(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) 50 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. den, David Kantz, William Legg, and the young lawyer, Nicholas Longworth. The simplicity of trade, and perhaps the occasional scarcity of provisions in the town at this time, are illustrated by an incident related in McBride's Pioneer Biography, of a young man from Massachusetts, named Jeremiah Butterfield, who took a voyage in the spring and in a flat-boat down the Ohio, and visited Cincinnati, "which was then but an inconsiderable village, composed mostly of log cabins, with few good brick or frame buildings, containing not more than one thousand inhabitants. It contained one bakery, at which Mr. Butterfield applied for bread to supply the boat's crew; but without success, the baker having but three loaves on hand, and these engaged by other persons." It seems to have been necessary then to engage bread in advance, in order to make sure of it. SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE. On the twenty-ninth of May a third newspaper, the Western Spy and Hamilton Gazette, was started by James Carpenter. In it Griffin Yeatman inserted the following unique advertisement: Observe this Notice. I have expended too many expenses attending my pump, and any FAMILY wishing to receive the benefits thereof for the future may get the same by sending me 25 cents each Monday morning. It is said that this was paralleled June 2, 18o r, when two advertisements appeared in the local papers, offering well-water at four dollars per annum to subscribers, payable quarterly in advance. Advertisements also appeared in the Spy of hair powder and fair-top boots. July 23d, Robert McGennis advertises a runaway apprentice, and offers for his recovery a sixpence worth of cucumbers the next December. The times were hard, and dunning advertisements appear in many forms, some of them very comical in their terms, and some regretting that the English language is not strong enough to express the demands of their authors. On the eighteenth of June there are rumors of Indian hostilities, and considerable alarm is excited for some days. On the twenty-fifth of August the governor addresses the legislature of the territory, assembled for its first session. Business was now done mainly on Main street below Second, on Front street near the Landing, and on Sycamore within a short distance of Front. Robert Park, the first hatter in the place, was at the corner of Main and Second. In May he advertises hats to exchange for country produce; also that he buys furs, and wants an apprentice on good terms, preferring one from the country. In June the Spy notes the heat on the twentieth as 103̊ above, which was higher than had been known here since thermometers came in. On the twenty-first the figure was 100̊, an the twenty-second 95̊, twenty-third 100̊, again, twenty-fourth, 101̊. , It was a genuine "heated term." On the Fourth of July there was a fine celebration. Fort Washington thundered forth the customary salute. The First battalion of the Hamilton county militia paraded at their usual mustering place, and went through their evolutions, loading and firing, etc., in a style to elicit the compliments of the governor in his subsequent general orders. St. Clair, the garrison and militia officers, and many "respectable citizens" dined under a bower prepared for the purpose. Captain Miller's artillery and the martial music of the militia furnished ringing responses to the toasts, which are said to have been in good spirit and taste. Then, says the primitive account, "the gentlemen joined a brilliant assembly of ladies at Yeatman's in town." The Spy for July 23d contained the following note concerning a well-known citizen of the county: Captain E. Kibby, who sometime since, undertook to cut a road from Fort Vincennes to this place, returned on Monday reduced to a perfect skeleton. He had cut the road seventy miles, when by some means he was separated from his men. After hunting them several days without success, he steered his course this way. He has undergone great hardships, and was obliged to subsist on roots, etc., which he picked up in the woods. Thus far report. The next number contains the obituary of the Rev. Peter Wilson, the first minister who settled in the community. Levi McLean appears before the public from time to time this year in the multiform capacity of jailer, constable, hotel-keeper, butcher, and teacher of vocal music. The only name we are able to record, as that of an arrival for the year, is that of Aaron Lane, from New Jersey. He ultimately removed to Springfield township, where he died in 1845. CHAPTER VIII. CINCINNATI TOWNSHIP. WITHIN the decade whose annals have just been passed in review, fell the birth of Cincinnati township, to which was entrusted, for almost twelve years, the government of Cincinnati village, which it of course contained. The township was created, after Columbia, by the court of general quarter sessions of the peace, which then had jurisdiction in these matters, in 1791. To the time of the erection of these townships, the whole county, which contained but a few hundred white inhabitants, was most conveniently governed as one municipality. The boundaries of the new township were as follows: Beginning at a point where the second meridian east of the town (Cincinnati) intersects the Ohio; thence down that stream, about eleven miles to the first meridian east of Rapid Run; thence north to the Big Miami; thence up that stream to the south line of the military range; thence south to the place of beginning. It comprised nearly the whole of the present city of Cincinnati, the townships of Mill Creek and Springfield, almost the entire tract of Colerain, Green and Delhi, stopping on the north beyond the present dividing line of Hamilton and Butler counties. It was a vast township. In 1803 the boundaries were changed as follows: Commencing at the southeast corner of Miami township, HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 51 on the Ohio river; thence north to the northwest corner of section seventeen, in fractional range two, township two; thence east nine miles; thence south to the Ohio; thence westward along the Ohio to the place of beginning. These lines enclosed more than half of Delhi township; the eastern half of Green, except the three northernmost sections; the whole of Mill creek, except the northern sections; and the site of Cincinnati to the range line on the east. The voters were now instructed to meet at the court house and vote for five justices of the peace. The cattle brand for the township, which the court was required to fix by order, was directed, at the time of the original formation of the township to be the letter B, A having already been assigned to Columbia, and C was assigned to the use of Miami township. The boundaries of the original great township were of course rapidly cut down as the county filled up. Dayton and other townships in the present Butler county, then in Hamilton, were early set off north of it, beyond the northernmost possessions of the Cincinnati municipality. Colerain, Springfield, and South Bend townships were erected by or during 1795; and when Mill Creek was set off, the township, being already bounded, at the period of its formation, by Columbia township on the east, was shut in to the narrow limits of the fractional surveyed township, now bounded by Liberty street on the north; the Ohio river, which Liberty intersects a little above Washington street, near the southeast corner of Eden park, on the east and south; and on the west by a meridian not very clearly defined, but probably the range line two miles west of Mill Creek, and now the western boundary of the city. Most of the time since, it may be said, in general terms, that the limits of the township have been nearly coterminous with those of the city in its several extensions. THE GOVERNMENT of Cincinnati and Cincinnati township, from 1790 to 1792, was, as the oldest records show, under the immediate eye of the court of quarter-sessions and the supreme or territorial court, in one or the other of which sat the Honorables John Cleves Symmes, George Turner, Samuel Parsons, James Varnum, Winthrop Sargent, Governor St. Clair', and the associate judges and justices of the quarter-sessions, with special appointees from among the local prothonotaries, sheriffs, clerks, and constables. At the sitting of the supreme court in Cincinnati in 1792, the Honorable John Cleves Symmes presided, assisted by Judges William Goforth, William Wells, and William McMillan, and Justices John S. Gano, George Cullum, and Aaron Cadwell. Joseph LeSure acted as clerk pro tempore, Israel Ludlow and Samuel Swan being otherwise engaged. John Ludlow, high sheriff, was assisted by Isaac Martin, deputy ; while in the call of court appeared Robert Bunten, coroner, and constables Benjamin Orcutt (the crier), Robert Wheelan, Samuel Martin and Sylvanus Reynolds. This court exercised both original and appellate jurisdiction in all things of law, equity, and fact, and that, too, with more force than formality. When convicted, a prisoner was turned over to Sheriff Brown or Ludlow, who, having no sufficient jail, could seldom keep a prisoner more than twenty-four hours. Witnesses were necessarily excused when "taken by the Indians," or "scalped." Plaintiffs and defendants frequently had their cases laid over "until they got back from the campaign;" and the honorable court often vibrated between Isaac Martin's and "the Meeting house," in order to give themselves a chance to lay aside for awhile their official dignity and get ready to appear in their turn in the role of defendants, as very few of the officials escaped from actions of every sort, from top to bottom of the calendar. During the year 1792, and for some years thereafter, Cincinnati was governed by these judicial dignitaries. In the quarter sessions court Judge William Goforth generally presided, assisted by McMillan and Wells, associate justices, and by Squires Gano, Cullum and Cadwell, justices of the peace for the county. This year Samuel Swan succeeded Israel Ludlow as clerk of the court; John Ludlow became sheriff; Samuel Martin, constable; John Ludlow and David E. Wade, overseers of the poor; Isaac Martin, Jacob Reeder, and Ezekiel Sayre, overseers of highways; James Miller, Jacob Miller, and John Vance, viewers of enclosures and appraisers of damages. If to these we add the military authorities, who sometimes ordered everybody into line, it will be seen that Cincinnati was sufficiently governed, containing, as the city and township then did, less than five hundred people. The county commissioners had charge of the public improvements, attended to the taxes and their collection, watched the tax duplicates, managed collectors, and paid out the funds for wolf scalps, for building jails and court rooms, and their own bills for services. The cognomens of those who left their names and deeds on the pages of "the last and only" old worn record are here given as follows: William McMillan, Robert Wheelan, and Robert Benham, 1795-6; Joseph Prince, 1797-8; David E. Wade, r799; Ichabod B. Miller, 1800; William Ruffin, 1801-2; John Bailey, 1802-3; William Ludlow, 1803-4, and John R. Gaston, 1804-5. These men served, three at a time, for a year; some were in office but a year, while others served two or three terms. The commissioners' clerks, under the territorial government, from 1790 to 1803, were Tabor Washburne, 1790 to :798; John Kean, 1798 to 1799; Reuben Reynolds, 1799 to 1800, and Aaron Goforth, 1800 to 1803. TOWNSHIP CIVIL LIST. The following-named gentlemen were the earliest officers in Cincinnati township: 1791.—Levi Woodward, township clerk; Samuel Martin, constable; John Thompson and James Wallace, overseers of the poor; James Gowdy, overseer of rods; Isaac Martin, Jacob Reeder, and James Cunningham, street commissioners. 1792.—Samuel Martin, constable; John Ludlow and David E. Wade, overseers of the poor; James Miller, Jacob Miller, and John Vance, viewers of enclosures and appraisers of damages; Isaac Martin, Jacob Reeder, and Ezekiel Sayre, overseers of highways. 52 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. 1793.—Nathaniel Barnes and Robert Gowdy, constables; Jacob Reeder and Moses Miller, overseers of the poor; Joseph McHenry, Samuel Freeman, and Stephen Reeder, viewers of enclosures and appraisers of damages; Isaac Martin, Usual Bates, and John Schooley, overseers of highways. 1794.—Nathan Barnes, Darius C. Orcutt, and Robert Gowdy, constables; James Brady and David E. Wade, overseers of the poor; James Wallace, Levi Woodward, and James Lyon, viewers of enclosures and appraisers of damages; Isaac Martin, Jacob White, and William Powell, overseers of highways. 1795.-Nathan Barnes, Ephraim Carpenter, and Benjamin Van Hook, constables; James Brady and Samuel Freeman, overseers of the poor; Samuel Dick and Richard Benham, viewers of enclosures and appraisers of damages; James Brady, Levi Woodward, and Samuel Freeman, overseers of highways. CONSTABLES AT COURT. It may also be of interest to see here the names of all the constables who attended the courts of Hamilton county during the first thirteen years, so far as the records exhibit their names. Many of them were constables of Cincinnati township, but others were from the county at large, though the court records present no facilities for locating them in their respective townships: 1790—William Paul, Joseph Gerard, Daniel Griffin, Robert Wheelan; Levi Woodward, crier; 1791—Isaac Martin, Joseph Jeuet, Gerard; Woodward and John Morris, criers; 1792—Wheelan, Martin, Morris, Gerard, Sylvanus Reynolds; Benjamin Orcutt, crier; 1793—Wheelan, Reynolds, Martin, Nathan Barnes; 1794—Same, with Samuel Edwards, Robert Gowdy, B. and D. Orcutt, and Samuel Campbell; Barnes, crier; 1795—Wheelan, B. Orcutt, Edwards, Campbell, Gowdy, Ephraim Carpenter, B. Van hook; 797—Woodward, Josiah Crossly, Parvin Dunn; Abraham Cary, crier; 1798—Darius C. Orcutt; Cary, crier; 1799—Crossly; Cary, crier; 1800—Robert Terry, John Wilkinson, Samuel Armstrong, William Sayres, Isaac Mills, Thomas Morris, Enos Potter, David Kelly; John Daily, crier; 1801—Thomas Larrison, John Robinson, Joseph Case, Terry, Kelly, Orcutt; Cary, crier; 1802—Armstrong, Kelly, Isaac Dunn, Jacob Allen, Josiah Decker; Cary, crier; 1803—Samuel and James Armstrong, David J. Poor, Jerome Holt, Jacob R. Compton. The following names and dates of public officers in Cincinnati township, belonging to the later times, have also been picked up in the course of our investigations: Justices of the peace, 1819—Ethan Stone, John Mahard; 1824-Trustees: Benjamin Mason, Benjamin Hopkins, William Mills; clerk, Thomas Tucker; constables: David Jackson, jr., Richard Mulford, Zebulon Byington; justices: Elisha Hotchkiss, Beza E. Bliss, James Foster; 1829—Trustees: Benjamin Hopkins, William Mills, George Lee; clerk, John Gibson; constables: James McLean, jr., James Glenn, William B. Sheldon; trustees and visitors of common schools: A. M. Spencer, N. G. Guilford, J. Buckley, D. Root, Calvin Fletcher; magistrates: James Foster, Elisha Hotchkiss, Richard Mulford; 1831—Trustees: John Rice, William Mills, Richard Ayres; clerk, John T. Jones; magistrates: James Foster, Richard Mulford, Isaiah Wing, James Glenn, James McLean; constables: Ebenezer Harrison, Josiah Fobes, William B. Sheldon, Ephraim D. Williams, James Baffin, Livius Hazen, J. A. Wiseman; 1834-Trustees: Richard Ayres, Isaac Pioneer, William Borland; clerk, John Jones; justices: Isaac Wing, Richard Mulford, Josiah Fobes, James Glenn, A. W. Sweeney; constables: Ebenezer Harrison, Ephraim D. Williams, James Saffin, J. A. Wiseman, Livius Hazen, Thomas Wright, Benjamin Smith; 1836—Trustees: William Crossman, D. A. King, Josiah Fobes; clerk, Samuel Steer; justices: Richard Mulford, John A. Wiseman, Ebenezer Harrison, William Doty, Livius Hazen, Rancil A. Madison; 1839-40—Trustees: William Crossman, Josiah Fobes, Thatcher Lewis ; clerk, David Churchill; 1841—Justices: James Glenn, Richard Mulford, William Doty, John A. Wiseman, R. A. Madison, Ebenezer Harrison; 1844—Justices: R. A. Madison, Richard Mulford, Ebenezer Harrison, John A. Wiseman, E. V. Brooks, Samuel Perry, E. Singer; constables: Robert P. Black, P. Davidson, A. Delzell, Even Ewan, Thomas Frazer, Thomas Hurst, Jesse O'Neill, James L. Ruffin, Rode-camp; trustees: John Wood, William Crossman, John Hudson; clerk, David Churchill; 1846—Trustees: William Crossman, John Wood, J. B. Bowlin; clerk, David Churchill; justices: Mark P. Taylor, Samuel Perry, Eri V. Brooks, Ebenezer Harrison, David T. Snellbaker, Erwin Singer, John Young; 1850—Trustees: William Crossman, James Hudson, Jesse B. Bowman; 1851—Trustees: Messrs. Crossman and Hudson, and John Hauck ; clerk, John Minshall; justices: John W. Reilly, David T. Snellbaker, F. H. Rowekamp, Jacob Getzendanner, Elias H. Pugh, Joseph Burgoyne, Wick Roll; 1852-Same trustees. CHAPTER IX. CINCINNATI'S SECOND DECADE. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED. The first census of the town and county was taken this year, and exhibited for Cincinnati (township probably) but seven hundred and fifty inhabitants, an increase of but two hundred and fifty in about five years. This, however, was fifty per cent. of growth, and, relatively considered, was by no means to be despised. Many valuable citizens were added to the community during this opening year of the decade. Dr. William Goforth, of whom more will be related in our chapter on medicine in Cincinnati, came in the spring, and his pupil, to become yet more distinguished, Dr. Daniel Drake, came in December. Stephen Wheeler; Mr. Pierson, from New Jersey, the father of William Pierson, long a resident HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 53 of Springfield township; Charles Cone, probably; John B. Enness, Edward Dodson, Charles Faran, A. Valentine, John Wood, Caleb Williams, Rev. Dr. Joshua L. Wilson, pastor of the Presbyterian church, and others who added character and possibly capital to the young city, were among the new comers of 1800. Probably this year, but perhaps earlier, according to a note in chapter VIII, came one of the most enterprising, able, and successful of the pioneer Germans—Martin Baum. He engaged in merchandising, and was for about thirty years in active business here, being connected also with the Miami Exporting company's operations, the old sugar refinery, and many other large enterprises of this day, carrying throughout, notwithstanding reverses as well as successes, the highest reputation for financial ability and personal integrity. He was one of the proprietors of the site of Toledo when it was laid out for a town. Late in life he built the elegant mansion on Pike street afterwards occupied by Nicholas Longworth, and now by the millionaire philanthropist, David Sinton. Like many other early business men in the city, he became involved in debt to the United States bank, and honestly surrendered to it in payment his residence and grounds. He still has a reputation as one of the most honorable and public spirited Cincinnatians of his day. Further notice will be given him in our chapter on the Teutonic element in Cincinnati. In the spring or summer we hear anew from Jeremiah Butterfield, of whom mention is made in our notes on 1798. He came again down the river, this time with his brother and a brother-in-law, young Mr. Campbell, prospecting. They staid a little while at Columbia, and then came to Cincinnati, where they engaged in harvesting for Colonel Riddle, on his section near town. All were bright, strong, faithful young ,fellows, and obtained work without difficulty. Jeremiah was soon engaged by Colonel Ludlow as chain-carrier, during the survey he was ordered to make of the boundary line established by the treaty of Greenville, during which the party •went three months without seeing a white man's dwelling, and at one time came near starving, going without provisions for five days. When the public lands west of the Great Miami were opened to entry, in April, 1801, he formed a partnership with several Cincinnatians-Knoles Shaw and Albin Shaw, Squire Shaw, their father, Asa Harvey, and Noah Willey—and with them bought a large tract of land in the north part of the present Crosby township, extending into Butler county. He made his own home on the other side of the line, and died there, full of years and honors, June 27, 1863. Several of his sons continue to reside in this county. On the other hand, Cincinnati was called upon this year to part with one of her favorite sons, who remained away from the town and county for a series of years, engaged elsewhere in important public duties. William Henry Harrison was appointed governor of Indiana Territory, and went to take up his residence at Vincennes, while Mr. Charles Wylling Byrd was appointed to the secretaryship of the Northwest Territory. William McMillan, esq., was chosen by the territorial legislature delegate to Congress, to fill the unexpired term of General Harrison, and Paul Fearing, of Marietta, for the succeeding two years. March 11th there was a meeting of citizens at Yeatman's tavern, to consider the merits of an invention said to be "capable of propelling a boat against the stream by the power of steam or elastic vapor." This was, in one sense, a herald of the "New Orleans," which came proudly puffing down the Ohio eleven and a half years later. No mails came for four consecutive weeks in January and February. There is now but one newspaper in the place, and that weekly; so that the failure of mail matter is seriously felt. In March the Rev. James Kemper offers for sale his farm of one hundred and fifty-four acres upon the Walnut Hills, on which Lane seminary and many other valuable buildings are now situated, for seven dollars per acre. He did not sell, however, and lived upon it over thirty-five years thereafter, when it had risen in value to five thousand dollars. On the twenty-seventh of May a tremendous hail-storm visits this region, breaking out all the glass windows in town. Independence day was observed this year by the members of a political party, the Republicans, who had a dinuer at Major Ziegler's, next door to Yeatman's tavern. The memory of Washington had been duly honored in February by a procession, in which were Captain Miller and his troops from the fort, the Hamilton county militia, Captain James Findlay commanding the dragoon company, the civil authorities, the Masonic order, and citizens at large. An address was pronounced by Governor St. Clair. About the middle of December a good deal of incendiarism occurred, and the people were considerably alarmed. Fires broke out in various places about town, but nobody was caught and punished as the author of the mischief. The business notes of the year are uncommonly interesting. Imperial or gunpowder tea was three dollars a pound; hyson, two dollars and twenty-five cents; hyson skin, one dollar and fifty cents; bohea, one dollar, and very poor stuff at that; loaf sugar, forty-four cents per pound; pepper, seventy-five cents; allspice, fifty cents. Andrew Dunseth begins business in November as the first gunsmith in Cincinnati. August 27th, Messrs. William and M. Jones advertise that "they still carry on the bakery business, and as flower is getting cheap, they have enlarged their loaf to four pounds, which is sold at one-eighth of a dollar per loaf, or flour pound per pound, payable every three months." In September, Francis Menessier advertises a coffee-house at the foot of the hill, on Main street, open from two to nine P. n4., also, different kinds of liquors, all kinds of pastry, etc. His sign is "Pegasus, the bad poet, fallen to the ground." He also teaches the French language. The same month John Kidd opened a bakery on the corner of Front and Main. In October William McFarland begins the manufacture of earthenware, the first of the kind in the place. James 54 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. White, the same month, advertises a day and night school, and R. Haughton puts himself in print as a professor of dancing. There was great demand for money from creditors afflicted with delinquents, and one pathetic appeal for his dues is sent out from the Hamilton county jail by an unlucky physician who is himself immured for debt. Real property remained cheap, and Hezekiah Flint bought the lot upon which he lived, on Walnut street below Fourth, for one hundred and fifty dollars. Some of the Main street property below the upper level was injured in value by the overhanging of the .brow of the hill, which depreciated the values of the threatened lots until it was removed. People now began to prefer to go to the hill, although it was further from the Landing; and settlement up there progressed more rapidly. Some curious illustrations appear in the newspaper files of this year of the morals of Cincinnati, or the want of them. A sergeant at the fort advertises that his wife has not only left his bed and board, but has taken up with another fellow. A citizen, with a charming frankness, quite uncommon nowadays, boldly announces that he has caught his wife Rachel and a male offender in flagrante delicto. Another cautions the public against a certain woman who calls herself Mary, "and has for a long time passed as my wife, but who is not, as we were never lawfully married," thus plainly indicating the relations in which they had lived. Still another advertises his wife as having abandoned him for the second time, "without any provocation, in any possible shape whatever." A clear, graphic, and detailed picture of Cincinnati, as it appeared at the close of this year, is presented in a published address of Dr. Daniel Drake, who entered it on the eighteenth of December, 1800, as a boy of fifteen, coming from Kentucky hither to begin his medical studies. The address was delivered before the Cincinnati Medical Library association January 9, 1852, in the hall of the Mechanics' institute : In the first year of this century the cleared lands at this place did not equal the surface which is now completely built over. North of the canal and west of the Western row there was forest, with here and there a cabin and small clearing, connected with the village by a narrow, winding road. Curved lines, you know, symbolize the country, straight lines the city. South of where the Commercial [later the Cincinnati] Hospital now administers relief annually to three times as many people as then composed the population of the town, there were half-cleared fields, with broad margins of blackberry vines; and I, with other young persons, frequently gathered that delicious fruit, at the risk of being snake-bitten, 'where the Roman Catholic church now sends its spire into the lower clouds. Further south the ancient mound near Fifth street, on which Wayne planted his sentinels seven years before, was overshadowed with trees which, together with itself, should have been preserved; but its dust, like that of those who then delighted to play on its beautiful slopes, has mingled with the remains of the unknown race by whom it was erected. The very spot on which we are now assembled, but a few years before the time of which I speak, was part of a wheat-field of sixteen acres owned by Mr. James Ferguson and fenced in without reference to the paved streets which now cut through it. The stubble of that field is fast decaying in the soil around the foundations of the noble edifice in which we are now assembled. Seventh street, then called Northern row, was almost the northern limit of population. Sixth street had a few scattering houses; Fifth not many more. Between that and Fourth there was a public square, now built over. In one corner, the northeast, stood the court house, with a small market-place in front, which nobody attended. In the northwest corner was the jail, in the southwest the village school-house; in the southeast, where a glittering spire tells the stranger that he is approaching our city, stood the humble church of the pioneers, whose bones lie mouldering in the centre of the square, then the village cemetery. Walnut, called Cider street, which bounds that square on the west, presented a few cabins or small frames; but Vine street was not yet opened to the river. Fourth street, after passing Vine, branched into roads and paths. Third street, running near the brow of the upper plain, was on as high a level as Fifth street is now. The gravelly slope of that plain stretched from east to west almost to Pearl street. On this slope, between Main and Walnut, a French political exile, whom I shall name hereafter, planted, in the latter part of the last century, a small vineyard. This was the beginning of that cultivation for which the environs of our city have at length become distinguished. I suppose this was the first cultivation of the foreign grape in the valley of the Ohio. Where Congress, Market, and Pearl streets, since opened, send up the smoke of their great iron foundries, or display in magnificent warehouses the products of different and distant lands, there was a belt of low, wet ground which, upon the settlement of the town twelve years before, had been a series of beaver-ponds, filled by the annual overflows of the river and the rains from the upper plains. Second, then known as Columbia street, presented some scattered cabins, dirty within and rude without; but Front street exhibited an aspect of considerable pretension. It was nearly built up with log and frame houses, from Walnut street to Eastern row, now called Broadway. The people of wealth and the men of business, with the Hotel de Ville, kept by Griffin Yeatman, were chiefly on this street, which even had a few patches of sidewalk pavement. In front of the mouth of Sycamore street, near the hotel, there was a small wooden market-house built over a cove, into which pirogues and other craft, when the river was high, were poled or paddled, to be tied to the rude columns. The common then stretched out to where the land and water now meet, when the river is at its mean height. It terminated in a high, steep, crumbling hank, beneath which lay the flat-boats of immigrants or of traders in flour, whiskey, and apples, from Wheeling, Fort Pitt, or Redstone Old Fort. Their winter fires, burning in iron kettles, sent up lazy columns of smoke, where steamers now darken the air with hurried clouds of steam and soot. One of these vessels has cost more than the village would then have brought at auction. From this common the future Covington, in Kentucky, appeared as a cornfield, cultivated by the Kennedy family, which also kept the ferry. Newport, chiefly owned by two Virginia gentlemen, James Taylor and Richard Southgate, but embracing the Mayos, Fowlers, Berrys, Stubbses, and several other respectable families, was a drowsy village set in the side of a deep wood, and the mouth of Licking river was overarched with trees, giving it the appearance of a great tunnel. After Front street, Sycamore and Main were the most important of the town. A number of houses were built upon the former up to Fourth, beyond which it was opened three or four squares. The buildings and business of Main street extended up to Fifth, where, on the northwest corner, there was a brick house, owned by Elmore Williams, the only one in town. Beyond Seventh Main street was a mere road, nearly impassable in muddy weather, which at the foot of the hills divided into two, called the Hamilton road and the Mad-river 10ad. The former, now a crooked and closely built street, took the course of the Brighton house; the latter made a steep ascent over Mount Auburn, where there was not a single habitation. Broadway, or Eastern row, was then but thirty-three feet wide. The few buildings which it had were on the west side, where it joins Front street; on the site of the Cincinnati hotel there was a low frame house, with whiskey and a billiard table. It was said that the owner paid seven hundred dollars for the house and lot in ninepences; that is, in small pieces of "cut money" received for drams. North of this, towards Second street, there were several small houses, inhabited by disorderly persons who had been in the army. The sidewalk in front was called Battle row. Between Second and Third streets, near where we now have the eastern end of the market-house, there was a single frame tenement, in which I lived with my preceptor in 1805. In a pond, directly in front, the frogs gave us regular serenades. Much of the square to which this house belonged was fenced in, and served as a pasture ground for a pony which I kept for country practice. . . Between Third and Fourth streets, on the west side of Broadway, there was, in 1800, a cornfield with a rude fence, since replaced by mansions of such splendor that a Russian traveller, several years ago, took away drawings of one as a model for the people of St. Petersburgh. Above Fourth street Broadway had but three or four houses, and terminated at the edge of a thick wood, before reaching the foot of Mount Auburn. East of Broadway and north of Fourth street, the entire square had HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 55 been enclosed and a respectable frame house erected by the Hon. Winthrop Sargent, secretary of the Northwest Territory. He had removed to Mississippi Territory, of which he was afterwards Governor; and Ids house and grounds, the best improved in the village, were occupied by the Hoe. Charles Wyling Byrd, his successor in office. Governor Sargent merits a notice among the physicians of the town, as he was the first who made scientific observations on our climate. Immediately south of his residence, horn Fourth street to the river, east of Broadway, there was a military reserve. That portion of it which laid on the upper plain was covered by Fort Washington, with its bastions, port-holes, stockades, tall flag-staff, evening tattoo, and morning reveille. Here were the quarters of the military members of our profession, and for a time for one of its civil members also; for, after evacuation in 1803, my preceptor moved into the rooms which had been occupied by the commander of the post. In front of the fort, Congress street now runs, there was a duck pond, in which ducks and snipes were often shot: and from this pond to the river, the tract through which East and Front streets now run was overspread the long, low sheds of the commissaries, quartermasters, and restless of the army. The post office was then and long after kept on the east side of this military common, where Lawrence street leads down to the Newport ferry. Our quiet and gentlemanly postmaster, William Ruffin, performed all the duties of the office with his own hands. The great Eastern mail was then brought once a week from Maysville, Kentucky, in a pair of saddle-bags. East of the fort, on the upper plain, the trunks of large trees were still lying on the ground. A single house had been built by Dr. Allison where the Lytle house now stands; and a field of several acres stretched off to the east and north. On my arrival this was the residence of my preceptor. The dry cornstalks of early winter were still standing near the door. But Dr. Allison had planted peach trees, and It was known throughout the village as Peach Grove. The field exploded to the bank of Deer creek; thence all was deep wood. Where The munificent expenditures of Nicholas Longworth, esq., have collected the beautiful exotics of all climates—on the very spot where the people now go to watch the unfolding of the night-blooming cereus grow the red-bud. crab-apple, and gigantic tulip tree, or the yellow polar, with wild birds above and native flowers below. Where the Catawba and Herbemont now swing down their heavy and luscious clusters, the climbing winter vine hung its small, sour branches from the limbs of high trees. The adjoining valley of Deer creek, down which, by a series of locks, the canal from Lake Erie mingles its waters with the Ohio, was then a receptacle for drift• wood from the back water of that river, when high. The boys ascended the little estuary in slam during June floods, and pulled flowers from the lower limbs of the trees or threw clubs at the turtles, as they sunned themselves on the floating logs. In the whole valley there was but a single house, and that was a distillery. The narrow road which led to it from the garrison—and, I am sorry to add, from the village also—was well trodden. Mount Adams was then clothed in the grandeur and beauty which belongs to our own primitive forests. The spot occupied by the reservoir which supplies our city with water, and all the 10cky precipices that stretch from it up the river, where buried up in sugar-trees. On the western slope we collected the sanguinaria Canadensis, geranium maculatum, gillenia trifoliata, and other natural medicines, when supplies failed to reach us from abroad. The summit on which the observatory now stands was crowned with lofty poplars, oaks, and beech; and the sun in summer could scarcely be seen from the spot where we now look into the valleys of the moon or see distant nebula resolved into their starry elements. Over the mouth of Deer creek there was a crazy wooden bridge, and where the depot of the railroad which now connects us with the sea has been erected, there was but a small log cabin. From this cabin a narrow, rocky, and stumpy road made its way, as best it could, up the river, where the railway now stretches. At the distance of two miles there was another cabin—that from which we expelled the witch. Beyond this all was forest for miles further, when we reached the residence of John Smith. . . The new village of Pendleton now covers that spot. Then came the early, but now extinct, village of Columbia, of which our first physicians were the only medical attendants. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND ONE. On the twentieth of February, Dr. William Goforth, first of the physicians of Cincinnati to do so, introduced vaccination as a preventive of small-pox. March 20th, the Republicans met and had a jollification at Menessier's coffee-house, to celebrate the election of Jefferson to the Presidency. There is a touch of Red Republicanism in the published report of the proceedings, that "Citizen John C. Symmes" was in the chair. When, however, the Fourth of July observances came to be noticed, it was again Citizen J. C. Symmes as president, Citizen Dr. William Goforth vice-president of the day; and so on. There were two celebrations of the Fourth this year—one at Yeatman's,* and one at the big spring on the river-bank, just above Dee1 Creek bridge, where a broad rock served as a table. April 27th, the brig St. Clair, Whipple commander, came down from Marietta, where it had been built, and anchored off the village. It was the first vessel of the kind to appear at this port. In May, upon the expiration of the term for which Mr. McMillan was elected to Congress, and his return, a public dinner was given him by his friends, as a testimonial of appreciation of his valuable services. On the nineteenth of August, the first public recognition, probably, of the omnipotent and lucrative Cincinnati hog is made in the shape of the following advertisement: For Sale.—A quantity of GOOD BACON. Inquire at the office. For a week, beginning the twenty-third of September, the remarkable migration of .squirrels from Kentucky across the 1iver at this point was going on. Large numbers were killed by the settlers-as many as five hundred in one day — between Cincinnati and Columbia. The invasion of these little animals was thought to portend an uncommonly mild winter. On the thirtieth of this month there was a meeting of citizens at Yeatman's, to secure an act of incorporation for the village. The same day an announcement appeared of horse 1aces and the Cincinnati theatre—both the first amusements of their species here. The Thespians gave their performance in Artificers' Yard, below the fort. On the nineteenth of December the Territorial legislature gave Cincinnati a sad stroke, by passing a bill on a vote of twelve to eight, for the removal of the seat of government from this place to Chillicothe. The residence of the governor and other officers of the territory had been here since 1790, and had contributed not a little to the prosperity and fame of the place. November 24th, however, some consolation was afforded by the passage of the act desired for the incorporation of Cincinnati. At the same time Chillicothe and Detroit were incorporated by this legislature. During the same month several fires occurred, and measures began to be considered for the procurement of a fire engine. Some time this year General Findlay was appointed United States Marshal for the district of Ohio, and William McMillan district attorney. They were the first incumbents of these offices. * This famous old tavern, which makes so conspicuous a figure in the early annals of Cincinnati, was situated on lot twenty-seven, east side of Sycamore street, corner of F10nt. 56 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. Business this year was not specially noticeable, save the formation of a company of Cincinnati gentlemen for the purchase of a silver mine in some locality not stated, but "situated at a convenient distance from the Ohio." Mining engineering, we fear, then or since, has failed to discover or develop that bonanza of the precious metal. Salt was bringing two dollars a barrel, powder seventy-five cents a pound, lard twelve and one-half cents, tar fifty cents per gallon—"for ready money only." Joseph McHenry, the first flour inspector, was appointed near the close of 18c r. Among the immigrants of the year were Robert Wallace and John Whetstone. Among the 0thers known to have arrived by this time, and not heretofore noticed, directly or incidentally in these annals, were Robert Park-halter, Ephraim Morrison, William Austin, C. Avery, Thomas Frazer, Levi McLean, Dr. Homes, Thomas Thompson, Michael Brokaw, James and Robert Caldwell, Aaron Cherry, Daniel Globe, Andrew Westfall, Nehemiah Hunt, Thomas Williams, Benjamin Walker, Edmund Freeman (a plasterer), John C. Winans, James Conn, Uriah Gates, Richard Downes, Lawrence Hildebrand, D. Conner and company, Larkin Payne, Henry Furry, George Fithian, Lewis Kerr, Joseph Blew, Isaac Anderson, William McCoy, James Wilson, and Andrew Brannon. CINCINNATI IN 1802. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWO. The great event of this year was the erection of Cincinnati as a village under the act of incorporation of the territorial legislature. The limits were Mill creek on the west ; the township line (now Liberty street) about a mile from the river at the furthest point of the river bank, on the north; the east boundary line of fractional section twelve, on the east; and the river on the south. Temporary officers were provided by the act of incorporation; but the first municipal election was held the first Monday in the month. April 3, Major David Zeigler, formerly commandant of Fort Washington, who had settled as a citizen in Cincinnati, was elected president of the village; Charles Avery, William Ramsey, David E. Wade, John Reily, William Stanley, Samuel Dick, and William Ruffin, trustees; and Jacob Burnet, recorder. Other officers, elected o1 appointed, were: Joseph Prince, assessor; Abram Cary, collector; James ("Sheriff") Smith, marshal. Ten of these twelve "city fathers" had previously held local offices, under the dozen years of territorial or township rule that had prevailed. Among the candidates for constable was the versatile Levi McLean, who issued an electioneering address "to the free and candid electors of the town of Cincinnati." This was the first and only election of officers in the village unde1 territorial government, Ohio becoming a State November 19th of this year, upon the adjournment of the Constitutional Con vention at Chillicothe, after its members had signed the Constitution. The first court house for the county was built this year, near the northwest corner of the public square; and one of the first uses of it was for a meeting of citizens, to gravely determine as to the proposed expenditure of forty-six dollars by the city council, of which twelve were to go for fire-ladders and as much more for fire-hooks. Things changed seventy years later, when millions at a dash were being voted away for a railroad project. The first picture of Cincinnati, so far as known, was made this year, and has since been repeatedly printed.* It marks the dwellings or places of business of Major Ruffin; Charles Vattier, corner of Broadway and Front; James Smith, first door west of Vattier; Major Zeigler, Second street, east of Sycamore; Griffin Yeatman's, northeast corner of Front and Sycamore; Martin Baum's, just opposite; Colonel Gibson, northeast corner Front and Main; Colonel Ludlow, opposite corner; Joel Williams, north side of Water, near Main; Samuel Burt, a log house, northwest corner Walnut and Front, and two little cabins west of him; and Dr. Allison ("Peach Grove"), on the *A large painting of Cincinnati in x800 has recently been made by Mr. A. B. Swing, a local artist, from careful studies of the subject, and exhibited in one of the picture stores on Main street. HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 57 hill near Fort Washington. The Fort and Artificers' Yard, the Presbyterian church, the Green Tree hotel, on Front street, about midway between Main and Walnut, and anothe1 hotel on a street corner, are all the public buildings that are shown in the picture, which obviously does not represent buildings enough for the nine hundred inhabitants, more or less, there must have been here at that time. About the middle of 1802, the first school for young ladies was opened in the place by a Mrs. Williams, in the house of Mr. Newman, a saddler. Some time this year Ethan Stone paid Joel Williams two hundred and twenty dollars for lots eighty-nine, ninety and ninety-one, being one hundred and fifty feet on Vine by two hundred on Fourth street. Thirty-seven years thereafter, in 1839, the larger part of the same property was sold for one hundred and fifty dollars the front foot. A well-known citizen publicly advertises that "the partnership between the subscriber and his wife, Alice, has been dissolved by mutual consent. Another remark in the notice provokes the retort next week, from his wire, that she "has never yet stood in need of his credit." The commerce of the village begins to look up. From the sixteenth of February to the sixteenth of May, exports of flour amounted to four thousand four hundred and fifty-seven barrels. The known arrivals of 1802 are Ethan Stone, Samuel Perry and William Pierson. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THREE. The annals of this twelve-month are brief, but not wholly devoid of interest. Early in the year incendiary fires occurred, as many as three in rapid succession. The citizens were thoroughly alarmed, and a night-watch was organized and maintained for some time. One man was arrested and imprisoned on suspicion; but nothing was proved against him, and the real incendiary remained undisclosed. The garrison was removed this year from Fort Washington to Newport Barracks; and to this change, possibly, may be attributed the infrequency of incendiary fires in Cincinnati thereafter. The occasional feuds between soldier and citizen may have had something to do with them before that. On the sixteenth of June the Miami Exporting Company's bank was opened—the first banking institution in town. Some notable arrivals occurred; as of Christopher and Robert Cary, grandfather and father of the celebrated Cary sisters. They came from New Hampshire, remained in Cincinnati several years and then removed to a farm near Mount Pleasant, now Mount Healthy, on the Hamilton 1oad, where their descendants and other relatives are now to be found in some number. On New Year's day came Thomas and Thankful Carter, grandparents of Judge A. G. W. Carter, with their promising family of five boys and three girls. The judge's maternal grandfather, the Rev. Adam Hurdus, founder of the New Church or Swedenborgianism in the west came from England with his family to Cincinnati April 4, 1806. Judge A. H. Dunlevy, in an address to the Cincinnati Pioneer association, April 7, 1875, gives the following picture of the Queen City of this year: EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR. Cincinnati was then a very small place. The hotel where I put up was near the northeast corner of Main and Fifth streets, and was kept by one James Conn, or rather by his wife, who was the most efficient of the family. . . From the customers of this hotel, I think it was considered the best then in Cincinnati. But at this time the forest trees stood on the south, east, and north of this hotel property. Directly south, across Fifth street, Tom Dugan, an old bachelor who left a large property in Cincinnati, had a rough-iron store; and there were very few buildings of any size south along Main street, until the corner of Main and Fourth, where, on the north side, James Ferguson had the best store, I think, then in Cincinnati. The only access to the Ohio, where wagons could descend, was at the foot of Main street; and this consisted simply of a wide road cut diagonally down the steep bank of the river. In high water there was no other levee than this road. In low water, however, there was a wide beach; but this could only be reached by this road. It may be there was a similar approach to the river at the foot of Broadway; but if so, I did not see it. All north of Fifth street, with the exception of one or two houses, was in woods or inclosed lots, without other improvements. In coming to Cincinnati from Lebanon, miles of the route were in the woods, out of sight of any improvements; and from Cumminsville, then only a tavern, kept by one Cummins (John, I think), there were but two residences on the road until you came near to Conn's hotel. One of these was the residence of Mr. Cary—I think father of General Samuel Cary, of Hamilton county, as well known. In May a very useful and honored resident, William McMillan, one of the first colonists of Losantiville, died, greatly lamented by his fellow-citizens. His life and public services will be further noticed in our chapter on the Bar of Cincinnati. Mr. Cist wrote of him in Cincinnati in 1841: There can be no doubt that Mr. McMillan was the master spirit of the place at that day, and a man who would have been a distinguished member of society anywhere. It is impossible to contemplate his character and career without being deeply impressed with his great superiority over every one around him, even of the influential men of the day; and there were men of as high character and abilities in Cincinnati in those days as at present. He was lost to the community at the age of forty-four, just in the meridian of his course, and left vacant an orbit of usefulness and influence in the community in which no one since has been found worthy to move. A town meeting was held this year, to consider the adoption of measures for a general vaccination of the inhabitants of the village. On the fourth of December was issued the first number of Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Mercury, edited and published by the Rev. John W. Browne. A large number of immigrants are registered for this year. Among them, in the fall, was Colonel Stephen McFarland, father of the venerable Isaac B. McFarland, still living in Cincinnati, and Mr. John McFarland and a sister, of Madisonville. General Findlay, who knew him in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, had written for him. His wife and children came the next year. H. M., Jacob, and Andrew H. Ernst came this year with their father, Zachariah Ernst. The family became quite prominent here. Jacob was a printer and author, writing books on Masonry, etc., while Andrew wrote treatises on gardening and arboriculture. Ernst station, on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, is named from the family. Other arrivals were Peaton S. Symmes, Benjamin Smith, P. A. Sprigman, George P. Torrence (long presiding judge of the court of common pleas), Jonathan 58 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. Pancoast, Robert Richardson, James Perry, Peter M. Nicoll, Adam Moore, William Moody, Benjamin Mason, Casper Hopple, Andrew Johnston, Ephraim Carter, James Crawford, William Crippen, and Henry Craven. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIVE. The village now had twenty-five merchants and grocers, fifteen joiners and cabinet-makers, twelve bricklayers, eleven inn-keepers, nine attorneys, eight physicians, eight blacksmiths, seven shoemakers, five saddlers, seven tailors, five bakers, three each of tobacconists, silversmiths, and tanners, four hatters, two each of printers, brewers, tinners, and coppersmiths, and one book-binder. Its population was nine hundred and sixty, housed and doing business in one hundred and seventy-two buildings. Jesse Hunt, on Second street, near Eastern row; Aaron Goforth, on Walnut, below Fourth; Andrew Lemon, on Water street; and Joel Williams, also on Water street, had the only stone buildings in town; while the six brick buildings were the Miami bank building, on Front, near Main; Elmore Williams', on Main and Fifth streets; Nimmo's, on Main, near Fourth ; Judge Burnet's, Vine, near Fourth, where the Burnet house now is; and two others; to which was presently added the Rev. John W. Browne's Liberty Hall office, at the east end of the lower market house. Fifty-three log cabins were still remaining, and there were a little more than twice as many (one hundred and nine) frame buildings. Mr. E. D. Mansfield, long afterwards recalling his Personal Memories of the coming of his father and family here, said: We arrived at Cincinnati, I think, the last part of October, 1805. . . But what was Cincinnati then? One of the dirtiest little villages you ever saw. Of course I was not driven around to see its splendors; but the principal street or settlement was Front street—and that I saw. The chief houses at that time were on Front street, f10m Broadway to Sycamore. They were two-story frame houses, painted white. One was that of General Findlay, receiver of the land office, . . and subsequently member of Congress for the Cincinnati district. Mr. Josiah Espy, who made a tour this year through Ohio, Kentucky, and the Indian Territory, and published a journal of his travels, came here September 4th, and stayed two days, making the following note of the place: Cincinnati is a remarkably sprightly, thriving town, on the northwest bank of the Ohio river, opposite the mouth of the river Licking, and containing, from appearance, about two hundred dwelling-houses many of these elegant brick buildings. The site of the town embraces both the first and second banks of the river, the second bank being, I suppose, about two hundred feet above the level of the water. In March a great freshet occurred in the Ohio, overflowing everything on the lower levels, and sweeping away houses, stock, and other property. May 8th, General John S. Gano was appointed clerk of the courts for Hamilton county. This is noteworthy simply as the beginning of a very long and useful career for the Ganos in this capacity, lasting far down the century. In the same month, on the fifteenth instant, came Aaron Burr to this village, en route for New Orleans, while his expedition was preparing and he was meditating his ambitious, if not treasonable, projects. He does not seem to have done much mischief here, except to involve in trouble United States Senator John Smith, through the evident friendship of the two and Smth's hospitality to Burr while here. The Republicans of that time (the political ancestors of the present Democracy) held the Fourth of July celebration by themselves this year, at a bower in front of the court house. Judge Symmes was president, Matthew Nimmo vice-president, and Thomas Rawlins orator of the day. The light dragoons, Lieutenant Elmore Williams commanding, made a street parade for this section of the Cincinnati patriots. Others went with Captain Smith's company of light infantry to the Beechen grove, in the western part of the town, where there was a dinner, succeeded by nineteen toasts. Some of the toasts were quite unique. Captain McFarland volunteered one as follows: "A hard-pulling horse, a porcupine saddle, a cobweb pair of breeches, and a long journey, to the enemies of America." The Cincinnati Thespians held their meetings during a part of this year in the loft of a stable in rear of General Findlay's place, on the site of the old Spencer house. On the eleventh of December an ordinance was passed by the town council for the establishment of a sort of night-watch, without pay. This year came John M. Wozencraft, a Welshman from Baltimore, who remained here for a time, and afterwards died in South Carolina on his way to England. The arrival from the same city of forty to fifty families, with about as many unmarried men, chiefly mechanics, gave to the town, says the directory of 1819, the first spring of anything like improvement. Joseph Coppin, the aged president of the Cincinnati Pioneer association for this year 1880–1, came to the town of Cincinnati December 16th. He is, doubtless, the oldest man living, who was a resident of the city at that time. Mr. Coppin was born in Norwich, England, April 8, 1791, and was brought, when a boy, to this country by his father, who settled in New York city. Young Coppin walked in the funeral procession organized in that city in December, 1799, to do honor to the memory of Washington, then just deceased. He afterwards marched in the processions that followed to tomb the remains of Alexander Hamilton, slain by Burr in 1804, and of Major David Zeigler, a native of Prussia, and commandant of Fort Washington, who died and was buried in Cincinnati in September, 1811. He was a boy in his fifteenth year when brought to this place, and remembers distinctly the Cincinnati of that day. He worked as a boat-joiner upon the first barges that were built here for the New Orleans trade, and as a house-carpenter labored upon the famous "Bazaar" built by the Trollopes in 1828-9. The aged pioneer is spending the evening of his days tranquilly at Pleasant Ridge, in this county. By far the most distinguished arrivals of this year, or of the decade, were those of General Jared Mansfield and his family, which included a son, then a little boy of four years, Edward D. Mansfield, who became one of the most useful men of his time, and died only last year—October 27, 1880, at his "Yamoyden" farm near Morrow, thirty miles from Cincinnati. General Mansfield was of HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 59 English stock, and immediately from an old New Hampshire family; a graduate of Yale college, and thorough scientist for his day; a teacher in his native State, and at the Friends' academy, in Philadelphia; author of a learned work comprising essays on mathematical topics; appointed surveyor general of the United States by President Jefferson in 1803, particularly to establish correct meridian lines, which had given previous surveyors much trouble; resident at Marietta 1803-5, and at or near Cincinnati (at Ludlow's station, and at Bates' place, near the present workhouse, afterwards called Mount Comfort), 18o5-12; wrote a series of papers signed "Regulus," opposing the schemes of Burr; established three principal meridians in Ohio and Indiana; returned to West Point as an instructor 1814-28, and remained at the east until his death. Edward D. Mansfield was also born in New Hampshire; was educated here, in New Hampshire, and Cheshire, Connecticut, and at the Military academy, from which he was graduated the fourth of his class, and the youngest graduate in the history of \Vest Point. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the engineer corps, but, at the instance of his mother, resigned to become a lawyer. He first prepared regularly for college, entered the junior class at Princeton, and was graduated with the first honor. After a course at the Litchfield Law school he was admitted to the bar, and returned to Cincinnati the same year, where, or near which city, he thenceforth remained. He practiced law but a short time, however, and gave his time mostly to journalism and other literary pursuits. He was author of the Political Grammar, still published as a text-book for schools; of a work on Amer-can Education; of Personal Memories, a life of Dr. Drake, and many other books and reports, and pamphlets of addresses, lectures, etc. He was the first and only commissioner of statistics for the State, and filled the place admirably. While a young lawyer here he had for a time as a partner Professor 0. M. Mitchel, founder of the Cincinnati observatory. In 1835 he was professor of constitutional law and history in the Cincinnati college, and was then also editor of the Cincinnati Chronicle. He subsequently filled many other stations of usefulness, and continued his intellectual activity almost to the day of his lamented death. The arrival of General Mansfield and family was pleasantly chronicled nearly forty years afterwards, by Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, in a history of an early voyage on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, with historical sketches of the different points along them, etc., etc., contributed to the American Pioneer for March, 1842. Dr. Hildreth says: General Mansfield possessed a high order of talents, especially as a mathematician, with every qualification necessary to conduct the department under his control with honor to himself and advantage to his country. To a handsome personal appearance was added the most bland and pleasant address, rendering him a very desirable companion. Among the sailing vessels built at Marietta between the years 1801 and 1805, was a beautiful little seventy-ton schooner called the Nonpareil, constructed by Captain Jonathan Devoll, one of the earliest shipwrights on the Ohio, for himself and sons, and Mr. Richard Greene. In the spring of 1805 she was finished and loaded for a voyage down the Mississippi, and General Mansfield determined to take passage upon her with his family—a son, a nephew, and a servant girl for his new station at Cincinnati, which would be "more central and nearer to the new tracts of government lands ordered to be surveyed in Ohio and the adjacent western territory." The vessel left Marietta April 21st. Dr. Hildreth thus records the arrival at Cincinnati, and gives a rapid but vivid picture of the town as it then appeared: The Nonpareil now unmoored and put out into the stream, proposing to stop at Cincinnati to land General Mansfield and family. The distance between the two towns was one hundred and sixty miles. New settlements and imp10vements were springing up along the bank of the river every few miles; and the busy hum of civilization was heard where silence had reigned for ages, except when broken by the scream of the panther, the howl of the wolf, or the yell of the savage. In this distance there are now no less than twelve towns, some of which are of considerable importance. They reached Cincinnati after a voyage of seventeen days, being protracted to this unusual length by adverse winds, a low stage of water, and the frequent stops of General Mansfield on business relating to his department, especially that of determining the meridian and latitude of certain points on the Ohio river. It was now the eighth of May; the peach and the apple had shed their blossoms, and the trees of the forest were clad in their summer dress. Cincinnati, in 1805, contained a population of nine hundred and fifty souls. The enlivening notes of the fife and drum at reveille were no longer heard, and the loud booming of the morning gun, as it 10lled its echoes along the hills and the winding shores of the river, had ceased to awaken the inhabitants from their slumbers. Cincinnati had been from its foundation until within a short period the headquarters of the different armies engaged in the Indian wars; and the continual arrival and departure of the t10ops, the landing of boats and detachments of pack-horses with p10visions, had given to this little village all the life and activity of a large city. Peace was now restored; and the enlivening hum of commerce was beginning to be heard on the landings, while the bustle and hurry of hundreds of immigrants thronged the streets as they took their departure for the rich valleys of the Miami, the intended home of many a weary pilgrim from the Atlantic States. The log houses were beginning to disappear—brick and frame buildings were supplying their places. Large warehouses had arisen near the water for the storing of groceries and merchandise, brought up in barges and keel-boats from the far distant city of New Orleans. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIX. This was a transition year, or rather the beginning of a transition-period, for the little place. Says Mr. Mansfield, in his biography of Dr. Drake (it will be observed that he was writing about 1855): Cincinnati was then emerging out of a village existence into that, not of a city, but of a town, In 1806 it was but a small and dirty county-town. But about that time commenced a career of growth and success which is unequaled in history. Such success, notwithstanding all natural advances, is always due as much to the mind and energy of its citizens as to all physical causes. If we look to the young men then associated with Dr. Drake and to the older citizens whom I have all ready mentioned, it will be found that no young place in America has gathered to itself a greater amount of personal energy and intellectual ability. I have named among the pioneers the St. Clairs, Symmeses, Burnets, Ganos, Findlays, Goforths and Oliver M. Spencer. In the class of young men, about 1806-7-8, were John McLean, now supreme judge; Thomas S. Jessup, now quartermaster-general; Joseph G. Totten, now general of engineers; Ethan A. Brown, afterwards governor, judge and canal commissioner; George Cutler, now colonel in the army; Mr. Sill, since member of congress from Erie, Pennsylvania; Joseph Crane, afterwards judge; Judge Torrence, Dr. Drake, Nicholas Longworth, Peyton S. Symmes, David Wade, Samuel Perry, Joseph Pierce, a poet of decided talent; Mr. Armstrong and John F. Mansfield. The last two died early—the former, a young man of great ability, and the latter of distinguished scientific attainments and high promise. * Mr. Mansfield's foot-note: " I do not pretend to give a list of all the prominent young men at that time, but only those of whom I have some knowledge.' 60 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. Such a circle of young men would grace any rising town, and impart to its mind and character a tone of energy and a spirit of ambition. During the year this part of the country was visited and partly explored, after a fashion, by an Englishman named Thomas Ashe, who chose to palm himself off during his travels among the western barbarians as a Frenchman named D'Arville. He pottered around somewhat among the antiquities of the Ohio valley, promulgated the highly probable theory that the earthworks then still remaining in Cincinnati were the ruins of an ancient city, and after his return to the Old World, besides publishing a ponderous account of his travels in America, in three volumes, he issued a smaller volume entitled, "Memoirs of Mammoth and various extraordinary and stupendous Bones, of Incognita or Nondescript Animals found in the vicinity of the Ohio, Wabash, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Osage and Red rivers, etc. Published for the information of the Ladies and Gentlemen whose taste and love of science tempt them to visit the Liverpool Museum." He was helped to this latter publication by the indiscretion of that fine gentleman of the old school, Dr. William Goforth, of Cincinnati, who intrusted the fellow with a large collection, in ten boxes, which the doctor had made, with great trouble and at some expense, from the Big Bone Lick, in Kentucky. Ashe was to take them abroad and exhibit them through Europe and the United Kingdom, and send the owner a specified share of the profits. Instead he coolly sold them to the Liverpool museum for a round sum, after exhibiting them in London, and is said to have made a fortune out of them and his book. He never accounted for a penny to Dr. Goforth, who must have felt the loss seriously, as he was not a man of large means. Mr. Ashe is regarded as very poor authority in scientific speculation or statement of fact; yet his narrative is undoubtedly correct in parts, and where he had no object to accomplish in telling a falsehood, it is probable he can be believed. The following is his view of Cincinnati in 18̊6: The town consists of about three hundred houses, frame and log, built on two plains, the higher and the lower, each of which commands a fine view of the opposite shore, the mouth of Licking, the town of Newport, and the Ohio waters for a considerable way both up and down. The public buildings consist of a court house, prison, and two places of worship; and two printing-presses are established, which issue papers once a week. Cincinnati is also the line of communication with the chain of forts extended from Fort Washington to the westward, and is the principal town in what is called Symmes' Purchase. The garrison end of the town is now in a state of ruin. A land office for the sale of Congress lands at two dollars per acre is held in the town, and made no less than seventeen thousand contracts the last year with persons both from Europe and all parts of the United States. So very great and extensive is the character of the portion of the State of which this town is the fort and capital, that it absorbs the whole reputation of the country, deprives it of its topographical name, and is distinguished by that of the "Miamis." In Holland, Germany, Ireland, and the remote parts of America, persons intending to emigrate declare that they will go to the "Miamis." The commerce at present is conducted by about the keepers of thirty stores. . . The merchants make an exorbitant p10fit. Those of four years' standing, who came with goods obtained at Philadelphia and Baltimore on credit, have paid their debts, and now live at their ease. In general the people of Cincinnati make a favorable impression; they are orderly, decent, sociable, liberal, and unassuming; and were I compelled to live in the western country, I would give their town a decided preference. There are among the citizens several gentlemen of integrity, intelligence, and worth. He names with special commendation Generals Findlay and Gano, Dr. Goforth, and Messrs. Dugan and Moore. The amusements consist of balls and amateur plays, the former of which going to literary and humane purposes, disposes me to think them both entertaining and good. On the sixth of February, the brig Perseverance, from Marietta for New York, via New Orleans and the Gulf, dropped anchor at Cincinnati. Commerce with domestic and foreign ports, from the Ohio Valley over the high seas, is obviously looking up. On the nineteenth of the month rumors are heard that excite considerable alarm concerning the movements of the Indians at Greenville, where the artful Tecumseh has his lodge, and is daily stirring up strife between the red and white men. It is this time, however, a harmless alarm. March 31st, the United States gunboats, built by the order of President Jefferson with some reference, it is supposed, to the stoppage of Burr's expedition, were launched from the shipyards at Columbia. From May 4th to August 22d no rain falls, and a great cry goes up for showers. The whole Miami country is athirst; the river threatens to disclose the lowermost stratum of its rocky bed. A great eclipse of the sun occurs, in its gloomiest movements making the objects in a room almost invisible. A graphic picture of the effect in Cincinnati of the Burr conspiracy is furnished in the journal of Mrs. Israel Ludlow (Charlotte Chambers), under date of September 28, 1806 : A report has been circulating that Aaron Burr, in conjunction with others, is forming schemes inimical to the peace of his country, and that an armament and fleet of boats are now in motion on the Ohio, and that orders have actually arrived from headquarters for our military to intercept and prevent its progress down the river. In consequence of these orders, cannon have been planted on the bank and a sentinel stationed on the watch. The light horse commanded by Captain Ferguson have gallantly offered their services, and Captain Carpenter's company of infantry are on the alert. Cincinnati has quite the appearance of a garrisoned town. A tremendous cannonading was heard yesterday, and all thought Burr and hls armament had arrived; but it was only a salute to a fleet of flatboats containing military stores for the different stations on the river. Mr. Joseph Coppin, one of the few survivors of the Cincinnati of the second decade, in his inaugural address, March 27, 1880, as President of the Pioneer association, gives the following amusing reminiscence: We had plenty of snow, but no pleasure sleighs; so the old pioneers thought that the' must have a ride, and they procured a large canoe or pirogue, with a skiff attached behind and seated for the ladies. To this pirogue-sleigh were hitched, ten horses, with ten boy-riders to guide them, the American flag flying, two fiddlers, two flute-players, and Dr. Stall as captain. They did not forget to pass the "old black Betty," filled with good old peach brandy, among the old pioneers, and wine for the lady pioneers—God bless them! And here they went it, merrily singing "Gee-o, Dobbin; Dobbin, gee-o!" When the riding ended, both old and young pioneers wound up the sport with a ball—linsey-woolsey dresses in place of silk on ladies, many buckskin suits on pioneer men, and moccasins on their feet in place of shoes. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVEN. Herr Schultze, a German tourist who found his way to the Ohio Valley this year and afterwards published his HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 61 Travels on an Inland Voyage, thus remarks upon Cincinnati: It contains about three hundred houses, among which are found several very genteel buildings; it has a bank, market-house, printing-office, and a number of stores well stocked with every kind of merchandise in demand in this country. The markets are well furnished, both as to abundance and variety. Superfine flower [sic] is selling at three and a half and four dollars by the single barrel, and other articles are proportionally cheap. Ordinary manufactures they have likewise in plenty; and the country round, being rich and level, produces all the necessaries of life with but little labour. Fort Washington is situated immediately at the upper end of the town ; and although, from the increased population of the country, it is at present useless, yet, in the early settlement of this place, it was a post of considerable importance in checking the incursions and ravages of the Indians. February third the Territorial Legislature passes an act authorizing the imposition of a tax to the amount of six thousand dollars, for the pecuniary foundation of a Cincinnati University. March eleven, the office of General Findlay, the 1eceiver of public moneys at the land office, is robbed of fifty thousand dollars, which creates a prodigious sensation. The perpetrators, are found, tried, and sentenced to be publicly whipped, but are pardoned through the clemency of Governor Looker. The third of September brings the first purchase of fire-engines—hand engines, of course—for the village; one to be used on the bottom, the other on the hill. November third, Judge Burnet, having been peppered with paper bullets from the Rev. John W. Browne, editor, in turn castigates him, but with a more material weapon. Another first-class sensation for the quidnuncs of the village. Mr. Coppin, the pioneer before referred to, says that in this year the first barges were built in Cincinnati for the New Orleans trade, by Richardson & Nolan, for whom he worked. They were built for Messrs. Martin Baum, James Riddle, Henry Bechtle, and Captain Samuel Perry, and were rigged like schooners, with two masts, and the cabins finished like those of a ship. Another rather notable arrival occurred this year, June first, in the landing, from a flatboat at the foot of Main street, of Evans Price, an enterprising Welshman, his wife and four children, and the large amount, for that period, of ten thousand dollars' worth of store goods. He had thenceforth a long and active business career in the city. In November dies the Hon. William Goforth, sr., the first judge named for Hamilton county, and a prominent member of the first State constitutional convention. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHT. Mr. F. Cuming, a Philadelphian, came down the Ohio in May, and in his Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country says: We stopped at Cincinnati, which is delightfully situated just opposite the mouth of the Licking river. This town occupies more ground and seems to contain nearly as many houses as Lexington. It is on a double bank, like Steubenville, and the streets are in right lines, intersecting at right angles. The houses are many of them of brick, and they are all in general well built, well painted, and have that air of neatness which is so conspicuous in Connecticut and New Jersey, from which latter State this part of the State of Ohio is principally settled. Some of the new brick houses are of three stories, with flat roofs, and there is one of four stories now building. Mr. Jacob Burnet, an eminent lawyer, has a handsome brick house, beautifully situated, just out- side the west end of the town. Cincinnati, then named Fort Washington, was one of the first military posts occupied by the Americans in the western country, but I observed no remains of the old fort. It is now the capital of Hamilton county, and is the largest town in the State. By this time, according to Mr. Cuming, the remains of the fort must have been thoroughly cleared away. The building and other material had been sold in March by order of the Government, and had probably by this time all been broken up and carted off. The reservation on which it stood had also been cut up into lots, and sold through the land office. On the twentieth of April, in that one day, two brigs and two "ships" passed Cincinnati, on their way to New Orleans. The vote in Cincinnati this year was two hundred and ninety-eight; in Hamilton county one thousand one hundred and sixteen. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND NINE. There is much excitement and alarm a part of this year, under the belief, which is general through the Ohio and Indiana country, that Tecumseh and the Prophet, still at Greenville, are about to lead the confederated tribes to another war of devastation and massacre. The movements in the southwest part of the State are recounted in another chapter on the military 1ecord of Hamilton county. The tax levy for this year is but one-half of one per cent.; for the next year but two-fifths of one per cent., and for 1811 but thirty-five cents on the hundred dollars. In the early afternoon of Sunday, May 28th, a terrible tornado swept through the eastern part of town. Dr. Drake says, in his Picture of Cincinnati, that "it demolished a few old buildings, threw down the tops of several chimneys and overturned many fruit and shade trees." Another gale swept the central part of the village, and a third the west end. The last was the most destructive of all, blowing down, wrote Dr. Drake, "a handsome brick edifice designed for tuition, in con- sequence of having a cupola disporportioned to its area; and various minor injuries of property were sustained, but the inhabitants escaped unhurt." The tornado made a broad track of devastation through the-forest on the hill northeast of town. It was accompanied by copious showers of rain and hail, with much thunder and lightning. The "edifice designed for tuition" was the "Cincinnati University" building; and its destruction extinguished the hopes of the enterprise it represented. Some smaller buildings were razed to the ground, and the roof of Winthrop Sargent's house was blown of "like a piece of paper," as Mr. Mansfield records it. This house, he says, was nearly in the centre of the square north of Fourth street and east of Broadway, with McAllister street on the northwest. He thinks it was the only house then in that part of the city. In the same storm, large oak trees were torn up by the roots, and some were thrown bodily across the roads. Mr. Mansfield's account, however, locates this storm in 1812; but he was probably mistaken for once. William D. Bigham came this year, from Lewiston, 62 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. Pennsylvania, with his wife and family, four sons and two daughters. Two other daughters— wives, respectively, of James Patterson and James Reed—had already removed to Hamilton county, and were living near the city. He had made two trips through this country, one in 1795, and the other in 1801, during the latter of which he bought three hundred and fifty acres of land a mile and a half from the town (now, of course, in the city), several town lots here, and a tract in Butler county. He remained but about a year, and then moved to his place near Hamilton, where he died in 1815. Two of his grandsons, William D. and David L., sons of David Big-ham, became residents of Cincinnati; the former died here November 23, 1866. Several of his sons became public officers and otherwise prominent men in Butler county. CHAPTER X. CINCINNATI'S THIRD DECADE. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TEN. This was the year of the third United States census—the second for Cincinnati. It gave the place two thousand three hundred and twenty inhabitants—an increase of nearly three hundred and ten per cent., and the greatest in the history of the city in one decade, excepting the marvelous jump in the sixth decade from forty-six thousand three hundred and thirty-eight in 1840 to one hundred and fifteen thousand four hundred and thirty-eight in 1850. The white males numbered one thousand two hundred and twenty-seven, white females one thousand and thirteen, negroes eighty. Children under sixteen years counted one thousand and fifteen; and there were but one hundred and eighty-four over forty-five years. The vote of the town was three hundred and eighty-eight; of the county, two thousand three hundred and twenty. The first book relating to the place was published this year—a unique fact for a village of but twenty-four hundred people and twenty years' growth, and one which seemed to foreshadow the future greatness of the town. Drake's Notes concerning Cincinnati is now a very rare and valuable book, and still reflects honor on the scientific and literary attainments, as well as the enterprise of the young physician who prepared it. It is a thoroughly original work, upon which many Cincinnati books have since, in part, been built. To the fourth and fifth chapters of that little work we owe the notes upon the village for this year that follow: About two-thirds of the houses were in the Bottom, the rest upon the Hill. No streets were yet paved, and the alleys were still few. There was no permanent common, except the Public Landing. The primitive forest having been thoroughly cleared away, trees had been planted along some of the sidewalks; but, says the good doctor, "they are not sufficiently numerous. The absurd clamor against the caterpillar of the Lombardy poplar caused many trees of that species to be cut down, and at present the white flowering locust very justly attracts the most attention." The place contained about three hundred and sixty dwellings, chiefly brick and frame, and a few of stone. Scarcely any were so constructed as to afford habitations for families below the ground, and not many had even porches. There were two cemeteries —one for the dead of all denominations on the Public square, between Fourth and Fifth streets, "nearly in the center of the Hill population," and was, says Dr. Drake, "a convenient receptacle for the town, for strangers, and for the troops in Fort Washington, previous to the erasement of that garrison." Its area was something less than half the square. The other cemetery was opened by the Methodists about 1805, in the northeast quarter of the town, and also on the Hill. Eight brickyards were in operation in the western part of the Bottom, on the lowest part of the town site, near the second bank. That quarter abounded in pools, formed by water drained from almost every part of the village., The butchers' shambles were on the bank of Deer creek, north and northwest of town. The tanneries were in the same region. The American emigration to this time had been chiefly from the States north of Virginia; but representatives were on the ground from every State then in the Union and from most of the countries in the west of Europe, especially from England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany. The inhabitants were generally laborious, most of them mechanics, and the rest chiefly merchants, professional men, and teachers. Very few, if any, were so independ ent in means as not to, engage in some business. Most of the inhabitants were temperate, but some would get "daily but quietly" drunk, and "no very inconsiderable number had been known to fall victims to the habit." Whiskey was most in request by the tipplers, but beer and cider were the beverages of the more sober. Well water furnished the plain, summer drink; but for domestic purposes river water was supplied in barrels, and at least half the inhabitants also drank it during six months of the year. The use of tobacco by the male inhabitants, from the age of ten up, was almost universal. The average food was similar to that eaten in the middle and eastern States; fresh meats were consumed in large quantities. Beef, fermented wheat bread, and Indian corn bread were common; but hot bread of any kind was rarer than in the southern States. Rye flour was almost. unknown as a breadstuff. Fish was not a leading article of diet, although abundant in the streams. The dress of the people by this time did not vary greatly from that worn by the corresponding classes in the middle States. The ladies, thought the doctor, injured their health by dressing too thin, and both sexes were not sufficiently careful to adjust their clothing to the frequent changes of weather. Female health was further endangered by the balls and dancing parties prevalent here then, as elsewhere, though not to great excess. Mineral waters, either natural or artificial, or artificial baths, were not yet known in the place. Bathing in the river was practiced by some, but was less regular and general than comports with health and cleanliness. HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 63 The back part of the bottom, through its entire length, is described by the docto1 as "a hot-bed" of animal and vegetable putridity. Some spots, but only of small area, had been artificially raised to make them cultivable. At the east end of a strip of low ground was a kind of broad, shallow canal, which conveyed water from all parts of the town site to the pits of the brickyards, where "it could not escape, save as gas or malaria. For its escape in this manner the heat of our summer sun, increased by the reflection from the contiguous high bank, is amply sufficient." The principal febrile diseases, notably typhus affections, which had scourged the people the year before, especially in December, 1809, were most probably due to this cause. The "drowned lands" in the valley of Mill creek were also mentioned as a fertile source of fever and ague; likewise the tall forest trees that still overshadowed large spaces between the valley and the town, the cemetery in the heart of the population, and the shambles and tanneries when winds blew from the northwest. Sunstroke was then unknown here, and death from the inordinate use of well water, which in those days killed many thirsty ones in Philadelphia, was very rare in Cincinnati. Few diseases could be traced directly to the heats of summer. This year General Lytle, an extensive and enterprising land operator, removed to Cincinnati from Williamsburgh, Clermont county. He was, as is well known, the father of Colonel Robert T. Lytle, who represented the Cincinnati district in Congress 1833-5, and the grandfather of General William H. Lytle, who was killed in the late war. On the twenty-sixth of October arrived the families of L'Hommedieu, Fosdick, and Rogers, after a tedious journey from Sagg Harbor, on Long Island, having consumed sixty-three days in coming from New York city. Hon. Stephen S. L'Hommedieu, then a boy in one of these families, says, in his Pioneer Address of 1874: Cincinnati was then a village, containing about two thousand inhabitants. The houses were mostly frame or log cabins, located generally on the lower level, below what is now Third street. The principal street was Main, and was pretty well built upon as high as Sixth and Seventh streets, the latter being the northern boundary of the village. It had its Presbyterian meeting-house, a frame building on the square between Fourth and Fifth, Main and Walnut streets; its graveyard, court house, jail, and public whipping-post, all on the same square. Upon the same ground, between the court house and meeting-house, buds of friendly Indians would have war-dances, much to the amusement of the villagers; after which the hat would be passed around for the benefit, it may be, of the pappooses. And here I may mention the fact that the pew and pulpit sounding board of that same old pioneer meeting-house, built in the years 1792-3, in 1810, occupied by that able, fine-looking, hospitable, brave old Kentucky preacher, Dr. Joshua L. Wilson, are still in —use in a small German Lutheran church, on the river road, within the present corporate limits of the city. The village also had its stone Methodist meeting-house, built in 1805- 6, situated on East Fifth street, a little west of Eastern row, then the eastern boundary of the village, now Broadway. It also had its post often on the corner of Lawrence and Front streets, and its David Embree brewery on the river bank, below Race street. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND ELEVEN. This year the residents of this region, and indeed all through the western country, were much in alarm through fear of the renewal of Indian depredations and hostilities; which fear, happily, was not realized in any part of the Miami valley. After the battle of Tippecanoe, in November, the Fourth regiment of United States infantry, commanded by Colonel Boyd, an uncle of Judge Bellamy Storer, which had marched away from Fort Washington to the campaign, returned flushed with victory, and was received with great acclamation by the people of Cincinnati. The next June, we may mention here, when it moved northward to join the army under General Hull, the military companies of the city met it as it landed after crossing from Newport Barracks, and acted as an escort of honor on the march up Main street. From the northeast to the northwest intersection of this street with Fifth, a triumphal arch had been erected, bearing in large letters the inscription, "To the Heroes of Tippecanoe." Three hundred soldiers, all that remained of this gallant regiment from the inroads of disease and the casualties of service, passed under the arch. One soldier marching in disgrace as a prisoner, for desertion or cowardice, was compelled to go around the arch, as a further stamp of ignominy. Upon reaching its first camp north of Cincinnati, about five miles out, the 1egiment was bountifully supplied with provisions from the city, as gifts of its citizens. Upon arriving at Urbana, where Hull's army was then encamped, it was honored with another arch, inscribed: "Tippecanoe-The Eagle —Glory." Lieutenant Colonel Miller, now commanding the regiment, was the hero of the celebrated reply at the battle of Chippewa, to the question of General Scott; "Can you take that battery?" "I will try, sir"—words which, except the last, were worn upon the buttons of the regimental uniform. In August of this year, the first in the long and costly list of Cincinnati breweries was established on the river hank, at the foot of Race street, by Mr. David Embree. On the twenty-seventh of the same month the hearts of the people were made glad, and they were finally relieved from Indian alarms, by the notification of Colonel Johnston that he had made peace with all the savage tribes on the frontier. Mourning came September 24th when Major Ziegler, the gallant old Prussian soldier, and the first of Cincinnati's executive officers, died. He was buried with military honors.* The Farmers' & Mechanics' bank, of Cincinnati, was established this year, at a public meeting held October 12th. Nicholas Long-worth was secretary of the commissioners of the bank. * The descendants of Major Ziegler, and all who revere the memory of the gallant soldier, will be interested in the following extract from the military journal of Major Denny, a fellow officer of the First regiment of the army : "22d. [February, 1789.] Married, this evening, Captain David Ziegler, of the First regiment, to Miss Sheffield, only single daughter of Mrs. Sheffield, of Campus Martins, city of- Marietta. On this occasion I played the captain's aid, and at his request the memorandums made. I exhibited a character not more awkward than strange at the celebration of Captain Ziegler's nuptials, the first of the kind I had been a witness to." This was at Fort Harmar, near Marietta. Captain Ziegler was stationed with his company at Fort Finney, near the mouth of the Great Miami, more than two years before Losantiville was founded. Major Denny elsewhere records a high compliment to Ziegler's soldiership and the bearing of his company—"always first in point of discipline and appearance." 64 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. The first steamboat ever seen in Cincinnati, and the first built on western waters, the New Orleans, arrived on the twenty-seventh of October, naturally exciting great curiosity. She is noted at the time as actually making thirteen miles in two hours, and against the current at that! Liberty Hall of October 30, 1811, gives a still .*.better account of it. After noticing the departure, on the previous Sabbath, of two large barges rigged as sloops and owned in Cincinnati, for New Orleans, the editor includes this in his "ship news" : Same day.—The STEAMBOAT, lately built at Pittsburgh, passed this town at five o'clock in the afternoon, in fine stile, going at the rate of about ten or twelve miles an hour. Only these three lines—no more—to chronicle the greatest commercial event that ever occurred at Cincinnati! Mr. William Robson, who landed here in June, 1818, and was long at the head of the coppersmith and brass-founding business in Cincinnati, was originally a ship carpenter by trade, and as such worked upon the Clermont, Fulton's first steamboat upon the Hudson. His service upon this was so satisfactory that when the New York company determined to build a steamer for the western waters, in 1811, he was sent to Pittsburgh to superintend its construction. Thus closely is Cincinnati related to the introduction of steam navigation in the great west. Mr. Charles Joseph Latrobe, of the celebrated family of engineers, in the first volume of his Rambler in North America, (1832-33), has left an exceedingly readable and intelligent account of this first voyage of the New Orleans, which is worth extracting in full: Circumstances gave me the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the particulars of the very first voyage of a steamer in the west; and their extraordinary character will he my apology to you for filling a page of this sheet with the following brief relation : The complete success attending the experiments in steam navigation made on the Hudson and the adjoining waters previous to the year 18o9, turned the attention of the principal projectors to the idea of its application on the western rivers; and in the month of April of that year, Mr. Roosevelt, of New York, pursuant to an agreement with Chancellor Livingston and Mr. Fulton, visited those rivers, with the purpose of forming an opinion whether they admitted of steam navigation or not. At this time two boats, the North River and the Clermont, were running on the Hudson. Mr. Roosevelt surveyed the rivers from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, and, as his report was favorable, it was decided to build a boat at the former town. This was done under his direction, and in the course of 181r the first boat was launched on the waters of the Ohio. It was called the New Orleans," and intended to ply between Natchez, in the State of Mississippi, and the city whose name it bore. In October it left Pittsburgh for its experimental voyage. On this occasion no freight or passengers were taken, the object being merely to bring the boat to her station. Mr. Roosevelt, his young wife and family, a Mr. Baker, the engineer, Andrew Jack, the pilot, and six hands, with a few domestics, formed the whole burden. There were no woodyards at that time, and constant delays were unavoidable. When, as related, Mr. Roosevelt had gone down the river to reconnoitre, he had discovered two beds of coal, about one hundred and twenty miles below the rapids at Louisville, and now took tools to work them, intending to load the vessel with the coal and to employ it as fuel, instead of constantly detaining the boat while wood was procured frm the banks. Late at night, on the fourth day after quitting Pittsburgh, they arrived in safety at Louisville, having been but seventy hours descending upwards of seven hundred miles. The novel appearance of the vessel, and the fearful rapidity With which it made its passage over the broad reaches of the river, excited a mixture of terror and surprise among many of the settlers on the banks, whom the rumor of such an inven tion had never reached; and it is related that on the unexpected arrival of the boat before Louisville, in the course of a fine, still, moonlight night, the extraordinary sound which filled the air, as the pent-up steam was suffered to escape from the valve on rounding-to, produced a general alarm, and the multitudes in the town rose from their beds to ascertain the cause. I have heard that the general impression among the good Kentuckians was that the comet had fallen into the Ohio ; but this does not rest upon the same foundation as the other facts which I lay before you, and which I may at once say I had directly from the lips of the parties themselves. The small depth of water in the rapids prevented the boat from pursuing her voyage immediately, and during the consequent detention of three weeks in the upper part of the Ohio, several trips were successfully made between Louisville and Cincinnati. In fine, the waters rose, and in the course of the last week in November the voyage was resumed, the depth of water barely admitting their passage. When they arrived about five miles above the Yellow Banks they moored the boat opposite to the first vein of coal, which was on the Indiana side, and had been purchased in the interim of the State government. They found a large quantity already quarried to their hand and conveyed to the shore by depredators, who had not found means to carry it off; and with this they commenced loading the boat. While thus engaged, our voyagers were accosted in great alarm by the squatters of the neighborhood, who inquired if they had not heard strange noises on the river and in the woods in the course of the preceding day, and perceived the shores shake, insisting that they had repeatedly felt the earth tremble. Hitherto nothing extraordinary had been perceived. The following day they pursued their monotonous voyage in those vast solitudes. The weather was observed to be oppressively hot ; the air misty, still, and dull ; and though the sun was visible, like a glowing ball of copper, his rays hardly shed more than a mournful twilight on the surface of the water. Evening drew nigh, and with it some indications of what was passing around them became evident. And as they sat on deck, they ever and anon heard a rushing sound and violent splash, and saw large portions of the shore tearing away from the land and falling into the river. " It was," as may informant said, "an awful day ; so still that you could have heard a pin drop on the deck." They spoke little, for every one on board appeared thunderstruck. The comet had disappeared about this time, which circumstance was noticed with awe by the crew. The second day after their leaving the Yellow Banks, the sun rose over the forest the same ball of fire, and the air was thick, dull, and oppressive as before. The portentous signs of this terrible natural convulsion continued and increased. The pilot, alarmed and confused, affirmed that he was lost, as he found the channel everywhere altered; and where he had hitherto known deep water, there lay numberless trees with their roots upwards. The trees were seen waving and nodding on the bank, without a wind; but the adventurers had no choice hut to continue their route. Towards evening they found themselves at a loss for a place of shelter. They had usually brought to under the shore, but everywhere they saw the high banks disappearing, overwhelming many a flat-boat and raft, from which the owners had landed and made their escape. A large island in mid-channel, which was selected by the pilot as the better alternative, was sought for in vain, having disappeared entirely. Thus, in doubt and terror, they proceeded hour after hour till dark, when they found a small island, and rounded to, mooring themselves to the foot of it. Here they lay, keeping watch on deck during the long autumnal night, listening to the sound of the waters which roared and gurgled horribly around them, and hearing f10m time to time the rushing earth slide from the shore, and the commotion as the falling mass of earth and trees was swallowed up by the river. The mother of the party, a delicate female, who had just been confined on board as they lay off Louisville, was frequently awakened f10m her restless slumber by the jar given to the furniture and loose articles in the cabin, as, several times in the course of the night, the shock of the passing earthquake was communicated from the island to the bows of the vessel. It was a long night, but morning dawned and showed them that they were near the mouth of the Ohio. The shores and the channel were now equally unrecognizable; everything seemed changed. About noon that day they reached the small town of New Madrid, on the right bank of the Mississippi. Here they found the inhabitants in the greatest distress and consternation; part of the population had fled in terror to the higher grounds; others prayed to be taken on board, as the earth was opening in fissures on every side, and their houses hourly falling around them. Proceeding thence, they found the Mississippi, at all times a fearful HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 65 stream, now unusually swollen, turbid and full of trees; and, after many days of great danger, though they felt and perceived no more of the earthquakes, they reached their destination at Natchez, at the close of the first week in January, 1812, to the great astonishment of all, the escape of the boat having been considered an impossibility. At that time you floated for three or four hundred miles on the rivers, without seeing a human habitation. Such was the voyage of the first steamer. The shocks of earthquake were felt at Cincinnati almost as severely as at some points in the Mississippi valley. The first shock occurred at 2:24 A. M., on the morning of the sixteenth of December. The motion was a quick oscillation or rocking, continuing six or seven minutes, and accompanied, as some averred, by a rushing or rumbling noise. Some mischief was done to brick-walled houses and to chimneys, and many persons were afflicted by it with vertigo or nausea. A brief but graphic picture of the earthquake, as it affected this place, is given by Mr. E. D. Mansfield, in his biography of his brother-in-law, Dr. Drake. Mr. Mansfield, it should be remarked, had himself personal recollections of this event: In the morning of the sixteenth of December, au, the inhabitants of the Miami country, and especially of Cincinnati and its neighborhood, were awoke f10m a sound sleep, at about three o'clock, by a shaking of their houses, and by rumbling noises which sounded like distant thunder. To each one the phenomenon was alike unknown and awful. In the country the animals soon began to shriek, and all Nature seemed to feel the shock of a common evil and the dread of a common danger. The most intelligent persons soon discovered it to be an earthquake; but this discovery by no means allayed the alarm. On the contrary, as earthquakes were never known before in this region, there was nothing to reason upon, and full scope was left for the imagination. Pictures of the earth opening to devour the inhabitants, of burning lava bursting forth, of yawning gulfs, and to many of a general destruction and a general doom, 10se to the visions of the affrighted people, filling them with fears and anxieties. The shock of the sixteenth of December was so violent that it shook down the chimneys of several houses. In the midst of the general alarm there was some amusement; and the buoyant spirits of young and happy people will often extract something pleasant, even from the most fearful circumstances. Mrs. Willis's Columbian inn was a sort of fashionable hotel, where many of the gay people of the town boarded.. I remember to have heard a great deal of laughter at the odd and curious appearance and grouping of maids and madams, bachelors and husbands, as they rushed into the street, tumultuous, in midnight drapery. But this cheerfulness did not last long; for the earthquakes continued during the winter, and although they were better understood, they were not the less dreaded. This common fear, and indeed the common necessity of being prepared for any event, had a great influence in destroying the artificiality of society and bringing friends and neighbors together. Many families had their valuables carefully packed up, that they might take a rapid flight, in case of the destruction of their houses or of chasms in the earth, which would render their departure necessary. As the shocks of an earthquake were generally preceded by signs of their app10ach, such as rumbling sounds and a peculiar atmosphere, families would often sit up late at night, in dread of a night shock, and neighbors and friends would assemble together to make the time pass more pleasantly, especially to the young, by cheerful conversation. In this manner social intercourse and friendly feeling were promoted, and, as in other afflictions of Providence, good was still educed from evil. The scientific observations and explanations upon this (in the valley of the Ohio) most extraordinary phenomenon are recorded by Dr. Drake in the Appendix to the Picture of Cincinnati. Most careful notes of the duration and deviation of the shocks were made by Colonel Mansfield, at Bates's place. A carefully prepared pendulum, hung in the parlor window of his house, never ceased its vibrations from December to the following May; and several shocks occurred during the remainder of the year 1812. The original seat of this shaking of the earth seems to have been near New Madrid, on the Mississippi, a point four hundred miles, in a direct line, from Cincinnati. There the convulsion was terrific. Boats on the river were thrown into a boiling whirpool, and seemed for a time to be engulfed in an endless vortex. The banks of the river were rent, the earth was opened, and the waters, rushing in, formed lakes for miles, where the land was dry before. Explosions from beneath took place, and fossils buried in the alluvium of ages were forced to the surface. The power of the original cause may be estimated by the fact of such violent effects at Cincinnati, four hundred miles distant, and that the movements, as of a lever, of this central force, were felt almost throughout North America, diminishing in intensity in the inverse ratio of the distance. The hardest shock here occurred on the second of February following, throwing down chimneys and doing other mischief. Slight shocks were felt from time to time for nearly two years, the last being observed December 12, 1813. They are said to have been much severer in the valley of the Ohio than on the uplands, where, in many places, the convulsion of the earth was scarcely felt. Twenty miles from Cincinnati, and on the ridges of Kentucky, it is recorded there were whole families who slept through the first shock without being awakened. A literary curiosity appeared this year—and seems to have been published for some years before, as this is No. 6—in the shape of the Cincinnati Almanac, the first calendar published west of the Alleghanies. It was printed by Rev. John W. Browne, and prepared by "Robert Stubbs, Philom.," an English clergyman, who came to this region in 1800 and took charge of the Newport Academy. He was quite noted locally as a scholar, and used to excite great wonderment in the minds of the people as he paced to and fro before his front door, reciting scraps of Greek and Latin. Colonel James Taylor, of Newport, is reputed to be the sole surviving member of his school. This year Mr. John Melish, another Englishman abroad, makes Cincinnati a visit, and records some shrewd observations in manufactures here, which will be found hereafter, in our chapter on that subject. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE. This was the great historic year which opened the last war with Great Britain. The west was considerably disturbed by the movements of the British and Indians and the dread of approaching hostilities, for months before the war formally opened. It was determined by the authorities to form an army of Ohio troops on the northwest frontier, and Hamilton, Butler, Warren, and Clermont counties were called upon for one battalion, which was promptly raised, and marched to the rendezvous at Camp Meigs, near Dayton. General Gano was prominent in these early movements, as afterwards in the war; and General Findlay, although a major-general in the militia, consented to command a regiment as colonel. The. Governor of the State issued the following: A CALL ON THE PATRIOTISM OF CINCINNATI. The situation of our country has compelled the Government to resort to precautionary measures of defence. In obedience to its call, 400 men have abandoned the comforts of domestic life and are here assembled in camp, at the distance of some hundred miles from home, prepared to protect our frontier from the awful effects of savage and of civilized warfare. But the unprecedented celerity with which they have moved precluded the possibility of properly equipping them. Many, very many of them, are destitute of blankets, and without those indispensable articles it will be impossible for them to move to their point of destination. Citizens of Cincinnati! this appeal is made to you. Let each family furnish one or more blankets, and the requisite 9 66 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. number will be easily completed. It is not requested as a boon: the moment your blankets are delivered you shall receive the full value in money--they are not to be had at the stores. The season of the year is approaching when each family may, without inconvenience, part with one. Mothers! Sisters! Wives!—Recollect that the men in, whose favor this appeal is made, have connections as near and dear as any which can bind you to life. These they have voluntarily abandoned, trusting that the integrity and patriotism of their fellow-citizens will supply every requisite for themselves and their families, and trusting that the same spirit which enabled their fathers to achieve their independence will enable their sons to defend it. To-morrow arrangements will be made for their reception, and the price paid. R. J. MEIGS, Governor of Ohio. Cincinnati, April 30, 1812. The appeal was promptly and generously responded to, and the brave boys in camp slept warm during the cool nights of spring. Most of the prominent names o1 events connected with the war, so fa1 as tradition or the records have handed them down, have been recorded in Part I., chap- ter xi, of this book. It is to be regretted that more of the interior history of the struggle, and especially the rolls of the regiments recruited, are not now accessible to the historian. Cincinnati and Newport presented many stirring scenes during the war. A recruiting station was maintained in each place, and the strains of martial music soon became familiar sounds. Business at first fell off, through the excitement of volunteering and drafting and the equipment of the troops; but recovered as the people became accustomed to it and the war created new demands. Mr. L'Hommedieu says, in his Pioneer Address April 7, 1874: Everything wore a military aspect. United States troops from the Newport barracks were marched under arms, on Sunday, to the pioneer Presbyterian meeting-house, to hear the stirring words of our good and brave Dr. Wilson. Kentucky sent her thousands of volunteers on their march to join the Army of the North (soon to be commanded by General Harrison), to give battle to the British and their savage allies. It was a glorious sight to see these brave men pass up Main street; and what glory they earned in the second war for independence. On the twentieth of June Liberty Hall published the declaration of war, and patriotism was immediately at fever heat. The citizens assembled, passed resolutions of approval, fired cannon, and engaged in other demon-stations. Per contra, intense indignation was manifested when, on the eighth of September, news was received of General Hull's outrageous surrender at Detroit. Lieutenant Hugh Moore conducted the recruiting station here. Many volunteers were already in the field from Hamilton county, marching against the British and Indians at the northward, while a company of home guards was organized among the older men of Cincinnati and commanded by General William Lytle. The troops and the cause were fitly remembered in the toasts at the celebration of Independence day this year. Among them were these: "The Northwestern Army: Our brethren and fellow-citizens now on the frontier- ‘Nor do they sigh ingloriously to return, But breathe revenge, and for the battle burn.' May they have pleasant paths and unclouded spirit." General Harrison was responsible fo1 a toast which would certainly have been withheld, if he could have forecast the near future: "General Hull and his Army—They have passed that scene immortalized by the victory of Wayne; the spirit of that hero will animate them to deeds like his, and teach them the lesson of victory or death." Cincinnati had at least two little notices abroad this year—the one from Alcedo; or a Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies—an English work by G. A. Thompson, Esq.; and the other from the Topographical Description of Ohio, Indiana Territory and Louisiana, "by a late officer of the army," which is accompanied by an engraving of the best-known view of early Cincinnati, that taken by Lieutenant Jervis Cutler, from Newport, in 1810: Cincinnati, a flourishing town in the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio, and the present seat of government. It stands on the north bank of the Ohio, opposite the mouth of Licking river, two miles and a half southwest of Fort Washington [l] and about eight miles west of Columbia. Both these towns lie between Great and Little Miami rivers. Cincinnati contains about two hundred houses, and is eighty-two miles north by east of Frankfort; ninety northwest of Lexington, and seven hundred and seventy-nine west by south of Philadelphia. Latitude thirty-eight degrees forty-two minutes north. Longitude eighty-four degrees eleven minutes west. Mr. Cutler's Topographical Description is mainly useful as introducing anther and better notice, from a well known authority of the olden time. The writer says: Returning back to the Ohio, the first town below Columbia is Cincinnati, five miles distant. In the Ohio Navigator a concise and correct description is given of this town: " Cincinnati is handsomely situated on a first and second bank of the Ohio, opposite Licking river. It is a flourishing town, has a rich, level, and well settled country a10und it. It contains about four hundred dwellings, an elegant court house, jail, three market houses, a land office for the sale of Congress lands, two printing offices, issuing weekly gazettes, thirty mercantile stores, and the various branches of mechanism are carried on with spirit. Industry of every kind being duly encouraged by the citizens, Cincinnati is likely to become a consid, erable manufacturing place. It is eighty-two miles north by east from Frankfort, and about three hundred and eighty by land south-southwest from Pittsburgh, north latitude thirty-nine degrees, five minutes, fifty-four seconds, according to Mr. Ellicot, and west longitude eighty-five degrees, forty-four minutes. It is the principal town in what, is called Symmes' Purchase, and is the seat of justice for what is called Hamilton county, Ohio. It has a bank issuing notes under the authority of the State, called the Miami Exporting company. The healthiness and salubrity of the climate; the levelness and luxuriance of the soil; the purity and excellence of the waters, added to the blessings attendant on the judicious administration of mild and equitable laws; the great security in the land titles; all seem to centre in a favorable point of expectation — that Cincinnati and the country around it must one day become rich and very populous, equal, perhaps, if not superior to any other place of an interior position in the United States. The site of Fort Washington is near the centre of the town. It was a principal frontier post: it is now laid out in town lots. A considerable trade is carried on between Cincinnati and New Orleans in keel-boats, which return laden with foreign goods. The passage of a boat of forty tons down to New Orleans is computed at about twenty-five, and its return to Cincinnati at about sixty-five days. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN. The population of the village this year is estimated to have reached four thousand. The death of the Rev. John W. Browne, a prominent editor in the early days of local journalism, occurred this year. Arrived, Thomas Pierce, anonymous author of the amusing satires entitled Horace in Cincinnati, and also writer of Hesperia, a prize poem. He was a merchant till 1822, then studied medicine, but resumed merchandising, and died here in 1850. HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. February 2d, news of Winchester's defeat on the rive1 Raisin, in Michigan, is received. September 9th, four thousand Kentucky volunteers pass through town, on their way to join the northern army. On the twenty-first the glad news comes of Perry's great naval victory at Put-in Bay. James W. Gazlay came to the village this year, and opened a law office on Main street, between Sixth and Seventh—then quite out of the business quarter. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN. This year, February 26, the people of the county and of the State sustained the loss of the hero of the Miami Purchase, Judge John Cleves Symmes. He died in Cincinnati, between which and North Bend he alternated his residence. The following notice was issued to his friends and the general community: The citizens of Cincinnati are invited to attend the funeral of the Hon. John Cleves Symmes, at the dwelling of Gen. Harrison in Front street, to-morrow at to o'clock A. M. from whence a procession will be formed to the landing of Mr. Joel Williams, where the body will be embarked for North Bend, selected by the Judge as the place of his interment. Such of his friends as can make it convenient to attend his remains to that place can be accommodated on board the boat which conveys them. Cincinnati, February 26, 1814. Sufficient notice of the life and public services of this remarkable man has been made in chapte1 V of the first division of this book. We are in addition able to present here a document of great interest, which we are assured has never before been in print: WILL OF JOHN CLEVES SYMMES. The last will and testament of John Cleves Symmes. In the name of God, amen. I, John Cleves Symmes, of North Bend, in the county of Hamilton and State of Ohio, being grievously afflicted with a cancer in my under lip, chin, and throat, which will undoubtedly shortly put an end to my life, while as yet I remain of sound mind and memory, do think it my duty to make and publish this my last will and testament, not so much for the disposition of the small personal property which I shall possess at my Death, as the constitution and laws of the State of Ohio anticipates the necessity of my making will in that respect, my will being the same with the law quo ad goods, chattels, rights, and credits; but the crrcumstance which renders it necessary that I should make and publish this my last will and testament is to authorize my executors hereinafter named, and the survivor of them, to sell and dispose of and make title to the purchasers of those few fragments of land which I have never sold, and which as yet has not been torn from Me under color of law, as by the laws of the State administrators cannot dispose of the real estate of their intestate without a rule of court authorizing them so to do. Therefore I, the said John Cleves Symmes, du hereby declare and appoint my worthy son-in-law William Henry Harrison, Esquire, and my beloved grandson John Cleves Short, Esquire, and the survivor of them, my true and lawful executors to this my last will and testament, hereby giving unto them and the survivor of them full power and lawful authority to sell all or any part of my lands and real estate, wherever any part or parcel thereof may be found or discovered within the said State of Ohio, and proceeds or monies arising from such sales equally to divide between them for their reward, in compensation for their trouble and services; first, however, paying thereout for all deficiencies in contents or number of acres that may be found wanting in the several tracts of land which I have heretofore sold and been paid for, but which on a re-survey may have been deeded by me for a greater number of acres than there really is in the tract. On the other hand, many sections, quarter sections, fractions of sections, tracts and parcels of land, by me heretofore deeded for a given number of acres, strict measure, on a re-survey will appear to be larger, and contains a surplusage of land over and above the quantity of land sold or ever paid for. It is therefore my will and desire that my executors and the survivor of them seek after and enquire out these surplus lands by the assistance of the county surveyor, and that my executors dispose of such surplus lands at the same price with which they remunerate those whose deeds from me call for more land than is embraced within the limits or boundaries of my deeds to them, And my further will and request is, and I do hereby enjoin upon my said executors and the survivor of them, hereby investing in them and the survivors of them all lawful authority and full power for the purpose, to carry [out] all my special contracts with individual persons into full effect and final close, according to the tenor of each respective contract; provided, however, that the other party named in each several contract faithfully fulfill the conditions on their part stipulated to be performed, which conditions will appear on having recourse to their respective contracts. And my will is that my said executors have and possess, and I hereby give unto them, and the survivor of them, all further necessary and usual powers to sue for and collect all or any part of my dues and debts, whether owing to me on bond, on note, or book debt; and also to pay all such debts as I justly owe; but there are some unjust claims against me founded in the deepest conspiracy, fraud and perjuries. I hope I need make no apology to my children and grandchildren for not having so much property to leave to them as might have been expected from the earnings of a long, industrious, frugal, and adventurous life, when they recollect the undue methods taken, as well by the Government of the United States as by many individual private characters, to make sacrifice of my hardly earned property at the shrine of their avarice. It has been my particular lot to be treated with the blackest, blackest ingratitude, by some who now laugh at my calamity, but who would at this day have been toiling in poverty, had not my enterprise to this country, my benevolence, or the property which they have plundered from me, have made them rich. How dark and mysterious are the ways of Heaven! I shall add nothing further save that it is my particular desire to be buried in the graveyard at North Bend, where the last twenty.five years of my life have been chiefly spent. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand to this, my last will and testament, on the thirty-first day of December, in the year eighteen hundred and thirteen. JOHN CLEVES SYMMES. [Seal] Subscribed and sealed in presence of JAMES FINDLAY, GEO. P. TORRENCE, JOSEPH PERRY. THOS. SLOO, Junr, The election for corporation officers was held this year April 4th, at John Wingate's tavern. Only one hundred and forty-one votes were cast, though the town is to have had a vote of four hundred and eleven in 1814. Samuel W. Davis was chosen president of the select council; Jacob Brown, William Corry, Samuel Stitt, Davis Embree, John S. Wallace, William Irwin, and Jacob Wheeler, members of the council; Griffin Yeatman, recorder; John Mahard, assessor; Jacob Chambers, marshal and collector. Brilliant auroras were observed in the sky April 19th and September 11 th. On the fifth of April Jeremiah Neave & Son opened a commission warehouse on Main street. October 22d the first Bible society in the Miami country is started here. In the fall or early winter of 1814, Cincinnati lost the office of surveyor general of public lands in the northwest, by its removal to Chillicothe, under the appointment of ex-Governor Tiffin as surveyor general, and the late incumbent of that office, Josiah Meigs, to Dr. Tiffin's place as commissioner of the general land office. This post had been created by act of Congress April 25, 1812, and Governor Tiffin appointed by President Madison as the first commissioner. In the autumn of 1814 he conceived a strong desire to return to the west, and wrote to Mr. Meigs proposing an exchange of offices. He readily consenting, the matter was arranged without difficulty with the President, the Senate con- 68 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. firmed the new nominations, and the ex-governor came home to Chillicothe, removing the surveyor general's office thither, while Mr. Meigs removed his residence temporarily to Washington, and assumed charge of the general land office—a post which he held for some years. The fine old Lytle house, at No. 66 Lawrence street, East End, was erected this year by General Lytle, and as been continuously occupied by the family. It is by far the oldest building of its grade in the city. Mr. Joseph Jones, who worked upon it in 1814, then a full-grown man, is still living in Cincinnati. David K. Este, a young lawyer, afterwards an eminent judge, settled in the city. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN. The preparation of another book by Dr. Drake-the Natural and Statistical View, or Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country—was the local literary event of the year. It enables the reader to form a full and no doubt accurate conception of the now large and 1apidly growing town, in nearly all respects. The preface modestly describes the work as "an account of a village in the woods;" but it is a remarkable and valuable account. For the first time to a book on Cincinnati, a map is prefixed; which gives us the opportunity to introduce here Mr. Charles Cist's article, prepared thirty years afterwards and published in his Miscellany, on EARLY MAPS OF CINCINNATI. Streets.—West of the section line separating section twenty-four from the west of the city, there was not a street laid out at the date of 18/5. That line followed a due north course from a point at the river Ohio, about half-way between Mill and Smith streets, crossing Fifth street just east of the mound which lately stood there, and Western row about two hundred yards south of the corporation line. Plum; Race, and Walnut streets extended no farther north than -Seventh street, and Sycamore was not opened beyond the present line of the Miami canal. From Walnut street west as far as Western row, not a street was opened north of Seventh street north of the canal already referred to. It was the same case with respect to Broadway f10m Fifth street to the corporation line in the same direction. Court street, west of Main, was called St. Clair street, and Ninth street, its whole length at that time, was laid out as Wayne street. Eighth street, east of Main, was called New Market street. Public Buildings .—Of churches there were only—the Presbyterian church which preceded the present building, on Main street ; the Methodist church on Fifth, where the Wesley chapel has since been built ; a Baptist church on Sixth street, west of Walnut, on the site of what is now a German church, corner of Lodge street ; and the Friends' frame meeting-house on Fifth, below Western row. Of all these the last only remains on its original site, the Presbyterian church having been removed to Vine, below Fifth, where it still stands under the name of Burke's church, and the others having been since removed to make way for their successors. The site of the present Cincinnati college, on Walnut street, at that date was occupied by the Lancaster seminary. Young as was the place, it furnished business for three banks. The Bank of Cincinnati was on Main, west side, and north of Fifth street ; the Farmers' and Mechanics' bank on Main, west side, between Front and Second streets ; and the Miami Exporting company on the spot now [1844] occupied by W. G. Breese's store, facing the Public Landing. These, with the court house and jail, which stand now where they then stood, made up the public buildings for 1815. The brewery, corner of Symmes and Pike streets ; another, corner of Race and Water streets, immediately east of Deer creek ; Gulick's sugar refinery on Arch street ; a glass-house at the foot of Smith street ; a steam saw-mill at the mouth of Mill street ; and the great steam mill on the river bank, half-way between Ludlow street and Broadway, constituted in 1815 the entire manufactures of the place. Markets.—Besides lower market, which occupied the block from Main to Sycamore, as well as that from Sycamore to Broadway, in the street of that name, and upper market, which stood on Fifth, between Main and Walnut streets, there was g10und vacated for markets, which, having been found unsuitable for the purpose, was never occupied for that use. One of these embraces the front of Sycamore street on both sides, f10m a short distance north of Seventh to the corner of Ninth street. Another is on McFarland street, west of Elm, forming a square of two hundred feet in the centre of the block. A slight examination of these places where the dwellings have been built back from the line of the respective streets, will point out at once the space dedicated for this purpose. The blocks marked upon this map as fully occupied or settled at this time were those between Front, Water, and the river, Main and Plum; south of East Front, between Broadway and Ludlow; between Second and Front, from Vine to Ludlow, and Lawrence to Pike; between Second and Third, from Main to Sycamore, and Broadway to Ludlow; between Third and Fourth, Main and Sycamore, one block; between Fourth and Fifth, from Plum to Sycamore; between Fifth and Sixth, Walnut to Main only; between Sixth and Northern row, and between Northern row and New Market (Eighth street), only Sycamore to Broadway; also eleven small blocks west of Western row, on Longworth, London, Kemble, Richmond, and Catherine streets. The blocks adjacent to those described were mostly one-eighth to three-fourths occupied; but there were still some magnificent distances in the heart of the town, the block between Second and Third, Race and Vine, for example, being still wholly unoccupied. Dr. Drake is now able to remark : From Newport or Covington [then just laid out I, the appearance of the town is beantiful ; and at a future period, when the streets shall be graduated from the Hill to the river shore, promises to become magnificent. Preparations were making, he says, for the paving of Main street, from the river to Fourth, and the next year it would "no doubt be followed by a general improvement of the town in this respect." It had become a question where the drainage from the town should be made to enter the river, and the doctor thought that probably all gutters west of Broadway would be discharged into a common sewer at Second street, "along which in an open channel the water now runs." It was proposed to throw up a levee along the border of the town plat, six feet high and two hundred yards long; but, says the doctor, "no measures have yet been taken to effect this important object." Other improvements, projected, at least, in the fertile and active brain of Dr. Drake, were a bridge across the Ohio, a steam ferry, a new and permanent bridge across the mouth of Deer creek, the restoration of the wooden bridge across Mill creek, near its confluence with the Ohio, a great road via Dayton toward the sources of the Miamis, an improved road to Columbia, and, note it for 1815, a canal, to connect the Great Miami with the Maumee, and a canal from Hamilton to Cincinnati, a route for which is traced upon his map, and is substantially that which the Miami canal afterwards followed. No wonder the enterprising writer was now able to register his opinion that "Cincinnati is to be the future metropolis of the Ohio. . . . . . It is the permanent mart and trading capital of a tract whose area equals the cultivated part of New HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 69 Hampshire, New Jersey, or Maryland; surpasses the State of Connecticut, and doubles the States of Rhode Island and Delaware taken together; with a greater quantity of fertile and productive soil than the whole combined." The population of the town, in July of this year, was carefully estimated at six thousand—an increase of fifty per cent. in two years. The average was nearly ten persons to a dwelling. And, says the doctor, "no part of its unexampled progress in population and improvement can be ascribed to political aids; . but the whole has resulted from such natural and commercial advantages as cannot easily be transformed or destroyed." There were not far from one thousand and seventy houses in the place, exclusive of kitchens, smoke-houses, and stables. Over twenty were of stone, two hundred and fifty brick, about eight hundred wood. Only six hundred contained families; the rest were public or business houses. The great disproportion of frame houses was due to the demand created by rapid immigration, as they could be so speedily built. The dwellings were generally two stories high, of a neat and simple style, with sloping shingle roofs, and Corinthian or Tuscan cornices. Several had lately been put up with a third story, "and exhibit, for a new town, some magnificence. A handsome frontispiece or balustrade occasionally affords an evidence of opening taste, but the higher architectural ornaments, elegant summer-houses, porticos, and colonnades, are entirely wanting." Few frame houses were yet even painted. Three market-houses were already among the public buildings of the town. The largest and highest structure was of course the great steam-mill on the river bank. The buildings of the Cincinnati Manufacturing company, however, on the bank above Deer creek, were numerous and extensive, the main edifice being one hundred and fifty feet by twenty to thirty-seven feet, and two to four stories high. The Columbian garden and the great mound at the west end are mentioned as favorite resorts for promenaders. On the tenth of January the legislature passed another act of incorporation for the village, essentially modifying that of thirteen years before. The same corporation limits were prescribed, however. The town was divided into four wards, each electing three trustees for a term of three years. When first met, the trustees were to choose a mayor from their own number, and also elect a recorder, clerk and treasurer. The council was empowered to pass and enforce all ordinances necessary and proper for the health, safety, cleanliness, convenience, morals, and good government of the town and its inhabitants. Real estate was not to be taxed beyond one-half of one per cent. in any year, without a vote of the people authorizing it. It was the Mayor's exclusive duty to decide upon all charges for violations of ordinances, subject to appeal to the council or court of common pleas, at the option of the party aggrieved by his decision. He also exercised the principal functions of a justice of the peace, within the town limits. About four weeks after the battle of New Orleans, January 8th, the news reached Cincinnati, and created much rejoicing. To quote Mr. L'Hommedieu again: What a glorification our people had ! Some now present will remember the illumination, the grand p10cession that moved down Main street, with a bull manacled and appropriately decorated. Another month or more brought news of peace, made before the great battle of the eighth was fought ; and then another grand illumination of our village. What a joyous time we boys had ! How we equipped ourselves with paper soldier-caps, with red belts and wooden swords, and marched under command of our brave captain as far as Western row, now Central avenue, where we reached the woods, and, for fear of Indians, returned to our mammas, reporting on the return march to old Major-General Gano, who, after putting us through a drill, gave each boy a fip to purchase gingerbread, baked by a venerable member, formerly president of this association. On the eleventh of December came out the first number of the consolidated journals, Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, published by Looker, Palmer and Reynolds. On the twenty-sixth the three banks mentioned in Mr. Cist's notes on the early maps together suspended payment, creating great excitement and no little real distress in the community. Timothy Flint, the noted writer, came with his family during the winter of this year, took a house, and remained until spring. He afterwards settled here. In his volume of Recollections, published long afterwards, he records some pleasant reminiscences of the town and its people: In no part of the old Continent that I have visited are strangers treated with more attention, politeness, and respect than in Cincinnati ; and where, indeed, can an Englishman forget that he is not at home, except in the United States? In most other regions he must forego many early habits, prejudices, and propensities, and accommodate himself to others, perhaps diametrically opposite ; he must disguise or conceal his religious or political opinions ; must forget his native language and acquire fluency in another before he can make even his wants known or his wishes understood ; but here the same language and fashion as in his own prevail in every State ; indeed, it is necessary for him to declare himself a foreigner, to be known as such, and I have always found this declaration a passport to increased attention and kindness ; for every man in this land of freedom enjoys his opinions unmolested. Not having the slightest intention of stopping at any town on my way to New York, I was without any introductions ; but this deficiency by no means prevented my receiving the usual benefit of the hospitality of the inhabitants, which was such as to induce us at first to remain a few days, and ultimately, probably, to end our lives with them. Sixteen hundred miles from the sea, in half an age, this flourishing and beautiful town has emerged from the woods, and when as old as Petersburgh now is, will probably, in wealth and population, emulate the imperial city. No troops are stationed, no public money lavished here. It is not even the State metropolis. The people build and multiply imperceptibly and in silence. Nothing is forced. This magnificent result is only the development of our free and noble institutions upon a fertile soil. The banks of he Ohio are destined shortly to become almost a continued village. Eleven years have produced an astonishing change in this respect; for at that distance of time by far the greater proportion of the course of the Ohio was through a forest. When you saw the city apparently lifting its head from surrounding woods, you found yourself at a loss to imagine whence so many people could be furnished with supplies. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN. February 16th William Green establishes the first iron foundry here. An order is passed by the council granting the privilege of supplying water to the people to the Cincinnati Woolen Manufacturing company. On the nineteenth somebody reports the population at six thousand four hundred and ninety-eight. 70 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. November 25th the first insurance company goes into operation—the "Cincinnati." December 2d chronicles the building of the first brig at the Columbia shipyards. On the sixteenth the oceangoing barge Mission arrives with a cargo of dry goods from Liverpool. The more pious ladies of Cincinnati start this year a female Bible society, auxiliary to the American Bible society. This year comes Mr. David Thomas, writer of Travels through the Western Country, and favors Cincinnatians with this notice: About three o'clock we descended through the hills, along a hollow way, into the valley of the Ohio, and Cincinnati appeared before us. It is a great town. Brick buildings are very numerous, and many of these are elegant ; but compactness constitutes much of the beauty of our cities, and in this it is deficient. Some of the streets may form exceptions to this remark; and we ought to remember that few towns (if any) ever rose from the forest more rapidly; that its date even now is within the memory of the young; and that its mammoth form at no distant period will be filled up and completed. By some it is suspected, however, that its present greatness is premature; but this can only apply to its mercantile concerns; for its manufactories cannot be materially affected by any change in the amount of commerce. Neither need the merchants fear a rival city, unless it rises to the north. Among the most respectable of the manufacturing establishments we notice the brewery of D. & J. Embree. The works, though in a progressive state, are now sufficiently extensive to produce annually five thousand barrels of beer and porter, and the quality is excellent. A treadle-mill is attached to these buildings, similar in construction to that at Montgomery. It is turned by horses, and grinds one hundred and twenty bushels of malt a day. In the present recess of business, it is employed in the manufacture of mustard. Works for green glass have lately gone into operation; but some of the articles produced are very imperfect. We can sympathize with the proprietors of new establishments; for we are aware of the many inconveniences and discouragements that beset them at the commencement; but we cannot too strongly inculcate that to attain excellence will be the first object of the patriotic manufacturer; and such virtue could scarcely fail of its reward. A monthly meeting of the society of Friends, comprising about forty families, is established in this year. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN. The growing town had special and distinguished notice from the travellers this year. First, in June, came that industrious tourist and observer, Mr. Birkbeck, long of Illinois, from which he wrote a series of entertaining letters that were collected in a book. From another volume, his Travels in America, we copy the following extracts: Cincinnati, like most American towns, stands too low; it is built on the banks of the Ohio, and the lower part of it is not out of the reach of spring floods. As if life was not more than meat, and the body than raiment, every consideration of health and enjoyment yields to views of mercantile convenience. Short-sighted and narrow economy! by which the lives of thousands are shortened, and the comfort of all sacrificed to mistaken notions of private interest. Cincinnati is, however, a most thriving place, and, backed as it is already by a great population and a most plentiful country, bids fair to be one of the first cities of the west. We are told, and we cannot doubt the fact, that the chief of what we see is the work of four years. The hundreds of commodious, well-finished brick houses, the spacious and busy markets, the substantial public buildings, the thousands of prosperous, well-dressed, industrious inhabitants, the numerous wagons and drays, the gay carriages and elegant females; the shoals of craft on the river, the busy stir prevailing everywhere —house-building, boat-building, paving and leveling streets; the numbers of country people constantly coming and going; the spacious taverns, crowded with travellers from a distance. All this is so much more than I could comprehend from a description of a new town just risen from the woods, that I despair of conveying an adequate idea of it to my English friends. It is enchantment, and Liberty is the fair enchantress. June 27, Cincinnati. All is alive here as soon as the day breaks. The stores are opened, the markets thronged, and business is in full career by five o'clock in the morning; and nine o'clock is the common hour for retiring to rest. As yet I have felt nothing oppressive in the heat of this climate. Melting, oppressive, sultry nights, succeeding broiling days, and forbidding rest, which are said to wear out the frames of the languid inhabitants of the Eastern cities, are unknown here. A cool breeze always renders the night refreshing, and generally moderates the heat of the day. Then came Mr. Burnet—a New England traveller, we believe-who makes many and judicious remarks upon the town : As Cincinnati is the commercial capital of the State of Ohio, a State which twenty-five years ago contained but a few thousand inhabitants, and is now well settled by half a million white inhabitants, I have been somewhat particular in describing, its commerce, manufactures, and inhabitants. The general appearance of the city is clean and handsome—indeed, elegant and astonishing, when we reflect that less than forty years ago it was the resort of Indians, and the whole surrounding country a wilderness, full of wild beasts and savages. The present number of buildings may be between thirteen and fourteen hundred, and the number of the inhabitants eight thousand, all whites, the laws of Ohio prohibiting free negroes (except in certain cases) from settling in the State. Near five hundred of the houses are built of stone or brick, many of them three-story high, and in a very neat, modern style. The rest of the houses are frame, most of them neatly painted. The public buildings are of brick, and would ornament an European city. The new court-house is a stately edifice, fifty-six by sixty-six feet, and one hundred feet high; the apartments are fire-proof. Presbyterians, Baptists, Friends, and Methodists, have each a meeting-house. Those belonging to the Presbyterians are furnished with taste. The Friends' meeting-house is a temporary wooden building. The Lancasterian seminary is a capacious structure, calculated to contain one thousand one hundred scholars, male and female. There are three brick market-houses, the largest is upwards of three hundred feet long. . . . I have counted near sixty tilted wagons from the country on a market day, chiefly with produce, which is brought to market by the farmer and sold from the wagons. The police of the city is respectable; they have, however, no lamps or watch, nor do they require any. We boarded in the heart of the town, and our doors were mostly open night or day. Theft is very rare; the lowest characters seem above it. The climate is healthy, if we may judge from the appearance of the inhabitants. At this season (July) the mornings and evenings are delightful; mid-day hot, but not too hot to do out-door work. The winters are short and pleasant. The manners of most of the inhabitants are social and refined, without jealousy of foreigners (which is sometimes the case with the ignorant or interested in the eastern and middle states); they are pleased to see a respectable European settle amongst them. Many cultivate the fine arts, painting, engraving and music. With few exceptions, we found the English language spoken with purity. . . . The inhabitants dress much in the English fashion. In summer many of both sexes wear domestic or home manufactured ginghams, and straw hats. Gentlemen, and many tradesmen, wear superfine cloth coats; blue and black are the prevailing colors. The ladies dress elegantly, in muslin, short-waisted gowns, vandyked frill or ruffle round the neck, and an English cottage or French straw hat. When about their household concerns, they wear a large, long, peaked hat, to defend their features from the swarthing influence of the sun and air. The city, in all probability, will soon be the largest in the West; it is rapidly improving in size; sixty new brick and frame houses have been occupied since last fall; and at least as many more are now building, besides several manufacturing shops and factories. There is more taste displayed in building and laying out grounds and gardens than I have yet observed west of the Alleghany mountains. The price of town lots is high, and houses in the principal streets difficult to obtain on hire. The lots in Main, First and Second streets sell for two hundred dollars a foot, measuring on the front line; those possessing less local advantage sell from fifty to ten dollars; out-lots, and HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 71 land very near the town, sells for five hundred dollars per acre. Taxes are very moderate. . . The price of labor is one dollar per day. Mechanics earn two dollars. Boarding is from two to three, and five dollars per week. Five dollars per week is the price of the best hotel in the city. . . Living is very cheap here; and it is easily to be accounted for, in the cheapness and fertility of the surrounding country, the scarcity of tax-gatherers, and the distance of a market for the supplies. You can have very decent board, washing, and lodging, by the year for one hundred and fifty dollars. Mr. George Warren, an old-time resident of the city, also contributes to Cincinnati Past and Present the following interesting reminiscences of this period: Cincinnati, in the year 1817, was a bright, beautiful, and flourishing little city. It extended from the river to Sixth street, and from Broadway to Walnut street, and not much beyond those limits. The courthouse, which stood upon the same ground as the present one, was considered to be in the country, and its location an outrage on the citizens. The houses were beautifully interspersed with vacant lots, not yet sold, which were covered with grass. The city contained about nine thousand inhabitants. These were then called girls and boys, and men and women. The fuel was wood, except in factories. The people generally had clean faces; for the men shaved, and did not allow their countenances to be covered with hair and dirt. There was an air of comfort pervading everything. In summer the women dressed as they pleased; but the men usually went to church in summer dresses. Sometimes they wore linen roundabouts and vests and woollen pants. The people were enterprising and industrious; a pedestrian could hardly walk a square without encountering a brick wagon or stone wagon, or seeing a new cellar being dug. Industrious mechanics would be met hurrying to and fro, and in their working dress. A brick-layer would not hide his trowel, nor a carpenter his hatchet, under his coat. Everything gave promise of the city's continued prosperity, but a desire to become suddenly rich had led too many into wild speculations, on borrowed money, from the United States and other banks. They were willing to lend to almost anyone who could get two indorsers. This was no difficult matter, for it had got to be a maxim, "You indorse for me, and I indorse for you." Some persons not worth a dollar bought lots and built houses on speculation. Others bought wild lands, built steamboats, etc. Some, who had become rich in imagination, began to live in a style ill suited to their real condition. But a day of reckoning was at hand. In 1819 the United States bank began to call in its accounts; others were obliged to do the same; and those speculators, to avoid the sheriff, began to scatter like rats from a submerged flour !mild. Sheriff Heckewelder complained that his friends had taken a sudden notion to travel, at the very time he most wanted them. Some fled east, some west, some to Kentucky, and some the Lord knows where. It soon became impossible to get money anywhere. Building was entirely stopped. The spring of 182o was a gloomy time. All business was brought to a sudden stand. No more brick wagons, stone wagons, or new cellars were to be seen in the streets. The mechanics lately so blithe and cheerful had gone in different directions in search of work, at any price, to keep themselves and families from starving. Almost any mechanic could be hired for fifty cents a day, working, as was then the custom, from sunrise to sunset; few could get employment at that. They were willing to work at anything they could do, and at any price. One of our boss carpenters bought a wood-saw and buck, and went about sawing wood. Our leading brick-layer procured a small patch of ground near the Brighton house, and raised watermelons, which he sold himself, in the market. The only professed sashmaker in the place, the late John Baker, esq., who died not long ago a millionaire on Walnut Hills, procured a piece of woodland in the country, and chopped the wood, brought it to market, sitting on his load, and sold it for a dollar and a half a cord. Other good mechanics went chopping wood in the country for thirty-one and a half cents a cord. One of these was the late A. H. Ernst, esq. The writer would have done the same, but no chance offered. I here was no money, and people even going to market resorted to barter. A cabinet maker, for instance, would want two pounds of butter, amounting to twenty-five or thirty cents. Without a penny in his pocket, he would take his basket, go to the market, find a farmer that had some, take two pounds, and give him a table, bedstead, or even a bureau, agreeing to take the rest out in truck, as he would call it, when he should want it. This could not be done by carpenters and masons. They would go into the country and build ovens or spring-houses, and repair buildings, taking their pay when the work was done. Our merchants, being unable or unwilling to bring on fresh supplies of dry goods and groceries, these ran up to enormous prices; coffee was seventy-five cents, and common coarse brown sugar thirty-seven and one-half cents a pound. Rye coffee, sweetened with molasses, was found a poor substitute; and we suffered considerably for want of our customary breakfast. Public meetings were held to consider what was to be done. At one of these Mr. Blake, an attorney, had expressed a fear that our wives and children would starve. Mr. Gazlay, the next speaker, also an attorney, said: "Brother Blake is afraid our families will starve. I have but one child, and don't fear it will starve; Brother Blake has none, and I am sure it won't starve." Country p10duce of all kinds was never so low before nor since; but the difficulty lay in getting money to pay even these low prices. Flour was three dollars a barrel, corn twelve and one-half cents a bushel, beef six and one-fourth cents a pound, pork in quarters f10m the wagons three cents a pound, eggs five cents a dozen, and chickens four cents a piece. A prominent and truthful citizen now living relates that, being then a young man and living in the country, he brought to the lower market two dozen chickens. After standing there most of the forenoon a man offered him fifty cents a dozen if he would carry them to the Mill Creek bridge. He accepted the offer and actually carried them the whole distance on his back. If any imagine that the people need not have feared starving when provisions were so cheap, they are like the Queen of France during the Revolution, who said, when the people of Paris were actually starving, that she did not see why there need be such a clamor about bread when "a good-sized loaf may be got at the baker's for five sous." Finally it was found that money of some kind must be had. This induced some individuals to issue tickets, or little due-bills, on their own credit. They were sometimes as low as six and one-fourth cents. Of these bankers John H. Piatt and Mr. Leathers, of Covington, were the chief. This currency had different values, according to people's estimate of the solvency of the individuals. The corporation had issued tickets before this. In making contracts it had to be agreed what kind of money was to be received; so much in "corporation, " or so much in "Platt," or so much in "Leathers." Sometimes contracts would call for "bankable money." By this was meant the notes of those few banks that had not already broken. If any specie was seen it was generally "cut money," or half-dollars cut into five triangular pieces, each passing for twelve and one-half cents. Such was the scarcity of money that many who had purchased property and paid large amounts on it were willing to give up the money already paid to be released from paying the remainder. Real estate had indeed fallen; a prominent citizen now among us had purchased a lot of g10und, near our present gas works, for sixteen thousand dollars, paying half down in cash. He offered to give up all the money paid if the owner would release him; but he would not. Houses and stores, with bills on them offering them "for rent," were everywhere seen, and rents were low. On the thirty-first of May arrived a young lawyer named Bellamy Storer, to cast in his fortunes with those of the rising community. Mr. Joseph Jonas, rather doubtfully reported as the first Israelite in town, is said also to have come this year. He opened a watchmaker's shop on the corner of Third and Main streets, and soon acquired much political influence. He is sometimes reputed to have been the father of Cincinnati Democracy. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN. The sixth edition of Kilbourne's Ohio Gazetteer, or Topographical Directory, published this year, gives the town this notice: Cincinnati is a large commercial city and the seat of justice for Hamilton county. . . August 18th the number of inhabitants had increased to upwards of nine thousand, and public improvements in proportion. There are about sixty common mercantile stores, several of which do wholesale business, with about ten book, drug, iron, and shoe stores. . . The Cincinnati Manufacturing Company has erected for their works an extensive building, one hundred and fifty feet long by thirty-seven broad, and four stories high. A most stupendously large building of stone is likewise erected on the bank of the Ohio river for a steam mill. It is nine stories high at the water's edge, and is eighty-seven feet long and sixty-two broad. The engine is one of seventy horse-power, and is designed to drive four pair of stones, besides an oil-, fulling-, and several other mills. In another building is 72 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. also a valuable steam saw-mill. Here are, likewise, one woollen and four cotton factories, two glass-making establishments, a white lead factory, a sugar refinery, and two extensive breweries. A considerable business is also done, not only in the distilleries, but also in the rectification of spirits. Here are also four printing offices, from three of which weekly papers are published ; four banking companies, besides a wealthy commercial association for the purpose of importing goods direct from Europe, by way of New Orleans. This was a great year for public benefactions. Seven persons subscribed twenty-seven thousand dollars for the Lancasterian seminary: A site for a poor-house was purchased by public authorities, and a hospital planned, as preparatory to the founding of a medical college. A museum society was formed, and contributions were solicited, Dr. Drake drawing up a constitution for it so as to make it a school of natural history. The Cincinnati reading-room was opened by Elam P. Langdon and Rev. William Burke. The first Roman Catholic church in town was founded. The General Pike, said to be the first steamboat built on the western waters for the exclusive conveyance of passengers, was constructed at Cincinnati this year—of one hundred feet keel, twenty-five feet beam, and three and three-tenths feet draft. It was owned by the Cincinnati Company, and intended to ply between Louisville, Cincinnati, and Maysville. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETEEN. This was an important year in the annals of Cincinnati, marking its transition from a village to a city, an act passed by the State legislature giving it the deserved promotion. The new city was divided into four wards, by lines along Main and Third streets, intersecting at the corne1 of these. Isaac G. Burnet was the first mayor under the new organization. The population of the city this year, according to the census taken for the directory in July, was nine thousand eight hundred and seventy-three—males, five thousand four hundred and two; females, four thousand four hundred and seventy-one; males of twenty-one years and over, two thousand three hundred and sixty-four ; females, one thousand six hundred and thirty-two; males from twelve to twenty-one, eight hundred and forty; females, eight hundred and twenty-three; males under twelve, one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine; females, one thousand five hundred and forty-five; colored persons, three hundred and sixty-seven—males, two hundred and fifteen; females, one hundred and ninety-five. The directory contains the following remarks upon the character of the population: This mixed assemblage is composed of emigrants from almost every part of Christendom. The greater part of the population are from the Middle and Northern States. We have, however, many foreigners amongst us; and it is not uncommon to hear three or four different languages spoken in the streets at the same time. A society so compounded can have but few of those provincial traits of character which are so visible in older settlements. Having been bred and educated under different habits and modes of thinking, every individual is obliged to sacrifice to the general opinion many of his prejudices and local peculiarities, and to adopt a more liberal mode of acting and thinking. Coming also from different countries and various climates, they bring and collect together a stock of knowledge and experience which cannot exist among those who have all grown up together. Being adventurers in pursuit of fortune, a spirit of enterprise, and a restless ambition to acquire property, are prevailing characteristics. The citizens of Cin cinnati are generally temperate, peaceable and industrious, Gaming is a vice almost unknown in the city. Under the influence of a strict police, good order is maintained ; fighting or riot in the streets rare, and is uniformly punished with rigor. Great attention is paid to the institutions of religion, and the mass of the more respectable citizens are regular in their attendance on public worship. In their parties, assemblies and social meetings, the greatest ease and familiarity prevail, and many traits are to be met with of that politeness and urbanity of manners which distinguish the polished circles of older cities. The same work gives the following honorable notice and further remarks concerning the material improvement of the place: . . For many years the vast influx of emigrants has furnished opportunity for a very profitable investment of funds in building houses. The preference which Mr. John H. Piatt has given to the imp10vement of Cincinnati, over foreign speculation, is an honorable evidence of his public spirit and local attachment. This gentleman, within five years past, has built twenty-eight brick houses, chiefly three stories in height, besides twenty-five frame houses, which are neatly finished. It is the opinion of several well-informed mechanics that not less than three hundred buildings were erected in 1818; and, notwithstanding the depression of commercial business, probably not less than two-thirds of that number will be built in 1819. The buildings, however, which are occupied as dwellings, are insufficient to contain the inhabitants with any tolerable convenience. Four, six or eight families have not unfrequently been found inhabiting a house of six or eight rooms. The actual number of dwelling-houses being one thousand and three, the average number in each family, allowing one family to each house, is more than nine persons. The houses, generally, are rather neat and convenient than splendid; most of those that have been built within the last five or six years, have been constructed of brick, and by far the greater portion of them are two or three stories in height. One prevailing trait, displayed in almost all the houses in town, is a want of architectural taste and skill. All the public buildings, except the Cincinnati banking house, fully exemplify the above remark. One or two good architects would unquestionably meet here with excellent encouragement. The improvements that have been made here in paving streets and sidewalks, filling up stagnant ponds, reducing the upper bank to a proper angle of descent for streets and buildings, etc., have for several years been commensurate with the most liberal policy of the corporation and the best exertions of the citizens. According to the best estimate we can make, the length of pavement in the several streets is between eight and nine thousand feet; that of the sidewalks vastly greater. The streets in width are between sixty and one hundred feet. In March of the same year an enumeration had been made of the buildings within the corporation, which footed one thousand eight hundred and ninety—of brick and stone, two stories and upwards, three hundred and eighty-seven; of one story, forty-five; wood, two or more stories, six hundred and fifteen; one story, eight hundred and forty-three. Occupied as separate dwellings, one thousand and three; mercantile stores, ninety-five; grocery stores, one hundred and two; druggists, eleven; confectioneries, four; auction and commission, five; printing-offices, five; book and stationery stores, four; churches, ten; banks, five; shops, factories, and mills, two hundred and fourteen; taverns, seventeen; seminary, court house, and jail, three; warehouses and other buildings, four hundred and twelve. Other buildings were in progress, and it was expected that by the close of the year the buildings in the city would number over two thousand. Among the new edifices in progress were the court house and jail, the seminary, three churches, two market-houses, and several manufactories. The churches were the First Presbyterian, on the old site; the brick on Sixth street, formerly Baptist, then Episcopal; the Methodist, on Fifth, a new brick, belonging to the same denomination, on the corner of Fourth and Plum; and the HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 73 old frame on Vine street; the Second Presbyterian, on Walnut; the Friends', near the west end of Fifth; and a Roman Catholic church lately erected in what were then called "the Northern Liberties." Three fine steamers—the Vulcan, the Tennessee, and the Missouri—were launched here March 30th. July 4th the address is delivered by Bellamy Storer. Further celebration was made by getting the first throw of water from the new tin penstock. It was supplied by log pipes from a small reservoir on the hillside, at the southwest corner of Fifth and Sycamore streets. August 3d, the ordinance passed by the council in relation to fire-buckets is required to be vigorously enforced. December 11th, the city treasurer proves a defaulter. The Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, pastor of the Presbyterian church, is temporarily appointed to his place. This year (Mr. L'Hommedieu thought it might have been in 1820), a serious riot was threatened through the failure of the Miami Exporting Company's bank. A procession comprising many of those who had suffered from the closure of the bank, with their sympathizers, was formed in the upper part of the city, and marched down Main street. A number of drays helped to give length and imposing character to the column. One of them bore a black coffin with the words painted thereon, " Miami Bank No More." The bank building was situated on Front street, near Sycamore, and a detachment of military had taken position in front of it, to protect the building and its contents against the threatened mob violence. The procession marched without interruption or disturbance until the intersection of Front street with Main was reached. Just here, fortunately, on the southeast corner, was the office of the mayor, Isaac G. Burnet, who was awake to the perils of the situation, and on full duty. Although unable to walk or even to stand without crutches, he moved to the head of the column, and 1ead the riot act to the multitude. Many who were in the movement were not lawless or dangerous men, and now, seeing the real character of their demonstration, and the perils to law and order which it involved, they led the way at once in breaking up the procession and diverting the thoughts of its members into more peaceful channels. The military were not called upon to adopt severer measures, and the bank was saved. This year appeared the first Directory of the town or city. It was entitled "The Cincinnati Directory, containing the Names, Profession, and Occupation of the Inhabitants of the Town, alphabetically arranged; Also, an account of its officers, population, institutions, and societies, public buildings, manufactures, etc. With an interesting sketch of its local situation and improvements. Illustrated by a copper-plate engraving, exhibiting a view of the city. By a Citizen. Published by Oliver Farnsworth. Morgan, Lodge & Co., Printers, October, 1819." An almanac for 1820 is also included. About two thousand names of individual and firms were included in this publication. The most remarkable man who came to Cincinnati this year was probably Captain John Cleves Symmes, son of Timothy, brothel of Judge Symmes. His father (also a judge in New Jersey), early followed the elder brother to the Miami country, and settled at South Bend, where he died February 20, 2797. His family remained there, and among them John C. Symmes, who, through the influence of the judge, obtained a commission in April, 1802, when he was twenty-two years old, as an ensign in the regular army. By successive promotions he became captain, and served as such through the war of 1812-15. In 1807 he fought a duel at Fort Adams, on the Lower Mississippi, with Lieutenant Marshall, in which both were wounded seriously enough to feel the effects of their indiscretion through the rest of their lives. Captain Symmes left the army in 1816 and settled at St. Louis as a contractor for the army and trader with the Fox Indians. He was not altogether successful, however, and in 1819 removed to Covington, Kentucky, where he remained a few months, and then came to this city, taking a residence on Lower Market street, between Broadway and Sycamore, in a three-story brick row built by John H. Piatt, who then had a bank at the southeast corner of Broadway and Columbia streets. Captain Symmes remained in Cincinnati but a year or two. He still had some property near Hamilton, upon a section presented to him by his uncle, Judge Symmes; but appears to have spent the last seven or eight years of his life, when not absent lecturing, in Newport, Kentucky. While at St. Louis he began to promulgate his famous theory of concentric spheres, polar voids, and open poles. The gist of this is in his published declaration "to all the world," made from St. Louis, Missouri Territory, North America, April 10, A. D., 1818 : I declare that the earth is hollow and habitable within, containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles twelve or sixteen degrees. I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking. JNO. CLEVES SYMMES, Of Ohio, late Captain of Infantry. His future life was devoted mainly to the advocacy of this theory, and his efforts to demonstrate it and promote its acceptance. In 1820, after issuing numerous circulars and newspaper' articles, he began lecturing in Cincinnati, and then in other western towns and cities. A benefit was given in aid of his proposed polar expedition, at the Cincinnati theatre, March 29, 1824, when Young's tragedy of Revenge was performed by an amateur company, in which was the now venerable Colonel James Taylor, of Newport, who played the part of Zanga. Mr. Americus Symmes, son of Captain Symmes, says: "He and I are the only two now living of the Newport Thespian society of 1824. He was equal to Forrest in his palmiest day, in the character of Sir Edward Mortimer, in the Iron Chest. I performed female parts." Mr. Collins recited an appropriate address written by Moses Brooks, foreshadowing the great discoveries to be made in the polar regions, and closing with these lines: Has not Columbia one aspirng son, By whom the unfading laurel may be won? Yes ! History's pen may yet inscribe the name Of Symmes to grace the future scroll of fame. He had not similar encouragement elsewhere, however. 74 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. Congress and legislatures, press and people, with rare exceptions, treated his arguments and appeals with indifference or ridicule; and the end of the ardent theorist soon came. He fell into ill health, and became much enfeebled in 1826 by a laborious tour through the eastern cities, Maine, and Canada. His chief ailment was dyspepsia, induced by long continued overwork upon his theories and plans. Notwithstanding his now serious illness, in New York city he was thrown into jail by a heartless landlord, for inability to pay a bill of thirty to forty dollars, and remained incarcerated three days, when he was relieved by a friendly Cincinnatian who happened to be in the city, and who helped him to the residence of a relative in New Jersey, where he remained until his health was measurably restored. He managed to reach Cincinnati in February, 1829, and was there presently met by his son Americus with a two-horse wagon and a mattress, upon which he was borne to the farm near Hamilton to which the family had removed in March of the previous year—where he died May 29, 1829, aged only forty-eight. His monument, erected by Americus Symmes, formerly crowned with a hollow globe, open at the poles, and bearing appropriate inscriptions, may be seen in the old cemetery at Hamilton. This son, who resides at "Symmzonia," a farm near Louisville, remains a firm believer in the theory. In a recent letter to the writer of these annals he communicates a paragraph which has some local as well as general interest, and well repays its reading. Its opening sentence relates to the time of Captain Symmes' last return and illness: I was then seventeen years old, and he was too ill to talk much ; but he charged me just to keep an eye to the explorations in the north, and I would find his theory would be proven true. I have kept an eye on the northern explorations, and find that the further north they get the st10nger grow the proofs of the truth of his theory, Your Cincinnati explorer, Captain Hall, who went further north than any other man of his day (except Parry on his third voyage), did more to 'prove the truth of the Symmes theory than all other explorers. I saw the sled-runners in Captain Hall's hands, made in your city, that bore him up to se 2' north, where he wrote his last dispatch to the secretary of the navy, in which he says : I find this a much warmer country than I expected, and it abounds with life, etc. Just to think a Cincinnati man studied out the theory, and another citizen of your city made the sled-runners there, and rode on them up to 82̊ 2' north, and thereby proved the theory true as far as he went. It may be added that the younger son of Captain Symmes, a native of Newport, Kentucky, was also named John Cleves Symmes, was a graduate of the West Point Military academy, and served his country creditably as a teacher there and as an officer elsewhere. He lived for a number of years in Prussia, where, in 1866, he had a son of a German mother, who took the name of John Haven Cleves Symmes. CHAPTER XI. CINCINNATI'S FOURTH DECADE. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY. Population this year, by the United States census, nine thousand six hundred and forty-two. Vote of the city, eight hundred and fifty. February 2, meeting of citizens to consider the goodness of John H. Piatt's "shinplasters." Resolutions passed against them. On the eighth, the ice in the Ohio breaks up, after having been frozen over for three weeks. The first water-service pipes, wooden, were laid this year. Congress, worthily though tardily, voted a gold medal to Lieutenant R. Anderson, of Cincinnati, for gallant conduct in Perry's battle on Lake Erie. In June a museum was opened in Cincinnati College, which was for many years an interesting feature of amusements here. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE. The Commercial hospital and Ohio medical college were incorporated February 1st. On the twenty-eighth the Hon. Jacob Burnet was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court. July 28th the fire department of the city turns out for a public parade, and makes a brave display with its two hand-engines and two hose-reels. The council building was this year on Fourth street, near the corner of Walnut, and the independent engine is removed thither. The vote of the city is said to have been seven hundred and thirty-two; which could not have been full, as it is more than a hundred less than that of the year before, and less than half that of the next year. September 26th occurs the first commencement of the Cincinnati College, which confers the honorary degree of Master of Arts on William Henry Harrison, the Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, and the Rev. James A. Kemper. EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO. The first theatrical benefit given here, to Mrs. A. Drake, a favorite actress of that day, occurred in the ball-room of the Cincinnati hotel. March 27th, directors of the city library were elected -Lewis Whiteman, Benjamin Drake, Nathan Guillord, and Peyton S. Symmes. June 8th a meeting is held to promote the scheme of a canal from Cincinnati to Piqua. September 9th there is a considerable freshet in the Ohio. October 7th a notable political event occurs, in the defeat of General Harrison for Congress, by James W. Gazlay, though only by the meagre majority of three hundred and forty-two votes. This year came George Graham, who became a very prominent citizen of Cincinnati, and survived until February, 1881. The total value of exports this year from Cincinnati was two hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars, chiefly in flour, pork, and whiskey.