History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 43

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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years by the Rev. Kingston Goddard, D. D., and he for four years by Rev. John McCarty, an ex-chaplain in the army. The rectors since have been Rev. W. A. Snively, 1867-70; Rev. T. S. Yocum, 1870-6; and the present incumbent of the rectorship, the Rev. I. Newton Stan- ger. In 1860 the Episcopal burying-ground was sold to the city for thirty-five thousand dollars, and now forms a part of Washington park, opposite the music hall. Dur- ing the sixty-one years of the existence of this church 1817-78, its aggregate contributions, for purely mis- sionary and charitable purposes, were not less than two hundred thousand dollars. Nine persons have gone into the ministry from the congregation. The benevolent society, within the last twenty-five years, has collected and expended nearly twenty-five thousand dollars, and probably sixty thousand dollars from its beginning in 1820.

In 1878 a neat and clear Short History of Christ church was published by the rector, Rev. Mr. Stanger, from which the foregoing account has been abridged.

ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

The organization of churches of the Catholic faith in Cincinnati dates from 1818. The first society had about one hundred members in 1819. A frame church had been built for it in the Northern Liberties; but no priest was yet settled over it. In 1823 Dr. Fenwick was appointed Bishop of Cincinnati, and dedicated a few months afterwards a frame church erected on Sycamore street, above Sixth, where so many Catholic buildings, for worship and education, have since been erected. In 1826 a brick building was added, and a theological seminary and college were in contemplation. There were now a bishop and four priests in the city. Several nuns of the order of "Poor Clares " had lately arrived from Europe and opened a school with sixty pupils. Arrangements were also in progress to open a boarding school. The brick church, the old St. Peter's Cathedral, was a neat example of Gothic architecture, planned by one of the early architects here, Mr. Michael Scott. It was one hundred and ten by fifty feet upon the ground, but only thirty from the basement to the cornice. On each side were four handsome windows, fifteen feet high. It had eighty-eight pews on the first floor, with a large gal- lery or orchestra. The principal decoration of the church was a large painting by Verschoot, representing the investiture of a religieuse; but there were a number of other valuable paintings on the walls. The interior was handsomely furnished, and was a spacious and ele- gant room, seating about eight hundred persons.

The Athenaeum, now St. Xavier College, was estab- lished in 1831. The original building for it still stands on Sycamore street, between Sixth and Seventh ; but is now considerably overshadowed by the splendid church and college edifices near it.

The present St. Peter's Cathedral, on the southwest corner of Eighth and Plum streets, is considered to be the most elegant and interesting church edifice in the city. It was commenced in 1839, and consecrated five years afterwards. Mr. Cist's next volume thus speaks of it :

Not a drop of ardent spirits was consumed in the erection of the

C. O. Frishburn, Me. .

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Cathedral, and notwithstanding the unmanageable shape and size of the materials, not an accident occurred in the whole progress of the work. Every man employed about it was paid off every Saturday night ; and, as the principal part of the labor was performed at a sea- son of the year when working hands are not usually employed to their advantage, much of the work was executed when labor and materials were worth far less than at present. The Dayton marble alone, at current prices, would nearly treble its original cost. The heavy dis- bursements have proved a seasonable and sensible benefit to the labor- ing class. The entire cost of the building is one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

It is in size two hundred by ninety-one feet, with a remarkably graceful and symmetrical spire two hundred and twenty-one feet high, springing from a colonnade of eighteen freestone columns, thirty-three feet in height and three and a half in diameter. The tower and spire alone cost twenty-five thousand dollars. The altar is of Car- rara marble, with two sculptured angels on each side, from the chisel of Hiram Powers. A fine organ, with forty-four stops and twenty-seven hundred pipes, occu- pies the east end. Among the numerous fine paintings, some of them by celebrated artists, which adorn it, may be seen Murillo's "St. Peter Liberated by an Angel," taken by the French from the Spaniards during the Peninsular war, and presented to Bishop Fenwick by Cardinal Fesch, uncle of the first Napoleon. St. Peter's contains the only chime of bells in the city-a set of eleven, which, with the great clock attached, was presented to the church in 1850 by Mr. Reuben R. Springer, the benefactor of the Music Hall.

One of the most useful of Cincinnati Catholics to the denomination, it may be here remarked, has been this venerable philanthropist, Mr. Springer, a member of St. Deter's. While the cathedral for his church was building, he gave ten thousand dollars toward it, and then five thousand dollars to finish the tower and spire, five thou- sand dollars for the clock and chimes, four thousand eight hundred dollars for the heating apparatus, two thou- sand two hundred dollars for four stained glass windows, one thousand five hundred dollars for the grand central altar, which he had made in Italy; and seven hundred dollars toward the Episcopal residence, which cost five thousand dollars. Mr. Springer thus gave nearly thirty thousand dollars. To the Refuge of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, on Bank street, he gave five thousand dollars toward the front building, and himself put up the interior building at a cost of nine thousand dollars. He afterwards gave one thousand dollars to replace a roof blown off, and for the Girl's Protectory on Baum street, managed by the same order, he gave five thousand dol- lars. He also gave the Sisters of Charity, for the Good Samaritan hospital, five thousand dollars; and large sums to the Seminary at Mount St. Mary's, the Orphan Asy- lum at Cumminsville, and other institutions, besides yearly benefactions to a very large amount.

In 1832 Bishop Fenwick died of cholera, and was suc- ceeded by Bishop (Archbishop since 1850) Purcell, who has now served his church in the Valley of the Ohio for more than half a century. He was born at Mallern, in the south of Ireland, in 1800, and came to America at the age of eighteen, entering a Methodist college at first, but completing his preliminary education at the Seminary

of St. Mary's, near Emmettsburgh, Maryland. He then studied for two years at St. Sulpice, near Paris, and there received sacred orders. In 1827 he returned to America, and until 1832 was Professor of Moral Philosophy and officiating priest in the Mount St. Mary's Theological Seminary near (now in) Cincinnati.

It would require a large volume to record in detail the remarkable developments of Catholicism in this city. It now claims here a Catholic population of one hundred thousand, with about forty churches and a dozen or more chapels, besides convents, colleges, academies and other schools, hospitals, and other institutions, some of which will be noticed in future.

About 1851 the Archiepiscopal See of Cincinnati was created, with Archbishop Purcell as its head, and suffra- gans at Detroit, Cleveland, Louisville, Vincennes, Fort Wayne, the Sault Ste. Marie and Covington. The creation of the new See was justly regarded as an import- ant event in western Catholicism.

The Confraternities of the church in Cincinnati, accord- ing to Sadlier's directory, are : St. Peter's Cathedral- The Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ; the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; the Con- fraternity of the Scapular and Rosary; the St. Peter's, St. Patrick's and St. Joseph's Benevolent societies; the Brotherhood of St. Michael; the Young Ladies' Sodality, the Married Ladies' Sodality, the Young Men's Sodality, and the Boys' Sodality; the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, of the Immaculate Conception, and the Mary and Martha society; the Guild of the Blessed Virgin; St. James Total Abstinence society; Sodality of the Sacred Heart; the Children of Mary. St. Xavier's-the confraternities of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Immaculate Conception; the sodalities of the Holy Maternity, the Holy Family, the Blessed Virgin, of St. Aloysius', the Living Rosary, and the Scapular, and the societies of the Holy Infancy and of the Apostleship of Prayer. St. Philomena's-De Agonia societies, St. Charles Borromeo, Helena, Christi, Sacred Heart, Laurentina, Philomena, Sodality B. V. M. St. John's-the Archcon- fraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; the confra- ternity of the Scapular; Young Ladies' Sodality; St. John's, St. Elizabeth's, St. Louis's, and St. Rose's societies. St. Augustine's-St. Mary's, St. Aloysius's, and St. Augustine's societies; the confraternity of Bona Mors; the Sodality of the Children of Mary. St. Fran- cis's-the confraternity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; the confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; the Young Men's Sodality; St. Francis's, St. Clara's, St. An- thony's, and Immaculate Conception societies. St. Mary's-the Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the confraternity of the Rosary. St. An- thony's-St. Anthony's, St. Vincent's, St. Mary's, and St. Clara's societies. St. Joseph's-St. Joseph's, St. Aloys- ius's, St. Mary's and St. Clara's societies. St. Edward's- St. Edward's, St. Vincent de Paul's, and Bona Mors so- cieties; the Sodality of the Immaculate Conception. St. Paul's-Young Ladies' Sodality; the confraternity of the Bona Mors; the confraternity of the Scapular; St. Paul's, St. Paula's, St. Raphael's, St. Mary's, and St.

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Vincent de Paul societies. Holy Trinity-the confrater- nity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; Pius's, St. Boniface's, St. Mary's, and St. Catharine's societies. St. Patrick's- Sodalities for men, for young ladies and for boys; St. Vincent's, Rosary, and Sanctuary societies. All Saints'- Sodality of the Immaculate Conception, society of the Living Rosary, confraternity of the Sacred Heart, All Hallows' School society. Holy Angels'-the confrater- nity of the Scapular; the Altar society. St. Francis of Sales'-the confraternity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; St. Francis's, and St. Mary's Altar societies. St. Bona- ventura's, Fairmount-the confraternities of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary. St. Aloysius's, Cummins- ville-the Sodalities of the Immaculate Conception and of the Most Blessed Sacrament; St. Patrick's R. C. Benevolent society; St. Vincent de Paul society. St. Michael's, Storrs-the confraternity of the Blessed Sacra- ment. St. Ann's (colored)-the confraternity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; the B. Clavers School society.

When the report was made to Sadlier's directory for 1880, of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, including the counties of Ohio south of the northern line of Mercer, Allen, and Hardin, west of the eastern line of Marion, Union, and Madison, and the Scioto river to the Ohio, there were within that jurisdiction one hundred and ninety-five churches, two churches building, eighteen chapels, sixty stations, one hundred and sixty-eight priests, one hundred and twenty students in theological seminaries, seven male and eight female religious com- munities, two theological seminaries, three colleges, twelve literary institutes for girls, three orphan asylums, one protectory for boys (Delhi), two hospitals, ten char- itable institutions, one hundred and forty parochial schools, and a Catholic population of two hundred thou- sand.

JUDAISM.

The first Jew is said to have landed in Cincinnati in March, 1817. The people of his faith increased with the years, however, and in 1835, with some aid from others in the community, they were able to build a synagogue. In 1840 they formed three per cent. of the population; and in 1850 there were three thousand three hundred and forty-six Israelites in the city.

A Jewish congregation was in existence here as far back as 1822. Four years thereafter its membership was noted as steadily increasing. A frame building west of Main, between Third and Fourth streets, was then used as a synagogue.

In 1830 the Congregation of the Children of Israel, Reformed, was organized. They now occupy a building, erected in a modified Gothic style, finished at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and dedicated, August 27, 1869-the Mound street Temple, on the corner of Eighth and Mound streets. The membership of this synagogue includes over two hundred families.

The congregation of Benai-Jeshurun, or the Children of Jeshurun, Reformed, dates from 1844. It is the strong- est and wealthiest Jewish society in this city. It occu- pies one of the most elegant, unique, and costly houses of worship in the city-the Hebrew temple at the corner

of Eighth and Plum streets, a synagogue of a pure Moorish order of architecture, and beautifully up- holstered and decorated. It was built during the late war at a cost of two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, exclusive of the grounds, and was dedicated in 1866. In 1874 elegant fresco work was added to the value of nine thousand dollars. It has sittings for fifteen hundred and forty people, and its membership reaches two hundred and forty families. The celebrated rabbi, Isaac M. Wise, is in charge of this congregation, and is also president of the Hebrew Union college.

The congregation of Sherith Israel was formed in' 1856, and has now a membership of nearly one hundred families, worshiping on Lodge street, between Sixth and Seventh streets.

The congregation of Brotherly Love is wholly Ger- man. It uses a brick synagogue on the corner of John and Melancthon streets, dedicated by Rabbi Wise in 1867.

Other Jewish congregations are the K. K. Adath Israel, corner of Walnut and Seventh; and the Orthodox Polish, Eighth street and Central avenue, which profes- ses a peculiar ancient creed.

The Jewish institutions in Cincinnati also include the Hebrew Union college, of which account will be given hereafter; the Hebrew General Relief association, which disburses nearly ten thousand dollars a year in weekly pensions to the poor, particularly to widows and persons disabled from active employments, and including desti- tute Jews, who may be temporarily here. The Jews have also maintained a hospital since 1847. It was at first on Betts street and Central avenue, but in 1863 oc- cupied the building now used, on the corner of Third and Baum streets. About thirty persons can be accom- modated in the two wards-one for male and one for female patients-besides a number in rooms provided for pay patients. It is solely for the benefit of Jews.

THE PULPIT IN 1825.

About the year 1825, the churches of the city were the First Presbyterian, the First Baptist, the Enon Baptist, Christ and St. Paul's Episcopal churches, the Methodist Episcopal, the Wesleyan Methodist, the German Luther- an and Reformed, the Roman Catholic, the Jewish con- gregation, and an African church occupying a frame building east of Broadway and north of Sixth street. The Universalists were about to organize, and would build the next year. The Reformed Presbyterians also organized in 1826, and were to put up a church the next summer. Rev. C. B. McKee was their first pastor.

Notwithstanding the churches of that day were so few, as compared with the present number, there were some notable and strong men in the pulpit. Mr. E. D. Mans- field, in his Personal Memories, after giving Dr. Joshua L. Wilson a warm eulogy, in terms similar to those we have quoted from another book of his, speaks of Bishop Fenwick as an ecclesiastic who "was much respected in his own church-a native of Maryland and member of the order of St. Dominic." Father Burke was then post- master, but occasionally preached in his church on Vine

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street. He was a Southern man, retaining many of the old Southern political and social prejudices. "He was," says Mr. Mansfield, "always chewing tobacco, and, being postmaster, was always a Democrat. He was a strict Methodist and an amiable man." Dr. John P. Durbin, of the Methodist Episcopal church, he says, "was one of the very few whom I thought orators. He was not strik- ing in either imagery or argument, and yet he carried his audience involuntarily along with him by the fervor of his thought and the grace of his manner. He would begin with a very low voice and gradually ascend and warm with his subject." The Rev. Dr. B. P. Aydelott was then the rector of Christ church, and afterwards presi- dent of Woodward college, and an author and philan- thropist of repute, "in all situations adorning, by his life and worth, the profession to which he belongs." Dr. Ay- delott is probably the only representative of the Cincin .- nati pulpit of that day who survived til! 1880, he dying in Cincinnati, where he had lived and done good works for nearly sixty years, only* last year. Rev. Samuel Johnston, of St. Paul's, was a man "highly esteemed by the congregation, and whose name has since been held in grateful remembrance." Mr. Mansfield adds that "the city had more churches in proportion to its popula- tion than it has now; but I don't think the standard of religion was any higher."

BY EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE

the churches of the city had greatly multiplied. There were six Presbyterian churches-one Reformed Presby- terian and one Scotch Presbyterian church-two Episco pal churches, four Methodist Episcopal, one Independent Methodist (Father Burke's), one Methodist Associate, three Baptist, one Catholic, and one each of German Lutheran Reformed, Swedenborgian, Welsh Methodist, Calvinistic, United Brethren, Unitarian, African, and Restorationist Christian, and one Jewish synagogue.

The benevolent societies of the churches, or connected with the religious movements of the day, had become numerous here by the close of 1833. The following are enumerated in the directory of that year: The Female Bible society of the Methodist Episcopal church; the Female Benevolent society of the Methodist Episcopal church; the Miami District Sunday-school Union of the Methodist Episcopal church; the Female Missionary and Tract society of the Methodist Episcopal church; the Female Society of Industry and of Foreign Missions of the Enon Baptist church; the Education society, and the Sunday-school society of the First Presbyterian church; the Female Association for Foreign Missions, the Home Missionary society, the Sunday-school society, and the Female Tract society, of the Second Presbyterian church; the Baptist Young Men's Education society; the Female Burman Education society of the Sixth street Baptist church; the Cincinnati Bible society and the French Bible Society ; the Cincinnati Branch Tract society; the Female Tract society, and the Female Missionary society, of the Third Presbyterian church; the Female Mission- ary society, and the Missionary society of the First Pres- byterian church; the Cincinnati Sunday school Union;

the Wesleyan Sunday-school society; the Methodist edu- cation society; the Female Indian Mission society of the Second Presbyterian church; Christ church Female Be- nevolent and Missionary societies; the Female Benevo- lent society of the Methodist church; the Female Tract society of the Third Presbyterian society; and the Young Men's Temperance society.

IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR

the Cincinnati churches were visited by the Rev. Drs. Reed and Mathieson, two eastern clergymen who travel- led together over a large part of the then settled parts of the country, and afterwards embodied the results of their inquiries in a book entitled A Visit to the American Churches. From this the following paragraph, by one of the authors, is extracted :

Before I quit this place, let me throw a few particulars together. You may have concluded, from what I have said, that religion is in a low state here. In one sense it is; but when you consider the rapid increase of the people and the character of that increase, it is a remarkably ad- vanced state. The population has grown at about one thousand per year, and this great influx has been nearly all of a worldly and un- promising nature. Yet there are twenty-one places of worship, and they are of good size and well attended.

RELIGION HERE IN 1838.

An interesting paragraph, highly complimentary to Cincinnati, appears in the Travels in North America of Mr. Buckingham, an Englishman, in 1838. After insti- tuting a comparison between several cities of England, Scotland, and the United States, greatly to the advantage of the last, in the respect of population, churches, min- isters, and communicants, he sets off Cincinnati, with its thirty thousand inhabitants, twenty-four churches, twenty- two ministers, and eight thousand five hundred and fifty- five communicants, against Nottingham, England, with fifty thousand, twenty-three, twenty-tl.ree, and four thou- sand eight hundred and sixty-four of these, respectively; and adds:

The contest between each of these citics, taken in pairs, is most strik- ing; but in none is it more striking than in the last two, in which it is seen that Cincinnati, a city not yet fifty years old, and the site of which was a dense forest in the memory of many of its inhabitants, has now, with little more than half the population of Nottingham, as many min- isters and churches, and nearly twice the number of communicants, that are possessed by this opulent and long-established manufacturing town of England.

IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY,

in the course of his extensive travels in this country, Mr. Buckingham personally visited Cincinnati, and left on record the following remarks concerning the state of religion here :

Of the religious sects and their respective numbers at present in Cin- cinnati, the following is the nearest approximation to an actual census that I could obtain:

Roman Catholics. 12,000

Episcopalians .2,000

Presbyterians. 6,000

Unitarians .1,000

Methodists 5,000

Umversalists 500

Baptists 4,000

Dunkards. 100

The Catholics are not only the most numerous, but said to be the most active, most zealous, and most rapidly increasing; their unity giving them great advantages in this respect. The Presbyterians are divided into Old School and New School; the Methodists into (rtho- dox and Radical; the Baptists into Calvinists and Free-will Baptists; the Episcopalians into High Church and Low Church; but the preacher who draws the largest crowds is a Mr. Maffit, a sort of pulpit actor as

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well as orator, and who, though a Methodist, is a beau in his dress and a great revivalist with young ladies.

IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-ONE

there were in Cincinnati two Roman Catholic churches, two Protestant Episcopal, seven Methodist Episcopal, three "Old School General Assembly" Presbyterian, four New School Presbyterian, three New Jerusalem, two Friends, three Baptist, and one each of Disciple, Meth- odist Protestant, Independent Methodist, Reformed, Associate Reformed Protestant, Unitarian, Congrega- tional, Universalist, Restorationist, United German, United German Protestart, German Lutheran, United Brethren in Christ, Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, and Welsh Congregational churches, besides the Bethel chapel and two synagogues. Among the religious organ- izations were also the Foreign Missionary society of the Valley of the Mississippi, the Western Education society, the Home Missionary society, the Young Men's Bible society, the Catholic society for the diffusion of religious knowledge, and the Cincinnati Bethel society. Among the preachers of the city were able and strong men like Bishop Purcell, Lyman Beecher, Thornton A. Mills, Jonathan Blanchard, William H. Channing, James Chal- len, and others of note.

UNITARIANISM.

The First Congregational church had its origin some- time in 1829, in a meeting held in the city council cham- ber to consider the establishment of a Unitarian society in Cincinnati. A charter was obtained at the next ses- sion of the legislature, and bears date January 21, 1830. The corporators named therein are Elisha Brigham, Jesse Smith, Nathan Guilford, George Carlisle, and William Greene. Others who took an active interest were Mica- jah T. Williams, Charles Stetson, Timothy Flint, John C. Vaughan, James H. Perkins, William Goodman, and other leading citizens. The Rev. Charles Briggs, repre- senting the American Unitarian association, preached to the new society during a part of 1830, in the Universalist and Swedenborgian churches and elsewhere. May 23d of that year, a church building was dedicated to its use on the southwest corner of Race and Fourth streets; sermon by Rev. Bernard Whitman, of Waltham, Massa- chusetts, poem by the Rev. John Pierpont, and hymn for the occasion by Mr. Timothy Flint. In September the first regular pastor was received-the Rev. E. B. Hall, since of Providence, Rhode Island. May 20, 1832, Rev. Ephraim Peabody became his successor. Besides his pulpit labors, he engaged in the publication of the Western Messenger, a monthly magazine, to which Mr. Perkins and others of his congregation made valu- able contributions. Ill health compelled his resignation, and among the somewhat transient supplies that followed were the Rev. Aaron Bancroft, father of the historian Bancroft; C. A. Bartol, Samuel Osgood, and James Freeman Clarke-all since greatly distinguished in litera- ture and the church; Christopher P. Cranch, the poet- painter; and William Silsbee. In August, 1837, Rev. B. Huntoon became pastor, but resigned the next year. The Rev. Henry W. Bellows, of New York, then filled

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 43

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