USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > Ohio, the future great state, her manufacturers, and a history of her commercial cities, Cincinnati and Cleveland > Part 9
USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Ohio, the future great state, her manufacturers, and a history of her commercial cities, Cincinnati and Cleveland > Part 9
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But, leaving the ancient cities, we are led to inquire, "Where will grow up the
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OHIO TO-DAY.
future great city of the world?" At the very outset of this inquiry, it is necessary to clearly comprehend a few underlying facts connected with the cities of the past and those now in existence, and note the influence of the more important arts and sciences that bear upon man's present intellectual and industrial interests, and, if possible, to determine the tendency of the world's civilization toward the unfolding future.
The first great fact we meet with is, that the inevitable tendency of man upon the earth has been to make the circuit of the globe by going westward, within an isothermal belt or zodiac of equal temperature, which encircles the earth in the north temperate zone. Within this belt has already been embraced more than three-fourths of the world's civilization, and now about 850,000,000 people. It is along this belt that the processions of nations, in time, have moved forward, with reason and order, "in a predetermined, a solemn march, in which all have joined; ever moving and ever resistlessly advancing, encountering and enduring an inevitable succession of events."
"It is along this axis of the isothermal temperate zone of the northern hemisphere that revealed civilization makes the circuit of the globe. Here the continents expand, the oceans contract. This zone contains the zodiac of empires. Along its axis, at dis- tances scarcely varying one hundred leagues, appear the great cities of the world, from Pekin in China, to Cincinnati in America.
"During antiquity this zodiac was narrow; it never expanded beyond the North African shore, nor beyond the Pontic Sea, the Danube, and the Rhine. Along this narrow belt civilization planted its system, from Oriental Asia to the western extremity of Europe, with more or less perfect development. Modern times have recently seen it widen to embrace the region of the Baltic Sea. In America, it starts with the broad front from Cuba to Hudson's Bay. As in all previous times, it advances along a line central to these extremes, in the densest form, and with the greatest celerity. Here are the chief cities of intelligence and power, the greatest intensity of energy and progress. Science has recently very perfectly established, by observation, this axis of the isothermal temperate zone. It reveals to the world this shining fact, that along it civilization has traveled, as by an inevitable instinct of nature, since Creation's dawn. From this line has radiated intelligence of mind to the North and to the South, and toward it all people have struggled to converge. Thus, in harmony with the supreme order of nature, is the mind of man instinctively adjusted to the revolutions of the sun, and tempered by its heat."
"Through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the sun."
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CINCINNATI.
It is a noteworthy observation of Dr. Draper, in his work on the "Civil War in America," that within a zone, a few degrees wide, having for its axis the January isothermal line of forty-one degrees, all great men in Europe and Asia have appeared. He might have added, with equal truth, that within the same zone have existed all those great cities which have exerted a powerful influence upon the world's history. as centers of civilization and intellectual progress. The same inexorable but subtle law of climate which makes greatness in the individual unattainable in a temperature hotter or colder than a certain golden mean, affects in like manner, with even more certainty, the development of those concentrations of the intellect of man which we find in great cities. If the temperature is too cold, the sluggish torpor of the intellectual and phys- ical nature precludes the highest development; if the temperature is too hot, the fiery fickleness of nature, which warm climates produce in the individual, is typical of the swift and tropical growth, and sudden and severe decay and decline of cities exposed to the same all-powerful influence. Beyond that zone of moderate temperature the human life resembles more closely that of the animal, as it is forced to combat with extremes of cold, or to submit to extremes of heat; but within that zone the highest intellectual activity and culture are displayed. Is it not, then, a fact of no little import that the very axis of this zone-the center of equilibrium between excess of heat and cold-the January isothermal line of forty-one degrees-passes nearer to the city of Cincinnati than to any other considerable city on this continent? Close to that same isothermal line lie London, Paris, Rome, Constantinople, and Pekin; north of it lie New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, and south of it lies San Francisco. Thus favored in climate, lying in the very center of that belt of intellectual activity beyond which neither great man nor great city has yet appeared, Cincinnati may, with reason, be expected to attain the highest rank, if other conditions favor.
A second underlying fact that presents itself is, that nearly all the great cities of the world have been built upon rivers, whether in the interior or near the ocean's edge -- such as Babylon, on the Euphrates; Thebes, on the Nile; Nineveh, on the Tigris; Rome, on the Tiber; Paris, on the Seine; London, on the Thames; New York, on the Hudson; St. Louis, on the Mississippi; Cincinnati, on the Ohio; and Constantinople, on the Bosphorus; while Carthage, St. Petersburg, Chicago, and Cleveland, belong to interior waters, and Palmyra and the City of Mexico to the interior country.
A third fundamental fact is, that the arts and sciences do more to develop interior cities, and multiply population upon the interior lands, than upon the sea-boards or
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OHIO TO-DAY.
coast lands. Steam-engines, labor-saving machines, books, the value and use of metals, government, the enforcement of laws, and other means of self-protection-all have tended more to make the people of the interior more numerous, powerful, and wealthy than those who dwell along the shores of the oceans.
A fourth fundamental fact is, that, to all modern civilization, domestic transporta- tion by water and rail is more valuable to nations of large territorial extent than ocean navigation. This fact is founded not only upon the assumption that a nation's interests are of more importance to itself than to any other nation, and it hence necessarily does more business at home than abroad, but also upon the fact that the exchanges of domestic products within this country, it is estimated, already exceed in value six thousand mill- ions yearly, while the whole value of all foreign exchanges is less than one thousand millions a year. With every year, as the country advances in population and industry, its domestic exchanges gain upon its foreign; and those cities, like New York, which must depend largely upon foreign trade, are overtaken in the race for commercial supremacy by inferior cities more favorably located for transacting the far greater busi- ness of domestic interchange.
Cincinnati, like ancient Rome, once with its 10,000,000 population, is destined to be flanked and surrounded with a galaxy or cordon of continental cities. Memphis, Lexington, Covington, Evansville, Dayton, Springfield, Terre Haute, and Indianapolis, are a part of these satellites, that in the future are to pay tribute to this center-taking in view the fact of their vast material resources, and these being the center of the great fruit, agricultural, and wine belt of the continent.
The people -- the Teutonic and Celtic races-are the pioneer people in all the departments of human industry, politics, culture, theology. We apprehend that the most acute vision, even were that mind in harmony with the spirit of the times, and enabled through that means to look back through the dim geologic history of the past, when the economic laws were piling the iron, atom by atom, in these iron mountains, growing the dense flora of the coal-plants, repleting the veins of lead, zinc, copper, tin, silver, and gold, and at the same time comprehend the ridge, valley, spring, prairie, timber, and river systems, and was enabled to go back in the ethnography and heraldry of these populations, and could fuse these elements or facts in the future, and at the same time realize the grandeur of the empires of the past-the Persian, under Cyrus; the Macedonian, under Alexander the Great; the Roman, under the Republic and the twelve Cæsars-that the truth would be forced upon the mind, that in the future this
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great Valley of the Mississippi will include the center of an empire before which, in wealth, power, and grandeur, all these shall pale; that Cincinnati, sitting like a queen on the banks of the great Ohio, will be the central city of this people, the tidal waves of whose civilization will roll to China and Japan on the West, and to the Bosphorus on the East; and with her continental railroad system, her telegraphs over mountains and under oceans, her vast water communication, will radiate law and order, and become the leading national, mining, and commercial metropolis of the western hemisphere.
Cincinnati, though in its infancy, is already a large city. Its length is about ten miles, and its width from three to four. Suburban residences, the outposts of the grand advance, are now stationed ten and twelve miles from the river, and will soon be twenty. In 1874 the real and personal property of the city was assessed at $168,000,000, and its debt is $17,000,000, $10,000, 000 of which is for the Southern Railroad.
Cincinnati is a well-built city; but its architecture is more substantial than showy. The wide, well-paved streets, the spacious levee and commodious warehouses ; the mills, machine shops, and manufactories; the fine hotels, churches, and public buildings; the universities, charitable institutions, public-schools, and libraries; the growing parks, the well-improved and unequaled zoological gardens, constitute an array of excellencies and of attractions of which any city may justly be proud. The appearance of Cincinnati from the southern bank of the Ohio is impressive. At Covington the eye sometimes commands a view of one hundred steamboats lying at our levee. A mile and a half of steamboats lying at the wharf of a city 1, 600 miles from the ocean, in the heart of a continent, is a spectacle which naturally inspires large views of commercial greatness. The sight of our levee, thronged with busy merchants and covered with the commodities of every clime-from the peltries of the Rocky Mountains to the teas of China-does not tend to lessen the magnitude of the impression.
These thoughts of the growth and commerce of Cincinnati could easily be extended to a discussion of the wealth and industry of our continent; but the amplification would be of no avail to a people whose minds, like their eyes, are accustomed to range over large extents, and are not content to sit down and rest satisfied with limited acquisitions.
POPULATION.
When we come to a consideration of the population of our city we find a mass of information of the most exact and satisfactory character. The records of the past, with careful deductions from the facts which they present, are sufficient to prove to any
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OHIO TO-DAY.
candid person that the present population of Cincinnati is not less than 300,000 souls. The first record of an enumeration to be found dates in the year 1788-eighty-seven years ago. The enumeration for 1800, and the succeeding increase at different periods, is shown in the following statement:
Years.
Population.
Years.
Population.
800
IS.40,
46,382
ISIO,
2,320
1850,
115,436
1820,
9,602
1860,
162,000
1826,
16,230
1870,
250,000
1830,
24,831
1875,
300,000
--
It will be seen that the increase for the decade ending in 1870 is not proportionately as great as those ending in 1860 and in '1850. . This is to be attributed almost entirely to the effects of a desolating and paralyzing war.
However sanguine may be any of our people about the present growth of Cincinnati, they must learn that it is only in its infancy, when compared to what it will be in the future -- even within five years. It is our purpose to represent Cincinnati as she is to-day, and show her to be the commercial metropolis of the Ohio Valley. This is easily shown by a full and fair statement of her commerce and manufactures, founded substantially on her river and railway systems, in comparison with other leading cities.
Nature and civilization are both pledged to make Cincinnati one of the great cities of North America-the commercial heart of the great valley of the Ohio and the South.
THE RIVER SYSTEM OF THE WEST.
"The river system, with which Cincinnati is directly connected, is incomparably the grandest and most extensive that the world affords. Before man had learned to harness steanı for service on an iron road, there was here laid down those great natural high- ways, stretching in every direction through a valley of unexampled extent and fertility, which determined the location of the metropolis, and which will, with constant force, augment her trade and her resources.
The 40,000 miles of river navigation of which Cincinnati can send her boats, and the growing needs and population of her tributary country, assure her against the com- mercial changes that other cities have felt, and fix with no uncertainty her commercial supremacy.
CINCINNATI.
The following tabular statement, prepared by Humphrey and Abbot, in their great work on the "Survey of the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers and their Tribu- taries," presents some very important facts connected with the larger streams of the great river system of the interior basin of North America :
RIVERS.
Distance from Mouth.
Height above Sea.
Width at Mouth.
Downfall of Rain.
Means dis- . charge per second.
Aren of basis.
Miles.
Peet.
Feet.
Inches.
Cubic feet.
Square Miles.
Upper Mississippi
1,330
1,680
5,000
35.2
105,000
169,000
Missouri.
2,908
6,800
3,000
20.9
120,000
518,000
Ohio.
1,265
1,649
3,000
41.5
158,000
214,000
Arkansas
1,514
10,000
1,500
29.3
63,000
180,000
Red River.
1,200
2,450
800
39.0
57,000
97,000
Yazoo.
500
210
850
46.3
43.000
13,850
St. Francis
3So
1,150
700
41.1
31,000
10,500
Lower Mississippi ..
1,286
416
2,470
30-4
675,000
1,244,000
While it is true that the rivers. given in the above list do not include one-half, and but little more than one-fourth, of the navigable waters of the Mississippi Valleys, they are the main branches that form the distinct drainage system that collects the waters of the great valleys, and through which they are sent forth to the Gulf of Mexico.
But whether we enumerate them as eight or thirty makes no difference in the dis- cussion. Cincinnati is alike central in either case to the great river system of the grand valleys. And were there not a railway on the continent, she would command, by means of these navigable waters, the commerce of every State between the Alleghany and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Steamers are constantly plying to and from her wharf, up and down the streams, ramifying every section of the country to bear away the rich products of the farm, the shop, and the mine.
The area of water covered by the harbor of Cincinnati may be stated at about 312 square miles.
The following table shows the whole number, with the tonnage, of steamboats and barges built at this place the past year :
Names.
Tonnage.
Names.
Tonnage.
Andy Mack (Barge),
210
Rising Sun (Barge), . 75
Cherokee,
463
Robert Lusk (Barge), .
243
Charlie Gordon (Barge),
243
Royal G. Hart (Barge), 290
John A. Conn (Barge),
253
Star of the West, 31
Lillie (Barge),
243
Thos. Dodsworth (Barge), 75
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OHIO TO-DAY.
Tonnage.
Vint Shinkle, .
415
Willie,
148
ON STOCKS.
Total last year, 8,124
Albert Steins (St'r), 900
Freiberg Workum (St'r),
125
Decrease this year,
4,335
The following table shows the whole number, with the tonnage, of steamboats and barges built at this port for each of the last twenty-seven years :
Years.
Number.
Tonnage.
Years.
Number.
Tonnage
1847-48.
29
10,233
1861-62
4
1,745
IS48-49
23
7.281
1862-63
43
12,590
18.49-50
16
4,500
1863-64
62
20,117
IS50-51 ..
31
8,206
1864-65.
44
10, 87S
IS51-52.
33
8,896
IS65-66
33
9,405
IS52-53
29
10,252
1866-67
IS
6,734
IS53-54
31
9,858
1867-68.
5,136
1854-55
27
8,698
IS68-69.
II
4,224
1855-56.
33
11,526
IS69-70.
34
13,570
IS56-57
34
10,600
1870-71.
25
12,758
1857-58.
14
5,334
1871-72 ..
20
7.761
185S-59
II
3,735
1872-73.
25
8,124
IS59-60
28
6,113
IS73-74.
15
3,789
IS60-61
II
3.327
MANUFACTURES.
A .CLASSIFIED STATEMENT OF THE VALUE OF PRODUCTS OF THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN 4 CINCINNATI, FOR 1874.
Iron, .
· $17,129,224
Stone and Earth, . $3,916,401
Other metals,
4,871,362
Carriages, Cars, etc., 1,941,396
Wood.
13,776,066
Paper, 1,687,290
Leather,
7,651,113
Book-binding and Blank Books,
838,800
Food.
24.071,077
Printing and Publishing,
5.930,304
Soap, Candles, and Oils,
9:527,343
Tobacco,
4:745.688
Clothing,
13,329,914
Liquors, .
24,231,273
Miscellaneous,
4,363,253
Cotton, Wool, Hemp, etc.,
1.562,160
Drugs, Chemicals, etc.,
3.937.593
Total, $144,207.371
Fine Arts,
694,114
Names.
Tonnage. - Names. No Name (St'r), 75
Total Tonnage, 3,789
CINCINNATI.
121
STATISTICS OF PORK SLAUGHTERING AND PACKING, RECEIPTS AND SHIPMENTS, PRICES, ETC., IN CINCINNATI, FOR IS74.
No. of Hogs packed, 581,253
Pork, tierces received, 13,140
Av'ge weight, pounds, 280.75
tierces shipped, 80.092
price, per cental, net, . . $4.5824
barrels received, . 7,122
yield of Lard, per hog, Ibs., 39.7
barrels shipped. 57:310
price, Mess Pork, per bbl., $16.6812
66 boxes shipped,
18,444
price, Lard, per pound, . 9.8
66 pounds received, 28,999,404
66 price, Bacon Shoul's, per 1b., 7.4,
8.3
Lard, barrels received, 54:440
66 Shoulders, per pound, . 6.5
Pork and Bacon, hhds. rec'd, . 2,296
kegs received, 1,967
66 kegs shipped, . 38,938
NUMBER OF GALLONS OF BEER MANUFACTURED IN CINCINNATI DURING EACH MONTH OF 1874.
January,
900,209
August,
1,418.684
February,
876,71I
September,
1,432.045
March,
· 1,076,568
October, . 1,216,750
April, .
1,123,843
November,
940,726
May,
1,276,766
December,
952,227
June,
1,649,882
July,
. 1.479:785
Totals,
14,344,196
NUMBER OF GALLONS OF DISTILLED LIQUORS MANUFACTURED IN CINCINNATI DURING EACH MONTH OF 1874.
January, .
760,769
August,
. 636,013
February,
603,507
September,
680,996
March,
. 547,145
October, .
856,227
April,
550,894
November,
815,516
May,
537,501
December,
. 868,539
June,
594,839
July,
621,772
Total,
8,073.718
pounds shipped, . 36,553.997 " Bulk Sides, per pound, .
66 barrels shipped, 134:059
shipped, 59,925
The number of cigars manufactured during 1874 was 86,283,600; the number of pounds of fine-cut and plug tobacco was 4,898,67012, and 14,94772 pounds of snuff. The tax paid on cigars was $431,418; on manufactured tobacco, $979,734.10; and on snuff, $4,783.20.
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CLEVELAND.
For the records of the first fifteen or sixteen years of the history of Cleveland- what may be styled its pioneer history-the local historian will hereafter be indebted to the work of Col. Whittlesey, where every known and reliable fact connected with the period of Cleveland's history is hereafter carefully preserved.
The city was originally comprised in lands purchased by the Connecticut Land Company, and formed by a portion of what is termed the Western Reserve. This company was organized in 1795, and in the month of May in the following year it commissioned General Moses Cleveland to superintend the survey of their lands with a staff of forty-eight assistants. On the 22d of July, 1796, General Cleveland, accom- panied by Augustus Porter, the Principal of the Surveying Department, and several others, entered the mouth of the Cuyahoga from the lake. Job P. Stiles and his wife are supposed to have been with the party. General Cleveland continued his progress to Sandusky Bay, leaving enough men to put up a storehouse for the supplies and a cabin for the accommodation of the surveyors. These were located a short distance south of St. Clair Street, west of Union Lane, at a spring in the side hill. in the rear of Scott's warehouse. During the season a cabin was put up for Stiles on Lot 53, east side of Bank Street, north of the Herald building, where Morgan & Root'sblock now stands. This was the first building for permanent settlement erected on the site of the city, although huts for temporary occupancy had been previously built in the neighborhood. On the return of the party from Sandusky, Mr. Porter prepared the outlines of the city. He says: " I surveyed a piece of land designed for a town; its demensions I do not recollect-probably equal to about a mile square-bounding west on the riv .. , and north on the lake. I made a plat of this ground, and laid it off into street lots. Most or all the streets I surveyed myself, when I left it in charge of Mr. Holley to complete the survey of the lots." The survey of the city was commenced on the 16th of Septem- ber, and completed about the Ist of October, 1796. Holley's notes state that on Monday, October 17th, he finished surveying in New Connecticut-weather rainy -- and on the following day he records: "We left Cuyahoga 3 o'clock 17 minutes, for home. We left at Cuyahoga Job Stiles and wife and Joseph Landon, with provisions for the
CLEVELAND. 123
Winter." Landon soon abandoned the spot, and his place was taken by Edward Paine, who had arrived from the State of New York for the purpose of trading with the Indians, and who may be considered the first mercantile man who transacted business in Cleveland. Thus, during the Winter of 1796-7, the population of the city consisted of three inhabitants. During the Winter a child is reported to have been born in the cabin, which had only squaws for nurses.
Early in the Spring of 1797, James Kingsbury and family, from New England, with Elijah Gunn, one of the surveying party-all of whom had continued at Conneaut during the Winter, where they had endured incredible hardships-removed to Cleveland. His first cabin was put up on the site of the Case Block, east of the Public Square, but he subsequently removed to a point east of the present city limits, somewhere in a line with Kinsman Street. Here he remained until his death.
The next families who were attracted to this settlement were those of Major Lorenzo Carter and Ezekiel Hawley, who came from Kirtland, Vermont, the family of the Major being accompanied by Miss Cloe Inches. In the Spring of the following year (1798), the former gentleman sowed two acres of corn on the west side of Water Street. He was also the first person who erected a frame dwelling in the city, which he completed in 1802; but an unfortunate casualty proved fatal to the enterprise, for when he was about to occupy the residence, it was totally destroyed by fire. In 1803, however, he erected another house on the site of the destroyed building; but on this occasion he confined himself to hewn logs.
The fourth addition of the season was that of Nathan Chapman and his family, who. like the patriarchs of yore, traveled with his herd, and marched into the Forest City at the head of two yoke of oxen and four milch cows, which were the first neat stock that fed from the rich pasturage on the banks of the Cuyahoga.
In the Summer of 1797, the surveying party returned to the Western Reserve and resumed their labors, with Cleveland as headquarters. It was a very sickly season, and three of the number died, one of whom was David Eldridge, whose remains were interred in a piece of ground chosen as a cemetery, at the corner of Prospect and Ontario Streets. This funeral occurred on the 3d of June, 1797, and is the first recorded in the city. Recently, while making some improvements to the buildings now occupying that location, some human bones were discovered. Less than one month after the first funeral occurred the first wedding. On the Ist of July, 1797, the marriage was solemnized of William Clement, of Erie. to Miss Cloe Inches, who had
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OHIO TO-DAY:
come to this city with the family of Major Lorenzo Carter. The ceremony was per- formed by Mr. Seth Hart, who was regarded by the surveying party as their chaplain.
In the beginning of the following year (1798), the population had increased to fifteen. No other immigration is recorded until that of Rolphus Edwards and Nathaniel Doane and their families, in 1799, the latter consisting of nine persons. They journeyed from Chatham, Connecticut, and were occupied ninety-two days in their transit-a longer period than is now necessary to accomplish a voyage to the East Indies.
In 1799 the Land Company caused a road to be surveyed, and partially worked, from Cleveland to the Pennsylvania line, about ten miles from the lake, which was the first road opened through the Reserve. In the Spring of that year Wheeler W. Williams, from Norwich, Connecticut, and Major Wyatt erected a grist mill at the falls at New- burg. In 1800 a saw-mill was also built by them-a substantial proof that sufficient corn and wheat were grown, and lumber required, to warrant the speculation. The desire of moral culture and education did not relax in this lonely region, and in ISoo the township school was organized, and the children were taught by Sarah Doane. The site of the school was near Kingsbury's, on the Ridge Road. Cleveland received two addi- tions in 1800, in the persons of David Clarke and Amos Spafford, the former of whom erected a house on Water Street. The first sermon preached in Cleveland was delivered in that year by Rev. Joseph Badger, an agent of the Connecticut Missionary Society.
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