USA > Ohio > Sketches and statistics of Cincinnati in 1859 > Part 28
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Gibson & Co., lithographers, engravers, fine job printers, and paper dealers, north-west corner Third an 1 Main street, are exten- sively engaged in executing every variety of commercial and bank- ing engraving, such as bonds, scrip, drafts, certificates of stock and deposit, notes, checks, bill and letter heads, show and business cards. They also get up and supply every variety of drug, wine, liquor and perfumery labels; also, label books for druggists.
By having constantly extensive supplies on hand of just the arti- cles needed by purchasers, they do a very large and increasing business throughout the west, south, north and south-west to a much greater distance than would be generally supposed ; filling orders from points as distant as Canada and Nova Scotia.
Middleton, Strobridge & Co., north-west corner Walnut and Third streets. In this establishment are embraced all kinds of lith- ographing, such as views of cities and buildings, landscapes, etc., in one or more colors ; portraits, maps, bonds, certificates of stock, etc. ; drafts, checks, etc., in all kinds of commercial work, almost equaling the finest engraving on steel. Value of work per annum, twenty-five thousand dollars. Hands employed, twenty.
G. A. Menzel, No. 99 west Sixth street, employs twelve hands,
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and produces an annual value of thirty-six thousand dollars ; raw material, 25 per cent.
Execute in the best style maps, plates, portraits, buildings, plats, landscapes, diplomas, labels of all kinds ; also topographical and historical pictures. Mr. Menzel has occupied a high standing pro- fessionally, for many years here.
Ehrgott & Forbriger, practical lithographists, Carlisle Block, south-west corner Fourth and Walnut streets, are prepared to exe- cute in the very best style every species of work on stone, plain and in colors, as landscapes, portraits, show cards, diplomas, music titles, book illustrations, maps, bonds, checks, drafts, notes, bill and letter heads, cards, labels, machines, etc., etc.
The establishment of Messrs. Ehrgott & Forbriger is in a great state of completeness, and those who may require lithographic work cannot do better than give them a trial. They guarantee their work to be equal to any executed in the country, and at the most reasonable cost. They are experienced workmen, and strive to excel in their department.
It will be seen that several embellishments in this volume are from this establishment.
Machinery, Wood Working .- Two factories, which work eighty- two hands, and produce a value of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars annually ; raw material, 40 per cent.
Lane & Bodley, corner John and Water streets, manufacturers of Woodworth planers, Daniels' planers, Lane & Bodley's patent power mortising and boring machines, sash sticking and moulding machines, tenon machines, hub boring machines, hub hewing machines, turning lathes, spoke lathes, felloe bending machines, scroll saws, wheelwright's machinery, Lane & Bodley's patent portable circular saw mill, and a great variety of other wood-work- ing machinery. They employ fifty hands, and produce one hundred thousand dollars.
Lane & Bodley's power mortising machine enjoys an enviable celebrity. Orders for them have been filled from Russia, Germa- ny. Cuba, South America, Canada, and every State in the Union. Their circular saw mills possess some strikingly original peculiari- ties, that lessen the number of hands necessary to operate them, and increases their products to such an extent as to create a large demand for the article. They make every description of machi-
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nery that takes the log from the woods, and makes it up into every variety of products.
Steptoe & McFarlin, Western Machine Works, No. 218 Second street, between Plum and Western Row. This establishment also makes a variety of machines for working in wood, comprehending. Steptoe's mortising machines, sash moulding and slat machine, im- proved resawing machine, Woodworth's planers, Steptoe's improved mortise machine, Daniels' improved planer, tenon and sash stick- ing machines, Fay's patent mortising machine, circular saw man- drels, journal mandrels, etc., etc. This firm makes more mortise machines than any other in the United States, and in respect to the Woodworth planing machine, they have entirely driven the castern article from the market. Of these last, they make fifty to sixty annually, varying in value from five hundred to one thousand dollars.
It has been the constant aim of the senior partner of this con- cern, for the last twenty years, to supply from Cincinnati the de- mand of the west with this kind of machinery. Hehas spared no expense to make the various articles of his manufacture both bet- ter and cheaper than the products brought from the east, so as to overcome the tendency of persons purchasing abroad what they can get at their own doors. Steptoe & McFarlin work thirty-two hands, and produce an annual value of seventy-five thousand dollars.
Malt .- This article is manufactured in the city and vicinity for brewers' and distillers' use, principally for the first named class, for home consumption in beer and ale, and for export. Value of product, five hundred and eighty-nine thousand four hundred dollars.
Marble Works .- There are twenty-two marble yards in this city, many of which are, however, not on an extensive scale. They em- ploy two hundred and ninety hands, and produce a value of three hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Value of material, 50 per cent.
It is but a few years, comparatively, since the manufacture of marble, as one of the industrial arts, was first established in this city, and in the march of progress this branch of business has ta- ken most rapid strides. The little shops in which the pioneers in this branch of manufacture first carved the epitaphs of our loved and lost ones upon imperishable marble, have given way to more
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extended establishments, fitted up with all the appliances which machinery can furnish to facilitate their work.
The beneficial influence which this branch of manufacture ex- erts in a community is not restricted to those immediately engaged in the business, either as employees or workmen. Its value to our city must not be measured merely by the number which it feeds and clothes. The influence which it exerts on our community, cultivating the tastes of the masses, and fitting our youth to adorn a higher grade in the scale of civilization, is of incalculable value. For proof of this, advert to the old graveyards. The hand of friendship has there raised a plain memorial of the honored dead, whose relatives have homes sufficiently near to protect the struc- ture from vandal hands, yet how neglected and dilapidated it be- comes in a few short years. How widely different now ! the sur- viving friends erect memorials of much greater cost and value ; they call in the aid of the artist, and supplant "the frail memorial with shapeless sculpture decked," by a chaste memento, where, scattered oft
" The earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; The redbreast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground."
The monument now erected is guarded by a tender care, and the highest, holiest feelings of our nature find exercise in con- templation: the thoughtless schoolboy, whose noontide sport found vent in playing leap-frog over the headstones in our ancient church yards, is impressed with a feeling of veneration when he ap- proaches our beautiful rural cemeteries, and feels that the ground on which he stands is indeed " sacred to the memory" of the hon- ored dead.
We may not, however, moralize too much in a work devoted to facts rather than fancies, and so advert to more critical notices of the establishments engaged in this manufacture.
The old pioneer of marble working, David Bolles, is still engaged in the business, but at a much more extensive and convenient es- tablishment, than at my last notice of the growth of Cincinnati. The establishment of Chas. Rule & Co. is, however, at the head of the list in point of the magnitude and variety of the articles manufactured ; everything now-a-days made of marble, from the plainest headstone to the most costly mausoleum, can be obtained
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at this marble yard at the shortest notice. Their establishment is not only the largest in the west, but will compare favorably with any works of the kind in the United States. They ordinarily em- ploy from sixty to seventy-five hands, and in the busiest seasons a much greater number : their products are valued at about one. hundred thousand dollars annually ; and a comparison of their marble work at Spring grove cemetery with that which has been imported from the oldest establishments at the cast, will convince our citizens that it is unnecessary to go away from home in order to procure specimens of marble work as good as the best.
Space will not permit us to notice singly all the other estab- lishments, of which there are between twenty and thirty, employ- ing from five to twenty-five or thirty hands each, and whose manu- factures add annually large sums to the productive capital of our city.
Monumental Marble Works, 243 Vine street, D. Bolles, proprie- tor. This establishment, among the oldest in the west, being of some thirty years' standing, is entitled, not so much for its magni- tude as for its excellence, to a much larger notice than the limits of this volume will admit.
No pains are spared in getting up the best designs for cemetery work, and equal care is given in the execution of the same, no job of work being permitted to pass out of his hands unless it is well finished, whether it be plain or ornamental, cheap or costly ; and the better to enable him to succeed, he employs no more hands, fifteen in number, than he can personally attend to, and those al- ways such as command the highest wages.
His wareroom is ample, and at all times well filled with a great variety of highly finished marble work, such as monuments, tombs, gravestones, tablets, enclosures, and corner posts for cemetery lots, sarcophagi, urns, pedestals, statuettes, effigies of children, doves, lambs, slabs, mantle pieces, fountains, etc., etc., which cannot fail to attract the attention of purchasers and visitors.
Much credit is due him in contributing his full share in building up a branch of business which, within the last few years, has advanced in magnitude and perfection beyond the expectations of the most sanguine, and in artistical excellence will not shrink in comparison with similar work in any city in the world.
About twenty-five thousand dollars in value of manufactured work is turned out annually at these works.
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Mathematical, Optical and Astronomical Instruments. - Five workshops, mostly on a small scale. Some of them construct in- struments with a finish and accuracy that cannot be surpassed elso- where. Employ twenty hands; value of product, forty thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Mat Maker .- One workshop, three hands ; value of product, eight thousand dollars ; raw material, 30 per cent.
Mattresses, Bedding, etc .- Fifteen establishments, one hundred and ten hands ; valuc of product, one hundred and eight thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Masonic and Odd Fellows' Regalia .- Four factories, eighteen hands ; product value, twenty-five thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Medicines, Patent .- Fifteen factories, employing fifty hands, with a product of nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars ; raw material, 20 per cent.
Millinery .- Three hundred and fifty shops. Number of hands, cleven hundred and twenty ; value of work, one million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Mineral Water, Artificial .- This business consists of two classes, one of which is properly termed soda water, and is drawn from fountains by the glass, or sold by the bottle, at places of resort for the purpose, as an article of summer refreshment. The other ar- ticle is a scientific imitation of the well known medicinal waters of Europe.
The manufacture of soda water, a very refreshing beverage du- ring the heats of summer, has been carried on in this city for some years quite extensively, and the consumption of it at home and abroad, is increasingly great.
Soda water is made by impregnating water with carbonic acid gas, in the proportion of five parts in bulk of one, to twelve of the other ; the gas in a fountain of any given capacity, being condensed into a volume of one twelfth its natural space.
It is the expansion of that gas, when discharged, which creates effervescence, and the pungency of the soda water when taken at a draught.
The following is the process of manufacture. The gas is gene- rated in a strong leaden vessel by the action of diluted sulphuric acid, on marble dust-carbonate of lime. It is passed into a gas- ometer, and thence forced by steam power, acting on air pumps,
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into a fountain or the bottles, compressing fifty gallons of carbonic acid gas into the space of seven gallons in an inconceivable short space of time. The safety valve on the machine indicates a pres- sure of one hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch.
There are ten of these factories here, employing eighty hands ; value of product, one hundred and seventy-six thousand dollars. Four fifths of this value is contributed by labor alone.
Another class-the medicinal waters, has recently been intro- duced into Cincinnati, by Dr. S. Hanbury Smith, long known as a scientific physician here. His establishment is at No. 128 Fourth, west of Race street, where are compounded artificially all the in- gredients of Carlsbad, Marienbad, Kissingen and Pyrmont, in the due and exact proportions of these elements as they exist in their natural localities. These waters have been selected by Dr. Smith as models of their several classes, and afford the necessary variety which the discriminating physician may find it necessary to prescribe. They are kept on draught at this establishment, and are extensively drank on the spot. Besides these, there are Kreutznach, Heilbrunn, Spa, Selters, Ems, and other various min- eral waters supplied to order in bottles. There is a rapidly in- creasing conviction in the public mind as to the value of these wa- ters, and a corresponding increase in their use.
Morocco Leather .- Ten establishments for tanning and dressing this article. Three hundred thousand sheep skins are annually converted into moroScos here, which are supplied to the bookbind- ing, trunk, pocket book, saddlery and shoe trade. During the last eight years, a large share of these skins have been colored cochi- neal, maroon, and blue, and finished with a high gloss, to adapt them to the finest binding and lining uses. The supply of sheep skins has increased almost ten fold since 1841. The skins, di- vested of the wool, are worth twenty cents each, and the dressed article commands four to nine dollars per dozen ; aggregate value, one hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars ; raw material, 30 per cent.
J. H. Ballance, on the Miami canal, near Race street, tans and dresses forty thousand sheep skins yearly, which are sold for shoe- makers' and saddlers' use. Mr. B. is also extensively a wool dealer.
Mouldings .- Two establishments, which work sixteen hands, and produce a value of thirty thousand dollars.
Musical Instruments .- Pianos are made here in four shops, but 26
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on quite a small scale, as the aggregate of the whole is ten hands, and nine thousand dollars of product value. There is also an or- gan factory, which employs twenty-four hands, and produces a value of forty thousand dollars ; raw material, 40 per cent.
Music Publishing, etc .- W. C. Peters & Sons, Nos. 50 and 76 west Third street, are publishers of various works of instruction for the piano, guitar, violin, etc., of which they are the authors, or hold the copyrights. They also issue the newest and most popu- lar music ; of which their catalogue presents a variety of solos, duetts, trios and glees, adapted to vocal and instrumental use ; marches, quicksteps, etc., to the extent of five thousand pieces -- a new piece, on the average, being published every day. Of these, the paper is of Cincinnati manufacture, and the engraving and printing are all executed here. The firm supplies eastern publish- ers, and the business exchange in this line is largely in favor of Cincinnati. Their stock of engraved copper and zinc plates has cost more than one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and they pay out annually three thousand dollars for copyrights ; also manufacture ruled paper for copyists. Employ seventy-five hands, and issue a value of two hundred thousand dollars ; raw material, 20 per cent.
They import musical instruments of every description from head quarters in France, Germany and Italy. Peters & Sons are the largest music publishers in the west. Their " Eclectic Piano Forte Instructor " enjoys unrivaled popularity, although only before the public for the past three years. The fortieth edition of one thou- sand copies each has issued from the press.
Oil, Castor .- A marked decline in the cultivation for this mar- ket of the castor bean, has reduced the value of the oil produced here to thirty thousand dollars. One establishment, five hands.
Oils-Coal and Cotton Seed .- Two modern products have been recently introduced here, which promise to make a revolution in material for artificial light, and lubricating purposes. One of these is coal oil, made from the Cannel variety, the other, as the name purports, is expressed from cotton seed.
Coal oil. The manufacture of oils for illumination and for lu- bricating, from coals, as commercial products, is of recent origin, and limited to the last five years, and mainly to the last two years; but though yet in its infancy, and but partially understood by very few, if fully by any, enough has been learned and developed to
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place it in high rank among the valuable gratuities prepared in na- ture's great laboratory for the wants and comforts of our race.
In common terms and in common processes, Cannel coal yields, benzole, a light and highly inflammable substance used largely in the arts, and in the portable processes of manufacturing gas ; next in order, the burning or illuminating oil, being a mixture of the benzole and the unctuous or fatty portions of the oil ; next an oil admirably adapted for wool in the picking and carding processes, its properties tending to dissolve the grease and dirt so intermixed with all fine wools ; next the heavy or lubricating oil for machine- ry, which as it runs from the stills is mixed with paraffine, a sub- stance in its nature and appearance corresponding with the best sperm and white wax. These products occur, in varying propor- tions, in different coals, and no general standard either of general product, or the specific results could be made, the coals from the same vein frequently changing materially in their quality in a few feet. Most coals yield a large quantity of strong ammonia water, ยท a product that will be sought for with earnestness by every farmer who fully understands his true interests, and the value of this fer- tilizer in connection with spent lime or ashes and barnyard manure. This, with the coke, ends the chapter of products.
There are, probably, in central Ohio, as rich varieties of Cannel coal and as fine deposits as exist any where, and in the only coun- ties yet explored for the purpose, those of Licking, Coshocton, Muskingum, and Perry, it will be safe to estimate there is an area equal to ten miles square, underlaid to the average of three feet in depth of Cannel coal and shale.
This would give four thousand and five hundred tons to the acre, and three hundred and seven millions and two hundred thousand tons to the district referred to, and would, at the low price of five cents to the ton, afford a raw material value of fifteen millions and three hundred and sixty thousand dollars, which, manufactured into oil, and made to yield, as it may, thirty gallons to the ton, would be a product of nine thousand three hundred and sixty mil- lions of gallons, which, at sixty cents per gallon, equals the enor- mous sum of five thousand six hundred and sixteen millions of dollars. These are large figures, but every reader will acknowl- edge the five cents per ton-twenty-eight bushels-is a low price for an article that will cominand in any market ten cents per bushel, and that almost any burning oil we have cannot be bought at less
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than ninety cents per gallon, wholesale. Now to say nothing of the extensive beds of Cannel coal in western Virginia, Missouri, Illinois, and other sections of the west, these four counties form a small proportion of the Cannel coal regionof our own State. There is obviously no danger, therefore, of the raw material giving out for centuries.
No substance has ever been used for lubrication that more fully realizes the wants of the mechanical world, when properly pre- pared for that purpose, and it can be afforded at a much less price than any of the good oils heretofore used.
For illumination there is nothing but gas that can vie with it for brilliancy, and on the score of economy, it takes precedence even of gas.
The following statement, illustrating this point, is made from an experiment of my own, for the purpose of testing the comparative merits of lard cil and coal, simply as a light.
One pint of coal oil, costing twelve cents, has fed one coal lamp during six evenings, for the space of twenty-eight hours, averaging four hours and forty minutes to the evening-the lamp being first placed on the supper table, and afterward transferred to the sitting room table. Two lard oil lamps to each place, were needed here- tofore to perform the same service. The cost of lard oil, five cents per evening, and that of coal oil, two cents. But there was not only a cheaper, but a brighter and clearer light. . With a ground shade to mellow and subdue the extreme brilliancy of coal oil light, and a regulating screw to the lamp referred to, for graduating the amount, as high a grade of light as is desirable can be obtained, without exposure to the injury which gas and other naked intense lights inflict on the eyes.
There are four coal oil establishments in Cincinnati and adja- cencies, all which, aided by supplies from the interior of the State, Kentucky, and Western Virginia, fall short of meeting the demand which has already sprung up for the article.
Newport Coal Oil Company, factory in Newport, opposite the city. Sales here. E. Grasselli, president. Operates on Coal Riv- er, Va., coal, of which fifteen hundred bushels are consumed weekly. These works manufacture ninety thousand gallons oil annually ; of this, one half is burning oil, the other half lubrica- ting oil and paraffine. There are fifty retorts in operation in
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this establishment, and the number will be increased as fast as the demand for lubricating oil becomes developed.
Eugene Grasselli is manufacturing coal oil adjacent to his oil of vitriol works, on Front street, operating on a scale and with a pro- duct precisely one half of that at Newport.
The Great Western Coal and Oil Co., of Newark, Ohio, owned principally in Cincinnati and Covington, manufactures, daily, twenty-four hundred gallons coal oil, of which ten per cent. is consumed here. In a few weeks they expect to supply the mar- ket with oil to the extent of three hundred thousand gallons annu- ally. Henry Worthington, president. Office, No. 13 Front street, between Main and Walnut streets.
Cotton Seed Oil .- For a quarter of a century or more, experi- ments have been made, in various parts of the country, to accom- plish the extraction and purification of oil from the seed of the cotton. Many patents have been granted, and large sums of money lost in these experiments ; but until very recently, the results have been anything but satisfactory.
The first difficulty in the way of extracting the oil has been to get rid of the husk, with its coating of fibres that envelops the kernel of the seed, in which, with the starch, gum, etc., destined to nourish the germ of a new plant, the oil is deposited. This dif- ficulty was finally overcome by Wm. R. Fee, of this city, in 1857, by the invention of his cotton-seed huller, which was patented that year, and which has been found in practice to answer all the re- quirements.
The remaining difficulty was the purification of the oil, after its extraction from the seed. The oil, when first pressed out, is of the color of molasses, containing gum, mucilage, and other protein compounds, which destroy its qualities as a lubricator or burning oil. This difficulty has been partially overcome in Boston, but at great loss of material, and expense of manipulation. This pro- cess is in use in New Orleans, and with a modification borrowed from Watts' palm oil processes in St. Louis ; but the oil produced is not of a very desirable or marketable quality. And it is to Cin- cinnati that we are again to look for the perfect solution of the difficulty.
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