USA > Ohio > Sketches and statistics of Cincinnati in 1859 > Part 30
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35
These details have been entered into with more minuteness than would otherwise have been deemed expedient, because the moral and educational influences of this establishment are of vast public importance, and radiate from Cincinnati, as a centre, all over the Union. Wherever children congregate, in their far-away school- rooms, or by the happy firesides of home, sit down to learn their lessons out of Eclectic School Books, there this influence is active, and none may measure the untold good it is accomplishing. This establishment, devoted exclusively to the diffusion of useful knowl- edge in the various branches of elementary education, may be re- garded as a great benefactor of the youth of our land. In it, talent, capital, and the improvements of steam machinery are combined in producing School Books for the million, and, with commendable fidelity, furnishing them at the least possible cost.
An enterprise so wisely planned and ably carried out for sup- plying the children of the Free Common Schools of the country with excellent, high-toned, moral, and instructive elementary class-
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books, richly deserves the highest credit, and a widely extended patronage.
This firm has electrotyped their entire Series, by which means no typographical error can exist, to mar the text or to offend the taste of the most fastidious teacher.
W. B. Smith & Co. employ, in the various departments of their publishing business, one hundred and twenty hands, and consume twenty-four thousand reams of the largest size printing paper an- nually, at a product of four hundred thousand dollars.
Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co., No. 25 west Fourth street, suc- cessors to Wm. H. Moore & Co., and Phillips & Co. This firm is the pioneer establishment in Cincinnati of general publishing lit- crature, and is, and for years has been one of our most important book publishing houses, their business perhaps exceeding the en- tire aggregate of the twelve houses engaged in 1850, in producing other than school books.
The rapid increase of their business keeping pace for the last ten years with the enlargement of Cincinnati itself, had compelled them to remove from their former location on Main street, and ren- dered it necessary for them to lay broad and deep business foun- dations for the future, in extensive and convenient arrangements for heavy operations. Accordingly, in 1854, the present spacious building on the south side of Fourth, between Main and Walnut streets, was erected for their occupation and use, having been ar- ranged and planned expressly for the various departments of print- ing, binding and salesrooms of a publishing establishment on a large scale. Its size is thirty-four feet by two hundred; the ground floor being occupied as salesrooms, the basement by a steam en- gine and the book and job presses, which it drives. A sub-base- ment beneath forms a wareroom. The printing office and bindery occupy five stories, being in single rooms to the entire floor, thirty- four by one hundred feet, all well lighted-warmed by steam-the printing office supplied with beautiful fonts of book and job type in every variety. and warranted by the agency of ten Adams' and other book and job presses, to execute work of either kind in the highest style of the art.
They have been prompted by theis various facilities to devote special attention to the production, on the largest scale and in the greatest variety of patterns and styles, of blank books; itself one of the most important branches of the stationery business, as well
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of the more ordinary as of the finer grades, adapted both for the use of the mercantile classes here and to the country trade. The manufacturing department is under the supervision of C. F. Wil- stach, of the firm, who proposes to produce all styles of blank books, and especially the finer qualities of paged work, to order, for merchants, bankers, county officers, insurance and railroad com- panies ; and, also, to bind printed work, in various plain and orna- mental styles of binding.
The machinery is all of modern and approved construction, and, as far as possible, worked by steam-thus giving every facility for producing at the lowest possible cost.
Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co. are agents for the sale of various finest styles of paper, unsurpassed for quality of material and ex- cellence of finish, made expressly to their own order ; and have constantly for sale the usual assortment and variety, of general stationery.
The publishing department of this establishment occupies a wide range of subjects in the religious, medical and miscellaneous liter- ature of the age. In the first class are family Bibles, embracing forty varieties, from the lowest price to the highest quality in paper and style of illustration and binding. One variety is embellished with handsome engravings and lithographic illuminations. Those of the finest style of binding are handsome centre-table ornaments. Some of these are sold at prices below those of corresponding descrip- tions by the Bible depositories.
Two years since, this firm published " Bayard Taylor's Cyclo- pedia of Modern Travel," an octavo volume of about 1000 pages; an intensely interesting digest of the discoveries and adventures of the celebrated travelers of the present century, prepared by one who has no living superior in qualifications for such a labor ; the work is well illustrated by maps and engravings. A new edition, considerably enlarged by adding the more recent discoveries of Barth, Livingstone, and others, will be brought out the coming autumn. The compiler has already received as copyright on sales, several thousand dollars.
About the same period they will issue a handsomely illustrated and very important work to western agricultural interests, written by J. HI. Klippart, Secretary of the Ohio State Board of Agricul- ture, entitled " The Wheat Plant, its origin, varieties, diseases, etc., etc., with a few remarks on Indian corn, its culture, etc."
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A few weeks since, they issued the fifth edition of " The Amer- ican Dispensatory," 1 vol. 8vo .; and are now bringing out new editions of the works of Beach, the well known medical reformer, comprised in six or seven large volumes. Some of these have passed through forty editions, of a thousand each. His large work, in three volumes, costs twenty dollars. They have just is- sued " Oriola," a Hymn and Tune Book, by Bradbury, of New York, brought out under the sanction of the Cincinnati Sunday School Union, and admirably adapted for Sabbath Schools.
Their medical publications comprehend the writings of the most diligent authors of the present age, in the popular and progressive literature of this subject, embracing well known works in demand throughout the whole United States, of the various schools, Regular, Eclectic, Reformed and Homoeopathic.
They are, also, prepared to contract for manufacturing books or pamphlets, for authors or others, in the handsomest typographical styles, and bound in any usual manner to suit the tastes of those who desire to publish on their own account.
As to the building itself, there is no finer one of the business kind in the city, as respects its exterior, among the costly erec- tions of 1858 and 1859. It has, in fact, given the impulse to that style of construction in fronts which has filled up Pearl, Walnut, Vine and Fourth streets with the splendid erections of the past five years, to most of which it has served as a model, and to all of which it has in hints and improvements, suggested the outlines.
The publications of Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co. are on an ex- tensive scale, and the materials, means and results correspond ac- cordingly. They employ one hundred and thirty-five hands, and the aggregate products reach a value of two hundred and seventy- five thousand dollars.
Anderson, Gates & Wright, Main street. This is also a large publishing house, but being of more recent establishment than those already referred to, the extent and variety of their bu- siness will not compare with the largest. They are engaged prin- cipally on miscellaneous literature, such as the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Life of Daniel Boone, Pilgrim's Progress, Life of Lorenzo Dow, and various other works of the same class. They are doing an increasing business in this line to the value of thirty thousand dollars, besides a large general stationery business.
Pumps, etc .- One factory, with twenty-five hands, and a product
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of thirty thousand dollars, where are made hoisting and pumping engines, vertical, steam and double acting pumps, hose nozzles and couplings, etc.
Railway Chairs, Spikes, etc .- F. P. Corby & Co., west Front street, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi, Cincinnati, Ham- ilton and Dayton, and Indianapolis and Cincinnati railroads. Here are manufactured wrought iron railway chairs, spikes, hot pressed nuts, bridge bolts, boiler rivets, etc., on a large scale.
The machinery of the works comprises one large Patent chair machine, one large and powerful vertical shearing machine, for cutting the chair plates ; two powerful punching machines, on the toggle joint principle ; four of Burden's patent spike machines, the largest size made; and three large rivet machines for manufac- turing boiler and other rivets, besides smaller machinery for manu- facturing bolts, nuts, washers, etc.
The machinery is wholly driven by an engine of about forty horse power, and the steam for this engine is generated entirely by the waste heat from the chair furnaces.
The chair machine has a capacity for turning out from nine to twelve tons of chairs daily. The chair is finished from the blank plate at one operation, or one revolution of the machine In this process of manufacture, the plate undergoes at the same instant, the double operation of being cut and bent over, and in such a manner that the lips are made considerably thicker at the base, or where the greatest strength is required, and the liability of strain- ing at the bend entirely obviated. So great is their superiority, that one of these chairs weighing eleven lbs., is equal to the ordi- nary article of thirteen lbs. weight.
These chairs, as they are technically called, are clamps by which the rails are firmly secured to the railway ties, on which they are spiked. They are nearly eiglit inches square, and from three eighths to seven eighths inch in thickness, and such is the accu- racy as well as the power of the shearing machinery, by which they are cut, that a chisel passes through these iron bars, which are eight inches broad by three fourth inch thick, with less appa- rent effort than is made by a carpenter pushing a sash chisel into soft pine, and exhibiting an edge to the chair as smooth as if planed. This machine can cut up twenty tons iron daily.
One great advantage which the manufacturers claim over the rolled chair is, that the lips are cut and bent across the grain of
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the iron, while in the rolled chair they are formed in a line with the grain ; consequently, as the deflection of the chair in use is greatest through the centre, lengthwise, the latter is more liable to part or break. By the spike machines, about fourteen tons of spikes may be manufactured daily, and of any desired pattern.
The rivet and bolt machines can turn out sixty pieces per min- ute. None but the best quality iron, such as Hanging Rock, Mis- souri, and Tennessee, is used at these works. And it is a striking instance of the reciprocal advantages of the department of manu- factures, that this establishment supplies with these various rail- way materials the region of country from which they derive their identical raw materials. The facilities enjoyed at this establish- ment for receiving iron and shipping goods, are apparent. They have both a river and canal front, and the works are convenient to the tracks of all the railroads.
Corby & Co. employ thirty-five hands, and manufacture a value of three hundred and sixty thousand dollars ; raw material, 70 per cent.
Ranges, Cooking, etc .- Three establishments, employ forty-five hands; value of product, seventy-five thousand dollars ; raw ma- terial, 40 per cent.
Refrigerators .- Two factories, employ eighty hands, and manu- facture a value of seventy-five thousand dollars ; raw material, 60 per cent.
Roofing, Tin, Composition and Metallic .- Eighteen factories, employ one hundred and fifty hands ; value of labor product, three hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
Caldwell & Co., 132 west Second street, are proprietors of the Outcalt roofing patent. This is a sheet iron roof, in the prepara- tion and construction of which ample provision is made for allow- ing the material to undergo its usual contraction and expansion, without affecting the permanency of fit and imperviousness to wa- ter of the covering. This is done by scrolling the edges of the sheets, which are then encased one within another, and the whole fastened by cleets to the board sheeting which is to receive it, these cleets being again covered by the roof. The entire surface of this roof is covered with fire-proof paint, before being put up, which resists the action not only of water and fire, but is so little affected by atmospheric or other influences, as to bear on its surface with- out injury, the severest tests of sulphuric acid, either diluted or
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concentrated. In lightness, it has the advantage of all other roofs, tin excepted, and it is not one fourth the weight of a shingle of composition roof. Its durability, in view of the material employed, has hardly any assignable limit.
So simple is the application of this roof, that any man of ordi- nary mechanical knowledge can put it up without difficulty, which gives the article great advantages over ordinary roofing. The pro- prietors allege that when they once get the roof introduced into a neighborhood, it forms the best local advertisement they desire.
This establishment employs sixty hands, and manufactures an annual value of seventy-five thousand dollars.
Christopher & Beall, 378 Main street, put up tin, copper and sheet iron roofing on the most favorable terms. All work warranted. Job work of all kinds in tin, copper and sheet iron. They employ sixteen hands, and execute work to the value of thirty-six thou- sand dollars: raw material, 65 per cent.
Saddlery, Collars and Harness. - Fifty-six shops, employing three hundred hands, and producing a value of six hundred and sixty-three thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
. Wilson & Hayden, 22 and 24 Main street, manufacturers of saddlery and coach hardware, carriage trimmings, saddle trees, hog skins ; are engaged in the handling and finishing of saddle and harness leather, which they make to the value of two hundred thousand dollars ; saddle trees and saddlery hardware, to the value of one hundred thousand dollars; raw material, 80 per cent. Their annual sales of saddlery, etc., including those of their own manufacture, extend to five hundred thousand dollars.
The store rooms which they occupy form one of the most spa- cious business buildings in Cincinnati, being thirty-two feet in front by two hundred feet deep, and five stories high, with a two-story warehouse adjoining the rear. To the public spirit of Mr. Wilson, Cincinnati owes the erection of the fine block two hundred feet by one hundred feet, which adjoins south on Main extending to Front street.
Saddle Trees .- One shop, with five hands, manufactures ten thousand dollars of value ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Safes, Vaults, etc., Iron .- Two establishments of nearly equal importance ; employ one hundred and thirty-five hands, and man- ufacture a value of four hundred and eight thousand dollars annu- ally ; raw material, 45 per cent.
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Wm. B. Dodds & Co., late Urban, Dodds & Co., office and sale room, southwest corner Vine and Second streets. This establish- ment has existed for the past fifteen years, during which time it has grown from a small workshop of eight or ten hands, and a pro- duct of fifteen thousand dollars, to its present extensive operations. The factory is located on the south side of Pearl street, west of Elin, and embraces the occupancy of a building measuring on the ground sixty-five by one hundred feet, and four stories high, be- sides the basement.
This establishment makes safes of every description, but is de- voted especially to the manufacture of heavy bank and mercantile safes and vaults, and the articles it produces cannot be surpassed anywhere. They are provided with an interior safe or sub-treasu- ry, made of plates of iron and hardened steel, and secured with locks of the most approved manufacture ; the inner doors with a Bramah lock, and the outside doors are doubly secured against the efforts of the most adroit thieves.
Locks for these safes are made on the premises, and are so con- structed and protected as to be alike burglar and powder proof.
These safes have been thoroughly tested as to their capacity in resisting the flames, are impervious to damp, and have come out of the severest trials with their contents uninjured in every instance.
The full capacity of the works requires the employment of about one hundred hands, with which force they can turn out from five to six safes per day, having an average value of one hundred and fifty dollars each.
Sush, Blinds and Doors, and Portable Houses .- Twenty facto- ries, the larger share being hand operations. Value of product, thirteen hundred and eighty thousand dollars ; raw material, 25 per cent .; employ four hundred and ten hands.
Sausages .- Twenty-eight shops, one hundred and eighty hands. Value of product, two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Sawed Lumber, Laths, etc. - Twelve mills, one hundred and fifty hands; manufacture a value of eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars; raw material, 35 per cent.
Saws .- Two factories, employ thirty hands ; manufacture circu- lar, cross-cut, mill, billet and web saws, plastering trowels, etc., to the value of ninety-five thousand dollars; raw material, 70 per cent.
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Scales, Platforms, etc .-- There are seven factories here, at which scales with or without platforms are made. Forty hands ; value of product, eighty-five thousand dollars. These consist in hay, plat- form and counter scales, brass and iron scales, beams, skids and truck wagons.
Screw Plates .- Three factories, eighteen hands ; value of pro- duct, twenty-one thousand dollars.
Shirts, etc .- Twenty-five workshops, which employ two hundred hands, all females ; value of product, five hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars ; raw material, 60 per cent.
Show Cases .- Two shops, employ six hands, and manufacture a value of six thousand dollars.
Silver und Goldsmiths .- Five shops, fifty hands ; value of pro- duct, one hundred and ten thousand dollars ; raw material, 75 per cent.
Spokes, Felloes, Hubs, etc .- Royer, Simonton & Co., 375 west Third street. This is a very spacious establishment, comprehend- ing a variety of buildings for manufacturing the various component parts of carriage wheels, etc., for fitting and finishing, and ware- housing the manufactured articles.
This factory is undoubtedly the largest of the kind in the world. The yearly product of spokes is about one million; of felloes, one hun- dred and sixty thousand, and sets of shafts and bows in proportion. The building in which these are manufactured is ninety by thirty- three feet, consisting of nine rooms, which are crowded with ma- chinery and workmen. This is on the lower side of Third street, and nearly opposite to which is a building three stories high, and thirty-five feet by eighty feet on the floor, in which the finishing work is carried on.
Carriage and buggy hubs are made of gum and elm, and wagon hubs of locust. Of these, more than two hundred thousand are annually made. Of the spokes, six thousand are made and fin- ished daily. The timber for the spokes is hickory and oak, princi- pally hickory, and the felloes, shafts, poles and bows are made of hickory, ash and oak. Every stick of timber used here is selected in the woods, a small proportion only of what grows of these sov- eral species being adapted for their purposes, as the very best alone is put to use. One hundred hands are constantly occupied in the labor of getting out suitable timber for this establishment.
None of the products of this factory are put together until they
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have undergone in the first place a steaming, and afterward a six months' seasoning process.
They work eighty hands, and produce a manufactured value of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.
Stained Glass .- Two shops, which employ six hands, and man- ufacture a value of nine thousand dollars.
Painting in glass, which is another name for stained glass, is one of the Jong-lost, but finally recovered arts of antiquity. It is car- ried, in modern times, however, to a degree of perfection unknown to the ancients. Glass of this description is employed extensively in churches and in the finest class of private dwellings, where it serves admirably to distribute a mellowed light, more grateful to the eye, than that which passes in its full strength through per- fectly transparent glass.
Stained glass is prepared by coating one side of the plate with phosphate of lime in a flux of pulverized glass, in cases where it is designed to render the plate semi-opaque or obscure. This gives it the appearance of being ground on one face. Where the various brilliant colors are sought, oxydes of almost all the metals, such as iron, zinc, tin, antimony, cobalt, manganese, lead, silver and gold, are the agents resorted to ; silver being the base of the yellow, as gold is of the purple, and cobalt of the blue. The coat- ing, in a liquid state, being brushed over the surface of the plate, and lime sifted over it to prevent the adhesion of the glass, the plates are lodged in a furnace, where they are submitted to a de- gree of heat which blends the coloring matter with the outside of the glass, which is then suffered gradually to cool to its final and permanent temperature.
The white color is imparted by grinding figures upon glass made transparent, and colored on one side in the first instance, the grind- ing barely penetrating through the colored side.
Starch .- Six factories, which employ fifty hands, and make a value of two hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
Starch has heretofore been made principally from wheat, and a portion of it is still made here from that grain. Of late years, In- dian corn has been resorted to in the manufacture of starch, and with great success, although the discovery is comparatively recent. Yet it is found to contain almost as great a proportion as wheat. The per centage of starch, in the best varieties of corn, is about 60 per cent .; nitrogenous substances, 15 per cent., with a consid-
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erable portion of sugar, and 10 per cent. of oil and gum. All practical men are well aware of the great superiority of corn over every other kind of grain for fattening purposes.
The amount of starch, in sweet corn, is very small, not over 18 or 20 per cent .; but the per centage of sugar is very great. The nitrogenous matter about 20, gum 14, and oil 11 per cent. If it could be made to yield as much per acre as the more hardy kind, it would be the most profitable, because the most nourishing of all the varieties.
Steamboats -There are three steamboat yards. The building of steamboats has been declining here for years, but there is still, and always will be, a large amount of repairing and refitting boats which transact business bere, as most of those on the Ohio do. Building and repairing employ four hundred hands ; value of pro- duct, four hundred thousand dollars.
Stocking Weavers .- Four shops, eighteen hands ; value of pro- duct, eighteen thousand dollars ; raw material, 50 per cent.
Stone Cutiers .- Twenty yards, employ two hundred and thirty- five hands ; value of product, including the setting in the wall, eleven hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars ; raw material, 20 per cent.
The building stone in general use here is brought from the Sci- oto free stone region, limestone costing too high in the transport- ation, sawing and dressing, for general building purposes.
Stone Masons .- Fifty builders, employ four hundred and thirty- five hands. Value of labor product, seven hundred and seventy- five thousand dollars.
Stucco Workers .- Four shops, sixteen hands ; value of product, eighteen thousand dollars.
Sugar Refineries .- Of these there are four, all recently estab- lished. They work one hundred and six hands, and refine forty thousand lbs. per day. Value of the refined sugar, seven hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars ; raw material, 75 per cent.
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