History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 18

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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A monthly meeting of the society of Friends, comprising about forty families, is established in this year.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN.

The growing town had special and distinguished no- tice from the travellers this year. First, in June, came that industrious tourist and observer, Mr. Birkbeck, long of Illinois, from which he wrote a series of enter- taining letters that were collected in a book. From an- other volume, his Travels in America, we copy the fol- lowing extracts :

Cincinnati, like most American towns, stands too low; it is built on the banks of the Ohio, and the lower part of it is not out of the reach of spring floods. As if life was not more than meat, and the body than raiment, every consideration of health and enjoyment yields to views of mercantile convenience. Short-sighted and narrow economy! by which the lives of thousands are shortened, and the comfort of all sacrificed to mistaken notions of private interest.

Cincinnati is, however, a most thriving place, and, backed as it is already by a great population and a most plentiful country, bids fair to be one of the first cities of the west. We are told, and we cannot doubt the fact, that the chief of what we see is the work of four years. The hundreds of commodious, well-finished brick houses, the spacious and busy markets, the substantial public buildings, the thousands of prosperous, well-dressed, industrious inhabitants, the numerous wagons and drays, the gay carriages and elegant females; the shoals of craft on the river, the busy stir prevailing everywhere -house-building, boat-building, paving and leveling streets; the numbers of country peo- ple constantly coming and going; the spacious taverns, crowded with travellers from a distance.

All this is so much more than I could comprehend from a descrip-

tion of a new town just risen from the woods, that I despair of con- veying an adequate idea of it to my English friends. It is enchant- ment, and Liberty is the fair enchantress.

June 27, Cincinnati. All is alive here as soon as the day breaks. The stores are opened, the markets thronged, and business is in full career by five o'clock in the morning; and nine o'clock is the common hour for retiring to rest.

As yet I have felt nothing oppressive in the heat of this climate. Melting, oppressive, sultry nights, succeeding broiling days, and for- bidding rest, which are said to wear out the frames of the languid in- habitants of the Eastern 'cities, are unknown here. A cool breeze al- ways renders the night refreshing, and generally moderates the heat of the day.

Then came Mr. Burnet-a New England traveller, we believe-who makes many and judicious remarks upon the town :

As Cincinnati is the commercial capital of the State of Ohio, a State which twenty-five years ago contained but a few thousand inhabitants, and is now well settled by half a million white inhabitants, I have been somewhat particular in describing its commerce, manufactures, and inhabitants.

The general appearance of the city is clean and handsome-indeed, elegant and astonishing, when we reflect that less than forty years ago it was the resort of Indians, and the whole surrounding country a wil- derness, full of wild beasts and savages.

The present number of buildings may be between thirteen and four- teen hundred, and the number of the inhabitants eight thousand, all whites, the laws of Ohio prohibiting free negroes (except in certain cases) from settling in the Statc. Near five hundred of the houses are built of stone or brick, many of them three-story high, and in a very neat, modern style. The rest of the houses are fraine, most of them neatly painted.

The public buildings are of brick, and would ornament an European city. The new court-house is a stately edifice, fifty-six by sixty-six feet, and one hundred feet high; the apartments are fire-proof. Presby- terians, Baptists, Friends, and Methodists, have each a meeting-house. Those belonging to the Presbyterians are furnished with taste. The Friends' meeting-house is a temporary wooden building. The Lancas- terian seminary is a capacious structure, calculated to contain one thousand one hundred scholars, male and female. There are three brick market-houses, the largest is upwards of three hundred feet long.

I have counted near sixty tilted wagons from the country on a market day, chiefly with produce, which is brought to market by the farmer and sold from the wagons.

The police of the city is respectable; they have, however, no lamps or watch, nor do they require any. We boarded in the heart of the town, and our doors were mostly open night or day. Theft is very rare; the lowest characters seem above it.

The climate is healthy, if we may judge from the appearance of the inhabitants. At this season (July) the mornings and evenings are delightful; mid-day hot, but not too hot to do out-door work. The winters are short and pleasant.

The manners of most of the inhabitants are social and refined, with- out jealousy of foreigners (which is sometimes the case with the ignor- ant or interested in the eastern and middle states); they are pleased to see a respectable European settle amongst them. Many cultivate the fine arts, painting, engraving and music. With few exceptions, we found the English language spoken with purity. . The

In summer many of inhabitants dress much in the English fashion.

both sexes wear domestic or home manufactured ginghams, and straw hats. Gentlemen, and many tradesmen, wear superfine cloth coats; blue and black are the prevailing colors. The ladies dress elegantly, in inuslin, short-waisted gowns, vandyked frill or ruffle round the neck, and an English cottage or French straw hat. When about their house- hold concerns, they wear a large, long, peaked hat, to defend their features from the swarthing influence of the sun and air.

The city, in all probability, will soon be the largest in the West; it is rapidly improving in size; sixty new brick and frame houses have been occupied since last fall; and at least as many more are now building, besides several manufacturing shops and factories. There is more taste displayed in building and laying out grounds and gardens than I have yet observed west of the Alleghany mountains.

The price of town lots is high, and houses in the principal streets dif- ficult to obtain on hire. The lots in Main, First and Second streets sell for two hundred dollars a foot, measuring on the front line; those pos- sessing less local advantage sell from fifty to ten dollars; out-lots, and

THE BAZAAR,

ERECTED BY MRS. TROLLOPE, 1828-9; DEMOLISHED IN MARCH, 1881.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

land very near the town, sells for five hundred dollars per acre. Taxes are very moderate. The price of labor is one dollar per day. Mechanics earn two dollars. Boarding is from two to three, and five dollars per week. Five dollars per week is the price of the best hotel in the city. Living is very cheap here; and it is easily to be accounted for, in the cheapness and fertility of the surrounding country, the scarcity of tax-gatherers, and the distance of a market for the supplies. You can have very decent board, washing, and lodging, by the year for one hundred and fifty dollars.

Mr. George Warren, an old-time resident of the city, also contributes to Cincinnati Past and Present the fol- lowing interesting reminiscences of this period:

Cincinnati, in the year 1817, was a bright, beautiful, and flourishing little city. It extended from the river to Sixth street, and from Broad- way to Walnut street, and not much beyond those limits. The court- house, which stood upon the same ground as the present one, was con- sidered to be in the country, and its location an outrage on the citizens. The houses were beautifully interspersed with vacant lots, not yet sold, which were covered with grass. The city contained about nine thou- sand inhabitants. These were then called girls and boys, and men and women. The fuel was wood, except in factories. The people generally had clean faces; for the men shaved, and did not allow their counte- nances to be covered with hair and dirt. There was an air of comfort pervading everything. In summer the women dressed as they pleased; but the men usually went to church in summer dresses. Sometimes they wore linen roundabouts and vests and woollen pants. The people werc enterprising and industrious; a pedestrian could hardly walk a square without encountering a brick wagon or stone wagon, or seeing a new cellar being dug. Industrious mechanics would be met hurrying to and fro, and in their working dress. A brick-layer would not hide his trowel, nor a earpenter his hatehet, under his eoat. Everything gave promise of the city's continued prosperity, but a desire to become suddenly rieh had led too many into wild speculations, on borrowed money, from the United States and other banks. They were willing to lend to almost anyone who could get two indorsers. This was no diffi- eult matter, for it had got to be a maxim, "You indorse for me, and I indorse for you." Some persons not worth a dollar bought lots and built houses on speculation. Others bought wild lands, built steam- boats, ete. Some, who had beeome rich in imagination, began to live in a style ill suited to their real condition.

But a day of reckoning was at hand. In 1819 the United States bank began to call in its aeeounts; others were obliged to do the same; and those speculators, to avoid the sheriff, began to seatter like rats from a submerged flour barrel. Sheriff Heckewelder complained that his friends had taken a sudden notion to travel, at the very time he most wanted them. Some fled east, some west, some to Kentucky, and some the Lord knows where. It soon became impossible to get money any- where. Building was entirely stopped. The spring of 1820 was a gloomy time. All business was brought to a sudden stand. No more brick wagons, stone wagons, or new eellars were to be seen in the streets. The meehanies lately so blithe and cheerful had gone in dif- ferent directions in search of work, at any priec, to keep themselves and families from starving. Almost any mechanic could be hired for fifty cents a day, working, as was then the custom, from sunrise to sun- set; few could get employment at that. They were willing to work at anything they could do, and at any price. One of our boss carpenters bought a wood-saw and buck, and went about sawing wood. Our leading brick-layer procured a small patch of ground near the Brighton house, and raised watermelons, which he sold himself, in the market. The only professed sashmaker in the place, the late John Baker, esq., who died not long ago a millionaire on Walnut Hills, procured a piece of woodland in the country, and chopped the wood, brought it to mar- ket, sitting on his load, and sold it for a dollar and a half a cord. Other good mechanics went ehopping wood in the country for thirty- seven and a half cents a eord. One of these was the late A. 11. Ernst, esq. The writer would have done the same, but no chance offered. There was no money, and people even going to market resorted to barter. A cabinet maker, for instance, would want two pounds of but- ter, amounting to twenty-five or thirty cents. Without a penny in his pocket, he would take his basket, go to the market, find a farmer that had some, take two pounds, and give him a table, bedstead, or even a bureau, agreeing to take the rest out in truck, as he would eall it, when he should want it. This could not be done by carpenters and masons. They would go into the country and build ovens or spring-houses, and repair buildings, taking their pay when the work was done. Our mer- chants, being unable or unwilling to bring on fresh supplies of dry

goods and groceries, these ran up to enormous prices; coffee was sev- enty-five cents, and common coarse brown sugar thirty-seven and one- half cents a pound. Rye coffee, sweetened with molasses, was found a poor substitute; and we suffered considerably for want of our custom- ary breakfast.

Public meetings were held to consider what was to be done. At one of these Mr. Blake, an attorney, had expressed a fear that our wives and children would starve. Mr. Gazlay, the next speaker, also an at- torney, said: "Brother Blake is afraid our families will starve. I have but one child, and don't fear it will starve; Brother Blake has none, and I am sure it won't starve." Country produce of all kinds was never so low before nor since; but the difficulty lay in getting money to pay even these low prices. Flour was three dollars a barrel, corn twelve and one-half cents a bushel, beef six and one-fourth cents a pound, pork in quarters from the wagons three cents a pound, eggs five cents a dozen, and chickens four cents a piece. A prominent and truthful citi- zen now living relates that, being then a young man and living in the country, he brought to the lower market two dozen chickens. After standing there most of the forenoon a man offered him fifty cents a dozen if he would carry them to the Mill Creek bridge. He accepted the offer and actually carried them the whole distance on his back. If any imagine that the people need not have feared starving when provis- ions were so cheap, they are like the Queen of France during the Revo- lution, who said, when the people of Paris were actually starving, that she did not see why there need be such a clamor about bread when "a good-sized loaf may be got at the baker's for five sous."

Finally it was found that money of some kind must be had. This induced some individuals to issue tickets, or little due-bills, on their own credit. They were sometimes as low as six and one-fourth cents. Of these bankers John H. Piatt and Mr. Leathers, of Covington, were the chief. This eurrency had different values, according to people's es- timate of the solvency of the individuals. The corporation had issued tickets before this. In making contracts it had to be agreed what kind of money was to be received; so much in "corporation, " or so much in "Piatt," or so much in "Leathers." Sometimes contracts would call for "bankable money." By this was meant the notes of those few banks that had not already broken. If any specie was seen it was gen- erally "eut money," or half-dollars cut into five triangular pieces, each passing for twelve and one-half eents.

Such was the seareity of money that many who had purchased prop- erty and paid large amounts on it were willing to give up the nioney already paid to be released from paying the remainder. Real estate had indeed fallen; a prominent eitizen now among us had purchased a lot of ground, near our present gas works, for sixteen thousand dollars, paying half down in eash. He offered to give up all the money paid if the owner would release him; but he would not. Houses and stores, with bills on them offering them "for rent," were everywhere seen, and rents were low.

On the thirty-first of May arrived a young lawyer named Bellamy Storer, to cast in his fortunes with those of the rising community. Mr. Joseph Jonas, rather doubtfully reported as the first Israelite in town, is said also to have come this year. He opened a watchmaker's shop on the corner of Third and Main streets, and soon acquired much political influence. He is sometimes re- puted to have been the father of Cincinnati Democracy.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN.

The sixth edition of Kilbourne's Ohio Gazetteer, or Topographical Directory, published this year, gives the town this notice:

('incinnati is a large commercial city and the seat of justice for Ham- ilton county.

. Angust 18th the number of inhabitants had increased to upwards of nine thousand, and public improvements in proportion. There are about sixty common mereantile stores, several of which do wholesale business, with about ten book, drug, iron, and .shoe stores. The Cincinnati Manufacturing Company has erceted for their works an extensive buildling, one hundred and fifty feet long by thirty-seven broad, and four stories high. \ most stupen- dously large building of stone is likewise erected on the bank of the Ohio river for a steam mill. It is nine stories high at the water's edge, and is eighty-seven feet long and sixty-two broad. The engine is one of seventy horse-power, and is designed to drive four pair of stones, be- sides an oil-, fulling-, and several other mills. In another building is

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

also a valuable steam saw-mill. Here are, likewise, one woollen and four cotton factorics, two glass-making establishments, a white lead factory, a sugar refinery, and two extensive breweries. A considerable business is also done, not only in the distilleries, but also in the rectifi- cation of spirits. Here are also four printing offices, from three of which weekly papers are published ; four banking companies, besides a wealthy commercial association for the purpose of importing goods direct from Europe, by way of New Orleans.

This was a great year for public benefactions. Seven persons subscribed twenty-seven thousand dollars for the Lancasterian seminary. A site for a poor-house was pur- chased by public authorities, and a hospital planned, as preparatory to the founding of a medical college. A museum society was formed, and contributions were solic- ited, Dr. Drake drawing up a constitution for it so as to make it a school of natural history. The Cincinnati reading-room was opened by Elam P. Langdon and Rev. William Burke. The first Roman Catholic church in town was founded.

The General Pike, said to be the first steamboat built on the western waters for the exclusive conveyance of passengers, was constructed at Cincinnati this year-of one hundred feet keel, twenty-five feet beam, and three and three-tenths feet draft. It was owned by the Cin- cinnati Company, and intended to ply between Louis- ville, Cincinnati, and Maysville.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETEEN.

This was an important year in the annals of Cincinnati, marking its transition from a village to a city, an act passed by the State legislature giving it the deserved pro- motion. The new city was divided into four wards, by lines along Main and Third streets, intersecting at the corner of these. Isaac G. Burnet was the first mayor under the new organization.

The population of the city this year, according to the census taken for the directory in July, was nine thousand eight hundred and seventy-three-males, five thousand four hundred and two; females, four thousand four hun- dred and seventy-one; males of twenty-one years and over, two thousand three hundred and sixty-four ; females, one thousand six hundred and thirty-two; males from twelve to twenty-one, eight hundred and forty; females, eight hundred and twenty-three; males under twelve, one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine; females, one thousand five hundred and forty-five; colored persons, three hundred and sixty-seven-males, two hundred and fifteen; females, one hundred and ninety-five. The directory contains the following remarks upon the charac- ter of the population :

This mixed assemblage is composed of emigrants from almost every part of Christendom. The greater part of the population are from the Middle and Northern States. We have, however, many foreigners amongst us; and it is not uncommon to hear three or four different languages spoken in the streets at the same time. A society so com- pounded can have but few of those provincial traits of character which are so visible in older settlements. Having been bred and educated under different habits and modes of thinking, every individual is obliged to sacrifice to the general opinion many of his prejudices and local peculiarities, and to adopt a more liberal mode of acting and thinking. Coming also from different countries and various climates, they bring and collect together a stock of knowledge and experience which cannot exist among those who have all grown up together. Being adventurers in pursuit of fortune, a spirit of enterprise, and a restless ambition to acquire property, are prevailing characteristics. The citizens of Cin-

cinnati are generally temperate, peaceable and industrious, Gaming is a vice almost unknown in the city. Under the influence of a strict police, good order is maintained ; fighting or riot in the streets rare, and is uniformly punished with rigor. Great attention is paid to the institutions of religion, and the mass of the more respectable citizens are regular in their attendance on public worship. In their parties, as- semblies and social meetings, the greatest ease and familiarity prevail, and many traits are to be met with of that politeness and urbanity of manners which distinguish the polished circles of older cities.

The same work gives the following honorable notice and further remarks concerning the material improve- ment of the place :

For many years the vast influx of emigrants has furnished opportu- nity for a very profitable investment of funds in building houses. The preference which Mr. John H. Piatt has given to the improvement of Cincinnati, over foreign speculation, is an honorable evidence of his public spirit and local attachment. This gentleman, within five years past, has built twenty-eight brick houses, chiefly three stories in height, besides twenty-five frame houses, which are neatly finished. It is the opinion of several well-informed mechanics that not less than three hundred buildings were erected in 1818; and, notwithstanding the de- pression of commercial business, probably not less than two-thirds of that number will be built in 1819. The buildings, however, which are occupied as dwellings, are insufficient to contain the inhabitants with any tolerable convenience. Four, six or eight families have not un- frequently been found inhabiting a house of six or eight rooms. The actual number of dwelling-houses being one thousand and three, the average number in each fainiy, allowing one family to each house, is more than nine persons. The houses, generally, are rather neat and convenient than splendid; most of those that have been built within the last five or six years, have been constructed of brick, and by far the greater portion of them are two or three stories in height. One pre- vailing trait, displayed in almost all the houses in town, is a want of architectural taste and skill. All the public buildings, except the Cin- cinnati banking house, fully exemplify the above remark. One or two good architects would unquestionably meet here with excellent encour- agement. The improvements that have been made here in paving streets and sidewalks, filling up stagnant ponds, reducing the upper bank to a proper angle of descent for streets and buildings, etc., have for several years been commensurate with the most liberal policy of the corporation and the best exertions of the citizens. According to the best estimate we can make, the length of pavement in the several streets is between eight and nine thousand feet; that of the sidewalks vastly greater. The streets in width are between sixty and one hundred feet.

In March of the same year an enumeration had been made of the buildings within the corporation, which footed one thousand eight hundred and ninety-of brick and stone, two stories and upwards, three hundred and eighty-seven ; of one story, forty-five; wood, two or more stories, six hundred and fifteen; one story, eight hundred and forty-three. Occupied as separate dwellings, one thousand and three; mercantile stores, ninety-five; gro- cery stores, one hundred and two; druggists, eleven; confectioneries, four; auction and commission, five; printing-offices, five; book and stationery stores, four; churches, ten; banks, five; shops, factories, and mills, two hundred and fourteen ; taverns, seventeen; seminary, court house, and jail, three ; warehouses and other build- ings, four hundred and twelve. Other buildings were in progress, and it was expected that by the close of the year the buildings in the city would number over two thou- sand. Among the new edifices in progress were the court house and jail, the seminary, three churches, two market-houses, and several manufactories. The churches were the First Presbyterian, on the old site; the brick on Sixth street, formerly Baptist, then Episcopal; the Meth- odist, on Fifth, a new brick, belonging to the same de- nomination, on the corner of Fourth and Plum; and the

General R. E. Prices

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

old frame on Vine street; the Second Presbyterian, on ·Walnut; the Friends', near the west end of Fifth; and a Roman Catholic church lately erected in what were then called "the Northern Liberties."

Three fine steamers-the Vulcan, the Tennessee, and the Missouri-were launched here March 30th.

July 4th the address is delivered by Bellamy Storer. Further celebration was made by getting the first throw of water from the new tin penstock. It was supplied by log pipes from a small reservoir on the hillside, at the south- west corner of Fifth and Sycamore streets.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 18

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