278 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
In 1840 the business of book publishing in Cincinnati was remarked by a local writer as already
"a department of industry and enterprise of great extent." Books to the number of more than a
quarter of a million were published here that year, of over half a million dollars in value, besides
about one million in school books. Michigan, Western Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and much of
the south, even to Texas, were supplied almost exclusively from Cincinnati. The large standard
works were much reprinted here—as Josephus, Gibbon, Rollin, and the like, besides Bibles in
great quantity, and many smaller publications, including some by Cincinnati authors.
Stereotyping was now much in vogue, and three or four houses were reputed to own a total value
of sixty thousand dollars in stereotype plates.
About 1850 the annual value of books published in Cincinnati was one million two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars ; 1858, two million six hundred thousand dollars. The number of volumes
published in 1858 was estimated at three million two hundred thousand. Nearly all the public
schools in the west were then supplied with text books from Cincinnati. In 1859 seventeen
publishing houses were in business here.
In 1850, Messrs. H. S. & J. Applegate & Co. began the business of bookselling and publishing, at
43 Main street. They went into the work with a great deal of energy, and quite extensively for
that time. Their first year's product included one thousand copies of Clarke's Commentary, in
four volumes; ten thousand of Dick's Works, two volumes ; four thousand Plutarch's Lives, three
thousand Rollin's Ancient History, two thousand Spectator, besides Histories of Texas, Oregon,
and California, and several other works, all together valued at sixty-two thousand five hundred
dollars. They were pub-lishers of Lyons's grammar, the Parley history series, and two music
books then popular—the Sacred Melodeon and the Sabbath Chorister.
About the same time Messrs. W. H. Moore & Co., of 118 Main street, who had been publishing
school books for eight years, entered the field as general publishers, issuing only foreign books at
first, as Hugh Miller's Foot-prints of the Creator and Anderson's Course of Creation. Mr. Cist
says:
These have attracted general and favorable notice at the east, as evidences that books can be got
up in the west, as regards paper, printing, and binding, in a style not inferior to those in the east,
and that miscellaneous literature can be published to advantage in Cincinnati, although a contrary
opinion prevails in our Atlantic cities.
J. F. Desilver, also a publishing bookseller, at 122 Main street—which street seems to have been
to Cincinnati in those days what Nassau street was to New York—made a specialty of medical
and law books, publishing, among other valuable works, in royal octavo, Worcester on
Cutaneous Diseases, Hope's Pathological Anatomy, and Harrison's Therapeutics. All these were
beautifully illustrated with lithographs, executed in the city.; the last named, in all particulars of
mechanical execution, was believed to rank with any eastern publication of its class.
J. A. & U. P. James were issuing Gibbon's Rome, the Libraries of American History and of
General Knowledge, Dick's theology, family Bibles, and the like, in large numbers. Within two
years they had published fourteen thousand copies of Hughes's Doniphan Expedition.
E. Morgan & Co., 111 Main street, issued within the year twenty thousand family Bibles, fifteen
thousand copies of Josephus, ten thousand of the life of Tecumseh, one hundred thousand
Webster's spelling books, ten thousand Walker's school dictionary, and other books in
considerable quantity—all together worth fifty-four thousand dollars.
WESTERN METHODIST BOOK CONCERN.
The first Methodist book concern in this country was founded in Philadelphia by the General
conference of 1787. It was removed to New York in 1804, and its profits were mainly devoted to
the enlargement of its facilities for publication, instead of the maintenance of Cokesbury college
and other schools, as theretofore. In 1820 a branch concern was located in Cincinnati, to supply
the States west of the Alleghanies with Methodist books. It found a modest home in a little office
on the corner of Fifth and Elm streets, to which the stranger was guided by the words on a rude
sign of trifling dimensions, "Methodist Book Room." The agent in charge was Rev. Martin
Ruter, afterwards president of Alleghany college and a pioneer preacher of his faith in Texas,
where he finally laid down his life. Dr. Ruter printed a Scriptural Catechism and Primer during
his connection with the branch, but it was on his own account, as he was not expected or allowed
to publish any-thing in the name or at the risk of the concern. He received a little more than four
thousand dollars the first year, which was considered a very fair business for that day, and
remained in office until 1828, when his term expired by limitation, and he was succeeded, by
election of the General conference, by the Rev. Charles Holliday. Finley's Sketches of Western
Methodism, which supplies us the earlier facts of this sketch, says:
" In that small store, had the inquiry been made, there might have been found the works of
Wesley, Fletcher, Clark, and Coke, together with the Journals of Asbury and Hymn-book and
Discipline. There also one might have subscribed for the Christian Advocate and Zion's Herald,
and, had he desired to become more intimately acquainted with the condition and prospects of
the church, he might have obtained a copy of the General Minutes.
Agent Holliday secured a house for his residence on George street, between Race and Elm, and
used the front room for the depository of the Concern. After two years here the store was
removed to a stone building on the northwest corner of Baker and Walnut streets. Mr. Henry
Shaffer, who is still living (February, 1881) in Cincinnati, was then a clerk in the office. The new
location was better for business than the other, and the General conference of 1832 appointed the
Rev. John S. Wright assistant agent and directed removal to a still more eligible site, which was
found on the west side of Main street, a little above Sixth, in the store-building of Mr. Josiah
Lawrence. Operations widened year by year, and the branch proved a most efficient auxiliary in
sup-plying the west and south with Methodist literature. The demand for Hymn-books and
Disciplines was particularly large, and about 1833 a beginning of the magnificent
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 279
line of publications of what became the Western Book Concern was made, under permission of
the New York Concern, by the issue of an edition of these books. Next year, in the spring of
1834, the Western Christian Advocate was started under its auspices, with the Rev. (afterwards
Bishop) Thomas A. Morris as editor.
"In 1836," says Mr. Finley, "the General conference struck out of the discipline the provision
which limited the office of book agent to eight years, and the agents of the Western Book
Concern were not required to act any longer in a subordinate capacity to the New York Book
Concern, but to 'co-operate with them.' They were also authorized to publish any book in the
general catalogue when, in their judgment and that of the book committee, it would be
advantageous to the interests of the church; provided that they should not publish type editions of
such books as were stereotyped at New York."
Revs. J. F. Wright and L. Swormstedt were elected agents. They were further authorized to set up
a printing office and bindery, and, after much consultation and the requisite approval of the book
committee, they purchased the old, historic lot on the southwest corner of Main and Eighth
streets, upon which still stands the brick mansion, now almost a wreck, said to have been built in
1806 by General Arthur St. Clair, formerly governor of the Northwest Territory. A printing office
was erected on the rear of this lot, four stories high, and otherwise on a spacious scale. Here the
first book print-ed by the concern from manuscript was Phillips' Stricures, whose publication was
requested by the Ohio Conference. Then followed The Wyandot Mission, Power on
Universalism, Shaffer on Baptism, Ohio Conference Offering, Morris' Miscellany, Memoir of
Gurley, Lives of Quinn, Roberts, Collins, Wiley, Finley, and Gatch, and many other works of
renown in the Methodist churches. Duplicates of the stereotype plates held by the parent concern
in New York were sent out for many of the reprints.
In 1839 the Concern was chartered by the State legislature. In 184o, upon the re-election of
Messrs. Wright and Swormstedt, they were authorized to start a monthly magazine specially
adapted to female reading. This, the long famous Ladies' Repository (to which title the addition
"and Gatherings of the West" was made at first) appeared in January, 1841, with Rev. L. L.
Hamline, then assistant editor of the Advocate, as editor; and was continued with much success
until the close of 1880, when its publication, with that of the juvenile magazine, The Golden
Hours, ceased by order of the General Conference of that year.
The agents now, according to Mr. Finley, "had authority to publish any book which had not been
previously published by the agents in New York when, in their judgment and that of the book
committee, the demand for such publication would justify and the inter-est of the church required
it. They were, however, prohibited from reprinting any of the larger works, such as the
commentaries, quarto bibles, etc. They were also authorized to publish such books and tracts as
were re- commended by the General Conference, and any other works which the editors should
approve and the Book committee and the annual Conference recommend." A German Methodist
paper was now started, called Der Christliche Apologete, in charge of Rev. William Nast, who
receives more particular notice in our historic sketch of Methodism in Cincinnati.
It became necessary by and by to add further to the facilities possessed by the Concern. An
adjoining lot was bought, upon which was erected the main building for the Concern, six stories
high, fifty feet front, and over one hundred feet deep ; then still another building, of four stories,
occupied by stores, the rent of which added materially to the revenues of the Concern. These, by
the way, were at this time not kept at home, but, after payment of expenses, were remitted, as
largely and frequently as possible, to the full amount of stock furnished, whenever practicable, to
swell the profits of the New York Concern.
Rev. J. F. Wright resigned as principal agent in 1844. He was succeeded by L. Swormstedt,
promoted from assistant, and Rev. J. T. Mitchell was chosen for the sec-ond place, to which the
Revs. John Power and Adam Poe were successively and subsequently appointed.
Mr. Finley writes thus of the operations of the Book Concern:
We are informed by reliable authority that the amount of sales during the current year is greater
than at any former period, and greater than all the sales effected during many of the first years of
the existence of the Concern. In addition to the sales the Concern issues twenty-six thousand
copies of the Western Christian Advocate, eighteen thousand copies of the Ladies' Repository,
thirty thousand copies of the Sunday-School Advocate, six thousand copies of the Missionary
Advocate, and five thousand of the German Apologist. In view of what has been accomplished
during the thirty-four years of its existence, commencing with a small branch depository, and
gradually increasing to its present giant proportions as a wholesale establishment, what mind can
calculate its future expansion or the amount of good yet to be accomplished in this great work of
spreading a pure literature and a scriptural holiness over all these lands?
Rev. Dr. J. M. Walden, present agent of the Concern, in an article contributed to one of the New
York publications of the church, adds some interesting details and valuable statistics. We
republish it in full:
ITS ESTABLISHMENT.—lt did not develop from an individual enter-prise, but from the first
has been under the control of the church.
1. The general conference directed the agents of the Book Concern to open a branch in Cincinnati
in 1820 to meet the wants of the grow-ing church in the west. The preachers found it difficult to
secure books for themselves and their charges, because of the expense and delay in transporting
them from New York. The proposition to divide the busi-ness met with opposition, but
discussion satisfied the conference, largely composed of eastern delegates, that a book depository
in the west would be advantageous to the church and its publishing interests. Cin-cinnati was
chosen for the location, and Rev. Martin Ruter was elected the first agent.
2. At that time the Methodist Magazine was the only periodical of the church, and the list of
books was so limited that one room in the agent's dwelling was sufficient for the new enterprise.
The business steadily increased; and in a few years a bindery and printing-office were opened,
and it was found advantageous to ship printed sheets from New York and bind them in
Cincinnati.
3, After a probation of twenty years the Cincinnati branch, in 1840, was constituted an
independent house, and styled the Western Method-ist Book Concern, under which name it is
legally incorporated. , The business relations between it and the New Yolk Concern were fixed
by the general conference.
ITS EXPANSION.—The. growth of the church in the west made it
280 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
necessary to increase the facilities and enlarge the work of the Western Book Concern.
1. At first the printing was done on hand-presses, and little machinery was used in the bindery.
By the introduction of improved machinery the productive capacity of the publishing department
at Cincinnati is probably a hundred-fold what it was in 1840.
2. The merchandise department has been greatly increased in Cincinnati, and extended to other
points. The Chicago depository was opened in 1852, the St. Louis depository in 1860
(Sunday-school books were kept on sale there even earlier), the Atlanta depository in 1869, and
an "Advocate" established at each of these points by the order of the general conference.3.
3. A Methodist literature in the German language, including books and periodicals, has-been
created by the Western Book Concern, and a similar work in the Scandinavian has been begun.
4. The buildings now fully occupied by the business in Cincinnati cost above one hundred
thousand dollars in addition to the land. The depositories were not designed to serve a mere
temporary purpose ; hence the investment of capital for their accommodation in Chicago and St.
Louis. The growth of the Western Book Concern is shown by this: In April, 1840, its capital in
merchandise was thirty-nine thousand, one hundred and eleven dollars and sixty-seven cents ; in
the publishing department four thousand, three hundred and forty-nine dollars and five cents ;
total, forty-three thousand, four hundred and sixty dollars and seventy-two cents. On November
30, 1879, the capital in merchandise was one hundred and ninety-two thousand, six hundred and
ninety-one dollars and thirty-eight cents ; in the publishing department, one hundred and
eighty-seven thousand, four hundred and nine dollars and eighty-five cents ; total, three hundred
and eighty thousand, one hundred and one dollars and twenty-three cents. The total sales in 1840
were forty-eight thousand, six hundred and fifty dollars ; the total sales in 1879 were six hundred
and thirty-nine thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eight dollars.
ITS PRODUCTION AND CIRCULATION OF RELIGIOUS LITERATURE. — The list of
Western periodicals and the catalogue of books each shows the increase in the demand for
Methodist literature, and how fully it has been met.
1. The English periodicals were established in the following order Western Christian Advocate,
April, 1834 ; Ladies' Repository, January, 1841 ; Northwestern Christian Advocate, Chicago,
January, 1853 ; Central Christian Advocate, St. Louis, January, 1857 ; Methodist Advocate,
Atlanta, January, 1869 ; Golden Hours, January, 1869. The German : The Christian Apologist,
January, 1839; Sunday-School Bell, October, 1856 ; Bible Lessons, July, 1870 ; Home and
Hearth (Magazine), January, 1873 ; Little Folks, July, 1879. The Scandinavian paper, The
Sandebudet, January, 1863. The Sunday-School Advocate, Sunday-School Journal,
Sunday-School Classmate, Picture Lesson Paper, the Missionary Advocate during its existence,
have been and are printed in the West, as well as in the East, this being found economical in the
end. About fifty million copies of the Western Christian Advocate and twenty million copies of
the Christian Apologist have been printed and read.
2. Besides standard Methodist books printed in common with the New York Book Concern, the
Western Book Concern has published a large number of biographical, historical, doctrinal, and
miscellaneous works in English, valuable contributions to the literature of the church, among the
more recent of which are the works of Bishops Hamline, Clark, Thompson, Kingsley, Wiley, and
Merrill; Ecclesiastical Law, by Bishop Harris and Judge Henry; Systematic Theology, by Dr.
Raymond; History of the Christian Church, by Dr. Blackburn; Platform Papers, by Dr. Curry, etc.
The German publications, about two hundred different volumes, are produced exclusively by this
concern, and comprise the various classes of books needed by the preachers, the church and the
Sunday-school.
3. An estimate of the quantity of Methodist literature put in circulation by the Western Book
Concern may be made from its cash value. During the forty years the sales have aggregated:
Books seven million three hundred and ninety-five. thousand seven hundred and fourteen dollars
and seventy-two cents; periodicals, seven million three hundred and eighty thousand three
hundred and forty-five dollars and forty. seven cents; total, fourteen million seven hundred and
seventy-six thousand sixty dollars and nineteen cents. A computation of the number of volumes
or pages would be difficult, but the money value shows that this concern has been of vast service
to the church.
4. The great bulk of these sales has been made by the preachers. They carried the books to,the
homes of the people, solicited the names of subscribers to the periodicals, and introduced both
books and papers into Sunday-schools. No system of coiportage or other method could have
reached the people as has the plan of our church, made effective by the efforts of her pastors.
5. How much of this literature would have been circulated without the Western Book Concern ?
A direct answer cannot be given, but the establishment of depositories and papers at Boston,
Syracuse, Pittsburgh, etc., by the general conference, interprets the conviction of the church that
every interest is best served by having depots for her literature in the great commercial centres.
The sales of the Western Book Concern since 1852, when the Chicago depository was opened,
have been thirteen million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand one hundred and sixty-eight
dollars and twelve cents, of which those at Cincinnati have been eight million four hundred and
seventy-two thousand nine hundred and forty-five dollars and seventy-eight cents, and at her
depositories, five million five hundred and twenty-six thousand two hundred and twenty-two
dollars and thirty-four cents.
ITS FINANCIAL SUCCESS.
The large business of the Western Book Concern has, by small profit and economical
management, yielded a large aggregate profit, part of which has been added to the capital, part
paid out for the support of the bishops and other church purposes, and part expended in
maintaining papers, etc., ordered by the general conference.
1. April 1, 1840, the Western Concern owed the New York Concern one hundred and five
thousand one hundred and three dollars and fifty-six cents. This was canceled by the general
conference, which raised the net capital to one hundred and thirty thousand six hundred and three
dollars and sixty-six cents, showing a net gain from 1820 of at least twenty-five thousand five
hundred and ten dollars and ten cents. The net capital November 30, 1879, was four hundred and
seventy-four thousand one hundred and seventy-eight dollars and forty-seven cents, a gain of
three hundred and forty-three thousand five hundred and seventy-four dollars and eighty-one
cents since it became independent. The only drafts on the proceeds from 1840 to 1852 were the
dividend to annual conferences' and loss on German publications, most of which have been
remunerative for twenty-five years.
2, Since 1852, when the support of the bishops was placed on the Book Concerns and the
depository system began in the west, the drafts on the proceeds have been as follows : For the
church south, by ruling of the supreme court, one hundred and two thousand forty-seven dollars
and nine cents ; by order of general conference, for bishops, etc., one hundred and seventy-three
thousand five hundred and thirty-six dollars and sixteen cents ; direct loss by the Chicago fire,
one hundred and two thousand two hundred and twenty-one dollars and forty-eight cents ; and
losses on the Central Christian Advocate, Methodist Advocate, the Scandinavian papers, and the
Chicago Depository since the fire, one hundred and fifty-seven thousand one hundred and
thirty-six dollars and forty-nine cents ; a total of five hundred and thirty-four thousand nine
hundred and forty-one dollars and twenty-two cents ;,which shows an aggregate profit of eight
hundred and seventy-eight thousand five hundred and sixteen dollars on the business during the
forty years.
3. It is proper to state that the financial credit of the Western Concern has been steadily
maintained. Supplying books and papers on credit, and enlarging the business, have necessitated
large loans. These have been readily made. Its financial paper has never been protested, and in
the most stringent times its large corps of employes have been promptly paid. Since the late,
general conference it has issued six per cent. five-twenty bonds, and sold of them at par above
one hundred thousand dollars with which to liquidate liabilities heretofore bearing eight per cent.
interest. The productive capital, the past profits, and the credits of the Western Book Concern
indicate its success as a financial enterprise.
The Western Tract and Book society was organized in Cincinnati as the American Reform Tract
and Book society in November, 1852. Its underlying idea was the application through literature
of Christianity to the betterment of personal and national life in practical affairs, especially to the
promotion of the anti-slavery cause, while temperance and other reforms were not to be
neglected. The two noteworthy articles of the constitution were, as they still are, these:
ART. II. Its object shall be to promote the diffusion of divine truth, point out its application to
every known sin, and to promote the interests of practical religion by the circulation of a sound
evangelical literature,
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 281
ART. III. It will receive into its treasury none of the known fruits of iniquity nor the gains of the
oppressor.
The first officers of the society were: Rev. John Rankin, president; Rev. C. B. Boynton,
corresponding secretary; Rev. J. Cable, recording secretary; T. B. Mason, treasurer; Rev. A.
Benton, Rev. C. B. Boynton, J. K. Leavitt, J. Jolliffe, M. R. Coney, Joseph Burgoyne, Samuel
Lee, Dr. J. P. Walker, T. B. Mason, G. S. Stearns, A. S. Merrill, William Lee, directors. Of these
Messrs. Rankin, Boynton, Walker, and Mason are still living, most of them in Cincinnati. The
officers of the society last elected at this writing, are: Rev. B. P. Aydelott, D. D., president; Revs.
E. D. Morris, D. D., C. B. Boynton, D. D., Robert Patterson, D. D., W. H. James, I. N. Stanger
and Messrs. William Summer, H. Thane Miller, S. W. Haughton, and W. H. Taylor,
vice-presidents; Revs. W. H. French, A. B. Morey, S. W. Duncan, C. H. Daniels, F. S. Fitch, J. P.
E. Kumler, R. H. Leonard, E. D. Led-yard, A. H. Ritchie, and J. P. Walker, F. Dallas, J. Webb,
jr., W. J. Breed, J. Scott Peebles, directors; A. S. Merrill, recording secretary; executive officers
elected by the board, Rev. A. Ritchie, editor and corresponding secretary; J. Webb, jr., treasurer;
Sutton and Scott, depositories.
Dr. Aydelott, an old and much venerated clergyman of Cincinnati, was president of the society
during the last ten years of his life, vacating the chair by his death, September 11, 1880.
The constitution was amended after the close of the war, August 15, 1865. Since the
accomplishment of emancipation, the anti-slavery feature, so long and influentially prominent in
its operations, was dropped, as also the word "Reform" from its name, although much attention is
still given in its publications to the practical applications of Christianity. It co-operates with the
American Tract and Book society, keeps a full supply of its publications in stock, and receives
from it and disburses seventeen per cent. of the entire sum appropriated for charitable
distribution. It has thus scattered many millions of printed pages far and wide in various forms,
and its publications—including a neat little monthly paper called the Christian Press—make a
very respectable list. The headquarters of the society are fixed by the constitution in. Cincinnati,
and are located at 176 Elm street.
VAN ANTWERP, BRAGG AND COMPANY.
These gentlemen are the largest publishers of school books in the world. The founder of the
house, over fifty years ago, was a Cincinnati publisher, Mr. Winthrop B. Smith. About 1830, the
firm of Truman & Smith, of which he was a member, was that mentioned above, at the head of
the publishers of 1839 here. After Mr. Truman's retirement, the firm name was Winthrop B.
Smith & Company, which became a famous and prosperous house. Sargent, Wilson & Hinkle
were their successors. The senior of this copartnership withdrew from it in 1868, and the other
two gentlemen then headed the renowned firm of Wilson, Hinkle & Company. For about ten
years this establishment prospered, when, in 1877, the two leading members, who had been
connected with the house during its various changes for about forty years, finally retired, and the
remaining partners, with others, formed the present house of Van Antwerp, Bragg & Company. It
consists of Messrs. Lewis Van Antwerp, Charles I. Bragg, Henry H. Vail, Robert T. Leaman, A.
Howard Hinkle (son of the former partner), and Harry T. Ambrose. Their operations require the
use of four large buildings, each seven floors, on Walnut and Baker streets, below Third. Their
average production is about eighteen thousand text-books per day.
ROBERT CLARKE AND COMPANY.
This house is extensively engaged in bookselling and publishing at No. 65 West Fourth street,
near Pike's opera house. We find the following notes concerning it in King's Pocket-book of
Cincinnati:
Mr. Clarke has been connected with the house since 5855, when he bought Tobias Lyon's interest
in the firm of Lyon & Patterson; the style of firm changing to Patterson & Clarke. In 5857 Mr.
Clarke bought Mr. Patterson's interest, and carried on the business in his own name. At that time
the store was in Bacon's building, corner of Sixth and Walnut streets, and the business was
chiefly in second-hand and foreign books; this being the first house in Cincinnati to import books
direct from London and Paris. In 1858 R. D. Barney and J. W. Dale united with Mr. Clarke; and
the new firm, under the style of Rap Clarke & Co., bought the business of Henry W. Derby &
Co., law publishers, and dealers in the miscellaneous books published by Harper & Bros. and
Derby & Jackson. They then moved into the store occupied by Derby & Co., 55 West Fourth
street, and began business as publishers of law books, and wholesale and retail booksellers. In
1867 the business was removed to its present quarters. In 1872 Howard Barney and Alexander
Hill were admitted to the partnership. This house has published over one hundred and fifty
volumes of law books, one of which was the celebrated Fisher's Patent Cases, the highest-priced
law-books ever published in this country,—six volumes at twenty-five dollars a volume; and also
about one hundred volumes of miscellaneous books, including the invaluable Ohio Valley
Historical series, edited by Mr. Clarke, and issued in eight handsome volumes. Many
publications of this firm rank equal in style and value to any published in the United States. The
third floor of the establishment is devoted exclusively to works known as Americana, of which a
fine catalogue has been issued.
BOOKSTORES.
Growth in the business of bookselling, as might reasonably be expected, has kept pace with
increase in the manufacture of books. Every manufacturer is a seller, but we refer now to the
business of keeping wholesale and retail book-stores, without reference to publishing. For the
history of this, in Cincinnati, we are indebted almost exclusively to an interesting and valuable
article contributed by "F." to the Cincinnati Daily Gazette of June 12, 1880. The writer is
apparently very well informed and entirely trustworthy. It is extracted in full, barring the
introduction and one or two unimportant passages:
In Cincinnati, eighty years since, Carpenter & Findlay, two eminent pioneer citizens, publishers
of the Western Spy, kept for sale the Territorial Laws and other publications in general demand.
For a decade or two at the beginning of the century the printers and the druggists retained a large
share of the sales of books and stationery. So in 1814 the firm of D. Drake & Co., Druggists, at
their drug-store, Main street, opposite Lower Market, kept the accustomed supply of books,
including the Bible, Shakespeare, and AEsop (these were said to constitute the library of the
pioneer's household), Johnson's Dictionary, Watts' Psalms and Hymns, Cook's Voyages, Ashe's
Travels, Lewis &. Clark's Journal, and Riley's Narrative.
About 1820 the book and stationery business had increased to such large proportions that it
became dissociated with drugs and medicines and set up for itself. Messrs. John P. Foote and
Oliver Wells had es-
36
282 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
tablished the Cincinnati Type Foundry, which has continued uninterruptedly to this day in the
same place and was conducted by them until 1823, when Mr. Foote retired. . . While Mr. Foote
was associated with Mr. Wells, he established a book-store at No. 14 Lower Market street, books
and type being almost as germane as books and drugs. Mr. Foote's stock was well selected and
suited to the market. They were chiefly classical and standard works, with the recent novels, one
or two of Sir Walter Scott's appearing yearly. In 1824 he announced a new novel, "Quentin
Durward," by the author of "Waverly," for sale. At that date Scott was the "Great Unknown,"
Miss Edgeworth being the "Great Known." During that year Mr. Foote edited and published the
Cincinnati Literary Gazette. This, together with the choice literature on his shelves and the genial
and entertaining disposition of the proprietor, made his book-store a favorite place of meeting for
a coterie of literary men of the day, among whom were Morgan Neville, Peyton S. Symmes, E.
D. Mansfield, N. Guilford, and Benjamin Drake. They criticized new books and discussed
literary and musical topics, and their decisions had authority.
Mr. Foote was also a prominent member of the celebrated Semicolon club, which met alternately
at the residences of Messrs. Greene, Lawler and S. E. Foote. This literary society included within
its membership Rev. E. B. Hall, Timothy Walker, James H. Perkins, N. Guilford, C. Stetson, W.
Greene, Harriet and Catherine Beecher, the Misses Blackwell, Mr. and Mrs. Hentz, E. P. Cranch,
U. T. Howe, Profs. Stowe and Mitchel, C. W. Elliott, Drs. Drake and Richards, Benjamin and
Charles D. Drake, E. D. Mansfield, J. W. Ward, Lawler, Meline, C. P. James, D. T. Wright,
Joseph Longworth, I. N. Perkins, Judge Hall, General King, T. D. Lincoln, W. P. Steele, G. C.
Davies, C. D. L. Brush, and probably a few others. He was a fine classical and belles-lettre
scholar, and edited, the Literary Gazette with ability, a devout member of the Episcopal church,
an exemplary man and good citizen, highly esteemed and respected by his fellow-townsmen. His
close resemblance to John Quincy Adams was noted by all who were acquainted with them; he
was, however, a much more amiable man than Mr. Adams. He-was the author of "The Schools of
Cincinnati," and a "Memoir of Samuel E. Foote," both gems, as was everything that emanated
from his graceful pen. His dealing in books was a success, from which he retired in 1828. In
1824 he became one of the proprietors and managers of the water-works, and continued to be for
sixteen years and until the city became the owner in 1840. During the period named Messrs.
Davis, Lawler, Greene, Foote, Graham, and Johnston were proprietors, and greatly improved
them. He was also a large owner of city property, and, with others, laid out subdivisions of lots.
Nathan and George Guilford succeeded Mr. Foote at No. 14 Lower Market street, and a few
years subsequently removed to Main street, near the court-house, where they continued the
business until about 1840. The senior member of this firm was a distinguished scholar and
lawyer, who had been the law partner of Amos Kendall in Georgetown, Kentucky, and
afterwards of James W. Gazlay in Cincinnati. He was a member of the Ohio legislature, where he
was the leading advocate of the common school system, and did more than any other member to
secure its adoption. At that period it was far from being popular, many citizens, even after its
adoption, refusing to send their children to the schools on the absurd idea that they were pauper
schools, and that it was not reputable to send them to charity schools when they were able to pay
for their tuition. Mr. Guilford by personal solicitation induced them to send pupils on trial. Most
of our old citizens are well aware of his meritorious efforts in the successful establishment of the
system, and know that he may with justice be styled the "father of the public school system of
Ohio. He subsequently engaged very successfully in the type foundry, in connection with Wells,
Wilson and others, to which he gave his personal supervision and care. For his able and
successful advocacy of our school system he deserves a monument to his memory from the State
society. This eminent and honored citizen died in 1854, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, amid
the benedictions of our people, and especially the younger portion of Clem, who were largely
benefitted by his labors in the cause of education.
After the schools were established upon a permanent basis and Mr. Guilford's time and attention
engrossed by other objects, Mr. George Graham succeeded him in 1831 in the school board, and
under his immediate direction the Race street school-house was planned and erected. This was
long the model school edifice, after which most of the others were built.
Contemporaneous with Mr. Foote were Drake & Conclin, who remained in the business a few
years until 1829, when Mr. Drake formed a business connection With Phillips & Spear, and
connected an extensive paper-mill with it, but, dying the next year, his brother Josiah succeeded
him in the firm. In 1831 the firm was dissolved, Phillips & Spear taking the paper-mill and
Josiah Drake the book-store.
The latter is the brother of the veteran author of the voluminous and valuable works on the
Biography and History of the Indians of North America, and a few years his junior. He is a native
of Massachusetts, the date of his birth being very near the beginning of this century, and he is
still an active citizen for a gentleman of nearly fourscore years. He entered largely into the
business at No. 14 Main street, in the midst of the commercial business of the city, and it soon
proved profitable and successful. Thoroughly acquainted with the business, prompt and
energetic, and popular with our citizens, the ascendency he acquired at the commencement of his
mercantile career he retained until he relinquished it in 1839, and devoted his energies to other
pursuits. His sales amounted to about eighty thousand dollars per annum, one year amounting to
one hundred thausand dollars, which was considered a large amount for that day.
Mr. Drake employed during the time he was in the book trade about twenty clerks and salesmen,
of whom he can now only recollect the names of Augustus Haven, Henry Spear, and Cornelius
Murphy, the survivors. And of the large number of his customers who now survive he can only
recall the names of Messrs. E. D. Mansfield,* J. J. Faran, George Graham,* Joseph Longworth,
John Kennett, R. A. Holden, H. C. Gassaway, Charles H. Kellogg, J. W. Ryland, Rowland Ellis,
William Hooper. Judges Fox and Woodruff, H. E. Spencer, John L. Talbot, Dr. Aydelott,* Elder
W. P. Stratton, John Frazer, S. Kellogg, G. K. Shoenberger, R. W. Keys, E. H. Carter, A. H.
McGuffey, L. B. Harrison, S. P. Bishop, Judges Charles D: Drake, A. G. W. Carter, and Charles
P. James.
Upon the decease of Mr. John T. Drake, Mr. Conclin, the junior partner, succeeded the firm of
Drake & Conclin. Mr. William Conclin was a native of New York, having been born on the
banks of the Hudson in 1796, and always retained a vivid recollection of the places made historic
by the important events which occurred toward the close of the revolutionary period. He
emigrated with his father's family to Cincinnati in 1813, via Olean, the Alleghany, and the Ohio
rivers, having to navigate those streams in a flat-boat, steam navigation at that date not having
been successfully introduced. Shortly after their arrival here his father died, leaving him, still a
youth in his minority, to assume the charge and care of the family. This duty he faithfully
performed. He was employed by that eminent merchant, Josiah Lawrence, who so much confided
in his ability and integrity that he twice sent him to New Orleans with cargoes of produce. By his
skill and diligence these ventures proved highly satisfactory to his employer. At that time a
voyage to New Orleans was one of peril, toil, and hardship, and not the pleasure-trip of to-day.
On his return he engaged in merchandising for himself for two or three years, after which he
embarked in the book-trade in copartnership with John T. Drake. Their business connections
continued until 1830. This was after the establishment of Mr. Foote's store, the second in
Cincinnati devoted exclusively to the sale of books. Mr. Conclin continued the business at No.
43 Main street for thirteen years. That kind of merchandising, then in its infancy as it were, was
confined to Main street, which was then considered the most eligible place for it, Fourth street
being then almost wholly occupied with dwelling-houses. He was succeeded in business by his
brother George; upon the decease of the latter Applegate & Co. succeeded to it, and the present
enterprising firm of A. H. Pounsford & Co. were their successors, and is now the oldest house of
the kind in the city, while Fourth street has almost wholly monopolized the book-trade to the
exclusion of Main street.
Mr. Conclin was an energetic and successful merchant, of the strictest integrity, a member of the
New Jerusalem or Swedenborgian church, and one of its founders in this city. Prior to his
engaging in the book business, he was married to Louisa, daughter of General Borden, one of the
old and most respected merchants. She proved to be a faithful and exemplary wife, and the kind
and devoted mother of his children. By her energy and prudence she materially aided her husband
in acquiring an ample competence. He was far from being an office-seeker, and was not fitted by
nature to ply the arts of the demagogue; nevertheless, his capacity and sterling integrity made him
prominent among his fellow-citizens, who called him into the service of the county and the State.
He was elected several terms to the Ohio Legislature, served several years as bank commissioner,
and filled similar offices to the welfare of his constituents and honor to himself. He was a
member of the noted political firm of Jonas, Cist & Co.; and, although extremely unpopular with
their opponents, they were uniformly successful at the polls. Impaired health for the last few
years of his life com-
* Since deceased.
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 283
pelled him to relinquish active business pursuits. He ended his earthly career March 20, 1858, in
the sixty-third year of his age. His venerable widow, now an octogenarian, respected and
esteemed by all, resides with her son at the Highlands, near Newport.
There were two or three other book-stores in the decade between 1820 and 1830, but of which I
have only a slight recollection. These were William Hill Woodward, a Philadelphian, who had a
considerable stock of books, first in the vicinity of Phillips, Spear & Drake, Main street,
afterward up the street near the court-house, where he continued for several years.
Thomas Reddish, a well-known citizen, was also in the business in 1820 at 53 Broadway, in
connection with the Sun circulating library and a loan office. He was a native of Britain, and was
lost at sea on a return voyage from his native country.
George Charters, a native of North Britain, had a small book-store, in connection with a
circulating library and pianos, on East Fifth street, near Main, in 1819.
Many years subsequently Flash & Ryder, at No. 12 West Third street, were dealers in books,
chiefly works of fiction, reviews, and other periodicals. They also connected a circulating library
with their book trade. They did a prosperous retail business. Their cosy little store was much
resorted to by the literati of the day, and occasionally visited by foreign authors, such as Miss
Martineau, Captain Maryatt, and other celebrities. They continued in business several years, from
1830 to 1839.
Hubbard & Edmunds, Main street, north of Second, were a firm from Boston, and had a valuable
stock of goods about 1841, but did not long continue in business. Mr. Edmunds lost his life by
the disastrous explosion of Pugh's pork-house, corner of Walnut and Canal streets, February 28,
1843.
Jacob Ernst was many years in the book business on Main street, above Fifth, afterwards on the
same street, above Third, and again above Sixth, a portion of the time in partnership with Charles
W. Thorp. He was a most skillful book-binder, unsurpassed by any other in the city in his day.
A. & J. W. Picket, the compilers of Picket's series of school-books, and editors of the
Academician, had a bookstore on Pearl street about 1834, fora few years, but they were much
more successful in book-making than in book-vending. Their school-books were largely used in
the west.
Desilver & Burr for several years very successfully conducted a large establishment at No. x
Main street. About 185o they dissolved their business connection, and both partners removed to
the east.
E. H. Flint, son of Rev. Timothy Flint the author, had a bookstore on Main, above Fourth, and
published the Western Review, edited by his father. This was one of the first journals of the kind,
and was ably edited. It continued to be a leading journal several years about 1830.
Truman & Smith, booksellers and extensive publishers, were in business at No. 150 Main street.
They published and introduced the McGuffey series of school-books, which proved a gold mine
to them and their successors.
Robinson & Fairbanks were also in the book business on Main, near Fifth, and published the
Cincinnati Directory.
Jacob W. Ely was in business a few years at No. no Lower Market, east of Main.
C. & F. Cloud dealt in books several years about 1841, on Front street, west of Broadway.
Burgess & Crane, on Main street, between Third and Fourth, had a stock of desirable books, and
continued the business four or five years.
Edward Lucas was proprietor of a good stock of goods and did a good business on Main street,
above Third, for several years. He was an active' and prompt business man and popular with his
customers.
Williamson & Wood had a considerable stock of goods at 575 Main street, and did a prosperous
business for several years.
Ephraim Morgan, for sixty years a prominent and honored personage in our city as a publisher
and bookseller, was an honest and just man, and during a long and blameless life a member of
the Society of Friends. He was the senior member of the firm of Morgan, Lodge & Fisher, which
established the Daily Gazette in 1826, with Charles Hammond as sole editor. It was the first daily
newspaper in the State and, it is believed, the first west of the Alleghanies. He afterwards
embarked in the book trade and book publishing at No. 131 Main street, which he carried on very
extensively, and was perhaps the heaviest publishing house in the city at that day. Mr. Sanxy was
associated with him in this branch of business, which they most successfully con ducted many
years.
Mr. Morgan was most scrupulously opposed to all injustice and vice in every phase. He therefore
objected to the publication of the notices of runaway slaves and lottery notices, and all
advertisements of that class, and refused their insertion into the columns of the Gazette. This led
to a rupture with his partners, in consequence of which he withdrew from the publication of that
journal.
Conscientious and honest in all his transactions with his fellow men, he never ceased to
command their confidence and respect. He died, respected and lamented by all, at the venerable
and patriarchal age of eighty-three, in February, 1873.
Another veteran in the book trade is Mr. U. P. James. Nearly fifty years since he established the
business at No. 26 Pearl street, and has continued it uninterruptedly to the present time. From
Pearl street he removed to No. 167 Walnut street, where he continued years, until 1872, when he
removed to his present store, No. 177 Race street. He has conducted the business for a much
greater length of time than any other dealer, probably twice as long as any other in this city. From
his long and continuous connection with the business he is an authority on the subject of books
and publishing, and may be safely consulted upon it. Being an intelligent gentleman, of studious
habits and extensive observation, his studies have not been limited to bibliography alone, but he
devotes much time to the natural sciences, especially to geology. His knowledge of
palaeontology in our Silurian formation is, perhaps, more accurate and extensive than that of any
other naturalist. His published list of fossils is very complete, as is also his cabinet; and they are
both highly commended in our State geological reports.
Mr. Andrew McArthur established a bookstore at No. 162 Vine street, in 1856, which he
continued for nine or ten years, when he sold it to Perry & Morton. Although not within the
limits of these sketches, I can not suffer the name of this worthy benefactor of our city to pass in
silence. He was a native of England, and late in life he embarked in the book trade, a mild,
amiable, intelligent and charitable gentleman. His sole relative was a son, a worthy young man,
who assisted him in the business, and upon whom his warmest affections concentrated. This
beloved son sickened and passed away, leaving the bereaved father alone and desolate. He, too,
soon pined away. Alone in the world, with a handsome little competency, he had looked around
him for a suitable object upon which to bestow it. Passing by objects in his native home, which
from early attachment might claim his benefactions, he bequeathed his entire estate to the Young
Men's Mercantile library, to be invested in the purchase of useful standard works. His wisdom is
commended to those who have abundant means to bestow on useful objects for the promotion of
the welfare of their fellow-men, and the diffusion of knowledge among them. In this way he has
secured their gratitude, and at the same time reared for himself a monument more durable than
marble. All honor to the memory of Andrew McArthur! Among all the benefactors to the
institution he was the greatest; he bestowed his "two mites"—all his estate.
At present two or three of the large publishing houses, such as the Methodist Book Concern, and
Messrs. Robert Clarke & Co., join general bookstores to their larger business. Messrs. George E.
Stevens & Co., in 1869, bought up a book business dating from 1856, and established themselves
at No. 39 West Fourth, street. Mr. Stevens was about that time the author and publisher of a neat
little book descriptive of the Queen City, and entitled from it. His house joins some publishing
with bookselling. Mr. Peter G. Thomson, formerly with Clarke & Co., has a popular bookstore at
the Vine street entrance to the Arcade, and is embarking liberally in general publishing. His more
notable publications are named in our chapter on literature.
Other well-known bookstores are those of Perry & Morton, above mentioned, at the old
McArthur stand on Vine street; Mr. J. R. Hawley, at the next door, No. 164 Vine, and Alfred
Warren, 219 Central avenue. The two first named make a specialty of newspapers and periodical
literature. The city is also abundantly sup-
284 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
plied with second-hand bookstores, of which at least half a dozen, all well worthy a visit, are in
the central business quarter.
CHAPTER XXX.
JOURNALISM.
SMALL BEGINNINGS.
The ubiquitous editor came early to Cincinnati. The village waited long for many of the
institutions and characteristics of civilization; but it did not wait half a decade for the newspaper.
The hopes of those who saw a Queen City to be, were early justified in the appearance of one of
the chief elements in the growth and maintenance of a wealthy and intelligent metropolis. Still
the beginnings, like all beginnings in the wilderness, were smalh
In the fall of 1793 Mr. William Maxwell, second postmaster of Cincinnati, procured and set up at
the corner of Front and Sycamore streets, the outfit of a small, rude printing-office. From it, on
the ninth of November, 1.793, was issued the first number of a newspaper appropriately called
the Centinel of the Northwest Territory, since it was the outpost of journalism on the north side
of the Ohio. The Lexington Gazette had been published for some years in Kentucky; but, except
for that and one or two others, we are not aware that any other public journal then existed
between the Alleghanies and the Pacific coast. This pioneer of Cincinnati newspapers was a
weekly, printed on whitey-brown paper, of half-royal size, each page about as large as a small
window-pane, and the whole no larger than a handkerchief. It bore the motto, "Open to all
parties; influenced by none." Its advertising was very limited, comprising but half a dozen small
announcements. It had no editorial articles, no local news, reviews, or poetry. Its "news," too,
was old enough, that from France dating back to the tenth of September, 1792. The issue of April
12, 1794, which has been preserved, has dates from Marietta only eight days old, from Lexington
twenty-one; from Nashville thirty-three, from New York fifty-six, and from London to the
twenty-fifth of November—four and a half months before the date of issue. So slowly did
intelligence travel in the day of the pioneer, the sailing vessel, the canoe, and the horseback mail.
Naturally much space was filled, for months before the victory of Wayne quelled the savage
outbreaks, with narratives of Indian outrage, then the most thrilling and closely interesting news
of the day.
In the summer of 1796 Mr. Edmund Freeman bought the Centinel from Mr. Maxwell, and
continued the publication of the paper under the happy title of Freeman's Journal—a designation
which served in a single word to set forth the name of the proprietor, and also to furnish a fit and
significant title for an organ of public opinion in the young republic. Mr. Freeman published this
paper until the beginning of 1800, when, probably moved thereto by the transfer of the Territorial
capital from Cincinnati to Chillicothe, he removed himself and office to the latter place, and
established the old Chillicothe Gazette, which is still published. Mr. Freeman died the same year,
October 25, at his father's residence on Beaver creek, in the Mad river settlement.
The first regularly printed journal in. Cincinnati, says Mr. Cist, was the Western Spy and
Hamilton Gazette, the first number of which was issued May 28, 1799, by Joseph Carpenter. Mr.
Carpenter came early to the place from Massachusetts, and by the favor of his fellow-citizens
was much in public office, both by election and appointment. As Captain Carpenter, he led out a
company in the war of 1812, and served faithfully for six months in 1813 and '14, under the
immediate command of General Harrison, dying in service from exposure endured, during a
forced march from Fort St. Mary's in midwinter. He was buried in Cincinnati with military honor
and a great concourse of his fellow-citizens attending his funeral General Gano, in a certificate of
his service made some years afterwards, said : "Captain Carpenter commanded his company with
high reputation as an officer, and rendered essential service to his country; and the officer who
inspected his company at Fort Winchester reported to me that they were as well disciplined as
any militia he ever saw in service." His was the most famous of the old newspapers of
Cincinnati. With improvement in mail facilities, news began to arrive more promptly. The Spy
for July 31, 1802, contains intelligence from France to May 17, from London to May 10, New
York July 9, and Washington July 25—which was doing pretty well. The message of President
Jefferson to Congress December 15, 1802, appeared in the Spy January 5, 1803. In the number
for April 26, 1802, one Andrew Jackson, who was afterwards considerably heard from,
advertises fifty dollars' reward for the recovery of his negro slave George, who had eloped from
his plantation on the Cumberland River. It changed hands several times during the first ten years,
but kept its name until Messrs. Carney & Morgan took charge of it, during whose control its title
was changed to The Whig. Fifty-eight numbers of this were published, when, the paper passing
to other hands, it became The Advertiser. This expired November 11 following, and in
September, 1810, Mr. Carpenter appeared in journalism again as editor of a new Western Spy.
This was regularly published for some years—at least to the year 1815, when it was of
super-royal size, was conducted by Messrs. Morgan & Williams, and had about twelve hundred
subscribers. In 1823 it seems to have been again in existence, and its name was then changed to
The National Republican and Ohio Political Register.
At the beginning of 1804 the Spy was the only paper in Cincinnati. December 9 of that year, was
started another weekly newspaper, bearing the sounding title of Liberty Hall and Cincinnati
Mercury, the latter half of which was presently dropped. The Rev. John W. Browne, enterprising
editor, publisher of almanacs, etc.,
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 285
preacher, town recorder, bookseller, and occasionally vender of patent medicine, was proprietor
of the new venture, and had rather a troublous time of it, being once or twice• personally attacked
by citizens aggrieved by his sheet. The first number was published " in the cock-loft" of the log
cabin at the southeast corner of Sycamore and Third. It was of royal size, and manifested
otherwise some improvement upon its predecessors. It contained, however, no tales or sketches,
gems of wit or sentiment, and but little poetry or editorial matter. Apart from "leaders" and
marriage notices, editor Browne plied the pen but little. The few advertisements were much
displayed—perhaps to fill space and save composition. The conductors of Liberty Hall in 1815
were Messrs. J. H. Looker and A. Wallace, who were also book publishers. The paper was now
of super-royal size, and had more than fourteen hundred subscribers.
The issue of the Cincinnati Gazette, ancestor of the Gazette of to-day, was begun this year, on
Saturday, July 13, by Thomas Palmer & Company; and on the eleventh of December following
Liberty Hall was consolidated with the new paper, which carried both names for a time, as the
Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette. It was the first paper in the town with column rules and
other marks of modern typography. The subsequent history of this journal is detailed hereafter.
In July, 1814, an ephemeral paper called The Spirit of the West had been started, which survived
through forty-four numbers.
In November, 1819, Mr. Joseph Buchanan started a new weekly paper of a somewhat distinctive
character, called The Literary Cadet. After only twenty-three numbers it was merged in another
paper, which added the name to its own in the compound title of The Western Spy and Literary
Cadet, with Mr. Buchanan as editor, and became a favorite medium through which the budding
literati of Cincinnati could give their prose and poetry to the world.
In the spring of this year there were thirty-four newspapers in the State. Four years previously, in
1815, there were in Southern Ohio, outside of Cincinnati, only the Western American and
Political Censor at Williamsburg, the Western Star at Lebanon, the Miami Intelligencer at
Hamilton, the Ohio Reporter at Dayton, the Spirit of Liberty at Urbana, and the Ohio Vehicle at
Greenfield. The city papers of 1819 were the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, semi-weekly
and weekly, published by Morgan, Dodge & Company; the Western Spy and Cincinnati General
Advertiser, weekly, issued by Mason. & Palmer ; and the Inquisitor, also weekly, by Powers &
Hopkins. All were imperial sheets, with six columns to a page—larger and fuller in their contents
than any others in the State. Each had a good book and job office attached.
The newspapers of the early day contained very little editorial matter—often not more than ten
lines. Their pages were, indeed, principally filled with ponderous public documents.
The paper for newspaper and book publication here was at first obtained from Pennsylvania,
partly from the mills at the Redstone Old Fort, which were started in 1800; later supplies were
also obtained from Georgetown, Kentucky. In 1803 the Spy got out of paper, and several
numbers appeared upon an amusing variety of sizes and tints of paper. An old German
paper-maker named Waldsmith, who had settled on the Little Miami, near the present Camp
Dennison, was prevailed upon about this time to start a paper mill on that stream, which he did
with entire success, and thereafter the Cincinnati offices were well supplied.
JOURNALISM GREW
rapidly after 1820, and periodicals, weekly and monthly, even daily, rose and fell with
astonishing frequency. We shall attempt to give but some scattered notices of the more
interesting matters in local journalism thenceforth.
From 1815 to 1820 there had been, at various times, but one semi-weekly paper and five weekly
papers in the place; but the number increased greatly in the next decade.
In the decade 1821-30 the long and honorable list of Cincinnati magazines had their beginning.
In the early part of 1821 a semi-monthly, in quarto, called The Olio, was started by John H.
Wood and S. S. Brooks, editors and publishers, and lasted about a year. It gave the young writers
of the place a good chance ; and among its contributors were Robert T. Lytle, Sol Smith, Dennis
McHenry, John H. James, Lewis Noble, and other well known local lights.
In 1822 medical journalism had a beginning here in The Western Quarterly Reporter, which was
edited by Dr. John B. Godman, and published by John P. Foote. Six numbers were issued, when
it was discontinued, upon the removal of Dr. Godman to Philadelphia. Other professional
journals of this kind will receive notice in the next chapter.
Lexington had the honor of issuing the first monthly periodical in the west—The Western
Review and Miscellaneous Magazine—the first number of which appeared in August, 1819, a
medium octavo of sixty-four pages, with William Gibbes Hunt as editor. It was maintained but
two years. In the latter part of 1823 Mr. John P. Foote projected a journal of literary character,
which appeared on the first of January following, under the cognomen of the Cincinnati Literary
Gazette. It was a weekly, medium quarto, at three dollars a year, and the first, journal of its kind
started west of the mountains. A. N. Deming was its printer, Mr. Foote editor. It was published
on Saturdays at the latter's book-store, No. 14 Lower Market. The two volumes of it that were
issued contain much matter of local historic interest—among other things discussions of the
Symmes theory of concentric spheres, which was then a fresh topic. The first published writings
of Benjamin Drake that attracted attention were in this—notably his Sketches from the Portfolio
of a Young Backwoodsman.
In July, 1827, appeared the first number of The Western Monthly Review, publisher W. M.
Farnsworth, editor
286 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
Rev. Timothy Flint, author of Ten Years' Recollections in the Mississippi Valley, and several
other reputable works. It was a medium octavo of fifty-six pages, subscription three dollars per
annum. The first issue was a disappointment to the expectant readers, and subsequent numbers
for a time did not redeem the failure. At the beginning of 1833, however, the Western Monthly
Magazine, which had been published at Vandalia, Illinois, until the removal of its editor, the
distinguished writer, Judge Hall, to Cincinnati, was revived here by the judge under the same
name, with Messrs. Corey & Fairbank as publishers. Two years later Messrs. Flash, Ryder &
Company took the financial management of the magazine, and Judge Hall turned over the
editorship to Joseph B. Fry, and became himself president and cashier of the Commercial bank. It
was already in its decadence, however; and at the close of this year (1835) the remains of the
subscription list were sold to James B. Marshall, of Louisville, who removed it to that city, where
we shall presently hear o f it again.
Soon after the discontinuance of the Literary Gazette, Messrs. Hatch, Nichols & Buxton started
the Saturday Evening Chronicle, a journal of news and literature, edited by Benjamin Drake. It
also became a financial failure, and was merged in the Cincinnati Mirror, another literary
enterprise of the time.
Mr. Richard C. Langdon, some time before 1830, started a small quarto periodical called The
Shield; and soon afterwards Joel T. Case began the publication of The Ladies' Museum. Both
were short-lived, the latter surviving but a year or two.
The Cincinnati Times was founded in this decade, in 1821, as a weekly, by C. W. Starbuck. An
historical notice will be given to it below.
In 1826, the first daily paper in the entire country west of Philadelphia was started in Cincinnati
by Mr. S. S. Brooks, but survived only six months. It was called the Commercial Register, and
was edited by Morgan Neville. It was printed on a half-sheet royal every day but Sunday, at six
dollars a year. It was revived again in 1828, after the apparent success of the daily Gazette, and
then lasted but three months.
A few weeks after the first suspension of the Register, a party of prominent merchants waited
upon the proprietors of the Gazette, and asked the establishment of a daily issue from their office.
The effort was successful; and the second Cincinnati daily, which still survives in power and
prosperity, made its appearance June 25, 1827, with the aggregate of one hundred and
twenty-five subscribers. For nearly ten years it was printed upon the old-fashioned hand-presses,
about two hundred and fifty sheets per hour, until, in 1836, an Adams press, the first "power
press" brought west of the Alleghanies, was purchased for it in Boston. It was run by simple
hand-power, employed in turning a crank and fly-wheel, and turned out seven hundred and fifty
sheets an hour. In 5843 the same journal first enjoyed the facilities of steam-power, which was
applied to a new Hoe press. Morgan, Lodge & Fisher were the first publishers of the daily, and
Charles Hammond editor. It was of super- royal sheet, nineteen by twenty-seven inches,
published at eight dollars per year. Its advertising was originally as limited as its subscription list.
Mr. E. D. Mansfield, in his Memoirs of Dr. Drake, pays a very warm tribute to the character and
services of Mr. Hammond. His opening remarks refer to the era of the excited agitation here
against the anti-slavery movement, in 1836. He says:
That the public opinion of Cincinnati was corrected, and the press maintained its independent
position, was chiefly due to the intrepid character and great ability of Charles Hammond, then
editor of the Gazette. He had a detestation of slavery in all its forms, and especially in that
meanest of all oppressions, the reckless violence of a mob or its counterpart, the overawing of a.
selfish and unenlightened public opinion. He had a sturdy independence which nothing could
conquer. He was a very able lawyer, and he wielded the pen with a vigor which, in its terseness
and raciness, was unequalled in this country. In the whole United States I know of but two
editors who personally, through the press, exercised as much positive influence over the most
intelligent minds; and they were altogether different men—Mr. Walsh, of the National Gazette,
and Mr. Gales, of the National Intelligencer. Neither Duane nor Ritchie, so long and so
influentially connected with the newspaper press, were to be compared to Mr. Hammond, as
political writers for educated men. Their influence was great; but it was on a lower level. . . . Mr.
Hammond was the ardent friend of liberty, and, being thoroughly acquainted with the laws of the
country, fought its battle, where only it can be successfully fought, with liberty by the side of law,
and rights protected by the constitution.
Another able editor of this period, but less noted, was Benjamin Drake, brother of Dr. Daniel
Drake. He was a native Kentuckian, and came here to join his brother in 1814, in the drug and
general merchandise business. He was already studying law, and was admitted to the bar ten or
twelve years after; but drifted much into journalism and other literature. He was one of the joint
authors of Drake & Mansfield's book on Cincinnati in 1826; and the same year, in connection
with others, established the. Cincinnati Chronicle, of which he was editor until 1834, and again
in 1836, as an assistant to E. D. Mansfield, after the new Chronicle (upon the basis of the
subscription list of the Cincinnati Mirror, into which the old Chronicle had been merged) had
passed from the hands of the medical department of the Cincinnati College. He remained with it
until March, 5840, when his other engagements compelled him to retire; and he died thirteen
months afterwards, at the age of forty-six. He was a man of limited education in the schools, but
was of some natural parts, and by dint of industry became an acceptable and forcible writer. He
was author of the Tales of the Queen City, Lives of Black Hawk and Tecumseh, and other
writings which are still read with attention and interest.
The Independent Press, edited by Sol. Smith, the actor, was started in 1823. The satirical
sketches in rhyme by Thomas Pierce, entitled "Horace in Cincinnati," were first published in this
paper.
In 1826 there were nine newspapers in the city: The Commercial Register, daily; Liberty Hall and
Cincinnati Gazette, the National Reporter and Ohio Political Register, the Cincinnati Advertiser,
the National Crisis, and the Cincinnati Emporium, semi-weekly and weekly; the Saturday
Evening Chronicle, the Western Tiller, the Parthenon, and the Ohio Chronicle (the first German
paper in the west), weekly; the Ohio Medical Reporter,
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 287
semi-monthly; and the Rev. Mr. Flint's monthly Western Magazine and Review was about to be
started.
The Western Tiller, mentioned for the first time in the last paragraph, was first issued by James
W. Gazlay, afterwards congressman, in four-page form, as an agricultural and family paper, on
Friday, August 25, 1826, from the southeast corner of Main and Second streets. It was published
during the rest of this year and in 1827.
The Daily Commercial Advertiser was established in 1829, by E. S. Thomas, whose son,
Frederick W., assisted in its management. The elder Thomas also, in 1834, in association with
John B. Dillon (afterwards the distinguished historian of Indiana), and L. S. Sharp, began the
publication of the Democratic Intelligencer, a daily, triweekly and weekly, supporting Justice
John McLean as a candidate for the Presidency. It had, like the Advertiser, a brief career—but
briefer than that ; and in 1835 the Thomases are found conducting the Daily Evening Post, a
paper which became quite famous for its notes upon art and artists. It also was discontinued in
1839.
The Hon. E. D. Mansfield, in his Personal Memories, notes that, between 1825 and 1828,
Cincinnati had two remarkable journalists. One was Moses Dawson, editor and publisher of the
Commercial Advertiser, a Jackson organ. He was an Irishman by birth, and a very successful
leader of the rough and uncultured classes in the city. Opposed to him was Charles Hammond, a
Federalist of the old school and an able lawyer, with opinions of the most prominent and
uncompromising character. Mr. Mansfield says:
Such a man on one side and an Irish Democrat on the other would, of course, and actually did
make a literary and political pugilism worthy of Donnybrook. Newspaper conflicts have never
been confined to polite usages or tender language. So Dawson and Hammond kept up a running
fight which was more worthy of Ireland than of America, There was, however, no equality in the
contestants. Hammond was not only an able lawyer and familiar with the political literature of
the day, but was one of the strongest and most vigorous of writers. While Hammond was firing
rifles whose balls invariably hit the mark, Dawson would reply with a blunderbuss, heavily
charged, but making more noise than execution.
In 1828, while occupied in editing the Gazette, Mr. Hammond also conducted a monthly
publication called Truth's Advocate, published almost a year by the partisans of Clay and Adams
to oppose the aspirations of Jackson to the Presidency. Some valuable historical and many able
editorial and contributed articles appeared in the Advocate. Hammond was the personal and
political friend of Mr. Clay, with whom he often practiced in the courts. He always refused offers
of public office—in one case that of judge of the supreme court, and remained a private citizen.
In this capacity, however, he was a power among many other influences upon his day and
generation doing much to form the anti-slavery sentiment.
Mr. Hammond was immediately preceded in the editorial chair of the Gazette by another notable
man—the Hon. Isaac Burnet, brother of Judge Burnet and first mayor of the city of Cincinnati.
The periodical publications of 1829 were the Gazette and the Advertiser, daily; Liberty Hall and
the National Reporter, semi-weekly; the Western Tiller, the Cincinnati rand ect, the Sentinel, the
Chronicle and Literary Gazette, weekly; the Ladies' Museum, semi-monthly; the Western
Review, and the Western Journal of Medical and Physical Science, monthly.
HALF A CENTURY AGONE.
The periodical literature of 1831, just fifty years ago, included the Daily Gazette, Advertiser, and
National Republican; Liberty Hall, the Cincinnati Journal, American, Advertiser, Chronicle, and
Sentinel and Star, all weekly; the Western Tiller,' the Ladies' Museum, the Western journal of
Medicine, and the Farmers' Reporter. A baker's dozen of journals, daily, weekly, and monthly,
comprised the list of half a century since.
The Cincinnati Mirror was started this year by John H. Wood, publisher, who brought for the
first time to Cincinnati, from Xenia, the well-known literary character, Mr. W. D. Gallagher, as
editor. The Mirror was a very neat little quarto of eight pages, published semi-monthly. It
obtained a high reputation, and circulated far and wide in the Mississippi Valley. Mr. Thomas H.
Shreve became joint owner and assistant editor at the beginning of its third year. In November,
1833, the publication was enlarged and changed to a weekly. It obtained large subscription lists;
but, although a literary success, it was a financial failure. In April, 1835, the Chronicle, then
under the management of James H. Perkins, was consolidated with the Mirror, which was now
edited by Gallagher, Shreve and Perkins, and published by T. H. Shreve & Co. The paper was
kept up to the end of this year, when it was sold to James B. Marshall, who changed its name to
the Buckeye, maintained it three months, and sold it to Flash, Ryder & Company, then
booksellers on Third street. They restored the old name and retained the editors. Gallagher and
Shreve soon drew out, however; and Mr. J. Reese Fry took the editorship for a few months, when
he in turn abandoned the sinking craft. Its subscription was presently transferred to the Weekly
Chronicle.
In the same year was also started the Baptist Weekly Journal of the Mississippi Valley. A letter to
its surviving descendant, the Journal and Messenger, of date July 22, 1880, the forty-ninth
anniversary of the first issue, by the Rev. John Stevens, D. D., its first editor, contains the
following:
The date of the first number issued was July 22, 1831, at Cincinnati, John Stevens, editor. It
continued to be published at Cincinnati seven years under the same editorship, and was then
moved to Columbus. The responsible publishers for the first of the seven years were six brethren
of Cincinnati, viz : Ephraim Robins, Noble S. Johnson, Henry Miller, William White, Adam
McCormick, and Ambrose Dudley. For the six years following N. S. Johnson was publisher. If
was at first a folio sheet of four pages, the size of each form or page being about twenty by
thirteen inches. Price two dollars a year in advance, two dollars and fifty cents after three
months,, and three dollars after the close of the year. Number of subscribers at the end of the first
six months, five hundred and sixty; at the end of ten months, seven hundred; at the end of the
second year, one thousand two hundred; toward the end of the third year, one thousand three
hundred. On the purchase and addition of the Cross (the Baptist paper of Kentucky, less than a
year and a half old), March, 1834, the list arose to two thousand three hundred. By the immediate
establishment of a new paper in Kentucky, and other new competitors, the list was soon reduced,
and the loss thus occasioned was less than made up by gain otherwise.
288 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
In July, 1838, at the end of the first seven years, the list was between one thousand six hundred
and one thousand seven hundred.
The early help of contributors was small. The entire amount of contributed matter, good, bad, and
indifferent, inserted in the columns of the paper the first six months, twenty-six numbers, was
only equal to some sixteen columns of a single issue, considerably less than a single column a
week. During the last of the seven years it was nearly ten times as much.
The cost of publication the first year exceeded the, income from subscribers by one thousand
nine hundred dollars, which, with the exception of some three or four hundred dollars subscribed
by others, came out of the pockets of the six responsible publishers before named. During the
following six years the excess of cost borne by the publisher, N. S. Johnson, was nearly a
thousand dollars a year.
In July, 1838, the paper was moved to Columbus and published there some ten years, and then
moved back to Cincinnati. In May, 1842, the number of subscribers was said to be one thousand
three hundred.
The name of the paper, after the Cross was added, became the Cross and Baptist Journal of the
Mississippi Valley. On its removal to Columbus it was abridged to Cross and Journal, and
afterwards changed to Western Christian Journal. In 1850, or earlier, it was moved back to
Cincinnati, and the Christian Messenger, the Baptist paper of Indiana, which had for some time
been published at Madison and Indianapolis, Rev. E. D. Owen, editor, was united with it; hence
the present name, Journal and Messenger.
While the paper was published at Columbus the editors were George Cole, D. A. Randall, and.
James L. Batchelder. Since its removal back to Cincinnati, previous to the present incumbents,
they have been J. L. Batchelder and T. J. Melish.
In January, 1872, the Rev. Mr. Melish transferred his editorship to Rev. J. R. Baumes, D.D.,
Who presently received Rev. Dr. W. N. Wyeth as associate editor, and on the first of August,
1876, passed his interest in the Journal and Messenger over to George W. Lasher, D. D. Drs.
Lasher and Wyeth are the present editors of the paper, and make it a financial as well as
religiously journalistic success. But five other Baptist papers in the country are as old.
The famous Methodist Episcopal organ of, the Northwest, the Western Christian Advocate, was
established by the Book Concern in the spring of 1834, with Rev. T. A. Morris, afterwards
Bishop Morris, as editor. The Concern also founded .the Ladies' Repository and Gatherings of
the West in January, 1841—Rev. L. L. Hamline, editor; and also, the same year, the German
Advocate, or Die Christliche Apologete, with Rev. William Nast as editor. More history of these
is written in the section devoted to the Methodist Book Concern, in our chapter on Bookselling
and Publication.
The Western Messenger, a Unitarian publication, was started in June, 1835, under the patronage
of the Unitarians of the west, with the Rev. Ephraim Peabody as editor, Shreve and Gallagher
publishers. It was removed in its second year to Louisville, and placed under the editorial care of
James Freeman Clarke, now the famous Boston liberal divine; but finally came back to
Cincinnati, and was taken in hand by the yet more famous Rev. W. H. Charming. It was popular
in the denomination; but nevertheless did not pay, and had to be discontinued in April, 1841.
In 1833 there were twelve newspapers in the city, two of which were daily.
LITERARY ENTERPRISES
abounded in this decade. In January, 1836, the Family Magazine, a small monthly at two dollars
a year, was started by Eli Taylor, who was succeeded by J. A. James. It was published for six
years. Mr. Taylor was also for a time publisher of the Cincinnati Journal, an anti-Catholic and
anti-slavery organ.
In July of the same year Mr. W. D. Gallagher, as editor, issued the first number of his Western
Literary Journal and Monthly Review. It was a magazine of considerable pretension and real
excellence, the largest till then established in the west, each number being seventy-two pages
royal octavo. It was published by Messrs. Smith & Day, at three dollars a year. In November,
1836, the new venture was consolidated with the Western Monthly Magazine, which had been
removed to Louisville and was still under the charge of James B. Marshall. He now changed the
name to Western Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, retaining Mr. Gallagher as editor; but
could not, under any name or editorship, apparently, make' it pay, and it was discontinued in
1837, with the issue of the fifth number.
Mr. Gallagher went to Columbus, and, in conjunction with Otway Curry the poet, opened the
publication of The Hesperian, or Western Monthly Magazine, thus making it, in some sense, a
successor of the luckless Cincinnati and Louisville publications of the latter name. The first' two
volumes of the Hesperian were published in 1838 in Columbus; there seems then to have been a
suspension of six months, for the third volume comprises the numbers from June to December,
1839. It was published in Cincinnati, and then was discontinued. The Hesperian is accounted to
have been the best of all the early western periodicals, and its files are even now highly esteemed.
To this era also belong the Literary Register, a short' lived folio sheet, issued by S. Penn, jr., as
publisher, and William Wallace; also the Literary News, in quarto, likewise a transient
publication—Edmund Flagg, editor, Prentice & Weisinger, publishers—the former, we believe,
the celebrated poet-editor of Louisville thereafter, Mr. George D. Prentice. "At present," says a
Cincinnati writer of 1841, "there is not published anywhere in the west what can with propriety
be called a literary paper."
Meanwhile, however, Mr. E. D. Mansfield had conducted for a single year (1839) a very
creditable magazine called the Monthly Chronicle. Achilles Pugh was the publisher. It contains
much matter of local and antiquarian interest, besides selected and original matter. Its files are
still greatly prized.
Another publication called The Chronicle, a weekly, had been started in 1836, with Mr.
Mansfield as editor, assisted by Benjamin Drake. It was really a revival of the old Chronicle of
1826, which in 1834 had been merged in the Mirror, and after that was sold- to Drs. Drake and
Rives, of the medical department of Cincinnati college, partly to become an organ of that
institution ; the former name was restored and maintained for many years. The medical
gentlemen were unsuccessful in the 'business management of the paper, and in 1837 it was sold
to Mr. Pugh and Mr. William Dodd, printers and publishers. Mansfield was retain a as editor, and
gave the sheet a distinctive character as an anti-slavery Whig organ, but stopping short of
abolitionism. In
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 289
December, 1839, the Chronicle became a daily publication, with the subscription list of the
Cincinnati Whig, thus beginning with two hundred and fifty subscribers, increasing gradually to
the maximum number of six hundred, with which its career as a daily was ended. (The Whig had
been founded some time before by Major Conover, who obtained the services of Henry M.
Spencer as editor. It was strongly opposed to intemperance and liquor-selling, and would allow
no advertisements of intoxicants in its columns). Mr. Drake dropped out of the editorship of the
Chronicle in March, 1840, and Mr. Mansfield conducted the paper alone till 1848, and afterwards
resumed connection with it, until 1850, when the Chronicle finally lost its identity in the Atlas, a
paper originating with Nathan Guilford, and which survived through three or four years of
financially weak existence. Miss Harriet Beecher's first printed story appeared in this paper about
1835, during the residence of her father and her prospective husband, Professor Stowe, at Lane
Seminary. Other brilliant contributors, as Dr. Blackwell, the Rev. James H. Perkins, Mr. Lewis J.
List, Mrs. Sigourney, Mary DeForest, Mrs. Douglass, of Chillicothe, and others, added to the
lustre of the Chronicle as a literary publication. Some of the most notable editors of the State, as
Mr. Boardman, of The Highland News, published at Hillsborough, had their beginnings in this
office. Mr. Richard Smith, at present editor-in-chief of the Gazette, also began his journalistic
career with the Chronicle. The first issue of The Price Current, published by Mr. Peabody, was
made from this office.
The Volksblatt, a German paper, the same now so prosperous and influential, commenced its
career as a weekly in 1836, and as a daily also in 1838. Its weekly edition has for sometime had
the designation of Der Westliche Blotter. During much of its later and more important history the
paper has been under the editorial management of the Hon. Frederick Hassaurek.
IN THE FORTIES.
In 1840–I there were twenty-five book, newspaper, and other publishing houses in the city. The
English dailies numbered six, with eight weeklies; the German weeklies five, with one daily.
Four of the issues were also tri-weekly, and there were two semi-monthlies, ten monthlies, and
one literary periodical of somewhat irregular appearance.
The Gazette and Liberty Hall, Whig, published a daily edition of nine hundred, a tri-weekly of
four hundred, and a weekly of two thousand eight hundred copies. The Chronicle was also Whig,
and published four hundred daily and nine hundred weekly copies. The Republican, another
Whig organ, had seven hundred daily, three hundred tri-weekly, and eight hundred weekly
subscribers. The Advertiser and Journal, Democratic, issued four hundred daily, one hundred and
fifty tri-weekly, and one thousand six hundred and fifty weekly. The Times, neutral evening
paper, circulated one thousand five hundred; the Public Ledger, penny evening neutral sheet, one
thousand four hundred; the Volksblatt, Democratic, claimed a daily issue of three hundred and
37 twelve and weekly of one thousand four hundred; the Unabhaengige Presse, likewise
Democratic, two hundred and fifty tri-weekly; the Deutsch im Westen, one thousand five
hundred, Wahrheits Freund (Roman Catholic), one thousand and fifty, the Apologete (German
Methodist), one thousand—all weekly; and the Licht Freund, a Universalist semi-monthly, five
hundred. Some men then or to become famous were upon the Cincinnati press—as Dawson, of
the Advertiser, L'Hommedieu, of the Gazette, Mansfield of the Chronicle, Starbuck of Times,
Nast of the Apologete, Stephen Molitor of the Volksblatt and Licht Freund, and others. Besides
the publications enumerated, mostly secular, the Western Christian Advocate, Methodist weekly,
had a circulation of fourteen thousand; the Cincinnati Observer, New School Presbyterian, Rev.
J. Walker editor, one thousand three hundred; the Western Episcopal Observer, five hundred; the
Catholic Telegraph, edited by Bishop Purcell, one thousand one hundred; the Star in the West,
Universalist, about two thousand three hundred; the Philanthropist, an Abolitionist organ, three
thousand; the Western Temperance Journal, six thousand; the Ladies' Museum, one thousand two
hundred; Ladies' Repository, seven thousand; Western Messenger (Unitarian), one thousand;
Christian Preacher (Disciple), two thousand five hundred; Precursor (New Jerusalem), four
hundred; The Evangelist (Disciple), one thousand; Family Magazine, three thousand; the
Counterfeit Detector, seven hundred and fifty; and there was one other periodical, the Western
Farm and Garden, the circulation of which is not given by Mr. List, from whose Cincinnati in
1841 we have these figures.
The following view of local journalism in the early part of 1840 is given by the English traveller,
Mr. Buckingham; whose books of American travel are repeatedly cited in this work. It will be
seen that his statements differ from Mr. List's in some particulars:
There are thirteen newspapers published in Cincinnati, of which six are daily—four Whig, one
Democrat, and one neutral—four published in the morning, and two in the afternoon. There are
three religious journals, one by the Methodist body, one by the Catholic, and one by the
Presbyterians; and an anti-slavery journal, entitled the Philanthropist. In addition to these are two
monthly periodicals of great merit, the Family Magazine, which is in character and utility very
like the Penny Magazine of England, but printed in a smaller size; and the other is the Western
Messenger, a monthly magazine, more light, varied, and literary in its compilations, but both
calculated to exercise a favorable influence on the reading community. I should add that all the
journals here seem to be conducted in a more fair and generous spirit, and with more of
moderation in tone and temper, than is general throughout the United States; and that such of the
editors as I had an opportunity of seeing personally were superior in mind and manners to the
great mass of those filling this situation in other places.
In the fall of 1843 a new weekly literary venture appeared, under the name of The Western
Rambler. It was started by Austin T. Earle and Benjamin St. James Fry, under whose auspices it
flourished for a time; but it soon went the way of its more distinguished predecessors.
In 1848 a large literary sheet of popular characteristics, called The Great West, was started by
Messrs. Robinson & Jones, with a corps of Cincinnati editors and all prominent writers of the
Mississippi valley as paid contributors. It was kept alive during the bigger
290 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
part of two years, but in March, 1850, was consolidated with the Weekly Columbian, as the
Columbian and Great West, published by E. Penrose Jones and edited by William B. Shattuck.
The celebrated Celia M. Burr (Mrs. Kellum) was its literary editor for a time. A Daily Columbian
was also started, but broke the establishment down, and all failed together in August, 1853.
THE REST OF THE STORY
is a long one; but it must be made short for this work. A great multitude of journalistic
enterprises have been born and have died within the last generation; and we can make but a few
notices of the living and the dead.
In 1850 nine English and four German dailies, most of them with weekly and some with other
editions, also eleven English and four German weeklies, with two semi-monthlies, were
numbered among Cincinnati periodical publications.
One of the finest issues of this era was a monthly quarto magazine, embellished with fine steel
engravings, which was published by R. E. Edwards, at 115 Main street, in connection with the
Arts' Union gallery.
In January, 1853, a weekly magazine of sixteen octavo pages, of somewhat similar character,
called The Pen and Pencil, was started by William Wallace Warden. It endured the storms of
adversity but a year.
The Genius of the West was a promising monthly of thirty-two octavo pages, started in October
of the same year, by Mr. Howard Dunham, who had been conducting for some time a
semi-monthly musical and literary journal known as the Gem. It started with a vigorous life, and
embraced among its contributors Miss Alice Cary, Mr. Coates Kinney, D. Carlyle Maccloy, and
many other western writers of greater or less note. About the middle of 1854, Mr. Dunham took
into editorial partnership Mr. Kinney and Charles S. Abbott; but soon withdrew to start another
periodical of like character called The Western, of which he was able to issue but three numbers.
W. T. Coggeshall went upon The Genius as a co-editor in August ; the next month Mr. Abbott
drew out, and Mr. Kinney in July, 1855. In the latter part of that year Mr. Coggeshall sold the
magazine to George K. True, a young poet and essayist of. Mount Vernon, who maintained it for
six months, when it went to join the innumerable caravan of literary failures. It was a very
excellent magazine while it lasted, but at no time more than paid expenses of printing.
Mr. Cist's last volume on Cincinnati, that for 1859, enumerates the following list of periodical
issues in the city: Dailies—the Gazette and Liberty Hall, Enquirer, Times, Commercial,
Volksblatt, Volksfreund, Republikaner, Penny Press, Law and Bank Bulletin.
Weeklies—Western Christian Advocate, Presbyter, Central Christian Herald, Journal and
Messenger, American Christian Review, Western Episcopalian, Star o the West, New Christian
.Herald, Catholic Telegraph, Christian Leader, Sunday-School Journal, Wahrheits Freund,
Christliche Apologete, Protestantische Zeitblaetter, Hochwcechter, Scientific Artisan, Journal,
Sunday Dispatch, Railroad Record, Pvice Current, Helvetia, Israelite and Deborah. Semi
monthlies—Type of the Times, Presbyterian Witness, Sunday-School Advocate, Lord's Detector,
United States Bank Mirror, White's Financial and Commercial Reporter and Counterfeit
Detector. Monthly- Bepler's Bank Note List, Ladies' Repository, Masonic Review, Odd Fellows'
Casket and Review, Lancet and Observer, Medical News, Cincinnati Eclectic and Edinburgh
Medical Journal, College Journal of Medical Science, Physio-Medical Recorder, Sonntag-Schule
Glocke, Young People's Monthly, Youth's Friend, Sunbeam, Dental Register of the West. Annual
publications were the City Directory, by C. S. Williams, and the Ordo Divini, a church annuah
Richard Smith was now on the Gazette; James J. Faran was editor of the Enquirer, Stephen
Molitor of the Volksblatt, Dr. C. Kingsley of the Christian Advocate, Dr. Montfort of the
Presbyter, Dr. Nast of the Apologete, Bishop Purcell of the Catholic Telegraph, and Drs. J. M.
Wise and M. Lilienthal of the Israelite and Deborah.
In 1867, Mr. James Parton, writing an article on Cincinnati for the Atlantic Monthly, says of
Cincinnati journalism:
Nowhere else, except in- New York, are the newspapers conducted with so much expense. . . .
Gentlemen who have long resided in Cincinnati assure us that the improvement in the tone and
spirit of its daily press since the late regenerating war is most striking. It is looked to now by the
men of public spirit to take the lead in the career of improvement upon which the city is entering.
The conditions of the press here are astonishingly rich. Think of an editor having the impudence
to return the value of his estate at five millions of dollars!
February 2, 1872, the first number of the Evening Star was printed. It was consolidated with the
Times in June, 1880.
The Freie Presse, a new German daily, evening paper, issued its first number August 25, 1874,
and its last in December, 1880.
THE GAZETTE.
This famous old journal claims to be the lineal descendant of the Centinel of the Northwestern
Territory, the first newspaper published north of the Ohio river. The first number of the
Cincinnati Gazette, so called, however, did not issue until Saturday, July 13, 1815, from the
office of the publishers, Thomas Palmer & Company, "on Main street, near the clerk's office, and
the fourth door above Fifth street." It was a small weekly sheet, with four columns of reading on
a page. The subscription rates were two dollars and fifty cents a year, in advance, three dollars if
paid within the year, and three dollars and fifty cents if payment were longer deferred. The battle
of Waterlog had been fought four weeks before, but this first number had no news of it, the latest
advices from London being May 6th, and some of the Continental news dating back to March.
December 11, 1815, the Liberty Hall was consolidated with the Gazette; Looker, Palmer, and
Reynolds, publishers—the new paper bearing both names. The first New Year's address, that for
January 1, 1815, was written by the late Peyton S. Syrnmes, then a promising young poet. The
carriers of that year were Wesley Smead and S. S, L'Homniedieu, afterward distinguished
citizens of Cincinnati. Among its editors during the next ten years were Isaac C. Burnet, brother
of Judge Burnet; B. F. Powers, brother of Hiram Powers;
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 291
and Charles Hammond brought the force of his intellect and scholarship to it in 1825. About two
years afterwards, on Monday, June 25, 1827, the first number of the Daily gazette appeared—the
second daily in the city, and the first to live. Its publishers were Morgan, Lodge and Fisher, and it
started with just one hundred and sixty-four subscribers. It was the Cincinnati Gazette only, while
the weekly, which was of the same size, five columns to the page, kept the full title of Liberty
Hall and Cincinnati Gazette. Subscription to the daily was eight dollars a year, payable
half-yearly. Mr. Hammond remained principal editor of the paper until his death, April 3, 1840,
during part of which time he was also interested as a proprietor. This was after the death of Mr.
James Lodge, one of the publishers, in the winter of 1835. Hammond's partners were Stephen S.
and Richard L'Hommedieu, the former of whom had begun his public career as a carrier of the
paper. The firm was L'Hommedieu & Company, and the office was on the east side of Main
street, about half. way between Fourth and Fifth. The editor's only assistant was William Dodd,
who clipped the papers, made up the river news as well as the. news: paper forms, and read the
proofs. About 1840 the office was removed down Main street to the new L'Hommedieu building,
between Third and Fourth, and Judge John C. Wright and his son, Crafts J. Wright, also Dr.
L'Hommedieu, a cousin of the proprietors, became editorially connected with it. It was at this
time an afternoon paper. In Mr. Hammond's days it was printed on an old-fashioned Adams
press, moved by man-power applied to a crank, with a capacity of twelve hundred per hour. In
1839 the proprietors bought a six-cylinder press, which could print, at its fastest rate, fifteen
thousand sheets per hour, but only on one side. Finally a double perfecting press was procured,
printing from stereotype plates, and capable of turning out twenty-six thousand complete copies
of the Gazette per hour, folded and ready for the carrier or mailing clerks.
THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
This famous journal, in its beginnings, was mainly the creation of Mr. Moses Dawson, editor of
an old-time Cincinnati paper called the Phoenix. The Enquirer was first published on Fifth street,
between Main and Sycamore; then on Third street, and on the corner of Third and Main; on
Main, between Third and Pearl; on Vine, near Baker, where it shared in the destruction wrought
by the fire of 1866, which destroyed Pike's Opera house; until it finally found a home in its
present quarters on the west side of Vine street, between Sixth and Seventh, near the Public
library. In 1844 the Hon. James J. Faran took an interest in the journal, and has to this day
remained the senior member of the firm of proprietors, Messrs. Faran & McLean. Mr.
Washington McLean purchased the interest of Mr. Derby in the concern, and became an owner
jointly with Mr. Faran and Mr. Wiley McLean. The junior member of the present firm is Mr.
John R. McLean, son of Washington McLean; and he and Mr. Faran are the sole proprietors. He
has had entire editorial charge of the paper since 1877, succeeding John Cockerill, who was
preceded from 1867 to 1870 by Joseph B. McCullagh, afterwards of Chicago. From 1844 to 1867
Mr. Faran was managing editor. The business growth of this paper has been very great, and it is
now one of the most valuable newspaper properties in the country. It is printed on two Bullock
presses and a Hoe Perfecting press, which throw off its immense editions very rapidly.
THE CINCINNATI COMMERCIAL,*
one of the most influential and most widely read of all western journals, printed and published in
the building at the northeast corner of Fourth and Race streets, was founded in 1843, and the first
number issued by Messrs. Curtis & Hastings, on the second of October of that year. It was a
bright daily, with a plentiful array of paragraphs, some fiction and well selected matter and odds
and ends, including bear and snake stories, and other items naturally interesting to a young
community. Much attention was paid to local news, and particularly to the river department,
which was at that time of greater importance than at present. Mr. Hastings did not remain long
with the Commercial, and Mr. L. G. Curtis, who came to Cincinnati from Pittsburgh and married
the daughter of the Rev. Samuel J. Browne, soon after associated with himself J. W. S. Browne,
his brother-in-law. About 1848 Mr. M. D. Potter, a practical printer, became connected with the
paper and was placed in charge of the job department. He soon evinced such remarkable talent
for business details, for which Mr. Curtis was far less adapted, that his future career was almost
immediately assured, and after the retirement of Mr. Browne, who became interested in military
matters, Mr. Potter was admitted into partnership, and the firm name became Curtis & Potter. In
1851 Mr. Curtis died, at the age of forty-two. His interest was purchased by Mr. Potter, and
resold to Richard Henry Lee, of the Treasury Department, the firm name in 1852 becoming Lee
& Potter. On March 9, 1853, Mr. Murat Halstead was engaged upon the staff. He left the Weekly
Columbian, on which he was then associate editor, to undertake his new duties. Mr. Potter's
health at that time was very delicate, and Mr. Lee's very robust; but in the summer of the same
year the strong man died and the sick and ailing recovered. After some negotiations Mr. Henry
Reed was engaged as the leading writer, and on May 15, 1854, Mr. Potter having bought out the
interest of Mr. Lee's representatives, organized the firm of M. D. Potter & Co. The property and
good-will of the paper were then valued at eight thousand dollars, and the firm was composed of
M. D. Potter, Henry Reed, John H. Strauss, and Murat Halstead. Mr. Potter had the general
direction of the office and the management of the business; Henry Reed was the chief editorial
writer, Murat Halstead in charge of the news, and Mr. Strauss was bookkeeper. Mr. John A.
Gano and Mr. C. D. Miller were admitted into partnership some years afterwards. Mr. Strauss
subsequently died, and Mr. Reed sold his interest
* This sketch is extracted from D. J. Kenny's Illustrated Cincinnati and Suburbs, edition of 1879,
to which we are indebted for many other valuable facts.
292 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
to Mr. Potter. From the date of the formation of the firm of M. D. Potter & Company, in 1854,
the Commercial made rapid progress. It was first published at the southeast and northeast corners
of Third and Sycamore streets, the property of the Rev. S. J. Browne, and the building now
standing on the northeast corner was originally built for the Commercial office. In 1859 Mr.
Potter purchased the lot on the corner of Fourth and Race, where it is now published. A removal
was made in April, 1860, to the new quarters, which had been built expressly for a newspaper
office, composing and press rooms. In the spring of that year the roof was torn off by a tornado.
Mr. Potter lived to see the war over, Lincoln assassinated, and Johnson at variance with the
Republican party; and his life, busy almost to the last, was only closed in 1866. The surviving
members purchased Mr. Potter's interest, and resold a portion of it to Mrs. Potter and her
daughter, Mrs. Pomeroy. The firm of M. Halstead & Company was founded on May 15,1866. It
consisted of Murat Halstead, C. D. Miller, John A. Gano, general partners; Mrs. Potter and Mrs.
Pomeroy, special partners. A change in the firm was made by the death of Mrs. Pomeroy in
January, 1879, and the firm of M. Halstead & Company dissolved. A joint-stock company with
the same title, was incorporated on the fifteenth of May, 1879, a quarter of a century after the
firm of M. D. Potter & Company had been formed, in 1854, Mr. Murat Halstead being the only
member of that firm who had been constantly in the partnership. The capital stock was fixed at
two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. Daily and weekly editions of the Commercial are
published.
THE TIMES-STAR.
The Times, as already stated, was founded in 1821, and is therefore, except the Gazette, the
oldest surviving paper in the city. Upon the death of Mr. Starbuck, it was purchased by Messrs.
Eggleston, Sands, Thomas, and others, then proprietors of the Daily Chronicle, and consolidated
with their paper under the name of the Times-Chronicle, from which the latter part of the
designation was presently dropped. In 1879 the Times was sold to David Sinton, Charles P. Taft,
and H. P. Bryden. The last-named became editor-in-chief, and made great improvements in the
paper. By the latter part of June, 1880, the impolicy of maintaining two English evening papers
in the city became so manifest that a consolidation of the Times and the Star was effected, the
journal, under the new arrangement, taking the name of the Times-Star.
THE CINCINNATI SATURDAY NIGHT.
This is a journal of comparatively recent foundation, but is reported to be the leading secular
weekly of the city. It was established July 20, 1872, by Captain L. Barney and Mr. A. Minor
Griswold—the latter widely known as "Cris," or "The Fat Contributor." It was originally, indeed,
called The Fat Contributor's Saturday Night, and was intended to be devoted almost solely to wit
and humor. The change to its present title was made in 1873; and in April of the next year it
became the sole property of Mr. Griswold, who has reaped for it whatever renown and pecuniary
success it has attained as a family paper and humorous journal.
EDUCATIONAL JOURNALISM
has had a varied history in Cincinnati, as everywhere else when, professional ventures of this
kind have been hazarded. So long since as July, 1831, very nearly half a century ago, the
Academic Pioneer appeared in this city, the pioneer indeed of all such journals, not only in
Cincinnati, but in the State. It was a monthly magazine, conducted by a committee under the
auspices of the famous Western Academic Institute, or College of Teachers. Unhappily, it did not
survive its second number, but then died for want of sustenance. Somebody, nevertheless, had
the hardihood to start a Common School Advocate here in 1837, and courageously to maintain it
till 1841. The Universal Advocate was also started in the former year; but by whom or how long
it kept up the struggle for existence, history saith not. March of the same year, too, strange to say,
considering the infancy of educational journalism and the 'financial pressure of that time, saw the
birth of still another school paper here—The Western Academician, edited by the well-known
teacher, John W. Picket, and adopted as the organ of the Teachers' College. It lasted for a
twelve-month. Then, the next year, in July, came the first number of the Educational
Disseminator, published for a time by S. Picket, sen., and Dr. J. W. Picket, but soon di continued.
In :846, stronger and more hopeful auspices, at least financially, attended the birth of The. School
Friend, which was started in October by Messrs. W. B. Smith & Company, the leading
schoolbook publishers of the city. Mr. Hazen White became editor of this in 1848; and at the
beginning of 1850 The Ohio School Journal, which had been edited and published at Kirtland,
and afterwards at Columbus, by Dr. Asa D. Lord, was consolidated with it under the title of The
School Friend and Ohio School Journal, Dr. Lord was editor, assisted by Principal H. H. Barney,
of the Cincinnati Central High school, and Cyrus Knowlton; but they all did not save the
magazine from suspension in September, 1851. The Western School Journal, a monthly
publication devoted to the cause of education in the Mississippi Valley, was supported by W. H.
Moore & Company, a Part of the time without any paid subscription, from March, 1847, to 1849.
Subsequent ventures in the same direction were The Ohio Teacher, started in May, 1859, edited,
by Thomas Rainey, and published at Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland, but not long, the
Journal of Progress in Education, Social and Political Economy, and the Useful Arts, published
from January, 1860, to August, 1861, by Elias Longley, with Superintendent John Hancock, of
the Cincinnati public schools, as editor of the educational matter; The News and Educator,
1864-6, Nelson & Company publishers, Superintendent Hancock and Richard Nelson editors;
succeeded in January, 1867, by The Educational Times : An American Monthly Magazine of
Literature and Education, of which Superintendent Hancock edited
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 293
the first number; The National Normal, an organ of the Lebanon Normal school, started October,
1868, with Josiah Holbrook at first and Messrs. George E. Stevens & Company afterwards as
publishers, and Mr. R. H. Holbrook and Sarah Porter as editors, the monthly surviving, at times
quite prosperously, until October, 1874; and The Public School Journal, started in 1870, and now
published at Mount Washington by Professor F. E. Wilson, with an editorial and business office
at No. 11 East Fourth street, Cincinnati. Meanwhile, considerable editorial work has been done
by Cincinnati educators upon The Ohio Journal of Education, which was started at Columbus in
January, 1852, and still survives in vigor—as by Principal Barney in 1852, Mr. C. Knowlton in
1853, Joseph Ray 1854-5, and Superintendent Hancock in 1865. The Mathematical Department
in the Journal was for a time in charge of Dr. Ray, then of Professor F. W. Hurtt of the
Woodward High school, after the death of Dr. Ray.
CHAPTER XXXI.
MEDICINE..
THE ARMY SURGEONS.
The pioneers of the medical profession in the Queen City were the surgeons of the regular army
of the United States. "It was the custom of these gentlemen," says Dr. Drake, "not merely to give
gratuitous attendance on the people of the village, for which many of them are still [1852]
remembered with gratitude by the aged, but also to furnish medicines from the army hospital
chests, through a period when none were imported from the East." The first of these was
probably Dr. Richard Allison. He was a native of New York State, born near Goshen in 1757,
and seems to have entered the profession, as was often done in those days, without the diploma
of a medical school. He began in the Continental army at the age of nineteen as a surgeon's mate,
and remained attached to the medical service till the close of the Revolution. He then practiced as
a physician for some years, but re-entered the army as a surgeon when the forces were raised for
the Western campaigns, and was out as Surgeon-General with Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne. He
was in close quarters with the savages at St. Clair's defeat, being compelled for a time to abandon
attendance upon the wounded and join in, the fight. His horse was here struck with a bullet,
which remained imbedded among the bones of the head; and as the doctor afterwards rode him
through Cincinnati, he would jocosely remark that that horse had more in his head than some
doctors he had known. He was a general favorite in the village, where he did much gratuitous
service and laid the foundation of a good practice when he had resigned and
* The materials of this chapter, so far as it relates to the early physicians of the city, are derived
largely from Dr. Daniel Drake's address on the Early Physicians, Scenery, and Society of
Cincinnati.
settled as a regular physician. Between the campaigns of St. Clair and Wayne he was stationed at
a fort opposite Louisville, and rendered much medical aid to the people of that village.. After
Wayne's victory he resigned and practiced here, and in 1799 he began the improvement of a tract
of land on the, east fork of the Little Miami, to which he removed. Six years afterwards he
returned to Cincinnati; resumed practice, having his residence and office on the southeast corner
of Fourth and Sycamore streets; and died here March 22,1816, aged fifty-nine. He was not
accounted a profound scientist, but was modest, kind, suave, and shrewd—a successful pioneer
physician, and a worthy man to be regarded, as Dr. Drake calls him, "the father of our profession"
in Cincinnati.
Dr. John Carmichael was another of the army surgeons who practiced gratuitously in the hamlet
of Cincinnati. Not many particulars are known concerning him; but he is said by old residents to
have been in the army so late as 2802, when he was discharged upon its reduction, and personally
conducted the baggage and munitions of the garrison at Fort Adams, below Natchez, where he
had last been stationed, to New Orleans, whither the troops went to occupy Louisiana after its
purchase by the United States. He then bought a cotton plantation in Mississippi Territory,
became wealthy, and lived long in the land.
Surgeon Joseph Phillips has left very kindly recollections among the old families of Cincinnati.
Dr. Drake said in 1852: "The venerable relict of the late General John S. Gano (the intrepid
surveyor of the route pursued by St. Clair's army) has, within the last few days, informed me that
on the suggestion of General Harrison, Dr. Phillips was brought in from Fort Hamilton, to rescue
her husband from the hands of a couple of quacks. She remembered him as a physician of skill
and a gentleman of much personal presence. From his namesake and distant relative, Mr. H. G.
Phillips, of Dayton, I learn that he was a native. of Lawrenceville, New Jersey; that he came out
with Wayne's army, and, after the treaty of peace, returned to his birthplace. Resuming his
practice, he lived much respected both as a physician and citizen till his death, which took place
only five or six years since, when he was eighty years old or upward. He probably was the last to
die of all the early members-of our profession; and one feels a sort of surprise at learning that a
physician who practiced in Cincinnati when it was a mere encampment, should have been alive
so near the present time."
Dr. John Elliot was one of General St. Clair's surgeons, a New Yorker by birth, and was stationed
here several different times, going out of service finally with his regiment in 1802, when the
army was reduced. He did not remain in Cincinnati, although two daughters were then residing
here, the elder of whom married Hon. Joseph H. Crane and removed with him to Dayton, where
her father also settled and staid until his death in 1809. Dr. Drake says: "In the summer of 1804 I
saw the doctor there, a highly accomplished gentleman, with a purple silk coat, which contrasted
strangely with the surrounding thickets of brush and hazel bushes."
294 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
One of Wayne's surgeons, who came with him here in the spring of 1793, was Dr. Joseph Strong.
He was at the battle of the Fallen Timbers, and in attendance at the Greenville treaty the next
year. He was Connecticut-born and a graduate from the literary department of Yale college. After
his service here, in the army and the community, he returned east about 179'5, settled in
Philadelphia, obtained a fair practice, and died there in April, 1812, aged forty-three. Mrs.
Colonel Bond, long of this city, was a daughter of Dr. Strong.
Dr. John Sellman, another of Wayne's surgeons, coming also with the army in the spring of 1793,
became a permanent resident of Cincinnati until his death in 1827, when he had attained the age
of sixty-three years. He was born at Annapolis, of an old and reputable Maryland family, in 1764,
received a good elementary education, and entered the army while still young as a surgeon's
mate, or, in modern army parlance, assistant surgeon. After Wayne's victory he resigned and
settled in Cincinnati, making his residence on Front street, between Sycamore and Broadway.
After the establishment of the government arsenal and barracks at Newport, he served the
garrison as citizen-surgeon. Dr. Drake well remarks that "such a recall shows that while in the
service he must have discharged his duty faithfully. He was not a graduate, and, without
attainments in medicine or the associate sciences above the average of the time at which he was
educated, his native good sense and high gentlemanly bearing secured to him a large proportion
of the best practice of the town; but, like his contemporary Dr. Allison, he did not leave behind
him any record of his experience."
The name of Dr. Adams is traditionally known as that of another of the army surgeons of the
early day, who occasionally visited patients in Cincinnati. He was a Massachusetts man; but no
other details concerning him are on local record.
It is probably not generally known that William Henry Harrison, who came here a young ensign
with the army at Fort Washington, had taken a course in medicine in Virginia. and the University
of Pennsylvania, and was still engaged upon his studies when his military bent prompted him to
enter the army—which he did as an officer of the line rather than, as he might have done, of the
medical staff. He never formally entered the ranks of the healing profession; but, as we have seen
in the case of General Gano, his advice in cases of sickness was sometimes available, and he
occasionally gave personal attention to them, when a physician was not at hand. As a public man
he always took an active interest in the welfare and progress of the profession. He was a member
of the Ohio senate at the session of 1818-19, when the bill for establishing the Commercial
hospital and Lunatic asylum of Ohio came up. It met considerable opposition, and the medical
knowledge of General Harrison came effectively into play in his advocacy of the bill, as a means
of training competent physicians, by the facilities it would afford to the medical schools. He was
subsequently, by appointment of the legislature, chairman of the board of trustees of the Medical
college of Ohio.
With the honored name of Harrison the list of medical men connected with the army at Fort
Washington is closed, so far as it is known at this day.
DOCTOR BURNET.
The first citizen-physician who settled in Cincinnati is believed to have been Dr. William Burnet,
brother of Judge Burnet, and who came some years earlier than he. The doctor's arrival, indeed,
was almost contemporaneous with the settlement of Losantiville, since he came in 1789, with a
sufficient equipment of books and medicines to begin practice at once. The "eleven families and
twenty-four bachelors" then at the place, however, furnished him but a light business, and he
spent much of his time with Judge Symmes at North Bend. In the spring of 1791 he went back to
New Jersey, his native State, intending to return; and while there, being an ardent and ambitious
Free Mason, he procured from the Grand lodge of that State a warrant for the institution of the
Nova Caesarea New Jersey, Harmony lodge, No. 2, Cincinnati, of which he was named the first
Worshipful Master. The death of his father during this visit prevented his return, and he remained
and died in New Jersey. His medical books, however, were left here, and some of them are
probably still extant. He was of good classical education; but, like very many practitioners of his
time, not a medical graduate. His father was surgeon-general, and he a surgeon's mate, in the
army of the Revolution.
DOCTOR MORRELL.
Another Jerseyman, Dr. Calvin Morrell, was associated with Dr. Burnet in th appointments made
for the lodge of Free Masons he e, and was present when it was organized about three years
afterwards, on the twenty-seventh of October, 1794. It is not known just when he came or how
long he staid; but he removed to the northward not far from the time designated, and spent the
closing years of his life among the Shakers of Union Village, near Lebanon. Dr. Drake says:
"From all I have been able to learn, he did not do much business here nor make any lasting
impression on the little community."
DOCTOR HOLE.
Before Dr. Morrell was Dr. John Hole, believed to have been an arrival of 1790 or 1791. He had
not much culture or social position, and disappeared from the community before the close of
1794. He is mainly remembered for his practice of inoculation here and at Columbia in the winter
of 1792-3, when the small-pox first made its appearance among the whites of the Miami country.
A MYSTERIOUS UNKNOWN.
About the same time some timorous doctor put in an appearance here for a little while, whose
name Dr. Drake good-naturedly suppresses, "for the honor of the profession." He seems to have
been alarmed at the false rumor of Indians, started by some wag, and hurriedly removed to the
Kentucky shore, from whose bourne he never returned.
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 295
DR. ROBERT M'CLURE
came from the Redstone Old Fort, or Brownsville, Pennsylvania, about the year 1792, and took a
residence on Sycamore street, between Third and Fourth. His training in the schools was limited,
but he obtained a respectable practice for the time. His wife did much to commend him to the
people by her geniality and kindheartedness. In 180r he went into the back country and remained
some time, thence returning to Brownsville, where he passed the rest of his life. Dr. Drake
records that " our aged people relate that in those days it was customary with the officers of the
army to drink bitters in the morning—those of Dr. Stoughton, of London, being preferred; but as
importations were sometimes suspended, Dr. McClure made a tincture, and putting it up in small
vials, labeled them 'Best Stoughton's Bitters, prepared in Cincinnati by Dr. Robert McClure.' The
solecism seems to have been quite an occasion of merriment with the officers of the army. We
see from this anecdote that a business which has since been so profitable to certain persons in our
city was begun in the days of its early infancy."
DOCTOR CRAMER.
For about six years after Dr. McClure came, no other physician seems to have l0cated in
Cincinnati. In 1798 Dr. John Cramer arrived, and made his home on the north side of Second or
Columbia street, between Main and Walnut. He was a native of Pittsburgh, and picked up an
elementary knowledge of medicine about the office of Dr. Bedford, a prominent physician of that
place. Beginning thus humbly; with small education and no formal study of the medical
authorities, he nevertheless became a fairly successful physician and a citizen of considerable
influence. He made steady advancement in reputation .and business for thirty-four years, or until
his death by cholera in 1832. He was then the last remaining here of all the physicians who
practiced in Losantiville or Cincinnati before 1800.
DOCTOR GOFORTH.
The most renowned local physician of the early years of this century amply deserves the more
extended notice which his friend and pupil, Dr. Drake, gives him. We copy the whole of it,
assured that the interest of the account will justify the occupation of the space :
Dr. William Goforth, of whom I know more than of all who have been mentioned, was born in
the city or town of New York, A. D. 1766. His preparatory education was what may be called
tolerably good. His private preceptor was Dr. Joseph Young, of that city, a physician of some
eminence, who, in the year 1800, published a small volume on the universal diffusion of
electricity, and its agency in astronomy, physiology, and therapeutics, speculations which his
pupil cherished throughout life. But young Goforth also enjoyed the more substantial teachings
of that distinguished anatomist and surgeon, Dr. Charles McKnight, then a public lecturer in New
York. In their midst, however, A. D. 1787-8, he and the other students of the forming school
were dispersed by a mob raised against the cultivators of anatomy. He at once resolved to
accompany his brother-in-law, the late General John S. Gano, into the west; and on the tenth of
June, 1788, landed at Maysville, Kentucky, then called Limestone. Settling in Washington, four
miles from the river, then in population the second town in Kentucky, he soon acquired great
popularity, and had the chief business of the county for eleven years. Fond of change, he
determined then to leave it; and in 1799 reached Columbia, where his father, Judge Go forth, one
of the earliest and most distinguished pioneers of Ohio, resided. In the spring of the next year,
1800, he removed to Cincinnati and occupied the Peach Grove house, vacated by Dr. Allison's
removal to the country. Bringing with him a high reputation, having an influential family
connection, and being the successor of Dr. Allison, he immediately acquired an extensive
practice. But without these advantages he would have gotten business, for on the whole he had
the most winning manners of any physician I ever knew, and the most of them. Yet they were all
his own, for in deportment he-was quite an original. The painstaking and respectful courtesy with
which he treated the poorest and humblest people of the village seemed to secure their gratitude,
and the more especially as he dressed with precision, and never left his house in the morning till
his hair was powdered by our itinerant barber, John Arthurs, and his gold-headed cane was
grasped by his gloved hand. His kindness of heart was as much a part of his nature as
hair-powder was of his costume; and what might not be given through benevolence could always
be extracted by flattery, coupled with professions of friendship, the sincerity of which he never
questioned. In conversation he was precise yet fluent, and abounded in anecdotes, which he told
in a way that others could not imitate. He took a warm interest in the politics of what was then
the Northwestern Territory, being at all times the earnest advocate of popular rights. His devotion
to Masonry, then a cherished institution of the village, was such that he always embellished his
signature with some of its emblems. His handwriting was peculiar, but so remarkably plain that
his poor patients felt flattered to think he should have taken so much pains in writing for them. In
this part of his character many of us might find a useful example.
To Dr. Goforth the people were indebted for the introduction of the cow-pox at an earlier time, I
believe, than it was elsewhere naturalized in the west. Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, of Boston, had
received infection from England in the year r800, and early in 1801 Dr. Goforth received it and
commenced vaccination in this place. I was myself one of his first patients, and seeing that it has
extended its protecting influence through fifty years, I am often surprised to find medical
gentlemen shying off from a case of small-pox.
At the time Dr. Goforth was educated in New York, the writings of Dr. Cullen had not
superseded those of Boerhaave, into whose system he had been inducted. Yet the captivating
volume of Brown had fallen into his hands, and he was so far a Brunonian as to cherish an
exceeding hostility to the copious depleting practice of Dr. Rush, which came into vogue in the
beginning of this century. In fact, he would neither buy nor read the writings of that eminent man.
Yet his practice was not that of Brown, though it included stimulants and excluded evacuants, in
many cases in which others might have reversed those terms. In looking back to its results, I may
say that, in all except the most acute forms of disease, his success was creditable to his sagacity
and tact.
Fond of schemes and novelties, in the spring of the year 1803, at a great expense, he dug up, at
Bigbone lick, in Kentucky, and brought away, the largest, most diversified and remarkable mass
of huge fossil bones that was ever disinterred at one time or place in the United States ; the whole
of which he put, into the possession of that swindling Englishman, Thomas Ashe, alias D'Arville,
who sold them in Europe and embezzled the proceeds.
Dr. Goforth was the special patron of all who, in our olden time, were engaged in searching for
the precious metals in the surrounding wilderness. They brought their specimens of pyrites and
blende to him, and generally contrived to quarter themselves on his family, while he got the
requisite analyses made by some black or silversmith. In these researches Blennerism, or the
turning of the forked stick held by its prongs, was regarded as a reliable means of discovering the
precious metals, not less than water. There was also in the village a man by the name of Hall,
who possessed a glass through which he could see many thousand feet into the earth—a feat
which I think has not been surpassed by any of those whom our modern Cincinnati has feted for
their clairvoyance.
The clarification of ginseng and its shipment to China was at the beginning of this century a
popular scheme, in which the doctor eagerly participated, but realized by it much less than those
who have since extracted from that root an infallible cure for tubercular consumption.
This failure, however, did not cast him down ; for about the time it occurred the genuine East
India Columbo root was supposed to be discovered in our surrounding woods, and he
immediately lent a hand to the preparation of that article for market. It turned out, however, to be
the Frasera verticillata, long known to the botanist and essentially distinct from the oriental bitter.
296 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
While these various projects were keeping the doctor's imagination in a state of high and
pleasurable excitement, he became enamored with the Mad River country, to which, in the very
infancy of its settlement, he made a winter visit. Beyond where Urbana has since been built was
the Indian village of Mechacheek, at which he arrived at night, expecting to find inhabitants ; but
found none. Being without the means of kindling a fire, and unable to travel back in the dark, he
came nigh perishing from the cold. Subsequently he made another visit in the month of June; and
took me with him. It required four days to reach King's creek, a few miles beyond the present
Urbana, which then had one house and Springfield another. The natural scenery, after passing the
village of Dayton, was of such exquisite beauty that I was not surprised at the doctor's fascination
; but a residence there was not in store for him—he had a different destiny.
The time at length arrived when young Cincinnati was to lose the most popular and peculiar
physician who had appeared in the ranks of her infant profession, or indeed ever belonged to it ;
and the motives and manner of the separation were in keeping with his general character.
The French Revolution of 1789 had exiled many educated and accomplished men and women,
several of whom found their way into the new settlements of the west. The doctor's political
sympathies were with the Revolutionists; but some of the exiles reached the town of Washington,
where he resided, and their manners and sufferings triumphed over his repugnance to aristocracy,
till pictures of the beauty and elegance of French society began to fill his imagination. Thus
impressed he came to Cincinnati, where Masonry soon made him acquainted with an exiled
lawyer of Paris, who resided on the corner of Main and Third streets, where the banking edifice
of the Trust company now stands. This gentleman, M. Menessier, planted the vineyard of which I
have spoken and carried on a bakery in the lower story of his house, while the upper was the
lodge room of Nova Casarea Harmony No. a. The doctor's association with this member of the
beau monde of course raised his admiration for Gallic politeness still higher ; and just at the time
when he began, in feeling, to prefer French to Anglo-American society, President Jefferson
purchased Louisiana from Bonaparte, first consul of the Republique Francalse. The enchanting
prairies of Mad River were now forgotten, and he began to prepare for a southern migration.
Early in-the spring of 1807 he departed in a fiat-boat for the coasts and bayous of the Lower
Mississippi, where he was soon appointed a parish judge, and subsequently elected by the creoles
of Attakapas to represent them in forming the first Constitution of the State of Louisiana ; soon
after which he removed to New Orleans. During the invasion of that city by the British he acted
as surgeon to one of the regiments of Louisiana volunteers. By this time his taste for French
manners had been satisfied, and he determined to return to the city which he had left in
opposition to the wishes of all his friends and patients. On the first of May, /816, he left New
Orleans, with his family, on a keel-boat ; and on the twenty-eighth of the next December, after a
voyage of eight months, he reached our landing. He immediately re-acquired business ; but in the
following spring he sank under hepatitis, contracted by his summer sojourn on the river.
Many years after Dr. Drake uttered his reminiscences of Dr. Goforth, the Hon. E. D. Mansfield,
at a meeting of the Cincinnati Pioneer society, submitted some of his recollections, which were
thus briefly reported for the press:
The speaker gave some of the characteristics and experiences of the pioneer doctors and lawyers.
Di. Goforth, of Cincinnati, was a gentleman of the old school ; he wore a powdered wig, and
carried a gold headed cane. The doctor, like others of his profession, would ride five, eight, or ten
miles of a dark night, to visit a patient, and receive, without complaint, the regular price of a
visit—feed for his horse, add a cut quarter in cash. Dr. Goforth emigrated to Louisiana, and wrote
a long letter to the senior Mansfield, in which, among other things, he said that "if ever there was
a hell upon earth, New Orleans was the place."
DOCTOR DRAKE.
The first student of medicine in Cincinnati was the same Dr. Daniel Drake' who came to the town
from the wilds of Kentucky, in 1800, a boy of fifteen, to become a physician. He entered the
office of Dr. Goforth, which was also a drug store, and remained nearly four years, most of the
time compounding and dispensing medicines, while he read ponderous books in the intervals.
Long afterward he recalled his experience of this village drug stole in these remarks:
But few of you have seen the genuine old doctor's shop or regaled your olfactory nerves in the
mingled odors which, like incense to the god of physic, arose from brown paper bundles, bottles
stopped with worm eaten corks, and open jars of ointment not a whit behind those of the
apothecary in the days of Solomon. Yet such a place is very well for the student. However idle,
he will always be absorbing a little medicine, especially if he sleep beneath the greasy counter.
In May, 1804, young Drake began practice in partnership with Dr. Goforth, and in about two
months was able to write hopefully to his father that their business was rapidly increasing, and
that they entered as much as three to six dollars per day upon their books, though he wisely
doubted whether a quarter of it would ever be collected. In the fall of 1805, poor as he still was,
he resolved to seek larger advantages of professional education, and pushed to. Philadelphia as a
student in Pennsylvania university. He had not money enough to take a ticket at the Hospital
library, and had to borrow books; but studied and heard lectures nearly eighteen hours out of the
twenty-four, and got on rapidly. He came back to Cincinnati the next spring, practiced at the old
home in Mayslick, Kentucky, for a year, and then made his final residence in this city. In 1815 he
returned to finish his course in the University of Pennsylvania, when he was thirty years old, and
received his degree the following spring, the first of any kind bestowed by that institution upon a
Cincinnatian. Young Drake had before received a unique autograph diploma, given him by his
preceptor upon his first departure for Philadelphia in 1805, setting forth his ample attainments in
all branches of the profession, and signed by Goforth with his proper title, but unusual in such
connection, as, "surgeon-general of the First division of Ohio militia." It- was considered by Dr.
Drake to be the first medical diploma ever granted in the Mississippi valley. Drake, after his
graduation in 1816, had before him a long, honorable, and highly useful career, which is noticed
in part under other heads. He was early called away from the full practice of his profession by the
demands upon him for medical teaching here and elsewhere. The Medical College of Ohio was
the creation, in the first instance, of Dr. Drake, who did much in his day for Cincinnati and for
medical science. While yet a young man, in 1817, he was called to a professorship in the medical
department of the Transylvania university, at Lexington, and spent one winter lecturing there.
Cincinnati was then a town of but seven thousand people; but Dr. Drake thought that if Kentucky
and Lexington could sustain a university, Ohio and Cincinnati should support at least a
department of one. In December, 1818, he obtained a charter for the medical college from the
legislature, with himself and Drs. Brown and Coleman Rogers as corporators. In November of
the second year thereafter, the year after that in which Cincinnati became a city, the school
opened with twenty-five students. Dr. Drake, president by the charter, delivered an inaugural
address, which was published with a memorial to the legislature
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 297
asking the endowment of the college by the State. He appeared personally with this, which was
signed only by himself, before the house of representatives the next winter, and secured a grant
of ten thousand dollars for the erection of a hospital in Cincinnati, in which the college
professors "were to be ex officio the medical attendants, and in turn to have the privilege of
introducing the pupils of the college." The sum was paid in depreciated bank paper; but was
sufficient for a beginning, and by it was laid the foundation of the old Commercial hospital, the
predecessor of the present magnificent Cincinnati hospital, in which the provision for medical
professors and students remains substantially as in the original act of 1821.
In November, 1821, the college opened its second course of lectures with thirty students—an
increase of twenty-five per cent. At the end of this term the connection with it of Dr. Drake, its
founder and president, temporarily ceased. He had unwittingly prepared the way for his own
dismissal in a provision of the charter making the faculty also the regents of the institution; and
so, when the majority was against him, he had no recourse but to retire. Internal dissensions arose
among the professors; and the closing scene is thus graphically described in Dr. Drake's own
words:
At eight o'clock we met, according to a previous adjournment, and transacted some financial
business. A profound silence ensued ; our dim taper shed a faint light over the faces of the
plotters ; and every thing seemed ominous of an approaching revolution. On trying occasions Dr.
is said to be subject to a disease not unlike St. Vitus' dance ; and on this he did not wholly
escape. Wan and trembling he raised himself (with the exception of his eyes), and in lugubrious
accents said :- " Mr. President, in the resolution I am- about to offer, I am influenced by no
private feelings, but solely by a reference to the public good." He then read as follows : " Voted,
that Daniel Drake, M. D., be dismissed from the Medical College of Ohio." The portentous
stillness recurred, and was not interrupted until I reminded the gentlemen of their designs. Mr. ,
who is blessed With stronger nerves, then rose, and adjusting himself to a, firmer balance, put on
a proper sanctimony, and ejaculated : " I second the motion. The crisis had now manifestly come
; and learning that the gentlemen were ready to meet it, I put the question, which carried, in the
classical language of Dr. ---, "Nemo contradicente." I could not do more than tender them a vote
of thanks, nor less than withdraw ; and performing both, the Doctor politely lit me down stairs.
Dr. Drake was thus legally, but unjustifiably, ousted from the institution which was mainly his
creation, and which was still the darling of his ideals. He waited a few months, publishing a
pamphlet or two in his defense, until it became certain that he could not be reinstated, and then
accepted another invitation to the chair of Materia Medica in the Transylvania University. His
introductory lecture, upon resuming the chair, was upon the Neccessity and Value of Professional
Industry. He remained with this school about four years, and then returned to the practice of his
profession, and in 1827 also began the publication of The Western Medical and Physical Journal,
of which he was in charge for many years. The same year he established an Eye Infirmary in
Cincinnati, partly as a charitable institution, which met with much success, but did not become
permanent. In 1830, after declining a Professorship of Medicine in the University of Virginia, he
accepted a place in the Faculty of Jefferson Medical College, at Philadelphia- only, however, that
he might enjoy superior opportunities for the selection of professors for a new institution which
he meditated forming in Cincinnati. It was organized the following year, as a Department of
Miami University ; but, before it opened as such, a consolidation was effected with the older
institution, the Medical College of Ohio, in virtue of which Dr. Drake again became connected
with it. He remained only a year, however, sustaining meanwhile the duties of two
professorships, one of them that of Clinical Medicine, the establishment of which he had
suggested as a means of permanently uniting the schools, and volunteered to take its added
burdens upon himself. The hospital wards at that time afforded limited facilities for such a
professorship in practical operation; and Dr. Drake, seeing that his new chair could not be
sustained, preferred to withdraw from the institution. He published, about this time, a volume of
Practical Essays on Medical Education and the Medical Profession in the United States,
dedicating it to his class. The little book has been highly praised by the profession.
Dr. Drake was a many-sided man; and, besides his books on medicine, he was the author of the
quite remarkable volumes, for the time, entitled Notices Concerning Cincinnati, published 1810,
and also of the Picture of Cincinnati, in 1815. He delivered an important address, which was
published, before the Kentucky Literary Convention, November 8, 1833, On the Importance of
Promoting Literary and Social Concert in the Valley of the Mississippi, as a Means of Elevating
its Character and Perpetuating the Union. He was also active, in 1820, in securing the
establishment of the Western Museum, in the College building on Walnut street, and fifteen
years afterwards in promoting the construction of a railroad from Cincinnati to Charleston, South
Carolina—a project which at last culminated, substantially, in the building of the Southern
Railroad.
Still another medical school was founded through the exertions of Dr. Drake, in June, 1835, as a
branch or department of the Cincinnati college, then altogether quiescent for a number of years,
as regards literary or scientific instruction. He had taken a lively interest in and assisted in the
beginnings of the college, in 1818-20; and now, wholly on a private foundation, without
endowment, he undertook to extend its usefulness by establishing a medical department within it.
Drs. Drake, S. D. Gross, Landon C. Rives, and Joseph N. McDowell, were its projectors; and
they derived little or nothing in the pecuniary way from it during the four years it lasted, the
expenses of the school swallowing up almost the entire revenue from their lectures. The
celebrated Dr. Willard Parker was professor of surgery in it for a time, and when he withdrew, in
the summer of 1839, to take a chair in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the city of New
York, it struck a fatal blow to the institution. One after another the remaining professors felt
constrained to withdraw, and presently Dr. Drake 'stood alone, when the school 'ceased to exist.
He was then elected to a place among the faculty of the Louisville Medical institute, afterwards
the University of Louisville, and held it
298 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.
for ten years. The trustees of the institute having passed a regulation in effect dismissing a
professor when he had reached the age of sixty-five years, Dr. Drake, albeit he was still three
years short of that limit, thought proper to withdraw, although the trustees willingly abrogated the
rule in his favor. It was now 1849, and he was at once invited to a chair in his original institution,
the Ohio Medical College, where he lectured during a single ses-sion, and then yielded to urgent
requests from his former associates at Louisville that he would return there. For two sessions he
served the Medical Institute again; but finally, in hope yet of doing something to build up his first
professional school, he came back to the Medical College of Ohio, and there did his last work.
He was almost sixty-seven years old when, November 5, 1852, just at the re-opening of the
college for the session, death by congestion of the lungs arrested and closed his long, varied, and
honorable career. Two years before this he had completed his truly great Treatise on the Principal
Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America—an invaluable work, which brought him small
financial benefit, in comparison with the immense labor he bestowed upon it. There have since
been many eminent men in the annals of medicine in Cincinnati; but Daniel Drake is still the
clarum et venerabile nomen in the past of the profession here. Professor Whitaker, of the Medical
college, in his Historical lecture introductory to the preliminary course, on the fourth of
September, 1879, says of him :
Dr. Drake's moral character was without a stain. He was uncom-promising in the maintenance of
what he believed to be right. Willfully, he injured no man ; but he was of so ardent a
temperament, his ambition was so great, and his opposition to what he thought wrong so
determined, that he doubtless was often to blame for the many strifes and misunderstandings that
made him hosts of bitter enemies and drove him from positions of honor which were his due. His
friends were as devoted as his enemies were bitter. He was the recipient of many tokens of honor
from scientific bodies at home and abroad. He was an earnest advocate of temperance, and gave
to it his great eloquence and energy.
He died in Cincinnati November 5, 1852, mt. sixty-seven. His grave is at Spring Grove. His
monument is this college. It stands like Sir Christopher Wren's. Of this great architect it was said
: "Si queris monumenturn, circunzspice"—" If you seek his monument, look around you." .
DOCTOR STITES.
In 1802 came Dr. John Stites, jr., from Philadelphia, and with him so much of a new departure in
medical science as had been made by Dr. Benjamin Rush, of that city, then called the Sydenham
of America and exercising. a powerful influence upon the profession in this country. Stites had a
number of the writings of Dr. Rush and his pupils, and was himself a youth of twenty-two, fresh
from a partial course of medical training in the Quaker City, and full of the ideas that had begun
to prevail there. He formed a partnership with Dr. Goforth, the preceptor of Drake, who thus had
easy access to the new books, de-voured them with avidity, and imbibed the new doctrines,
which Goforth, as we have seen, indignantly scouted. Dr. Stites remained here less than a year,
and then went to Kentucky, where he died five years after his removal to the west, at the early
age of twenty-seven. He was a native of New York State.
DR. JOHN BLACKBURN
was the next medical immigrant to Cincinnati, coming in 18̊5, from Pennsylvania, where he was
born, in Lancaster county, in 1778. He had no advantage over most other early Cincinnati
physicians as a graduate from a medical school; but had respectable acquirements in various
departments of learning. Two years after he came, when the regiment was raised in Hamilton
county to repel an expected Indian attack under the Prophet, Dr. Blackburn accompanied it as
surgeon during its short service. He staid here only until 1809, and then removed to a farm in
Kentucky, opposite Lawrenceburgh, whence he removed into Indiana, and there died in 1837.
DR. SAMUEL RAMSAY
was a native of York county, Pennsylvania, and had at-tended medical lectures, but was without a
diploma of graduation. He came to Cincinnati in 18̊8 and formed a partnership with Dr. Allison,
which was maintained until the death of the latter in 1815. Dr. Drake says that "Dr. Ramsay,
though not brilliant, had a sound medical judgment, united with regular industry, perseverance,
and acceptable manners. Thus he retained the practice into which his connection with Dr. Allison
had introduced him, and continued in respectable business up to the pe-riod of his death in the
year 1831, when he was fifty years of age."
A MORTALITY LIST.
Dr. Drake notes the interesting fact that, of the seven-teen physicians who practiced in Cincinnati
during the first thirty years of its existence, but two died here, and none of them, here or
elsewhere, of pulmonary consump-tion; while in the succeeding thirty years, or a little more,
about fifty died in the city, many of them at a compara-tively early age, and a number from
consumption. The earlier physicians, except Dr. Drake, left no memorials of their practice nor
any record of their observations here, probably in consequence of their defective general and
professional education.
THE EARLY PRACTICE.
Near the close of his elaborate discourse, Dr. Drake brings in an interesting sketch of the practice
of the early day, which we gladly transfer to these pages:
In the times of which I speak the extinct village of Columbia, and the recently awakened and
growing town of Newport, with the sur-rounding country on both sides of the river, were
destitute of physicians and depended on Cincinnati. A trip to Columbia consumed half a day, and
when Newport asked for aid, the physician was ferried over the river in a canoe or skiff, to
clamber up a steep icy or deep mud bank, where those of the present day ascend, from a
steamboat, in their carriages on a paved road. Every physician was then a country prac-titioner,
and often rode twelve or fifteen miles on bridle-paths to some isolated cabin. Occasional rides of
twenty and even thirty miles were performed on horseback, on roads which no kind of carriage
could travel over. I recollect that my preceptor started early, in a freezing night, to visit a patient
eleven miles in the country. The road was rough, the night dark, and the horse brought for him
not, as he thought, gentle; whereupon he dismounted after he got out of the vil-lage, and, putting
the bridle into the hands of the messenger, reached his patient before day on foot. The ordinary
charge was twenty-five cents a mile, one half being deducted and the other paid in provender for
his horse or produce for his family. These pioneers, moreover, were their own bleeders and
cuppers, and practiced dentistry not less, certainly, than physic—charged a quarter of a dollar for
extracting a single tooth, with an understood deduction if two or more were drawn
HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 299
at the same time. In plugging teeth tin-foil was used instead of gold-leaf, and had the advantage
of not showing so conspicuously. Still further, for the first twelve or fifteen years every physician
was his own apothecary, and ordered little importations of cheap and inferior medicines by the
drygoods merchants once a year, taking care to move in the matter long before they were needed.
. . . From four to five months were required for the importation of a medicine which, at this time,
being ordered by telegraph and sent by express, may he received in two days, or a sixtieth part of
the time. Thus science has lengthened seconds into minutes. The prices at which these medicines
were sold differed widely from those of the present day. Thus an emetic, a Dover's powder, a
dose of Glauber's salt, or a night-draught of paregoric and antimonial wine—haustus anodynus,
as it was learnedly called—was put at twenty-five cents, a vermifuge or blister at fifty, and an
ounce of Peruvian bark at seventy-five for pale and a dollar for best red or yellow.
On the other hand, personal services were valued very low. For bleeding, twenty-five cents; for
sitting up all night, a dollar; and fora visit, from twenty-five to fifty cents, according to the
circumstances or character of the patient.
Many articles in common use then have in half a century been superseded or fallen more or less
into neglect. I can recollect balsam of sulphur, balsam of Peru, balsam tolu, Glauber's salt,
flowers of benzoin, Huxham's tincture, spermaceti (for internal use), melampodium, flowers of
zinc, ammoniaret of copper, dragon's blood, elemi, gamboge, bitter apple, nux vomica, and red,
pale, and yellow bark. On the other hand, we have gained since that day the various salts of
quinine and morphine, strychnine, creosote, iodine and its preparations, hydrocyanic acid, ergot,
collodion, sulphate of magnesia, and chloroform. Indeed, in half a century our materia medica
has undergone a decided change, partly by the discovery of new articles and partly by the
extraction of the active principle of the old. The physician often carried medicines in his pocket,
and dealt them out in the sick-room ; but the common practice was to return home, compound
and send them out.
Probably the most remarkable case ever treated, simply but efficaciously, by the profession in
Cincinnati, was a Case of witchcraft. Dr. Drake thus humorously relates it :
Witches were not then extinct, and some of them were actually known. One of the most
mischievous lived a few miles back in the country, and bewitched a woman on the riverbank. Her
husband came at dusk in the evening for assistance, and went into the lot to assist in catching my
horse, which of course we failed to do, and he ascribed the failure to the witch having entered the
animal. It only remained to give him a paper of medicine, which he afterwards assured me was
the best he had ever tried, for, as he entered the door of his cabin the witch escaped through the
small back window and fled up the steep hill to the woods. He carefully preserved the medicine
as a charm, and found it more efficacious than a horse-shoe nailed over the door, which, before
the united skill of. Dr. Goforth and myself had been brought to bear on this matter, was the most
reliable counter-charm.
In 1817 Dr. Drake's practice amounted nominally to seven thousand dollars a year. The place
then had about ten thousand inhabitants, with fifteen to twenty physicians; and his practice,
which would now be thought light by a leading practitioner, was considered a very good one.
THE LATER PHYSICIANS.
The following-named are all the doctors of medicine noted in the directory of 1819 as then
belonging to. Cincinnati: Daniel Drake, John Sellman, J0hn Cranmer, Coleman Rogers, Daniel
Dyer, William Barnes, Oliver B. Baldwin, Thomas Morehead, Daniel Slayback, John A. Hallam,
Josiah Whitman, Samuel Ramsay, Edward Y. Kemper, John Douglass, Ithiel Smead, John
Woolley, Trueman Bishop, Ebenezer H. Pierson, Jonathan Easton, Charles V. Barbour, Vincent
C. Marshalh
To these were added, by the directory of 1825, William Barnes, John E. Bush, Jedediah Cobb,
Addison and George W. Dashiell, Oliver Fairchild, Isaac Hugh, Lorenzo Lawrence, James M.
Ludlum, Samuel Nixon, George T. Ratire (M. D. and dentist), Abel Slayback, Jesse Smith,
Edward H. Stall, Guy W. Wright, Daniel P. Robbins, Michael Wolf.
The same act of general assembly of 1826, which is cited in the next chapter as imposing a tax
upon attorneys, also taxed to the same amount per capita the physicians and surgeons of that day;
and the docket entry of the Hamilton court of common pleas accordingly supplies the following
list as exhaustive of the medical profession in the county in February, 1827 :
Samuel Ramsey, Jesse Smith,
Guy W. Wright,
Lorenzo Lawrence,
Jedediah Cobb,
Beverly Smith,
C. W. Barbour,
John Morehead,
James W. Mason,
F. C. Oberdorf,
E. Y. Kemper,
Edward H. Stall,
Daniel Drake
E. H. Pierson,
V. C. Marshall,
John Woolley,
J. W. Hagerman,
Josiah Whitman,
Isaac Hough,
John Cranmer,
John Sellman,
Abel Slayback,
J. M. Ludlum,
C. Munroe,
J. E. Smith,
William Barnes.
In December, 1844, it was believed by Mr. Gist, who copied this record into his Miscellany, that
Drs. Morehead, Drake, Oberdorf, and Ludlum were all of the roll of 1827 who then survived. Dr.
Cobb, however, had removed from the city, and is not mentioned as living or dead. Mr. Cist
pertinently inquires: "What is to account for the greater mortality among the medical than in the
legal class?"
The physicians of 1831, members of the Medical Society, according to the Directory of that year,
were Isaac Hugh, William Barnes, John Woolley, Daniel B. Robbins, Josiah Whitman, James M.
Mason, John Morehead, James M. Ludlum, Lawton Richmond, Jesse Smith, William Mulford,
Joseph K. Sparks, Melancthon Rogers, Vincent C. Marshall, Lorenzo Lawrence, Roswell P.
Hayes, Charles Woodward, E. W. Bradbury, Joseph Challen, Cunningham S. Ramsey, Jedediah
Cobb, John E. Bush, A. Slayback, Joseph N. McDowell, George Patterson, Robert Morehead,
James Warren, Wolcott Richards, Edwin A. AtLee, William S. Ridgely, Rowland Willard, M. D.
Donellan, James C. Finley, Daniel Drake, Landon C. Rives, Charles Barnes, Thomas S. Towler,
John T. Shotwell, George B. Walker, J. L. Dorsey, James Killough, Holmes Parvin, H. H.
Sherwood, Hugh Bonner, James M. Staughton, Benjamin S. Lawson, John F. Henry.
DOCTOR WRIGHT.
In 1838 a notable physician of Columbus, Dr. Marmaduke B. Wright, was invited to Cincinnati
as professor of Materia Medica in the Medical College of Ohio. In 1840 Dr. Morehead resigned
the chair of Obstetrics in that institution, and Dr. Wright was transferred to it. This Dr. Morehead
was one of the old practitioners, and is designated as "Professor Pill" in the satires of "Horace in
Cincinnati." In the spring of 1850, with others; Dr. Wright was removed by the Board of
Trustees, but remained in Cincinnati as a practitioner. He was one of the first physicians in the
West to use chloroform in parturition cases, which he did with success at the Commercial hos-
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