USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Cincinnati illustrated: a pictorial guide to Cincinnati and the suburbs > Part 20
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NEWPORT-Is a city of Campbell county, Kentucky, on the Ohio river, immediately above the mouth of the Licking river, and opposite Cincinnati. The population in 1870 was 15,087. It is now probably 20,000. It is handsomely built on an elevated plain, commanding a fine view, and is ornamented and made attractive by numerous shade trees. In the City and its suburbs are a large number of elegant residences. Communication with Cincinnati is maintained by a steam ferry, and by the splendid new iron bridge for ordinary travel and railroad trains. There is a suspension bridge over the Licking river between Newport and Covington, and a street railroad, running over this bridge and the Covington & Cincinnati bridge, connects the three cities. A street railroad also connects Newport with the two villages of Dayton and Bellevue, situated on the Ohio river above the town. The Louisville, Cincinnati & Lexington Rail- road passes through the city. It is noted for its excellent schools. There are several large rolling mills, iron foundries, saw mills, and various manufactories. The City contains a couple of banks, a weekly newspaper, and twelve churches. The principal courts of the county are held here.
NEWPORT BRIDGE (Sec Bridges).
83
KENNY'S CINCINNATI ILLUSTRATED.
NEW POST-OFFICE AND CUSTOM HOUSE (See Government Buildings).
NEWTOWN .- A pleasant village on the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad, 10 miles from Cincinnati, with about 750 inhabitants.
NIGIIT SCHOOLS (See Schools).
NORMAL SCHOOLS (Sec Schools).
NORTH BEND .- A small village in Indiana, on the Indiana- polis, Cincinnati & Lafayette Railroad, 15 miles from the City. Has a population of about 100. This is the old home of Wm. Henry Harrison, once President of the United States. The old house is yet to be seen on a delightfully elevated spot.
NORWOOD, FORMERLY CALLED SHARPSBURGH .- One of the most beautiful locations in Hamilton County, is situated on the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad, ten and a half miles from the City. The Norwood Heights reach the greatest elevation in the County. An Indian mound crowns one of the heights, from which there is a most extensive and beautiful prospect. It is one of the features of the place. Here are many fine old home- steads and elegant modern mansions, almost hidden by clusters of foliage in beautiful grounds. The former are, however, fast disappearing before the march of improvement. The old home- stead of Mr. J. M. Mccullough, shown in the engraving, illus- trates the style of houses built in this section when Norwood was a wilderness and Cineinnati only a small town. The resi-
FILENGLING
THE MCCULLOUGH HOMESTEAD.
dence of Colonel P. P. Lane, of Lane & Bodley, in the midst of beautiful grounds, shows the modern style of houses, with all the extraordinary conveniences of the present day. Although Nor- wood boasts of many of the most exquisite landscape scenes to be found among the charming suburbs of Cincinnati, it is still more interesting on account of its historic connection with the natural antiquities of America, and the carly history of Cincin- nati. Within the memory of meu still living this was the home of the Indian, and from the mound alluded to have been ex- humed many interesting relies, such as rude arrow-heads and fragments of yet older household utensils. Norwood is more in- timately associated with the early history of the city than any other of the suburbs. Fifty years ago the highroad from the East to Cincinnati, by way of Columbus, passed through Nor- wood, and a few of the old pioneers of this section well recollect the great, ponderous wagons loaded with merchandise from the
East passing through the settlement. In those days there was an old woman living at Norwood who kept a wayside tavern, where fire-water was sold, and where many an Indian stopped to drink. She filled out the glass or jug to the teamster and the Indian im- partially, like that Betty Flanagan of whom Cooper sings in his "Spy"-
. " Old Mother Flanagan, Come and fill the can again, For you can fill And we can swill, Good Betty Flanagan."
But the old glories of Norwood are past. Times are changed. Nothing now remains of the old times but the hills and glorious woods. The teeming orchards, the rich and variegated ever-
RESIDENCE OF COL. P. P. LANE, -
greens, the trimmed lawns, the graveled walks, and the beautiful mansions, present as strong a contrast as could be imagined to the time when the savage red Indian marched in semi-possession, and half-dreaded, through the then, comparatively speaking, n- cultivated wilds.
NUMBER OF DWELLINGS (Scc Population).
NURSERIES (Sec Florists).
OAKLEY .- A handsome village on the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad, 12 miles from Cincinnati; contains about 400 inhabit- ants. It has a good many comfortable residences, and is only 5 miles from the city by the Madisonville turnpike
OBSERVATORY (Sec University of Cincinnati).
OBSTETRICAL SOCIETY .- The Cincinnati Obstetrical Society was organized in 1876, by about a dozen prominent obstetricans, and the number of active members has continued the same up to the present time. The society has monthly meetings, except in Summer, at the residences of the various members. It is on the plan of the famous obstetrical societies of the cities of the Gul world, ability in the specialty being a requisite to admission. Dr. J. C. Underhill is President, and Dr. C. O. Wright, Sec- retary.
OCCUPATIONS (See Population).
ODD FELLOWS (See Independent Order of Odd Fellowx).
ODD FELLOWS' HALL, THE .- Of Cincinnati, is built upon their
!
84
KENNY'S CINCINNATI ILLUSTRATED.
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own property, on Fourth street, on the northeast corner of Home. The building is 50 feet front by 100 feet deep, and was built in 1871, at a total cost of $70,000, not including the grounds. The lower floors are occupied by the Mutual Benefit Life Insur- ance Company. On the third floor are three aute rooms, a re- ception-room and the Lodge-room. On this floor also is the red room, or degree-room. The furniture is very handsome-on the third floor, walnut; on the fourth, oak. The principal Lodge- rooms are 50 by 4712 feet, and beautifully furnished. The carpets and curtains, and every article of textile manufacture, were imported from Europe. The Odd Fellows, in the spirit of good fellowship, rent their rooms, upon evenings not required for their own purposes, to other Societies advocating kindred, if not similar, aims.
ODD FELLOWS' MAENNERCHOR .- A singing society composed of German members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. There are about forty voices. Meets every Tuesday evening at No. 180 West Court street.
ODD FELLOWS' PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION .- An insurance association connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, but not obligatory on the members. The association pays sick benefits of $5 per week, and $2,000 on the death of a mem- ber. It is not confined to the City or City lodges, but extends its benefits throughout the entire State.
OHIO COLLEGE OF DENTAL SURGERY .- On College street, between Sixth and Seventh streets, was organized in 1845. The College property is owned and controlled by an Association of Dentists, numbering nearly one hundred. The College build- ing in its arrangement and adaptation for the purposes of dental education has no superior in the country. It is the object to give a thorough collegiate course of instruction in theory and the practice of Dentistry. Connected with the institution is a Den- tal Infirmary or Hospital, where all diseases of the month and contagious parts are treated, and teeth extracted free. The reg- ular departments taught are :- Principles and Practice and Den- tal Hygiene, Physiology and Histology, Descriptive Anatomy, Pathology and Thereapeutics, Chemistry and Materia Mediea, Clinical Dentistry, Mechanical Dentistry, and Oral Surgery and Practical Anatomy. The fees are :- Matriculation fee, $5; Pro-
MAMA
THE OHIO MECHANICS' INSTITUTE.
fessor's Tieket for one session, $75; Demonstrator's Ticket (for Anatomy), $5; Diploma Fee, $20. Candidates for graduation, other thau praetioners, are required to attend two full courses of lectures. H. A. Smith, D. D. S., Dean of the Faculty; J. S. Cassidy, D. V. S., Secretary; President of the Board of Trustees, James Taylor, M. D., D. D. S.
OHIO MECHANICS' INSTITUTE .- The Institute was founded on
the 20th of November, 1828, and the corner-stone of the present building, at the southwest corner of Sixth and Vine, laid on the 4th of July, 1848. The last session of the School of Design, a branch of the Institute, and condueted within its walls, was the twenty-third in the School's history. In the first year's attend- ance a bronze medal is offered for competition; in the second, a silver, and in the third a gold medal or badge. Special classes are also formed, and special premiums awarded. There are now 220 students, and 4,439 have been enrolled since its organization. There are also Mechanical, Architectural, and Artistic Depart- ments, the latter including modeling and Life Classes. The In- stitute has comfortable reading-rooms, and a good reference library. The receipts for the year ending 1st March, 1879, were $9,169, and the disbursements, $8,348. (See Libraries.) The offi- cers are :- President, Thomas Gilpin ; Vice-President, James Dale; Recording Secretary, H. W. Stephenson; Treasurer, H. MeCollum ; Directors, W. S. Munson, William H. Stewart, Jr., Thomas Gibson, Harvey Janes, Walter B. Bruce; Clerk, John B. Heich. Regular meetings of the Board of Directors first Tues- day of cach month.
OHIO RIVER .- The first great step in the progress of Cincinnati was doubtless the improvement of navigation. To form an idea of this we must go back to 1800, when the emigrants to the West. were seen descending the Ohio in what were called arks, or flat- boats, fired into from either shore by the Indians, requiring weeks of time to accomplish the voyage from Fort Du Quesne (Pittsburg) to the falls of the Ohio, and landing amid enemiesin the dark forests of the Ohio. Such was the first mode of naviga- tion. In 1800 a line of two keel boats (boats with keels and pushed by poles), with bullet-proof covers and port-holes, pro- vided with cannon and small arms, was established between Cin- cinnati and Pittsburg, making the trip once in four weeks. The keel boat was the best and most comfortable boat for navigation on the. Ohio, and this, with the flat-boat, were the sole means of conveyance on the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi.
In 1811 the first steamboat was launched in the West, and in 1816 the first steamboat was built in Cincinnati. The steamboat changed the whole kind and character of navigation on the Ohio. Cincinnati at once began to build steamboats and to trade with the most distant parts of the Mississippi Valley. She became the mart of a vast commerce and the center of an immense transit. Suddenly thirty thousand miles of river coast opened to her a com- merce and traffic as extensive as if she had been placed on the shores of the Mediterranean or the Pacific. New Orleans at one thousand five hund- red miles, and the tributaries of the Missouri at thousands of miles, were accessible to her, and she became the point for the receipt, distribution and transhipment of the immense surplus products of a great region. The number of steamboats built in Cincinnati amounted to one-fifth of the whole number built in the United States.
Manufactures are the greatest subjects of interest in Cincinnati. The raw materials and facilities are almost unequaled. Above, on the Ohio river, are exhaustless beds of iron, coal and salt, and such is the ease of transportation that coal and iron are cheaper at Cincinnati than in any other of the great cities of the Union. A canal-boat leaving Cincinnati with iron-ware or sugar may carry it to the shores of Lake Erie or the Lower Wabash ; a steamboat leaving the wharf may carry its furni- ture to Kansas, Arkansas or to Minnesota.
The Ohio is the largest branch of the Mississippi river from the east, and was known to the early French settlers as La Belle Riviere. It is famed for the uniform smoothness of its current as well as for the beauty and fertility of its valley. It is formed in Western Pennsylvania by the junction at Pittsburg of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers. Over an area of drainage of the Ohio and its branches, estimated at 202,400 square miles,
85
KENNY'S CINCINNATI ILLUSTRATED.
the topography is uniform in its principal features. The valleys are depressions below the general summit level of the country; the descent of the river beds is gentle. with no sudden breaks or precipitous falls. An interesting feature in the banks of the river is the succession of terraces often noticed rising one above an- other at different elevations, and sometimes spreading out in broad alluvial flats. Though they are often 75 feet or more above the present mean level of the river, they were evidently formed by deposits made in distant periods when the river flowed at these higher levels. The City of Cincinnati stands upon two of these terraces, the upper 58 feet above the lower, and this 50 feet above low water of the river. The total length of the Ohio is 967 miles. Its course till it passes out of Pennsylvania is a little W. of N. to Beaver, Penn., and thence W. to the line of the State of Ohio. It then flows S. between Ohio and Virginia, passing Wheeling, the western terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- road, 92 miles below Pittsburg. The general course of the river is W. S. W. After passing between Ohio and Virginia it borders the whole length of Kentucky, separating that State from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois on the N.
The width of the river varies from 800 to 1,500 feet. Its depth at different seasons is very fluctuating, the range between high and low water being often 50 and sometimes 60 feet. During portions of the Summer season and in the Autumn, when the water is low, the larger stcamboats are all withdrawn, and what are known as low-water boats substituted. At the lowest stage the river may be forded at several places both above and below Cincinnati. In the Winter it is often frozen over; and for sev. eral weeks, and sometimes months, floating ice prevents its navi- gation.
The rate of its current varies with the stage of the water from 212 to 412 miles an hour. The only rapids are at Louisville, and these can be surmounted during 4 or 5 months of each year. In 21/2 miles the fall is about 22 feet. A canal was long since con- structed past these rapids at Louisville, and has now been made sufficiently capacious to allow nearly all of the largest steamers to pass.
The country bordering on the Ohio is for the most part a thriv- ing agricultural region, and many prosperous and beautiful towns and cities have grown up within the present century on its banks. Manufactures are encouraged by the mines of coal and iron ore that abound in the country traversed by this river and its tribu- taries, and the products of these add largely to the immense transportation carried on by the boats. In 1869 the commerce of the Ohio river was nearly equal to the whole foreign commerce of the United States.
The tributarics of the Ohio are numerous, and some of them important navigable rivers, as the Muskingum and Scioto of Ohio, the Kanawha of West Virginia, the Big Sandy, Licking and Green rivers of Kentucky, the Wabash of Indiana, and the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers of Tennessee.
amount of fines collected, $3,000. The society publishes a montlily paper devoted to its peculiar objects.
OLD WOODWARD CLUB .- Organized in November, 1855, by the alumni of Woodward College. The club at one time was quite large, but its membership is gradually decreasing, and each year at the annual game of foot ball, which is held the last Thurs- day in September, familiar faces are missing. The Old Wood- ward Club joined with the Woodward Alumnal Association in erecting the monument to William Woodward, which stands in the High School yard, but has no further connection with them, the Alumni being graduates of the High School, which followed the College after Mr. Woodward's death.
OMNIBUS LINES .- There is but one omnibus line in Cincin- nati, which is owned by a stock company, the Cincinnati Omni- bus & Baggage Express Company. It was originally organized by P. W. Strader, in 1844. The company has at present 20 large omnibuses, besides a large number of hacks and cabs. They employ 150 horses, and a hundred men, and supply all the rail- roads with facilities for taking passengers to and from the differ- ent depots.
ORANGEMEN .- A secret society of Irishmen, whose aims and objects are the same as that of their confreres in Ireland and Canada, have one lodge, The True Blue, which meets the First and Third Thursday of each month at the northeast corner of Fourth and Home streets.
ORPHAN ASYLUM (See Cincinnati Orphan Asylum).
ORPHEUS, THE .- The Orpheus originated in the contentions of the Maennerchor. On the 4th of April, 1868, a misunder- standing regarding the propriety of losing time and money in the production of operas culminated in the withdrawal of forty- five active members, and their resolution to organize a new musical society. The first step was followed by most decisive and energetic action, for within ten days the list of members. numbered 255. Of these, 140 were passive, and 115, including the orchestra, active members. The increase in passive members has been steadily kept up, and they now number over 600.
OVER THE RHINE .- The visitor or the resident has no sooner entered the northern districts of the City lying beyond Court street, across the Canal, than he finds himself in another atıno- sphere, in all outward seeming almost in a foreign land. Ger- mans and Americans alike call the region " Over the Rhine," and by that name it is known wherever Cincinnati is heard of. There is no transition in any city in Europe so sudden, so pleas- ant and so easily made. The nearest parallel perhaps is for the Frenchmen visiting the English quarter in Boulogne, but even then there is nothing comparable to the complete change effected in stepping across the Canal. The visitor leaves behind him at almost a single step the rigidity of the American, the everlasting hurry and worry of the insatiate race for wealth, the inappeasable thirst of Dives, and enters at once into the borders of a people more readily happy, more readily contented, more easily pleased, far more closely wedded to music and the dance, to the song, and life in the bright open air. The Canal is by no means the Rhine, or anything like it. No lordly Ehrenbreitstein towers over its shores; no beautiful stories of old legendary folk-lore fill its banks and its waters with romance; but none the less surely Father-land is upon the other side of its bridges. The people are Germans; their faces are German ; their manners and customs are German; their very gossip is German. They dance the German waltz as none but Germans can; they cook their food by German recipes, and sit long over their foaming beer. It can not be said that tho Germans over the Rhine lead a pastoral or an absolutely innocent life. They are not all Aracadians in their simplicity, but it is quite certain that there is less positive crime, less disposition to rioting and drunkenness among the beer-loving Transrhenanes than in almost every other city in the land. This, to many, may seem strange; for the Ger- mans "Over the Rhine" are as passionately attached to their national beer and their national wines as their fathers or grand-
OHIO STATE SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN AND ANIMALS .- The objects of this society are to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals and children, and to enlist publie sentiment to that end, by ap- pealing to the reason and humanity of the people; to enforce all laws now existing, or that may hereafter be enacted, for the pro- teetion of dumb animals, and for the prevention of cruelty to children, and to seeure by lawful means the arrest, conviction and punishment of all persons violating such laws. The Cincin- nati Society was organized in 1873, as a Society for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Animals. It was re-organized in 1875 under the Act to prevent cruelty to animals and children, and now has an office in the Board of Trade rooms, No. 55 West Fourth street. It is supplied with funds by annual subscription of members and by donations. The active membership fee is five dollars. The annual receipts from these sources will average about $2,000, and the expenses are kept within this limit. John Simpkinson is l'resident, Jos. L. Smith, Special Agent. The number of cases investigated since the organization is about 1,800, and the fathers were in Munich or Vienna, in Rhineland or Berlin. Ou
86
KENNY'S CINCINNATI ILLUSTRATED.
their whole nature seem ingrafted the words jolly old Martin Luther wrote more than three-hundred years ago- "Wer liebt nicht Weib, Wein und Gesang, Er bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang;"
But the fact is, that to see a glass of whisky or brandy called for "Over the Rhime," is a thing of the rarest occurrence. Even the American born of American parentage whose national craving, according to Henry Ward Beecher, is for whisky, seems
like the Greek at Dodona, or the Roman at Tusculum, to feel the influence of the genius loci, the spirit of the spot, and after one or two visits almost invariably substitutes cool lager or red or white Rhine wines for the more fiery national drink. Nor is this to be wondered at, for Gambrinus and his staff are here in full force. The great officers of his conrt are the wealthy brewers, whose immense cellars pierce the hill-sides and penetrate deep below into the very bowels of the earth. The gnomes and tutelary deities of these recesses, teeming with beer, are the ruddy and hearty working brewers,-jolly fellows are they, and kind of heart, as many a
VIEW OF CANAL IN REAR OF THE EXPOSITION.
ing a small bottle of champagne or a pint of sherry at din- ner. The minor dignitaries of the great Gambrinus are the proprietors of the beer gardens, in which in the evening hours, begins the truc perception of Transrhenan life. The Germans seems to think if his wife is a helpmate, she should help drink his beer in the evening, as well as scrub his floor, cook his din- ner, prepare the sauerkraut, or wash dishes. At half the tables of these German gardens the men are not alone. They may drink two glasses of beer to one by the frau; but even this is rare, the frau generally gets, if she pleases, as many glasses as her liege lord or master. And while the parents drink their cin or zwei glasses, the children and the pretty little maid, with every day an apparently fresh bit of ribbon in her cap, drink their kleines, while the good-natured and happy mother gives the youngest of all, sitting upon hier lap, a sip or two from her own glass. And meanwhile, hot as the day without may have been, it is cool within. The air streams through the lattice-work at either end of the gardens and gently bends the tops of the trees shading the tables or toys with the oleander blossoms fluttering over the dark green foliage or the darker bark of the trunk and branches. Many of the gar- dens are ornamented with portraits, generally of Beetho- ven, Schubert, Mozart, Carl Maria von Weber, Mendels- sohn, Schumann, or other great musicians, and in some of the great ones there is an orchestra. The best music worthily rendered is alone listened to with any degree of attention, and when a noble masterpiece is given with effect the delight of the listeners is keenly felt and warmly expressed. This is especially the case with sucli well- known and spirit-stirring strains as the "Wacht am Rhein," and very often the first notes are scarcely heard before in grand chorus they are accompanied by the noble verse :
"Es braust ein Ruf wie Donnerhall Wie Schwertgeklirr und Wogen-prall ;"
and so it is with another song every truc German loves :
"Sie sollen ihn nicht haben Den freien Deutschen Rhein,"
OVER THE RHINE SALOON.
tale can tell. Sober are they, too, although their mighty gullets is frequently sung by half the audience to the music of the band, and the effect produeed is wonderful.
and comfortable paunches -- not often in shape and size unlike Falstaff's-think no more of absorbing forty or fifty, or even sixty, glasses of beer a day, from the ever open cask in the cor- ner of the brewery, than an ordinary man would of drink-
The Transrhenan waiter is above all things a man to be pitied, and a man to be admired ; to be pitied, because he seeius to be perpetually on those not-very-fat legs of his, with never a mo-
87
KENNY'S CINCINNATI ILLUSTRATED.
ment's time for a private dive into one of those glasses he hands about to his thirsty patrons literally by the hundred-he often brings them by the ten or dozen in each hand. He is to be ad- mired for his imperturbable good nature, for his freedom from flurry, his constant sobriety and that prompt memory which rarely, if ever, makes a mistake in the precise number of beers, mineral waters, or glasses of wine ordered, or the exact table to which they are to be brought. He is a capital fellow, and probably "takes his" in the afternoon be- fore his night work com- mences.
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