History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 78

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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While the paper was published at Columbus the editors were George Cole, D. A. Randall, and James L. Batchelder. Since its removal back to Cincinnati, previous to the present incumbents, they have been J. L. Batchelder and T. J. Melish.

In January, 1872, the Rev. Mr. Melish transferred his editorship to Rev. J. R. Baumes, D.D., who presently re- ceived Rev. Dr. W. N. Wyeth as associate editor, and on the first of August, 1876, passed his interest in the Jour- nal and Messenger over to George W. Lasher, D. D. Drs. Lasher and Wyeth are the present editors of the paper, and make it a financial as well as religiously journalistic success. But five other Baptist papers in the country are as old.

The famous Methodist Episcopal organ of the North- west, the Western Christian Advocate, was established by the Book Concern in the spring of 1834, with Rev. T. A. Morris, afterwards Bishop Morris, as editor. The Con- cern also founded the Ladies' Repository and Gatherings of the West in January, 1841-Rev. L. L. Hamline, editor; and also, the same year, the German Advocate, or Die Christliche Apologete, with Rev. William Nast as edi- tor. More history of these is written in the section de- voted to the Methodist Book Concern, in our chapter on Bookselling and Publication.

The Western Messenger, a Unitarian publication, was started in June, 1835, under the patronage of the Uni- tarians of the west, with the Rev. Ephraim Peabody as editor, Shreve and Gallagher publishers. It was removed in its second year to Louisville, and placed under the editorial care of James Freeman Clarke, now the famous Boston liberal divine; but finally came back to Cincin- nati, and was taken in hand by the yet more famous Rev. W. H. Channing. It was popular in the denomination; but nevertheless did not pay, and had to be discontinued in April, 1841.

In 1833 there were twelve newspapers in the city, two of which were daily.

LITERARY ENTERPRISES

abounded in this decade. In January, 1836, the Family Magazine, a small monthly at two dollars a year, was started by Eli Taylor, who was succeeded by J. A. James.

It was published for six years. Mr. Taylor was also for a time publisher of the Cincinnati Journal, an anti-Cath- olic and anti-slavery organ.

In July of the same year Mr. W. D. Gallagher, as edi- tor, issued the first number of his Western Literary Jour- nal and Monthly Review. It was a magazine of consid- erable pretension and real excellence, the largest till then established in the west, each number being seventy-two pages royal octavo. It was published by Messrs. Smith & Day, at three dollars a year. In November, 1836, the new venture was consolidated with the Western Monthly Magazine, which had been removed to Louisville and was still under the charge of James B. Marshall. He now changed the name to Western Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, retaining Mr. Gallagher as editor; but could not, under any name or editorship, apparently, make it pay, and it was discontinued in 1837, with the issue of the fifth number.

Mr. Gallagher went to Columbus, and, in conjunction with Otway Curry the poet, opened the publication of The Hesperian, or Western Monthly Magazine, thus making it, in some sense, a successor of the luckless Cincinnati and Louisville publications of the latter name. The first two volumes of the Hesperian were published in 1838 in Columbus; there seems then to have been a suspension of six months, for the third volume comprises the numbers from June to December, 1839. It was pub- lished in Cincinnati, and then was discontinued. The Hesperian is accounted to have been the best of all the early western periodicals, and its files are even now highly esteemed.

To this era also belong the Literary Register, a short- lived folio sheet, issued by S. Penn, jr., as publisher, and William Wallace; also the Literary News, in quarto, like- wise a transient publication-Edmund Flagg, editor, Prentice & Weisinger, publishers-the former, we believe, the celebrated poet-editor of Louisville thereafter, Mr. George D. Prentice. "At present," says a Cincinnati writer of 1841, "there is not published anywhere in the west what can with propriety be called a literary paper."

Meanwhile, however, Mr. E. D. Mansfield had con- ducted for a single year (1839) a very creditable maga- zine called the Monthly Chronicle. Achilles Pugh was the publisher. It contains much matter of local and an- tiquarian interest, besides selected and original matter. Its files are still greatly prized.

Another publication called The Chronicle, a weekly, had been started in 1836, with Mr. Mansfield as editor, assisted by Benjamin Drake. It was really a revival of the old . Chronicle of 1826, which in 1834 had been merged in the Mirror, and after that was sold to Drs. Drake and Rives, of the medical department of Cincin- nati college, partly to become an organ of that institu- tion ; the former name was restored and maintained for many years. The medical gentlemen were unsuccessful in the business management of the paper, and in 1837 it was sold to Mr. Pugh and Mr. William Dodd, printers and publishers. Mansfield was retained as editor, and gave the sheet a distinctive character as an anti-slavery Whig organ, but stopping short of abolitionism. In

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

December, 1839, the Chronicle became a daily publica- tion, with the subscription list of the Cincinnati Whig, thus beginning with two hundred and fifty subscribers, increasing gradually to the maximum number of six hun- dred, with which its career as a daily was ended. (The Whig had been founded some time before by Major Conover, who obtained the services of Henry M. Spen- cer as editor. It was strongly opposed to intemperance and liquor-selling, and would allow no advertisements of intoxicants in its columns). Mr. Drake dropped out of the editorship of the Chronicle in March, 1840, and Mr. Mansfield conducted the paper alone till 1848, and after- wards resumed connection with it, until 1850, when the Chronicle finally lost its identity in the Atlas, a paper originating with Nathan Guilford, and which survived through three or four years of financially weak existence. Miss Harriet Beecher's first printed story appeared in this paper about 1835, during the residence of her father and her prospective husband, Professor Stowe, at Lane Seminary. Other brilliant contributors, as Dr. Black- well, the Rev. James H. Perkins, Mr. Lewis J. Cist, Mrs. Sigourney, Mary DeForest, Mrs. Douglass, of Chilli- cothe, and others, added to the lustre of the Chronicle as a literary publication. Some of the most notable editors of the State, as Mr. Boardman, of The Highland News, published at Hillsborough, had their beginnings in this office. Mr. Richard Smith, at present editor-in-chief of the Gazette, also began his journalistic career with the Chronicle. The first issue of The Price Current, pub- lished by Mr. Peabody, was made from this office.

The Volksblatt, a German paper, the same now so pros- perous and influential, commenced its career as a weekly in 1836, and as a daily also in 1838. Its weekly edition has for sometime had the designation of Der Westliche Blætter. During much of its later and more important history the paper has been under the editorial manage- ment of the Hon. Frederick Hassaurek.

IN THE FORTIES.

In 1840-1 there were twenty-five book, newspaper, and other publishing houses in the city. The English dailies numbered six, with eight weeklies; the German weeklies five, with one daily. Four of the issues were also tri-weekly, and there were two semi-monthlies, ten monthlies, and one literary periodical of somewhat irregular appearance.

The Gazette and Liberty Hall, Whig, published a daily edition of nine hundred, a tri-weekly of four hundred, and a weekly of two thousand eight hundred copies. The Chronicle was also Whig, and published four hun- dred daily and nine hundred weekly copies. The Re- publican, another Whig organ, had seven hundred daily, three hundred tri-weekly, and eight hundred weekly sub- scribers. The Advertiser and Journal, Democratic, is- sued four hundred daily, one hundred and fifty tri- weekly, and one thousand six hundred and fifty weekly. The Times, neutral evening paper, circulated one thou- sand five hundred; the Public Ledger, penny evening neutral sheet, one thousand four hundred ; the Volksblatt, Democratic, claimed a daily issue of three hundred and

twelve and weekly of one thousand four hundred; the Unabhaengige Presse, likewise Democratic, two hundred and fifty tri-weekly; the Deutsch im Westen, one thousand five hundred, Wahrheits Freund (Roman Catholic), one thousand and fifty, the Apologete (German Methodist), one thousand-all weekly; and the Licht Freund, a Universalist semi-monthly, five hundred. Some men then or to become famous were upon the Cincinnati press-as Dawson, of the Advertiser, L'Hommedieu, of the Gazette, Mansfield of the Chronicle, Starbuck of Times, Nast of the Apologete, Stephen Molitor of the Volksblatt and Licht Freund, and others. Besides the publications enumerated, mostly secular, the Western Christian Advocate, Methodist weekly, had a circulation of fourteen thousand; the Cincinnati Observer, New School Presbyterian, Rev. J. Walker editor, one thousand three hundred; the Western Episcopal Observer, five hundred; the Catholic Telegraph, edited by Bishop Pur- cell, one thousand one hundred; the Star in the West, Universalist, about two thousand three hundred; the Philanthropist, an Abolitionist organ, three thousand ; the Western Temperance Journal, six thousand; the Ladies' Museum, one thousand two hundred; Ladies' Repository, seven thousand; Western Messenger (Uni- tarian), one thousand; Christian Preacher (Disciple), two thousand five hundred; Precursor (New Jerusalem), four hundred; The Evangelist (Disciple), one thousand; Family Magazine, three thousand; the Counterfeit De- tector, seven hundred and fifty; and there was one other periodical, the Western Farm and Garden, the circula- tion of which is not given by Mr. Cist, from whose Cin- cinnati in 1841 we have these figures.

The following view of local journalism in the early part® of 1840 is given by the English traveller, Mr. Bucking- ham, whose books of American travel are repeatedly cited in this work. It will be seen that his statements differ from Mr. Cist's in some particulars :

There are thirteen newspapers published in Cincinnati, of which six are daily-four Whig, one Democrat, and one neutral-four published in the morning, and two in the afternoon. There are three religious journals, one by the Methodist body, one by the Catholic, and one by the Presbyterians; and an anti-slavery journal, entitled the Philan- thropist. In addition to these are two monthly periodicals of great merit, the Family Magazine, which is in character and utility very like the Penny Magazine of England, but printed in a smaller size; and the other is the Western Messenger, a monthly magazine, more light, varicd, and literary in its compilations, but both calculated to exercise a favorable influence on the reading community. I should add that all the journals here seem to be conducted in a more fair and generous spirit, and with more of moderation in tone and temper, than is gen- eral throughout the United States; and that such of the editors as I had an opportunity of sceing personally were superior in mind and manners to the great mass of those filling this situation in other places.

In the fall of 1843 a new weekly literary venture ap- peared, under the name of The Western Rambler. It was started by Austin T. Earle and Benjamin St. James Fry, under whose auspices it flourished for a time; but it soon went the way of its more distinguished predecessors.

In 1848 a large literary sheet of popular character- istics, called The Great West, was started by Messrs. Robinson & Jones, with a corps of Cincinnati editors and all prominent writers of the Mississippi valley as paid contributors. It was kept alive during the bigger

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part of two years, but in March, 1850, was consolidated with the Weekly Columbian, as the Columbian and Great West, published by E. Penrose Jones and edited by Wil- liam B. Shattuck. The celebrated Celia M. Burr (Mrs. Kellum) was its literary editor for a time. A Daily Co- lumbian was also started, but broke the establishment down, and all failed together in August, 1853.

THE REST OF THE STORY

is a long one; but it must be made short for this work. A great multitude of journalistic enterprises have been born and have died within the last generation; and we can make but a few notices of the living and the dead.

In 1850 nine English and four German dailies, most of them with weekly and some with other editions, also eleven English and four German weeklies, with two semi-monthlies, were numbered among Cincinnati peri- odical publications.

One of the finest issues of this era was a monthly quarto magazine, embellished with fine steel engravings, which was published by R. E. Edwards, at 115 Main street, in connection with the Arts' Union gallery.

In January, 1853, a weekly magazine of sixteen octavo pages, of somewhat similar character, called The Pen and Pencil, was started by William Wallace Warden. It endured the storms of adversity but a year.

The Genius of the West was a promising monthly of thirty-two octavo pages, started in October of the same year, by Mr. Howard Dunham, who had been conduct- ing for some time a semi-monthly musical and literary journal known as the Gem. It started with a vigorous life, and embraced among its contributors Miss Alice Cary, Mr. Coates Kinney, D. Carlyle Maccloy, and many other western writers of greater or less note. About the middle of 1854, Mr. Dunham took into edi- torial partnership Mr. Kinney and Charles S. Abbott; but soon withdrew to start another periodical of like character called The Western, of which he was able to issue but three numbers. W. T. Coggeshall went upon The Genius as a co-editor in August; the next month Mr. Abbott drew out, and Mr. Kinney in July, 1855. In the latter part of that year Mr. Coggeshall sold the magazine to George K. True, a young poet and essayist of Mount Vernon, who maintained it for six months, when it went to join the innumerable caravan of literary failures. It was a very excellent magazine while it lasted, but at no time more than paid expenses of printing.

Mr. Cist's last volume on Cincinnati, that for 1859, enumerates the following list of periodical issues in the city: Dailies-the Gazette and Liberty Hall, Enquirer, Times, Commercial, Volksblatt, Volksfreund, Republikaner, Penny Press, Law and Bank Bulletin. Weeklies- Western Christian Advocate, Presbyter, Central Christian Herald, Fournal and Messenger, American Christian Re- view, Western Episcopalian, Star o the West, New Chris- tian Herald, Catholic Telegraph, Christian Leader, Sun- day-School Fournal, Wahrheits Freund, Christliche Apologete, Protestantische Zeitblætter, Hochwæchter, Scien- tific Artisan, Fournal, Sunday Dispatch, Railroad Record, Poice Current, Helvetia, Israelite and Deborah. Semi-

monthlies-Type of the Times, Presbyterian Witness, Sunday-School Advocate, Lord's Detector, United States Bank Mirror, White's Financial and Commercial Reporter and Counterfeit Detector. Monthly -- Bepler's Bank Note List, Ladies' Repository, Masonic Review, Odd Fellows' Casket and Review, Lancet and Observer, Med- ical News, Cincinnati Eclectic and Edinburgh Medical Journal, College Journal of Medical Science, Physio-Med- ical Recorder, Sonntag-Schule Glocke, Young People's Monthly, Youth's Friend, Sunbeam, Dental Register of the West. Annual publications were the City Directory, by C. S. Williams, and the Ordo Divini, a church annual. Richard Smith was now on the Gazette; James J. Faran was editor of the Enquirer, Stephen Molitor of the Volksblatt, Dr. C. Kingsley of the Christian Advocate, Dr. Montfort of the Presbyter, Dr. Nast of the Apologete, Bishop Purcell of the Catholic Telegraph, and Drs. J. M. Wise and M. Lilienthal of the Israelite and Deborah.

In 1867, Mr. James Parton, writing an article on Cin- cinnati for the Atlantic Monthly, says of Cincinnati journalism :

Nowhere else, except in New York, are the newspapers conducted with so much expense. . Gentlemen who have long resided in Cincinnati assure us that the improvement in the tone and spirit of its daily press since the late regenerating war is most striking. It is looked to now by the men of public spirit to take the lead in the career of improvement upon which the city is entering. The conditions of the press here are astonishingly rich. Think of an editor having the impudence to return the value of his estate at five millions of dollars!

February 2, 1872, the first number of the Evening Star was printed. It was consolidated with the Times in June, 1880.

The Freie Presse, a new German daily, evening paper, issued its first number August 25, 1874, and its last in December, 1880.

THE GAZETTE.

This famous old journal claims to be the lineal descend- ant of the Centinel of the Northwestern Territory, the first newspaper published north of the Ohio river. The first number of the Cincinnati Gazette, so called, however, did not issue until Saturday, July 13, 1815, from the office of the publishers, Thomas Palmer & Company, "on Main street, near the clerk's office, and the fourth door above Fifth street." It was a small weekly sheet, with four col- umns of reading on a page. The subscription rates were two dollars and fifty cents a year, in advance, three dol- lars if paid within the year, and three dollars and fifty cents if payment were longer deferred. The battle of Waterloo had been fought four weeks before, but this first number had no news of it, the latest advices from Lon- don being May 6th, and some of the Continental news dating back to March. December 11, 1815, the Liberty Hall was consolidated with the Gazette; Looker, Palmer, and Reynolds, publishers-the new paper bearing both names. The first New Year's address, that for January I, 1815, was written by the late Peyton S. Symmes, then a promising young poet. The carriers of that year were Wesley Smead and S. S. L'Hommedieu, afterward dis- tinguished citizens of Cincinnati. Among its editors dur- ing the next ten years were Isaac C. Burnet, brother of Judge Burnet; B. F. Powers, brother of Hiram Powers;

Halklead

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

and Charles Hammond brought the force of his intellect and scholarship to it in 1825. About two years after- wards, on Monday, June 25, 1827, the first number of the Daily Gazette appeared-the second daily in the city, and the first to live. Its publishers were Morgan, Lodge and Fisher, and it started with just one hundred and sixty-four subscribers. It was the Cincinnati Gazette only, while the weekly, which was of the same size, five columns to the page, kept the full title of Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette. Subscription to the daily was eight dollars a year, payable half-yearly. Mr. Hammond remained principal editor of the paper until his death, April 3, 1840, during part of which time he was also in- terested as a proprietor. This was after the death of Mr. James Lodge, one of the publishers, in the winter of 1835. Hammond's partners were Stephen S. and Richard L'Hommedieu, the former of whom had begun his public career as a carrier of the paper. The firm was L'Hom- medieu & Company, and the office was on the east side of Main street, about half way between Fourth and Fifth. The editor's only assistant was William Dodd, who clipped the papers, made up the river news as well as the news- paper forms, and read the proofs. About 1840 the office was removed down Main street to the new L'Hommedieu building, between Third and Fourth, and Judge John C. Wright and his son, Crafts J. Wright, also Dr. L'Hom- medieu, a cousin of the proprietors, became editorially connected with it. It was at this time an afternoon paper. In Mr. Hammond's days it was printed on an old-fashioned Adams press, moved by man-power ap- · plied to a crank, with a capacity of twelve hundred per hour. In 1839 the proprietors bought a six-cylinder press, which could print, at its fastest rate, fifteen thousand sheets per hour, but only on one side. Finally a double perfecting press was procured, printing from stereotype plates, and capable of turning out twenty-six thousand complete copies of the Gazette per hour, folded and ready for the carrier or mailing clerks.

THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.

This famous journal, in its beginnings, was mainly the creation of Mr. Moses Dawson, editor of an old-time Cincinnati paper called the Phenix. The Enquirer was first published on Fifth street, between Main and Syca- more; then on Third street, and on the corner of Third and Main; on Main, between Third and Pearl; on Vine, near Baker, where it shared in the destruction wrought by the fire of 1866, which destroyed Pike's Opera house; until it finally found a home in its present quarters on the west side of Vine street, between Sixth and Seventh, near the Public library. In 1844 the Hon. James J. Faran took an interest in the journal, and has to this day remained the senior member of the firm of proprie- tors, Messrs. Faran & McLean. Mr. Washington Mc- Lean purchased the interest of Mr. Derby in the con- cern, and became an owner jointly with Mr. Faran and Mr. Wiley McLean. The junior member of the present firm is Mr. John R. Mclean, son of Washington Mc- Lean; and he and Mr. Faran are the sole proprietors. He has had entire editorial charge of the paper since

1877, succeeding John Cockerill, who was preceded from 1867 to 1870 by Joseph B. McCullagh, afterwards of Chicago. From 1844 to 1867 Mr. Faran was manag- ing editor. The business growth of this paper has been very great, and it is now one of the most valuable news- paper properties in the country. It is printed on two Bullock presses and a Hoe Perfecting press, which throw off its immense editions very rapidly.

THE CINCINNATI COMMERCIAL,*

one of the most influential and most widely read of all western journals, printed and published in the building at the northeast corner of Fourth and Race streets, was founded in 1843, and the first number issued by Messrs. Curtis & Hastings, on the second of October of that year. It was a bright daily, with a plentiful array of par- agraphs, some fiction and well selected matter and odds and ends, including bear and snake stories, and other items naturally interesting to a young community. Much attention was paid to local news, and particularly to the river department, which was at that time of greater im- portance than at present. Mr. Hastings did not remain long with the Commercial, and Mr. L. G. Curtis, who came to Cincinnati from Pittsburgh and married the daughter of the Rev. Samuel J. Browne, soon after associated with himself J. W. S. Browne, his broth- er-in-law. About 1848 Mr. M. D. Potter, a practical printer, became connected with the paper and was placed in charge of the job department. He soon evinced such remarkable talent for business details, for which Mr. Cur- tis was far less adapted, that his future career was almost immediately assured, and after the retirement of Mr. Browne, who became interested in military matters, Mr. Potter was admitted into partnership, and the firm name became Curtis & Potter. In 1851 Mr. Curtis died, at the age of forty-two. His interest was purchased by Mr. Potter, and resold to Richard Henry Lee, of the Treas- ury Department, the firm name in 1852 becoming Lee & Potter. On March 9, 1853, Mr. Murat Halstead was en- gaged upon the staff. He left the Weekly Columbian, on which he was then associate editor, to undertake his new duties. Mr. Potter's health at that time was very delicate, and Mr. Lee's very robust; but in the summer of the same year the strong man died and the sick and ailing recovered. After some negotiations Mr. Henry Reed was engaged as the leading writer, and on May 15, 1854, Mr. Potter having bought out the interest of Mr. Lee's representatives, organized the firm of M. D. Potter & Co. The property and good-will of the paper were then valued at eight thousand dollars, and the firm was composed of M. D. Potter, Henry Reed, John H. Strauss, and Murat Halstead. Mr. Potter had the general direc- tion of the office and the management of the business ; Henry Reed was the chief editorial writer, Murat Hal- stead in charge of the news, and Mr. Strauss was book- keeper. Mr. John A. Gano and Mr. C. 1). Miller were admitted into partnership some years afterwards. Mr. Strauss subsequently died, and Mr. Reed sold his interest

* This sketch is extracted from D. J. Kenny's Illustrated Cincinnati and Suburbs, edition of 1879, to which we are indebted for many other valuable facts.

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· HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

to Mr. Potter. From the date of the formation of the firm of M. D. Potter & Company, in 1854, the Commercial made rapid progress. It was first published at the southeast and northeast corners of Third and Sycamore streets, the property of the Rev. S. J. Browne, and the building now standing on the northeast corner was originally built for the Commercial office. In 1859 Mr. Potter purchased the lot on the corner of Fourth and Race, where it is now published. A removal was made in April, 1860, to the new quarters, which had been built expressly for a newspaper office, composing and press rooms. In the spring of that year the roof was torn off by a tornado. Mr. Potter lived to see the war over, Lincoln assassin- ated, and Johnson at variance with the Republican party; and his life, busy almost to the last, was only closed in 1866. The surviving members purchased Mr. Potter's interest, and resold a portion of it to Mrs. Pot- ter and her daughter, Mrs. Pomeroy. The firm of M. Halstead & Company was founded on May 15, 1866. It consisted of Murat Halstead, C. D. Miller, John A. Gano, general partners; Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Pomeroy, special partners. A change in the firm was made by the death of Mrs. Pomeroy in January, 1879, and the firm of M. Halstead & Company dissolved. A joint-stock com- pany with the same title, was incorporated on the fif- teenth of May, 1879, a quarter of a century after the firm of M. D. Potter & Company had been formed, in 1854, Mr. Murat Halstead being the only member of that firm who had been constantly in the partnership. The capital stock was fixed at two hundred and thirty- five thousand dollars. Daily and weekly editions of the Commercial are published.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 78

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