USA > Ohio > Sketches and statistics of Cincinnati in 1859 > Part 27
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blending the chair business with what is called cabinet ware, that such classification becomes imperfect and unsatisfactory, and fails to exhibit a clear statement of this important department of our manufacturing interest ; a general synopsis of the business will, therefore, be given in the aggregate of products, and number of workmen, and the various descriptions illustrated, as in the case of the founderics, by the statistics of particular establishments, as spe- cimens of the various classes that exist.
Furniture is made here by a few shops for the supply of auction sales, but the great bulk, beyond what is wanted for our own citi- zens, finds its market throughout the entire west, south and south- west. The entire product of one hundred and twenty factories, large and small, of cabinet ware, chairs, etc., amounts to three millions six hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars, the business affording employment to two thousand eight hundred and fifty hands. Value of raw material, 30 per cent.
H. B. Mudge, factory and salerooms, Second below Vine street. This is the most extensive bedstead factory in the west, and well worthy of being shown to a stranger, as a means of impressing him with a suitable sense of the industrial and mechanical energies of Cincinnati.
The building, which is of brick, is five stories in height in front, and seven in the rear, and one hundred and ninety-five by seventy feet on the ground. The machinery consists of seven planing and two tapering machines, sixteen turning-lathes, six boring, and two tenoning machines, four splitting, and four buff saws, all which are driven by steam. Two hundred and forty hands are employed in this establishment. A very vivid impression of the power of ma- chinery is given in this case, by the fact that two hundred and forty bedsteads are made and finished, as an average, in one day, or one bedstead to each workman ; while under the hand system of man- ufacture, a first rate bedstead is more than a week's work for one journeyman. The escape steam is employed not only in warming the building in winter, but softens the glue, and being taken through a cylinder in which the veneers are steamed, fits them for being fastened to the bedstead. Five million feet of lumber are annually worked up here into bedsteads, of which, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars is the aggregate value. The stock of lumber ou hand is never less than two million five hundred thousand feet, and
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of bedsteads a value of fifty thousand dollars. The lumber used here is seasoned by steam, and air exposure afterward.
These bedsteads are of every variety of pattern and material, and degree of finish and cost; not less than ninety-five varieties being manufactured on the premises. They range from one do !- lar thirty-seven and a half cents, to seventy-five dollars in price, at wholesale.
Poplar, sycamore, black walnut, and cherry, are the lumber; and black walnut, mahogany and rosewood the veneers employed in the fabrication of these bedsteads.
The headboards of the finer kinds of bedsteads are not morticed into the post, as usual, but are fastened at the ends by iron hooks, secured to the head posts, and are let down by mortises into the head rail. This is obviously a very great improvement, and greatly facilitates their being taken to pieces and put together, when ne- cessary. The market for these bedsteads is throughout the west, south and south-west. All the principal hotels in Memphis, Nash- ville, Mobile, and New Orleans, have been furnished with bed- steads from this factory.
Mitchell & Rammelsberg, factory on John street ; sample and salesrooms, Nos. 23 and 25 east Second street, and 99 west Fourth street. This is not only the largest furniture establishment in the city, but probably in the United States ; and does not, as most fac- tories in Cincinnati, confine its operations to two or three staple articles, but comprehends in its fabrics almost every description of cabinet ware and chairs.
Every description of machinery may be found here, calculated to facilitate the saving of manual labor, and lighten its severity, by relieving the workmen of the coarsest and roughest part, such as rough planing and ripping, and allotting him the more delicate ope- rations, which give play to the exercise of skill and judgment.
So great and rapid has become the constantly increasing valuc of building and materials in this city, that it has become necessary in the construction of both workshops and sales establishments, to make the ground space occupied by this concern, available to the utmost extent for its appropriate use.
The factory consists of two buildings, extending on John street one hundred and seventy-five feet, from Second to Augusta streets, with the exception of a space between the buildings, which has a
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fire-proof basement for the boilers, with a fire-proof iron door vault for the shavings.
Each of the buildings is eight stories high, and has been provi- ded with steam elevators for raising and lowering the work, in one case extending to the roof, upon which the work is sometimes ta- ken to facilitate the drying of the varnish. In nearly every story these buildings are connected by bridges, forming passage-ways from one to the other, by which the work can be carried from the machinery department to the finishing rooms.
The building which contains the machinery is sixty feet by one hundred and twenty feet, and every portion of each of the eight stories is advantageously occupied. The first story, or basement, contains two steam engines for driving all the machinery, sixteen turning lathes, a tin punching machine, three of Bettgemen's pat- ent machines for cutting dovetails in bed rails, two of Wright's patent machines for turning bed spring discs, and in one end is a large fire-proof room occupied as a blacksmith and machine shop, for the exclusive use of the establishment.
In the second story are found three Daniels' planing machines, two of Woodworth's planing machines, two mortising machines, one grooving machine, four rip saws, three cross-cut saws, and three scroll saws, all of which, as well as the other machines men- tioned are run by steam power.
In the third story is one of Daniels' patent planers, two tenon- ing machines, two friezing machines, three scroll saws, one mould- ing machine, one mitre saw, three fine rip saws, three fine cross- cut saws, one grooving machine, four boring machines, and four jointing machines. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh sto- ries are occupied by workmen engaged in putting work together, with the exception of the carvers, thirty-six hands, who occupy a portion of the fifth story.
The eighth story is used for storing the work as it comes from the different machines, and this large loft, sixty by one hundred and twenty feet, is piled nearly to the roof, leaving passage ways only, with stuff, dressed, veneered and ready to be put together. These prepared material are all arranged so as to be convenient of ac- cess. In cach story of each building there are steam pipes for heating the buildings, and glue ovens heated in the same manner, no fire, gas, or lights being admitted into any part of the factories.
The other building referred to is eighty fect square, and cach
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of the eight stories is occupied for finishing, varnishing, polishing, etc., after the wood work has been completed in the machinery building. In the basement are large quantities of mahogany, wal- nut, rosewood, and other veneers ; and in the other stories, large assortments of looking glass plates, marble tops, etc. With the exception of such space as is needed for the workmen, this im- mense building is densely filled with work in a variety of stages of progress. The number of different patterns of the various de- scriptions of furniture exceeds five hundred.
In adjoining squares from the one occupied by the factory build ings, are lumber yards, the aggregate area of which is seventy-five" thousand feet, and this space, with the exception of the passage ways, is piled full of lumber to the height of about twenty feet. The kinds of lumber used are poplar, black walnut, cherry, oak, pine, ash, maple, solid mahogany, and solid rosewood. Several million feet of these various kinds of lumber are used in this es- tablishment annually.
The wholesale department is accommodated by a large five-story building on Second street, between Main and Sycamore. It is irregular in shape, but its space is equivalent to thirty-five by one hundred and thirty feet. A portion of this building is devoted to the manufacture of cane bottoms for chairs, stools, etc., but the prin- cipal portion of it is filled with manufactured work ready for market.
Their retail store is a handsome seven-story building on Fourth street, adjoining the custom-house and post-office, and extends through to Burnet street, opposite the Burnet House. It is thirty- four by one hundred and fifty feet, and is one hundred feet high on Fourth street, above the sidewalk. Each story is divided into two sections, the stairs in the centre approaching alternately first to one end of the building and then to the other. This is a novel and desirable arrangement, and affords to the visitor a view of the furniture on three different sections at any stand point, and this plan also admits light to much better advantage than the ordinary form, and as the customer passes up only half a story at a time, it is less fatiguing. This building is filled with sample goods, there being but one piece, or one set of each kind in the whole building. The price of bedsteads ranges from $1 to $150; bureaus, from $7 50 to $150; and sets of chairs, from $3 to $150.
In one of the upper lofts of this building, is an apartment for doing the upholstery work, which is approached by a circular stair-
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way, at the rear end of the building. This stairway is only three and one-half feet in diameter, and is seventy feet high ; the stairs are iron, and the whole fire proof. The entire floor surface of the factories and salesrooms is equal to two hundred thousand square feet, or about five acres.
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It is only about twelve years since the wholesale furniture trade . began in this city, and this firm alone now turns out over a value of five hundred thousand dollars yearly, without running their machinery and hands to the utmost capacity.
A branch house has been established by this firin in St. Louis, under the title of Mitchell, Rammelsberg & Co. They occupy sixty by one hundred feet of the fine six-story block at the corner of Washington and Fourth streets, and a large share of their stock is manufactured at their factory in this city.
This factory has been twice burned out, at a cost of fifty thou- sand dollars, but the indomitable energy of the firm has prevailed over all adverse circumstances, to build up their business to its present position, and second to none in this line on the American continent.
Fringes, Tassels, etc .- Four establishments ; employ fifty hands, with a product of sixty-six thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Gas Fitting .- There are eleven gas fitters in this city, who em- ploy fifty-six hands, with a product of one hundred and ten thou- sand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Gas Generator, Portable .- J. L. Drake, No. 65 Sixth, between Walnut and Vine streets, manufactures this article for country res- idences, public buildings, manufacturing establishments, steam- boats, halls, hotels, offices, stores, etc., and all places out of the reach of regular gas works. These gas generators manufacture benzole gas. The apparatus is simple, free from danger by . ex- plosions, managed with case and affords a light superior to all oth- ers of the stationary kind, in cheapness, convenience and efficiency. Mr. Drake manufactures coal oil lamps, and deals in benzole burn- ing and lubricating coal oils. Value of product. fifty thousand dollars ; employs fifteen hands ; raw material, 67 per cent.
Gilders .- Eleven establishments, seventy-five hauds ; value of product, sixty thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Cincinnati Ornamental Composition Works, and Gilding Estab- lishment, No. 135 Sycamore street, between Fourth and Fifth
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streets, Thomas Bown, proprietor. Manufactures to order, and keeps constantly on hand, pier and mantle mirrors. Also, window corLices, portrait and picture frames of all sizes, and the latest styles. Oval frames of all patterns and sizes, gilt mouldings, brackets, bases, tables, cards, and tassels, oval turnings. Steamn. boats and store rooms decorated with composition. Old frames re- gilt, repaired etc., etc. The trade and dealers supplied with any article in the line. Ovals in the wood, and mouldings, constantly on hand.
An infinite variety of ornamental designs may be found here un- cqualed this side of New York or Philadelphia.
Gilding on Glass .- This is a novel, ingenious, and remarkably handsome style of ornament, applied to a great variety of purpo- ses, and supplying a deficiency of the past, which was met by importations from London and our eastern cities. It comprehends glass signs in burnished gold, of all styles, and suited for every business ; druggists' gold labels, and jars labeled, and enameled inside ; porcelain pots and drawer knobs, elegantly decorated with labels burnt in, with ornamenting of every description on glass. All this is applied to an inconceivable variety of subjects. I shall specify one only. At this establishment may be seen, executed in this line, a strikingly effective and hardsomely executed portrait of Mayor Thomas, which surpasses, in my judgment, for life-like character, any other species of portrait, oil, miniature, ambrotype, or photograph. Employs five hands, with a yearly product of ten thousand dollars. This is a business of daily increasing im- portance.
Glass Works .- Gray, Hemingray & Bros., employ eighty hands ; value of product, one hundred thousand dollars.
This is equal to any establishment in Pittsburg, in importance, and excels any there in the variety of articles which it manufac- tures. To enumerate the principal ones only, would be to furnish a general and extensive catalogue ; many of these are peculiar to their works: such as glass milk pans, atmospheric fruit jars, etc.
Every description of flint glass ware, apothecaries' furniture, and chemical apparatus made to order on short notice. Perfum- ers' ware, telegraph glasses, and lightning rod insulators. Patent self-adjusting lanterns for railroads, steamboats, and for general purposes.
Grease Factory .- Joseph Whittaker, office No. 355 Broadway ;
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factory on Deer creek. Employs one hundred and twenty hands, who are engaged in the winter in this department, and in the summer upon cleaning and dressing bristles, hair, etc., of the hog --- value of product, one hundred and thirty thousand dollars ; raw material, 40 per cent.
Glove Factories .- Three ; employ forty hands, principally fe- males; value of manufactures, thirty thousand dollars; raw mate- rial, 60 per cent.
Glue .- Six factories, forty hands; value of product, thirty-six. thousand dollars.
Gold Leaf and Dentists' Foil .- One factory, that of James Les- lie, No. 181 Walnut street, employs seven hands; value of product, fifteen thousand dollars; raw material, 50 per cent.
Mr. Leslie has been twenty years in this business, and his pro- ducts are unsurpassed in purity, pliability and toughness. Few persons are aware of the extensibility of gold. A piece of gold equal in weight to ten grains No. 1 shot, will beat out into seven thousand five hundred square inches, and each shot into a surface of gold large enough to cover an extra imperial sheet, such as the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Gold Pens .- Two shops, five hands ; value of product, sixty-five hundred dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Gunsmiths .-- Six establishments, which make rifles, shot belts, etc. Thirty hands ; value of product, forty-five thousand dollars; raw material, 40 per cent.
B. Kittridge & Co., dealers in guns and sporting apparatus, 134 Main street, and 55 St. Charles street, New Orleans. Are exten- sively engaged in the manufacture of rifles, shot belts, pistol belts and holsters, and leather gun covers and cases. They are heavy importers of single and double shot guns, percussion caps and general sporting apparatus. Large dealers in shot; only agents in the west for the sale of the well known Colt's pistols and other arms. Dealers in English and American sporting, cannon and blasting powder. Agents for the Orange gun powder, which is becoming very celebrated, and is well known by the orange stain which it leaves in burning.
ยท Established in 1815, the first important wholesale house estab- lished in the west, and by far the most extensive at the present time.
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MANUFACTURES AND INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS.
Hat Block Factory .-- One, with four hands; and product of four thousand dollars ; raw material, 10 per cent.
Horse Shoeing .- Twelve shops ; forty hands ; product, fifty thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Ice .- Twenty dealers, who employ one hundred and thirty hands ; value of product, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ; raw ma- terial, 5 per cent.
Iron-Bar, Boiler, Plate, Shect, etc., Iron, and Nails .- Ten rolling mills, some of which are outside of the city, but as they manufacture entirely for this market, they enter into the general aggregate. Number of hands eighteen hundred and twenty-five ; value of product, four millions three hundred and thirty-four thou- sand dollars ; raw material, 45 per cent.
Licking Rolling Mills, Phillips & Son ; employ two hundred and seventy-five hands, and their works are in constant operation throughout the year, Sundays excepted. They consume, anni- ally, five hundred thousand bushels coal. Yearly products are, three thousand tons small round and square and hoop iron, etc .; two thousand tons large round and square, railroad chair iron, etc .; two thousand tons fire bed and sheet iron; one thousand tons boiler iron, heads, etc. ; eight thousand tons iron of all descriptions, aver- aging eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents per ton ; aggregate value, seven hundred thousand dollars. The sheet iron made here is an- nealed on the surface, which renders it apparently equal to the Russia sheets.
Five thousand tons pig iron, two thousand tons Tennessee clear blooms, and one thousand tons scrap iron, are annually consumed at this establishment.
The works occupy an extent of six acres, one half of which is covered with buildings. . "
Globe Iron Works, Worthington & Co., proprietors. Office, 42 and 44 west Second street. Manufacture every species of rolled iron, such as bar, sheet, boiler plate, fire bed, etc. Also make galvanized tubing for wells. Yearly product, four thousand tons. Also, make railroad chairs, iron rivets, and iron wire of all sizes. Work one hundred and sixty hands, with a product of three hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars.
Iron Bridges-Tubular Wrought .- This is one of the great in- ventions of modern times, which will doubtless supersede all other descriptions of bridges.
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m Marble CHAS ROLE & CO holegale & Retail Dealers
FOREIGN & AMERICAN BARBLES Cor. of Broadway & Fifth Sts. CINCINNATI,
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EMRGOIT & FORBRIGER, LITH. CINCINNATI, 0
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Their advantages are,
1. They can be built almost as cheap as those of more perisha- ble materials.
2. Owing to their material and mode of construction, they are less liable to injury by either floods or winds.
3. They are indestructible by fire or the lapse of time.
4. As they do not weigh one sixth as much as ordinary wood bridges of the same length, they 'do not require one half the ma- son work and stone for the abutments, an important item of ex- pense, when the right kind of stone, as is often the case, cannot be found convenient.
5. Being made in sections, they are convenient to handle, and are therefore portable by canal boat, wagon, or railroad, to their place of use.
6. For the same reason, they can be fitted together and put up in less time and with less number of hands than any other descrip- tion of bridge, and are therefore admirably fitted on short notice to replace frame structures, on railways or other roads, that have been carried off by high waters.
Lastly. This is the strongest bridge that can be made. They will bear about two hundred times their own weight. A model weighing eighteen lbs., and of four feet span, was recently tested in Cincinnati, in the presence of intelligent and scientific judges, and found capable of bearing, without the slightest deflection, five thousand lbs. pig lead, equal to a weight of three hundred and sixty tons on a bridge forty-eight feet in length.
T. W. H. Moseley, of the firm of Moseley & Co., iron bridge and roofing works, 497 west Third street; office, 57 west Third street, is the inventor, patentee and constructor of these bridges. The firm works seventy-five men, and consumes ten thousand tons pig iron in their bridge and roofing operations. As this is manu- factured into bars, sheets and rods by our rolling mills for these uses, the original cost of the pig metal, three hundred thousand dollars, acquires in the process an aggregate value of more than a million of dollars, the importance to the community of this bridge and roof manufacture, as an industrial feature of Cincin- nati, becomes manifest. A large amount of productive industry, beyond that amount, however, is created or sustained by this estab- lishment. I refer to the putting up of these bridges with their roofs, which at the present ratio of production and sale, requires
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more than one thousand persons for this purpose. This involves a business additional of one million dollars in value. Large as are these figures, the proprietors consider their business but in its infancy.
A remarkable feature in this business is the large proportion of. orders from distant States and territories, where these bridges are superseding the erections of the past thirty years. They have been constructed here, transported by river and railway as far as Rich- mond, Virginia, and put up there at a greatly less cost than any other species of bridge could be constructed in the vicinity.
Japaning Tin Ware, and Tinners' Machines and Tools .- One establishment, working seventy-four hands, and producing a value of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars ; raw material, 40 per cent.
Ladders, etc .- There are half a dozen shops in this line, most of which make rough or cheap articles. Number of hands, twelve; value of products, twenty thousand dollars.
Thos. J. Magee, No. 45} east Third street, patent ladder factory, manufactures the article in cvery variety and for every purpose. They are so constructed by braces and supports, and in some in- stances by slides, that they are made to any length requisite for reaching the highest buildings, and at the same time are both light and strong. Mr. Magce also makes fruit stands, and fits up stores to order, and executes all kinds of job work in his line.
Lever Locks, etc .- Ten shops, mostly on a small scale ; work sixty hands ; produce a value of seventy-five thousand dollars ; raw material, 40 per cent.
Lightning Rods .- Three factories ; employ thirty-five hands; produce in value one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars; raw material, 50 per cent.
Lead Pipe, etc .- One factory, with a capacity of turning out more than one million lbs. of manufactured lead annually, to a value of sixty-one thousand dollars ; raw material, 85 per cent.
Here are made bar and sheet lead pipe of every size, from one fourth inch to four inch calibre. and of every grade of strength, that may be needed ; aqueduct pipe, pipe for chemical and other uses.
Liquors, Domestic .- Brandy, gin, wines, cordials, etc., are man- ufactured in Cincinnati to a great extent, and there are as many as forty establishments, employing two hundred and forty hands.
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which make of these articles three hundred thousand barrels of forty gallons each, annually, worth, at twelve dollars per bbl., three millions six hundred thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Lithographers .- Six establishments. Some of these are prin- cipally employed upon maps and plats of property ; others upon portraits and landscapes, and others again upon mercantile and bank lithographs, such as notes, drafts, checks, etc.
They employ sixty-six hands, and execute work annually to the value of one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars ; raw mate- rial, 35 per cent.
The increase of business in this line, from one lithographer with four hands, in 1840, turning out four thousand dollars worth of work, to four establishments in 1850, with twenty hands, and a product of twenty thousand dollars, and now six lithographers, with sixty-six hands, exhibiting a product of one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, is not more remarkable than the continued ad- vance in the art as respects taste in design and excellence in the finish of what is now executed here. It requires a good judge to distinguish some of our Cincinnati lithographs from steel en- gravings.
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