USA > Ohio > Sketches and statistics of Cincinnati in 1859 > Part 32
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45400
146000
310000
Undertakers.
15500
76000
140000
Upholsterers and undertakers
84800
95000
160000
Varnish, copal.
15000
135000
200000
Veneers
...
66000
100000
Vinegar .
30500
168750
250000
Wagons, carts, etc.
104300
132000
210000
Wall paper, staining and hanging.
34400
30000
18000
Wash boards, zinc
85000
210000
Wigs.
6000
7500
10000
Wine, catawba, etc.
150000
500000
Wire workers.
13000
69000
150000
Wool carding.
3000
10000
12000
Writing inks.
5000
15000
100000
Wrought nails
9000
9000
Whisky ..
145000
2857920
5318730
Wood and willow ware ..
2800
18000
50000
Miscellaneous
63300
385740
656189
17780033
54550134
112254400
This synopsis affords an opportunity to trace our industrial pro- gress from 1841 to this date.
Of the $119,254,400 in value of these products for 1859, $58,- 000,000 is embraced in raw materials, and $54,254,400 constitutes the value of labor, interest on capital invested, etc. It thus ap- pears that the average of raw materials is but 54 per cent. of the entire product, leaving the residue as the reward of enterprise and industry.
XIV. COMMERCE.
Our commercial year closes on the 31st August, which date makes it impossible to exhibit a table of the imports and exports of 1858-9, and renders those of 1857-8, the latest that could be made use of as an illustration of the progress of Cincinnati in this business departinent.
In 1841-2, the value of imports to this place was $41,236,199; of exports, $33,934,898. These figures advanced year by year, steadily, until 1857-8, when the value of imports reached $74,- 348,758, and of the exports, $47,497,095; both of these amounts being a fall off from the previous year-the imports of nearly three millions, and the exports of more than eight millions of dollars. This was occasioned in part by the fall of produce incident to the fiscal embarrassments in the eastern cities and Europe, but princi- pally by the failure of crops for two years, which, by depriving our western customers of the means of meeting their engagements here with punctuality, checked the current of importations to this point, and to a still greater extent lessened the flow of produce to the great markets at the east. But for these circumstances, our imports and exports would have greatly exceeded all previous years. As far as the register of 1858-9 extends, the means of forming any correct judgment on the subject, the imports of the current year will reach eighty-five millions, and the exports ninety millions.
It is well known that Cincinnati suffered less by the monetary crisis of 1857 than any city of importance in the whole country, only one wholesale and a few retail houses having succumbed to the pressure of the times. This great fact speaks volumes as to the substantial and solvent character of our business.
Cincinnati has always been a great business centre to the west, especially, and when the communication shall be thoroughly opened to the distant south, by the completion of the unfinished railways to Knoxville and Nashville, a greatly extended business, both com- mercial and manufacturing, will be the immediate result.
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.
346
DRY GOODS,
TRADE WITH THE COUNTRY.
Wrrury the last eight or ten years Cincinnati has been gain- ing a position as a great centre of supply, by wholesale, to the country merchants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky, of their dry goods, groceries, hardware, boots and shoes, hats, drugs, and fancy goods. In these various lines of business, it is becoming very apparent to purchasers that they can deal here to greater advantage than in our eastern cities. The effect of this has been to enlarge our sales to country merchants. For example .-- dry goods, from $4,000,000, in 1840, to $10,000,000, in 1850, and to $25,000,000 at this time. 'There is a corresponding increase, also, in all other descriptions of business which go to make up general sales to country merchants.
In the infancy of this species of trade, from twenty to twenty- four houses transacted all that was to be done in this line. Now there are not less than fifty wholesale dry goods houses, and nearly as many wholesale clothing establishments, which last also sell dry goods extensively. The amount of goods, of all kinds, sold here to the country trade, cannot be less than seventy-five millions of dollars value, in which I do not include articles of Cin- cinnati manufacture, which would increase those figures to one hundred millions of dollars.
DRY GOODS.
No one can have passed, or, rather, have attempted to pass, through Pearl and its Walnut street vicinity, within the last year or two, without being forcibly struck with the conviction that we are rapidly becoming independent of the wholesale business of the Atlantic cities, and rendering the country merchants of Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky the same. The boxes and bales, occupying almost the whole side-walks, and piled one upon another to the highest possible point of safety, besides the extent to which they occupy the inside of the stores, attest the progress of our whole-
347
TRADE WITH THE COUNTRY.
sale dry goods business, and which its present bounds, spacious as we consider them, will soon fail to accommodate.
If it be asked by our friends at the east, how it can be possible that we can compete with the jobbing houses in New York, Phila- delphia, and Baltimore; it may be replied, that our large houses can always fill a bill at as low rates, adding carriage, as their east- ern rivals, being supplied from the same sources, and having representatives constantly in the Atlantic cities, while they offer facilities and conveniences to purchasers which are not accessible at the east.
1. The merchant who goes east is compelled, in order advan- tageously to make up his full assortment, to visit Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. This is attended with travel- ing and hotel expenses, as well as loss of time at home of still greater value, which puts at least five per cent. on his season's purchases.
2. By purchasing in Cincinnati, at a distance so short and a point of such easy access from home, the western merchant is enabled to buy in three or four days what will requires as many weeks in a trip east. This is not merely a saving of time, but a means of choosing the period of absence, not allowable in long and distant journeys. Almost any man can arrange and provide for an absence from home of a few days, but every merchant's business is sure to suffer in the absence of as many weeks.
3. He can obviate the risk of accumulating unsaleable goods; keeping his supplies within the limits of his sales by making smaller and more frequent purchases.
4. In making bills oftener, he has a greater average of credit, as well as greater convenience in the division of payments.
Stocks of goods in Cincinnati are equal in quality and assort- ment to any in the Atlantic cities. Here have been concentrated at one point, for purchase, articles which to lay in to equal advan- ' tage elsewhere, would require a visit to not less than four of our eastern cities. The bonnets, domestic cloths, sheetings, shirtings and prints of Boston; the French, German, Italian and Chinese silk and fancy dry goods and foreign cloths of New York; the do- mestic checks, ginghams, prints and handkerchiefs, pantaloonery and umbrellas of Philadelphia; and the sheetings and shirtings, drillings, tickings and heavy domestics of Baltimore, may be found here in a single store. The beauty, style and variety of the goods
348
DRY GOODS.
for sale here have been unequaled hitherto, and the prices low, having been laid in generally during the recent depression of prices in the eastern markets.
Now that accumulation at the west of capital enables our dry goods houses to compete at all with their rivals at the east, a posi- tion has been assumed by our merchants that will never be lost, for without referring to the fact that business expenses here are greatly less than in our Atlantic cities, it may be noticed that, to a great extent, the very reasons why it is the interest of western traders to deal with our merchants, are those why our merchants will always be able to sell as low, or, if necessary, lower than their Atlantic competitors. What this business intercourse has done and is doing for the interests of the sellers here, may be judged by the magnificent business structures rivaling anything of the kind in the great cities of our eastern States, which have been put up during the last few years on our business streets-Pearl street especially.
On the whole we have made for our city one more advance to that future of business operations which is our final destiny-as the great central metropolis of the United States.
What has been said here of the dry goods country trade, applies in a corresponding degree to the grocery, hardware, crockery, boots and shoe, fancy goods, and other departments of business.
Many of our principal houses in the country trade and commis- sion business have cards of addresses at the close of this volume. These serve to show the variety and extent of business here. Some of the more extensive of these make sales to the extent of from five hundred thousand to one million dollars yearly, and the aggregate of goods sold by wholesale is equal to seventy millions dollars annually. The sales of wool by one house here reaches to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars yearly.
349
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
XV. PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
CINCINNATI WATER WORKS.
Two combination high pressure engines, cylinders 22 inches by 10 feet stroke ; pumps, 14 inches by 10 feet stroke. Three boilers, tubular, 52 inches by 16 feet long. Actual horse power exerted, 151.56.
Height to which water is elevated, 176 feet z inch ; height from base of pumps to top of discharge pipe 162 feet 9 inches. Height from low water mark to base of pump, 13 feet 33 inches. Capa- city of pumps per revolution, 2 strokes, 306 U. S. gallons. Ca- pacity of pumps per one hour, 197896 U. S. gallons.
Two condensing engines. Cylinders of each, 45 inches by 8 feet stroke ; pumps, 18 1-8 and 18 3-16 inches by 8 feet stroke.
Three boilers, 4 flues each, 72 inches by 30 feet long. Actual horse power exerted, 118.25. Height to which water is elevated, 176 feet & inch. Height from base of pump to top of discharge pipe, 160 feet 9 inches. Height from low water mark to base of pump, 15 feet 33 inches. Capacity of pumps per revolution, two strokes, 208 U. S. gallons. Capacity of pumps per one hour, 169,201 U. S. gallons.
Average consumption of water in spring, summer and part of fall seasons of 1358, 5,100,649 U. S. gallons. Capacity of reser- voir at 21 feet 6 inches depth, 5,981,518 gallons.
Consumption of coal in 1858, 114,600 bushels. Cost of coal in 1858, 811,460.
20 inch pipe, 18,340 feet ; 10 inch, 29,790; 8 inch, 11,850 ; 3, 4 and 5, 333,497 ; total amount of pipe laid, 393,477 feet.
The amount of pipe laid in 1858-20 inch, 1,250 feet; 10 inch, 8,190 ; 4 inch, 23,168 ; total in 1858, 32,608 feet; making over 74% miles laid, up to this time.
Whole number of hydrants, 10,679 ; number of hydrants out of use, 967 ; in use January 1, 1859, 9,812.
350
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
THE CEMETERY OF SPRING GROVE.
This "Necropolis," city of the dead, is situated in the beautiful valley of Mill creek, four miles north of Cincinnati, near what was known, in the pioneer era of this country, as Ludlow's Station. it contains 280 acres, 267 being north of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad, and inclosed with a hedge of osage orange, and platted and laid off into sections and lots, for the purposes of sepulture ; and thirteen acres south of the railroad, and bounded by Mill creek, which are used for the convenience of the work- men employed about the premises.
The cemetery is laid out in the landscape style, and the princi- pal avenues, which are of the liberal width of twenty feet, made to conform to the undulating and picturesque features of the grounds. A more beautiful spot for the purpose could scarcely have been selected.
From a recent report of the trustees, the grounds and improve- ments, up to the first of December last, had cost $227,580, and the improvements by individuals on their own lots, amounted to about as much more. Over twelve miles of avenues had been opened and graded. The number of lot owners is two thousand four hundred and sixty-six.
Officers-R. Buchanan, president ; Cyrus Davenport, secretary; D. H. Horne, treasurer.
Directors -- R. Buchanan, J. P. Foote, W. B. Smith, A. H. Ernst, S. C. Parkhurst, G. K. Shoenberger, D. H. Horne, Peter Neff, and William Resor.
Henry Earnshaw, superintendent; Adolphus Strauch, landscape gardener.
Office, Melodeon Building, corner of Walnut and Fourth streets.
This cemetery has now become one of the most attractive ob- jects to strangers visiting Cincinnati. More than fifty-two hun- dred persons on foot, thirty-two hundred carriages, and seventy- three hundred buggies passed through the entrance gate of these grounds during the past year. Among the latest improvements is an artificial lake of six acres in extent, fed by springs at the north with a descent of 1.10 feet, which will afford a splendid jet d'eau, soon to be constructed. A pair of English swans, pre- sented by George Selves, give animation and add beauty to the sur- face of the lake.
351
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
Within the last eight or ten years, a marked improvement in the style of our public buildings has become manifest, and there is now no city in the west that can exhibit so many of a first class in beauty, magnitude and convenience.
Of those longest erected, are St. Peter's Roman Catholic Cathe- dral, the First and Seventh Presbyterian, St. John's-Episcopal- churches, House of Refuge, Hughes and Woodward High Schools. Of the latest built, are the National Theatre, Pike's Opera House -this last being, by the testimony of one of our citizens who has traveled extensively for many years, the finest public building put up out of private resources in the whole world -- the Central Presbyterian church and the Masonic temple. Among these might be ranked Carlisle's building and Shillito's store, which, although occupied as stores and offices merely, have hardly any rivals in their line in any of the eastern cities.
The United States public edifices-the custom house and post of- fice building, and the marine hospital, are also admirable buildings, notonly as respects their exteriors, but for the inside construction and arrangements. Two of these various edifices referred to are illus- trated in this volume by engravings, which it may be well to ac- company by a detailed description.
The Hughes High School. No cost of labor has been spared to render this building a perfect adaptation of means to ends. The style and order are collegiate Gothic.
It has been built facing Mound street, whose southern termina- tion is immediately opposite, and occupies a space sixty-six by ninety feet upon the ground, and seventy-seven feet to the square, and eighty-five feet to the comb of the roof, in height-a parallelo- gram in shape, flanked at the corners by octagon towers, which give a spirited and novel effect.
The first and second floors are arranged for eight recitation rooms, each thirty-three feet square, and fifteen feet high. The third story will constitute a lecture and exhibition room, entire, as needed for either purpose. . It is twenty fect in height, and finished in the handsomest style. A hall, sixty-six by thirty-three feet for philosophical experiments and scientific illustrations, forms one half of the basement. The other half will be the depository of
352
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
wood, coal, etc. Each floor of the towers already alluded to, will afford committee rooms for the trustees, or withdrawing rooms for teachers or lecturers, as the case may be.
The outer walls above the basement are twenty inches thick, the partitions sixteen inches. The buttresses around the building are in thickness four feet. The joists are all trussed with oak, and the floors are of yellow pine, laid double, so that as little sound as pos- sible shall be created by walking through the halls. Every open- ing to the building is arched, the outer doors being three inches thick. There is one main entrance in front and one at each side, and the passages and stairs being broad and direct, afford every facility for escape in case of fire. The roof being metallic, adds security in this respect, as regards exposure to fire from buildings adjacent.
The inside woodwork is stained pine, which finishes beautifully, and the inner doors all have mortise locks. The school rooms are warmed by hot air, and thoroughly ventilated by modern apparatus for that purpose.
That no proper expense has been spared in this edifice may be inferred from the fact that the stairs alone cost five hundred dol- lars. The lot on which it stands cost eighteen thousand dollars, and the school house twenty-two thousand dollars more. There is no building in Cincinnati of equal extent, solidity, capacity and fin- ish, which has cost as little. In this amount is included all the out door work, paving, front fence, and finishing the grounds.
The elevation and exposure of this edifice are such as to secure during the most intense heats of summer a constant current of air from outside. These are almost always from the southwest, fol- lowing the course of the river, and its adjacent low grounds, as a funnel. The prospect, south and west, from the upper rooms of the school house, is of unrivaled range and beauty.
The building on the left hand side, at the edge of the school house, is the fine family mansion of one of our old citizens, Henry Brachmann.
The Masonic Temple. The new Masonic temple now in pro- gress of erection on the northeast corner of Third and Walnut streets, when finished will be one of the finest specimens of archi- tecture of its kind in the Union. It was commenced in the spring of 1858, and if the work is not delayed, it will be completed within two years from the present time. So much has been constructed
353
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
upon its Third street front, as will give an idea of the general de- sign and final appearance of this splendid structure, and the en- graving of it in this volume will render that appearance more dis- tinct and complete.
It fronts 195 feet on Third street by 100 feet on Walnut; the two fronts composed entirely of freestone. The height will be four stories, the first fifteen feet in the clear, the second fourteen feet, the third eighteen, and the fourth twenty-two feet. Entire height of the edifice, eighty-five feet; of the spire of the main tower, 180 feet; of the other two, 140 feet. The style of the architec- ture is Byzantine.
The two lower stories will be devoted to business purposes, and rented out as bankers', brokers' and other offices, while the frater- nity will occupy the third and fourth for masonic purposes.
In the third story will be a chapter room 28 by 49 feet; a royal select council room 21 by 42 feet ; a library 20 by 28 feet ; a ban- quet hall 21 by 58 fect; a knights templars' encampment asylum 28 by 38 feet 4 inches ; a knights templars' royal arch council room, 24 feet 4 inches by 28 feet 8 inches ; - a Persian court, 18 feet by 42 feet 9 inches; the stair case occupying a space of 20 by 28 feet, and thirteen smaller rooms, to be used as parlors, janitor's rooms, bed rooms, etc.
In the fourth story there will be a Grand Lodge room, 42 feet 9 inches by 70 fect; an entered apprentice's lodge room, 28 by 60 feet ; a fellowcraft's lodge room, 28 by 56 feet ; a master mason's lodge room, 28 by 56 feet, and nine ante-rooms, three bed rooms, wash rooms, water closets, etc. All the principal rooms will be provided with regalia closets.
The roof will be of tin, a high pitched mansard roof ornamented with dormer windows.
The main entrance will be through a grand archway on the Third street front.
The temple is estimated to cost one hundred and fifty thousand dohars. Hamilton & Mclaughlin, architects.
Among the more recent erections in Cincinnati, are the post- office and custom house, at the corner of Fourth and Vine streets, and the marine hospital, at the corner of Lock and Sixth streets, both constructed at the expense of thic United States government.
The marine hospital has just been finished. It is a handsome, though not elaborately ornamented edifice, 100 feet square, of
354
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
Italian facade, with verandahs on front and sides, erected upon a two acre lot, and constructed principally of stone, brick and iron, and is the most thoroughly fire-proof building in the State. It is warmed and ventilated and supplied with all the modern improvements for the health and comfort of the inmates. Every floor in the building is arched, the arches springing from wrought iron beams, resting upon the walls.
It will accommodate 250 patients.
Thomas M. Bodley, constructing superintendent.
CINCINNATI GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMPANY.
CAPITAL, $1,000,000.
Incorporated by special act of the Legislature of Ohio, April 3, 1837, and chartered by ordinance of the city council of Cincin- nati, June 16, 1841.
President, James II. Caldwell ; President, pro tem., Henry J. Miller.
Directors-James HI. Caldwell, Henry J. Miller, Wm. S. Cald- well, Reuben R. Springer, James H. Caldwell, Jr.
Secretary, William L. Clarke. Foreman of works, John West- wood. Clerk of works, S. S. Stratton. Inspector of Meters and fitting department, Alfred Hopper. Inspector of street lamps, Thos. L. Gaussen. Engineer and Superintendent, John Jeffrey.
Office, No. 269 Vine street. Gas works, Front street, between Rose and Mill streets.
The Cincinnati gas works were originally put into operation on January 14, 1843, under the auspices of James F. Conover and James H. Caldwell, since which time the works have grown with the growth of the city, and become an extensive institution. with a large number of stockholders. The gas works now in operation and in progress of construction, will be capable of producing and supplying 1,500,000 cubic feet of gas per diem. The main pipes laid in the streets measure 55 miles, of diameters varying from 16 inches to 2 inches. The number of consumers is 1,659, and the number of public street lamps is 1,657. The company's pay roll shows an average of 250 men constantly employed in the manu- facture and distribution of gas, in addition to the large contracts for castings, buildings, pipe laying, coal, etc., etc. ; thus giving cir
355
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
culation annually to a large sum of money, and employment to sup- port a considerable population. The company pays an annual tax upward of $11,000, and the land occupied by the gas works is over three and one half acres.
FIRE DEPARTMENT.
Cincinnati, like her sister cities at the east, originally employed volunteer companies for the extinguishment of fires, and for sev- eral years here, as well as there, the noble emulation of these as- sociations in efforts to preserve property and life, developed . many daring and heroic deeds. But as the older members became less fit for active service, by the lapse of years and demands in other employments for their time and labors, the institution had, as else- where, gradually and silently fell into the hands of boys, compar - atively, and the same scenes of strife, disorder and dissipation marked our fire department which have disgraced Baltimore, Phil- adelphia and other eastern cities. Fire riots, as they have been called, attended many instances in which the different engines were called into service, and in several cases violence and even murder were the result.
It was also discovered, in the progress of this state of things, that the numbers and esprit de corps of the fire department; made the members an element capable of being moulded by politicians to their own ends for election purposes. The engine houses be- came places of resort of evenings and on the Sabbath, not only of a large share of the members, but of their acquaintances, and every species of immorality was the consequence. Orderly citi- zens who deplored this state of things could perceive no remedy for it, while they feared it would become worse and worse in the future.
A few individuals, prominent among whom were James II. Walker, at the time a trustee to the city council from the fifth ward, did not, however, despair of effecting a reform, although they were fully aware of the obloquy, pecuniary loss and personal danger which had to be incurred in the effort. Just at this juncture, the inven- tion of the steam fire engine brought the question of reform to an issue, by affording a starting point to it.
Mr. Walker and his associates in council advocated the intro 30
356
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
duction of these engines, and the adoption of the pay system for firemen, which was its natural result. Violent was the opposition in and out of doors. All the baser passions of those interested in perpetuating the existing evils, were aroused. Incendiary and anonymous letters were received by those actively engaged in the reform, especially by Mr. Walker, uttering atrocious threats in case the proposed measures were carried into effect. The movement itself was feebly supported or even discountenanced by those who at first seemed disposed to co-operate, but who were now intimi. dated by the violence of their opponents. But, nothing daunted or discouraged by these difficulties, the advocates of reform met, and having agreed upon the details of the new system, and having drawn up an ordinance in conformity to the proposed measure, they resolved to put it through without alteration or amendment, at the ensuing meeting of the council. It was accordingly introduced, when every artifice was resorted to for the purpose of delaying, if not defeating, the ordinance, which after a stormy and obstinate de- bate, was put to the vote, carried, and without unnecessary delay put into operation.
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