USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 2 > Part 41
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The orchestra played 'God Save the Queen' as he entered while the assemblage rose to their feet. He retired to a private box for a few mo- ments and then reappeared which was a signal for commencing the festivities for the evening .. The Prince opened the dance with Mrs. Samuel N. Pike as his partner, and successively danced with Miss Rebecca Groesbeck, Miss Mattie Tay- lor of Newport, Miss Helen McGregor of Mount Auburn, Miss Alice Hilton and Miss Edith Bur- net. His partners were selected for him by the floor managers at his request. He danced in every quadrille and as the merry notes of the music stilled to silence the sixth set the hour of twelve arrived. The Prince and his party then retired highly pleased with the entertainment." It is interesting to note that of the 12 dances on the programme for this evening but one was a waltz. There were two polkas, a schottische, a mazourka, five quadrilles and two lancers. The composers whose names figured on the pro- gram were Strauss ( five selections), Flotow, Julian, Oberst, Tilney, Wallerstein and Labitzky.
The following morning the royal party attend- ed divine services at St. John's Church at Seventh and Plum, where Bishop Mellvaine conducted the . services assisted by Rev. Dr. Greenleaf of St. Paul's and Rev. Mr. Heather of St. John's and Rev. Mr. Bronson of Sandusky. Here again the crowd was so great as to make it necessary to surround the church by police and at the end of the services to spirit him away by a side en- trance. In the evening the Prince left the city for Pittsburg.
THE UNITED STATES FAIR.
In September, 1860, the United States Fair . was held at the Cincinnati Trotting Park which was on the line of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railway about eight miles from the city. The fair included a power hall, an art hall, and accommodations for stock of every character. There were over 2,000 entries of various sorts and the exhibition of machinery and stock was said to have been the finest ever seen in the country. There were also trotting and running races and the attendance ran as high as 25,000 a day. The fair lasted for seven days.
l11 1860 were organized two charitable insti- tutions which have become of great importance in the city life. The Children's Home which was first located in a basement room on Mill
street below Third owed its foundation to Mur- ray Shipley. The Home of the Friendless was also incorporated under the title of the Protestant Home for the Friendless and Female Guardian Society for the purpose of reclaiming fallen women and taking temporary charge of aban- doned infants. This institution has always been under the charge of a board of lady managers representing the various sects of the city.
A fire in August destroyed the little German Tivoli Theatre in the third story of a building at Sycamore and Canal streets. Connected with this place of entertainment was a beer garden.
POLITICAL EVENTS OF 1860.
Stephen A. Douglas, one of the candidates for the presidency, visited Cincinnati in October, 1860. A large torchlight procession escorted him from the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton depot to the Court street market space where at a meeting presided over by Gen. W. H. Lytle, Mr. Douglas, Senator Pugh and others discussed the issues of the day very briefly.
Another event of the year 1860 that is frequent- ly referred to is the visit of the great Southern fire-eater. William L. Yancey of Alabama, who addressed the citizens of Cincinnati on October 20, 1860, at Pike's Opera House. The meeting was presided over by Dr. J. L. Vattier and Mr. Yancey delivered an address which as phono- graphically reported occupies almost five long col- umns of fine print in the papers of the day. It was of course a speech intensely Southern in its character and the main interest in it to-day arises from the fact that it was received with such en- thusiasm and that the Opera House was packed with the most prominent people of the communi- ty. Mr. Yancey's reception which seems so cor- (lial is usually contrasted with that of the abo- litionist, Wendell Philips, who was practically driven from the same stage a little later.
In the November election of 1860 the total vote cast in the city was 26, 693 of which 12,226 were for Lincoln, 11, 135 for Douglas, 3,000 for Bell and 242 for Breckenridge. The election passed off very quietly and the day was free from the disorders which in those days usually accom- panied the exercise of the voting privilege. Ju the spring election the city had gone Democratic by a majority of about 650 in a total vote of 16,- 500.
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CHAPTER XL.
FROM THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL TO THE WAR-V.
THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
NEGRO COLONIZATION -THE RACE RIOTS OF 1841 - ABOLITIONISTS IN 1842 -THE VAN ZANDT AND WATSON CASES - LEVI COFFIN - THE " UNDERGROUND RAILWAY" - ELIZA HARRIS' ESCAPE- THE SCANLAN MOB-THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW-THE MCQUERRY CASE-A HEARING BEFORE COMMISSIONER CARPENTER -THE ROSETTA CASE-THE MARGARET GARNER CASE-THE CON- NELLY CASE-THE EARLY CASE.
The general feeling of the community with reference to the negro population of the city and also with reference to slavery at the South has been referred to at some length in connection with the account of the mob of 1836, which de- stroyed the printing office of the Philanthropist. Matters became more and more acute as the question was bound to recur again and again and for the 20 years prior to the war Cincinnati was much distraught by her varying sympathies. The city was directly on the line of the "Underground Railway," as the mysterious scheme of aiding negroes escaping into the land of freedom was called and the runaway was a well known feature and quite in the natural course of events. In no other city of the Union was the situation more difficult and nowhere did the events leading up to the gradual change of sentiment in the North follow each other so frequently.
NEGRO COLONIZATION.
An illustration of the discussions that were constantly taking place on the burning question of slavery is given in a notice published in the daily papers on January 7, 1839, signed by Judge J. Burnet, Daniel Gano and Jesse Justice and
calling attention to a course of lectures against abolitionism which were being delivered in Col- lege Ilall by a Mr. How. According to this notice the object of the lectures was to bring the doctrine of the American Anti-Slavery Society to the test "of Scripture, of Justice, of Philos- ophy. of Experience and of the Constitution of the United States" and in the view of the gen- tlemen signing the notice the lectures could not fail to produce full conviction of the truth of the doctrines maintained,-that is to say of the futil- ity of any interference with the institution of slavery. (Gasette, January 12, 1839.)
Another evidence of the universal interest was the "Abhorrence Meeting" called it is said on suggestion of Robert T. Lytle to show the ab- horrence of the citizens to the doctrines of abo- lition. This was held March 9, 1839, at the Court House and was presided over by David Griffin. General Lytle was the principal speaker and resolutions offered by him were to the effect that the colonization plan was the only sure and safe and feasible project to avoid the ills of slavery and that the abolitionists were pursuing a course calculated to prevent all amelioration of the condition of the colored race.
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Another meeting, held at the chapel of the Cin- cinnati College of February 18th, presided over by Judge Burnet endorsed the object of the Am- erican Colonization Society and organized a branch of the society for Hamilton County. The committee on nominations was Robert T. Lytle, Joseph Graham, Hezekiah Flint and E. B. Reeder. Among the officers were Jacob Burnet, president, Josiah Lawrence, Rev. J. T. Brooke, Rev. T. A. Mills, Rev. L. L. Hamline, Rev. M. M. Henkle, Rev. S. W. Lyon, vice-presidents, William Greene, secretary and Ephraim Robbins, treasurer. Among the managers were Rev. Will- iam H. McGuffey, P. S. Symmes, H. E. Spencer, George W. Neff, N. C. Read, E. Woodruff and William Tift. The purposes of this organization were by its constitution to aid in the coloniza- tion in Africa of the colored race and freed slaves. This general movement was regarded by the abolitionists as a dangerous obstacle in the struggle for freedom.
That there was some opposition to slavery often at the expense of the loss of business and social position is shown by a meeting held at the Court House on Tuesday evening, January 5, 1841, for the purpose of protesting against slav- cry and the slave trade in the District of Colum- bia. At this meeting Samuel Lewis presided and D. F. Meader and W. T. Truman acted as sec- retaries and resolutions were prepared by Nathan Guilford.
THE RACE RIOTS OF 1841.
On June 25, 1841, Cornelius Burnett, his three ·sons and three other persons were haled before a magistrate charged with assault and battery upon a constable, Robert Black and a Kentucky slave owner. The mulatto slave had escaped across the river and was traced to Burnett's honse on Fifth street between Walnut and Vine. Here the constable, who was in search of him, and the master attempted to take the slave but were resisted by Burnett, his sons and the others of the party. During the scuffle the slave was taken away and carried before George Ayres where he acknowledged himself a slave and agreed to return to Kentucky. Burnett and his associates were bound over for the assault and upon refusing to give bail in the sum of $3,000 they were committed to jail. After the scuffle in the house, a mob collected about the place and for a time violence was feared but the crowd was dispersed by the sheriff without doing any in- jury other than breaking a few panes of glass. After supper time the mob gathered again at
Burnett's house to the number of several hundred and were dispersed only after addresses by Squire Doughty and Mr. Avery, the sheriff, and assur- ances that Burnett and his associates were in jail.
The Gasette says that the mob was rather courted than shunned by Burnett who was "a mischievous and swaggering Englishman oftener in trouble of this kind than half the other abo- litionists of the city together." He was dis- countenanced by the leading and influential abo- litionists who relied upon moral persuasion to accomplish the reform they hoped for and ob- jected to acts. This trifling occurrence called for much discussion in the papers of the South which had a tendency to solidify the anti-slavery sen- timent of the city. Among those who had ob- jected to what they regarded as the violence of Burnett, many resented the Southern theory that it was the business of the city officers to track slaves. The papers felt it necessary, however, a short time afterwards to disclaim any connec- tion between this Burnett and the family of Judge Burnet, calling attention to the fact that the abolitionist's name was spelled with a double "1." In the riot of the following September, Burnett's establishment was wrecked by a mob.
Another of the terrible riots that have formed so large a part of the history of Cincinnati took place in September, 1841, and for several days the city was at the mercy of a lawless mob vary- ing in numbers from 200 to 1,500 people. The old antagonism to the negroes was the cause and a quarrel between a party of Irishmen and some negroes on the corner of Sixth and Broadway the occasion. Two or three of each party were wounded in the affray. The following night the quarrel was taken up again and a little after midnight a large party armed with clubs and boulders attacked a house on McAllister street just cast of Broadway between Fourth and Fifth streets, which was used as a negro boarding house. They demanded the surrender of a negro whom they thought was secreted in the house and accompanied their demands with threats against the negro race in general. As this was a negro neighborhood, the mob was resisted by the colored people and a free fight ensued and several more were wounded on each side. Again on the following night there was more violence in Lower Market and several boys were wounded, one quite badly with a knife. By this time what had been nightly broils developed into a riot and Friday about eight o'clock in the morn- ing a mob composed largely of river men and
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Kentucky toughs took possession of the Fifth street market where is now the esplanade, where they so terrorized the police and citizens as to be unmolested. They were armed with clubs and stones and weapons of various sorts and finally marched in a regular procession towards Sixth and Broadway, where they attacked a negro confectionery located next to the Jewish Synagogue. They demolished the doors and windows of the establishment, but their work of destruction was very soon stopped by the arrival of a number of negroes provided with firearms.
The well known lawyer, J. W. Piatt, there- upon addressed the crowd and endeavored to prevail upon them to respect the law and dis- perse. He was greeted with angry shouts and a volley of stones. Thereupon Mayor Davies attempted to address the crowd, but his remarks were greeted with savage yells. "Down with him! Run him off !" and oaths and exhortations to the mob to move onward. The disturbers seemed in the main to be outsiders, river rats and boat hands. Regardless of the appeals of the mayor and Piatt, they repeatedly advanced to charge the negroes with stones and were again and again met by volleys from the latter's pistols. Many were wounded on both sides and many were reported as being killed. The negroes fired into the crowd a number of times, unjustifiably according to the contemporary account but very naturally and properly as viewed at the present day. About one o'clock that night the mob pro- cured an iron six-pounder cannon from some place along the river and loaded it up with boiler punchings and missiles of all kinds. Against the exhortations of the mayor and others, they hauled it to the scene of action and posted it along Broadway pointing down Sixth street. There was still a good deal of yelling but not so much firing, as many of the negroes had fled to the hills. The cannon was discharged several times, which called for an answering fire, filling the streets as was then supposed with killed and wounded, although it was never learned how many were killed. About two o'clock the mili- tary who had been called out by the mayor ar- rived at the scene of disorder and succeeded in maintaining a semblance of quiet. For the whole of the next day the neighborhood was patrolled by the militia and kept under martial law. The negroes were kept within bounds and the whites kept ont. On Saturday morning a meeting of citizens was held at the Court House. The mayor, sheriff and other speakers addressed the citizens and resolutions, reported by J. W. Piatt,
J. C. Avery, B. Storer, D. T. Disney and others, were passed disapproving all mobs and asking the civil authorities to stop the violence, but adding fuel to the flame by discountenancing abo- litionists, whose proceedings they viewed with abhorrence. The citizens in those days seemed more afraid of offending the slavery adherents than of lawlessness of the criminal elements. The City Council held a special session to consider the situation and to devise measures to vindicate the majesty of the law and reestablish peace. The negroes held a meeting in their church in which they made statements to the mayor and citizens that they would do all within their power to maintain good order and to suppress impru- dence on the part of their own people. They stated that they were willing to conform to the law of 1807 and give bonds required by that act or to leave the State in a specified time. They tendered their thanks to the mayor, watch, offi- cers and gentlemen of the city for the efforts made to save their property, their lives, their wives and children. The mob, however, and its leaders continued to keep the streets and no serious effort seems to have been made to arrest them or disperse them. About three o'clock in the afternoon the mayor of the city and sheriff of the county, accompanied by the marshal and police, proceeded to Sixth and Broadway, sur- sounded by soldiers to keep the mob in the back- ground. They received bonds for a number of negroes and gave them permission to go away with their sureties, who were among the most respectable citizens. As they attempted to leave, the mob, in spite of the presence of the soldiers, required them to return. Thereupon it was de- cided to form the male negroes in a body to take them 'to jail for protection. Two hundred and fifty to three hundred of them formed in a com- pact body, surrounded by soldiers and officers, and marched to prison accompanied by a dense mass of men, women and boys, who filled the air with deafening yells and threats. Here the poor negroes, separated from their families, were lodged for several days and the crowd for a time dispersed. The military was ordered out at nightfall and with the firemen assisted the police. Over eighty citizens enrolled themselves as aides and deputies and the marshal and the troop of horse and several of the vol- unteer infantry companies remained on duty during the night, some guarding the jail and others being posted near the battle- ground. The disturbance was by no means over, however, for as Sunday morning dawned
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the mob, which seemed to have been regu- larly organized, began its operations once more. To distract the attention of the police, attack was made simultaneously on a number of different points. The printing office of the Phil- anthropist was one of the first points chosen. Once more the establishment was sacked and the press broken up and carried into the street and down Main street to the river, into which it was thrown. The military appeared in the alley near the office and stopped the mob for a time, but as soon as they withdrew the work of de- struction continued. A number of negro houses, including the negro church on Sixth street, were broken into and windows, doors and furniture completely destroyed. An effort was made also to destroy the printing establishment of Truman & Smith at No. 150 Main street. They were driven from this, however, by the police and shortly afterwards they quieted down and dis- persed, more from exhaustion than from any other reason. The excitement continued for some days and the Governor of the State, Thomas Corwin, was obliged to come to the city, where he issued a proclamation. A committee of safety, including the mayor, sheriff, president of the Council and George W. Jones and David T. Disney, was appointed to confer with him. In this affair, in which twenty or thirty people were seriously wounded and several probably killed and forty of the mob arrested, the principal in- spiration seems to have come from Kentucky. On that side of the river bonfires were lighted and every manifestation of satisfaction was in- dulged in by shouts and in other ways. The whole performance was of the most cowardly character and after the men had been disarmed and taken to prison for safe-keeping, under a solemn pledge that their wives and children should be protected, a band of white men were permitted to renew their brutal attacks on these women and children. The affair was one of the most disgraceful in the history of a city noted for its helplessness in times of mob violence. (Gasette, September 6, 1841.)
This mob of 1841 was the occasion of a pro- longed discussion in the newspapers of the time. The statement of the papers that it was actuated by Southerners called, of course, for very bitter comment on the part of the Kentucky papers. The Gazette, in an effort to explain the causes, estimates that the number of negroes in the city did not exceed 3,000. Many of these, whose usual employment was on the river, had been out of work by reason of the low water. The
idle negroes, too, resented the charges of the whites that they had been active in aiding in the escape of slaves. The Burnett case, which has already been mentioned, as well as other cases, had a tendency to inflame the public mind. Bur- nett was tried and convicted and punished. In August a German, defending his blackberry patch, was attacked by a number of negroes and cut to death. A little later a white woman, re- turning from the sick bed of a friend, was as- saulted by two negroes on Broadway carly 'one morning. Another circumstance was the frolick- ing and singing of the idle negroes on McAllis- ter and Sixth streets. Then, too, there was printed in the city an abolition paper, althoughi few of those following abolition doctrines were known to the Gasette. Most of the abolitionists, said the chronicler, were quiet and orderly citi- zens, but some few, generally foreigners, were fanatics,-perfect monomaniacs,-whose conduct excited universal reprehension. Several slaves may have escaped from their masters to Ohio and may have been aided by some few individuals although the Gasette was careful to state that it knew of no such aid and that there were but few who would aid fugitives or interpose any obstacle to the master's reclamation of his prop- erty.
The result of the riot was the organization of a citizens' police force composed of thirty to forty middle aged and active resident citizens in each ward, who were to be armed and hold them- selves in readiness to turn out to quell riots. The general spirit of lawlessness was indicated by an attempt to burn the Reformed Presby- terian Church on Church street between Race and Eln1.
In October of this same years the Western Methodist Anti-Slavery Convention held its meet- ing in Cincinnati. No church of its own denont- ination was willing to open its doors to it and it was obliged to accept the hospitality of the Baptist Church. This meeting had for its chair- man Hon. Samuel Lewis.
ABOLITIONISTS IN 1842.
In the year 1842 a paper known as the Anti- Abolitionist published in Cincinnati gave a list of abolitionists in the city for the purpose of informing Southerners and enabling them to avoid carrying on their trade with these people. The list, which is now a roll of honor, included the following: Thomas Morris, attorney ; Nich- olas Longworth, property holder ;. G. Bailey, Jr .. editor Philanthropist; Samuel A. Alley, printer
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on the same paper; Rev. William H. Brisbane; Rev. George Blanchard; James Dean, shoe- maker; George D. Fry, secretary Anti-Slavery Society ; Harvey Hall, attorney: E. F. Brush, D. De Forest, tinware ; C. Donaldson, eye ; David Williams, William Carson, C. M. Merrill, N. H. Merrill, Salmon P. Chase, Samuel Lewis, Amos Moore, tanner; H. Miller, stove store; A. Kel- logg, auctioneer ; Murphy & Son, grocers; A. W. Hicks, shoemaker; William Birney, notary ; Caleb S. Burdsal, William Lewis, Joseph N. Hueston, James Blin, Rev. Dr. Park and Jabez Reynolds.
THIE VAN ZANDT AND WATSON CASES.
In this same year (1842) occurred another famous fugitive slave case, that of John Van Zandt. Van Zandt had been a Kentuckian but he had turned abolitionist and his small farm near the city was known as a station of the "Underground Railway." On the 22nd day of April nine slaves who had escaped from Horton Jones of Kentucky landed on the Ohio side and were found on the road on Walnut Hills by Van Zandt as he was driving home. Van Zandt had the party climb into his covered wagon and one of them sat on the box and drove. When they reached a point about 15 miles out of the city, they were stopped by two persons, called by Chase "bold villains," who carried off eight of the slaves to Kentucky. Andrew, the driver, the ninth, escaped. The two "bold villains" had no authority from their master or any one to interfere and thereupon Chase procured their prosecution for abduction, but by reason of the lack of interest of the officials and public senti- ment generally they were acquitted. Jones, the owner of the slave, afterwards brought suit for the value of the runaway slave Andrew and for the expense of recapturing the others and an- other suit to recover the penalty allowed by the law of 1793 against a person who harbored a fugitive. The cases were tried in July, 1842, in the United States Court before Judge McLean. Chase and Thomas Morris defended Van Zandt, but the court held against them and Van Zandt was obliged to pay $1,200 damages. In the other case William H. Seward associated himself with Chase in the argument in the Supreme Court. Van Zandt, however, was beaten and obliged to pay the damages and ex- penses.
A slave case of considerable interest was that concerning Samuel Watson, who went on shore
in January, 1845, from a steamer laying at land- ing. The case was taken up by Chase by writ of habeas corpus to the Ohio Supreme Court on the ground that the escape was made within the low water mark and therefore undoubtedly within the territory of Ohio. Judge Read decided against Chase on the ground that the jurisdiction of steamers navigating the Ohio was, as far as slavery was concerned, in the State of Kentucky. As a result when the abolitionists held the bal- ance of power in 1849 they dropped Judge Read from the bench:
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