USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > Ohio, the future great state, her manufacturers, and a history of her commercial cities, Cincinnati and Cleveland > Part 8
USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Ohio, the future great state, her manufacturers, and a history of her commercial cities, Cincinnati and Cleveland > Part 8
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May 17, 1799. "POST-OFFICE .- Notice is hereby given that a post-office is established at CHELICOTHA. All persons, therefore, having business in that part of the country may now have a speedy and safe conveyance by post for letters, packets, etc."
This was, of course, carried on horse, there being no wheel route, nor any thing more than an Indian trace through the woods, at that time.
Our respected fellow-citizen, Griffin. Yeatman, figures among the active scenes of the carly days of Cincinnati. His advertisement, same date, runs thus:
" OBSERVE THIS NOTICE .- I have experienced the many expenses attending my pump, and any FAMILY wishing to receive the benefits thereof for the future, may get the same by sending me twenty-five cents each Monday morning."
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OHIO TO-DAY.
Ye who growl at paying ten dollars a year for the use of wholesome, palatable river water, delivered into your hydrants at your doors, how would you relish it, like your predecessors, to pay thirteen dollars per annum for the nauseous well-water, of which specimens may still be found in parts of the city, and constrained at that to carry it yourselves to your own house, frequently at a great distance?
The militia figured here, as every-where else in new settlements :
"BATTALION ORDER. May 13, 1799. The Lieutenant-Colonel again calls on the officers of every grade to exert themselves in exercising and teaching the men the neces- sary maneuvers as laid down in Baron Steuben's Instructions, etc. And it is hoped that the delay of the battalion muster may produce a good effect; that is, that the indus- trious farmers may have time to put in their Summer crops, and the industrious officers, at their company parades, may improve their men in exercising them, so that they may be distinguished when the battalion is formed, which will be on the Fourth of July next.
" By order,
DANIEL SYMMES, Lieutenant and Adjutant."
Two excellent reasons, certainly, for postponement. A doubt, however, might naturally arise in the minds of some-myself among the number -- whether much progress could be made by the farmers in military science while getting in their crops. Possibly they were taught, like the farmer's son in the "Poor Gentleman," who sowed his three acres of wheat before breakfast to the tune of " Belleisle's March," to mark time in cutting their grain, and keep step with their horses in wagoning it home.
In due season, as appears by "a spectator," in the Spy, "the battalion paraded accordingly ; two or three companies on foot were in uniform, and a troop of horse, about thirty in number, mostly so also; the whole being reviewed by his excellency, William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Territory," pro tempore.
Thomas Goudy, of Mill Creek, at the close of a long advertisement, in which the capacities and facilities of his mill are fully set forth, adds, "As to the despatch of business, I need say no more than that Mr. Jessup had 31/2 bushels of corn ground on her in precisely eight minutes. I hope to gain a general custom; but she is absolutely idle for want of work at present."
Fune IS. "NATCHEZ AND NEW ORLEANS PRICE-CURRENT .- It may be depended on. Markets very much glutted at Orleans and this place (Natchez). Whiskey, 50 to 60 cts. per gall. Iron, 11 dollars per 100. Castings, 8 to 9 dollars ditto. Tobacco, ready sale from 9 to ro dollars per hundred. Flour, from 5.50 cts. to 6 dollars per bbl., and very
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dull sale. Bacon, 8 to ro cts. per ib. Cordage, very dull sale-E. Craig just arrived with three boat-loads with i .. Much complaint of the scarcity of cash."
Again, June 25th, among other prices at Natchez, whisky is quoted at 5 to 6 bits --- 621/2 to 75 cts .; castings and iron, same as last; untared cordage, 18 to 20 cts. per lb .; nails, 25 to 337/3 cts. per lb .; cotton, 20 to 21 dollars per hundred.
Many of these articles do not vary much from modern prices. Iron and castings have been reduced one-half by our improved facilities of manufacture and transportation. These were articles which went down the river; we shall presently see the astonishing disparity of prices-past and present-on what was carried up the Ohio.
Cotton was then just becoming an item of produce-the most far-reaching mind unable to have anticipated its future value to the country-and while it was so far short of an adequate supply to the wants of the people, was not, perhaps, higher in price than might be expected. Cordage was double its present rates. The price of nails- wrought nails, I presume-serves to point out the value of cut nails, an article of such daily use and indispensable necessity, and which, even at their reduction to one- fourth the price quoted here, constitute a heavy share in building expenses.
The business of the city appears to have been done principally on Main, below Second-then Columbia-Street, so called from leading to the town of that name, Front Street facing the landing, and Sycamore, a short distance from Front Street.
Robert Park-the first hatter in the place-at the corner of Main and Second, the ground now occupied by Bates's drug-store, advertises hats for cash or country produce; buys furs, and wants an apprentice on good terms, which, like others, he prefers to get from the country.
We are all apt to speak of the weather, in comparison of other periods, as the hottest or the coldest we have ever known. What shall we say of the sufferings of the early settlers under what must have been an unprecedented degree of heat here, in June, and uncommon in that month everywhere.
Fune 25th. "We have, within these few days, experienced a greater degree of heat than was ever known in the country. On Thursday, the 20th, the mercury rose to 103 in the shade, four degrees higher than was ever known before; Friday, 21st, roo; Saturday, 22d, 96; Sunday, 23d, 100; Monday, 24th, 101."
Notices of marriages ran thus in the newspapers: Married, on the - January, Mr. Henry - to the amiable Miss ---; or the amiable and accomplished Miss -
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OHIO TO-DAY.
This was a form common also in Philadelphia, as I well recollect, about the same period, superseded there as here in the progress of a purer taste.
As an illustration of fashions, I notice at this period advertisements in the Spy of hair-powder ard fair-top boots.
July 4, 1799, the first recorded celebration in Cincinnati of our national anniversary :
"The morning being ushered in by a Federal salute from Fort Washington, and the first battalion Hamilton militia paraded at the muster-ground, in the vicinity of this place, they went through the customary evolutions and firings. As to their perform- ance, we need only refer our readers to the Governor's general orders. After the battalion was dismissed, the Governor, the Federal officers from Fort Washington, the officers of militia, and a large number of respectable citizens, dined under a bower pre- pared for that purpose. Captain Miller having furnished a piece of artillery, which, with Captain Smith's company of militia, accompanied by martial music, made the woods resound to each of the following toasts," etc.
The toasts are in good spirit and taste, but are too long to insert here.
" In the evening, the gentlemen joined a brilliant assembly of ladies, at Mr. Yeat- man's, in town; it is impossible to describe the ecstatic pleasure that appeared to be enjoyed by all present," etc.
Then follows the general order, referred to, of the Governor, in which he highly compliments the battalion on the ease and exactness of their evolutions and firings; which, he adds, would not discredit regular soldiers. Governor St. Clair-these general orders and other publications being testimony-appears to have understood, with Crom- well before his day, and Napoleon since, both of whom he resembled in his exercise of authority, that the greatest degree of familiarity with the rank and file of the people is not incompatible with the most arbitrary conduct toward those just below his own degree in political and social influence.
Fuly II. "Thomas Gregg has opened a new tavern in the town of CHELICOTHA, at the sign of the Green Tree. Travelers and others supplied with every thing necessary for their accommodation, and supplied for their journey through the wilderness."
The wilderness, I suppose, comprehended the whole country north and west of that place, north to the lakes, and west to the Mississippi.
Duss. August 6. Williani Austin's patience being almost exhausted, calls the atten- tion of those indebted to him, etc.
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"OBSERVE. The undersigned having a particular call to go to the Atlantic States, ยท requests his customers to pay off, etc. In so doing they will not only be considered honest men, but particular friends of their very humble servant,
C. AVERY." "August 19, 1799.
It seems, by a note, that many of these accounts were of five years' standing. Long credits are the besetting sins of an early state of society, which its progress always finds matter, both of necessity and interest, to correct.
On the 22d of the next month, Mr. Avery again makes his compliments to the reader and his debtors in the following terms :
" My generous friends, it may seem like an absurdity to give you another call to assist me to perform my journey to the Atlantic States. One moment's reflection to men of sense, as I know you all are, will be sufficient to show you that it is out of my power to bring out my family to this place without a considerable sum of MONEY, etc.
"Gentlemen, you are to say whether I shall go to the Atlantic States or not. I flatter myself that there is not one man among you but what will exert every nerve to accom- plish my wishes this time. Your distressed friend and very humble servant."
Here is a dun from some meeker and more subdued spirit :
"The subscriber requests all persons indebted to him to call and settle imine- diately, as he intends to start for the Atlantic States in two weeks.
THOMAS FRAZER." " September 13, 1799.
Levi M'Lean, who figures at different periods as jailer, pound-keeper, butcher, and constable-four pretty hard-hearted trades-and teacher of vocal music-a softer one-makes his debut at this period, in a call on his debtors whom, by way of contrast to the title given by Mr. Avery, he calls "my ungenerous friends."
But the most pathetic dun is the following:
"Those indebted to Dr. Homes are desired to remit him the sums due-he being. confined to jail deprives him of the pleasure of calling personally on his friends; they will therefore particularly oblige their unfortunate friend by complying with this request without loss of time.
" Hamilton County Prison, October 29, 1799."
"Look sharp! last notice.
"January 15, 1800."
THOMAS THOMPSON.
Thomas Frazer, whose courteous notice has been already referred to, complains, February 12th, "that little attention has been paid to his former notice, and requests all
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OHIO TO-DAY.
persons indebted to him to come forward before the roth of March next, as he is going to Pennsylvania."
February 19. "No mail this week." It seems that the good people of Cincinnati had received but one mail for the last four weeks. As they had but one newspaper, and that of weekly issue, such frequent failures were. of much more importance than our present mail delinquencies, which leave us sometimes three successive days without a mail beyond Wheeling, The disappointments in- those days appear not to have excited as much growling as in ours.
February 19. Michael Brokaw calls on his debtors for immediate payment or else !
March 4. The Rev. James Kemper advertises " his farm of one hundred and fifty- four acres at seven dollars per acre." Mr. K. resided on the premises for more than thirty-five years afterward, and lived to see this ground worth five hundred dollars per acre.
March 12. The President appoints Charles W. Byrd Secretary of the territory of the United States north-west of the Ohio.
August 27. We have, under this date, a speech delivered by sundry Indian chiefs to Major Simeon Kinton-Simon Kenton, doubtless-and published by him to allay apprehensions of Indian troubles in this region.
William and M. Jones advertise " that they still carry on the baking business, and as flower is getting cheap, they have enlarged their loaf to four pounds, which is sold at one-eighth of a dollar per loaf, or flour, pound for pound, payable every three months." O, rare and conscientious dealers ! a pound of bread for a pound of flour, and at three months' credit too. What would our friends of the hot oven think of this arrangement nowadays? As flour is now a cash article, the credit on the bread, however, should be dispensed with. I knew a worthy German in Philadelphia who had made a fortune by baking for the Continental service; he delivered to the commissary bread for flour, pound for pound, saying that no honest man ought to ask more.
The Legislature of the North-western Territory, October 3, 1799, appointed "Wm. Henry Harrison, Esq., to represent the Territory in the Congress of the United States."
October 7. We have here some insight into Cincinnati prices of that day. Imperial or Gunpowder tea, $3 per pound; hyson, $2.25; Hyson-skin, $1.50; Bohea-a meaner article than the clover tea, which, under the name of Pouchong, etc., is now the fashion- able article of modern times, at $1 per pound; loaf sugar, 44 cents; pepper, 75 cents ; allspice, 50 cents. Dear tea-drinking and sweetening in those days.
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CINCINNATI.
October IT. Wm. M'Farland commences a manufactory of earthenware, probably the first factory of any kind in the place; certainly the first of that description of goods.
Schools appear to have been of early establishment. James White advertises a day and night school. Evening school, $2 per quarter-the scholars finding fire-wood and candles. Writing, arithmetic, etc., taught. October 21, 1799.
January 15. No mail this week. This fact is given without note or comment. What would be said in these days to be a whole week without news?
The "Territorial Laws" published, and by subscription, being the first volume ever published in this place.
January 28. No mail this week.
February 5. Aaron Cherry's advertisement, "Whereas, a certain woman, who calls herself Mary, and has for a long time passed as my wife, but who is not, as we never were lawfully married, has eloped from my bed and taken with her my property to a considerable amount; I hereby forewarn all persons not to trust her on my account, as I will pay no debts of her contracting." He was determined, I suppose, that she should not make two bites of A. CHERRY.
February 1. A funeral procession in Cincinnati in honor of the memory of General Washington.
The troops from the garrison at Fort Washington, under Captain Miller; the town military, including a troop of dragoons under command of Captain Findlay; the civil authorities, and the Masonic Order, with the community at large, united in the pageant. Governor St. Clair delivered an interesting address on the occasion.
February 12. "A good schoolmaster wanted on the Great Miami. One with a family will be preferred."
March 12. "We have the pleasure of informing our readers that a post route is now established between Louisville, at the falls of the Ohio, and Kaskaskia, to ride once every four weeks. There is also one established between Nashville and Natchez. This will open an easy channel of communication with those remote places, which has here- tofore been extremely difficult, particularly from the Atlantic States."
Here follow complaints of husbands against wives, in various forms; and notices not to trust the wife on the husband's account.
"INJUSTICE !-- Whereas, my wife Margaret has left my bed and board, etc. "DANL. GOBLE."
OHIO TO-DAY. IIO
John Bentley, Sergeant Ist Regiment U. S., advertises his wife Mary as having not only left his bed and board without just cause, but also taken up with a fellow named Sylvanus Reynolds, etc.
March 25. A DUN .- "Take a friend's advice. M. Brokaw having repeatedly solic- ited those indebted to me to settle up their accounts, and little or no attention being paid to the same; Now know all persons whom it may concern, that, unless due attention is paid to the notice, the next will be Hamilton ss."
April 9. "Owing to the pressing necessity for publishing the laws of the Territory, there will no paper be published for three weeks, etc."
This is rather a better excuse than that of the Arkansas editor, who stated that he should attend a great squirrel hunt, and, therefore, no paper would be issued that week; or of the Alabama editor, who apologized for the non-appearance of his paper on account of a sudden attack of a severe toothache. The three weeks stretched from the 9th of April to the 28th of May, a period of fifty days.
" NOTICE .- Refrain from Gambling! The Vice and Immorality Bill goes in force on the first of May next."
April 26. "The year 1800 has arrived, and all persons are notified not to deal with or credit my wife Susannah, as I will pay no debts of her contracting. "ANDREW WESTFALL."
To such as may not perceive the connection between the new century and West- fall's paying no mo e debts on account of his wife Susannah, it may be suggested that he thought proper, probably, with the new year, and especially with the new century, to turn over a new leaf in the chapter of accounts.
Fune 18. "ADVERTISEMENT. The following articles may be had at the landing place in Cincinnati, at the most reduced prices, at Mr. Mahoney's boat: Imperial, Young Hyson, Hyson-skin, and Bohea tea; coffee, loaf-sugar, gun-flints, brandy, etc."
Fuly 9. "William Ludlow advertises a farm of between thirty and forty acres, in Springfield Township, Hamilton County; in part pay for which he will take a breeding mare, etc."
Much of the early supply of manufactures for city consumption was made in the country. Lyon & Maginnes advertise at their shop, eleven miles out on the Hamilton Road. desks, escritoires, dining-tables-plain and venecred, etc.
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CINCINNATI.
A correspondent who deals in statistics of fashion, remarks in the close of his article:
" It has been ascertained that within the last year, throughout the United States, from the present fashion of muslin undresses, as many as eighteen ladies have caught fire, and eighteen thousand have caught cold; both classes of accidents terminating in death."
"BEEF ! BEEF !- David J. Poor informs the inhabitants of this place, that he still carries on the butchering business, etc. He expects his customers to settle up with him every Saturday, to enable him to furnish beef of the first quality, for money is the TRADE that will fetch it. He has also candles for sale."
" 'T is strange, 'tis passing strange, 'tis WONDERFUL. Was taken up, FLOATING on the Ohio, on Saturday last, a blacksmith's anvil. The owner, by proving its brands and carmarks and paying the charges, may have it again.
" Fuly 16, 1800.
THOMAS WILLIAMS."
OBITUARY .-- " Died, on Saturday, the 25th October, at his father's, on Beaver Creek, Mad River Settlement, Mr. Edmund Freeman, printer, formerly of this place."
Mr. F. was the earliest printer in Cincinnati.
Wm. M'Millan, of Cincinnati, chosen by the Territorial Legislature Delegate to Con- gress for the residue of the term of William H. Harrison, and Paul Fearing for the term of two years next succeeding.
November 19. Town of Williamsburg, in Clermont County, and its first seat of justice, laid out.
Andrew Dunseth, the first gunsmith here, opens his shop at Captain Vance's, on Market Street.
Wm. Henry Harrison appointed Governor of the Territory of Indiana.
The Territorial Legislature, sitting at Chillicothe, addresses Governor St. Clair, whose reply is also published. Of the names which appear to these documents I notice bat one survivor-John Reily, Esq., of Hamilton-who still remains in the full vigor of intellect, and, at a green old age, a resident of Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio. He was Clerk to the first Legislature of Ohio.
"To COUNTRY SUBSCRIBERS .- The printers want some turnips and potatoes, for which a reasonable price will be allowed."
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GREAT CITIES.
GREAT cities grow up in nations and in states as the mature offspring of well directed civil and commercial agencies, and in their natural development they become vital organs in the world's government and civilization, performing the highest functions of . human life on the earth. They grow up where human faculties and natural advantages are most effective. They have a part in the grand march of the human race peculiar to themselves in marking the progress of mankind in arts, commerce, and civilization; and they embellish history with its richest pages of learning, and impress on the mind of the scholar and the student the profoundest lessons of the rise and fall of nations. They have formed in all ages the great centers of industrial and intellectual life, from which mighty outgrowths of civilization have expanded. In short, they are the mightiest works of man. And whether we view them wrapped in the A mes of the conqueror and sur- rounded with millions of earnest hearrs yielding, in despair, to the wreck of fortune and life at the fading away of expiring glory or the sinking of a nation into oblivion; or whether we contemplate them in the full vigor of prosperity, with steeples piercing the very heavens, with royal palaces, gilded halls, and rich displays of wealth and learning. they are ever wonderful objects of man's creation-ever impressing, with profoundest conviction, lessons of human greatness and human glory. In their greatness they have been able to wrestle with all human time. We have only to go with Volney through the Ruins of Empire, to trace the climbing path of man from his first appearance on the fields of history to the present day, by the evidences we find along his pathway in the ruins of the great cities-the creation of his own hands. The lessons of magnitude and durability which great cities teach may be more clearly realized in the following eloquent passage from a lecture of Louis Kossuth, delivered in New York City :
"How wonderful! What a present and what a future yet! Future? Then let me stop at this mysterious word-the veil of unrevealed eternity.
"The shadow of that dark word passed across my mind, and, amid the bustle of this gigantic bee-hive, there I stood with meditation alone.
"And the spirit of the immovable past rose before my eyes, unfolding the picture. rolls. of vanished greatness, and of the fragility of human things.
"And among their dissolving views there I saw the scorched soil of Africa, and upon that soil, Thebes, with its hundred gates, more splendid than the most splendid of all the existing cities of the world-Thebes, the pride of old Egypt, the first metropolis
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CINCINNATI.
of arts and sciences, and the mysterious cradle of so many doctrines which still rule mankind in different shapes, though it has long forgotten their source.
"There I saw Syria, with its hundred cities; every city a nation, and every naticn with an empire's might. Baalbec, with its gigantic temples, the very ruins of which baffle the imagination of man as they stand, like mountains of carved rocks, in the deserts where, for hundreds of miles, not a stone is to be found, and no river flows, offering its tolerant back to carry a mountain's weight upon. And yet there they stood, those gigantic ruins; and as we glance at them with astonishment, though we have mastered the mysterious elements of nature, and know the combination of levers, and how to catch the lightning, and how to command the power of steam and compressed air, and how to write with the burning fluid out of which the thunder-bolt is forged, and how to dive to the bottom of the ocean, and how to rise up to the sky, cities like New York dwindle to the modest proportion of a child's toy, so that we are tempted to take the nice little thing upon the wail of our thumb, as Micromegas did with the man of wax.
"Though we know all this, and many things else, still, looking at the times of Baalbec, we can not forbear to ask, "What people of giants was that which could do what neither the puny efforts of our skill nor the ravaging hand of unrelenting time can undo through thousands of years?"
"And then I saw the dissolving picture of Nineveh, with its ramparts now covered with mountains of sand, where Layard is digging up colossal winged bulls, large as a mountain, and yet carved with the nicety of a cameo; and then Babylon, with its beauti- ful walls; and Jerusalem, with its unequaled temples; Tyrns, with its countless fleets; Arad, with its wharves; and Sidon, with its labyrinth of workshops and factories; and Ascalon, and Gaza, and Beyrout, and, farther off, Persepolis, with its world of palaces."
The first great cities of the world were built by a race of men inferior to those which now form the dominant civilization of the earth, yet there are many ruins of a mold superior, both in greatness and mechanical skill, to those which belong to the cities of our own day, as found in the marble solitudes of Palmyra and the sand-buried cities of Egypt. It is true, however, that ancient grandeur grew out of a system of idolatry and serf-labor, controlled by a selfish despot or a blind priesthood, which compelled a useless display of greatness in most public improvements. In our age, labor is directed more by practical wisdom than of old, which creates the useful more than the orna- mental; hence, we have the Crystal Palace instead of the Pyramids.
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