History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio; their past and present, Part 32

Author: Nelson, S.B., Cincinnati
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Cincinnati : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1592

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

member and preacher, and Morris White, president of the Fourth National Bank, is greatly interested in this church.

BAPTIST CHURCH.

The beginnings of the Baptist Church in Cincinnati are found in 1813; but if we consider Hamilton county at large, we find the Baptist Church at Columbia before all other churches. There was the first ordained minister in the county.

The First Baptist Church of Cincinnati, which now occupies a new church building on the corner of Court and Wesley avenue, has had a most checkered his- tory. Originally incorporated in 1813 by eleven members, it used a log house on Front street until it occupied a brick building on Sixth and Lodge streets.

In 1816 the organization divided and two churches were formed. Subsequently both of these organizations were dissolved, and that which had been a colony became known as the First church. Since this organization in 1838, many different sites have been occupied. Two buildings on Walnut street, between Third and Fourth, the corner of Seventh and Elm streets, Ninth and Elm, and two buildings on Court and Wesley avenue, have been successively used by the Society. The large burial ground acquired in early years has been a great endowment to the church, as the value of land has risen. Little, however, remains now, much of the money arising from the sale having been used to erect the present stone building. A handsome parsonage adjoins the church. From this parent organization many colonies have issued. The great Christian church, where the disciples of Alexander Campbell worship, on Ninth street, was originally a branch of the First Baptist church, and in 1835 a large number of colored members were dismissed to form the "African Union Baptist Church." In the history of the church for seventy years there have been sixteen pastors. Dr. S. K. Leavitt was the pastor for nearly fifteen years from 1872, and was followed by the present incumbent, Rev. M. C. Lockwood.

The largest and most influential of the Baptist churches is the Ninth Street Church, over which the Rev. Johnson Meyers has presided for seven years. It has a very spacious auditorium with large galleries, and an audience of twelve or fifteen hundred can be seated with comfort. There are nearly a thousand members, and several mission chapels have been built in different parts of the city in connection with the mother organization. Rev. Samuel W. Duncan, D.D., was pastor here for many years, and many notable ministers have preached in its pulpit.

The Mount Auburn Church is fifty years old as an organization, and is very strong. A beautiful stone building stands on the main avenue, built in 1889. In this congregation are found Mr. Henry Thane Miller, known throughout the world for his work in the Young Men's Christian Association, and for his sweet singing; and Mr. W. H. Doane, the author of many volumes of Sunday-school hymns, who acts as superintendent of the large and flourishing Sunday-school. No one man in Cincinnati, in proportion to his means, has been more liberal than Mr. R. A. Holden, also of this church, who at a very advanced age is still active in works of philan- thropy. He is the oldest director of the Cincinnati House of Refuge, of which Thane Miller is also a director. The pastor of the church is Rev. E. Armstrong Ince, D.D., who came to it from Middletown, Ohio, five years ago.

The Walnut Hills Church is very flourishing, with a handsome stone church building on Kemper lane. Rev. W. E. Loucks is the pastor.

In 1894 the Baptist churches in Cincinnati were as follows: Bethesda Mission, Mt. Auburn Baptist, Molitor street; Bethel Baptist, Willow street; Brighton chapel, Harrison avenue; Columbia church, Eastern avenue; Dayton Street Baptist church, Dayton street; Duck Creek Baptist church, Mt. Lookout; First Baptist church, Wesley avenue; First German Baptist, Walnut and Corwine; Immanuel Baptist church, Pullen and Hamilton avennes; Linwood Baptist church, Wooster pike; Mount Auburn Baptist, Auburn avenue; Mount Lookout Baptist church, Delta

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avenue; Ninth Street Baptist, Ninth street; Station A, Ninth Street Baptist, Lib- erty street; Station B, Ninth Street Baptist, East Third street; Station C, Ninth Street Baptist, Vine street; Station D, Ninth Street Baptist, Steiner street; Station E, Ninth Street Baptist, Eighth street; Third Baptist, Hopkins street; Walnut Hills Baptist, Kemper lane; Calvary Baptist (colored), West Third street; Corin- thian Baptist (colored), Spring street; Ebenezer Baptist (colored), Broadway; First Baptist (colored), Streng street; First Baptist church (colored), Foraker avenue; Mt. Zion Baptist (colored), Carr street; Pleasant Green (colored), East Eighth street; Shiloh Baptist (colored), Sixth street; Union Baptist (colored), Mound street; Walnut Hills Baptist Mission chapel, Dexter avenue; Zion Baptist (colored), Ninth street.

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

Christ Church, the mother church in this city, was founded in 1817. From the beginning it has been a powerful and wealthy church. Among its first worshipers was Gen. William Henry Harrison, and it soon drew in to itself some of the most intelligent and active citizens of the place. After two years of services in halls and private houses, the church bought from the Baptists their building on Sixth street, and continued to worship there with increasing prosperity, until 1835, when a new church was built on the present site. This lot, 100 feet front by 130 deep, was bought for $9,000. The Society had already, in 1818, purchased a burial lot for $3,000, which it sold to the city in 1860 for $35,000, and which is now part of Washington Park. The old church on Fourth street, between Sycamore and Broad- way, has been entirely remodeled in the interior in the last two years at a cost of $40,000, but the exterior is still as it was in 1835, a reproduction of the old Stepney church in London. The continuity and growth of this parish have been unbroken, and the last year book, that of 1892, shows a large and effective apparatus for work. and contributions to the amount of more than eighteen thousand dollars, of which more than five thousand were for missions. The first rector was Rev. Samuel John- ston, who closed his pastorate of ten years by forming the new parish of St. Paul's. Far more than half of the communicants of Christ church followed Mr. Johnston into this new parish in 1828. The longest and most distinguished rectorship was. that of Dr. John T. Brooke, from 1835 to 1847, and many of the now venerable people of Cincinnati still love to talk of the able sermons of Dr. Brooke fifty years ago. Rev. Dr. Butler, afterward chaplain to the United States Senate, held the rectorship for five years; Rev. Thos. S. Yocum, D. D., for six years, until 1876; Rev. Dr. Stanger for eleven years, and the present rector is Rev. R. A. Gibson, who came in 1888.

St. Paul's parish, formed as above stated in 1828, erected a church on Fourth street, where the St. Paul building still bears the name, and had a successful growth for fifty years, when a union was made with the St. John's parish on Seventh and Plum, which had been formed by Rev. Dr. Nicholson in 1851. The old St. Paul's property was sold for $87,000, of which two-thirds remain as an endowment for the parish. There are more than five hundred communicants in this parish, and the clergy are Rev. Frank W. Baker and his brother, Rev. Walter Baker, D.D. Rev. Dr. Samuel Benedict, the last rector, served for fifteen years, until the distressing accident which terminated his life and labors in 1891. There are two very distin- guished names in the history of the church. Salmon P. Chase was superintendent of the Sunday-school until political life called him from the city, and Rufus King was for nearly sixty years a constant attendant, a wise vestryman, and a most liberal supporter. Besides the parish life in the Protestant Episcopal Church, there was the great influence of the Episcopal office, and no two men in the early history of the Northwest did more to create a wise and noble Christian character than did Bish- ops Philander Chase and Charles Pettit McIlvaine.

Very truly De Rhodes

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

Bishop Chase was a pioneer, rugged, firm, and simple. In the city church he was as simple as in the log chapel which he himself had reared in the forests. Bishop MeIlvaine brought to the West, in 1832, a wealth of scholarship, a splendor of eloquence, and a refinement and dignity of character which made him conspicnous at Oxford and Cambridge, and among the noblest of every land. He had been chap- lain at West Point for four years. Before him the chaplain had had very little influence among the scoffing and careless cadets. But the records of those four years are phenomenal. The academy was stirred to the bottom, and the cadets were more interested in Christianity than in their military duties. Many applied for orders in the ministry, among them Leonidas Polk, afterward bishop of Louisi- ana, whose martial spirit revived during the Civil war. He fell on the battlefield, a lieutenant- general in the Confederate army.

From 1832 to 1872, when he died in Italy, the personality of Bishop McIlvaine was a distinctive force in this community, felt in all denominations and in the mass of people outside of all denominations. His coadjutor and successor was Right- Rev. Gregory Thurston Bedell, who perpetuated the great name which his father had gained in Philadelphia, and adorned with even greater eloquence the evangel- ical teachings of that famous preacher. In 1875 the southern half of the State was set apart as a separate diocese, and Bishop Bedell having chosen the northern half, Dr. Thomas A. Jaggar, successor of Phillips Brooks in Philadelphia, was chosen to the bishopric, and when his health so far failed as to compel him to ask for assist- ance, Boyd Vincent, D. D., of Pittsburgh, was elected, and is now the active and beloved assistant bishop of the diocese, and to him Bishop Jaggar dimitted all the ecclesiastical authority. The growth of the Episcopal Church in Hamilton county will be best seen in the tables appended to this chapter.

In 1855 the Church of the Advent, on Walnut Hills, was formed, which has now more than three hundred communicants. Rev. Dr. Peter Tinsley has been rector of this church since 1869. In 1867 Grace Church, Avondale, was formed under the rectorship of Rev. A. F. Blake, who still ministers at its altar. Before this time the beautiful Calvary church in Clifton had been built, and its memorials still utter the names of the Shoenbergers, the Probascos, the Resors, the Neaves and the Bowlers, and many others whose children still worship there.

In 1872 Emmanuel Church, Fulton, and St. Philip's, Cumminsville, were admitted to the diocese. In 1876 the Church of Our Saviour, Mt. Auburn, was formed under the rectorship of Rev. Dudley Ward Rhodes, who is still the rector. This church has nearly three hundred communicants, and large mission schools. In 1866,. Grace Parish, College Hill, was formed, and Rev. John H. Ely has been rec- tor since 1878, and under his missionary work, Trinity Church, Hartwell, was. erected into a parish in 1888, and has now 140 communicants. Rev. Dr. David Pise. has been rector of Christ's Church, Glendale, which was erected into a parish in 1866, since 1875, and Rev. Lewis Brown at St. Luke's since 1883. The latter has nearly 300 communicants.

In the last three years, since 1890, new churches have been formed on Price Hill (Rev. A. B. Howard, rector, with 100 communicants), Kennedy Heights, Wyoming, Norwood and Pleasant Ridge, and there are now twenty-six churches and organiza- tions in the county, with four thousand communicants; the contributions during the; year 1892, so far as reported, were one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

The Children's Hospital, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, situated on Mt .. Auburn, has now a beautiful and commodious building, given to the diocese, with the grounds on which it is erected, by Thomas J. and Joseph J. Emery. There are at present forty-two children in the wards, which is as large a number as can be accommodated. The expenses of the hospital, about eleven thousand dollars a year, are met by subscriptions, donations and offerings taken throughout the diocese, and

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

from the income of endowment funds, which now amount to more than sixty thousand dollars.

The reader can not but be struck with the remarkably long pastorates in the Epis- copal Church in Cincinnati as compared with those of other denominations. A care- ful computation shows that ten years is the average stay of all those now settled in Hamilton county, while in the Presbyterian Church it is less than three years, and in the Baptist and Congregational Churches, scarcely more. That unrest and de- sire for something new, which is such a feature of the modern church life, which is manifested in the ceaseless change of pastors, and which inspired the Presbyterian elder to sigh for the permanency of the Methodist itinerancy, has not yet shown itself in the Episcopal Church here. Perhaps some of the results shown in the appended table may be traced to the stability of pastoral connection, and to the larger influence which comes naturally to the longer experience and deeper knowledge of the people.

In 1894, the Protestant Episcopal churches in Cincinnati were as follows: Christ, Fourth street; Calvary, Clifton; Chapel of the Redeemer, Elm street; Church of the Advent, Kemper lane; Church of the Epiphany, Stanton avenue; Church of the Nativity, Hawthorne avenue; Church of our Saviour, Hollister street; Emmanuel Church, Eastern avenue; Grace, Reading road; Grace, College Hill; St. Paul, Seventh and Plum; St. Philip, Kirby avenue; St. Luke, Findlay and Baymiller; Trinity, Pendelton and Liberty streets.

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES.

The first Congregational Church founded in Cincinnati was the Welsh church on Lawrence street. This was in 1840. The beginnings of the more famous Vine street church have been traced in the history of Presbyterianism. A colony from the first church having established what they call the Sixth Presbyterian church, fin- ally changed the policy of the organization into Congregationalism, and in 1848, the present Vine street church was furnished and occupied. Underlying the whole movement was an intense feeling upon the question of slavery, and, instead of dogmas and rituals, we find the church platform, if we may so call it, dealing almost exclu- sively with that subject. "Resolved: That no candidate applying for admission to the fellowship of the church will be received by the session who either holds slaves, or openly avows his belief that the holding or using men as property is agreeable to God." The same position was taken as to the use of ardent spirits, and the stern convictions on these great questions entertained by the founders of the church gave it a positive and emphatic influence in the city. Strong men also came to occupy the pulpit. Dr. Charles B. Boynton three times came to the pastorate, and each time added to the strength of his reputation. From 1846 to 1856 he made the Vine street church a center of religion and moral life. Missionary enthusiasm and tract distribution were phenomenal, and great revivals took place, adding hundreds to the church membership. Again, in 1860, Dr. Boynton returned to the pastorate, remained during the four years of the war, and gave no uncertain sound as to the duties and perils of that great epoch. His last administration was during the four years from 1873, after which he laid off the harness and waited for the end. His was a great and useful life. He was one of the men of firm and positive character, whose convictions are not mere opinions. The Vine street church may have many able pastors, but it is not too much to say that it can never have any who will be to it what Dr. Boynton was. The church still stands on the old site, and a large congregation and most active work are under the pastoral care of Rev. W. H. Warren, D. D. As the Vine street church was originally a colony from the First Presbyterian church, so the organization known for many years as the Seventh Street Congregational Church was a colony from the Second Presbyterian church in 1843, becoming Congregational in 1847. For nearly forty years this congregation worshiped in the old stone church still standing on Seventh street between Plum and

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Central avenue. At the close of this period a removal was made to Walnut Hills, where a beautiful church was erected, and a large and active work undertaken.

For many years Rev. John W. Simpson, D. D., LL.D., was the energetic pastor of the church and resigned it in 1892 to accept the presidency of Marietta College, Ohio. His successor, the present pastor, is Rev. Sydney Strong, who does not allow any diminution of the energy of the church. That the Congregational churches of Cincinnati have not increased is due to the fact that many of the communicants, when removing from one part of the city to another, find a congenial home in the Presbyterian church, from which body their ancestors here originally came, and as there are no doctrinal differences, there is no great stimulus to begin a new Congre- gational organization. In every Presbyterian suburban church may be found, even among the elders and deacons, men who were active workers in the Congregational Church in earlier years.

In 1894 the Congregational churches in Cincinnati were as follows: Central, Vine street; Columbia, Eastern avenue; Plymouth, Glenway avenue; Storrs, State and Warsaw avenues; Walnut Hills, Locust and Kemper lane; Welsh, Lawrence street.

UNITARIAN CHURCH.

No religious body in Cincinnati can show a more illustrious line of distinguished preachers and literary characters than can the Unitarian body. Never very strong, never having more than two organizations, still they have been a very considerable force in the history of Cincinnati, and one to which can be properly attributed a very great influence. In the letters of James Freeman Clarke we read of the Unitarianism of sixty years ago, when Dr. Eliot was in St. Louis, and Horace Mann was a power. The little Church was ministered to by giants in those early days. The father of Mr. Bancroft, our great historian, was the first of a line of greater men. Dr. C. A. Bartol, Samuel Osgood, James Freeman Clarke, Christopher P. Cranch, Dr. Henry W. Bellows and William H. Channing, were the early men whose brilliant names shine in the records of our civic life and literature. Their doctrinal positions were such that in these modern days they would be within the pale of so called orthodox Christianity.

Up to this time, 1856, the Unitarians had one church situated on Race and Fourth street .. In that year Moncure D. Conway became pastor of the church, and under his more advanced preaching a secession took place, and a second and conser- vative church was organized at Mound and Sixth street. Here Dr. Bellows again preached in Cincinnati, and Dr. Andrew Peabody, afterward revered in Boston and Harvard University, and Thomas Hill, afterward president of Harvard, and Dr. W. G. Eliot, Horace Mann and A. D. Mayo, were successively preachers and pastors. During the war, in 1862, Mr. Conway resigned, and soon afterward the old site on Fourth and Race was sold. In 1866 a lot was bought on the northeast corner of Eighth and Plum streets, and until the church was built the Unitarians of the First church, under the pastoral charge of Rev. Thomas Vickers, met in Hopkins Hall on Fourth and Elm streets. In 1875 the two organizations coalesced under the title of the First Congregational Church, and, in 1879, the united body occupied the newly refitted Plum street church, and remained there until 1887, when a handsome church was erected on Reading road, just north of Oak street, the old property sold to the city, and under the charge of Rev. George A. Thayer the work goes on prosperously and evenly.

There is also in the city a Unitarian Society of those who opposed removal to the suburbs, and preaching services are held by Rev. E. A. Coil. The winter course of Sunday afternoon lectures at the Grand Opera House, which has been very success- ful, was inaugurated by the Unity club, and owes. its success to the management of A. W. Whelpley, the public librarian. Every year the proceeds of these lectures, after all expenses are paid, are divided among some of the worthy charities of the city.

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

JUDAISM.

The large number and great wealth of the Hebrew people in Cincinnati would lead one to expect handsome synagogues and interesting charities, and that expecta- tion would not be disappointed. No handsomer edifice is to be found in the city than the Plum Street Temple, over which Dr. Isaac M. Wise has been rabbi for fifty years. In this noble structure, whose elegant proportions delight the eye, are seats for 1,500 people. It is the wealthiest organization in the city.

In addition to his duties here Dr. Wise is also the editor of the Jewish paper, and president of the Hebrew Union College. Although this is the strongest organi- zation, it is not the earliest. Fourteen years before it was founded the Mound Street Temple was begun, in 1830, and is also very wealthy and prosperous. Here the venerated Dr. Max Lilienthal did his life work, and Rabbi Benjamin and Rabbi Philipson have been his worthy successors. Besides these two large synagogues there are also four others in the city of smaller dimensions.

The traveler on the Sycamore Cable railway looks with pleasure on the beauti- ful institutions which the Hebrews have erected in Avondale for their sick and aged people. These, the Jewish Hospital and the Home for Aged and Infirm, are just completed, and are thoroughly equipped for their great work, and together with the Altenheim (or German Old Men's Home), standing near them (which is not, however, a Hebrew institution), adorn this part of the city with their beautiful buildings.

Jewish Synagogues: Holy Congregation of Children of Israel, Eighth and Mound streets; Beth Tfila Congregation House of Prayer, Carlisle avenue; Hevra Beth Hakenisis, George street; Holy Congregation of Brethren in Love, John and Bauer avenue; Holy Congregation Children of Jeshurun, Plum and Eighth; K. K. Beth Hamedrasch Hagadol Congregation, Fifth street; K. K. Beth Hamedrasch Syna- gogue, West Court street; Synagogue Kashir Israel, Mound and Richmond streets.

LUTHERAN CHURCHES .*

Early in the year 1841 the pastor of a mission church in Indianapolis passed through Cincinnati on his return from a collecting tour among the churches. He arrived in Cincinnati on Saturday, and not desiring to travel on the Lord's Day, remained in the city over Sunday. Tens of thousands of people crowded the streets, and a very extensive negro mob held sway. The police, mayor and military could not succeed in dispersing the excited multitudes. There were threats of mobbing and razing the churches which had pastors friendly to the abolition of slavery, but no violence was attempted during the Sunday services. "In the midst of this wild confusion," says the visitor, Rev. Abram Reck, "it was indelibly impressed upon my mind that I must move there and attempt to organize our first English Evangel- ical Lutheran Church." At the next meeting of the Synod of the West, held at Indianapolis on October 6, 1841, Rev. Reck made known his disposition to open a mission in Cincinnati, and the Synod immediately took action to unite with the East Ohio Synod, in contributing for the support of the missionary the sum of $400 per year.

Rev. Reck arrived in Cincinnati on December 8, and found eight Lutheran mem- bers who were ready to enter an organization. Great difficulty was experienced in securing a place of worship, and the first one secured was at the southeast corner of Vine and Canal streets, in a little, open, rickety place over an engine shanty, the stairs being outside and dangerous. Here the first public meeting was held, the Society formed, and on December 19, 1841, twenty-four members, among whom were John Meyers, Michael Strafer, F. Rammelsberg, Henry Kessler and Samuel Startz- man signed an agreement to effect an organization. A few months later the old hall of Cincinnati College was rented, and there the mission flourished until the

* This history of the Lutheran Churches was written by Rev. E. K. Bell, D.D., and accepted by me .- D. W.R.

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fourth year, when a church was purchased on the south side of Ninth street, two doors east of Walnut.

Rev, Abram Reck served the congregation from 1841 to 1845, when he was suc- ceeded by Rev. W. H. Harrison, D.D. Four years after Dr. Harrison's entrance upon the work, the lot was purchased on Elm street between Court and Ninth, and two years later the new church was dedicated. Dr. Harrison served the congregation successfully for more than twenty years, was widely known and greatly beloved. In 1865, during the cholera plague, he was untiring in his ministrations to the sick and dying, and on his return from a visit to the sick, was himself stricken with the dread disease, dying after a few hours' illness. From 1867 to 1868 Rev. Joel Schwartz, D. D., served the congregation; J. B. Helwig, D. D., from 1868 to 1873; R. W. Hufford, D. D., from 1873 to 1875; Ephraim Miller, D. D., from 1875 to 1878, and H. W. MacKnight, D. D., from 1880 to 1884.

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History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio; their past and present, Part 32

Author: Nelson, S.B., Cincinnati Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Cincinnati : S. B. Nelson Number of Pages: 1592

Author: Nelson, S.B., Cincinnati
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Cincinnati : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1592