USA > Ohio > Sketches and statistics of Cincinnati in 1859 > Part 14
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Nearly opposite, on the west side of Main street, on the site of J. Simpkinson & Co.'s store, Captain Hugh Moore, another of our pioneers, had a building occupied by him as a store for the sale of such goods as were required by the wants of the early settlers. This was an erection of boat-planks for the inside walls, lined with poplar boards, with boat gunnels also for foundation. The building was perhaps thirty-six feet deep, and twenty in front. A clap- board roof sheltered its inmates from the weather. This was the only building Mr. Moore was able to secure for his purpose, houses and stores being as difficult to obtain in those days as at present. When he had bargained for the house, which he rented at one hundred dollars per annum, and which, with the lot, one hundred feet on Main, by two hundred on Pearl street, he was offered, in fee simple, at three hundred and fifty dollars, he brought the flat- boat which was loaded with storegoods from the Ohio, via Hobson's Choice, not far from Mill street, up Second or Columbia streets, and fastened the boat to a stake near the door, as nearly as can be judged, the exact spot where the lamp-post now stands, at the southwest corner of Main and Pearl streets.
Mounds, etc .- The principal of these were of a circular form. one of them extending from Sycamore to Ludlow, and from Fifth to midway between Third and Fourth streets. The other reached from the west side of Race, eastwardly, beyond the centre of the block between Walnut and Vine streets, and from midway between
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Third and Fifth streets. These circles were about in diameter six hundred feet each. West of these, and removed only within ten or twelve years, was the highest of all, although inferior in surface to the two referred to, being originally between thirty and forty feet high. General Wayne, in 1793, had eight feet cut from the summit, and put up a sentry-box with sentinel to command a look out over the whole platform of Cincinnati. The last was on the upper side of Fifth street, at a point where a street was afterward cut through, and, in reference to this local feature, has been named Mound strect.
Other mounds, of various sizes but of less consequence-one at the corner of Main and Third streets; a large elliptical one, stretch- ing obliquely from Vine nearly to Elm street, immediately north of the present canal; one on the upper side of Seventh, below Smith street; one on the eastern side of Western row, between Ninth and Court streets; one west of Plum, near the old corporation line; one on Fourth street, occupying the site of Pike's Opera House; and one on the lower side of Fifth, west of Walnut street-were scattered over the whole city plat.
I refer my readers for an interesting as well as accurate and minute description of these works and the vestiges of antiquity found upon leveling them to the general surface, in the progress of our city improvements, to Dr. Drake's Picture of Cincinnati, and Judge Burnet's letters in the Transactions of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio.
Pioncer Recollections, taken in 1845 .- Samuel Stitt, who died in 1847, at the advanced age of seventy-eight years, was born in the county of Down, Ireland, in 1769. At the age of twenty he left his native country, and went to America, landing at New York, where he remained until 1796, and in May of that year reached Cincinnati, which became his final resting-place .. He settled on the river bank, upon the spot now occupied with the warehouses of Thirkield & Co. and Shoenberger & Co. He bought of John Riddle, in 1800, the lot I refer to, sixty feet by two hundred, with a double frame, for twelve hundred dollars. After holding it for thirty-three years he leased it, in 1833, on perpetual lease, at twelve hundred dollars per annum. The property had been bought by Colonel Riddle, of Scott Traverse, for sixty-seven dollars and sixty-seven cents, at the close of 1790. The following disjointed notes I took down from Mr. Stitt's lips, several years since.
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Facing the river, at the time I came, was entirely a bluff bank, the surface being cleared, excepting a large elm tree, east of what is now Commercial Row, from which, for several years, the martins took their departure. It stood many years, until struck by light- ning, when it was cut down to keep it from setting on fire the adjacent houses. There was a large cove opposite Griffin Yeat- man's, at the mouth of Sycamore street. This cove, and at Joel Williams', now Latham's corner, were the principal landings. There was another cove at Ludlow street. An old woman, named Wright, who did washing for the garrison, had a cabin at this cove, and was obliged to remove to the upper bank when the river was high. There was a duck and snipe pond, a hundred feet across, where Walker kept store, reaching half-way to Sycamore street. A post and rail fence extended along Main from Columbia street, which, in extremely wet weather, was our only means of getting on foot to the hill. There was no horse-path at this period up the hill, on Main st., which was a bluff, gravel bank; and it required a pretty active man to climb it; but there was a cow-path up Broad- way, and a very steep wagon road up Sycamore street. The tim-
ber was all cut down on the town plat in 1796, when I first saw it.
Gibson had a frame house at the corner of Main and Front sts., in which he kept store. D. C. Cooper, who afterward laid out Dayton, had the opposite corner, now Bates', which he rented of Israel Ludlow. There were no other houses between Front and Columbia sts., except a few one-story frames; at Mitchell's corner there was an uninhabited log house.
Geo. Gordon kept tavern above Resor's, and there was no other house on that side toward Second street; all up to the corner was a pasture-lot, belonging to and occupied by Israel Ludlow.
William Ramsay kept store where Kilgour & Taylor have since, at the corner of the alley below Main street. Isaac Anderson and Samuel Dick owned and occupied the lots, west of Front, as far as Walnut street. William McCann kept tavern at Liverpool's corner. Freeman, the printer, resided between Walnut and Vine sts.
Martin Baum, William Ramsay, and myself, clubbed together and paid one dollar, per year, to a man for mowing down the gympson weeds in front of the houses on the public landing. We all had our pasture-lots; mine was on Deercreek, a little north of Fox's sawmill. On this lot was a large hollow sycamore tree, which was occupied as a dwelling by a woman who washed for the garrison.
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A large limb had been broken off, and the stump of it left, served for a chimney. It was as much blacked by the smoke as any brick chimney I have seen since.
General Wilkinson commanded the garrison in 1796. He had a carriage, with two handsome horses. It was the only carriage in the place at that period.
J. W. Browne kept store where Manser's iron store now is- William and Michael Jones across the alley. Duffy had a store next east, and Baum where Shoenberger's iron store has been since built. Major Ziegler kept store next to the corner of Syca- more, where Yeatman had his tavern.
The first jail was on Water street, west of Main. It could be readily seen from the river. The debtors and criminals were all shut up together; but in daylight the jailor allowed them the lib- erty of the neighborhood, they taking care, whenever the sheriff was about, to make tracks to the jail as rats to their holes. There was a whipping-post, when I came to Cincinnati, about one hun- dred foet west of Main, and fifty feet south of Fifth street, near the line of Church alley. Levi McClean, the jailor, did the whipping. I saw a woman whipped for stealing. McClean would get drunk, at times, and in these frolics would amuse himself by whipping, with a cow-hide, the prisoners in jail, all round, debtors as well as criminals.
The second jail was built at Stagg's, corner of Walnut and Sixth streets. It was burnt down, after standing some years. The third was built on Church alley, nigher Walnut than Main street. The court was held on the Gano property, Main, between Fifth and Sixth streets. The Supreme Court, of which Symmes was a judge, was held at Yeatman's tavern.
When I first saw the mound on Fifth street, it had timber on it, like Loring's woods. There were poplars growing of immense size in the hollows below Hathaway s.
I never saw Indians but once, in early days, and this was a party which came down Main street, in single file-all in a row, like wild geese. The squaws came last. They were quartered in the artificer's yard, just where Strader & Gorman's warehouse now stands,
Hezekiah Flint, one of the forty-nine who formed the first settle- ment of Ohio at Marietta, in 1788, and who afterward resided here for the rest of his life, made the following statements for my use
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Emigrants came down in every sort of craft. I came down in a flat, loaded with corn, and landed in Cincinnati, April 7, 1794, precisely six years from my first landing at Marietta, April 7, 1788, having been one of the original forty-nine who made the first set- tlement in Ohio. The oldest building now in the city is Liverpool's old log cabin, corner of Walnut and Front streets. It was one of the original cabins. There was a pond at the corner of Main and Fifth sts., which extended into the northeast corner-Burdsal's- of that block a considerable distance. This was overgrown with alderbushes, and occupied by frogs. Main street, above Fifth, had to be causewayed with logs to pass it.
I bought a lot of James Lyon, in 1794, one hundred by two hun- dred feet, on Walnut, below Fourth, for one hundred and fifty dol- lars, and the southeast corner of Fourth and Walnut, the same size, three years afterward, for a stud horse, valued at four hun- dred dollars. I cultivated the square, opposite the Cincinnati Col- lege, from 1795 to 1800, as a cornfield. I was offered the corner lot of Main and Fourth, one hundred feet on Main by two hundred on Fourth street-the Harrison drug store corner-in 1796, for two hundred and fifty dollars. The same year Francis Menessier, of Gallipolis, bought the lot, one hundred feet on Main, and two hun- dred on Third street-where the Trust Company bank stands-for an old saddle, not as good as can now be bought for ten dollars. Gov. St. Clair bought sixty acres at fifty dollars per acre. This in- cluded that part of the city from the canal to Mrs. Mercer's line, and from Main to Plumb streets. The wagons used frequently to mire in getting to the hill. I have helped to get them out at Liv- erpool's corner, and on Main street, opposite Jonathan Pancoast's, where we had to pry them out with rails.
Corn sold at thirty-seven and a half cents per bushel, pork at fifty to seventy-five cents per one hundred pounds. When it rose to one dollar, everybody said it could not keep that price. Wheat- flour, seventy-five cents to one dollar per one hundred pounds. Wild turkeys, twelve and a half to twenty-five cents each, accord- ing to quality. I have known wild turkeys shot that were so fat that they would burst in falling. Rifle powder sold at a dollar to a dollar and fifty cents per pound. Salt, six to seven dollars per bushel. I bought, at those prices, rock salt from MeCullagh, who kept store on Main st., where Lawson's coppersmith establishment now is. I was offered Conn's lot, at the corner of Main and 13
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Lower Market streets, one hundred by two hundred feet, for two hundred and fifty dollars, payable in carpenter work. St. Clair's house, on Main street, is the oldest permanent dwelling, and Hop- ple's, on Lower Market street, the oldest building for business purposes in Cincinnati.
Mrs. Rebecca Reeder, now residing at Pleasant Ridge, in this county, in a letter to the Pioneer Association of this city, gives these particulars of pioneer incident: My father, mother, and seven children, landed at Cincinnati on the 8th of February, 1789. The first persons we saw, after landing, were Mr. McMillan and Mr. Israel Ludlow, one of the proprietors of the place. There were three little cabins here when we landed, where the surveyors and chain-carriers lived. They had no floors in these cabins. There were three other women here besides my mother. Their names were Miss Dement, Mrs. Constance Zenes, (afterward mar- ried to Mr. McMillan,) Mrs. Pesthal, a German woman, and my mother, Mrs. Rebecca Kennedy, which made four women at that time. There were but two families that had small children; they were the German family and my father's family.
Mr. Ludlow came down to our boat, and invited my father and family up to stay in their cabin until we could get one built; but my mother thought they could remain more comfortably, with their small children, in their boat. So we lived in our boat until the ice began to run, and then we were forced to contrive some other way to live. What few men there were here got together and knocked our boats up and built us a camp. We lived in our camp six weeks. Then my father built us a large cabin, which was the first one large enough for a family to live in. We took the boards of our camp and made floors in our house. Father intended to have built our house on the corner of Walnut and Water streets, but not knowing exactly where the streets were, he built our house right in the middle of Water street. The streets were laid out, but the woods were so very thick, and the streets were not opened, so it was impossible to tell where the streets would be.
At the time we landed here, the army was stationed at North Bend. The army was in a suffering condition from the want of bread. They heard that we had landed with a considerable quan- tity of flour and corn-meal. There were several soldiers sent up to my father to get a few barrels of flour for the benefit of the army. Father told them he did not bring flour here to sell, but to save his
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children's lives here in this forest. They had their guns with them, and said they were sent to take it by force, if he would not give it up. My father took down his gun, and told them he would stand in defence of his flour. They then went back to North Bend, and Judge Symmes, who lived near the fort, then wrote my father a letter, and told him to roll the soldiers out as many barrels of flour as they required, and he would see it replaced. My father then gave them as much as they wanted, and it was replaced in due time.
My father established the first ferry, and received the first license ever granted. He ferried all the militia and cattle over the river. Thomas Kennedy kept the ferry on the other side of the river, and my father, Francis Kennedy, on this side. Between the two, they did all the business during the three campaigns of Gen. Harmar, Gen. St. Clair, and Gen. Wayne. My father was drowned at the close of the war, while ferrying cattle over the river for the army. It has been stated, in the papers, that Joel Williams had the first ferry, but he did not; he was here before my father, but he did not have the first ferry.
Shortly after my father's death, Joel Williams applied to court to get license to run the ferryboat, but the court would not grant him license until they would know whether my mother wished to keep it or not. They wrote her a note to know what she wished to do. She thought it would be too much trouble for her to attend to it, so the court granted him license.
The names of the persons that kept stores here first, were Smith & Findley, afterward General Findley. Colonel Gibson kept his store on the corner of Main and Water streets, and Major Ziegler kept another. He was a German officer, out of the army.
Joel Williams and Isaac Felter kept the first taverns. They kept on Water street. I heard it announced that Mr. Smith-if I do not mistake the name-was the first sheriff; but he was not. John Ludlow was the first sheriff, and hung the first man that was ever hung here. The name of the man that was hung was Mays. The blood of Vancleve was the first that was mingled with the soil of Cincinnati; and Elliott's was the second. They were killed by the Indians. I can remember when no one dared to go to church without his. gun, where the Presbyterian Church now stands. People were liable to a fine if they went without them, for they were in so much danger from the Indians.
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I will mention a few names of persons that were here at a very early period, as I have never heard their names mentioned. They were Mr. Blackburn and family; Mr. Garrison and family; Mr. McHenry and family; Dr. Morrell and family; Dr. Hoel and fan- ily; Stephen Reeder and family; Jacob Reeder and family; Dan'l Kitchel and family; Mrs. Phebe Flint, daughter of Daniel Kitchel; Samuel Dick and family; Mrs. McKnight and sons; Isaac Ander- son and family. These were all very early settlers.
The first summer after we came here, which was 1789, the peo- ple suffered very much for want of bread; and as for meat, they had none at all only as they killed it in the woods. That was all they had to cat.
Mrs. H. Wallace, widow of John S. Wallace, in 1846 stated to me that, in 1791, there was but one frame dwelling in Cincinnati, which belonged to Israel Ludlow, and stood at the lower end of Main street. The room in front was occupied as a store. Matthew Winton kept tavern on Front street, nearly opposite to David E. Wade, rather to the west. Ezekiel Sayre exactly opposite Wade. John Bartle kept the first store in Cincinnati. A German, named Bicket, had a dram-shop opposite Plum street, between Front and , the river bank. John S. Wallace resided on Front street, below Race. Joel Williams kept tavern at Lath; m's corner. There was a great flood in 1792, which flooded the entire bottom to the depth of five feet. The original timber on the town plat was beech, sugar-tree, and walnut, with poplar on some spots, and many of the trees of large growth. The improvements went gradually up Main and Sycamore sts., toward the hill, which was so steep the ascent was almost too much for a horse. Corn was raised here in 1790 and 1791. The men worked in companies, and kept a guard on the lookout. In a large field up Western row, John S. Wallace, and several others, were shot at by Indians. The party fired back, and drove off the savages, who left fifteen blankets on the field, but succeeded in carrying off the horses belonging to the party, which were in the inclosure. The Indians were still more trouble- some, in 1799, although their mischief was confined to destroying cattle, and conveying off' horses. They shot three arrows into a large ox with such force as to make marks on the opposite side. The arrows had stone heads. Provisions were very scarce and dear on the first settlement. I saw ten dollars given for a barrel of flour, and eight dollars for a bushel of salt. Our meat was got
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principally from the woods. A great share of the hunting was done in Kentucky, where the game was more abundant, and less danger of being surprised by the Indians. My husband killed two bears and an elk as late as 1794. The game was so abundant as to form the principal support of the army at Fort Washington. Turkeys were so plentiful that their breasts were salted down, smoked, and chipped for the table, as dried beef in later days.
Value of Property, Past and Present .- Some sixty years since, an emigrant from Pennsylvania, an Irishman by birth, landed at Cincinnati, with the design of seeing some old acquaintances who had settled a-few years before in and adjacent to the then village. He had brought with him one hundred dollars in specie, carefully put up in a woolen stocking, with a shot-bag for an outside cover- ing. Our temperance societies were not then in blast, and if they had been, they would probably have failed in proselyting P ---- into their ranks; for he was immoderately fond of the " Mononga- hale." He found his old associates occupying and cultivating lands, a part within our present city limits, the residue dwelling some four or five miles from town.
Both parties invited him to settle, and pressed him to buy along- side their respective farms. The outsiders dwelt on the folly of giving two dollars an acre for land in the village, when just as good could be bought, five miles out, at half the price. The insiders urged the convenience of being handy to the river for trading pur- poses. " If you go out to the country, every gallon of whisky you buy, will cost you a dollar or a dollar and a half." The bottle cir- culated briskly, and each party pulled the new settler, that was to be, about-pretty much like an undecided voter at the polls, inclin- ing always to the last speaker. "Well," says he, finally, " boys, we'll take another horn, and then I'll make up my mind." The horn was emptied, and the decision made in favor of the town farm.
Twenty-five acres was bought for the sum of fifty dollars, in what is now nearly the centre of Cincinnati, which, after deducting the streets laid out on the premises, have left six entire squares or blocks, of four hundred feet square. This, if destitute of any por- tion of the improvements now on it, would readily command, if laid out in lots of the usual depth, two hundred and fifty dollars per front foot-being three hundred and fifty thousand dollars per square; or more than two million dollars for the entire original purchase of fifty dollars.
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Ellison E. Williams, to whom I have already referred, was originally the owner of that valuable property at the corner of Main and Front streets, facing one hundred feet on Front and two hundred on Main street, extending from Wilson & Hayden's store south to Front, and thence east of Main street as far as to L. F. Potter's salt agency warehouse, and became so under these cir- cumstances: The lot in question was taken up by Henry Lindsey, who, after holding it a year or more, disposed of it, for a job of work, to a young man whose name Williams has forgotten. 'The second owner, having a desire to re-visit his former home in New Jersey, and being unwilling to trust himself through the wilder- ness without a horse, begged Williams, with whom he was ac- quainted, the latter then residing at the point of the junction of the Licking and the Ohio, to take his lot in payment for a horse, saddle and bridle of his, valued at sixty-five dollars. After much importunity and principally with the view of accommodating a neighbor, Williams consented; and, after holding the property a few days, disposed of it again for another horse and equipments, by which he supposed he made ten dollars, perhaps. This lot, not long afterward, fell into the hands of Colonel Gibson, who offered it for one hundred dollars to Major Bush, of Boone county, in 1793. So slight was the advance, for years, in property in Cincinnati. This lot, probably at this time the most valuable in the city, esti- mating the rent at six per cent. of its value, is now worth six hun- dred thousand dollars. Where else in the world is the property which, in seventy years, has risen from four dollars to such value ?
Major Ferguson, who fell in St. Clair's defeat, in 1791, a short time before bought lot No. 13, on the original town plat, for eleven dollars. This is the property one hundred feet front on Broad- way, by two hundred feet on Fourth st., being the southwest corner of those streets. The property, if divested of improvements, would now command, at sheriff's sale, two hundred thousand dollars:
Colonel John Riddle, already referred to, came to Cincinnati in October, 1790, and not long after bought of Scott Traverse, who owned the lot one hundred feet cast from the alley on Front st. west of Sycamore, and two hundred feet deep, the west half of it being the lots now occupied by Messrs. Shoenberger & Co. and Thirkield & Co. For this and the entire improvements he paid sixty-six dollars and sixty-seven cents: although a very inferior building, it was considered of more value than the lot. Traverse,
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afterward, laughed at him for not insisting on the whole lot, which he said he would have given him for the same sum, if he had asked him to do so. Colonel Riddle subsequently sold the lot to Samuel Stitt for twelve hundred dollars, and Stitt disposed of it, at per- petual lease, in 1832, for twelve hundred dollars per annum.
A letter from Dr. Wm. Goforth, one of the early settlers, to his friends in Philadelphia, under date of Fort Washington, September 3, 1791, gives the statistics of settlements and population for this vicinity to that date, with other incidents, thus: One of the Indian captives lately died at this place. His excellency, Gov. St. Clair, gave liberty to the rest to bury the corpse according to the custom of their nation: the mode is that the body be wrapped in a shroud, over which they put a blanket, a pair of moccasins on the feet, a seven days' ration by the side of the head, with other necessaries. The march from Fort Washington was very solemn. On their ar- rival at the grave, the corpse was let down, and the relatives im- mediately retired: an aged matron then descended into the grave, and placed the blanket according to rule, and fixed the provisions in such a manner as she thought would be handy and convenient to her departed friend. Casting her eyes about to see if all was right, she found the deceased was barefoot, and inquired why they had omitted the moccasins? The white person who superintended the whole business, informed her that there were no good mocca- sins in the store, but by way of amends they had put a sufficiency of leather into the knapsack to make two pairs, at the same time showing her the leather. With this she appeared satisfied, saying that her friend was well acquainted with making them.
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