History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 95

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 pioneer advertisement in the long line of an- nouncements of commercial facilities to and from the Queen City, and the pioneer enterprise in the way of transportion on the Ohio, since developed to such gigan- tic proportions, are set forth in the following paragraphs, which appeared in the Centinel of the Northwest Territory, published at Cincinnati, January 11, 1794. It is worth while calling attention again, as attention has often been called before in local publications, to the fact that these four little vessels, together carrying but eighty tons, were deemed sufficient for an entire month's traffic between the settlements of Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, and the whole intervening country :

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

OHIO PACKET BOATS.

Two boats, for the present, will start from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, and return to Cincinnati, in the following manner, viz .:

First boat will leave Cincinnati this morning, at eight o'clock, and return to Cincinnati, so as to be ready to sail again in four weeks from this date.

Second boat will leave Cincinnati on Saturday, the 3oth instant, and return to Cincinnati as above.

And so, regularly, each boat performing the voyage to and from Cin- cinnati and Pittsburgh, once in every four weeks.

Two boats, in addition to the above, will shortly be completed and regulated in such a manner that one boat of the line will set out weekly from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, and return to Cincinnati in like manner.

The proprietors of these boats having maturely considered the many in- conveniences and dangersincident to the common method hitherto adop- ted of navigating the Ohio, and being influenced by a love of philanthropy and a desire of being serviceable to the public, has taken great pains to render the accommodations on board the boats as agreeable and conve- nient as they could possibly be made.

No danger need be apprehended from the enemy, as every person on board will be under cover, made proof to rifle or musket balls, and con- venient port-holes for firing out. Each of the boats is armed with six pieces, carrying a pound ball; also a good number of muskets, and am- ply supplied with plenty of ammunition, strongly manned with choice hands, and the master of approved knowledge.

A separate cabin from that designed for the men is partitioned off in each boat for accommodating ladies on their passage. Conveniences are constructed on board each boat so as to render landing unneces- sary, as it might, at times, be attended with danger.

Rules and regulations for maintaining order on board, and for the good management of the boats, and tables accurately calculated for the lates of freightage for passengers and carriage of letters to and from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh; also a table of the arrival and departure to and from the different places on the Ohio, between Cincinnati and Pitts- burgh, may be seen on board each boat, and at the printing office in Cincinnati.

Passengers will be supplied with provisions and liquors of all kinds, of the first quality, at the most reasonable rates possible. Persons de- sirous of working their passage will be admitted, on finding themselves subject, however, to the same order and direction, from the master of the boats, as the rest of the working hands of the boat's crew.

An office of insurance will be kept at Cincinnati, Limestone, and Pittsburgh, where persons desirous of having their property insured may apply. The rates of insurance will be moderate.

A notable event occurred at the hamlet of Cincinnati April 27, 1801, in the arrival of the brig St. Clair from above, Commander Whipple on deck, bound on an ocean voyage. She was full-rigged and equipped, and loaded with produce for the West India Islands; and was the first vessel of the kind out of the Ohio. As she anchored off the port, says the Spy and Gazette, "the banks were crowded with people, all eager to view this pleasing pres- age of the future greatness of our infant country." Four days before, another ocean-going vessel, the schooner Monongahela Farmer, had been launched at Elizabeth- town, above Pittsburgh, to which point she dropped down, to be rigged for sea.

About this time advertisements were made by printed circular of boats to reach Natchez in seventy-two days. It was quite usual in the early day, when a destination was reached on the Lower Mississippi, particularly at New Orleans, to break up the boats and sell the materials, or the boat without breaking it up, and start the crew on the long journey homeward, large part of the way through the wilderness and Indian country, on horseback or not infrequently on foot, three to four months being some- times consumed in the trip.

The feasibility of building large vessels for the trans- portation of produce to New Orleans was now much dis-

cussed. A herald of the coming good time of steam navigation was manifest in March, in a call for a meeting of citizens at Yeatman's tavern, to consider the merits of a contrivance for transporting boats against the current "by the power of steam or elastic vapor." This was fully ten years before the attention of Fulton and his associates was turned to the western rivers as a hopeful field for the introduction of his grand invention. Some- what later than 1801 Messrs. Samuel Heighway and John Pool, proprietors of "a mechanical project, constructed for the propelling of boats against the stream of rivers, tides and currents, by the power of steam or elastic vapor," advertised for subscribers to their scheme of in- troducing it on the western waters, subscriptions "to be- come payable only on our invention succeeding, and the boat performing a voyage from New Orleans to Cincin- nati." History is silent as to their success or failure.

The era of steam was not yet, and the river navigation was still conducted by barge, keelboat, "broad-horns," or "Kentucky boats," moved commonly by oars and poles, but also by sails whenever the wind was favorable. They carried fifty to one hundred tons apiece, and the charge for freightage from Cincinnati to New Orleans was five to six dollars per hundred. In good-that is, wet-seasons, they could make as many as two round-trips to New Orleans per year. Colonel James Ferguson, it is recorded, made two trips a year from 1791 to 1794, while he was store-keeping in Cincinnati. The principal firms here engaged in the river traffic were Messrs. Baum and Perry, and Riddle, Bechtle & Company. Their primitive business, indeed, was not destroyed by the river-steamers until 1817, or six years after the first steam-vessel passed down the Ohio. Nearly all the groceries and other goods imported to Cincinnati, after the simpler craft became sufficiently numerous, were brought up the Mississippi and Ohio by them. Commerce with Redstone and Pittsburgh was maintained partly in "Kentucky boats"- small keelboats, with a sharp roof sheltering the major part, but leaving a small section of the deck uncovered for the sweep of oars. Flat boats were also much used on the Upper Ohio. Journeys were sometimes made to Wheeling in canoes, which could be poled and paddled about thirty miles a day. As already intimated in the advertisement of the Cincinnati and Pittsburgh "pack- ets," the trips up the river were considered dangerous on account of Indians; and an incessant lookout had to be kept.

THE FIRST STEAMBOAT

navigating the western waters was built at Pittsburgh in 18II, for Messrs. (Robert) Fulton and Livingston, of New York city. It was called the New Orleans, was of three hundred tons' burthen, carried a low pressure engine, and cost about thirty-eight thousand dollars. In October it was finished and started for New Orleans, causing infinite wonderment, and sometimes consterna- tion, on the way, arriving at its destination the day before Christmas. An interesting account of its passage by this point and down the rivers is comprised in our annals of the Third Decade of Cincinnati. It did not return to the Ohio, but plied regularly between Natchez and New

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Orleans until July 14, 1814. At that date the vessel was lying at Baton Rouge over night, and the river was falling somewhat rapidly, causing it to settle upon a sharp stump and to sink in consequence. Its engine, with a new boiler, was put into another boat, called the New Orleans, in 1818.

OTHER STEAMERS.

The Comet was the next boat on the Ohio moved by steam. She was built at Pittsburgh before the summer of 1813, one hundred and forty-five tons, with a new plan of machinery known as French's stern-wheel and vibrat- ing cylinder patent.

Then came the Vesuvius, three hundred and ninety tons, built at Pittsburgh, November, 1813, by Robert Fulton himself. It was the first steamer to attempt a return trip past the falls of the Ohio at Louisville -- which it never reached, however, grounding instead on a bar about seven hundred miles north of New Orleans, and remaining there nearly five months, when a rise floated it off, and it returned to New Orleans, spending the rest of its short life on the Lower Mississippi, although a ves- sel made upon its hull made several trips to Louisville.

Subsequent early vessels of the kind were the Enter- prise, a little affair of forty-five tons, built at Brownsville, in 1814; the Etna, three hundred and forty tons; the Despatch, Buffalo, James Monroe, Washington, and others. The last-named was the first one whose boilers were put on the deck. Before that they were down in the hold.

CINCINNATI'S FIRST STEAMER

was the Eagle, a small vessel of but seventy tons, built in 1818 for Messrs. James Berthoud & Son, of Shipping- port, Kentucky, to run in the Louisville (afterwards the Natchez) trade. Following this the same year were the Hecla, likewise of seventy tons, built for Honorie & Barbarox, of Louisville; the Henderson, eighty-five tons, owned by the Messrs. Bowers, of Henderson, to ply between that place and Louisville; and the Cincinnati, the first owned in this city, though only in part. She was a vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, built for Messrs. Pennywitt & Burns, of Cincinnati, and Messrs. Paxson & Company, of New Albany, to run in the Louisville trade. The first steamer owned entirely in the city was also constructed in 1818-the Experiment, a forty-ton craft. Thus, says Mr. Cist, "it seems that thirty-two boats had to be built before we could furnish capital and enterprise to own one." So modestly and cautiously began a branch of industry and invention which has given employment first and last to many thousands of the citizens of Cincinnati, and added countless millions to her wealth.

THE FIRST TRIP UP THE OHIO,

and past the falls at Louisville, was made by the Enter- prise before mentioned. The following notice of the event appeared in one of the local papers:

THE STEAM BOAT ENTERPRISE .- This is the first steam boat that has ascended the Ohio. She arrived at Louisville on the first inst., sailed thence on the 10th, and came to this port on the evening of the 13th, having made her passage from New Orleans, a distance of one thousand eight hundred miles, in twenty-eight running days (by the aid

of her machinery alone, which acts on a single wheel placed in the stern), against the rapid currents of the Mississippi and the Ohio. This is one of the most important facts in the history of this country, and will serve as data of its future commercial greatness. A range of steamboats from Pittsburgh to New Orleans-connecting Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, Cincinnati and Louisville, Louisville and Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland, or some eligible place on the Missis- sippi, below the mouth of the Ohio, thence to Natchez, and from Natchez to New Orleans-will render the transportation of men and merchandise as easy, as cheap and expeditious on these waters as it is by means of sea vessels on the ocean, and certainly far safer! (the exclamation point is Mr. Palmer's, not ours.) And we are happy to congratulate our readers on the prospect that is presented of such an establishment. Two steamboats, considerably larger than the Enter- prise and yet not too large for the purpose, are already built at Pitts- burgh, and will no doubt commence running in the fall. Others will follow. The success of the Enterprise must give a spring to this busi- ness that will in a very few years carry it into complete and successful operation.

IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN.

As Dr. Drake records in his Picture of Cincinnati, navigation was still conducted by flat and keelboats and barges only, though two kinds of steamers were begin- ning to ply upon the Ohio. One hundred days were still necessary for the New Orleans round-trip, which it was expected steam would reduce to thirty. Cincinnati had been made a port of entry in 1808, but no vessel was cleared here until this year, on account of the cessa- tion of shipbuilding on the Ohio.

Flour was now the chief article of export from the Miami country, several thousand barrels being sent thence annually to New Orleans. Indian meal, kiln- dried, was exported to the West Indies. A very promis- ing business had also begun in the exportation of pork, bacon, lard, whiskey, peach brandy, beer and porter, pot and pearl ashes, cheese, soaps and candles, hemp and spun yarns, cabinet furniture and chairs, walnut, cherry and blue-ash boards.

More than seventy shops in the village were now keep- ing imported goods for sale, about sixty of which were selling dry goods, hardware, glass and queensware, liquors and groceries; the others were dealing in drugs, shoes and iron. Castings were already made in Ohio, at Zanesville and Brush Creek, and were brought thence to Cincinnati. Pennsylvania and Virginia furnished bar, rolled and cast-iron, and various manufactures in iron, besides millstones, coal, salt, glassware, pine timber and plank. Lead, peltry and skins came in from the Missouri territory, with abundance of furs from sources of supply nearer at hand-the Great Miami, Wabash and Maumee rivers. Cotton, tobacco, saltpetre and marble came mostly from Tennessee and Kentucky; sugar and molasses, cotton, rice, salted hides and other articles, from Louisiana. New Orleans was then, and Dr. Drake thought must continue to be, the great emporium of the western country, and even in 1815 many articles of im- port from the east could be obtained more cheaply from that city, as coffee, salt fish, claret and some other wines, copperas, queensware, paints, mahogany and logwood. East India, European and New England goods were brought in to a considerable extent, and the several manufactures of the Middle States were received from Philadelphia and Baltimore, chiefly from the former city. The "ingress of foreign merchandise through other

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channels" was already anticipated. The general govern- ment was expected to complete a National road from the navigable waters of the Potomac to the Ohio, which would greatly reduce the expense of transportation. Said Dr. Drake also: "Should New York execute the canal which it has projected, the metropolis of that flourishing State will probably become one of our inlets for foreign goods." Very likely: it so happened in a not very long-run. The main hope of commerce was yet in the other direction, however; and the good doctor still looked toward New Orleans. He wisely thought three things were necessary to improvement of trade thither- ward-more extensive and wealthy mercantile houses in Cincinnati, an increased number of steamboats, and im- provement in navigation at the Falls of the Ohio.

Writing of certain Indiana counties, he said: "The inhabitants of these counties receive their supply of foreign goods almost exclusively from Cincinnati, but little mercantile capital being employed at Lawrence- burgh, and there being on the Great Miami no depot of merchandise for that region."

The imports this year from places east and south of Cincinnati amounted to $534,680. In 1816 they reached $691,075; in 1817, $1,442,266, and in 1818, $1,619,030. During the two years following the last war with Great Britain, there was a great increase in the importation of foreign goods, with a consequent depression of prices in the home markets.

The following little notice, in the first number of the Cincinnati Gazette, published July 15, 1815, falls fitly into place here:

Arrived on Thursday, the sixth instant, at this port, the elegant barge Cincinnati, Captain Jonathan Horton, from New Orleans; pass- age eighty-seven days. Cargo-sugars, molasses, rum, lignum vitae, Spanish hides, ete., to Jacob Baymiller.

IN 1817

certain of the commercial aspects of Cincinnati were noted in an interesting way by the traveller Burnet. He says in his book:

Numbers of arks, with emigrants and their families, bound to various parts of the western country, are generally near the landing. Whilst we were here, I eounted the different eraft which then lay in the river; and as it may eonvey some information, I shall state their number: . Seven Kentueky boats, similar to ours, with eoal, iron, and dry goods, from Pittsburgh. Four barges or keel-boats-one was at least one hundred and fifty tons, and had two masts. These boats trade up and down the rivers, exehanging and freighting goods from and to New Orleans, Pittsburgh, ete. Four large flats or seows, with stones for building, salt from the Kenhawa works, ete. Six arks, laden with emi- grants and their furniture. Emigrants deseending the Ohio mostly eall at Cineinnati to purchase provisions and eolleet information. These arks are similar to the Kentucky boats, only smaller; they ean only de- scend the river.

In the season of 1818-19, the amount of flour in- spected at Cincinnati for export reached one hundred and thirty thousand barrels. It was estimated that at least fifty thousand tons of produce went abroad that year, out of Cincinnati and the two Miami rivers. The imports of the year were only about half a million. The balance of trade had been against Cincinnati, and the local mer- chants were uncommonly prudent and cautious about their imports. The exports, however, from October, 1818, to March, 1819, amounted to $1,334,080-of flour alone,

in amount as above noted, to value of $650,000; pork, ten thousand barrels, worth $150,000; bacon and hams, $22,080; lard, $46,000; tobacco, $66,000; whiskey, $40,000; cotton cloths sold to the Government, $15,000; live stock to New Orleans, $15,000; butter and cheese, $10,000; cornmeal, beans, etc., $20,000. To the Indi- ana, Illinois, and Missouri territories alone was exported the large value, for that time, of $300,000.

STEAMER TRAFFIC

soon began to look up briskly. Henceforth navigation changed rapidly from the broadhorn to the steamboat. The first vessel of the latter class built at Cincinnati, as before noted, was the Eagle, in 1818. During the next year steamer-building began to be actively and most suc- cessfully prosecuted. Vessels were built here and else- where on the Ohio more cheaply than in any eastern city ; and, of all places on the river where steamers were con- structed, the preference seemed to be given to Cincinnati. Of all that were built on the entire western waters in the two seasons between 1817 and 1819, nearly one-fourth were launched here. A large number were also built here in the years 1824-6; it is considered doubtful whether more were constructed during that time in any city in the world. The woodwork especially was superior. Black locust, which was not found even at Pittsburgh, was considerably used for it, and vessels thus made were more desirable than those constructed at the east from Jersey oak. Upon these waters there had been two hun- dred and thirty-three steamboats by 1826. Ninety had been lost or destroyed, and there were one hundred and forty-three remaining, of about twenty-four thousand ag- gregate tonnage. One was built in 1811, and another in 1814; two in 1815; three in 1816; and.in the years fol- lowing, successively, seven, twenty-five, thirty-four, ten, five, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, twenty-seven, and fifty-six. Of these forty-eight were built at Cincinnati, which had half a million dollars invested in the river business. By this time the old-fashioned, primitive craft had been al- most wholly superseded by the steamers, some of which were so adapted to the river as to run through the very dryest season. Thenceforth steamer-building was to be exceedingly prominent among the industries of the Queen City. The number built, however, has varied greatly from year to year. In 1833, for example, only eight steamers were launched from the Cincinnati shipyards, with a total tonnage of but one thousand seven hundred and thirty. The number of vessels, barges, and steam ferry-boats built in Cincinnati during the years 1856-79, also strik- ingly exhibits this variation. They were severally as fol- lows: 1856, thirty-three; 1857, thirty-four; 1858, four- teen ; 1859, eleven; 1860, twenty-eight; 1861, eleven ; 1862, four; 1863, forty-three; 1864, sixty-two; 1865, forty-four; 1866, thirty-three; 1867, eighteen; 1868, eleven; 1869, eleven; 1870, fifty-two; 1871, forty-four; 1872, fifty-two; 1873, forty-eight ; 1874, twenty-nine ; 1875, sixteen; 1876, nineteen; 1877, twenty-one; 1878, thirty; 1879, twenty-four. The aggregate tonnage ranged from one thousand seven hundred and forty-five in 1862, to twenty thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight in

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1870. The arrivals of these years varied from two thou- sand two hundred and six in 1863 to three thousand four hundred and fifty-nine in 1866, with departures pretty nearly corresponding. The range of boats plying to and from the city was two hundred and twenty-five in 1862, to four hundred and forty-six in 1865. The sec- ond year of the late war, it will be observed, was particu- larly disastrous to river interests in this quarter.

The eleventh annual report, to the Cincinnati board of trade and transportation, of the committee on river nav- gation, made March 1, 1880, says of the local boat build- ing of 1880-81 :

A good number of boats have been built here the past year-the num- ber of all crafts being twenty, with tonnage six thousand six hundred and eighty-three, against twenty-four last year, and tonnage ten thou- sand six hundred and forty-one. In the future we must not look for a greater number of boats, but expect a heavy increase in tonnage; this is more applicable to stern whcel boats, which in former years were of small size and used mostly in making short trips. There are those that have attained the carrying capacity of three thousand tons. Now, however, boats, whether of side or stern wheel, for short packet trade or for more distant ports, are of large size; indeed it seems a question to what point the size of boats may be reached. This change in build- ing larger boats for the Upper Ohio, with more speed, is only following the prediction of those who advocated the lengthening and widening of the Louisville and Portland canal and lessening the rates of its tolls.

And the last annual report of the chamber of com- merce for the commercial year ending August 31, 1880, makes the following encouraging statement of the river business of that year:

The arrivals for the year aggregated three thousand one hundred and sixty-three boats, compared with two thousand seven hundred and twenty-five in the year immediately preceding, and the departures three thousand one hundred and sixty-seven, in comparison with two thou- sand seven hundred and thirty. The whole number of steamboats and barges which plied between Cincinnati and other ports in the past year was three hundred and twenty-two, with an aggregate tonnage of eighty-three thousand five hundred and sixty-nine. In this connection it must be kept in mind that in the past year vessels have run with great regularity and frequency, and that, in consequence, an equal number of vessels represents a larger business, because each vessel in the latter cate- gory is counted but once, no difference how frequent may have been the visitations. Again, it is true that the same number of arrivals and de- partures also represented an increased business, inasmuch as it com- prised, generally, vessels which, from the regularity of arrival and de- parture, and the general exemption of transient boats, had uniformly good cargoes. It is worthy of note that the number of arrivals and departures for each leading point has increased over the preceding year. Thus, the arrivals from New Orleans aggregated, in the past year, one hundred and three vessels, compared with eighty-five in the pre- ceding year, and the departures one hundred and sixteen, in compari- son with ninety-seven. From Pittsburgh the arrivals were one hundred and eighty-two, compared with one hundred and sixty-three, and the departures one hundred and seventy-seven, in comparison with one hundred and sixty-two. From St. Louis the arrivals aggregated ninety- three, compared with sixty-four, and the departures ninety-four, in comparison with seventy-five. From all other points the arrivals aggre- gated two thousand seven hundred and eighty-five, compared with two thousand four hundred and thirteen, and the departures two thousand seven hundred and eighty, in comparison with two thousand three hun- dred and ninety-six. A study of the figures through a series of years reveals the fact that the increase, the past year, was not solely over 1878-79, which was a year that was seriously interfered with by cold weather, that diminished the number of arrivals and departures for the year, but exhibits a general increase, extending through a series of years. Thus, the entire number of arrivals and departures exceeds any preceding year in a period of fourteen years, and has but three times been exceeded in the history of the city, which was in 1857-58, when the excess was very small, and in 1864-65 and in 1865-66, the years that closed and immediately succeeded the war, which was a time that, for a period of normal conditions, would not be a fair measure.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 95

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