History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 19

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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August 3d, the ordinance passed by the council in re- lation to fire-buckets is required to be vigorously enforced.

December 11th, the city treasurer proves a defaulter. The Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, pastor of the Presbyterian church, is temporarily appointed to his place.

This year (Mr. L'Hommedieu thought it might have been in 1820), a serious riot was threatened through the failure of the Miami Exporting Company's bank. A pro- cession comprising many of those who had suffered from the closure of the bank, with their sympathizers, was formed in the upper part of the city, and marched down Main street. A number of drays helped to give length and imposing character to the column. One of them bore a black coffin with the words painted thereon, " Mi- ami Bank No More." The bank building was situated on Front street, near Sycamore, and a detachment of military had taken position in front of it, to protect the building and its contents against the threatened mob vio- lence. The procession marched without interruption or disturbance until the intersection of Front street with Main was reached. Just here, fortunately, on the south- east corner, was the office of the mayor, Isaac G. Burnet, who was awake to the perils of the situation, and on full duty. Although unable to walk or even to stand without crutches, he moved to the head of the column, and read the riot act to the multitude. Many who were in the movement were not lawless or dangerous men, and now, seeing the real character of their demonstration, and the perils to law and order which it involved, they led the way at once in breaking up the procession and diverting the thoughts of its members into more peaceful channels. The military were not called upon to adopt severer meas- ures, and the bank was saved.

This year appeared the first Directory of the town or city. It was entitled "The Cincinnati Directory, con- taining the Names, Profession, and Occupation of the Inhabitants of the Town, alphabetically arranged; Also, an account of its officers, population, institutions, and societies, public buildings, manufactures, etc. With an interesting sketch of its local situation and improvements. Illustrated by a copper-plate engraving, exhibiting a view of the city. By a Citizen. Published by Oliver Farns- worth. Morgan, Lodge & Co., Printers, October, 1819." An almanac for 1820 is also included. About two thou- sand names of individual and firms were included in this publication.

The most remarkable man who came to Cincinnati this year was probably Captain John Cleves Symmes, son of Timothy, brother of Judge Symmes. His father (also

a judge in New Jersey), early followed the elder brother to the Miami country, and settled at South Bend, where he died February 20, 1797. His family remained there, and among them John C. Symmes, who, through the in- fluence of the judge, obtained a commission in April, 1802, when he was twenty-two years old, as an ensign in the regular army. By successive promotions he became captain, and served as such through the war of 1812-15. In 1807 he fought a duel at Fort Adams, on the Lower Mississippi, with Lieutenant Marshall, in which both were wounded seriously enough to feel the effects of their in- discretion through the rest of their lives. Captain Symmes left the army in 1816 and settled at St. Louis as a contractor for the army and trader with the Fox In- dians. He was not altogether successful, however, and in 1819 removed to Covington, Kentucky, where he re- mained a few months, and then came to this city, taking a residence on Lower Market street, between Broadway and Sycamore, in a three-story brick row built by John H. Piatt, who then had a bank at the southeast corner of Broadway and Columbia streets. Captain Symmes re- mained in Cincinnati but a year or two. He still had some property near Hamilton, upon a section presented to him by his uncle, Judge Symmes; but appears to have spent the last seven or eight years of his life, when not absent lecturing, in Newport, Kentucky. While at St. Louis he began to promulgate his famous theory of con- centric spheres, polar voids, and open poles. The gist of this is in his published declaration "to all the world," made from St. Louis, Missouri Territory, North America, April 10, A. D., 1818:

I declare that the earth is hollow and habitable within, containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles twelve or sixteen degrees. I pledge my life in sup- port of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking.

JNO. CLEVES SYMMES, Of Ohio, late Captain of Infantry.

His future life was devoted mainly to the advocacy of this theory, and his efforts to demonstrate it and pro- mote its acceptance. In 1820, after issuing numerous circulars and newspaper articles, he began lecturing in Cincinnati, and then in other western towns and cities. A benefit was given in aid of his proposed polar expedi- tion, at the Cincinnati theatre, March 29, 1824, when Young's tragedy of Revenge was performed by an ama- teur company, in which was the now venerable Colonel James Taylor, of Newport, who played the part of Zanga. Mr. Americus Symmes, son of Captain Symmes, says: "He and I are the only two now living of the Newport Thespian society of 1824. He was equal to Forrest in his palmiest day, in the character of Sir Edward Mortimer, in the Iron Chest. I performed fe- male parts." Mr. Collins recited an appropriate address written by Moses Brooks, foreshadowing the great discov- eries to be made in the polar regions, and closing with these lines :

Has not Columbia one aspirng sor .. By whom the unfading laurel may be won? Yes ! History's pen may yet inseribe the name Of Symmes to grace the future seroll of fame.

He had not similar encouragement elsewhere, however.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

Congress and legislatures, press and people, with rare ex- ceptions, treated his arguments and appeals with indiffer- ence or ridicule; and the end of the ardent theorist soon came. He fell into ill health, and became much en- feebled in 1826 by a laborious tour through the eastern cities, Maine, and Canada. His chief ailment was dys- pepsia, induced by long continued overwork upon his theories and plans. Notwithstanding his now serious ill- ness, in New York city he was thrown into jail by a heart- less landlord, for inability to pay a bill of thirty to forty dol- lars, and remained incarcerated three days, when he was relieved by a friendly Cincinnatian who happened to be in the city, and who helped him to the residence of a relative in New Jersey, where he remained until his health was measurably restored. He managed to reach Cincinnati in February, 1829, and was there presently met by his son Americus with a two-horse wagon and a mattress, upon which he was borne to the farm near Hamilton-to which the family had removed in March of the previous year-where he died May 29, 1829, aged only forty-eight. His monument, erected by Americus Symmes, formerly crowned with a hollow globe, open at the poles, and bearing appropriate inscriptions, may be seen in the old cemetery at. Hamilton. This son, who resides at "Syminzonia," a farm near Louisville, remains a firm believer in the theory. In a recent letter to the writer of these annals he communicates a paragraph which has some local as well as general interest, and well repays its reading. Its opening sentence relates to the time of Captain Symmes' last return and illness:

I was then seventeen years old, and he was too ill to talk much; but he charged me just to keep an eye to the explorations in the north, and I would find his theory would be proven true. I have kept an eye on the northern explorations, and find that the further north they get the stronger grow the proofs of the truth of his theory, Your Cincinnati explorer, Captain Hall, who went further north than any other man of his day (except Parry on his third voyage), did more to prove the truth of the Symmes theory than all other explorers. I saw the sled-runners in Captain Hall's hands, made in your city, that bore him up to 82° 2' north, where he wrote his last dispatch to the secretary of the navy, in which he says: I find this a much warmer country than I expected, and it abounds with life, ctc. Just to think a Cincinnati man studied out the theory, and another citizen of your city made the sled-runners there, and rode on them up to 82° 2' north, and thereby proved the theory true as far as he went.

It may be added that the younger son of Captain Symmes, a native of Newport, Kentucky, was also named John Cleves Symmes, was a graduate of the West Point Military academy, and served his country creditably as a teacher there and as an officer elsewhere. He lived for a number of years in Prussia, where, in 1866, he had a son of a German mother, who took the name of John Haven Cleves Symmes.

CHAPTER XI.

CINCINNATI'S FOURTH DECADE.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY.

Population this year, by the United States census, nine thousand six hundred and forty-two. Vote of the city, eight hundred and fifty.

February 2, meeting of citizens to consider the good- ness of John H. Piatt's "shinplasters." Resolutions passed against them. On the eighth, the ice in the Ohio breaks up, after having been frozen over for three weeks.

The first water-service pipes, wooden, were laid this year.

Congress, worthily though tardily, voted a gold medal to Lieutenant R. Anderson, of Cincinnati, for gallant conduct in Perry's battle on Lake Erie.

In June a museum was opened in Cincinnati College, which was for many years an interesting feature of amusements here.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE.

The Commercial hospital and Ohio medical college were incorporated February Ist. On the twenty-eighth the Hon. Jacob Burnet was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court.

July 28th the fire department of the city turns out for a public parade, and makes a brave display with its two hand-engines and two hose-reels.

The council building was this year on Fourth street, near the corner of Walnut, and the independent engine is removed thither. The vote of the city is said to have been seven hundred and thirty-two; which could not have been full, as it is more than a hundred less than that of the year before, and less than half that of the next year.

September 26th occurs the first commencement of the Cincinnati College, which confers the honorary degree of Master of Arts on William Henry Harrison, the Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, and the Rev. James A. Kemper.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO.

The first theatrical benefit given here, to Mrs. A. Drake, a favorite actress of that day, occurred in the ball-room of the Cincinnati hotel.

March 27th, directors of the city library were elected -- Lewis Whiteman, Benjamin Drake, Nathan Guilford, and Peyton S. Symmes.

June 8th a meeting is held to promote the scheme of a canal from Cincinnati to Piqua.

September 9th there is a considerable freshet in the Ohio.

October 7th a notable political event occurs, in the de- feat of General Harrison for Congress, by James W. Gazlay, though only by the meagre majority of three hundred and forty-two votes.

This year came George Graham, who became a very prominent citizen of Cincinnati, and survived until Feb- ruary, 1881.

The total value of exports this year from Cincinnati was two hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars, chiefly in flour, pork, and whiskey.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

Vote at the municipal election in 1822, one thousand, five hundred and ninety-seven.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE.

January 30th, certain adventurous business men of the city broach a project for a whaling and sealing voyage to the Indian ocean.

September 3d, the citizens, dissatisfied with the ar- rangements of the authorities for the protection of per- son and property, meet to organize a volunteer city watch.

November 3d, a great calamity is inflicted upon the business of the city, by the burning of the famous great stone steam-mill. Material is at once collected for rebuild- ing, however. Among prominent business men now are noted Kilgour & Taylor, Barr, Patterson & Son, Keat- ing & Bell, grocers; John Sterrett & Company, John Du- val, G. V. H. Dewitt, dry goods merchants; Griffin & Company, C. & J. Bates, druggists; Platt Evans and James Comly, tailors ; Moses & Jonas, auctioneers; J. & G. R. Gilmore, brokers.

Aggregate vote this year, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-one. ,

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOUR.

Population this year is twelve thousand and sixteen- First ward, three thousand one hundred and fifty-seven; Second, four thousand five hundred and thirty-one ; Third, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight; Fourth, two thousand five hundred and forty. The number of families was two thousand one hundred and nineteen; of dwelling houses, one thousand six hundred and sixty-eight.

Until 1824 it is said that the whole city had voted at one polling-place, generally the Mayor's office on Third street. At the presidential election of this year the vote was by wards.

February 24th, Mr. Samuel W. Davies offers the water- works, which are private property, to the city for thirty thousand dollars, in convenient payments. His offer is declined by a meeting or a vote of the citizens, and he sells to the new Cincinnati Water company at the same price.

May 19th, the corner-stone of the old St. Peter's cathedral (Roman Catholic), on Sycamore street, is laid, Bishop Fenwick conducting the ceremonies.

The statistics of nativity, taken for the directory of this year-the second Cincinnati directory issued-show a very large percentage of Pennsylvanians and Jerseymen in the population, three hundred and ninety-four of the names given for the directory being those of natives of the Keystone State, and three hundred and thirty-seven of New Jersey birth; two hundred and thirty-three were New Yorkers, one hundred and eighty-four native to Massachusetts, one hundred and seventy to Maryland, one hundred and forty-three Connecticut, one hundred and thirteen Virginia, and less than one hundred to any other State. Ohio as yet contributed but fifty-two native Buckeyes-adults, of course-to the directory, and any other State not mentioned less than fifty. A good many native foreigners were represented-English, one hun-

dred and ninety-two; Irish, one hundred and seventy- three; Germans, sixty-two; Scotch, thirty-nine; Welsh, twenty-one; Swiss, seventeen, and one or two each of Swedes, Dutch, and Poles. Multiplying the numbers, respectively, by five, the products, in most cases, will probably show the actual number of population of the several classes then here. The State or country of nativity, whenever known, was entered with the person's name in the directory-a unique feature, truly.

The directory notes the entire compact portion of the city as being included within the space of one mile square.

February 2d, General Harrison was elected by the Legislature to the United States Senate.

The first fancy front in town is put up this year on Main street, by Platt Evans, tailor. His sign was still up in 1856, when it was the oldest sign in the city.

In the month of May, General the Marquis de Lafay- ette, accompanied by his son, on their tour through this country, paid Cincinnati the honor of a visit. Mr. L'Hommedieu says :

The occasion brought here thousands from the country. All within a circuit of a hundred miles seemed to be here. Lafayette approached our city from Lexington, Kentucky, where he had been to visit Henry Clay. He was met and welcomed at our landing by Governor Mor- row and General Harrison. The whole public ground between Main street and Broadway, and Front street and the river, was densely crowded with men, women, and children, and the windows, balconies, and roofs of the buildings fronting the river were alive with people waving their welcome. After tarrying in our city from noon of one day to midnight of the next, he departed up the river. The day of his arrival, as well as that which followed, and his departure at midnight, will be remembered, by those who witnessed the scenes, as long as their memories last. All was grand; but the closing scene, at twelve o'clock at night, with the illumination on both sides of the river, the crowd of many thousands of our people on the landing, the beautiful display made by all the steamboats in port, the procession of military com- panies, the firing of cannon from our landing, from the boats, and from the arsenal at Newport, with the martial music, seems to me, after the lapse of fifty years, the most brilliant sight of my life.

Major Daniel Gano's splendid turnout of six bay horses attached to an open phaeton awaited Lafayette at the steamer landing-the only equipage of the kind in Cincinnati. In the evening, before the ball, a public reception was given to Lafayette in the Major's orchard, which was brilliantly illuminated. A new lodge of Free Masons, called Lafayette No. 81, was constituted in honor of his coming, of which he became an honorary member, and which publicly celebrated his obsequies July 20, 1834, upon the death of the eminent patriot.

Joseph S. Benham, esq., a brilliant young lawyer of this city, made the reception speech upon Lafayette's arrival, on behalf of the public authorities and citizens. A grand ball was given at night in the Cincinnati hotel.

Henry Clay himself had a reception and banquet at the same hotel in June of this year. The opportunity was taken by Mr. Clay for a vindication of himself, in an elaborate and very eloquent speech, from the famous charge of " bargain and sale," which had been made against him in connection with the recent presidential election. There were present, besides Mr. Clay, Gover- nors Clinton, Morrow, and Brown, and some scores of prominent Cincinnatians. Governor Poindexter was also in town, but was detained away from the dinner. Tickets

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

to it were three dollars apiece; but were purchasable by any one who had the wherewithal, and the disposition to expend it in this way. Mr. L'Hommedieu says :

Although then an apprentice-boy of nineteen years, I managed to raise three dollars, and attended the dinner. The sight of so many distinguished characters seated at a table, which crossed the ends of three or four longer ones, was a novel one to me, and I fancied myself in the presence of giants, until after the wine was freely drank, the cloth removed, smoking commenced, and speeches and story-telling be- came the order. Then I thought, to use the language of Governor Vance, "Most great men look smaller the nearer you get to them."

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE.

This year witnessed the breaking of ground for the Miami canal, at Middletown, June 21, by Governor Dewitt Clinton, of New York. The ceremony has been else- where described.

Dr. Samuel Thompson, founder of the botanical sys- tem of medicine and patentee of the celebrated Thomp- sonian remedies, came to Cincinnati this year, and made many converts to his school of practice.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX.

The publication of another work of local character, Cincinnati in 1826, by Benjamin Drake and E. D. Mans- field, both young men struggling to get a living at the bar, furnishes the means of giving a pretty full picture of the Queen City at this time. Their book, which was a worthy successor of Dr. Drake's two pioneer volumes, had the honor of publication the same year (1826) in London, as an appendix to Mr. W. Bullock's Notes of a Journey, of which more will be presently said. It is note- worthy that the book was subsidized by the city council, to the extent of seventy-five dollars voted to the authors for taking a census of the population.

In December of this year, the population numbered sixteen thousand two hundred and thirty-four thousand and eighty-four in the First ward, six thousand four hun- dred and ninety-nine in the Second, two thousand five hundred and five in the Third, and three thousand one hundred and forty-two in the Fourth-seven thousand nine hundred and ninety males, and seven thousand five hundred and fifty females. The average number to a building was six and a half persons. There were twenty- eight clergymen, thirty-four lawyers, thirty-five physicians, about eight hundred in trade and mercantile pursuits, five hundred in navigation, and three thousand in manu- facturing. Mr. Mansfield, recounting his experience in taking census statistics for his book, says: "In all this visitation into the recesses of society, I never met a sin- gle pauper family, nor one really impoverished. The great body of them were mechanics, with plenty to do, generally owning their own homes, and in fact a well-to- do people."

The number of buildings in the city was two thousand four hundred and ninety-five-eighteen stone, nine hun- dred and thirty-six brick, seventeen of them four-storied, one thousand five hundred and forty-one frames, six hun- dred and fifty of one story, one thousand six hundred and eighty-two of two stories, and one hundred and sixty- three of more than two.

The growth of the city, during this and the preced- ing year, had been greater than in any former period of

equal length. The yearly ratio of increase in population from 1810 to 1813 was twenty-four per cent ; 1813 -- 19, twenty-six per cent; 1819-24, three and five-tenths; 1824 -- 26, seventeen. For sixteen years the population of no town in the United States, of the rank of Cincin- nati, had increased in corresponding ratio. Manufactur- ing establishments had also greatly increased within two years, some details of which will be found in our chapter on manufactures. The value of manufactures in and near the city, for the year, was one million eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

The United States land office was now at the east end of the city, the register's office near the corner of Law- rence and Congress, the receiver's north of Congress, near Broadway. The United States branch bank had been founded here, and there were two insurance com- panies and several agencies. Mr. N. Holley kept a gen- eral agency and intelligence office. There were ten li- censed auctioneers, who sold thirty-three thousand eight hundred dollars' worth this year, paying a duty of three per cent. thereon-one-half of it going to the Commer- cial hospital, the other to the medical college of Ohio. Real property was advancing at the rate of ten to twelve per cent. a year, and many pieces twelve to eighteen. Interest was high, three per cent. a month being some- times paid on small sums, and ten to twenty per annum on larger. There were then no penalties on usury.

The city was becoming somewhat a summer resort for the inhabitants of the south, especially Mississippi, Ala- bama and Louisiana. Yellow Springs and the Big Bone Lick had also become prominent as places of temporary resort for excursionists.

The Miami canal was now under contract, and thirty- one miles, from Main street to the dam at Middletown, were nearly finished. Great benefits were expected to the city from the water-power to be gained in the descent from the upper level to the river, about fifty feet- enough, it was estimated, to turn sixty pair of millstones. The branch bank of the United States was still flourish- ing in a fine freestone front-"one of the chastest speci- mens of architecture within the city;" and the medical college was already in its present location on Sixth, be- tween Vine and Race, though the building was still un- finished. The commercial hospital and lunatic asylum was up and occupied. The college building was also in place, with accommodations for a thousand pupils. The Cincinnati theatre stood on the south side of Second street, between Main and Sycamore. A Masonic grand hall was projected for the next year, in the hope of loca- ting the grand lodge of the State permanently in Cincin- nati. The purchase of the Burnet property between Third and Fourth, Race and Vine, was urged for use as a city hall and public square. It could have been had then for twenty-five thousand dollars, which was the amount for which the judge presently let it go to the United States branch bank, to satisfy its demands upon him. It was already handsomely adorned with shade- trees, flowering shrubs, and evergreens, and several lib- eral gifts for its ornamentation were promised if it were , made public property. The Cincinnati water company,

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

for example, would put in a fountain gratuitously. The bridge over the Ohio was still urged, and it was thought it could be built, with nine stone piers, breakers, and connecting with both Newport and Covington, for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Various canals were also in prospectu, besides the Miami, which was so hope- fully under way. The valuation of the city was three million one hundred arid fifty-seven thousand three hun- dred and ninety-two dollars, and its revenue for 1826 twenty-three thousand seven hundred and forty-two dol- lars and eighty-one cents-less than half of it from taxa- tion. A new city charter, promising improvements in local government, was about to go into operation.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 19

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