History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 25

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 25

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Cincinnati is honorably famous for its free schools, of which it has so many that no person's child among its population can, by possibility, want the means of education, which are extended, upon an average, to four thousand pupils annually, I was only present in one of these es- tablishments during the hours of instruction. In the boys' department, which was full of little urchins (varying in their ages, I should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the master offered to institute an extem- porary examination of the pupils in algebra-a proposal which, as I was by no means confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, I declined with some alarm. In the girls' school reading was proposed, and as I felt tolerably equal to that art, I expressed my will- ingness to hear a class. Books were distributed accordingly, and some half-dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs in English history. But it was a dry compilation, infinitely above their powers; and when they had blundered through three or four dreary passages concerning the Treaty of Amiens and other thrilling topics of the same nature (obviously without comprehending ten words), I expressed my- self quite satisfied. It is very possible that they only mounted to this extreme stave in the ladder of learning for the astonishment of a visitor, and that at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but I should have been much better pleased and satisfied if I had heard them exer- cised in simpler lessons, which they understood.

As in every other place I visited, the judges here were gentlemen of high character and attainments. I was in one of the courts for a few minutes, and found it like those to which I have already referred. A nuisance cause was trying; there were not many spectators; and the witness, counsel, and jury formed a sort of family circle, sufficiently jo- cose and snug.

The society with which I mingled was intelligent, courteous, and agreeable. The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their city, as one of the most interesting in America, and with reason; for, beautiful and thriving as it is now, and containing, as it does, a population of fifty thousand souls, but two and fifty years have passed away since the ground on which it stands (bought at that time for a few dollars), was a wildwood and its citizens were but a handful of dwellers in scattered log huts upon the river's shore.

Another bank mob occurred in the city on the first of

November, caused by the suspension of the Bank of Cincinnati and the Miami Exporting company's bank. Some movable property, books, and papers, were reached and destroyed, and a demonstration was also made against two exchange offices; but the City Guard, under command of the astronomer, Captain O. M. Mitchel, were defending the banks, and after they had fired a vol- ley or two on the mob, wounding several, the crowd dis- persed and did no further damage.

The number of new buildings erected this year was five hundred and thirty-seven.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE.

Mr. Cist notes this year as an era in the political ex- istence of Cincinnati, as having two natives of the county rival candidates for the office of Mayor at the spring election-Messrs. Henry E. Spencer and Henry Morse -which was certainly a very interesting circumstance, but was paralleled in 1845, when the same two were again candidates for the office.

February 28th a disastrous fire and explosion occurred in Pugh & Alvord's pork-packing establishment, which killed eight persons and wounded fourteen, among them several prominent citizens.

November 2d, the first number of the Cincinnati Com- mercial was issued, by Messrs. Curtiss & Hastings. On the twenty-eighth the Whitewater canal was opened.

December 22d, S. S. Davies, ex-mayor of the city, de- parted this life.

Number of new buildings this year, six hundred and twenty-one.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR.

This year was comparatively devoid of events, save the inevitable quadrennial excitement of the Presidential election. On the twenty-seventh of April the first ground was bought for Spring Grove cemetery. The eighth of October marked the advent of Millerism, of which an interesting account will be found in our chap- ter on Religion in Cincinnati. The first, and long the only cotton factory in the city, was erected this year by Messrs. Samuel Fosdick, Anthony Harkness, and Jacob Strader.

During the summer and fall of this year, Mr. Charles Cist pursued his favorite occupation of enumerating the buildings of the city, the results of which he published in his Miscellany. He found in the First ward fifteen public buildings (including the post office, a theatre, and the unfinished observatory), and one hundred and twenty dwellings, shops, storehouses, mills, and offices-total seven hundred and thirty-five-five hundred and fifty- one of brick and one hundred and eighty-four frames. Eighty-two had been built in 1844, against twenty-six the previous year. The Second ward showed up twenty-two public buildings and one thousand and thirty-nine dwel- ings, etc.,-eight hundred and twenty-five brick and two hundred and fourteen frame. One hundred and two of these had been put up within the year. The Third ward contained but six public edifices, but had one thousand one hundred and sixty-two private buildings-two of stone, four hundred and thirty-four frame, and seven

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

hundred and twenty brick. Some of the new structures, one hundred and seventeen in number, are described as of great extent and height. Mr. Cist says :

The Third ward is the great hive of Cincinnati industry, especially in the manufacturing line. Planing machines, iron foundries, brewer- ies, saw-mills, rolling-mills, finishing shops, bell and brass foundries, boiler yards, boat building, machine shops, etc., constitute an exten- sive share of its business.

The Fourth ward, also embracing a large share of the heavy business of the city, now had four buildings of a public character and one thousand two hundred and seven others-four stone, six hundred and fifty-two brick, and five hundred and fifty-one frames-one hun- dred and seventeen built the same year. Fifth ward- public buildings, thirteen; private, one thousand five hun- dred and fifty-two; brick, eight hundred and twenty-five; frame, seven hundred and twenty-seven ; built this year, one hundred and seventy-six. Sixth-public structures, ten; private, one thousand and fifty-three; built in 1844 (seventy-nine less than in 1843), one hundred and seven- teen; brick, four hundred and ninety-five; frame, five hundred and sixty-eight. · Several improvements of a su- perior character are noted. Seventh-twelve public build- ings, one thousand two hundred and ninety-nine private- six hundred and ten brick, seven hundred and one frames ; two hundred and nineteen built this year. The great edi- fice going up, as it had been for four years, was the Roman Catholic cathedral, on Plum street. Eighth-seven pub- lic and one thousand one hundred and fifty-seven private structures-four hundred and three brick, seven hundred and sixty-one frame; built during the year, two hundred and twenty-six. "A great number of fine dwellings of brick" are noted as among the new improvements. Ninth -fourteen public and one thousand one hundred and ninety-eight private buildings; new ones, eighty-two; brick, four hundred and seventy-eight ; frame, seven hun- dred and thirty-two; stone, two. The total number of buildings in the city was ten thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, an increase of one thousand two hundred and twenty-eight over the previous year. It was also thought that as many as five hundred new buildings had been put up during the year in the district between the corporation line and the base of the hills on the north.

Many familiar old buildings disappeared this year- among them Fairchild's corner, on Main and Front, which was a quarter of a century old; Elsenlock's corner, on Walnut and Front, which was one of the earliest en- closed lots of Losantiville, and the building upon it the favorite resort of the "United Democracy;" also, east of Main, above Fifth, an old white frame building, put up in the days of Fort Washington, and Andrew's Buck's ho- tel, once a fashionable resort. Looking from the corner of Main and Fifth, all buildings of a quarter of a century before, within the view, had disappeared.

A classification made of citizens this year, according to their pecuniary ability, developed the fact that there was only one man (Nicholas Longworth) worth over five hundred thousand dollars; six were worth two hundred thousand to four hundred thousand dollars; twenty-six one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars; forty-three fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dol-

lars; fifty-six thirty thousand to fifty thousand dollars; seventy-three twenty to thirty thousand dollars; eighty- two fifteen thousand to twenty thousand dollars; one hundred and eighteen ten thousand to fifteen thousand dollars; four hundred and twenty-three five to ten thou- sand dollars; six hundred and forty-five two thousand five hundred to five thousand dollars; eight hundred and twenty-six one thousand five hundred to two thousand five hundred dollars; and thirteen hundred and thirteen under one thousand five hundred dollars. It was esti- mated that the sale of eight squares in the business part of the city would more than pay all the bank debts then due by her business men.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE.

The population of the city this year had grown to seven- ty-four thousand six hundred and ninety-nine-an in- crease of twenty-eight thousand three hundred and sev- enteen, or sixty-one per cent., in five years. The increase was to be yet more remarkable during the five years to come. The number of new buildings was one thousand two hundred and fifty-two-seven hundred and eighty- nine brick, four hundred and sixty-three frame. The total number of buildings in the city was eleven thousand five hundred and sixty, exclusive of stables and the like. Among the finer structures in the course of erection this year were the Cincinnati college, the Masonic and Odd Fellows' halls, the College of Dental Surgery, two Ro- man Catholic, two Presbyterian, four Methodist, one Welsh, and two Disciple churches. The building of the college, on Walnut street, between Fourth and Fifth, where its successor now stands, had been burned on the nineteenth of January, and a more spacious and elegant structure was now going up.

In May of this year Mr. Cist thus notes in his Miscel- lany some interesting facts relating to the trend of the business interests of the city :

The increase of business in Cincinnati compels it to radiate from its former centres. Blocks of business stands are forming east, west and north of the existing commercial regions. Thus some thirty large ware- and store-houses have been or are just about to be erected on Walnut, between Water and Second streets. Commerce is finding vent down Second, Third and Front streets to the west, and up Second and Third streets to the east. That fine block known by the name of Hopple's row, and which has hardly been a year built, is now occupied with lace and dry-goods stores, drug-shops, carpet ware-houses, etc., in which goods are offered wholesale to as good advantage as in any other part of the city. Among these the dry-good store of Baird & Schuyler may be especially alluded to as a fine establishment. These are the occupants of the lower buildings; up stairs is a perfect den of wipers in the shape of lawyers and editors.

We continue Mr. Cist's interesting notices of local matters :

OUR NORTHWEST TERRITORY .- There is nothing in Cincinnati ex- hibits a growth as vigorous as the northwestern part of our city, popu- larly called Texas. What constituted originally the Seventh ward was, only seven years ago, interspersed here and there with dwellings, but consisted principally of brick-yards, cattle-pastures and vegetable gar- dens, for the supply of markets. Such was the unimproved condition of this region, that nearly two hundred and fifty acres, occupied as pasturage, were owned by four or five individuals alone, Two hundred and fifty acres of pasturage in a city, and that city as thriving as Cin- cinnati ! The whole number of dwellings at that period, within the bounds of that ward, were short of three hundred and fifty, and its whole population could not have reached to twenty-five hundred souls;

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

and these the buildings and inhabitants of a section of Cincinnati more than a mile square!

Now what a change! Eleven hundred new buildings, most of them of a character for beauty, permanence and value equal to the average of the main body of our city improvements. The streets graded and paved to a great extent, churches and public school-houses going up in its midst, and well-paved sidewalks, adding to the general finish and convenience. With all these improvements, too, space has been left, at the sides and in the fronts of the buildings, for that free introduction of shrubbery and flowers which render our city so attractive to stran- gers, and so airy and pleasant to ourselves. It is, in short, completely rus in urbe, abounding in spots which combine the comfort of a coun- try villa with the convenience and advantages of a city residence.

It may serve to give a striking view of the magnitude and extent of the improvements in this region to state that London street has been graded from Fulton to Mound street west, which extent, some one thousand two hundred feet in length, is now dug down from five to ten feet, to fill up one thousand feet farther west and the entire width- sixty feet-of the street. The stupendous character of the work may be inferred from the volume of earth filled in, which, at the intersection of Baymiller street, measures sixteen feet in depth. The greater part of this is also paved, and progressing as fast in paving as is prudent, the graded ground being covered with stone as fast as it settles to its permanent bed. This must become one of the finest entrances to our city. The population of this section of Cincinnati is now, doubtless, eleven thousand, the inhabitants having quadruped since 1838.

A new and important avenue to trade and marketing has been opened through this part of the city, by extending Freeman street to the Hamilton road. The effect of this will be to direct a large share of the travelling to the city, to the intersection of Fifth and Front streets; and to bring the pork-wagons into direct communication with the pork- houses which must be put up on the line of the Whitewater canal.

This avenue will also become a formidable rival to Western Row, as a connection between the adjacent parts of Indiana and Cincinnati, owing to the scandalous condition into which the upper part of that street has been suffered to dilapidate, which renders it impassable in winter and unpleasant at all times.

Eighth street was now paved to a distance of more than two miles west of Main, and was rapidly coming into use as one of the chief avenues of travel to and from the country.

Mr. [Elmore] Williams was originally the owner of all that valuable property at the corner of Main and Front streets, facing one hundred feet on Front and two hundred on Main street, extending from Worth- ington Shillito & Co.'s grocery store to Front, and thence Place Traber & Co.'s store, west to Main street, and became so under these circum- stances: The lot in question was taken up by Henry Lindsey, who after holding it a year or more disposed of it to a young man for a job of work, whose name M1. Williams has forgot. The second owner, having a desire to revisit his former home in New Jersey, and being unwilling to trust himself through the wilderness without a horse, begged Mr. Williams, with whom he was acquainted, the latter then residing at the point of the junction of the Licking and the Ohio, to take his lot in payment for a horse, saddle and bridle of his, valued at sixty-five dollars. After much importunity and principally with the vicw of accommodating a neighbor, Mr. Williams consented, and after holding the property a few days, disposed of it again for another horse and equipments, by which he supposed he made ten dollars, perhaps. This lot not long afterwards fell into the hands of Colonel Gibson, who offered it for one hundred dollars to Major Bushi of Boone county, in 1793. So slight was the advance for years to property in Cincinnati. This lot, probably at this time the most valuable in the city, estimating the rent at six per cent. of its value, is now worth three hundred and thirty-seven thousand and four hundred dollars. Where else in the world is the property which in fifty-four years had risen from four dollars to such a value?

The man is still living, and in full possession of his faculties, bodily and mental, who stood by surveying the first eellar-digging in Cincin- nati. This was the cellar of the first brick house put up here, and which was built by the late Elmore Williams, at the corner of Main and Fifth streets. As one-half of the community in that day had never scen a cellar, being emigrants from the farming districts, and the other half were surveying a novelty in Cincinnati, it may readily be conceived there was no searcity of on-lookers. My informant gives it as his judgment that the west half of the Wade dwelling on Congress street, is the oldest building now standing in Cincinnati, certainly the only

one remaining of what were built when he first saw the place. Most of the houses were log cabins, and hardly better, so he phrases it, "than sugar-camps at that." The city, when he landed, had not five hundred inhabitants. He has lived to behold its increase to seventy-five thou- sand. Where will the next fifty years find it ?

June 1:th, was held a meeting of the southern and western anti-slavery convention in the city, with animated and interesting discussions.

An interesting event occurred on the twenty-eighth of September, in the dedication of Spring Grove cemetery. Cincinnati had now the beginnings of a worthy "God's acre."

The city was visited in 1845 by the great English geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, who, more than any other man in the history of geology, industriously collected facts and constructed theories for it. He was out much on explorations in this region with Dr. John Locke, who had been on the State geological survey; and visited the Big Bone lick, in company with Robert Buchanan, Mr. Anthony, and other intelligent gentlemen. The following are some of Sir Charles' remarks upon the geology and paleontology of this part of the valley:

The Ohio river at Cincinnati, and immediately above and below it, is bounded on its right bank by two terraces, on which the city is built, the streets in the upper and lower part of it standing on different levels. These terraces are composed of sand, gravel, and loam, such as the river, if blocked up by some barrier, might now be supposed to sweep down in its current and deposit in a lake. The upper terrace is bounded by steep hills of ancient fossiliferous rocks. Near the edge of the higher terrace, in digging a gravel-pit, which I saw open at the end of Sixth street, they discovered lately the teeth of the elephas primigenius, the same extinct species which is met with in very analogous situations on the banks of the Thames, and the same which was found preserved en- tire with its flesh in the ice of Siberia. Above the stratum from which the tooth was obtained I observed about six feet of gravel covered by ten feet of fine yellow loam, and below it were alternations of gravel, loam, and sand, for twenty feet. But I searched in vain for any accom- panying fossil shells. These, however, have been found in a similar situation at Mill creek, near Cincinnati, a place where several teeth of mastodons have been met with. They belong to the genera melania, lymnea, amnicola, succinca, physa, planorbis, paludina, cyclas, helix and pupa, all of recent species, and nearly all known to inhabit the im- mediate neighborhood. I was also informed that near Wheeling a bed of freshwater shells, one foot thick, of the genus unio, is exposed at the height of one hundred and twenty feet above the main level of the Ohio. The remains of the common American mastodon (M. gigantius) have also been found at several points in the strata in the upper terrace, both above and below Cincinnati. Upon the whole it appears that the strata of loam, clay, and gravel, forming the elevated terraces on both sides of the Ohio and its tributaries, and which we know to have re- mained unaltered from the era of the Indian mounds and earthworks, originated subsequently to the period of the existing mollusca, but when several quadrupeds now extinct inhabited this continent. The lower parts, both of the larger and smaller valleys, appear to have been filled up with a fluviatile deposit, through which the streams have sub- sequently cut broad and deep channels. These phenomena very closely resemble those presented by the loess, or ancient river-silt of the Rhine and its tributaries, and the theory which I formerly suggested to ac- count for the position of the Rhenish loess (also charged with recent land and freshwater shells, and occasionally with the remains of the ex- tinct elephant) may be applicable to the American deposits,

I imagined first a gradual movement of depression, like that now in progress on the west coast of Greenland, to lessen the fall of the waters or the height of the land relatively to the ocean. In consequence of the land being thus lowered, the bottoms of the main and lateral val- leys become filled up with fluviatile sediment, containing terrestrial and freshwater shells, in the same manner as deltas are formed where rivers meet the sea, the salt water being excluded, in spite of continued subsidence, by the accumulation of alluvial matter brought down inces- santly from the land above. Afterwards I suppose an upward move- ment gradually to restore the country to its former level, and, during this upheaval, the rivers remove a large part of the accumulated mud,

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

sand and gravel. I have already shown that on the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, in the United States, we have positive proofs of modern oscillations of level, similar to those here assumed.

The rock forming the hills and table-lands around Cincinnati, called the blue limestone, has been commonly referred to the age of the Trenton limestone of New York, but is considered by Messrs. Conrad and Hall, and I believe with good reason, as comprehending also the Hudson river group. It seems impossible, however, to separate these divisions in Ohio, so that the district colored blue (No. 15) may be re- garded as agreeing with Nos. 14 and 15 in other parts of my map. Several of the fossils which I collected at Cincinnati, the encrinites and aviculae (of the sub-genus Pterinea) in particular, agree with those which I afterward procured near Toronto, on the northern shores of Lake Ontario.

After seeing at Cincinnati several fine collections of recent and fossil shells in the cabinets of Messrs. Buchanan, Anthony and Clark, I ex- amined with care the quarries of blue limestone and marl in the sub- urbs. The organic remains here are remarkably well preserved for so ancient a rock, especially those occurring in a compact argillaceous blue limestone, not unlike the lias of Europe. Its deposition appears to have gone on very tranquilly, as the lingula has been met with in its natural and erect position, as if enclosed in mud when alive, or still standing on its peduncle. Crustaceans of the genus Trinacleus are found spread out in great numbers on layers of the solid marl, as also another kind of trilobite, called Paradoxides, equally characteristic of the Lower Silurian system of Europe. The large Isotclus gigas, three or four inches long, a form represented, in the Lower Silurian of northern Europe, by the asaphi with eight abdominal articulations, deserves also to be mentioned, and a species of graptolite. I obtained also Spirifer lynx in great abundance, a shell which Messrs. Murchison and De Verneuil regard as very characteristic of the Lower Silurian beds of Russia and Sweden. Among the mollusca I may also mention Leptena sericea, Orthis striatula, Bellerophon bilobatus, Avicul of the sub- genus Pterinea, Cypricradia, Orthoreras, and others. There were also some beautiful forms of Crinoidea, or stone-lilies, and many corals, which Mr. Lonsdale informs me differ considerably from those hitherto known in Britain-a circumstance probably arising from the small de- velopment of coralline limestones in the Lower Silurian strata of our island. Several species of the new genus Stenopora of Lonsdale are remarkably abundant.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX.

January 6th, occurred the first annual meeting of the New England society; Henry Starr, president. On the fifteenth, the post office was removed from near the Henrie house to the Masonic building, at the corner of Third and Walnut streets.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 25

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