History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 105

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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As evidence that even the council were ultimately made sensible of the benefit accruing to the city from the services of Mr. Greenwood in this direction, we insert the following resolution:

" Resolved, That the thanks of the citizens of Cincinnati are due to Miles Greenwood, chief engineer of the fire department, for the able and efficient manner in which he has discharged the duties of said of- fice, bringing order out of confusion and saving property and life by systematized and well defined rules and regulations, and a personal su- pervision highly honora le to him, and immensely valuable to this city."

A beautiful souvenir was presented to Mr. Greenwood, the inscription on which was as follows: "Presented to Miles Greenwood by the officers of the pay fire department, upon his retirement from the position of chief engineer of the department, as a tribute of their respect and es- tcem for his efficient services as a fireman, his bearing as an officer, and exemplary character as a citizen, for many years an active fireman, and the last two in organizing the present department, the best the world can boast of."

Mr. Greenwood had been prominent in the affairs of the department from the beginning of his connection with it, and was several times elected president of the firemen's association. The story of his battle with the volunteer companies and their sympathizers is retold by the writer of his biography in Cincinnati, Past and Pres- ent, from which we extract the following paragraphs:

To Mr. Greenwood the Cincinnati fire department is mainly indebted for its efficient organization. The pay fire department, now in general use, is really liis creation. From being a leading spirit in the old vol- untecr department, he saw the inevitably demoralizing tendencies of it upon the youth of cities, and conceiving the idea of adopting steam as a motive power in the extinguishing of fires, he next determined to have a paid, rather than a volunteer department. In this he met with a weight of opposition, both in the city council and the volunteer fire- men that would have completely discouraged a man of less determina- tion of character and persistence. For three months after the organi- zation of the paid fire department of the city, the city council refused to recognize the change, or appropriate the money to pay the men; and during this time Mr. Greenwood advanced for this purpose fifteen thou- sand dollars to keep the men together by paying them regularly. Night and day he was constantly engaged fighting the opposition to the or- ganization. He had no time to attend to his own business, but paid a man one thousand five hundred dollars to attend to it for him. Event- ually he triumphed over every difficulty, and to-day such a thing as a volunteer fire department is unknown in any city of the first class in Europe or America.

THE PAID DEPARTMENT.

Thus the great reform was finally effected, while Balti- more, Philadelphia, and other cities were still afflicted with the rivalries and rowdyism of the old system. Mr. Greenwood personally settled all claims and difficulties between the city authorities and the old companies. The efficiency with which he took hold of abuses and pro- moted the reform of the department, is apparent in his first annual report. After the lapse of but six months from the institution of the new order of things, "the change for good was so manifest that even the opposition of the most clamorous advocates of the old system were hushed to silence," and at the end of a year he was en- abled to say, in addition :

In the semi-annual report that I had the privilege to present to your honorable body, I could not refrain from congratulating the city council upon the triumphant success which had crowned their efforts in the reform of the fire department, which the peace and good order of society so imperatively demanded ; the result of which, although scarcely six months had passed, the change for good was so manifest that soon the opposition of the most clamorous advocates of the old system were hushed into silence; nor is the effect of the change now, after the first twelve months have elapsed, less manifest or worthy your confidence. Under the present control the engine houses are no longer nurseries where the youth of the city are trained up in vice, vulgarity and debauchery, and where licentiousness holds her nightly revels. The Sabbath day is no longer desecrated by the yells and fierce conflicts of rival fire companies, who sought the occasion afforded by false alarms, often gotten up for the purpose of making brutal assaults upon each other; our citizens, male and female, pass our engine houses without being insulted by the coarse vulgarities of the persons collected around them. The safety and security of our citizens are no longer trampled under foot by men claiming a higher law, under the license of the name of firemen, to commit all manner of excesses with impunity. The temptation for the youths of our city to follow fire companies and attach themselves to them, is entirely donc away. For all these good results let me congratulate the city council, and all who have so manfully and disinterestedly labored for the reform.

LATER DEVELOPMENT.

In 1858 the steam engines manned by the department already numbered seven. Two years thereafter the number was eleven with one hundred and fifty-one mem- bers in the department, including officers, and two hook and ladder companies. All the hand-engines had been retired, except one in the Seventeenth ward, which was still kept for local protection. The mayor this year characterized the department as "the most efficient in America," and Chief Megrue said :

At no period since the organization of the fire department, has it reached so near perfection as now. As an achievement of human skill we point to it with pride, and in practical workings we have the attesta- tion of an admiring world.

The self-propelling steam fire engines were introduced about this time, or soon after; and in 1864 a splendid new machine of this kind, called the "John F. Torrence," was purchased for seven thousand dollars. Four years afterwards the "A. B. Latta" was added, named from the builder of the first steam fire engine in Cincinnati.

The cost of the department in the latter year (1868-9) was two hundred and forty thousand five hundred and eighty-four dollars and thirteen cents. There were one hundred and eighty-three alarms and ninety fires, with a loss of four hundred and forty-seven thousand three hundred and eighty-two dollars, against which was a total insurance of two hundred and seventy-one thousand and

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

sixteen dollars. Some new and yet more powerful ma- chines were being added. The department was now accounted the best in the world, and was famous through- out the country for its promptness and success in con- quering the fire-fiend. In the annual report of Chief Engineer Megrue for 1871, he said :

The wonderful increase of Cincinnati, in territory, wealth, and pop- ulation, cannot be better shown than by looking at the progress of the fire department. Fourteen years ago, when I was appointed chief engineer, there were only seven steam engines, and a few hand-engines, the task of which was to guard the small valley of twelve wards compos- ing the city; while we now have eighteen steamers in operation, or soon to be placed in service, placed at proper distances through the twenty- four wards of the city, which has a river front of some twelve miles with an average depth of about one half that distance.

At the Chicago fire of October, in the next year, a part of the Cincinnati department was present, and rendered effective aid. That year three new steamers and two hook and ladder companies were added to its forces. The next year (1873) its organization was changed by an act of the general assembly. It was removed from the immediate care of the city council, and placed in charge of a board of fire commissioners appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council. The first board was com- posed of the following citizens: P. W. Strader, presi- dent; George C. Sargent, George Weber, Henry Hanna, and Charles Kahn, jr. The board organized on the twenty-fifth of August, abolished the offices of foreman and outside pipeman of the companies, and employed a force of men on full time and pay. Five Babcock chem- ical engines were contracted for, which have since ren- dered signal service. The department was taken from the board by legislative act March 17, 1877, but restored by the same authority February 14, 1878, when the judge of the police court appointed to the board Messrs. Weber and Sargent, together with John L. Thompson and Wil- liam Dunn.

A marked instance of the promptness and efficiency of the department was presented at the fire in Glendale May 14, 1880, when it was summoned by telegraph, and in forty-five minutes from the time when the dispatch was filed at the Glendale office, had an engine playing on the fire, in personal charge of Chief Engineer Bunker. Chief Megrue noted in 1875 that the losses by fire the year before were two hundred and forty thousand dol- lars less than in 1854, though the city had meanwhile doubled in population. Cincinnati, it may be here re- marked, has never been visited by any of the great con- flagrations of our history. It is protected, not only by its superb fire department, but by the environment of hills which breaks the force of prevailing winds; and the rates of insurance are therefore less than in any other large city in the United States.

THE FIRE ALARM TELEGRAPH.

After repeated appeals for this additional protective agency, through the annual messages of the mayor, re- ports of the chief engineer and otherwise, it was at last ordered by the city. A law of 1865 enabled the city council to raise a fund for it, and it was erected the next year by Messrs. J. F. Kennard & Co., of Boston. It was used also for police purposes, and at once amply jus-

tified the cause of its working, which was twenty-five thousand dollars the first year, and twenty thousand eight hundred dollars the second. It was extended in 1868 to Mount Adams, the Walnut Hills, the workhouse, and the west side of Mill creek. In 1873 still more ex- tensive additions were made, in consequence of the an- nexations, and twenty-seven new signal boxes were also put up.

THE CHIEF ENGINEERS.

Besides those already noted-Thomas Tucker in 1825, and before and after, with Jeremiah Kiersted as assis- tant; Zebulon Byington about 1826, with Moses Coffin assistant ; and William Hedley in 1833-4-we have the names of Miles Greenwood, 1852-6; Enoch G. Megrue, for twenty-one years, 1856-77; and since the latter date captain Joseph Bunker, formerly assistant engineer, and who has been connected with the department since 1854.

RECENT STATISTICS.

The expenses of the department for 188c were one hundred and eighty-nine thousand thirty-two dollars and forty-seven cents, against receipts of two hundred and two thousand one hundred dollars and seventy-six cents, yielding a balance of thirteen thousand sixty eight dollars and twenty-nine cents, of which five thousand dollars was reserved for a new engine, and seven thousand one hundred and sixty-seven dollars for an engine-house on Lick run. The alarms of the year were two hundred and seventy-eight, of which one hundred and fifty-four were still alarms. Losses by fire in the city aggregated four hundred and twenty-six thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight dollars and seventy-seven cents, with in- surance three hundred and thirty-four thousand five hun- dred and forty-nine dollars and fifty-seven cents. Dur- ing the year sixteen new alarm boxes were placed in position, and the entire alarm system has been renovated by removing the wires from housetops and placing them on poles.

CHAPTER XLIII. THE WATER -WORKS.

THERE was never any lack of water in Cincinnati, or scarcely anywhere else in the Miami country, one of the best watered tracts in all the world.

THE FIRST WELL

upon the site of the Queen City was excavated in 1791, inside the embattled precincts of Fort Washington, by a professional well-digger named Robert Shaw, otherwise "the water-witch," a queer character of the early day, whose life, written and rudely illustrated by himself, may be seen in a very rare volume at the Cincinnati public library.

THE WATER-CARTS.

Two years afterwards, during the year in which Mr. David McCash, a stout Scotchman, immigrated hither

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

from Mason county, Kentucky, his eldest son made a contrivance of two stout poles, the front halves of which were used as shafts for the single horse employed to drag the affair, while a cross-piece about midway of the poles, a barrel, and two pegs to keep it in place, completed the singular outfit. With this the enterprising young Wil- liam furnished the primitive Cincinnatians with their first water supply, away from their own premises.

Jesse Reeder and others, long afterwards enlarged profitably upon the McCash idea, as will be seen in the extracts below.

DR. DRAKE, IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN,

notes a few indifferent springs on the borders of the village, and otliers on the hillsides, but none with a suffi- ciency of water for distribution through the town. A number of wells, however, had been sunk-those east of Broadway to the depth of thirty to fifty feet; some of those on the northwest parts of the hill only twenty to forty feet, while, strange to say, those on the bottom had to be sunk forty to sixty feet. At points between Third and Sixth streets, west of Broadway, a depth of seventy to one hundred was necessary, in order to reach water. The find contained the usual salts, and in some wells was slightly impregnated with iron. (Sixty-two years afterwards, in 1877, the artesian well at Moerlein's brewery, on Elm street, near McMicken avenue, devel- oped a vein of mineral water, flowing nearly a hundred barrels per hour, draughts from which are said to have cured a number of confirmed invalids).

Cisterns were common in 1815, "and from the absence of coal in our fires," says Dr. Drake, happy man! "afford good water." A large share of all the water used, how- ever, was hauled in barrels from the river. It was often impure, and took time to settle, but was preferred to well water for most domestic purposes. The proprietors of the great steam mill were contemplating the applica- tion of their surplus power in the distribution of the river water over the whole town, which, thought the doc- tor, was "a plan so interesting that its execution will con- stitute an important era in our public improvements."

A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY.

Mr. Cist, in his Cincinnati in 1851, gives the follow- ing instructive sketch of the early history of the water supply of the city :

The first settlers of Cincinnati drank from the springs in the hillside, along and below the present line of Third street, and did their washing in the Ohio river. As the population increased individuals for their greater private convenience sank wells. Still a large portion of the in- habitants obtained their supply from the river, and there are many still living who associate toting water by hoop and bucket with their remin- iscences of a washing day.

The summer of 1802 was very dry, and most of the springs failed. Among the rest the one which supplied Deacon Wade's tan-yard. Without water the business could not go no-not a dray in the settle- ment-what was to be done? An inventive genius, James McMahan, came to their relief; with an axe and auger repaired to the adjoining fields, eut a couple of saplings, pinned cross-pieces, and upon them secured a cask. To this dray by aid of a yoke, or wooden collar, he gcared his bull, and with this "fixin'" the water was furnished, and the business of the yard kept in operation.

In 1806, when the citizens numbered seventeen hundred, the first move for supplying them with water was made by William, better known as "Bill" Gibson, rigging a cask upon wheels, and undertaking

the furnishing of water as a part of his business. The facility this water-cart afforded was as great a desideratum and as marked an epoch in the history of the progress of the comforts of the town as any subsequent improvement for furnishing the city with water.

In 1817 Jesse Reeder built a tank on the bank of the river, near Ludlow street. By means of elevators worked by horse power he lifted the water into this tank and thence sold it to the water carts.

In 1816 the town council of Cincinnati granted the Cincinnati Woollen Manufacturing company the exclusive privilege of laying pipe through the streets, lanes and alleys of the town, for the purpose of supplying the citizens thereof with water, conditioned "That on or before the fourth day of July, 1819, the pipe should be laid and water conveyed to that part of the town lying south of Third street, common- ly called the 'Bottom,' and to that part of the the town called the 'Hill,' so that it may be delivered three feet above the first floor of James Furgeson's kitchen, in said town, on or before the second day of July, 1823."

In 1818 the Woollen Manufacturing company, with the assent of the town council, transferred all their right, interest and privilege of sup- plying the inhabitants of the town of Cincinnati with water, to S. W. Davies, and the legislature granted said Davies and his associates an act of incorporation by the name of the Cincinnati Water company, with the privilege of creating a capital not exceeding seventy-five thousand dollars. Mr. Davies purchased the property now occupied by the engine house and reservoir, and commenced preparing for fur- nishing the city with water. A reservoir forty by thirty and six feet deep, bottom and sides planked, was excavated on the hillside, a little south and west of the present site. Two frame buildings were erected on the bank, one on the north and the other on the south side of Front street. A lifting pump, placed in the building south of Front street, lifted the water from the river into a tank in the building on the north side of Front street. From this tark the water was forced up the hill into the reservoir. The pipes, pumps and machinery were of wood, and worked by horse power.

In 1820, there being at the time no improvements between Broadway and the reservoir, the wooden pipes leading into the town were laid along the hillside, through Martin Baum's orchard, down to Deer creek; on the west side of the creek, through what at the time was Baum's fields, now Longwood's garden, and other lots to Broadway; thence along Fifth street to Sycamore, and down Sycamore to Lower Market. Here the first fire-plug-a wooden pent stock-was placed, and from it the first water lifted by machinery, from the Ohio river, and passed through pipes for the use of the citizens, flowed on the third day of July, 1821.

In 1824, Mr. Davis purchased the engine and boiler of the steamboat Vesta; and Mr. Joseph Dickinson, after having repaired and fitted the engine up in the frame building south of Front street, attached by means of crank and lever two lifting pumps, of six-inch cylinder, and two force pumps of seven-inch cylinder and four-foot stroke. With these the water was lifted from the river into a tank in the same build- ing, and forced from this tank, up the hill, four hundred feet through five-inch iron pipe, and three hundred and fifty feet of gum-wood pipe, into the reservoir. The trees for these pipes were cut in Deacon Wade's woods, near the corner of Western Row and Everett streets.

In 1827, Mr. Davies sold his interest in the water-works to Messrs. Ware, Footc, Greene and others when, in accordance with the act of incorporation, a company organization took place. At this time there were about seventeen thousand fcet of wooden pipe, five hundred and thirty hydrants, and less than five thousand dollars income.

In 1828, the engine was repaired, and the entire pumping apparatus remodeled by Anthony Harkness. After this the water was thrown through a twelve-inch iron pipe into a new stone reservoir, one hun- dred feet by fifty, and twelve feet deep. This reservoir was enlarged from time to time, until its dimensions equalled three hundred and fifty feet in length by fifty feet in width, and twelve feet deep, containing one million, two hundred thousand gallons of water. This reservoir, having served its day, has now to give way to make room for a new one, enlarged to meet the present demand.

In 1833, Mr. Harkness made and put up a new engine and pumping apparatus, which is now in use.

The grant of 1816 (some say 1817) by ordinance to the manufacturing company, gave the company the ex- clusive privilege, for ninety-nine years, of supplying the city, for an annual payment of one hundred dollars and unlimited free water at fires. The company was also ob-

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ligated to place a fire plug at each block into which water was introduced, to fill all corporation cisterns or reser- voirs free of expense, and allow water from them to be used only in case of fire.

When the company transferred to Mr. Davies all their rights in the premises, he repaid to them all the prelimi- nary cost they had put upon the works. By the first of July, 1820, water was supplied on both the upper and lower plains as required by the ordinance. Notwith- standing the energy of Mr. Davies, however, and the suc- cess with which he pushed his operations, the citizens took little interest in them, and the disgusted proprietor finally offered the whole of his works to the city at less than cost. A vote was taken upon the proposal; but it was adverse to acceptance, and by and by operations were enlarged by the incorporation of the Cincinnati Water company, as above noted, although an authority places the date in the winter of 1825-6, several years later than the time named by Mr. Cist. The few mem- bers of the company took stock enough to enable the building of water-works by which the supply was raised by a steam engine of forty-horse power to a reservoir on the adjacent hillside, about thirty feet above the village "Hill" in extreme hight, being one hundred and fifty- eight feet above low water mark in the river. Thence . two wooden pipes, by the route before described, con- ducted the water to the city, and distributed it along the principal streets through about forty thousand feet of smaller pipe. In 1826 about five hundred families and many manufactories were thus supplied. A neat enlarged reservoir, to hold three hundred thousand gallons, was just building, and iron pipes, of eight and six inches di- ameter, were to be laid the next summer from the en- gine house just above Deer creek bridge to the reservoir and through the town.

The traveller Burnet, here in 1817, observes the "pumps placed for general accommodation" in the streets of the village, and has a foot-note to the following effect :

The pump water, though commonly used, is not good in hot weather, neither is the water of the Ohio. At a considerable expense they might be supplied with good water. I should think this important subject will ineet the early attention of the enlightened inhabitants.

Mr. John P. Foote's biography of his brother, the late Samuel E. Foote, makes the following contribution to the history of Cincinnati water-works:

At an early period in the history of Cincinnati, when its future growth and prosperity appeared to be fully established, the need of a regular supply of water was seen to be necessary, not only for family purposes, but for supplying the wants of manufacturing establishments, which were beginning to be requisite for the supply (especially) of those heavy fabrics, the transportation of which from the seaboard imposed taxes too heavy to be borne by the early emigrants to our western towns and farms. This want, a most energetic and accomplished man of busi- ness, Colonel Samuel W. Davies, undertook to supply. He raised a substantial building of stone and brick, at low-water mark of the river, for the accommodation of the lifting and forcing pumps, neces- sary to convey the water of the river to a reservoir, on a hill immedi- ately north of the building. This reservoir was about three hundred feet above low-water mark, and was near the eastern boundary of the city, and higher than its highest levels. He laid wooden pipes for carrying the water through the principal streets of the city, but its rapid increase soon showed that such pipes were insufficient to supply even a small portion of its requirements. The growth and extension of

the city being chiefly to the westward, iron pipes, and those of larger calibre than would have been necessary, had the growth of the city been upwards on the river, as had ever been the course of our river towns, were needed.

Colonel Davies, when he had devoted all his means -- his capital and credit-to the work, found that he had but made a commencement, and there was a necessity for a much larger amount of capital than any individual in the west, at that time, could furnish. He, therefore, pro- posed to put the works into the hands of a joint stock company, and obtained a charter for the formation of such a company, which he en- deavored, with his characteristic energy, to organize. He found, how- ever, the vis inertia of the citizens in regard to public improvements, proportionate to their efforts for the increase of their individual for- tunes. As in the case of the canal stock, there was found a sufficient number of citizens who considered it a public duty of others to carry out Colonel Davies' undertaking, which was the extent of their public spirit in this case. The prevalence of this opinion, however, did not produce the desired practical result, and the plan was on the point of being abandoned for the want of funds. Under these circumstances the following named gentlemen undertook to unite with Colonel Davies, and carry on the works; these were David B. Lawler, William Greene, Samuel E. and J. P. Foote, and N. A. Ware, who, however, soon sold his share in the establishment to George Graham and William S. Johns- ton. These gentlemen constituted the "Cincinnati Water Company." Samuel E. Foote was appointed its secretary, and served in that office during its existence, without compensation. In this office he brought into exercise that knowledge and capacity for business by which he was always distinguished. All his accounts and plans are models of correct- ness and adaptation to the interest of the institution. The company made extensive improvements, substituting iron for wooden pipes, in those streets that required the largest mains, establishing improved pumps, enlarging the reservoirs, and generally adapting the progress of the works to that of the city. They, however, became weary of well- doing in the cause of the public, for which their returns in money were not enough, and in reproaches and abuse for demanding payment rents, too much, for the comfort of their lives. They, therefore, made an offer of the establishment to the city, for a sum which-judging from the cost of subsequent improvements-was less than half what it would have cost to begin and carry forward the works to the state in which they were. The offer was submitted to a vote of the citizens, and ae- cepted, though similar, and, perhaps, more favorable offers had been previously rejected. The water rents have been increased fifty to one hundred per cent. since the sale, but they are, perhaps, not now too high, though as long as they were much lower, and collected by a private company, they were intolerably oppressive.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 105

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666