owned that they could not name any thing in particular.
" Yet," answered the eynic, " you say that the man has good feelings-fine feelings-benevolent feelings. Now, gentlemen, let me tell you that there are people in this world who get a good name simply on account of their feelings. You can't tell one generous action that they ever per- formed in their lives, but they can look and talk most benevolently. I know a man in this town that you would all call a surly, tough and un-
amiable man, and yet he has done more acts of kindness in this country than all of you put to- gether. You may judge people's actions by their feelings, but I judge people's feelings by their aetions."
Superstitions of the Sea.
The author of the " Naval Sketch Book" gives the following as the origin of the prevalent notion among sailors that the appearance of the birds known as " Mother Carey's Chickens," is the precursor of a storm:
" The ' Tiger,' an outward bound East-India- man, had one continued gale, without intermis- sion, till she got to the Cape of Good Hope, by which time she was almost a wreck: that off this Capc in particular, she was nearly foundered: that in the height of the gale were seen a num- ber of ominous birds screaming about in the lightning's blaze, and some of them of monstrous shape and size: that among the passengers was a woman called ' Mother Carey,' who always seem- ed to smile when she looked upon these foul- weather birds, upon which it was concluded that she was a witch: that she had conjured them up from the Red Sea, and that they never would have a prosperous voyage whilst she remained on board; and, finally, that just as they were deba- ting about it, she sprung overboard and went down in a flame, when the birds, (ever after called 'Mother Carey's Chickens,') vanished in a moment, and left the Tiger to pursue her voyage in peace."
"The Stars and Stripes."
A correspondent of the New Bedford Mercury has picked up the following interesting serap of history:
1783. " On the 3d of February, the ship Bed- ford, Capt. Moores, belonging to the Massachu- setts, arrived in the Downs, passed Gravesend the 4th, and was reported at the Custom House the 6th. She was not allowed regular entry until some consultation had taken place between the Commissioners of the Customs and the Lords of the Council, on account of the many acts of Par- liament yet in force against the rebels of America. She was loaded with five hundred and eighty-seven butts of whale oil, manned wholly with American seamen, and belonged to the island of Nantucket, in Massachusetts. The vessel lay at Horsley Down, a little below the Tower, and was the first which displayed the -Thirteen Stripes of America in any British port."-Barnard's History of Eng- land, page 705.
Brevity.
It is a common idea that the most laconic mili- tary despatch ever issued, was that sent by Cæsar to the Horse Guards at Rome, containing the three memorable words, " Veni, vidi, vici," and perhaps until our own day, no like instance of brevity has been found. The despatch of Sir Charles Napier, after the capture of Scinde, to Lord Ellenborough, both for brevity and truth, is, however, far beyond it. The despatch con- sisted of one emphatie word-"Peccavi." " I have Scinde," (sinned.)
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Jesse and Elias Hughes =- No. 1.
Day by day the gallant band who settled the west at the peril of their lives, are disappearing from the theatre of human life, and a few brief years must sweep the survivors to that bourne from which no traveller returns.
Among these heroic spirits two brothers, Jesse and Elias Hughes figured in the frontier wars of Western Virginia. They were both re- markable men, As early as 1774, Ehas bore arms at the age of 18, and was doubtless at the period of his death, which occurred as lately as the 22d of last March, the last survivor of the memorable battle of Point Pleasant, on the 10th October, 1774. This was the hardest fight ever sustained with the Indians, it having lasted from early in the morning till near night, sev- eral persons perishing from exhaustion in the course of the day.
Thomas Hughes, the head of the family had emigrated from the south branch of the Poto- mac, and established himself with his wife and children at Clarksburg, Harrison county, on the head waters of the Monongahela, at that period on the frontiers of the white settlements. In this region, periodically invaded by Indians, the brothers, Jesse and Elias served their apprentice- ship to border warfare.
In 1777, Jesse, who was twenty-two, and Elias twenty years of age, attached themselves to a company of spies or rangers, raised by Capt. James Booth for the protection of the settlements. At one time the brothers being out on a scout, they examined the localities of the enemy near the steep bank of a run, made a smoke of rot- ten wood to keep off the gnats, and lay down upon their arms for the night, their moccasins tied to the breech of their guns. Sometime af- ter, hearing something like the snapping of a stick, and looking in the direction, they saw at a distance three Indians approaching. Instant- ly the young men sprang to their feet, leaped down the bank and over the run. The Indi- ans in pursuit, not knowing the place so well, fell down the bank. The whites hearing the plash, stopped an instant, put on their mocca- sins, raised a yell and put off at full speed, leav- ing the Indians to take care of themselves.
entering her back just below the shoulder, It came out at her left breast. With his tomahawk, he cleft the upper part of the head, and carried it off to save the scalp.
The screams of the women alarmed the men in the fort, and seizing their rifles they ran out just as Mrs Freeman fell, a few shots were fired at the Indian while he was tugging away at the scalp, but without effect, except so far as to warn the men outside of the fort that danger was at hand, and they quickly came in. Among these were Jesse Hughes, and a comrade named Johan Schoolcraft, who, while they were getting in, discovered two Indians standing by the fence, and-looking so intently towards the men at the fort as not to perceive any one else. Hughes and Schoolcraft being unarmed-having left their guns in the fort-stepped to one side and made their way in safely. Hughes, his broth- er and four others, armed themselves and went out to bring in the dead body, and while Jesse was pointing out to the rest of the party how near he had approached the Indians before no- ticing them, one of the Indians made a howl like a wolf, and the whole party moved off in the direction whence the sound proceeded un- til supposing themselves near the spot, and stop- ping in a suitable place, Jesse howled also. He wasanswered, and two Indians were soon seen advancing. An opportunity offering, Elias Hughes shot one and the other took to flight .-- Being pursued by the whites, he took shelter in a thicket of brush, and while they were pro- ceeding to intercept him at his coming out, he returned [the way he entered and made his es- cape. The wounded Indian also got off. In their pursuit of the others, the party passed by where the wounded man lay, and one of the men was for stopping and finishing him, but Hughes called out "he is safe! let us have the others," and they all pressed forward into the thicket. On their return the savage was gone, and al . though his free bleeding enabled them to pur- sue his track readily for a while, a heavy show- er of rain falling while they were in pursuit, all traces of him were finally lost.
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