USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 133
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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
Rammelsburg became his partner in this business in 1846, and this partnership continued until the death of Mr. Rammelsburg in 1863. After various reverses from fire, financial panics, etc., the business has reached its present condition. From five to six hundred men are employed. The works comprise four separate buildings, three, seven stories high, and one, six stories high. Besides these there is the salesroom, seven stories high. The es- tablishment is probably the largest of the kind in America. From 1863 to 1867 Mr. Mitchell managed the business alone. Since that time then the employes have been allowed to take stock and share in the profits. Mr. Mit- chell's two sons are engaged in the business with him.
Mr. I. G. Isham came to Cincinnati in 1832, with his father, who is still living at the advanced age of eighty- two and is well known among the residents of the city. Mr. Isham, sr., was engaged in the wholesale dry goods business in the firm of A. W. Isham & Co. Mr. Isham, jr., started in business life in 1847. He was engaged in ship-chandlery and steamboat furnishing. He was also interested in the navigation of our western rivers. He continued in this business until 1870. He is now en- gaged in the manufacture of gas machines and is also a dealer in gas fixtures, gasoline, and other gravities of napthas.
Mr. Charles C. Jacobs was born in the duchy of Old- enburgh, Germany, in 1826. He came with his family to Baltimore in 1838. They walked across the moun- tains to Wheeling, West Virginia, and came thence to Cincinnati by boat. In 1839 Mr. Jacobs was bound out as an apprentice in the cordage manufacture, in which business he is still engaged. He was a member of the old volunteer fire department for some fifteen years, be- ing its captain for several years. He commenced business for himself in 1848. His manufactory is the largest and oldest of the kind in the city. He ships to all parts of the country. He has been a member of the board of aldermen for nine years and has been their vice-president. He was married to Miss Maria T. Busker in 1851. They have had six children, two of whom, a son and a daughter, are now living. The son, Charles W., is in business with his father. Mr. Jacobs is a very active and enterprising citizen, and has done much to build up the city.
Mr. John Van, one of Cincinnati's self-made men, was born in Montreal, Canada, of French parents. He went to Troy, New York, in 1838 and thence came to Cin- cinnati in 1842. At that time where the Burnet House now stands was the country, where weary citizens went to take the air after their day's toil in the city. Mr. Van went into the business of steamboat furnishing on Col- umbia street in 1846. About this time he invented the steamboat stove. He has been quite an inventor, having taken out eighteen letters-patent, among which was one on the first wrought iron cooking-range in 1855. During the war he furnished the whole camp west and south, with his army range by contract with the Government. He now furnishes the regular army with the same range. He has been engaged for the past nineteen years in a very heavy business on East Fourth street, manufactur- ing ranges and culinary apparatus. He has branch
houses in St. Louis and San Francisco, and his business extends all over the globe.
Mr. Brent Arnold was born in Bourbon county, Kentuc- ky, in 1845. He was educated at the Kentucky university, Harrodsburgh, Kentucky. His college course was inter- rupted by the war, but was continued afterwards. At the close of his college course he came to Cincinnati and for two years engaged in mercantile pursuits. He then entered the railroad business in which he has been en- gaged ever since. He is now general agent of the Louis- ville, Cincinnati & Lexington railway. He has been twice elected a member of the chamber of commerce and once director of the Young Men's Mercantile Library associa- tion. In the fall of 1880 he was elected a member of the city council from the Eighteenth ward, with a major- ity of five hundred. This ward usually gives a Repub- lican majority of one hundred and fifty, and, as Mr. Arnold is a Democrat, his majority is the largest ever given in the ward.
Allen & Company, wholesale druggists .- Prominent among the numerous houses engaged in the wholesale drug trade in Cincinnati stands the firm of Allen & Com- pany, at the southwest corner of Fifth and Main. This house was established more than fifty years ago, and ranks as one of the oldest landmarks of the city. They occupy an extensive building four stories in height, be- sides a large warehouse in the rear. They carry a very heavy stock of everything in the general drug line, em- bracing drugs, medicines, paints, oils, window glass, dye stuffs, druggists' sundries, etc., everything being arranged in the most perfect and systematic manner, and making a very fine display. They have secured an extensive trade in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana principally, which is steadily increasing.
Mr. Samuel N. Pike, builder of Pike's opera house, and one of the most prominent citizens of Cincinnati, was born in New York city in 1822. He was of Hebrew extraction. Until the age of sixteen he pursued his studies at Stamford, Connecticut. He then went to Florida and embarked in the grocery, dry goods and crockery business at St. Joseph. He also speculated in cotton. He there accumulated about ten thousand dol- lars, quite a fortune in those days. Being of a roaming disposition he soon went to Richmond, Virginia. There he engaged in the foreign wine and liquor business, which he carried on with great success. He then went to Bal- timore, Maryland, where he engaged in the wholesale dry goods business, with but little success. Hence, after two years, he went to St. Louis, Missouri. As his fortune did not change, he determined to go to New York city. On his way he stopped at Cincinnati, and was so pleased with the city that he determined to locate his business here. This was in 1844. He opened a dry goods es- tablishment on Third street, whence he removed to Pearl. The business did not prove successful, and, clos- ing it, he purchased a grocery and rectifying establish- ment. In the memorable flood of 1847 nearly all his stock was stolen by river pirates. He kept his misfor- tune a profound secret, and, though almost ruined, soon built up a large business. He then turned his attention
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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
to building. In 1853 he erected an elegant block on Fourth street, below Smith, still an ornament to the city. When Jennie Lind visited this country he became such an ardent admirer of her songs that he determined to build an edifice in Cincinnati worthy of the best artists in the world. The result of this was the first opera house, which, after a delay caused by the financial panic, was completed and opened February 22, 1859. It was the largest and most magnificent in the country. It was destroyed by fire in 1866. About this time Mr. Pike was obliged to divide his time between Cincinnati and New York. After a time he built the present magnifi- cent block and also the finest opera house in New York city. He also engaged in a vast scheme of reclaiming the salt marshes of New Jersey. In 1867 he was nom- inated for mayor of Cincinnati, but refused on account of his spending so much time in New York. He died of apoplexy on December 17, 1872, leaving a property of nearly three millions. Mr. Pike was a self-made man, a man of wonderful energy and indomitable will; and withal a man of refinement, being an amateur musician and somewhat of a poet, he was a man full of public spirit and abounding in charity. He left a wife and three daughters.
Joseph Jones .- This venerable pioneer, noted on page 68 of this volume as still living, has died since the state- ment was written and printed. On the morning of the twenty-fifth of April, 1881, at his residence in Cincin- nati, he departed this life, aged ninety-five years. His death elicited many expressions of interest and regret, including elaborate notices in the newspapers.
Coffin .- Mrs. Elizabeth Coffin, widow of Levi Coffin, the eminent Abolitionist, and "president of the Under- ground railroad," who came to Cincinnati in 1847, died at her home in Avondale on Sunday, May 22, 1881. She is mentioned on page 97 of this volume as still living.
C. R. Mabley & Co. commenced business in Cincin- nati March 31, 1877. C. R. Mabley was born in Eng- land, and has had some thirty years experience in the clothing business. J. T. Carew, the other partner, was born in Michigan and has had about sixteen years expe- rience in the clothing business. They occupy one of the most magnificent buildings in the city at numbers 66, 68, 70, 72, 74 West Fifth street, Cincinnati. It is built of the finest stone and has a frontage of over one hundred feet ; is four stories high, and the show windows (of which there are seven) are each fronted by a single sheet of French plate glass. Three years ago this block was di- vided into five stores, each tenanted by a merchant who thought he was doing a pretty large business; to-day the entire building, from basement to roof, is occupied by one concern, and that concern is Mabley's mammoth clothing house in its various branches.
The Mosler, Bahmann & Co. safe, vault and lock fac- tory is a bee-hive of industry, and their safes are of un- surpassable security and superb finish, from the largest bank vault to the smallest office safe. Their name is a guarantee of what the trade wants it will get from their factory in a condition of superior excellence, since noth- ing but the best material is used and none but the best
workmen employed. Theirs is a place in the business world that few reach. Many a bank, many a great estab- lishment, as well as thousands of smaller ones use Mos- ler, Bahmann & Co's safes. Why? Because they have a first class reputation ; they are the bete noir of burglars and the impenetrable bulwark against fire. We believe that the first burglar to conquer a safe, vault or lock of this firm is to be discovered. So fruitless have been the attempts of that gentry to get ahead of Mosler, Bahmann & Co. that the thing is regarded as an impossibility. As to fire, many of this firm's safes have passed through the hottest tests. With what result? A complete victory for the safes and vaults, the books, plate, papers, money or whatever may have been therein being in an excellent state of preservation. This is a superb record, one that has secured the fullest confidence of trade and the envy of rivals. Mosler, Bahmann & Co. began the manufac- ture of safes, bank vaults, locks etc., thirteen years ago. Their factory is immense, measuring nearly three hundred feet on Water street from No. 164 to 174, with part of their building running back to Front street, where they have a frontage nearly one-third as great. They employ three hundred hands. Many of their safes, vaults and and locks are sent abroad, particularly to Saxony and other German States. The officers of the company are: Henry Mosler, president; Frederick Bahmann, vice-pres- ident; Otto Bahmann, secretary ; and Lewis Buse, treasu- rer, each of whom have a high standing among the busi- ness men in the city.
Henry Brachmann was born in Nordhusen, Prussia, in 1806. In 1830 he emigrated from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Ohio, and began the business of whole- sale wine and liquor dealing in Cincinnati, which he con- tinued for nearly fifty years. At the organization of the Little Miami railroad company he was one of its direc- tors, holding that position for six or seven years. In 1840 he was elected as a member of the city council, where he served about six years. In 1852 he was sent to the legislature by Cincinnati, being the only Whig elected in Hamilton county. In 1862 he was again chosen by the Republican party and served a term of four years. In the year 1876 he became president of the Cincinnati & Portsinouth railroad, and three years later purchased the road, preferring to give his whole attention to its man- agement. His wife, Rosalia Brachmann was born in 1804. They have six children.
Duhme & Company, the famous jewelry firm, have their extensive ware-rooms and work-shops at the south- west corner of Walnut and Fourth streets, in a splendid seven-story structure, built of iron, stone, and brick, and as nearly fire proof as such a building can be made. The house was established in 1838, and has risen from huinble beginnings to its present great magnitude. Her- man Duhme and R. H. Galbreath have for many years been the members of the firm. Its displays of jewelry, clocks, watches, plate goods, etc., and the curi- ous processes carried on in the building, are truly won- derful. About two hundred workmen in the various departments are employed.
Samuel R. Smith, of the firm of Lane & Bodley, was
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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
born in Old Hadley, Massachusetts, about the year 1831. When fifteen years of age he went to Chicopee Falls, of that State, and learned the machinist trade, which he has followed during the intervening years since that time. In 1855 he went to Canaan, New Hampshire, where he was married to Miss Ellen L. Miner. During the world's fair in New York, soon after his marriage, he met Mr. Bodley, who made him an offer to come to Cincinnati which he accepted. The firm of Lane & Bodley are manufacturing a saw-mill patented by Mr. Smith some twenty years ago. He is a successful machinist, being the patentee of several things which are in extensive use at the present time.
O. I. Parmenter, of Cincinnati, established his paper- works at No. 189 Third street, this city, a few years since, and is now the manufacturer and sole proprietor of the Queen City egg case, now so extensively used instead of straw, barrels, etc., as formerly. He also manufactures cigar, tag, and paper cigar-cases, articles of great use and of which he is the sole manufacturer. His trade is a lively one and is building up rapidly.
Michael Ryan, of the well-known firm of Ryan Brothers, pork-packers, was born in Johnstown, County Kilkenny, Ireland, on the sixth of October, 1845. He came to America with his parents in 1853, when not quite eight years of age, and arrived in Cincinnati early in the month of June of that year. Although being an Irish- man by birth, which he looks upon as an honor, his education, training, and habits are American. Mr. Ryan attended school at St. Xavier's on Sycamore street, Cin- cinnati, until his fourteenth year, when he went to work and was admitted as a partner with his three other broth- ers, who were then extensively engaged in the butcher- ing business. The four brothers - Matthew, John, Richard, and Michael - have always maintained this partnership formed thus early in life, and have been very successful and prosperous in business. They are now one of the largest pork-packing firms in Cincinnati. Michael Ryan has always been a Democrat in politics, but has never been an office-seeker. In 1878, however, his friends forced him to run for alderman in the First aldermanic district, and he was elected by a very large majority. He has filled that office ably and well, and is quite popular in that board, so much so that his friends urged him for the chairmanship at the last organization of the board. He received the entire support of his party, but of course could not be elected, the board be- ing largely Republican in politics. Mr. Ryan has filled many positions of honor and trust, and has never been known to betray the confidence which has been placed in him. He was chairman of the city convention that nominated William Means for mayor of Cincinnati. Mr. Ryan was married in 1876 to Miss Maggie McCabe, and has two children. Still in early manhood, a life full of promise is before him.
Charles C. Campbell, of Cincinnati, was born in Brownsville, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, and came to Cincinnati from Steubenville, Ohio, December 11, 1849. He received a common school education, principally in Cincinnati, and learned the trade of machinest in the
Little Miami railroad shops at Columbus, Ohio, which occupation he followed for a number of years. Being a man of remarkable energy and perseverance he has been engaged in various business enterprises. He represented the" Third ward in the board of education two years, dur- ing the famous Bible controversy. Was elected to the board of alderman April, 1878, for a term of four years. He has been urged a number of times to become a can- didate for various public offices-as county commissioner and State senator-but has invariably refused. He has, however, always occupied a prominent place in local affairs on the Democratic ticket.
D. J. Dalton, councilman of the Sixth ward, Cincin- nati, was born in this city in the year 1843. After re- ceiving a good public school education he was made inspector of provisions, which position he held four years. He was for a time connected with the Short Line rail- road, and was elected councilman for this ward in 1881. In 1862 he was married to Miss Delia Carroll, of this city.
Peter C. Bonte, vice-president of the decennial board of equalization, Cincinnati, was born in Dearborn coun- ty, Indiana, November 20, 1820. The ancestral line of this family is traceable to Demerest de la Bonte, an em- inent Huguenot who was executed as a heretic in Paris in 1550. When three years of age, Mr. Bonte's father removed to Cincinnati, where he conducted an establish- ment for the manufacturing of cordage. Mr. Bonte served an apprenticeship, and after thoroughly learning the business took charge of the establishment himself. He carried on the enterprise in Cincinnati and in New- port, Kentucky, it being conducted on an extensive scale. Mr. Bonte was twice elected to the city council. During the war with Mexico he was elected captain of the Jeffer- son Greys, a private company raised in the city, but the quota of Ohio being full their services were refused. In 1879 he was elected a member of the decennial board of equalization, and by that body made its vice-president.
N. H. Shrader, member of the annual city board of equalization, is a native of Cincinnati, born December II, 1851. He received a common school education, but at the age of sixteen, on account of the limited means of his parents, was apprenticed to Walter Stewart, archi- tect, 177 West Fourth street ; he was afterwards with H. Bevis, architect, 167 Central avenue, for three years. Was six years as book-keeper and manager for B. Damen- hold & Co., plumbers. In 1878 he was elected to the city council from the Fourteenth ward by a large majori- ty, and in the fall of 1880 was elected chief clerk of the decennial city board of equalization, and in the spring of 1881 was elected member of the annual city board of equalization for three years. Mr. Shrader has many friends who are anxious to make him a candidate for the State legislature in the coming election, which position he would fill ably and well.
George W. Guysi was born in Cincinnati in 1833, and is descended from a French Huguenot family that fled from that country to Switzerland. Charles Frederick Guysi (formerly Guise) and Elizabeth Stadler Guise, his parents, came to America in 1818, and located in Cin-
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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
cinnati in 1825. In 1840 he helped to start the German Republicaner, a Whig paper, of which he was editor. George W. carried it in 1848. In 1849 he became a gauger, working first for W. R. Taylor, but in 1854 was elected gauger himself for three years. In 1862 he was the first United States gauger of the Second district of Ohio, under the internal revenue laws. Mr. Guysi cor- rected the Mccullough tables and the Tralles hydrome- ter-full of errors-and the demonstrating of the same to the United States coast survey officials led to an appoint- ment by Hon. S. P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, as a special agent of the treasury department. His du- ties required him to visit all the gaugers in the United States, and the distilleries. He also assisted a commit- tee of eminent men of the National Academy of Science to revise the Mccullough tables and prepare a new hy- drometer. He also assisted the Hon. David A. Wells, special commissioner, to report a new internal revenue law, which passed in Congress in 1866. Mr. Guysi made the first raid on the contraband distillers of New York city, having twenty-nine seized on the ninth of March, 1866. He resigned in 1868, and embarked in business, which was not successful, and in 1875 was again ap- pointed gauger at Cincinnati.
Michael Zenner, coal dealer, of Columbia, was born in Germany in 1837, and came to this country in 1852 with his father, who settled his family first in Albany, New York, but afterwards removed to Chicago, then to Buf- falo, and came to Cincinnati in 1865. He has been in the coal business ever since, having lived in California one or two years previous, where he carried on the same business. In April, 1880, he was elected to the city council, which position he still holds. In 1868 he was married to Miss Catharine Ich, who came from Germany.
James Richie, merchant, of Cincinnati, also Swiss con- sul for Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, was born Decem- ber 15, 1829, in Switzerland, and received his early edu- cation in Zurich, his native town, afterwards completing his course in Woodward high school for English branches, and in European schools for the fuller course. He has been in the dry goods business, Nos. 65 and 67 Pearl street, for many years. He received his appoint- ment as Swiss consul during Johnson's administration, and has held the position ever since. November 3, 1853, he was married to Miss Mary Moore, whose parents came from Montreal, Canada, when she was seventeen years of age, in 1841.
Colonel I. F. Waring, of Madisonville, Columbia township, was born August 25, 1799, in Columbia. He received but a common school education, but has been a close student of natural philosophy and chemistry for over forty years. He has been a careful farmer, and has paid considerable attention to agriculture and horticul-, ture, having been a member of those societies for many years. He has always prided himself in doing well what- ever he attempts, and rarely fails to leave a favorable im- press in the performance. In former times he com- manded a company, as drill officer, and his commanding appearance and thoroughness in military tactics, soon promoted him to the commander of a regiment. About
the year 1868 he purchased for himself an amateur press, with necessary type, and began writing and print- ing, having since that time printed books of his own edi- torship-Comments on the Bible, a small work of some pretentions, a poem of sixty pages, on the Bible, and also a book of miscellaneous poems. These works strongly mark the characteristic traits of the man.
H. A. Rattermann, of Cincinnati, was born October 4, 1832, and came with his parants from the old country in 1846 to Cincinnati, where his father followed his trade, cabinet-making, and he worked in the brick-yards. The family were in poor circumstances, nevertheless Mr. Rattermann saved of his means, bought books, learned to read and to write English very well. He also studied painting, music and other branches. In 1850 his father died and he himself became a cabinet-maker, but in the winter of 1853-4 he was thrown out of employment on account of the strike of the cabinet-makers. He had saved a few dollars, which enabled him to take a thor- ough course in a business college. After completing his course he was employed as a book-keeper in his uncle's office at a small salary. Later he started a grocery, with which he soon became dissatisfied. Seeing the necessity for a fire insurance company among the Germans, he formed a plan and called a meeting of his friends to or- ganize such a company (1857), whose secretary and bus- iness manager he has been for more than twenty years. He is devoted to literature and art, and under the nom de plume of "Hugo Reinmund," he has written a num- ber of poems; he has also written several romances, a history of the great American west (in German), also an historical sketch of Cincinnati. For many years he was the editor of the Deutschen Pionier. In politics he is a Democrat, and one of the best speakers of the party; in the noted Tilden campaign he stumped the State of Ohio. As has been stated, Mr. Rattermann is a lover of music and art. He was director of St. John's church choir for several years, and he was influential in the or- ganization of the following singing societies: Sanger- bund (1850), Mannerchor (1851) and Orpheus (1868).
Daniel Z. Byington, assistant superintendent of the United Railroad Stock-yard company, Cincinnati, was born in the city December 12, 1834. His father, Zebu- lon Byington, was one of the well-to-do pioneer citizens of the place. He was. city marshal, keeper of the jail, and for a long time kept a hotel on Main above Fifth street. Mr. Byington went to Brighton when young and learned the butcher's trade, but when seventeen years of age began work for the Western Stage company, and af- ter a two years' stay, drove a "call wagon," disbursing moneys for the American Express company, where he remained three years. He afterwards held a position in the mail service on the river. He has been superinten- ding at the stock-yards for over nine years. When he was young, Mr. Byington promised his mother that he would never use tobacco or whiskey in any form, and has never since that time smoked or chewed the weed nor drank ardent spirits of any kind. He married Miss Josephine Kelly in 1855, and since that time celebrated his silver wedding.
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