History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 108

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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The scope and powers of the board were enlarged in 1878, by the creation of bureaus of medical relief, of sanitary inspection, markets, and vital statistics. It was again reorganized in 1880, when a police squad of suffi- cient number was regularly detailed for sanitary service. This work had previously been done, and generally well done, by special details of police, under the direction of the health officer. The present sanitary police, in 1880, abated 12,420 nuisances, out of 12,361, and made 26,- 710 inspections of premises.

CHAPTER XLVI.

MARKETS.

MUCH earlier than is usual in the settlement of small villages, the people of Cincinnati gave attention to con- veniences for marketing. As much of their food supply in the early day came in by the river, it was natural that the first market house should be situated upon or near the stream which furnished the main chance of commu- nication to and from the hamlet. We accordingly find that such a building was planted close upon the margin of the Ohio some time before 1800, since Dr. Drake, coming here in that year, makes note of the following:

In front of the mouth of Sycamore street, near the hotel, there was a small wooden market-house built over a cove, into which pirogues and other craft, when the river was high, were poled or paddled, to be tied to the rude columns.

This primitive shelter, according to the Cincinnati al- manac of 1840, was still standing at the mouth of the cove five years after young Drake saw it. In this year (1805) Mr. Brackenridge, subsequently author of Recol- lections of the West, was here, and thus makes mention of this feature of the village:

I went up to the market, which I found equal in goodness to that of Philadelphia, but much cheaper. A turkey may be had for sixteen cents, and, if thought too high, a goose will be offered into the bar- gain.

He probably here referred to the new market house. Dr. Drake, in 1800, had noticed a small market space in front of the original court house, "which nobody attend- ed. In May of the next year, however, the following notice appeared in the Spy and Gazette:

For sale, on Saturday, the twenty-third instant, at Griffin Yeatman's tavern, the building of a market-house in the town of Cineinnati; the under story to be built of stone and lime, and the upper story to be built of wood, and will be sold separate.

In pursuance of this, probably, was built the small structure remarked by the early writers as standing be- tween Main and Sycamore streets. Another was put up on the Fifth street market space some time before 1815, and another between Broadway and Sycamore (lower market) shortly before, which had not yet been opened. The present venerable structure upon that site, according to the dim inscription upon it, was erected (or perhaps the market there opened) in 1816.

The two older buildings were distinguished by Dr. Drake as being supported by a double row of brick pil- lars, while the new one gloried in a triple row. It was over three hundred feet long, reaching nearly all the way from Broadway to Sycamore streets. The others were shorter and narrower.

In the former year (1815) four markets were held per week-two mornings at the old market between Main and Sycamore, two afternoons on Fifth street. Long and complicated ordinances had been passed by the select council to regulate them, and a clerk was appointed to secure their observance; but, says Dr. Drake in the Pic- ture, "violations are constantly suffered to pass unno- ticed." Fresh meats were to be had in town every day except Sunday, but a greater variety was to be had on the regular market-days, when beef, pork, veal, and mut-

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ton were offered in abundance. The last was of superior excellence, but the first was far inferior to that ob- tained on the seaboard, owing to an unfavorable differ- ence in the methods of fattening. The poultry was first rate. Fish, although abundant in the river, were not so in the market, probably because many citizens preferred to catch their own, for the sport and economy of it. Of those exposed for sale, the yellow cat, pike, perch, sword or bill-fish, and eel were most esteemed, and the soft- shelled turtle, in particular, was considered a great deli- cacy. Venison was to be had in the season, and at times bear's meat. Butter and cheese were as yet rather scarce, and largely of inferior quality. Vegetables were supplied in great quantity, however; and fruits, both native and cultivated, as fall, winter, and fox grapes, plums, crab- apples, wild cherries, pawpaws, mulberries, cranberries, and blackberries, and other products of the forest, as walnuts, chestnuts, and hickory nuts. Already the culti- vated varieties of fruit had reached high excellence, and the apples, pears, peaches, cherries, plums, quinces, cur- rants, raspberries, gooseberries, and strawberries were probably not excelled at any market in the land. They were mostly from General Taylor's place at Newport, or grown by the Swiss at Vevay, in the Indiana Territory. The usual kinds of melons were to be had, and " all cul- tivated roots, herbs, and pulse of the Middle States," with sweet potatoes, which were plentiful and delicious. The Cincinnati markets already, in brief, were greatly creditable to the Miami country and the Ohio valley, and many early travellers make special mention of them. Mr. Flint says, in his Recollections:

When you saw this city, apparently lifting its head from the sur- rounding woods, you found yourselves at a loss to imagine whence so many people could be furnished with supplies. In the fine weather, at the commencement of winter, it is only necessary to go to the market of this town, and see its exuberant supplies of every article for con- sumption, in the finest order, and of the best quality; to see the lines of wagons, and the astonishing quantities of every kind of produce, to realize, at once, all that you have read about the growth of Ohio. In one place you see lines of wagons in the Pennsylvania style. In an- other place the Tunkers, with their long and flowing beards, havc brought up their teams with their fat mutton and fine flour. Fowls, domestic and wild turkeys, venison, those fine birds which are here called partridges, and which we call quails, all sorts of fruit and vege- tables, equally excellent and cheap-in short, all that you see in Bos- ton market, with the exception of the same variety of fish, and all these things, in the greatest abundance, are herc. In one quarter there are wild animals that have been taken in the woods; cages of red-birds and paroquets; in another, old ladies, with roots, herbs, nuts, mittens, stockings, and what they call Yankee notions. My judgment goes with the general assertion here, that no place, in proportion to its size, has a richer or more abundant market than Cincinnati.

WAR PRICES.

The cost of food supplies had much advanced between 1811 and 1815, owing partly to the more rapid increase of population in the town than in the surrounding coun- try, but partly also to the occurrence of the last war with Great Britain. Imported articles, especially, were costly, hyson tea $2.25 per pound, coffee 3712 cents, loaf sugar the samc, Madeira wine $5 a gallon.

A dozen years thereafter, at the beginning of 1827, the market prices were: Flour, $3 a hundred; wheat, 25 cents a bushel; beef, $2 to $3 per hundred; pork, $2; butter, 10@ 1212c. per pound; cheese, 6(7 cents;

lard, 4@6c .; feathers, 25c .; turkeys, 25@37c .; geese, 18@25c .; ducks, 8@12c .; chickens, 614c. each; soap, 41/2c. per pound; candles, Ioc .; corn, 12c. per bushel ; oats, 12@18c .; Irish potatoes, 25@50c .; sweet potatoes, 37@62c .; eggs, 6c. per dozen; bacon, 3@5c. per pound; hams, 4@6c .; veal, 3@4c .; mutton, 2@4c .; honey, 12c .; apples, 25@37c. per bushel; peaches, the same; dried fruits, 75c.

At this time there were six market days a week-that is, one every secular day. Venison and bear meat were still occasionally to be had, but not in the quantity or frequency of the older days. Oysters were to be had in sufficiency from November to April, "in kegs and canis- ters hermetically sealed," says our authority. They were also sometimes brought up from New Orleans on the shell. Salted salmon, mackerel, shad, codfish, and her- ring were now freely imported, and had abundant sale. The steamboats also brought all kinds of foreign fruits and nuts common to the American market.

THREE MARKET HOUSES

appear to have answered the needs of Cincinnatians pretty well for several years. The View of the United States of America, published in London in 1820, includes this in its notice of Cincinnati: "Here are also three handsome [!] market houses, in which are exposed, four days in the week, every necessary and many luxuries of life."

By 1829, however, another market house was in exist- ence, and a new one had been built in a more distant locality in place of the little old one between Main and Sycamore. The four were now described as the Lower market, on Market street, east of Main; the Upper market, on Fifth street, between Main and Vine; the Western, on Sixth, between Plumb (sic.) and Western Row; and the Canal market, on Court, between Walnut and Vine. The last, which is the building now used, was then nearly completed, and was three hundred by forty- two feet in dimensions. The same year the Upper or Fifth Street market was extended westwardly thrce hun- dred and twenty-five feet, making its total dimensions five and twenty-five by forty-five feet. This building was demolished in 1859 to make way for the Tyler Davidson fountain and the esplanade. It had been the scenc of many notable popular gatherings, especially during the late war, and in the Lower market house had been held some large religious meetings, as is noted more fully in our chapter XX.

The Wade Street market house was added in 1847, and is, still in use.

The Pearl Street market was abandoned before the Sixth strect, and its place is taken, in part, by the Plum Strect railway depot. A flower market is sometimes kept at the esplanade, upon an ornamental stand erected for the purpose, mainly to keep the market space in posses- sion of the city, since it was conveyed to the corporation over sixty years ago for the purposes of a market only.

SOME VISITORS.

Mr. W. Bulloch, a distinguished Englishman who visited Cincinnati in 1827, made these interesting notes

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of the local markets in the published account of his journey :

My first ramble on the morning after my arrival was to the market, at an early hour, where a novel and interesting sight presented itself. Several hundred wagons, tilted with white canvas and each drawn by three or four horses, with a pole, in a similar manner to our coaches, were backed against the pavement or footway of the market place, the tailboard or flap of the wagon turned down so as to form a kind of counter and convert the body of the carriage into a portable shop, in which were seated the owners amidst the displayed products of their farms, the whole having the appearance of an extensive encampment arranged in perfect order. It was the first time I had seen an Ameri- can market, and if I was surprised at the arrangement, I was much more so at the prices of the articles, as well as at their superior quality. For a hind-quarter of mutton, thirteen pence was demanded; a turkey, that would have borne a comparison with the best Christmas bird from Norwalk, the same price; fowls three-pence to four-pence each; a fine roasting pig, ready for the spit, one shilling 'and three-pence; beef, three halfpence per pound; pork, one penny per pound; butter, cheese, Indian corn, wheaten flour, and every other article in the same propor- tion.

The fish market was equally good and reasonable, and the vegetables as excellent as the season would allow, the asparagus in particular superior in goodness and size to that exposed at Convent Garden, and at less than one-fourth of its price.

It was not the season for fruits, but from the best information I could obtain they were on a par with the other productions of the country. Melons, grapes, peaches and apples are said to be equal to those of any part of the States, and are sold also at a proportionate price. Dried fruits of various sorts were plentiful, as well as apples and chestnuts of last year. Taking the market altogether I know of none equal to it; yet this was considered to be the dearest period of the year. Game and venison were not to be had.

The observations of Mrs. Trollope during the next year or two, as published in her book and reprinted on page 79 of this volume, are extremely eulogistic, and possess considerable interest.

In 1845 Mr. Cist turned his statistical attention to the local markets, and gave the public the result through his miscellany :

I counted during the past year, for one week, the wagons loaded with marketing on the market spaces, embracing the three-a-week mar- kets on Fifth, Sixth and Lower Market streets, and the daily canal, and made out an aggregate of three thousand four hundred and sixty-three. Of these one thousand one hundred and forty-eight were at the Fifth Street market alone.

MARKET HOUSES-LOWER MARKET.

There are in Lower Market street, sixty butchers' stalls, which rent yearly for fifty dollars each. $3,000

Sixty side benches, for the sale of vegetables, and rent for twelve dollars each. 720

Four stalls or stands, at the end of the market house, under the

shed roof, and rent for one hundred and forty dollars .... 140

FIFTH STREET MARKET.

Fifty-six butchers' stalls, and rent for fifty dollars each . 2,800

Fifty-six side benches, and rent for twelve dollars each. 672

Four stalls or stands, at the end of the market house, under the

shea roof, and rent for two hundred and eighty-two dollars 282

SIXTH STREET MARKET.

Forty-eight butchers' stalls, and rent for thirty dollars each. 1,440

Forty-eight side benches, and rent for five dollars each ... 240

Four stalls or stands, at the end of the market house, under the shed roof, and rent for fifteen dollars each 60

CANAL MARKET.

Thirty-eight butchers' stalls, and rent for thirty dollars each .. . . 1, 140 Thirty-eight side benches, five dollars each 190

The whole amount $10,689

MARKET SPACES.

There are the following number of regularly licensed retail dealers in the markets, who deal in the following articles, and pay to the city the following prices, yearly, to-wit :

Twenty-four who sell butter and eggs, and pay twenty-five dol-

lars each. $600

Three who sell butter, twenty dollars each 60

One who sells butter, eggs and cheese. 35 One who sells butter, eggs and poultry. 30 One who sells butter, cheese and poultry .. 25

Four who sell butter and checse, twenty-five dollars each. 100

Two who sell butter and dried fruit, thirty dollars each. 60

One who sells butter, bacon and salt meat 40

Thirteen bacon cutters, twenty-five dollars each. 325

Four cheese cutters, twenty dollars each 80

One fish dealer, twenty dollars. 20

Six who sell flour, twenty-five dollars each. 150

Fourteen who sell fruit, dried or green, twenty-five dollars each 350

Whole amount. $1,875

Again, for his more dignified publication of 1851, Mr- Cist prepared valuable statistics. There were now six markets-the Lower, Fifth Street, Sixth Street, Pearl Street, Canal, and Wade Street. Seven hundred wagons were counted in a single day at one of them, most of them bringing full loads for two horses to drag. As many as one thousand nine hundred and fifty wagons, carts, etc., had been enumerated at the Cincinnati mar- ket places in one day. The writer goes on to give a very entertaining bit of history in the following narrative :

Christmas day is the great gala-day of the butchers of Cincinnati. The parade of stall-fed meat on that day, for several years past, has been such as to excite the admiration and astonishment of every stranger in Cincinnati-a class of persons always here in great numbers. The exhibition this last year has, however, greatly surpassed every previous display in this line.

A few days prior to the return of this day of festivity, the noble ani- mals which are to grace the stalls on Christmas eve, are paraded through the streets, decorated in fine style, and escorted through the principal streets with bands of music and attendant crowds, especially of the infantry. They are then taken to slaughter-houses, to be seen no more by the public, until cut up and distributed along the stalls of one of our principal markets.

Christmas falhng last year on Tuesday, the exhibition was made at what is termed our middle or Fifth Street market house. This is three hundred and eighty feet long, and of breadth and height proportionate -wider and higher, in fact, in proportion to length, than the eastern market-houses. It comprehends sixty stalls, which, on this occasion, were filled with steaks and ribs alone, so crowed, as to do little more than display half the breadth of the meat, by the pieces overlapping each other and affording only the platforms beneath the stall and the table, behind which the butcher stands, for the display of the rounds and other parts of the carcass. One hundred and fifty stalls would not have been too many to have been fully occupied by the meat exhibited on that day, in the manner beef is usually hung up here and in the eastern markets.

Sixty-six bullocks, of which probably three-fourths were raised and fed in Kentucky, and the residue in our own State; one hundred and twenty- five sheep, hung up whole, at the edges of the stalls; three hundred and fifty pigs, displayed in rows on platforms; ten of the finest and fattest bears Missouri could produce, and a buffalo calf, weighing five hundred pounds, caught at Santa Fe, constituted the materials for this Christ- mas pageant. The whole of the beef was stall-fed, some of it since the cattle had been calves, their average age being four years, and average weight sixteen hundred pounds, ranging from one thousand three hun- dred and thirty-three, the lightest, to one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, the heaviest. This last was four years old, and had taken . the premium every year at exhibitions in Kentucky, since it was a calf. The sheep were Blakewell and Southdown, and ranged from ninety to one hundred and ninety pounds to the carcass, dressed and divested of the head, etc. The roasters or pigs would have been considered extra- ordinary anywhere but at Porkopolis, the grand emporium of hogs, suffice it to say, they did no discredit to the rest of the show. Bear meat is a luxury unknown at the east, and is comparatively rare here. It is the ne plus ultra of table enjoyment.

The extraordinary weight of the sheep will afford an idea of their con- dition for fat. As to the beef, the fat on the flanks measured seven and one-quarter inches, and that on the rump six and one-half inches

C. Von Seggers

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

through. A more distinet idea may be formed by the general reader, as to the thickness of the fat upon the beef, when he learns that two of the loins on which were five and a half inches of fat became tainted, because the meat could not eool through in time; and this, when the thermometer had been at no period higher than thirty-six degrees, and ranging, the principal part of the time, from ten to eighteen degrees above zero. This fact, extraordinary as it appears, ean be amply sub- stantiated by proof.

Specimens of these articles were sent by our citizens to friends abroad. The largest sheep was purchased by S. Ringgold, of the St. Charles, and forwarded whole to Philadelphia. Coleman, of the Bur- net house, forwarded to his brother of the Astor house, New York, nine ribs of beef, weighing one hundred and ninety pounds; and Rich- ard Bates, a roasting piece of sixty-six pounds, by way of New Year's gift, to David T. Disney, our representative in Congress.

The Philadelphians and New Yorkers confessed that they never had seen anything in the line to compare with the speeimens sent to those points.

The beef, etc., was hung up on the stalls early upon Christmas eve, and by 12 o'clock next day the whole stock of beef-weighing ninety- nine thousand pounds-was sold out; two-thirds of it at that hour be- ing either preparing for the Christmas dinner, or already consumed at the Christmas breakfast. It may surprise an eastern epicure to learn that such beef could be afforded to customers for eight cents per pound, the price at which it was retailed, as an average.

No expense was spared by our butchers to give effect to this great pageant. The arches of the market house were illuminated by chan- deliers and torches, and lights of various descriptions were spread along the stalls. Over the stalls were oil portraits-in gilt frames-of Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Clay, and other public characters, to- gether with landscape scenes. Most of these were originals, or copies by our best artists. The decorations and other items of special ex- pense these publie-spirited men were at reached in cost one thousand dollars. The open space of the market house was crowded early and late by the coming and going throng of the thousands whose interest in such an exhibition overcame the discouragement of being in the open air at unseasonable hours, as late as midnight, and before day- light in the morning, and the thermometer at fifteen degrees.

We owe this exhibition to the public spirit of Vanaken and Daniel Wunder, John Butcher, J. and W. Gall, Francis and Richard Beres- ford, among our principal victualers.

No description can convey to a reader the impression which such a spectacle creates. Individuals from various sections of the United States and from Europe, who were here-some of them Englishmen, and familiar with Leadenhall market -- acknowledged they had never seen any show of beef at all comparable with this.

THE PRESENT MARKET HOUSES

are the Lower upon the old site; the Sixth Street, Court street (formerly Canal market), the Wade Street market, and the Findlay Street, between Elm and Plum. On the authorized market days, venders are also allowed to oc- cupy the margin of the streets for a certain number of squares in each direction from the buildings. In 1878 a number of wealthy citizens, mostly butchers and garden- ers, combined for an extensive and elegant market house on Sixth street; but their scheme has not yet been con- summated. It has also been proposed to occupy with a market house a convenient lot two hundred by forty feet in size, between Western avenue and Barnard street, in John Bates' subdivision of the city. The pressure in- creases year by year, however, for the removal of the an- cient, unsightly, and insufficient structures now occupied, and they must at no distant day succumb before the march of progress.

THE MARKET SPACES

now owned by the city are the Pearl street, 143 by 398 feet between Elm and Plum streets, and the same be- tween Plum and Central avenue; the lower, 153 by 402 feet between Sycamore and Broadway, and 74 by 400

between Sycamore and Main; Fifth street, 141 by 400 between Walnut and Vine, and 130 by 400 between Wal. nut and Main; Sixth street, 120 by 383 from Elm to Plum, and the same from Plum to Central avenue; the Canal or Court street, 126 by 196 feet between Main and Walnut, and 126 by 397 from Walnut to Vine; and the Wade street, 140 by 239 from John to Cutler streets. The tracts are valued at about two and a half millions of dollars.

THE STATISTICS OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY.

There were in attendance at the Cincinnati markets, from May Ist to December 1, 1880, a total of 75,840 farmers and 8,939 gardeners, or 84,779 in all. The aver- age daily attendance was, of farmers and gardeners, 405; of hucksters, etc., 942-a total of 1,347. Of the latter classes the hucksters proper numbered 556; peddlers and beggers, 129; butchers (inside), 159, outside, 59; fish- mongers, 20; florists, 19. Inspections were made during the year by the meat and live stock inspector, of beef cattle to the value of $5,431,560; hogs, $8,644,450; sheep, $1,055,892; calves, $75,450. Live stock and other marketable products were condemned to the amount of $25,832.80. The milk inspector reported 284 dairies registered and in operation, with 9,462 cows, and a total yield for the year of 5,957,640 gallons, sold at an average price of 2114 cents, or a total of $1,264,- 525.08. Samples of milk inspected, 1368; below the standard, 133, or about ten per cent.

CHAPTER XLVII.

STREETS .- STREET RAILROADS .- BRIDGES .- PARKS, ETC.

STREETS.

For some years after the founding of Losantiville, there was little facility of communication for wheeled vehicles between the Hill and the Bottom, and, indeed, little need of it. We have previously recorded the comparative uselessness of a wagon here in the early day. In time, however, rude roads were then cut through the bluff on the line of Main, Sycamore and other streets. Although somewhat improved on the "corduroy" plan, there were for a long time bad places in them, and wagons were sometimes stalled while going up Walnut street, at a spot opposite the northwest corner of Front. On Main street, part of the way from Front to Lower Market, then many feet lower than its present grade, boat gunwales were laid down as footpaths in a wet time. When it was very muddy, however, pedestrians in that quarter were obliged to work their way along by the post and rail fences then enclosing the lots bordering the street. About 1817, when Pearl street was opened through, several panels of this fence were dug up in good condition. Upon various parts of Main street causeways of logs, generally a foot in diameter, had to be put down, and so lately as the fifth decade, when Main street was regraded between

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 108

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