History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 88

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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The librarians in charge have been: Bernard Bradley, 1847-8; A. A. Pruden, 1848-9; Joseph McDougall, 1849-50; John Bradley, 1850-61; M. W. Myers, 1861 to the present time. N. B. Bradley, son of John Bradley, was the assistant of Mr. Myers for two years and a half after Mr. Myers' appointment.

THE LAW SCHOOL.

Cincinnati college, by its original charter, was virtually a university, with the saving clause that no particular

theology could be taught therein, which of course cut off a theological department. Any other school, however, undergraduate or post-graduate, could be legally estab- lished as a branch of it, and when Dr. Drake and others, in 1835, instituted the medical department of the college, they interested themselves also in the founding of a law department and the revival of the literary department or faculty of arts. A respectable law school was already in existence in the city, having been founded in May, 1833, by General Edward King, John C. Wright, and Timothy Walker, esq., three of the leaders of the Cincinnati bar. This was the first law school established west of the Alleghanies. Its founders were themselves graduates of law schools at the east, and thought that similar advan- tages should be afforded to the rising generation of law- yers in the northwest. Its first term began October 7, 1833. The school drew together a considerable number of students, whom the founders taught ably and success- fully. General King died, and Mr. Walker was persuaded to incorporate the school with Cincinnati college as its law department. Another lecturer was engaged, and at the opening of the department the faculty stood as follows :

Timothy Walker, professor of constitutional law and the law of real estate.

John C. Wright, professor of practice, pleading and criminal law.

Joseph S. Benham, professor of commercial law and the law of personal property.

Under their auspices the department opened with a good number of students, and has maintained itself pros- perously to this day, now more than forty-five years, be- ing indeed all there is now and has long been of Cincin- nati college, as an agency of formal instruction. In strength and reputation it is among the very first in the land. It has a large library and all necessary conveni- ences for its work. Among its professors have been the Hon. William S. Groesbeck, E. D. Mansfield, Bellamy Storer, Judge James, M. E. Curwen, and several other gentlemen of distinction. Ex-Governor Jacob D. Cox is now at its head. The remainder of the faculty is con- stituted as follows:

Rufus King, LL. D., professor of the law of real prop- erty, evidence, and institutes.

George Hoadly, LL. D., professor of the law of civil procedure.

Henry A. Morrill, professor of the law of contracts and torts.

Manning F. Force, professor of equity jurisprudence and criminal law.

Hon. John W. Stevenson, professor of commercial law and contracts.

At the session of 1879-80 the number of students aggregated one hundred and twenty-five-fifty-six juniors, sixty-nine seniors. The graduates of the school number more than a thousand. Among them are many who became distinguished in various walks of public life-as Senator Charles D. Drake, of St. Louis, Judges Joseph Longworth and Jacob Burnet, jr., Generals S. F. Cary and William H. Lytle, Judge Stallo, Hon. William Cumback

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of Indiana, Robert Kidd the elocutionist, A. T. Goshorn, Thomas L. Young, Milton Sayler, Julius Dexter, Samuel F. Hunt, Ozro J. Dodds, and many others. The diploma of the school entitles the graduate to admission to the Cincinnati bar without further examination. The lectures are delivered in the college building, on Walnut street. Fifteen hundred dollars are appropriated annually by the college corporation for the library.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MANUFACTURING.

THE writer of this history has many times experienced a sensation of despair as he has confronted a large topic with a long and interesting story, which would in itself fill a portly volume, but which must be compressed into the limited space of a chapter. This feeling has not elsewhere been so pronounced as at the outset of this division of our narrative. It would be an immense-literally im- measurable-affair to relate the whole tale of the rise and progress of the industries of Cincinnati, which manu- facturing has mainly made great in wealth, population and fame. We can give here, as in some other chapters of this work, but the merest outline of the subject in hand.

It is believed that the first manufactory in Cincin- nati was one of earthenware, started by William Mc- Farland, in October, 1799. At the same spot James and Robert Caldwell took up the same business in February, 1801.

Manufactories belonging to Cincinnati men were opened in the adjacent country almost as soon as here. In a local newspaper for July 9, 1800, Messrs. Lyon & Maginnis advertise desks, escritoires, dining-tables, plain and veneered, etc., at their shop, eleven miles out on the Hamilton road.

Probably the first notice of the industries of the Queen City, in the larger way, was made by Mr. John Melish, the Englishman who was here in 1811, and sub- sequently published two volumes of Travels in America. In the second of these he has the following :

This is, next to Pittsburgh, the greatest place for manufactures and mechanical operations on the river, and the professions exercised are nearly as numerous as at Pittsburgh. There are masons and stone- cutters, brick-makers, carpenters, cabinet-makers, coopers, turners, machine-makers, wheelwrights, smiths, and nailers, coppersmiths, tin- smiths, silversmiths, gunsmiths, clock and watchmakers, tanners, sad- dlers, boot and shoemakers, glovers and breeches-makers, cotton-spin- ners, weavers, dyers, taylors, printers, bookbinders, rope-makers, comb- makers, painters, pot and pearlash-makers.

These branches are mostly all increasing, and afford good wages to the journeymen. Carpenters and cabinet-makers have one dollar per day and their board, masons have two dollars per one thousand for lay- ing bricks and their board, when they board them selves they have about four dollars per one thousand. Other classes have from one to one dol- lar twenty-five cents per day, according to the nature of the work.

Wool and cotton carding and spinning can be increased to a great extent ; and a well organized manufactory of glass bottles would suc- ceed. Porter brewing could be augmented, but it would first be neces-

sary to have bottles, as the people here prefer malt liquors in the bottled state. A manufactory of wool hats would probably succeed, and that of stockings would do remarkably well, provided frame smith work were established along with it-not else. As the people are becoming wealthy and polished in their manners, probably a manufactory of piano-fortes would do upon a small scale.

There are ample materials for manufactures. Cotton is brought from Cumberland river, for from two to three cents. Wool is becom- ing plenty in the country and now sells at fifty cents per pound, and all the materials for glass-making are abundant; coal has not been found in the immediate neighborhood, but can be laid down here at a pretty reasonable rate ; and it is probable the enterprising citizens will soon introduce the steam engine in manufactures. Wood is brought to the town at a very low rate, There is a very considerable trade be- tween New Orleans and this place, and several barges were in the river when we visited it. One had recently sailed upwards over the falls.

There was, then, already, within little more than twenty years from the founding of Cincinnati far in the depths of the wilderness West, with a demand and market for her manufactures yet to be wholly created, a consider- able industry in the village, with many lines of operation and a most hopeful future. The first pork-packer in Porkopolis, Mr. Richard Fosdick, was already on the ground, having arrived the year before, and was soon to begin operations. Two years afterwards, in 1813, a beginning was made here of the great industry of plow- making by Mr. George C. Miller, who at first laboriously hammered out his shares upon the anvil, and then sent them out to Madison (now Madisonville), to be stocked by a weaver named Bran-so limited were still the facilities for this kind of work in Cincinnati. Twelve years thereafter, in 1825, Mr. Miller constructed the first steel-spring gig seen in the city, which was naturally a great curiosity. Two sons of Mr. Miller afterwards built up a large business in manufacturing in the city.

The great steam-mill on the river-bank, east of Broad- way, was erected shortly after Mr. Melish's visit, in 1812- 14. It was the architectural and industrial wonder of its day, and is noted by Dr. Drake in 1815, in his Picture of Cincinnati, as "the most capacious, elevated and perma- nent building in this place." It was built by William Greene, an ingenious mason and stone-cutter-the same, we presume, who is mentioned in a following chapter by Judge Storer in a most interesting connection-upon plans prepared by George Evans, one of the proprietors. Its situation upon the river-bank allowed its founda- tions to be laid upon a bed of solid limestone rock, and it was so close to the stream that in time of high water the current swept its entire length. The foundations were sixty-two by eighty-seven feet, and about ten feet thick. On the river side the height of the structure was one hundred and ten feet, comprising nine stories-two of them above the eaves. The walls were "battered" or drawn in to the height of forty feet, and then carried up perpendicularly. The cornice was of brick, and the roof wood, in the common style. The limestone in the build- ing (six thousand six hundred and twenty perches) was quarried in the bed of the river close by. Brick was used to the amount of ninety thousand; timber, eighty- one thousand two hundred cubic feet; and lime, four- teen thousand eight hundred bushels. The total weight of all the materials was estimated at five thousand six hundred and fifty-five tons. Ninety windows and twenty-

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four doors were needed for the great edifice. From foundation to roof a partition wall divided each story into unequal apartments. One side was occupied by a flour- ing-mill; the other was designed for woolen and cotton mills, linseed-oil and fulling-mills, and other machinery. No accident occurred during the whole course of erec- tion; and when its stately proportions stood complete and ready for use, the noble building towered aloft, the enthusiastic pride of the young Cincinnati. The ma- chinery, put in by Oliver Evans, was moved by a seventy- horse-power engine. Four pairs of six-foot burrs were in the flouring department, with ability, when all running, to turn out seven hundred barrels of flour per week, of excellent quality. The mill was occupied with varying success for about ten years, and then perished by fire one ill-starred day-November 3, 1823. Its loss was justly felt to be a public calamity.

The Cincinnati manufacturing company by this time (1815) had a number of buildings erected on the bank above Deer creek-the main manufactory one hundred and fifty feet long and twenty to thirty-seven feet wide, and two to four stories high. It was engaged in manu- facturing red and white lead, of which six or seven tons were turned out per week. It was the third white-lead factory started between the Alleghanies and the Missis- sippi. Its product is noted by Dr. Drake as of excellent quality, and with no mixture of whiting, which alloyed most of the white lead then imported into this region.

A large frame saw-mill, seventy by fifty-six, and three stories high, was also at this time in operation. It had four saws in separate gates, running at the speed of eighty strokes per minute, and each sawing two hundred feet of boards per hour. Its machinery otherwise was of the best then used in such mills. Logs were brought in rafts upon the river to the mill, and thence drawn up the bank to the saws by an engine. Some other but smaller branches of manufacturing were carried on in this building.

It is remarked by Dr. Drake that in this mill, as also in the works of the Cincinnati Manufacturing company, the Evans patent of steam engine was used, which dispensed with a condenser, and instead of it poured a current of cold water upon the waste steam, thus heating water for the boilers, and so economizing fuel.

Cotton and wool manufacturing had been introduced here as early as 1809. Six years thereafter there were in one factory twenty-three cotton spinning mules and throstles, carrying thirty-three hundred spindles, with seventy-one roving and drawing heads, fourteen cotton and ninety-one wool-carding machines, and wool-spinning machines to the amount of one hundred and thirty spin- dles. Twisting machines and cotton gins had also been made. An extensive woollen manufactory was to be added the next winter to the works of the Cincinnati manufacturing company, capable of producing sixty yards of broadcloth per day. There were four cotton spinning establishments, mostly small, and all together run- ning about twelve hundred spindles, by hores-power. There was but a small product of fabrics as yet; but the doctor observes that several had had pieces of carpeting, diaper, plain denim, and other cotton fabrics made.

In 1814 a mustard manufactory was established some- where above the town, but did imperfect work, and had but a light and poor product.

In the spring of 1815 an establishment for the prepar- ation of artificial mineral waters was started, but only operated a few weeks, when the owners stopped to enlarge their works and begin again the next year.

A building for a sugar refinery was begun in 1815, and operations were started therein the latter part of the year.

Six tanyards were in operation, giving abundant facili- ties for the extensive manufacture of boots and shoes and saddlery. Skins were then dressed in alum. The various workers in leather and related materials made trunks cov- ered with deerskin or oilcloth, gloves, brushes in great variety and of excellent quality, blank books, and all kinds of common and extra binding, executed in good style.

Wool hats were not yet made in Cincinnati; but fur hats were turned out in sufficient quantity to supply a sur- plus for exportation to the Mississippi river country, where they were chiefly used in barter for pelts.

Two rope walks, considered "extensive" at the time, were producing cables, various small cordage, and spun yarn. One of them had been exporting its products for some years.

Several breweries were in full operation. The first had been built in 1809, in the lower part of town, and used the river water. Others, farther back from the stream, were smaller, and used water from wells and cisterns. The former, with one other, consumed thirty thousand bushels of barley per annum. Their products were beer, porter and ale, which was exported to the Mississippi, even as far as New Orleans, and they are said to have borne changes of climate remarkably well. The distilla- tion of cordials for home use, and the rectification of spirits, were also carried on to some extent. Four shops were manufacturing tobacco and snuff.

A considerable export of pot and pearl ashes, soaps, and candles was already made from the still small facto- ries in Cincinnati.

There was yet no iron foundry, but a good supply of blacksmiths was maintained, who did much work usually turned over to the "whitesmiths," as Dr. Drake calls them. Several shops made by hand processes enough wrought and cut nails to supply the town and surround- ing country, but none for export. Stills, tea-kettles, and a great variety of other copper and tinware, were made in abundance. Already rifles, fowling pieces, pistols, gun- locks, dirks, and the like, were made in satisfactory quan- tity and quality. Swords, bowie-knives, and dirks were mounted in any desired form, and plated or gilt. Many articles of jewelry and silver ware were made, "after the most fashionable modes and handsomely enchased," says the Picture of Cincinnati. Clocks were manufactured, but watches could only be repaired as yet. Plain sad- dlery and carriage mounting of all kinds, home-made, was in the market.

In stone-cutting sills, chimney-pieces, monuments, and many other things, were executed neatly and tastefully. Common pottery of good quality was made, but only enough at present for home consumption. A manufac-

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tory of "green window-glass" and hollow-ware was pres- ently to begin operations, and another of white flint-glass was expected for the next summer. Clean white sand for the purpose could be procured north of the mouth of the Scioto, but crucible clay had still to be brought from Delaware.

Sideboards, secretaries, bureaus, and other articles of cabinet work of superior excellence, were made of "our beautiful cherry or walnut," or of mahogany brought up the Mississippi and Ohio-also fancy chairs and settees, "elegantly gilt and varnished." Wagons, carts and drays, coaches, phaetons, gigs, and other pleasure carriages, were manufactured in some quantity; likewise plane- stocks, weaver's reeds, and much turned work, as wheels, screws, parts of chairs, and the like. Coopers' work had been much facilitated by the machine of William Baily, of Kentucky, patented in 1811. Horse-power was used to shave and joint shingles, and also to dress and joint staves, to an amount per day of twelve hours sufficient for the manufacture of one hundred barrels. The pro- prietors of the machine used here were perfecting arrange- ments to export dressed staves to New Orleans.

Dr. Drake modestly records that the fine arts in Cin- cinnati did not yet present anything deserving a boast; but all kinds of sign and ornamental painting, labeling, together with the engraving of copper and other seals, cards of address and vignettes, were executed with much taste and ability.

He also notes that only two or three brickyards were in existence here before 1805, but that the immigration about that time became so large that the number had in- creased within three years to eight. The market was kept well supplied when he wrote his Picture of Cincinnati.

A TRAVELLER'S NOTES IN 1817.

In June of this year the Englishman Palmer, whose Travels in America is cited in our annals of the Third Decade, was in Cincinnati, and used his observing pow- ers to some purpose upon the manufactories of that day. He notes the great inill and the steam saw-mill upon the river bank, saying of the latter: "The mill works four saws, and I was astonished to see the disposition of the machinery. Four large trees, about twenty-five feet long, are cut into inch-plank in about an hour." The several factories mentioned by Dr. Drake, whose work was evi- dently before the traveller, are remarked by him. He now found two glass-houses in operation; also a saw-mill worked by two pairs of oxen, treading upon an inclined wheel of forty feet diameter; a smith's shop where the bellows was worked by a single ox upon a similar but smaller wheel; a foundry "on a large scale," and "an- other now building;" an air-furnace "now constructing on a new and expected powerful constitution;" two or more distilleries, with brickyards and many other small manufactories in grain, skins, wood, clay, and other ma- terials. He concludes his notices by saying: "The cen- tral situation of Cincinnati, and very rapid increase of the inhabitants in the neighboring States, prove it to be an eligible spot for manufacturing companies and individ- uals."

THE OX SAW-MILL.

is mentioned in the directory of 1819 as the first of the kind known to have been established on the principle of an animal-motor. It had then become common to drive these smaller mills by means of cattle treading upon in- clined wheels-a device invented by Mr. Joseph R. Rob- inson, of Cincinnati, and introduced, our authority says, into several mills and manufactories in the city and its vicinity. This mill was then cutting about two thousand feet of boards per day, or nearly eight hundred thousand feet per year.

1817-19.

The Cincinnati bell, brass, and iron foundry was es- tablished by William Greene in 1817. About a year af- terwards the pecuniary strength and business influence of his venture was greatly increased by receiving into partnership some of the foremost citizens of Cincinnati . -General Harrison, Jacob Burnet, James Findlay, and John H. Piatt, under the firm name of William Greene & Company. He was thus enabled greatly to enlarge the operations of the foundry, and in 1819 its buildings, with their appurtenances, covered nearly an entire square. They included two spacious structures, in and about which one hundred and twenty workmen were employed. The establishment consumed forty thousand bushels of coal per annum, and turned out three thousand pounds' weight of castings a day.

The success of this very likely led to the starting of the Phoenix foundry in 1819. There were also in the city this year six manufacturers of tinware, four copper- smiths, nine silver and three "white " and two gunsmiths, one nail factory, one maker of fire-engines, one each of patent cut-off mill-makers, copper-plate engravers, gilders, and makers of sieves and lattice work.

Besides these, there were fifteen cabinet-shops, em- ploying eighty-four workmen; sixteen cooper-shops; nine coach and wagon-makers; four chair makers; between eighty and one hundred boss carpenters and joiners, with about four hundred apprentices and journeymen ; several ship-carpenters and boat-builders, with sixty to seventy hands; one ivory and wood clock factory ; one each of sad- dletree, plough, pump and block, spinning-wheel, window- sash, bellows, comb, whip, fanning-mill, and "Rackoon burr mill-stone" makers; twenty-six shoemaker, twenty- three tailor, eleven saddler, six tobacconist and five hatter shops ; twenty-five brick and six tanyards; one steam and one or two horse grist-mills ; fifteen bakeries ; two brew- eries ; nine distilleries ; three potteries ; two stone-cutting establishments ; three rope-walks ; seven soap-boilers and tallow-chandlers ; two wood-turners; five bookbinders ; five painters and glaziers ; two brush-makers; two uphol- sterers; two last-makers; one hundred bricklayers, thirty plasterers, fifteen stone-masons, eighteen milliners, one dyer, ten barbers, and ten street-pavers. All together employed one thousand two hundred and thirty-eight hands, and the amount of their products for one year- 1818-19-was one million fifty-nine thousand four hun- dred and fifty-nine dollars ; the two foundries, the wool- len factory, glass-works, steam mill, sugar refinery, oil-mill,

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and several manufactories of less importance, not being included in the footings.

IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX

it was observed that local industries had greatly increased within two years, and that the manufacturers and me- chanics had become the most prosperous classes in the city. The steamers built at Cincinnati were afloat upon all navigable streams of the Mississippi valley; and steam engines, castings, furniture, hats and caps, and many other things, were sent from the factories of the city to Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana-"where they are sought after," says Drake & Mansfield's Cincinnati in 1826, "and admired, not less for their beauty than for their more substantial qual- ities." By this time had been started a steam mill for sawing stone; a manufactory for turning out tubs, buck- ets, kegs, and shoe-trees, from solid logs. The foundries were the Phoenix, the Franklin, Etna, and Eagle, with Goodloe & Harkness' copper foundry. Other important industries were Kirk's & Tift's steam engine and finish- ing establishments, R. C. Green's steam engine factory, Allen & Company's chemical laboratory, the Cincinnati and Phonix paper mills, a powder mill, the woollen fac- tory (but not just now in operation) of the Cincinnati Man- ufacturing Company, the sugar refinery and white lead factory before mentioned, the Wells type foundry and printers' warehouse, three boat yards for steamer building, employing two hundred hands and producing during the year a value of one hundred and five thousand dollars; nine printing establishments, issuing about seven thou- sand two hundred papers a week or one hundred and seventy-five thousand a year, and seven hat factories, among which A. W. Patterson's and J. Coombs' establish- ments were conspicuous. The hat business had become a large one here, and its products made a considerable figure in the exports of the city. There were also eleven soap and candle factories, with fifty-one thousand five hundred dollars produced that year ; as many tanneries, producing to the value of seventy-six thousand five hun- dred dollars; thirteen cabinet factories, sixty-seven thou- sand nine hundred and fifty dollars; four rope-walks, twenty-three thousand dollars; two breweries, twenty thousand nine hundred dollars; twenty-nine boot and shoe shops, eighty-eight thousand five hundred dollars ; two wall paper factories, eight thousand four hundred dollars; ten saddle and trunk factories, forty-one thousand nine hundred dollars; three tobacco and snuff factories, twenty-one thousand two hundred dollars; nine tin and coppersmiths, forty-eight thousand eight hundred dollars; one oil mill, eleven thousand seven hundred dollars; two wool carding and fulling mills, six thousand five hun- dred dollars; six chair factories, twenty-one thousand nine hundred and seventy-three dollars; three wood turn- ers, two thousand nine hundred and twenty-five dollars; eleven cooper shops, twenty-nine thousand seven hundred dollars; one clock factory, twenty thousand dollars; three plow factories, ten thousand four hundred and seventy- five dollars; eight carriage and wagon factories, twenty thousand two hundred and eighty dollars; two potteries,

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 88

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