History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 24

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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EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE.

January 3d, the city buys the entire rights and prop- erty of the Cincinnati Water Works company for three hundred thousand dollars.

February 22d, Robert Wright lost an arm by an acci- dent in cannon-firing while giving a salute at the Public Landing, in honor of Washington's birthday.

March Ist, occurred the death of Morgan Neville, a prominent citizen, and formerly receiver at the land office. On the eighteenth a lad named Winship was killed in a menagerie exhibiting here, by an uncaged tiger.

June roth, the first superior court for the city was organized, with David K. Este, judge, and Daniel Gano, clerk.

December 9th, died the well-known pioneer merchant, Colonel' John Bartle, aged ninety-five. He came to Losantiville in December, 1789. General Robert Y.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

Lytle, another and yet more eminent resident of Cincin- nati, died at New Orleans on the twenty-first of this month.

A vigorous attempt was made this year to suppress the liquor-selling coffee-houses by making their licenses practically prohibitory; but it was evaded by the propri- etors taking out tavern licenses, which cost but twenty- five dollars and gave the recipients one more day in which to sell liquors.

The population of the city in 1849 was about forty-two thousand five hundred; number of new buildings, three hundred and ninety-four-two hundred and eighty brick, one hundred and fourteen frame. Mortality list, one thousand two hundred and eighty-two, or one in thirty- five.

CHAPTER XIII.

CINCINNATI'S SIXTH DECADE.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY.

The official census this year exhibited a population for Cincinnati of forty-six thousand three hundred and thirty- eight, an increase since 1830 of eighty-five per cent. The new buildings this year numbered four hundred and six-brick two hundred and sixty (in the seven wards re- spectively forty-seven, seventeen, thirty-one, twelve, sev- enty-six, thirty-three, forty-four), frame one hundred and forty-six (in the several wards in order, thirteen, one, fourteen, three, forty-three, eighteen and fifty-four). The vote of the year was six thousand three hundred and forty; the mortality bills one thousand three hundred and twenty-three, of whom ninety-seven were strangers. They being deducted, the deaths of inhabitants were only one thousand one hundred and twenty-nine, or one in thirty-nine of the population.

April 3d, deceased Charles Hammond, a leading ed- itor, politician and lawyer of the city, and one of the strongest and most accomplished men the place ever had. Further notice of him will be made in our chap- ters on the bar and on journalism.

This was the year of the Harrison campaign, in which, certainly, Cincinnati, Hamilton county, and all Ohio took an exceeding interest. The warm season was full of excitement in the Queen City, and there were great rejoicings when her favorite son was declared.the win- ner. The state of the campaign in this region and along the river is amusingly illustrated in the remarks of Mrs. Steele, an intelligent eastern traveller hereaway this year, in her Summer Journey in the West:

Sixteen miles below Cincinnati is the residence of General Harrison, the candidate for the Presidency. It is said he lived in a log cabin; but it was a neat country dwelling, which, however, I dimly saw by moon- light. To judge from what we have seen upon the road, General Har- rison will carry all the votes of the west, for every one seems enthusi- astic in his favor. Log cabins were erected in every town, and a small one of wicker-work stood upon nearly all the steamboats. At the wood-yards along the rivers it was very common to see a sign bearing

the words, " Harrison wood," "Whig wood," or " Tippecanoe wood," he having gained a battle at a place of that name. The western States, indced, owe him a debt of gratitude; for he may be said to be the cause, under Providence, of their flourishing condition. He subdued the Indians, laid the land out in sections, thus opening a door for set- tlers, and, in fact, deserves the name given him of "Father of the West."

The city was also visited this year by the much trav- elled Englishman and voluminous writer of his travels, the Rev. J. S. Buckingham, who published in all some nine volumes of American travel. From several extracts relating to Cincinnati, which will appear in different places in this history, we select the following for inser- tion here :

The private dwellings of Cincinnati are in general quite as large and commodious as those of the Atlantic cities, with these advantages, that more of them are built of stone, and much fewer of wood, than in the older settlements; a greater number of them have pretty gardens, rich grass-plats, and ornamental slirubberies and flowers surrounding them, than in any of the eastern cities; and, though there is not the same os- tentatious display in the furniture of the private dwellings here, which is met with at New York especially, every comfort and convenience, mixed with a sufficient degrce of elegance, is found in all the residences of the upper and middle classes; and it may be doubted whether there is any city in the Union in which there is a more general diffusion of competency in means and comfort in enjoyments, than in Cincinnati. The stores also are large, well filled, and many of them as elegant in ap- pearance and as well supplied with English and French articles as in the largest cities on the coast, though somewhat dearer, of course. The hotels are numerous and good, and boarding-houses at all prices abun- dant. The Broadway Hotel, at which we remained, appeared to us one of the cleanest and most comfortable we had seen west of the Alle- ghanies.

Mrs. Steele's Diary of a Summer Journey in the West contains the following :

CINCINNATI, July 19th.

As much as we had heard of Cincinnati, we were astounded at its beauty and extent, and at the solidity of its buildings. It well merits the name bestowed upon it here-Queen of the West. We have ex- plored it thoroughly by riding and walking, and pronounce it a wonder- ful city. We spent the morning slowly driving up and down each street, along the Miami canal, and in the environs of the city in every direction, and were quite astonished-not because we had never seen larger and finer cities, but that this should have arisen in what was so lately a wilderness. Its date, you know, is only thirty years back [!]. The rows of stores and warehouses; the extensive and ornamented dwellings; the thirty churches, many of them very hand- some, and other public buildings, excited our surprise. Main street is the principal business mart. While in the centre of this street, we mark it for a mile ascending the slope upon which the town is built, and in front it seems interminable; for, the river being low, we do not observe we are looking across it to the street of the opposite city of Covington, until a steamboat passing, tells us where the city ends. Broadway is another main artery of this city-not, however, devoted to business, but bounded upon each side by rows of handsome dwellings. Third, Fourth, Seventh, Vine, and many other streets, show private houses not surpassed by any city we had visited. They are generally ex- tensive and surrounded by gardens, and almost concealed from view of the passers by groves of shade-trees and ornamental shrubbery. An accidental opening among the trees shows you a glimpse of a piazza or pavilion, where, among groves and gardens, the air may be enjoyed by ' the children or ladics of the family.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-ONE.

The publication of the first of Mr. Charles Cist's valuable series of volumes on Cincinnati occurred this year, and from it a fully sketched picture of the city at this time may be made up. The buildings were now largely brick, espe- cially in the central and business parts. Dwellings and warehouses were not only greater in number, but "greatly superior to those previously erected in value, elegance, and convenience." Its population, numbering about fifty

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

thousand people of all ages, included four hundred and thirty-four professional men, two thousand two hundred and twenty-six of the mercantile classes, ten thousand eight hundred and sixty-six mechanics in seventy-seven different trades, and one thousand and twenty-five agents, bar-keepers, hotel-keepers, and the like. The capital invested in commerce was estimated at five million two hundred thousand dollars, and in merchandize, twelve million eight hundred and seventy-seven thou- sand dollars. There were twenty-three lumber-yards, with one hundred and thirty-three thousand dollars capi- tal and sales in 1840 amounting to three hundred and forty-two thousand five hundred dollars. There were eight banks, with an aggregate capital of more than six millions. The Miami canal was now in operation to Piqua, and the extension was completed eighty miles be- yond Dayton and was making rapid progress toward De- fiance, at the rapids of the Maumee. For two years it had paid more than the annual interest upon the debt in- curred in its construction, which was considered "the highest evidence of its utility." The vast water-power which it had brought to the city was mostly in use. The Whitewater canal was nearly finished. An improvement in the Licking, being made at Kentucky's expense, was expected to bring benefits to Cincinnati. A steam packet was to be immediately put on the river. The Little Mi- ami railroad was completed for about thirty-five miles out, and more was under contract. Turnpike improvements had been steadily extended. The Charleston or South- ern railroad scheme was still held in abeyance by the op- position of Kentucky, and the depression in the moneyed world. The exports on the Miami canal had increased from eight thousand five hundred and seven dollars and sixty-nine cents in 1828 to seventy-four thousand three hundred and twenty dollars and ninety-nine cents in 1840. The city had one German and six English daily papers, with a large number of tri-weeklies, weeklies, and monthlies. There were forty-six churches, including two synagogues, and a large number of benevolent and char- itable societies and institutions, on both public and private foundations. Science and literature, education, music, and other of the higher interests, were all em- bodied in organizations and institutions existing here. The fire and water service of the city had been greatly improved. The city had been made a port of entry. It had now sixty weekly mails, and the revenue of the post office in 1840 had been forty-nine thousand eight hundred and fifteen dollars and thirteen cents.

The city is described by Mr. Cist as still- "almost in the eastern extreme of a valley about twelve miles in cir- cumference, perhaps the most delightful and extensive on the borders of Ohio." With the adjacent parts of Mill creek and Fulton townships, and Newport and Coving- ton, the total population of Cincinnati and suburbs was reckoned at sixty thousand. The Germans in the city now numbered fourteen thousand one hundred and sixty- three-three thousand six hundred and thirty in the First, one thousand one hundred and thirty-seven in the Sec- ond, one thousand nine hundred and twelve in the Third, nine hundred and ninety-six in the Fourth, four thousand

three hundred and twenty in the Fifth, six hundred and ninety-five in the Sixth, and one thousand four hundred and seventy-three in the Seventh ward. The American population was fifty-four per cent., German twenty-eight, British sixteen, French and Italian one, and all others one per per cent. of the entire population. About six thousand eight hundred children were being educated in the public and private schools.

Great improvements were expected-among them not less than five hundred dwellings and warehouses to go up during the year, including a larger proportion of ware- houses than usual. Several blocks and single buildings for stores were going up in March of this year. The number of new structures for the twelve months was afterwards reported at four hundred and sixty-two. The present St. Peter's cathedral, on the corner of Eighth and Plum streets, was about erecting, and was finished in 1844. "Over the Rhine " was developing rapidly, and a new German Catholic church on Main, beyond the canal, was to be built shortly. About three-fourths of the Germans in those days were said to be Roman Cath- olics.

The use of coal for fuel was becoming quite general; nine hundred and thirty thousand bushels had been sold the previous year, and a sale of more than two millions was expected for 1841.

Mr. Cist finally " ventured the prediction that within one hundred years Cincinnati would be the greatest city in America, and by the year A. D. 2,000 the greatest city in the world " !

During the early part of this year General Harrison, the elect of the people, as well as of the Electoral College, by a tremendous majority, made his way to Washington, to assume the duties of Chief Magistrate of the Nation. Judge Joseph Cox, in an address to the Cinciunati Liter- ary club, February 4, 1871, on General William H. Har- rison at North Bend, has thus sketched the farewell :

The scene of his departure was most affecting. Old men who had shared with him the toils of the campaigns among the Indians, their wives and children, his old neighbors, the poor, of whom there were many who had shared his bounty, gathered to witness his departure, cheering for his triumph while their cheeks were wet with tears. The boat on which he was to pass up the river lay at the foot of Broadway, in Cincinnati. The wharves, streets, and every surrounding vessel and house were filled with spectators. Standing on the deck of the steamer, with a clear, ringing voice he recalled to the mind of the people that forty-eight years before he had landed on that spot a poor, unfriended boy in almost an unbroken wilderness to join his fortunes with theirs, and that now, by the voice of a majority of the seventeen millions of people of this free land, he was about to leave them to assume the Chief Magistraey of the greatest Nation of the earth. He assured them that he was devoted to the interests of the people, and although this might be the last time he would look upon them, they would find him in the future true to the old history of the past. Prophetic vision ! Never- more was it given to him to look on the faces of those who this day cheered him on to his high goal. Before visiting Washington, he went to the old homestead on the James river, and there, in the room of his mother (then dead many years), composed his inaugural address as President."

Less than six months had gone, when the old hero came back, but in his coffin. Acclamations were ex- changed for sobs and sighs ; tears of joy for tears of deepest grief. Judge Cox then depicts the final scenes :

The funeral services took place at the White House, after which the

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

body, accompanied by a large civic and military procession, was taken to the Congressional burying ground and deposited in the receiving vault, to await the arrangements of his family. The nation was shrouded in mourning, and the ensuing sixteenth of May was set apart as a day of fasting and prayer, upon which, in nearly every town and city, the people met in honor of the illustrious dead.

In the meantime preparations had been made to inter the remains on a beautiful hill just west of his home at North Bend, and under the guidance of committees of Congress and of the principal cities of the country, they were, in July, 1841, escorted from Washington. Arriving in Cincinnati, the body lay in state at the house of his son-in-law, Col- onel W. H. H. Taylor, on the north side of Sixth street, just east of Lodge, and was visited by thousands of his old friends and fellow citi- zens. It was then, after suitable religious services, placed on a bier on the sidewalk, and the citizens and military filed past it. The funeral procession, under charge of George Graham, esq., still living, then marched to the river; the corpse was placed on a magnificent catafalque on board a steamer. which, with two others lashed side by side and loaded with mourners, slowly, with solemn dirges and tolling bells, moved to North Bend. Arriving there, a long procession followed the remains to the summit of the mound, where they were deposited in the vault, beneath a low-built structure covered with turf. There have they lain for nearly thirty [now forty] years.

No marble rears its head to mark The honored hero's dust; Nor glittering spire, nor cenotaph, Nor monumental bust. But on the spot his manhood loved His aged form's at rest; And he built his own proud monument Within a nation's breast.

June 16th an ordinance was passed granting to James F. Conover and J. H. Caldwell the right to supply gas to the city for the period of twenty-five years.

In September another anti-negro mob made a terrible disturbance, originating in an affray at the corner of Broadway and Sixth street, between some Irish and a party of negroes, several nights before. There were thenceforth fights every night, in that part of the city, be- tween the whites and the blacks, until early Friday even- ing, when a mob, composed largely of river-men and roughs from Kentucky, gathered at the Fifth street mar- ket-space, now the Esplanade, and marched thence to a negro confectioner's shop on Broadway, next the syna- gogue, where they smashed the front of it, but were presently met and sharply engaged by the negroes with fire-arms. Many were wounded on both sides. The mob was addressed by the mayor and Mr. John H. Piatt, but without avail. About one o'clock that night the mob gained possession of a six-pound cannon from some place near the river, loaded it with boiler punchings and other missiles, took it to the negro quarter, and fired it several times, but without doing much damage. It was stationed on Broadway, and fired down Sixth street. Many of the negroes became considerably alarmed at this demonstration, and incontinently fled to the hills. In about an hour the military, which had been called out by the mayor, appeared on the scene and kept the mob at bay. Through the next day, however, and until three o'clock Sunday morning, the mob held its front and de- fied its opponents. The citizens held a meeting Satur- day morning, and passed facing-both-ways resolutions against mobs and Abolitionists. The city council held a special meeting to consider the situation; and the ne- groes had another meeting in a church, where they ex- pressed their willingness to abide by the laws of 1807- give bonds as required by that act, or leave the State.

About three in the afternoon the mayor, marshal, po- lice, and others went to the theatre of still threatened conflict, and marched off two to three hundred negroes to jail for safe-keeping. The mob, however, recom- menced its violence early, and at different points. The Philanthropist office was again sacked, and a number of houses inhabited by negroes and the negro church on Sixth street were partially destroyed and rifled of their contents. An attempt was made to fire the book estab- lishment of Truman & Smith, on Main street, which was for some reason obnoxious to the roughs. Before morning, however, the mob, not receiving fresh accessions, stopped its violence, and dispersed through sheer exhaustion. Several men were killed in the progress of the affair, and twenty or thirty wounded, a few of them dangerously. About forty of the mob were arrested. The affair as- sumed importance enough to cause the issue of a procla- mation by the governor. That night the military turned out in force, including a troop of horse and several foot companies, with the firemen acting under authority as police, and eighty citizens who had volunteered to sup- port the officers of the law.

In October the Western Methodist Anti-Slavery con- vention assembled at Cincinnati. It actually could not then find a meeting-house of its own denomination open to it, but found a hospitable reception in a Baptist church. Hon. Samuel Lewis was chairman of this meeting. Fif- teen years afterwards the feeling had so changed that one of the largest Methodist churches of the city was used for a great and enthusiastic Republican meeting, assem- bled to promote the election of General Fremont.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-TWO.

One of the chief events of this year was the arrival from Pittsburgh of the young but already celebrated English novelist, Charles Dickens, with his wife. They staid but a short time, and then embarked on the steamer Pike, for Louisville, stopping here also for a day on his return. He gave Cincinnati a chapter in his American Notes, and treated it much more fairly than some other places alleged themselves to have been treated. We ex- tract the following:

MONDAY, April 4, 1842.

When the morning sun shines again, it gilds the house-tops of a lively city, before whose broad, paved wharf the boat is moored; with other boats, and flags and moving wheels and hum of men around it; as though there were not a solitary or silent rood of ground within the compass of a thousand miles around.

Cincinnati is a beautiful city ; cheerful, thriving, and animated. I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favorably and pleas_ antly to a stranger at the first glance as this does, with its clean houses of red and white, its well-paved roads and footways of bright tile. Nor does it become less prepossessing on a closer acquaintance. The streets are broad and airy, the shops extremely good, the private resi- dences remarkable for their elegance and neatness. There is some- thing of invention and fancy in the varying styles of these latter erections, which, after the dull company of the steamboat, is perfectly delightful, as conveying an assurance that there are such qualities still in existence. The disposition to ornament these pretty villas and ren- der them attractive leads to the culture of trees and flowers, and the laying-out of well kept gardens, the sight of which, to those who walk along the streets, is inexpressibly refreshing and agreeable. I was quite charmed with the appearance of the town and its adjoining sub- urb of Mount Auburn, from which the city, lying in an amphitheatre of hills, forms a picture of remarkable beauty and is seen to great advan- tage.

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

There happened to be a great temperance convention held here on the day after our arrival ; and as the order of march brought the pro- cession under the windows of the hotel in which we lodged, when they started in the morning, I had a good opportunity of seeing it. It com- prised several thousand men, the members of various "Washington Auxiliary Temperance Societies,". and was marshaled by officers on horseback, who cantered briskly up and down the line, with scarves and ribands of bright colors fluttering out behind them gaily. There were bands of music, too, and banners out of number; and it was a fresh, holiday looking concourse altogether.

I was particularly pleased to see the Irishmen, who formed a distinct society among themselves, carrying their national Harp and their por- trait of Father Mathew high above the people's heads. They looked as jolly and good-humored as ever; and, working the hardest for their living, and doing any kind of sturdy labor that came in their way, were the most independent fellows there, I thought.

The banners were very well painted, and flaunted down the street fa- mously. There was the smiting of the rock and the gushing forth of the waters; and there was a temperate man with a considerable of a hatchet (as the standard-bearer would probably have said) aiming a deadly blow at a serpent which was apparently about to spring upon him from the top of a barrel of spirits. But the chief feature of this part of the show was a huge allegorical device, borne among the ship- carpenters, on one side whereof the steamboat Alcohol was represented bursting her boiler and exploding with a great crash, while upon the other the good ship Temperance sailed away with a fair wind, to the heart's content of the captain, crew, and passengers.

After going round the town, the procession repaired to a certain ap- pointed place, where, as the printed programme set forth, it would be received by the children of the different free schools, "singing temper- ance songs." I was prevented from getting there in time to hear these little warblers, or to report upon this novel kind of vocal entertainment -novel, at least, to mne ; but I found, in a large open space, each soci- ety gathered round its own banners and listening in silent attention to its own orator. The speeches, judging from the little I could hear of them, were certainly adapted to the occasion, as having that degree of relationship to cold water which wet blankets may claim ; but the main thing was the conduct and appearance of the audience throughout the day, and that was admirable and full of promise.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 24

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