USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > The Cincinnati miscellany, or, Antiquities of the West, and pioneer history and general and local statistics. Volume II > Part 29
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Did I say licenscd ;- I retract the statement. The case is worse. The license has expired, and the circus is permitted to torment the living and the dying, without even the consolation to our just and equitable City Solons that they have the money obtained at such a price, in the City Treasury !!
All this is done in the name of equal rights!
The State Bank of Ohio.
It may be matter of interest to the business public to learn the names of the Branches of this institution and its officers, as the notes will soon form the great body of our circulating medium.
Ten Branches are at present organized. The riotes of like denominations in all the Branchies
are from the same plate, engraved by TOPPAN, CARPENTER & Co., of Cincinnati. Their general phraseology thus: " THE STATE BANK OF OHIO will pay to bearer Five Dollars on demand at the
Branch in
Cashier. President.
The name of the Brancli and its location are inserted with the pen. All are signed by G. Swan, President of the Board of Control, and countersigned by the Cashies of the respective Branches; as follows:
Franklin Branch in Cincinnati-T. M. Jack- son, Cashier.
Mechanics' and Traders' Branch in Cincinnati 'S. S. Rowe, Cashier.
Exchange Branch in Columbus-H. M. Hub- bard, Cashier.
Franklin Branch in Columbus-James Espy, Cashier.
Merchants' Branch in Cleveland-Prentiss Dow, Cashier.
Chillicothe Branch in Chillicothe-J. S. At- wood, Cashier:
Xenia Branch in Xenia-F. F. Drake, Cashier.
· Dayton Branch in Dayton-David Z. Pierce, Cashier.
Delaware Branch in Delaware-B. Powers; Cashier.
Jefferson Branch in Steubenville-D. Moodey, Cashier.
Miami University."
A pamphlet comprising the addresses delivered at the late inauguration of Professor M'Master, as President of the Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, has been left on my table, by the publisher, I suppose. Cincinnati contributed no less than® three addresses to the days .service, one of which only appears in print-that of Edward Woodruff, Esq., one of its trustees, and if I mistake not, a graduate of that institution. Rev. N. L. Rice, and J. W. Taylor of the Cincinnati bar, delivered the others.
Mr. Woodruff's address evidences the good sense and sound judgment which characterises the writer. It abounds in valuable suggestions, of which a few follow :---
" My object is not to discourage the study of the ancient languages or lessen their value as a branch of classic learning; but rather to elevate the modern sciences and languages to their true importance. . Any one who will examine the course of studies prescribed in most of the colle- ges and universities of the United States, will
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readily perceive that the study of the ancient classics receives much the greater share of atten- tion, while the modern sciences and living lan- guages, are matters of secondary consideration. If the one or the other must be neglected, either from the want of time or any other cause, let the ancients give way to the moderns."
"Another important advantage to be derived from a more general introduction of the modern sciences into the regular course of instruction, is, that they furnish new fields for the exercise of the powers of the mind, which exist in so many diversified forms, in different individuals. By ele- vating the sciences of agriculture, civil engi- neering, geology, political science, modern lan- guages, and others of practical application, to their proper standard, so as to render them inde- pendent objects of honourable pursuit, it would greatly tend to equalize the genius and tal- ent of the country, and prevent that unnatu- ral and unprofitable rush which is constantly made into the ranks of law, medicine, and di- vinity. This immense mis-application of talent calls loudly for reform. Many who would with- in their appropriate spheres become highly useful members of society, often become mere fungi upon the body politic, wasting the best portion of their lives in slothful inactivity."
" The genius of the present age, differs essen- tially from that of classic antiquity. It is em- phatically the age of money getting, or in one sensc, the golden age. Almost every public and private action has for its end, pecuniary consid- erations, in some shape; and yet it is difficult to separate this feeling from those beneficial results which its influence exerts over the inventive faculties of man. It is said that knowledge is power, and yet we not unfrequently see that the power of money controls that of knowledge. It realizes, in no small degree, the idea of the archimedean lever. If indeed it were more lib- erally applied to useful purposes; if it were more frequently used in the endowment of colleges, and seminaries, and in furnishing them with libra- ries, philosophical apparatus, and the other ap- pliances; if it were made subservient to the uni- versal spread of knowledge and religion, it might indeed be considered a most substantial blessing.
" The evils, however, consequent upon so in- ordinate a thirst for wealth, are its tendency to contract the expansive qualities of the heart and its abridgment of all the moral and social virtues. Yet with these acknowledged and obvious con- sequences before them, men still press on, even at the age of threescore years and ten, to the ac- cumulation of still greater wealth; and, doubt- less, it will always be more fashionable to cen- sure the evil, than to take the lead in reforming it. To counteract so morbid an appetite, there is no better expedient than the cultivation of a literary taste; it expands and liberalizes all the better qualities of the head and heart; it is an ac- complishment in society, a companion in soli- tude, a friend in adversity, and an ornament in old age."
whole annual attendance of students in all these does not exceed onc thousand individuals.
The inaugural address of President M'Master, I shall not undertake to review. His Latin and Greek, arc here paraded with a frequency which leads me to doubt his English scholarship, having made it a rule through life to distrust the pretensions of an author who shelters hinisclf continually from the scrutiny of English read- crs, behind the thick shades of learned languages.
Seriously, if the Professor's intellect is not clearer in his Latin and Greek, than in his Eng- lish, there is nothing lost to the popular reader, for his pcdantry is insufferable, even in a pre- ceptor by trade. I fear that Dr. M'Master is not the man to preside over this University, which the character of the west and of the age in which we live demands; that he wants the grand preeminent qualification, good sense, without which all other qualifications are of little value, and which, in the language of the poet, is
"Although no science, fairly worth the seven."
The Mother and her Family.
Philosophy is rarely found. The most perfect sample I ever met, was an old woman, who was apparently the poorest and most forlorn of the human species; so true is the maxim which all profess to believe, and none act upon invariably, viz., that all happiness does not depend on out- ward circumstances. The wise woman to whom I have alluded, walks to Boston, a distance of twenty or thirty miles, to sell a bag of brown thread and stockings, and then patiently walks back again with her little gains. Her dress, though tidy, is a grotesque collection of " shreds and patches," coarse in the extreme.
" Why don't you come down in a wagon?" said I, when I observed she was wearied with her long journey.
" We han't got any horse," she replied; " the neighbours are very kind to me, but they can't spare their'n, and it would cost as much to hire one as all my thread would come to."
" You have a husband-don't he do any thing for you?"
" He is a good man-he does all he can, but he's a cripple and an invalid. He reels my yarn and mends the children's shoes. He's as kind a husband as a woman need have."
" But his being a cripple is a heavy misfortune to you," said I.
" Why, ma'am, I don't look upon it in that light," replied the thread woman. " I consider that I have great reason to be thankful that he never took to any bad habits."
" How many children have you?"
" Six sons and five daughters, ma'am."
" Six sons and five daughters! What a family . for a poor woman to support!"
" It's a family, surely, ma'am; but there ain't one of 'em that I'd be willing to lose. They are all as healthy children as need to be-all willing to work and all clever to me. Even the littlest boy when he gets a cent now and then for doing an errand is sure to bring it to me."
I learn incidentally by this address three facts. That the alumni of the Miami University in the twentieth year of its existence, amount to three hundred and sixty-two, and that there are twen- ty-one chartered institutions of learning, nine of " Do your daughters spin your thread?" which are in successful operation, with an ag- "No, ma'am; as soon as they are big enough gregate endowment of $1,500,000 yearly. The 'they go out to service, as I don't want to keep
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them always delving for me; they are always wil- ling to give me what they can; but it's right and fair that they should do a little for them- selves. I do all my spinning after the folks are a-bed."
" Don't you think you should be better off, if you had no one but yourself to provide for?"
" Why no, ma'am, I don't. If I had'nt been married I should always had to work as I could, and now I can't do more than that. My chil- dren arc a great comfort to me, and I look for- ward to the time when they'll do as much for me as I have done for them."
Here was true philosophy! I learned a les- son from that poor woman which I shall not soon forget.
'The Miami Valley Settlements.
It is hardly possible for those who are now living in Cincinnati, in the enjoyment of every comfort and luxury which money can procure, to form any notion of the privations which were suffered by the hardy settlers of the west, the pioncers of the Miami Valleys among others. Fifty-five years ago the condition of the great thoroughfares to the west-of the route across the Allegheny Mountains especially-was such as to forbid taking by the emigrants any articles but those of indispensible necessity, for a six horse road wagon, at a slow gait, could not take more than what would now be considered, over a McAdamized road, a load for two horses. When the pioneer westward had reached Redstone or Wheeling, the difficulties of transportation were not much lessened. There were no wagon roads through the intermediate country, if the hostility of the implacable savage had per- mitted traversing the route by land in safety; and the family boats which carried the settlers down were so encumbered with wagons, horses, cows, pigs, &c., as to have little room for any thing else but a few articles of family house- keeping of the first necessity. On reaching their · destination, cabins had to be erected, the land cleared and cultivated, and the crop gathered in, in the presence, as it werc, of the relentless sav- age, who watched every opportunity of destroy- ing the lives of the settlers, and breaking up the lodgments as fast as made. In the meantime, supplies of food not yet raised on the improve- ment, had to be obtained in the woods from · hunting, which in most cases was a constant cx- posure of life to their Indian enemies. Under thesc circumstances some general idea may be conceived of the sufferings and privations which those endured, who formed the van guard of civilization, and prepared the way for the present generation to enjoy the fruit of past labours and sufferings. But it is not so easy, without some specifications such as I shall furnish here, to realise the nature and extent of the privations of individuals who, in many cases, abandoned com- fortable homes and the enjoyment of civilized
life, at the call of duty. Especially was this the case in respect to several of the pioneer mothers.
A few notes from the recollections of one of the survivors, probably the only one of the party who landed with Major Stites at Columbia, a venerable lady of seventy-five, whose family have borne a conspicuous part in the civil, po- litical, military, and religious history of the Mi- ami Valley, will possess my readers of a more distinct idea of these sacrifices and privations, than they could otherwise acquire.
My informant was born and brought up in New York, her parents being in prosperous cir- cumstances. Her husband, who was a surveyor, liad been for some time in delicate health, and concluded to accompany Major Stites to his set- tlement at the mouth of the Little Miami. At this place, where they landed on the 18th Nov., 1788, and to which the settlers gave the name of Columbia, two or three block houses were first erected for the protection of the women and children, and log cabins were built without delay for occupation by the several families. The boats in which they came down from Limestone being broken up, served for floors, doors, &c., to these rude buildings. Stites and his party had riven out clapboards while they were detained at Maysville, which being taken down to Colum- bia, enabled the settlers to cover their houses without delay. The fact that the Indians were generally gathered to Fort Harmar, at the mouth of Muskingum, for the purpose of making a treaty with the whites, contributed also to the temporary security of the new settlement. Lit- tle, however, could be done beyond supplying present sustenance for the party from the woods. Wild game was abundant, but the bread stuffs they took with them soon gave out; and supplies of corn and salt were only to be obtained at a dis- tance, and in deficient quantities, and various roots taken from the indigenous plants, the bear grass especially, had frequently to be resorted to as articles of food. When the spring of 1789 opened, their situation promised gradually to im- prove. The fine bottoms on the Little Miami had been long cultivated by the savages, and were found mellow as ashheaps. The men worked in divisions, one half keeping guard with their rifles while the others worked, chang- ing their employments morning and afternoon. My informant had brought out a looking glass boxed up, from the cast, and the case being mounted on a home made pair of rockers, served for the first cradle in the settlement. It had pre- viously been set across a barrel to do duty as a table. Individuals now living in Cincinnati were actually rocked during their infancy in sugar troughs.
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It was with difficulty horses could be pre- served from being stolen, by all the means of protection to which the settlers could resort. In the family to which this lady belonged, the halter chains of the horses were passed through between the logs and fastened to stout looks on the inside. But neither this precaution nor se- curing them with hobbles would always serve to protect horses from the savages. On one oc- casion a fine mare with her colt had been left in the rear of the house in a small enelosure. The mare was taken off by Indians, they having se- eured her by a stout buffalo tug. It appears they had not noticed the colt in the darkness of the night. As they rode her off, the colt sprang tlie fence after the mare, and made such a noise gal- loping after, that supposing themselves pursued, they let the mare go lest she should impede their escape, and the family inside of the house knew nothing of the danger to which they had been exposed until the buffalo tug told the night's ad- venture. On another occasion, several families who had settled on the face of the hill near where Col. Spencer afterwards resided, at a spot called Morristown, from one Morris, the principal in- dividual in the settlement, had hung out clothes to dry. Early in the evening a party of Indi- ans prowling around made a descent and carried off every piece of clothing left out, nor was the loss discovered until the families were about to retire for the night. Pursuit was made and the trail followed for several miles, when arriving at the place where the savages had encamped, it was found deserted, the enemy being panic struck, and having abandoned all to effect their escape. The plunder was recovered, but not ull- til the Indians had raveled out the coverlets to make belts for themselves. But many of the set- tlers encountered more serious calamities than loss of property. James Seward had two boys massacred by the savages, and James Newell, one of the most valuable of the settlers at Colum- bia, shared a similar fate. Hinkle and Covalt, two of the settlers on Round Bottom, a few miles up the Miami, were shot dead in front of their own cabins, while engaged hewing logs.
In November, 1789, a flood on the Ohio oc- curred of such magnitude as to overflow the lower part of Columbia to such a height as first to drive the soldiers at one of the block houses up into the loft and then out by the gable to their boat, by which they crossed the Ohio to the hills on the opposite side. One house, only, in Colum- bia, remained out of water. The loss of prop- erty, valuable in proportion to its scarcity and the difficulty of replacing it, may be readily con- jectured. Honour to the memories of those who at such cost, won as an inheritance for their suc- cessors the garden spot of the whole world.
Stove and Grate Manufacture.
A visit to W. & R. P. Resor's Foundry, on Plum street, has put me in possession of various interesting statistics, on a very important and extensive branch of Iron Castings-the manufac- ture of Stoves, whichi forms an indispensible class of foundry operations, as well as a distinct de- partment of business in the sale of the article.
There are some thirty iron foundries in Cin- cinnati o various grades of importance, being nearly three times the number in existence at the census of 1840. And I shall confine my remarks at present to the operations of those engaged in the stove and grate manufacture, leaving the general casting business for a future article.
There are twelve foundries engaged in the manufacture exclusively, principally, or partially of these articles, two of which make grates en- tirely, and two others make stoves to a more or less extent, while their usual and more important business is general casting. These establish- ments are W. & R. P. Resor, Wolff & Brothers, Goodhue & Co., French & Winslow; Ball & Da- vis, Andrews, Haven & Co., Miles Greenwood, David Root, Horton & Baker, Bevan & Co., O. G. De Groff and Thomas S. Orr.
Having been familiar for years with the busi- ness of Messrs. Resor, which is probably the heaviest one of the number, I shall reserve what details I have to make on the subject as applying more especially to their operations, and close these statistics with a general view of the stove casting business at large.
Resors' establishment, including tenements for fifteen families, occupies a space of ground two hundred feet square. They have additional ground for depositing coke across Plum street. The blowing apparatus, with chimney and facing mills, are driven by a steam engine of eight horse power. The blowing apparatus was put up by Messrs. Holabird & Burns, and consists of a cyl- inder thirty inches in diameter and thirty-two inch stroke, and is capable of melting with ease three tons per hour with two cupolas, which are used, taking the melted iron from each alternate- ly. The finishing shops and storing rooms are in 3 three story brick buildings of fifty-four feet front by seventy feet in depth. There are now, and have been during the year past, employ- ed seventy-three hands, who make on the aver- age one hundred and eighty stoves and three tons hollow ware weekly, or an annual aggregate of one thousand tons or two million pounds cast- ings. Six to seven tons pig metal are melted daily in the establishment, and its consumption of coal exceeds eighteen thousand bushels. Elev- en additional hands are employed over the sale rooms in trimming, blacking, packing, &c., the stoves for maket.
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1.49
'The whole of this prodigious amount of melt- ing is through daily in three hours. No castings are made here but for the proprietors' own use or sales. The firm pays out about $500 in wa- ges per week, and since the first of last January, the hands are paid off every Monday, to the mu- tual advantage of employed and employers. No running accounts are kept in the establishment. One statistic, not exactly in the casting line, I will add by stating that there is a child born on the premises every month in the year, for scveral years past.
Messrs. Resor were the first to introduce the neat and light patterns of stoves and hollow ware now so universally prevalent, and to dem- onstrate to others that stoves could be made in Cincinnati for the west, cheaper as well as of bet- ter materials-the pig iron of the Scioto region under the hot blast process-than at any other point on the Ohio.
Two thirds of the stoves made at these foun- dries are what are termed cooking stoves. For these there is an increasing demand, which will not slacken until every farmer in the land is sup- plied, economy in labour as respects providing wood, being as important to the husbandman as economy in the purchase of that article is to the city resident. There are not less than forty-five thousand stoves manufactured yearly in Ciucin- nati, thirty thousand of which are regular cook- ing stoves of various patterns and construction. The value of these articles, including the gratc operations is five hundred and twelve thousand dollars annually, a business and product heavier than any city in the United States can exhibit, unless it be Albany and perhaps Troy, the great fountains of supply in this line for New York and the New England States. There are four hundred and thirty-five hands employed in these twelve establishments, on stoves, grates and hol- low warc.
CORRESPONDENCE. The Jews in America.
MR. C. CIST:
In a former number I promised, if it should be considered interesting to your readers, to con- tinue an article respecting the statistics, loca- tions, and reminiscences of " God's ancient peo- ple the Israclites,"-extending the view to the whole nation disperscd throughout the world. It is well ascertained that previous to 1816, the Jewish people were not known to have located in the Mississippi Valley ; and for several years sub- sequent, they were considered as a strange sight; -but it was necessary to the fulfilment of Prophecy, that the " dispersed of Israel " should inhabit every clime. There are supposed at this time to be in the city and its environs, about two
thousand five hundred Israelites; and it is a mat- ter of notoriety, that where the Jewish people are well received, that nation or city becomes happy and prosperous, and vice versa, that country or people who persecute and plunder them, are pun- ished in an exemplary manner. What has been the end of the enemies of Israel? "That they pcrish for ever!" I need not quote historical reminiscences! There are some singular and remarkable facts appertaining to this people in all their locations; in being good and peaceable citizens, seeking the welfare and prosperity of the country in which they reside; not anxious to spread the tencts of their religion among the na- tions; but looking forward to the time when " all shall know the truth." According to their num- bers, less crime is committed among them than any other class of people. Drunkards and pau- pers are seldom known among them: they are cleanly and abstemious in their habits and diet. In one of the congregations of this city, compo- sed of more than eight hundred persons of all ages, there has not been a death during the past year! Very few of the towns in the west but what have more or less of them located at this period, and increased numbers are constantly emigrating from Europe. Celebrated writers in making up statistics, have been constantly un- derrating the numbers of this people; and it has been generally supposed there were not more than four millions in the world; at the same time rating their numbers in the United States at only five thousand. As I proceed I shall prove to the satisfaction of your readers, that they are more numerous than in the most prosperous period of their history. In this number I shall merely al- lude to their settlement in America. The first settlement of Jews in the Western Hemisphere, was at the Island of Cayenne, under the protec- tion of the Dutch, in 1559. The French captu- red it in 1664. The Dutch inhabitants and Jews were obliged to quit. The latter went to Suri- nam, where they became a thriving settlement, having the full enjoyment and frec exercise of their religion, rites and customs, guarantied to them by the British Government. In 1667, Surinam was taken by the Dutch, the privileges of thic Jews confined to them, with all the rights of Dutch born subjects. They are now a con- siderable and highly respectable portion of the inhabitants of Surinam. In 1670, Jamaica and other West India Islands were visited, and con- siderable settlements of Jews formed, where they are now residing, being numerous, wealthy and respectable; enjoying all the privileges of citizens under the British Government, whose Colonies consequently have flourished. In 1683 the Jews were ordered to quit the French Colonies; and in 1685, all Jews found in the French Colonies
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