100 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY But wealth had already begun to increase and fashion to assert its authority in a mild and tentative manner, so that the travelers of this period make occasional comments upon the elegant attire of the citizens both in their and houses-on the streets. Deacon Wade e. g. wore a wool hat during week, but a fur one on Sunday, and boasted a magnificent ingrain carpet for his parlor which the whole town made pilgrimages to behold, with amazement and delight. One writer describes a dinner at Judge Burnet's where he met the leading lights of the town, among them Bishop Chase, and found them delightful companions. He also refers to a banquet at Mr. Kilgour's and declared that never saw finer food or more elegant manners, even in the east. Almost from the beginning (perhaps because of the genius of Yeatman for entertaining the public) hotel -life became a favorite method of existence. In the different inns there were manifold comforts and even luxuries. As there was a never ending procession of immigrants and travelers into and through the town, the interchange of ideas between such great varieties of people as gathered about the tables of these public houses induced many of the citizens to board in them, or often, at least, to take their meals at those public tables. That such social contact should be delightful it is impossible to doubt; or that it helped to stimulate the entire social life of the community into an unusual activity. It certainly was so stimulated. For a community so new, so isolated and so devoid of the machinery of culture, it is little less than remarkable that there should have been a musical society like that one called St. Cecilia, or a literary club like that one called the Social Reading Party; or that such an interest could be awakened in theatrical exhibitions. As early as 1814 performances were given in "The Shelback Theater," a circus enclosure on Main below Fourth. In 1815 a small building was erected for such performances exclusively. As the love of the spectacular was catered to, so also was that of the mysterious. At one time a royal tiger, an African ape and a long tailed mamozet were exhibited in a warehouse at the ferry ; at another, "The Grand Cassoway of India (a bird of prodigious size, weighing 115 pounds, which will take an apple out of a person's hand seven feet high and will swallow it whole"), was shows at the Columbian Inn. At still another, a Mr. Gaston gave a gorgeous exhibition of fireworks on Martin Baum's lot at the corner of Broadway and Fourth, at which time, also there was an 'ascension of a balloon 80 feet in circumference! Fourth of July celebrations were frequent and elaborate. There were big dinners at Major Ruffin's ; or Major Perry's; parades of military organizations; speeches by distinguished orators ; military salutes of seventeen guns; celebrations in churches (when the 4th fell on Sunday) with long and patriotic services, and many other manifestations of that irrepressible instinct in human nature nature which seeks diversion and amusement. These people thrown together by winds blowing from the four quarters of the globe, hundreds of miles away from the great social centers, illy supplied knowledge of what the great world from which they seemed to be separated by almost infinite spaces was doing, succeeded in reproducing the customs of farther life from which they had been permanently detached, in spite of the against them. Memory of joyous festivities of bygone days assisted CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 101 creative instinct of the soul and, before the little community was two decades of age, the foundations of an elegant and cultivated social life were laid. It is, indeed, the universal reproduction of these phenomena of human life with the variations incident to different circumstances which fascinates the student of history. Cast a handful of Africans, Indians, Mongolians or Caucasians upon a desert island or into a lost valley anywhere, and they will reproduce the cabins, huts or tepees ; the rude instruments for spinning or weaving; the marriage and burial services ; the feasts and the amusements with which they familiar in their native lands ; but with variations growing out of contact new soils and general conditions. Here in America, for example, from the Atlantic to the Pacific there has never been a single exception to this law. In every community, planted by a Hall; a mine; a harbor ; a ford or the crossing of two roads, the court of justice, the little red schoolhouse, the church, the newspaper and the home have sprung into being as if touched by a fairy's wand. And the study of life in any them is the study of these ever recurrent phenomena—just as the study of architecture is the study of the varied uses made of foundations, walls and roofs. Always and everywhere we find the town builders wrestling with the same old problems. If they differ in different places ; or at different times in the same it is only because they recur in the new conditions in more intricate and subtle forms on account of the deepening complexity of the increasing numbers of inhabitants. The problems of this period of village life are, as a matter of course, the ; as those of the town ; but so, much more difficult and intricate as to seem new ones. Let us take them up and behold this new significance as the life deepens and expands. We begin at random with the post office. Office. A mail route was established between Cincinnati and Chillicothe in 1799, up to which time there was no post office west of Miami river ; but in 1808-1809 Peter Williams had contracted for carrying mails between Louisville and Cincinnati and Lexington ; Cincinnati and Greenville, Ohio. These contracts lasted until 1821, and were fulfilled by means of pack horses. At that date stages substituted. The first incumbent of the honorable office of postmaster was William. Ruffin, a man of social gifts and popular with the people. He was succeeded in 1814 by Rev. William Burke, a Methodist minister of pronounced characteristics ; a strong democrat; always chewing tobacco ; soft spoken ; profoundly religious. Burke had a sort of reading room and in it citizens and strangers assembled to discuss topics of the day, deriving all their news from nine mails per week and from the seventy different newspapers and periodicals which were taken by various subscibers! Would you not like to have spent an hour in gossip with those ancient worthies? There is one kind of charm in the science, the art, the method, the exactness, convenience of a modern post office like the one on Fountain Square ; but quite another (and not less enchanting) about a little dingy shop like that in 102 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY which Mr. Ruffin or Elder Burke carried your letters in their hat, and swapped stories, gossip and news with you and your neighbors. The postal service was not always satisfactory, you may be sure, as the mails were carried on horseback over the forest trails and the post boys were frequently compelled to encounter storms which not only made traveling dangerous in the wide, unpeopled stretches of the forest ; but filled the river beds with roaring floods through which they swam their horses at the peril of their lives, And when the news arrived at last, it was, of course, no longer news. To us of the later days, in which an event that has' happened in the most remote corner of world is the talk of the breakfast table next morning, it has become a psychological mystery what pleasures our forefathers could derive from discussing pond, problems which had been settled weeks before in Washington, London or Paris. Nevertheless, they grew red in the face and roared fiercely at each other over questions which were dead issues and could never be revived, even at the moment when they were debating. And yet who would not rather go, down to the old post office in the ancient village and hear the soft voice of Major Ruffin as he apologized for the non-arrival of the mail; or the guttural tones of Elder Burke, ceasely interrupted by the necessity of expectorating. the juice of the tobacco which he was always chewing, than to see the marble-faced letter-carrier of to-day march into the office, and fling .the mail in speechless silence on the desk? Water Supply If, however, there is such romance about an old time post office as to make us willing to barter modern conveniences for the poetry of vanished days, we cannot feel the same about the water supply. On the. 17th of May, 1799, Griffin Yeatman advertised in the newspaper "Observe this notice! I have experienced the many expenses attending my pump and any FAMILY wishing to receive the benefits thereof in the future, may get the same by sending me 25 cents each Mondat morning." It is a far cry from the old pump of Griffin Yeatman to the present water works system, and we are glad enough to-have escaped all the terrible intermediate stages of development. William Gibson carted water around in a cask late as 1809) and eleven years afterward, Jesse Reeder built a tank on the 1, of the river near Ludlow street, where by means of horse power he lifted water through elevators and sold it for distribution. By an ordinance of March 31, 1817, the exclusive privilege of carrying- water by tubes, or otherwise, from river to houses and stores was vested in the Cincinnati Manufacturing Company for a term of 99 years. Work was begun immediately but was not successfully pushed, so that its benefits were not enjoyed until after the community had ceased to be a town and grown to be a city. Fire It was through similar struggles that the little village fought its way to fire and police protection. In July, 18̊2, a mass meeting made provision for six ladders and as many fire-hooks. There is an unverifiable account of two hand engines being in use in 1807. A union fire company was organized in 1808, but fizzled out, and a few months later "the Cincinnati fire bucket company” CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 103 was launched. Its apparatus consisted of a large willow basket on a truck in which buekets were carted to conflagrations ! An enormous drum (now a relic of the fire department) five feet high and sixteen feet in circumference, was used to summon the citizens. The drum was put upon a roof and access to it was had by means of a ladder. Afterwards, in 1824, the big bell of the First Presbyterian church sounded the alarms. In 1816 an engine was purchased by General John S. Gano, and put in care of Relief Fire company, No. 2. By the termination, therefore. of the "town" period," a real step forward had been taken in fire protection. Police. As to police protection, there was nothing worthy of the name until the occurrence of a destructive fire in 1803, in consequence of which an ordinance establishing a night watch was passed, by the provisions of which the citizens above twenty-one years of age were arranged into classes of twelve each, which should serve as watchmen in rotation. Each class was divided into two sets, and took turns patroling the streets. They carried watchmen's rattles and were sup-posed to be always awake and always on the go ; but as, in those primitive days, the citizens were likely to be abed and asleep by nine o'clock, their work was probably much less arduous than it seemed. By 1817 the system had improved, and the guard consisted of six.: men and a captain appointed and paid by the :couneil. Their duty was to: keep the street lamps (not gas or electric, you may rest assured) well trimmed and burning and to arrest and "run in" any disorderly person. Schools. During this village period the problem of education began to receive a serious consideration. The crude system of those first few years in which any wandering pedagogue could open a school in a cellar, a loft, or a kitchen, and find patronage had passed. As early as the year 1807 the council took a forward stride and authorized a committee of men to raise $6,000.00 to found a university by mews of a, lottery, if you please ! But for some unknown reason, the lottery was never held, and a more creditable effort was made a few years later on. Lancaster Seminary. , In 1814, it was, that two of the great men of the town (and great they were by even the most critical standards of measurement), Dr. Daniel Drake and the Rev. Joshua Lacey Wilson, became interested in what was known as the Lancastrian system of education,—the fundamental principle of which was the use of the older pupils as monitors for the younger. n that year a professsor of the system, Edmond Harrison of Tennessee, had come to Cincinnati for the purpose of founding a school upon that principle. He found his first patrons among the Methodists, who began a movement along the lines which he marked out; but which proceeded so inauspiciously that it was absorbed in another inaugurated by men more capable of carrying it forward. Through an act of the legislature on February 4, 1815, "Lancaster Seminary" was legally incorporated, with Jacob Burnet, Nicholas Longworth, Davis Emgrey, William Corry, Charles Marsh and Daniel Drake as trustees. For the purpose of erecting a building 104 - CINCINNATI—THE OUEEN CITY to house this enterprise, the Presbyterian church executed a ninety-nine year lease of a piece of land on the corner of Fourth and Walnut streets, and the erection of the structures, according to plans prepared by Isaac Stagge, was begun in 1814. By April 17, 1815, the lower story was. opened and within a fortnight 420 students had matriculated! When, at last, the building was completed it had accommodations for about 1,400 children and was reasonably well equipped with conveniences, considering all the circumstances. It was, in fact, a most creditable institution for a town so young, so undeveloped and so far from the great centers of culture. Eclipsing all other educational enterprises, the seminary did not extinguish them. Several private schools struggled along under its shadows, and in them survived many of those barbaric customs which are the. misfortune of primitive institutions of learning. Tradition preserves the daring deeds of pupils who locked their teachers out until they yielded the holidays or other privileges demanded, and the customs of hard-headed and hard-fisted boys who thrashed the new arrivals in the school yards for no other crime than that of being strangers in a strange land. Nor were these conventional schools the only means of intellectual culture. As early as 1813 there was an institution ambitiously denominated "School of Literature and Art." During the first year of its existence more than meetings were held, at which essays and poems were read and addresses delivered, all of them aiming at the enlargement of the minds of the eager people who composed the membership. The subjects discussed were “Education," "Earthquakes," "Light," "Carbon," "Air," "The Mind," "Agriculture, etc. In an interesting description of this first adventure in culture, Judge Charles D. Drake observes the fact that there should, have been a school of literature and arts oganized in Cincinnati when. its population could not probably have exceeded 4,000 and it was still in the 'far west,'" will be regarded as a fact, of interest." First Philanthropist. It was in connection with the development of these early institutions of learning that We come upon the first genuine benefactor of the village. One of the incorporators of the Lancaster Seminary was Captain John Kidd who, dying in 1813, willed that the rents from on, the, corner of Front and Main streets “should be devoted to the education of poor children and youth." These rents amounted to about one thousand dollars; and for five years were paid to the Cincinnati College (the successor of the Lancaster Seminary). In 1825, however, the will was broken by avaricious heirs, and the benevolent intentions of the good man thwarted. He shall not, however, lack that reward which the appreciation, and gratitude of posterity can bestow, :and we hallow his memory by writing his name, John Kidd, at the very top, of that illustrious list of benefactors whose generosity has helped to make our city great and beautiful. Churches In any community where a spiration for intellectuals culture is so insistent as this, it may be safely reckoned that the religious instinct will not be languid, or the longing for spiritual culture less profound. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 105 We have learned that the village had scarcely gotten. on its feet before a clergyman appeared and a church was born. As this church, the First Presbyterian, had the prestige of priority it naturally became the most potent factor in the establishment of Christian worship, and its history is little short of illustrious. It will be remembered that in 1791 the Rev. James Kemper became the pastor of this church and occupied its pulpit until October 7, 1796. The first rude struc-ture which housed this aggressive congregation stood until 1814, when it was sold and removed to the lot on Vine street where the Arcade now stands. The Rev. Peter Wilson. succeeded Dr. Kemper, preaching until July, 1799, when he was followed by Rev. Matthew G. Wallace who, continued his ministry until April, 1804. At this time dissensions arose in the membership over theo-logical questions raised by the "New Light" doctrines, and a period of inactivity followed. Interest, however, revived in 1806, and in 1807 the society was legally incorporated and the Rev. Joshua Lacey Wilson was called, and undertook his work on the 28th of May, 1808. His arrival was the dawn of a new era in the spiritual development of the community, for he was a man of mast unusual power. The church began at once to grow in numbers and to exert a widespread influence. In 1812 the building proved too small and was replaced by a larger one which was completed in 1814. It was called -"the two horned church" because of its two, ugly towers. But although not beautiful it was commodious. and its ample spaces were crowded every Sunday with the enthusiastic followers of this evangelical and perfervid preacher. Its membership contained the names of many of the most distinguished Cincinnatians of the day. It soon outgrew itself, and in 1814 there arose a demand for another church in another part of the city—a demand which excited opposition, but which was so earnest that a movement to secure it began in 1816. By 1818 the society was large enough to perfect an organization, and in 1818 a building was erected for its use on the east. side Of Walnut street a little above Fifth and the historic "Second Church" successfully launched. Among the people who were prominent in the new organization were, Judge Burnet, Martin Baum, John H. Grosbeck; Nathaniel Wright and Henry Starr. Methodists.  The conditions in this epoch were evidently favorable to the development of Presbyterianism; but it could riot hold the. field alone. In the ability to enter and possess new territories the Methodists' ate seldom in the rear of the ecclesiastical army; and in the present instance were only in the Second rank. The first preacher of this persuasion to start an interest in, its work and worship. was Rev. William Burke; but no definite steps Were taken. to organize a church until the Rev. John Collins, who had taken up his residence on the east fork Of the Little Miami, came into town on business one eventful day and there encountered a store-keeper by the name of Carter, whom to his great joy he found to be a Methodist. A meeting was arranged for that very evening in an Upper room in Mr. Carter's house, where twelve people assembled to hear a sermon by this more than welcome minister. Soon afterward the Rev. John Sale arrived in. town, and hearers to the number of thirty-five were gathered to listen to his Message, and steps almost immediately began to be taken to Organize. a church. There were only eight persons wild were:ready to assume the responsibility, but. they 106 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY took it resolutely upon their broad shoulders and arranged for regular sevices every two weeks by circuit riders. The meetings were held in a little log school house not far from the old fort. The customs of the Methodists, at that time, invited ridicule from the irreverent, and their services were often disturbed the rowdies of the neighborhood; but they persisted in their worship and work, to such good effect that by 1806 a building called the "old stone church was erected on the site of the present Wesley chapel and became the center vital, religious life. Here William Burke, John Collins, Learner Blackman other earnest preachers blew the gospel trumpet with no uncertain sound. The citizenship of that period was too cosmopolitan to have its needs all by two denominations, and one after another all the leading Christian arrived and assembled their followers in organized churches. The Rev. A Hurdus founded the New Jerusalem church in 1806. In 1813 the Friends established themselves in a residence built by Peyton Short, and the Baptists began to worship God in a log cabin. The First German Church was founded in 1814 by the Rev. Joseph Zerline, and the first Episcopalian church in 1817. This! movement was promoted by such distinguished persons as General Haul, Griffin Yeatman, Jacob Baymiller, Arthur St. Clair, Jr., and Dr. Daniel Drake, in whose residence, principally, its services were held. Outgrowing the limits of that hospitable home, the congregation assembled in an old cotton mill; then in a Presbyterian church and finally in a Baptist church on West Sixth street which they subsequently bought—during the rectorship of the Rev. Samuel Johnson. It is clear enough that long before the town had become a city (in 1819) the religious forces were actively and aggressively at work. If, in these later they have not kept pace with the secular ones, it is not because they did no' an early and a favorable start. Newspapers. Curious as it may seem, the progress in journalism was far less marked that in the other phases of life in the growing town. The first paper The Centinel of the Northwest Territory, started by William Maxwell in 1793, transformed into the Freeman's Journal in 1796, and in 1800 was remove to Chillicothe. But the Western Spy and Hamilton Gazette had been found 1799, so that the continuity of news publication had been unbroken. In paper became The Whig, fifty-eight numbers of which, only, appeared it was subsequently turned into The Advertiser, which survived until 1811 Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Mercury was first issued on December 9, 1804, by Rev. John Bowne. On July 15, 1815, Thomas Palmer publish first number of the Cincinnati Gazette, which -after four months was with Liberty Hall. In the meantime Captain Carpenter had re-established The Western Spy which, in 1815, had secured the respectable number of 1,200 subscribers; but was compelled in 1819 to undergo the (apparently) inevitable transmutation became The Western Spy and Cincinnati General Advertiser. It certainly communicates a shock to the mind of the student of life last century to discover that the newspapers are of no. other than antiquarian interest. Their editors did not understand the modern art of arresting and com- CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 107 pelling attention. They had not learned the value of what we call "the human element." Neither had they begun to aspire to be the authors and moulders of public opinion. For this reason, they are but poor assistants in the effort to interpret the life of the times. They did not originate it ; they did not comprehend it, and they did not truly reflect it. That life in our own city, at least, found its highest expression in other ways---in the establishment. of schools and churches ; in the St. Cecilia Society, . where the knowledge of music was seriously cultivated ; in the Social Reading Party, where the love of literature was satisfied ; and in the amateur theatricals, where that ineradicable hunger of the human spirit for the representation of man's actual life in fanciful scenes, was catered to. As early as 1805 a series of plays were given in Vattier's stable, the most spacious room in town, by local performers, and it was about this time that the "Thespian Corps" was organized. Its members were desperately in earnest, and in 1808 such well known people as Dr. Drake, Ethan A. Brown, General Findlay and the attorneys Rawlins, Wade and Nicholas Longworth took part as actors. In 1814 the Shellback theater, a circus enclosure on Main street below Fourth, afforded increased facilities, and there the plays were put upon the stage with accompaniments by the orchestras and brass bands which had already begun to multiply. On December 13, 1814, Liberty Hall contained an invitation to all persons favorable to the establishment of a more permanent shelter for these performances to meet and try to bring about that much to be desired end. As a result, of the meeting, a small frame building was erected on the south side of Columbia street, between Main and Sycamore, and the proceeds of the performances were devoted to charity. A movement of such a worldly character did not pass unnoticed by the religious element of the town, and their opposition found expression in a violent attack upon the artists and their plays by the Rev. Joshua L. Wilson. The crusade was earnest, but futile, and only succeeded in generating antagonisms which long survived the dying out of the public debate. In so rapidly a growing community, local talent could not be expected very to satisfy the taste of the people for scenic art. Many of them had come the cultivated centers of the east and knew what acting really was. They first desired and then demanded the highest art of the professional world, and, far away as the little river town was from the great centers of such artistic activities, it had begun to offer attractions to those eager scouts who were ever on the lookout for new fields for their activities. As early as 1815, therefore, the Pittsburgh Company, more daring than their rivals, made a western tour, and on their way to Lexington, Ky., stopped to give an exhibition in Cincinnati. The greatest enthusiasm. was generated by their arrival and a sort of theatrical orgy followed. Their repertoire was large and they continued for many consecutive days and nights to excite and delight audiences which found it possible, if not agreeable, to raise a dollar to get in. It was not all smooth sailing for the practitioners of the art, for the attacks of the religious people not only kept up ; but the hoodlum element sometimes broke loose inside the theater itself and created disturbances which were hard to quell. But, as a whole, the dramatic art slowly and steadily made a place for itself in the social organism, and as slowly and steadily underwent improvement. 'Along with it, as a matter of course, came those evils which are its invariable Vol. I-2 108 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY concomitant and which attend it as shadows seem invariably to accompany substances. And folly as well as evil came. As the passion for such amusements, grew, absurdities of everx sort were invented to satiate the vulgar taste for the spectacular. African apes and cassowaries (whatever they may be) turned up in droves, while mountebanks and fakirs enlivened and deceived the people The better aspects of this irrepressible desire for amusement and entertainment manifested themselves in the celebrations of the day. The return of the 4th of July, or the appearance of any celebrity from the great outside world, was certain to result in dinners, parades or barbecues where brass bands, fire works and orations aroused the emotions of the people to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Business From the struggles of our ancestors to attain culture, we turn to their efforts to solve the sterner problems of bread and butter getting and the building up of business. People who cannot make money can never build a city. If there are not men in the town who can create wealth,. the spirit of art, literature, culture and even religion will shake its dust from their feet. What did our forefathers do, then, to build up a great wealth producing community? In the first place, they tilled the soil which, when cleared, was found to be fertile beyond their dreams. Intelligent farmers opened clearings in the wilderness and gathered crops, bountiful to the bursting, almost, of their barns. The climate proved to be genial and adapted to the cultivation of all the grains and fruits of. the temperate zone. A few seasons served to open inexhaustible fountains of food supplies, and by the time that Cincinnati had become a town there were farms enough, in running order, to gorge her every mouth and market. But agriculture, alone, has never built a great metropolis. There must be the manufacture of raw material into finished products and the exchange of commodities with distant places, or no. hamlet can ever become a town; or, at any rate, no town a city. That there were men among our early citizens endowed with financial genius (and to a very high degree) admits of the easiest proof. With quick perception of the merits of the situation and firm comprehension of its boundless To' ties, they began at once to open up the natural channels for, its trade. helped survey, cut out and improve the highways into the country. They in the construction of bridges across streams. They sought and they secured the trade of the country merchants. There was a natural gravitation of business to them ; but they stimulated and encouraged the flow by clearing away all obstacles in the channel. Always and everywhere the fundamental problem. of business is that of transportation. Over the country roads it was by horseback and by wagon only, slow and often painful. But the great river flowing past their doors afforded to the citizens unrivalled facilities for conveying goods to and from places at enormous distances. Of the advantages of that great artery the men of business eagerly and intelligently availed themselves. Their flatboats (floated downward by the current and pushed upward by long poles), and the swifter but less commodious CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 109 piroques, loaded to the gunwales with produce, were to be seen upon every mile of the river, and for a few years seemed adequate to every need. But on the 27th of October, 1811, an event happpened which altered the whole situation. It was on that memorable day that a boat propelled by steam appeared around a bend of the river and produced a revolution. She was the "New Orleans," built in Pittsburgh, and captained by Nicholas J. Roosevelt. The whole town assembled on the bank and was divided into two parties: one, regarding it as a freak invention, and the other, realizing that a revolution in commerce had actually begun. As so often happens, this extraordinary event was accompanied by prodigies of nature. A comet was visible at this time, and ignorant people who heard the hissing of the engines thought that it had fallen into the river, while others believed that the earthquake shocks then taking place were caused by the unusual isturbancee of the water in the bed of the stream. After the New Orleans came the Comet, built in 1813; then the Vesuvius and a host of others, until the river was black with the clumsy but effective navy. These new and swift craft stimulated the business life of the city enormously, through their influence upon transportationalonee. But when Cincinnati began to manufacture them herself, this new industry quickened the pulses of com-merce into almost violent beatings. In the two seasons, 1817-1819, nearly a fourth of the vessels built on western waters were launched at our wharves. If one could choose a single period of the past in which to make a visit to the city, none could more effectively invite his interest than these eventful years in which steamboat navigation awakened the pioneers' to the first real consciousness of what the possibilities of their situation were. Every soul was fired with ambition, and every form of human activity had its serious devotees. New industries sprang up. The public wharves were extended. Larger buildings were erected. There was, a, literal outburst of energy. Each individual life became more significant, anda consciousnesss. of the great future that. awaited the city, began to be aroused. There was not a single line of ndustryy among all those thus quickened into new life, the phenomena .of whose growth would not reward a careful, study ; but as we cannot possibly, investigate them all, we shall select thebanking businesss as being the most representative,andd give a little space to it. The year 1833 saw the birth of the firstofl those institutions which are, in a peculiar sense, the cornerstones of business. It was called "The Miami Exporting, Company" and was organized, in the first place, "to try to develop facilities fox shipping goods" and in case this project, should not succeed "to do a conventional banking business." At that time (before the steamboats) facilities fox transporting farm products and merchandise were of the poorest. There were no roads worthy , of the name, and the river, great as its uses were in some seasons, became practically unnavigable at others. And although it was of immense benefit in shipping down stream, it was all but impossible to bring or send merchandise up,on accountt of the current, of course.. The difficulty of poling boats from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh or from New Orleans to Cincinnati was prodigious. Generally the barges ,were broken up at ewv Orleans and the navigators returned on foot. 110 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY No true conception of what our forefathers had to encounter in laying the foundations of our municipal life can be formed by any one who cannot reproduce in imagination those long and painful journeys through the wilderness. To do so is not easy for those of us who enter a Pullman palace car in Cincinnati to find ourselves in New York or New Orleans in a single. day. To travel for weeks or months on foot, or horseback, or at best in wagons, in order to get home after selling a barge load of salt or wheat in New Orleans, was earning one's bread by the sweat of his brow, in the truest sense of the word; but it was in that way that the heroes of those strenuous days not only laid the foundations of their individual fortunes, but of the commercial supremacy of our city, as well. While such adverse conditions as these prevailed, the prospects of rapid development were slow indeed. In time, no doubt, a great city might have been built upon this river traffic, for it has been done in the orient again and again; the years would have run into:ages and the hearts of the settlers would ha been eaten out by despair. The farmers could raise enormous crops; but could not sell them, for the merchants could not get them to market, and so, the Id. of commerce seemed to be hopelessly blocked. Upon the problems involved in this situation the men of business pondered day and night; and finally Jesse Hunt suggested as a solution the formation of this double-barrelled organization—to find some better way of exchanging commodities, if possible and if not, the employment of their capital in a banking business. On the 4th of March, 1803, a meeting was called to consider this proposal, and on the 16th of June a company was formed with Martin Baum, Daniel Symmes, Samuel C. Vance, Christian Waldsmith, William C. Schenk, Matthew Hueston, Jesse Hunt, Daniel Mayo, William Lytle, John Bigger and Israel Ludlow elected directors. Soon afterward they purchased an unfinished boat which had been built in 1801, when a few progressive spirits had prematurely undertaken to construct a boat to be propelled by steam. This. craft they fitted out as a "broadhorn" and sent down to New Orleans on a tentative expedition. Every plan which these men could devise to make her serve the purpose of safe and expeditious transportation back and forth was put into execution, but without securing the dependability necessary to their schemes. By 1807 it had become clear to the directors that the shipping business could not be made to pay on the old basis and they abandoned it to devote them exclusively to banking. The capital stock was raised to $500,000, and by 1815 $450,000 had been actually paid in by one hundred and ninety persons. Ali Baum was made president and Oliver Spencer cashier. They issued pro to pay and set them afloat in the firm belief that in this way the credit of town could be successfully enlarged and made perfectly stable. Their office was located on the wharf about one hundred feet west of Sycamore, and became a sort of financial center. In 1812 another bank was started and called The Farmers and Mechanics, because one-third of the directors required to be successful farmers and another one-third practical mechanics, William Irwin was president and Samuel W. Davies cashier. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 111 In 1814 the Bank of Cincinnati was organized, Ethan Stone being president and Lot Pugh cashier. These were ambitious and, in a sense, dangerous under-takings, for no little risk was assumed. Their promoters were fired by hopes of personal gains, of course; but there was also. a not inconsiderable element of unselfish devotion to the public, in the work they did. The community was in desperate need of such service, and they staked their individual fortunes upon an effort to supply it. This was the period of the War of 1812, and the whole social, civil and commercial fabric of the little town was subjected to. the strain of those conditions which war invariably evokes. One of its invariable phenomena, as everybody knows, is the gravitation of the precious metals into the great centers of business and the leaving of small and distant communities devoid of any medium of ex-change. This irresistible outflow began to be observed in Cincinnati almost immediately upon the outbreak of. hostilities, and the bankers helplessly watched the ebbing tide. No human power could arrest it. The gold and silver coins, like drops in the current of a river, made their way slowly but with resistless gravitation to the coffers of. the bankers in Philadelphia., Boston and New York. By the 26th of December the presidents of their banks (Spencer, Irwin and Stone) threw up their hands and announced that it had become necessary for them to suspend meeting their payments in specie for an indefinite period of time. The shock to the community was terrible. As usual in such situations; suspicion and anger predominated. A mass meeting of excited and indignant citizens was held at the Columbia Inn to inquire into the reasons for this sensational determination. It was, perhaps, one of the most important and impressive occasions in the life of the town, and revealed the rapidly developing sense of self-hood; of the responsibility of action by the whole community, in great emergencies. The various elements were crystallizing. Public opinion was becoming a reality. The town was thinking for itself ! It felt capable of united :hon. It experienced the sense of oneness—unity. The men who took a prominent part in this meeting were true leaders. They were men of strength, and the list of their names was formidable. Major General John S. Gano was elected president and Dr. Daniel Drake secretary. The situation was thoroughly discussed and it was the sense of the meeting that so important a step as a bank's suspension (one of the most critical in finance) should not be taken without the approval of the community ! Therefore, a committee of investigation was appointed, consisting of citizens representing almost very interest. Rev. Joshua L. Wilson was a member and so were General William Lytle, Majors W. Ruffin and W. C. Anderson, Arthur St. Clair, Jr., William Corry, Esquires, and Messrs. W. S. Keys, Davis Embrey, Solomon Langdon, William Greene, Jeremiah Reeder, Levi James and Daniel Drake. After solemn deliberation the committee reported that in its opinion the action of he bankers was justifiable ! There followed this unexpected report the first outbreak of that perverse spirit which has done so much to curse our city—suspicion of the motives of good men! "You are probably all of. you in the ring, somehow !" sneered the public ; but the contemptible insinuation was promptly met by the indisputable proof that 112 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY not a single member of the committee held a position of profit in any one of the unfortunate institutions ! If ever such! suspicions could be condoned, they might have, then, for the situation was desperate, and the peril greater than we can realize. But the crisis was safely tided over in spite of the public despair, and before long the hard people pulled themselves together and went to work .to repair their losses a will. The war ended, and with the passing of that danger the equilibrium trade was reestablished. The money which had rushed to the great or; centers of government (as the blood rushes to the heart and brain at danger signals) began once more to flow outward into the extremities of the vast organism. Its own (and more than its own) came back to Cincinnati. Business revived. The old banks were strengthened and two others were founded, one by John H. Piatt, and the other the Cincinnati branch of the United States. It was a difficult and dangerous period for such enterprises, and they probably were managed with as much wisdom as the human mind could command, but another crisis was approaching which human sagacity could not possibly have foreseen. Changes on a. colossal scale were taking place all. over the try. The war had stimulated speculation. The population was increasing enormously. Every conceivable scheme for making money was being worked. People became extravagant even to recklessness, and seemed deliberately to rem. those habits and customs Which alone in all ages, countries and circumstances have rendered business safe. No other phase of human existence affords a better occasion for the cynic to sneer, or the philosopher to remonstrate, or the moralist to denounce, than the one through which the people of our little frontier town were passing just before they arrogated to themselves the dignity of a city. That they were the victims of one of those strange manias which seizes our weak humanity and makes object of contempt, there- is but little doubt. Each generation of men 1,, 'the antics of another in the throes of one of those-furors of speculation am extravagance, with astonishment and disgust; but, itself, becomes a helpless in its turn. When it comes time to consider the panic of the twenties (as it will soon) we shall, no doubt, look down with a proud superiority upon our tors behaving like spendthrifts in their era of prosperity, forgetful of the that we ourselves have been guilty of the same folly every decade of our But now we are to abandon the consideration of the community at large, and turn our attention to the study of the characters of some of the most interesting individual members. Only, before we do this, let us pause to notice a few evidences of the existence of that impulse to improve and beautify the town, the development of which it is the object of this history to forward. It was in 1803 that the first ordinance for paving a street was passed. 1804 the council asked the United States government for the land on which. Fort Washington stood to use as a site for an academy, but was. refused. In 1813 a. movement to fill up the frog ponds was inaugurated, and about the same time the town authorities began to assume responsibility for the care of paupers. The old courthouse was burned in 1814 by some careless soldiers, and the civic pride of the people manifested itself in such offers as that of Judge Burnet of a considerable bonus if the council would rebuild it at the corner of Seventh and Elm, and of James Ferguson, who agreed CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 113 to add a thousand dollars and bear the expense of rearing the foundation if the judge's plan was carried out. It is rather astonishing to be told that Samuel Caldwell and Edward White tried, at the same time, to have the new building located somewhere beyond the present village of Carthage. The present site was chosen, however, and the building completed in 1819, to the great satisfaction of the citizens. There is a story about a certain Ethan Stone, a lawyer of great intelligence, which fits in admirably here, and, in fact, would fit in admirably anywhere. He made a contract with the county commissioners to build a bridge across Mill Creek, Which after it had been finished, but before it was accepted, a flood in the river carried away. Instead of trying to escape the loss, he bore it like a man, and although he passed the next twenty years in obscurity and poverty in order to make his contract good, by rebuilding, he did it, and what is more, died a rich man in an elegant mansion at the corner of Fourth and Vine streets, where he passed the later years of his life enjoying the respect and affection of his fellows. CHAPTER VIII. NOTED MEN OF 1802-1819. AND FOREMOST UNDER THIS HEADING STANDS DR. DANIEL DRAKE-FOUNDS THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF OHIO-NICHOLAS LONGWORTH AND MANY OTHERS- THE PART THEY PLAYED IN THE MAKING OF A GREAT CITY. Great Men of the Period. That this period from 1802-1819 was rich in men like Ethan Stone who, working independently and collectively, developed the enterprises and evolved the community life which have been slowly taking place before our mind's eye, you have already discerned. To know their names ; to understand their characteristics ; to have some understanding of the part they played ; is so necessary to the comprehension of the great drama we are watching that the lack of capacity to present in them action ; to show them actually moving across the stage ; to make them live again in their proper environment, is torture. But if they cannot be exhibited in one way, they must in another. We can hang their portraits on the wall, at least ! The first and foremost among them is that remarkable person, Dr. Daniel Drake, whose career no historian has ever yet been able to study without becoming an enthusiastic admirer. Every single one of them has protested against that unpardonable civic indifference which prevented his memory from being enshrined in some worthy memorial. The least that we could do would be to name the new canal boulevard after him, and there ought to be a monument somewhere on its banks in which his noble figure could be seen in bronze. "The Daniel Drake Boulevard !" Is it not a beautiful name and would not its bestowal do much to redeem us from the guilt of civic inappreciation ? It is in the gloom of a little clearing in the backwoods of Kentucky not very far from Maysville, that we first catch sight of our hero. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, October 20, 1785 (three years before the landing of the pioneers at Yeatman's Cove), he was brought by his parents into the western wilderness when he was two and a half years of age. The house in which the first years of this new life was passed was nothing but a pen for sheep. His was education obtained from a few books in a corner of this hovel ; from a log school, house; from the conversation of devout and serious-minded, although extremely illiterate parents; and from nature. In those rude surroundings he was compelled while yet a child to perform the labors of a man. Fortunately for this bright and beautiful boy, his parents were ambitious. His father, denied the privileges of an education and a career himself, solemnly made up his mind that his son should not suffer the same deprivation. When, therefore, Daniel had reached the age of fifteen years, he sent him from Mayslick, Kentucky, to Cincinnati and consigned him to the care of Dr. Goforth, an eccentric but gifted physician, who ran a small apothecary shop in connection with his profession. In this shop young Drake was set to work com- - 115 - 116 - CINCINNATI —THE QUEEN CITY pounding pills ; doing all sorts of chores and studying medicine. In 1804, having made great progress in his studies and become an invaluable assistant, he was taken (at eighteen years of age) into full partnership. Bright as were the prospects of business success which this relationship opened, young Drake abandoned them to acquire an education. The desire for this had become a passion and he started for the medical college in Philadelphia armed only with a small fund of money and a sort of diploma furnished him by Dr. Goforth, as an evidence of his proficiency. After weeks of hard and discouraging work amidst the limitations of friendlessness and poverty, he returned to the west and began to practice medicine in the neighborhood of his old home. This was in 1806, and in the following year he went back to Cincinnati because the departure of his old teacher for Louisiana left an auspicious opening for him to establish himself in a remunerative business. Arranging to have his parents join them later on, he took his younger brother Benjamin along, and full of the "mighty hopes that make us men” the two boys (for they were nothing more) fared forth into the big world to achieve their destiny. Daniel's previous residence in Cincinnati and his large acquaintance, including such men as Symmes, Harrison, Findlay, Gano, Burnet, Arthur St. Clair, Ethan Stone, Allison, Longworth, Kemper, Ziegler, Baum, and probably every important personage in the little town, enabled him not only to begin his own career under the most favorable auspices, but also to launch his brother on the tide that leads to fortune. It was not long before the young practitioner's business increased to such an extent as to warrant him in setting up a home of his own and he contracted an ideal marriage. In the old Ludlow mansion, a few miles out of town, lived Jared Mansfield in whose household there was a charming girl, the general's niece, by the name of Harriet Sisson, with whom he fell in love. Amidst the enchanting scenes of that still virgin wilderness, he wooed and won a heart which gave him a deathless love and furnished him an unfailing inspiration. Of her character and charms he wrote: "Her modest eye of hazel hue Disclosed, e'en to the passing view Truth, firmness, feeling, innocence, Bright thoughts and deep intelligence Her soul was pure as winter's snow And warm as summer's sunset glow. "When moving through the mingled crowd Her lofty bearing spoke her proud ; But when her kindling spirit breathed On those she loved; .or those who grieved Joy felt the quickening pulses leap And sorrow e'en forgot to weep." Young, talented, happily married, with everything to struggle after and hope for, respected, admired and trusted;: Dr. Drake plunged headlong into activities of the little world in which he lived. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 117 In the fall of 1807, the young couple set up a modest establishment in a two-story frame house. on the east side of Sycamore between Third and Fourth streets. Their tastes were congenial, they had hosts of cultivated friends and their home was an earthly paradise. Aside from his practice, at this particular period, Dr. Drake was carrying on a business of considerable magnitude and preparing to publish his personal observations of the little world in which he lived. This purpose he accomplished and anxiously sent forth upon its mission a small pamphlet entitled "Notices of Cincinnati, its Topography and Diseases," which bore the earmarks of a genius for observation and expression, both. Its recognition was so generous as to inspire another literary effort, and after five hard years of work he issued a volume entitled "Natural and Statistical View. or Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami County, illustrated by maps, with an appendix containing observations on the late earthquakes, the aurora borealis and southeast wind." Had it been a weak book its title might have damned it; but because it was a marvel of original research and of literary facility, it made a place for itself in the great world. Although his neighbors, and even friends, did not appreciate its merits, it found readers in the cultivated towns of the east and was acknowledged across the ocean to be the product of a first class mind. The year preceding the appearance of this second volume had been a hard one for the author and his wife. It was in 1810 that the book was launched and in 1809 they had lost a little daughter. The child was only a year old but the grief of its devoted parents was profound, and while still in the very stress of it the doctor suffered an attack of pneumonia which all but cost his life. In a nature so highly emotional as his these shocks produced some powerful !actions; but did not arrest the development of his mind nor thwart the accomplishment of his plans. In pursuit of his determination to have a hand in shaping le destinies of the city of his adoption, he took part in every phase of its existence. There is a great and a decided advantage for a mind like his in living in a small community because it is possible to be identified with all its profound movements and to be on familiar terms with its leading men. Everybody knew him and he knew everybody, so that no movement of any important character as undertaken without soliciting his powerful and ever growing influence. He was heart and hand in the organization of a library society, for example. He helped to start a debating society and a school of art and literature. He was Live in the efforts to cultivate dramatic talents. He took part in politics. He pushed forward business projects in which he had no interests. To so great a degree did he surpass his fellow citizens in these public sacrifices that many of them, too small to understand him, regarded him with suspicion and suspected him of sinister motives. Undoubtedly he was dominated by a towering personal ambition. He loved recognition; and he courted power. He felt in a high degree that burning desire for fame which is "the last infirmity of noble minds." But, on the other hand, he was animated by another passion, rarer in those days than-now, a love for the town he lived in. In a word, he was a philopolist, the first apostle of “the higher life" in the little backwoods town. A desire to see it progress in every realm of greatness ; to have it become beautiful, prosperous, powerful and permanent became a passion. He dreamed of a city on the banks of the Ohio. 118 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY which should rival the greatest the world had ever known. No prophet ever prayed for the peace or longed for the glory of Jerusalem more fervently than he for the future grandeur of the squalid village on the muddy river's bank. It was in order to increase his personal value to his home town as much as to enhance his personal reputation, therefore, that this first citizen of the metropolis of the region was led to abandon his practice for a time and go to Philadelphia to enlarge his comprehension of medical science and to win a diploma for its practice. He did this in 1815, and after several months of Herculean labors, he secured his coveted prize; and returned to his home and his work. Upon his arrival he discovered that business had taken a disastrous turn and that his own affairs were so involved that he was compelled to move to the town edge of the where he and his wife inhabited a little cabin on the very threshold of the forest. In grim good humor he christened it "Mount Poverty," and sensibly "made the best of his opportunity to be as far away as possible from the irritations of his daily life in town." With Dr. Drake, it turned out according to the old proverb that "it was darkest just before the dawn," for his skill as a physician, his ability as an investigator and his talent as a writer had attracted the attention of the promoters of an ambitious effort to found a college Of medicine in Lexington, Kentucky. It was Benjamin W. Dudley, one of the great figures of that region and of those times, who was the means of securing an invitation for the doctor to become an instructor in that new and promising school. It fell in with his needs and his ambitions to accept, and forthwith he turned his face southward. At that time Lexington was only second to Cincinnati in size among those early settlements and had acquired the proud title of the "Athens of the West.” The institution with which our distinguished citizen cast his interests was called the Transylvania School, and possesses a remarkable history, having ranked at one time among the six leading medical colleges in America. It was then however, in an inchoate condition, and obstacles to its growth and to Drake's, success sprang up in multitudes. Among them were the narrow jealousies of the members of the faculty which resulted often in quarrels, and once in a duel, of which Drake was falsely and maliciously accused of being the principal. He stuck it out for a year, however, in spite of everything; but at the end of that time, with his high hopes rudely dashed, returned to Cincinnati. The experience had been bitter, but, of course, invaluable. It had been the means of disclosing a talent of which he had only a dim suspicion,—the ta;emt for imparting knowledge as a teacher. A great and consuming ambition, the passion of a lifetime, seized him:- the passion to found and preside over an institution for training physicians and surgeons. Together with two of his fellow townsmen, Dr. Coleman Rogers and the (Rev.) Professor Elijah Slack, president of the Lancaster Seminary, he prepared and launched his project. On November to, 1818, he delivered his first lecture to a few students whose ambitions had been excited by this new and wonderful opportunity ; but the project was evidently ill-advised or poorly carried out, for on April 18, 1819, Drake announced that the partnership had been insolved and the enterprise abandoned. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 119 The progress of our narrative has now brought us to the end of that period of the life of Cincinnati which we have set as a temporary limit—its existence as a town, but it is impossible to arrest the story of Drake's career at this point, as our purpose is to set him forth as the principal figure in the history of our city. Let us therefore journey on. Immediately upon the dissolution of the partnership of Rogers, Slack and Drake, the latter announced his intention to found an institution to be known as the Medical College of Ohio. He appealed to the legislature for an act of incorporation, which was passed on January 18, 1819. At firsts the prospects were brilliant; but some of the men whom he had leaned upon for assistance, backed out and forced upon him the necessity of securing other helpers. While these precious weeks were passing Dr. Drake was not idle ; but put in his time promoting the founding of the "Cincinnati Hospital and Lunatic Asylum of the State of Ohio," an adjunct of supreme value in his college scheme on account sf the clinical facilities which it would afford. By working with the energy of giant he carried both these schemes forward to a point at which in 1820, the new school was opened, and Drake believed himself upon the verge of giving the northwest a medical college that would rank among the greatest in the world. Once more, however, he was destined to disappointment (as he was in all his subsequent endeavors). The fates appeared to be against him. Insuperable obstacles confronted him at every turn. And yet, he would not yield! The idea had become an obsession and would not leave him day or night. It was a will-o'-the-wisp which he forever followed and which forever eluded his grasp. His biographers all agree that the one supreme purpose of his life was never realized and that in this respect, it must be called a failure and yet (and this is the amazing thing) his hopes were not shattered ; his will was not weakened nor his power in the community diminished. But let us listen to the tragic story of The Medical College of Ohio. Its first session opened on November I, 182o, with a class of twenty students who assembled in an upper story of No. 91 Main street, where Isaac. Drake & Co. did businness. On Wednesday, April 4, 1821, a class of seven graduated and Dr. Drake delivered the valedictory address. Scarcely, however, had he finished his peroration when an internecine war broke out in the faculty. It was the world old story of rivalry and jealousy. The men whom Drake had trusted and furnished a golden opportunity, turned against and determined to destroy him. The means to this inglorious end was furnished by an awkward arrangement in which the government of the school was placed in the hands of the teaching staff instead of a board of trustees. Two days after the second commencement (March 1822) Godman and Bohrer resigned ; Jesse Smith moved that Dr. Drake be dismissed; Slack seconded it, and the victim of the plot being the presiding officer was obliged, by the irony of the situation, to put it. The motion carried, of course, and the dethroned monarch left the room, an exile. "I could not do more than tender them a note of thanks, nor less than withdraw, and performing both the doctor politely let me clown stairs," he wrote, with a grim sense of humor. The community was shocked. A storm of protests was raised. A reorganization followed. Drake was reinstated ; but he was too high-spirited to go on, under the circumstances, and detached himself from the movement absolutely. 120 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY This disgraceful episode came as near as anything could to crushing the man whom nothing could really destroy. The first resentment might have turned into a chronic bitterness had it not been that at this critical moment he was once more invited to become a member of the faculty of Transylvania. It was an open door of escape from his troubles and he entered it gladly, removing to Lexington with his family in the fall of 1823. The school was then at the height of its glory, and for three seasons he lectured and shone like a star of the first magnitude, even in the brilliant galaxy of professors who composed its most unusual faculty. Besides performing his onerous duties as a lecturer he built up a remunerative practice arid became a powerful factor in social life. His satisfaction in these triumphs was dulled, however, by another terrible blow that was struck him. In October, 1825, his Harriet who had been to him "sweetheart, wife, mother, companion,, in fact everything," died and left him with all but a broken heart. In 1826 for many and varied reasons—his family interests, his love for Cincinnati, the fascination of his wife's grave (she was buried here), he return to his old home, and there he remained for three of the most quiet years of hi turbulent life, practising his profession and taking that part in public affairs which his talents for such business ever afforded him. Those who best knew the indomitable will of this unconquerable fighter were morally certain that he would never permanently abandon his purpose to dominate the school he had founded and which still continued to struggle forward. As a matter of fact, he had never ceased for a moment to hunt for some method by which he could regain his seat in the saddle, and his quick perceptions saw that it had come to him through an invitation to join the medical faculty of Jefferson College in Philadelphia. He had only to go there, he knew, and gain the eclat which he felt himself certain to secure, in order to return home and be lifted by a wave of popular admiration back into his old place. It was a brilliant scheme and worked itself out like a mathematical problem. He leaped at once into fame as a lecturer even in that brilliant center of learning; but turned his back upon all the flattering prospects Which opened before him to carry out his plan. So confident was he of its success that he suddenly reappeared in .his old haunts bringing with him John Eberle; James M. Stoughton; Thomas D. Mitchell arid John F. Henry, a group of brilliant scholars to whom he held out the most dazzling hopes of fame and fortune. He succeeded ; but he also failed a fate to which he seemed predestined: The school fell into hiS hands like a ripe plum. He reorganized it to suit himself ; but the old troubles broke out anew; and at the end of session of 1831-32 he gave it up again. It was in this period of retirement from pedagogical work that he revealed his extraordinary talent for social life. He lived with two young daughters ju growing into womanhood at the corner Of Vine and Baker streets, and gradually gathered about him in a loosely organized association the most refined people in the city. Professor Stowe of Lane Seminary and Harriet Beecher (Stowe) ; General and Mrs. Edward King; Albert Pickett and many other's who had or afterwards did achieve distinction, formed a brilliant circle of which their host was always the glowing and attractive center. It was out of a wooden bowl made from the CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 121 Buckeye" and tastefully decorated with the leaves and blossoms Of that beautiful tree that he dispensed non-alcoholic beverages and helped to give that tree its fame. About those gatherings there was an indefinable charm which has perpetuated their memory and will forever keep it green. It was during this period also that he helped to found the College of Teachers, the influence of which was wide-reaching and profound: Such men as Albert Pickett, Alexander Kinmont, Jaynes H. Perkins, Alexander McGuffey and Bishop Purcell co-operated with him, and few things which he did accomplished more for the public weal. In the midst of activities like these, and others, in the spheres of politics, art and science, it would have seemed that even his boundless energies might have been absorbed. Nothing, however, could cool the ardor of his antagonism to the enemies who had succeeded at every turn in thwarting his plans for that “School of Medicine." He was a good hater and never lost a chance to strike a blow at the men who robbed him of the child of his hopes, and as he firmly and even terribly believed prostituted to base purposes—a conviction which must serve to modify our condemnation of what must otherwise seem bitterness and revenge. In 1835 the affairs of the Medical College of Ohio were in a very bad way and to Drake the despairing promoters turned for aid. Upon one condition and no other he offered to render it, viz., the immediate and final dismissal of the entire faculty. In that faculty, however, there was a man as determined as Drake himself, an Irishman by the name of John Morehead. Unable to manage the institution successfully himself, he utterly refused to give way to his hated rival, and Drake, believing that the last hope of ever being reinstated had now sunk below the horizon, determined to try another plan. One path to take was left. He could, he would and he did. establish a rival school. The opportunity to do this successfully seemed open in connection with the educational institution known as the Cincinnati College. It was founded in 1814 as a "Lancastrian School;" but, the ideas proving less practicable than was hoped, it was rechartered in 1819 as a literary college or university. It was under this charter that in 1835 Drake, with the assistance of euthusiastic friends, opened the "Medical Department of the Cincinnati College," with Joseph N, McDowell; Samuel S. Gross ; Horatio B. Jameson Landon C. Rives ; James B. Harrison and Daniel Drake as its Corps of teachers. The rivalry between the two schools degenerated almost into open war. The Medical College had precedence in time; prestige and equipment; but the "Medical Department" had Drake! And, besides Drake it had a faculty of men whose characters and attainments were extraordinary that for four years, in spite of opposition, debts and obstacles of a hundred kinds, they Maintained a medical institution which was the glory of the west. But in 1839 it went the way of all the earth and justified the keen and bitter epigram of John S. Billings, who said of Drake that he was "the great organizer and the great disorganizer ; the great founder and the great founderer" of medical institutions. If this pitiable catastrophe justified one part of the epigram, the next step in Drake's career justified 'the other. The "Medical College" had survived' the downfall of the "Medical Department;" but while it still lived it did not truly have a being. The forces of dissolution were at work and 'its friends' could 122 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY plainly see that it needed to be regalvanized. One man and one alone could to it and to him they turned. Upon conditions which seemed to promise well an offer was made to Drake which he accepted ; but insincerity and perhaps deception characterized the deal. The situation from the first was painful, and at the end of the year intolerable, and he quietly resigned. It was like the explosion of a bomb shell and the commotion which broke out in town together with the swift dramatic happenings in the college itself, read like a drama for the stage. Our present business is, however, not to follow them but to pursue the thorny pathway over which our hero walked. His steps seemed ordered by a mysterious power which no sooner closed one door to usefulness than it opened another. Worn out and disgusted with his year's work, he was contemplating what seemed an almost hopeless future when he received a call to the Louisville Medical Institute and, accepting in 1840, spent the next ten years of his life in that city. It was there that, while winning new renown as lecturer, teacher and practitioner, he completed his monumental work "Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America." Upon its merits and the international fame it brought him, his biographers love to linger ; but in a narrative so brief and so strictly concerned with the relation of the man to the city whose history we are writing it will be necessary that our story should move swiftly forward to the time of his return to Cincinnati. In 1849 the Medical College was passing through another of its periodical cataclysms and was again in need of help. Once more it turned to Drake and begged him to come back to save it from destruction. It was a plea to which his whole heart responded, and at the opening of the thirteenth session on November 5, 1849, he reappeared, grayer and older, but as erect and commanding as ever. A tumult of applause burst forth when he entered the classroom. It was welcome as few men have ever get, and evoked such a response as few men ever been able to utter. "My heart," he said, in a tumult of emotion, "still turned to my first love, your alma mater. Her image, glowing in the warm and radiant tints of earlier life, was ever in my view. Transylvania had been reorganized in 1819, and included in its faculty Professor Dudley, whose surgical fame had already spread throughout the west, and that paragon of labor and perseverance, Professor Caldwell, now a veteran octogenarian. In the year after my separation I was recalled to that ; but neither the eloquence of colleagues, nor the greeting of the largest classes which the university ever enjoyed, could drive that beautiful image from my mind. After four sessions I resigned and was subsequently called to Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia ; but the image mingled with my shadow ; and when we reached the summit of the mountain it bade me stop and gaze upon the silvery cloud which hung over the place where you now assemble. Afterward in the medical department of Cincinnati College I lectured with men of power to young men thirsting for knowledge, but the image still hovered round me. I was then invited to Louisville, became a member of one of the ablest faculties ever embodied in the west and saw the halls of the university rapidly filled. But when I looked on the faces of four hundred student behold! the image was in their midst. While there I prosecuted an extensive course of personal inquiry into the causes and cure of diseases of the interior valley of the CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 123 continent; and in journeyings by day and journeyings by night on water and on land, while struggling through the matted rushes where the Mississippi mingles with the gulf, or camping with the Indians and Canadian boatmen, under the pines and birches of Lake Superior, the image was still my faithful companion and whispered sweet words of encouragement and hope. I bided my time ; and, after twice doubling the time through which Jacob waited for Rachel, the united voices of the tutors and the professors has called me to the chair which I held in the beginning." The bright dream which these enthusiastic words revealed soon faded and the dreamer awoke to the miserable reality of new and irrepressible dissensions in the faculty. The disillusionment was unendurable and, resigning at the end of the year, he went back to Louisville to be received with open arms. But this was not the last oscillation of the pendulum of his troubled life. Once more he was invited to return to the same old task and did so ; but contracted a cold at the great meeting in honor of Daniel Webster and died on the 6th day of November, 1852. "He had made his peace with God," wrote his distinguished son-in-law, Alexander H. McDuffy, "and was resigned to meet his Maker. A few hours before his death, when loudly called by a familiar voice, he would partially open his eyes; and during the forenoon he made faint efforts to swallow the fluids which were placed in his mouth. But the lethargy steadily gained ground and his breathing became more and more labored until about five o'clock, when his pulse became imperceptible and his breathing less heavy. His breathing became gentler and shorter till at last it ceased so gradually that we could not say when his lungs ceased their functions. But just at his solemn moment, when all eyes were fixed on the face of the departed, he closed his mouth most naturally, drew up and placed upon the breast his right hand which had for hours lain motionless by his side, the eyes opened and beamed with an unearthly radiance, as if at the same time clasping and reflecting the glories of heaven and—the spirit was with God who gave it.” His funeral was a public demonstration of such grief as cities seldom feel over the loss of even the greatest men. He was laid to rest in Spring Grove Cemetery by the side of the grave of the wife of his youth, and a monument was erected to his memory, bearing the following inscription : "Sacred to the memory of Daniel Drake, a learned and distinguished physincian, an eminent teacher of the medical art, a citizen of exemplary virtue and public spirit, a man rarely equalled in all the qualities which adorn social and domestic life. His fame is indelibly written in the records of his country. His good deeds impressed on public beneficent institutions, endure forever. He lived in the fear of God and died in the hope of salvation." "He who rests here was an early inhabitant and untiring friend of the city of Cincinnati, with whose prosperity his fame is inseparably connected." It is this final tribute which most concerns us now. "He was," indeed, "an untiring friend of the city of Cincinnati," and for this virtue we especially revere his name and dwell upon his life and labors. If this tribute to his memory seems disproportionately long, it is because one of the supreme purposes of this history is to hold him up as a type and symbol of philopolism, and in order to do this effectively we must dwell still longer and more fully on his life. Vol I-9 124 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY It would be unfair to the memory of so great a man not to note and emphasize those remarkable achievements which were only the incidents of his professional life. It has to be said and reiterated that there was not a movement for civic betterment to which he did not lend his influence. In fields so widely disconnected from his scientific career, as commerce, for example, he was unsurpassed as a promoter of progress. He sketched the routes of the canals by which the business of the city was enlarged. He developed the lines along which the railroads of the future were to be opened. He helped to establish the banking system by which the great problems of finance were solved. In the field of ethics he strove to promote honesty and sobriety and was one of the earliest and most uncompromising foes of slavery. In the field of religion he helped to found our churches and to inspire the feelings of reverence for the Supreme Being and those hopes of the immortality which alone can keep the hearts of men enthralled with the love of righteousness. He was an orator and stirred the masses who heard him speak on the great problems of individual life and civic progress to noble ideals and heroic endeavors. He possessed a talent for literature which lacked only the influences of classic education to place him in the front rank of our authors. How little does this idyl of love lack of belonging to the highest order of poetry ! "Ye clouds that veil the setting sun Dye not your robes of red ; Thou chaste and beauteous rising morn Thy wildest radiance shed. Ye stars that gem the vault of heaven Shine mellow as you pass ; Ye falling dews of early even, Rest calmly on the grass. Ye fitful zephyrs as ye rise, And run your way along, Breathe softly out your deepest sighs And wail your gloomiest song. Thou lonely widowed bird of night As on this sacred stone Thou mayest in wandering chance to light Pour forth thy saddest moan. Ye giddy throng who laugh and stray Where notes of sorrow sound And mock the funeral vesper-lay Tread not this holy ground. For here my sainted Harriet lies, I saw her hallowed form Laid deep below, no more to rise Before the judgment morn." CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 125 It does lack something ! It is too sophisticated to have been written by Burns, for he had just enough culture to destroy the utter simplicity of the Bard of Ayr. It is too naive to have been written by Barry Cornwall; for he still carried about with him the traces of his rude, untutored life in the forests of the new world. And what was true of his poetry was not less so of his prose, in which there are wonderful flights of imagination. But however near he came to the higher forms of art, even in his soaring passages about the beauties of nature, he always fell a little short. And yet you cannot possibly doubt his genius. The earliest of his biographers felt it deeply. E. D. Mansfield was a man of profound insight, and his life of Drake is full of an admiration whose genuineness breathes from every page. His old co-laborer, Dr. Gross, the second of the historians of his life, felt it and could not repress his enthusiasm. Drake was a handsome man with fine blue eyes and manly features. He had a commanding presence, being nearly six feet tall, having a fine intellectual forehead. His step was light and elastic, his manners simple and dignified. He was always well dressed and around his neck he had a long gold watch chain which rested loosely upon his vest. He was a great lecturer. His voice was clear and strong, and he had the power of expression which amounted to genuine eloquence. When under full sway every nerve quivered and his voice could be heard at a great distance. At such times his whole soul would seem on fire. He would froth at the mouth, swing to and fro like a tree in a storm, and raise his voice to the highest pitch. With first course students he was never popular, not because there was anything disagreeable in his manner, but because few of them had been sufficiently cultivated to seize the import of his utterance." These are the testimonies of his contemporaries. You will be mistaken if you think that the keen observers of another age are less inspired. Within a few short years Dr. Otto Juettner was caught by the enchantment of this singularly gifted man and has produced a tribute to his life and character which is indisputable proof of his own ability to comprehend genius and to enshrine it in a worthy memorial. On the seventy-first page of "Daniel Drake and His Followers" you may read this sober, just and discriminating analysis. "In following Drake through his long, eventful life we are struck with the versatility of his talents. He was indeed a singularly gifted man. In addition to this he was distinctly a man of affairs, full of ambition, energy and determination. He had a quick, intuitive judgment and grasped a situation with remarkable facility. Like Bacon, he identified an underlying principle almost coincidently with recognizing the fact which embodied it. Iii his reasoning from facts to ideas he was rapid, intense and incisive. He would have made a good professor of philosophy, and yet he was emotional to a degree and could mix flights of fancy and logical evolution, easily and skilfully. He was therefore a natural orator who could harmonize a political gathering or a religious meeting with equal success. He would have made a capital actor. He was always ready to talk. Artful silence was foreign to him. He would have been a Machiavelli, a Talleyrand or a Moltke, if he had been able to use his tongue for the purpose of hiding rather than divulging his thoughts. He would have made an ideal preacher because his mind, his heart and his tongue were perfectly attuned. He had no 126 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY fitness to be a politician in the pulpit, on the rostrum or in the lecture chair. If he had been less scrupulously honest he would have made a good lawyer. Constituted as he was, he would have made a better incumbent of the bench member of the bar. He was a protester by nature, an iconoclast by cultivation reformer by force of habit. Taking him all in all, he was best fitted for medical profession, using the latter term in its pure and ideal sense. To truth was everything. When he founded the Medical College of Ohio he moved by an ideal which he wished to embody in the interests of science pro bono publico. When he founded the Commerce Hospital he was an', by the love of humanity and of scientific progress. The petty schemes of latter-day medical politician who seeks his own gain were foreign to him. leges, hospitals and medical societies are frequently used by the small politician as stepping-stones or pedestals. Large men like Drake do not need either. A man like Drake lifts the college, the hospital and the society to his level. The small medical politician debauches them by pulling them down, to his own level. This is the difference between men of the Daniel Drake type and his small imitators of later days." To have walked the same streets which Daniel Drake trod and to help in even the feeblest way to carry on his work and to realize his fine ideals is a privilege, indeed. And how many other such noble and beautiful lives there were in those early days ! It would be a joy to give to each his due ; but it would take too much time and space to glorify all the separate stars of the shining constellation. Many must be omitted and a few words be made to do for others. ETHAN ALLEN BROWN, jurist and statesman, was born in Darien, Conn, July 4, 1776, and died in Indianapolis, Ind., February 24, 1852. He was educated by an Irish scholar and acquired a critical knowledge of languages. He read law in the office of Alexander Hamilton, was admitted to the bar in 1802 and returned to the west with his cousin, Captain John Brown, in 1804. He settled in Cincinnati and soon acquired an extensive practice. He was a judge of the supreme court of Ohio from 1810-1818 and governor of the state from 1818-1822. Resigning the governorship to accept a seat in the United States senate, he was a member of that body until 1825. From 1825 to 1830 he was canal commissioner for the state of Ohio. President Jackson appointed him minister to Brazil in 1830 and he served until 1834. He was commissioner of the land office from 1835 to 1836, when he removed to Rising Sun, Indiana. In 1824 je was a member of the Indiana state assembly. NICHOLAS LONGWORTH was born in Newark, New Jersey, 1782, and died in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1863. His father was a tory in the revolution, and for this offence had his large property confiscated, so that his son passed his youth in poverty. He was a clerk in a brother's store in South Carolina in his but removed to Cincinnati in 1803, where he became a lawyer and accumulated a large fortune which he invested, mainly, in real estate. After twenty-five years of practice he retired to devote himself to the grape cultivation of the with a view to the manufacture of wine, but using the foreign varieties exclusively, he was unsuccessful until 1828, when he introduced native vines on thie seedlings and produced from the Catawba and Isabella grapes wine of a CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 127 able value. He had two hundred acres of vineyards and a large wine house in the vicinity of the city, where he also experimented in the culture of the strawberry, The culture. of the grape finally proved unsuccessful and the business was abandoned—a failure which might have been avoided (so a letter from the government just received affirms) had he and his co-laborers known how to fight the insects which destroyed the vines. Mr. Longworth was a man of marked personality ; kindly but eccentric and by his peculiarities lent a charm to life. His benevolences were all in behalf of those unfortunates whom he called the "Devil's Poor." His sense of humor was keen "Longworth," says Mr. Cist, "is a problem and a riddle ; a problem worthy of the study of those who delight in exploring that labyrinth of all that is hidden and mysterious, the human heart. He is a wit and a humorist of a high order of keen sagacity and shrewdness in many other respects than money matters ; one who can be exact to a dollar and liberal, when he chooses, with thousands ; of marked peculiarity and tenacity in his own opinions and yet of abundant tolerance to the opinions however extravagant of others. A man of great public spirit and sound general judgment." "If the fact," he continues, ."that a community has been made the better or the worse for an individual having existed in it, be, as a standard writer considers it, an unerring test of the character of that individual, there is no hazard in saying that Cincinnati is better off for Nicholas Longworth's having been an influential citizen of its community, and that putting him to this test, he has fulfilled his mission upon earth, not, indeed, as fully as he might have done, but as fully, perhaps, as one might have done who stood in his shoes." "Is she a deserving object ?" he asked, where his assistance for a widow was sought, and being told that her character was of the highest, he replied, "Very well, then, I shan't give a cent. Such persons will always find plenty to relieve them. I shall assist none but the idle, drunken, worthless vagabonds that nobody else will help. If you meet with such cases call upon me." Mr. Longworth left a fortune of five or ten millions, and his son and grandson have occupied important places in the city, the state and the national government; the present Nicholas (who achieved great notoriety by winning as a bride the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt), being an honored representative of his native state in the national legislature. WILLIAM CORRY was born in Virginia of Irish parentage, 1799. His father was killed at "King's Mountain." He was educated in common schools ; worked a farm until he was twenty ; and in 1788, invited by William McMillan, a relative, he came to Cincinnati. He studied law in McMillan's office and was admitted in 1803. After residing in Hamilton for brief periods, he returned to Cincinnati in 1811 to administer McMillan's estate. He settled with Ethan Stone in an old white frame double house on Main, between" Fifth and Sixth. This house was the home of the Cincinnati Library (of which he was custodian) and the office of the trustees of the Medical College. When Corry was elected mayor it became a political center, and he, with the assistance of his marshal, James Chambers, ruled with an iron hand the lawless little town. Those were days when bowie knives were carried as commonly as tooth-picks ; of street brawls and incipient riots. Corry judged the lawless element sternly and turned 128 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY its leaders over to Marshal Chambers, who passed them into the hands of Cunningham, the jailer. After abandoning public life he practiced law and indulged the tastes of a scholar until his death at fifty-five in 1833. DANIEL SYMMES. a nephew of John Cleves Symmes, was a ripe scholar, a profound thinker, a true patriot, an honest man and officer. Graduate of Princeton, state senator, judge of supreme court, register of land office and interested in everything until his death in 1817. GENERAL JAMES FINDLAY was a Pennsylvanian who settled in Cincinnati during the Indian wars. In 1801 he was appointed United States marshal the district of Ohio, being first to hold that office. After Congress had es lished a land office in Cincinnati, he was appointed receiver of public money, which position he held for many years until he voluntarily resigned. He manded a regiment at Detroit in the Indian war and returned to Cincinnati after Hull's surrender. He was elected to Congress in 1825. JOHN H. PIATT was born in Boone county, Kentucky, August 15, 1781, and died in Washington, D. C., February II, 1822. He went to Cincinnati when young and accumulated a large fortune, having been the first banker west of the Alleghenies. When the war of 1812 broke out he contracted with the government to furnish the northwestern army with provisions. Congress having failed to make the necessary appropriations to carry out the contract, and the price of provisions having increased on account of the war, he went to Washington for the purpose of vacating his agreement. But upon receiving verbal assurances from the secretary of war that the difference in rate would be made up to him, continued to embark his own means in the venture. The army under General Harrison was well supplied through his efforts ; but after the war the government repudiated the verbal contract, and falling into dire straits for even enough money to meet his daily wants, he was thrown into prison for debt and died there. Sixty years later the Supreme Court ordered the payment of his claims to heirs, minus the interest. DAVID K. ESTE was born in New Jersey in 1785 and educated in Princeton College. Arriving in Cincinnati in 1809 he interrupted his residence here by a brief sojourn in Hamilton ; but returned in 1814 and remained until his death. He was a lawyer and did business in partnership with Bellamy Storer from 1817 to 1821, and with Ezekiel Hines from 183o to 1835. Subsequently he became the first judge of the superior court and presided with distinguished honor. He was a loyal Cincinnatian, believing devoutly in her real estate and the greatness of her future. His residence at the corner of Ninth and Main was for many years a center of social life. His first wife was the daughter of General Harrison. He lived until well into his ninety-first year and died in possession of the respect and affection of his fellow-citizens. REV. JOSHUA LACEY WILSON was born in Bedford county, Virginia, September 22, 1774, and at seven was taken by his parents to Kentucky. After receiv- CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 129 ing the best training which those primitive conditions allowed, the ambitious youth consecrated himself to the gospel ministry and was ordained by the Transylvania presbytery. At thirty he entered upon his work in Bardstown, Kentucky, where he remained until 1808, when he accepted the charge of the First Presbyterian church of Cincinnati, and remained in this position until his death 1846. From the first to the last day of his career he was a leader of men and one of the most powerful forces in the life of the ever-growing town. "He had the ruggedness and severity of doctrinal conviction that impress while they dismay us in Hawthorne's pictures of Puritan New England. He prosecuted the trail of Lyman Beecher, his brother pastor, and pressed it to a conclusion, animated by the same spirit that was in Prym and Prynne in Mather and Eliot. The voice of Nicæa was not more binding upon Athanasius and Leo than was the truth as he had been taught it upon Dr. Wilson and no man ever spoke with less uncertain sound upon the principles of faith."—Rhodes. "He was a man of ardent temperament with great energy and decision of character. The principles he once adopted he held with indomitable courage and unyielding tenacity. He was not only a Presbyterian, but one of the strictest sect. It was not strange therefore that he contended with earnestness for what he thought "the faith once delivered to the saints," and that in this he sometimes appeared as much the soldier as the saint. In consequence of these characteristics many persons supposed him a harsh or bigoted man. But this was a mistake, unless to be in earnest is harshness and to maintain one's principles is bigotry. On the contrary, Dr. Wilson was kind, charitable and in, those things he thought right, liberal. Among these was the great cause of popular education. Of this he was a most zealous advocate and demanded that education should be founded on religion and the Bible should be a primary element in all public education." —Mansfield. One cannot help reflecting upon the prodigality of nature as he gazes at the faces and contemplates the sterling characters of these extraordinary old men. To spend so much time in making them only to throw them away seems reckless, even to wickedness in our finite judgment. It is like gathering money, or carving status, or painting pictures, only to throw them in the sea, we often think: The waste of all the wealth of experience, of wisdom, of charity, of affections garnered up in those brave old hearts, seems terrible indeed. We should have saved them, ourselves. To be able to go and take council of old Martin Baum about "the nine-foot stage" of the river ; with old Nicholas Longworth about the Kessler Park plans; with Dr. Drake about the public school system ; with Dr. Wilson about the religious condition of the city—would not that be a privilege? Alas, our prodigal mother, consumed by an eternal passion for reproduction, has touched the eyes of these ancient worthies with her sleep bestowing finger and laid them away in their narrow resting places for purposes we know not of, while forever and forever more she gives birth to new and not less wonderful souls. Other children of hers will appear upon the stage, excite our admiration and disappear like them, as the different phases of our city's life unfold to view. CHAPTER IX. THE CITY-1819. TIDE OF IMMIGRATION BECOMES A FLOOD-THE BURG OF CINCINNATI RECEIVES A CITY CHARTER-TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES INCREASE-THE OLIO AND MIAMI CANALS-RAILROADS--THE PANIC OF 1820- 1822-CHOLERA EPIDEMIC-PUBLIC SERVICE-EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS-CHURCHES-NEWSPAPERS, ETC. 1819-1839. The stream of history down whose currents we have been gliding now begins to broaden and deepen. Already we are growing conscious of a new complexity in the affairs of this little frontier community. Up to this point it has been very simple ; but the transition now beginning.is like passing from a room where the women of a household sit spinning and weaving, to a great mill where power looms are thundering. The tide of immigration from the east had now become a flood. Glorious visions of adventure, of achievement and of wealth were tempting people from across the seas, even, to the Utopia on the banks of the Ohio, and the valley of that great river was filling like a reservoir. A census in 1818 had disclosed the fact that the population of Cincinnati had swelled to such a number as to entitle it to pass from the rank of a town into that of a city, as it had passed from that of a village into a town. In the first directory (the third of our actually historic volumes) published by Oliver Farnsworth in 1819, the total number of inhabitants was placed at 10,283, and the number of buildings at 1,890. The new courthouse (known, however, in history as the old courthouse) had just been completed and so had the jail, the one standing on the site of the present temple of justice and the other on Sycamore street above where it is crossed by the canal: Other buildings of a not unpretentious character, some for private residences and some for public purposes, had sprung up. There were new churches, ford example, and the big new woolen factory and the glass manufactory and the sawmill run by ox power. (which sawed eight hundred thousand feet of boards annually) and the sugar refinery with a capacity of one hundred and eighty thousand pounds a year, and the Lancaster Seminary and innumerable minor institutions and organizations housed as best they could be in the crowded little metropolis. Metropolis it was, the mart of trade and the center of life for the whole, boundless west, throbbing with life and burning with vast ambitions. It was time, therefore, that it should become a city in name as well as in fact, and a great day it was when the wonderful change took place when the youth attained majority. We smile at the little burg inflated by this natural pride, today, and try in vain to imagine how it appeared pretentiously spreading itself over a little area whose outermost bounds were still' far from the feet of the surrounding hills. - 131 - 132 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY It was by an act of legislature passed on the 5th of February, 1819, that the change was consummated. As the same person who was a boy at night becomes a man in the morning without a visible evidence of change, a town becomes a city in a day without a sign discernible to human eyes. And yet the transition is actual and revolutionary, if not catastrophic. At every step we shall behold new evidences of strength, of purpose and of power. Charter 1819. The original charter by which this so significant a change was effected continued in force until March 1, 1827, and during that time the city had but a single mayor, Isaac G. Burnet. The aldermen were David E. Wade, William Burke and Francis Carr. The council was presided over successively by Jesse Hunt, William Oliver, Samuel Perry, Calvin Fletcher and Lewis Howell, and met in the brick townhouse on the common until 1824, at which time quarters were rented in Francis Carr’s brick building at the northwest corner of Third and Hammond streets. Here were the city offices until 1828. Charter of 1827. A second act of incorporation was passed January 26, 1827, defining the duties of the officers anew. Under this charter Isaac G. Burnet was again elected mayor and served four years more until replaced by Elisha Hotchkiss in 1831. He remained in office a single term and was followed by Samuel W. Davis, whose occupancy remained undisturbed for ten years. Charter of 1834. A third act of incorporation seemed necessary, and. was recorded on March 1, 1834. Superseding as it did the charter of 1827, it remained the fundamental law of the city until the new state constitution of 1851, although amended frequently. To study these change's of government so important then, so almost trivial now, is not a part of our purpose ; a purpose which is rather impressionistic than realistic, and requires of us broad outlines rather than insignificant details. For all the ends we have in view, it is necessary only to note the fact that legally Cincinnati was a city during the period we are studying from 1819 to 1839 with a charter amended twice to meet the changing needs of the constantly expandomg community. It is ever with the soul of the city ; its thoughts, its ideals, its developing consciousness of self, its personality, that we are concerned ; and with its out ward form, its physical condition, its government, its institutions only so far as they disclose it or become the instruments of its development or vehicles of advancement. By what means then are we to discover how this growth took place? Directory of 1819. In the first place there is the directory of 1819 which, crude as it is, possesses an inestimable value.. Then follow the directories of 1831, 1834 and 1836. Each repeats a great deal of Previous information, but keeping pace also with the changing conditions and the ceaseless development. If there were no other CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 133 sources at all, a sufficiently accurate conception of the period could be derived from them alone. There are fortunately, however, many other sources, vivid; suggestive and illuminative, by which the dead past is resurrected from its grave and made to live once more. Some of these are the reminiscences of old people who lingered long upon the stage, and others the letters written by visitors who recorded their impressions at the moment they were registered upon the mind. Among these visitors there were distinguished, brilliant and competent observers, each one of whom beheld the phenomenal community from a different angle, and represented it according to his own individual conception. Contradictory as they often are, there is still a surprising general agreement that the little city upon the banks of the Ohio was a miracle of industry, intelligence, culture and promise. Some of these portrayals were narrow and partisan ; others were bitter and ironical; but every one of them is replete with the impression that here in the wilderness was a community with a personal equation that indicated an illustrious and even glorious' future. In May, 1826 e. g. came his highness, Bernard, duke of Saxe -Weimar Eisenach, who seemed principally impressed by the merits of Mack's Hotel. In 1827, a noted Englishman (W. Bullock) traveling with his wife, arrived from New Orleans by "the beautiful steamboat George Washington, built at Cincinnati, and certainly the first fresh water vessel I had seen." Nor did he admire the city less than the boat ; but, in fact became enthusiastic to such a degree that he decided to remain here permanently, and actually purchased the property of Mr. Carneal across the river, consisting of a thousand acres. He named it "Elmwood Place," intending to develop it into a magnificent estate, but his plans and hopes fell through and he ,finally returned to his native land. In the first period of his infatuation, his admiration for Cincinnati knew no bounds. "The valley about the city was as beautiful as Devon," he wrote. In "Cincinnati in 1826," the product of the joint labors of Benjamin Drake and E. D. Mansfield, we possess a classic. Both of the authors were men of unusual gifts and devoted themselves with a genuine enthusiasm to the production of a complete resume of the most important facts about the city they loved with all their hearts. Benjamin Drake was the brother of Daniel. He studied and practised law but preferred a literary life. At various times he edited the Cincinnati Chronicle and was the author of a number of quasi-historical works. E. D. Mansfield was the son of Colonel Jared Mansfield and was for many years prominent among our most conspicuous and useful men. Much of his boyhood was spent in the old Israel Ludlow homestead, but his youth was passed in the east, where he was educated in the military academy at West Point, and afterwards at Princeton. In 1825 he returned to Cincinnati, drawn back by attachments too strong to be resisted. His original intention of practising law was abandoned for that of literature, and he became a journalist of national repute. In addition to distinguished achievements in this realm he acquired fame as the author of several books, among which his "Memoir of Daniel Drake" and "Personal Memoirs" are of unusual and even priceless value.' It was his own beautiful soul that enabled him so fully to appreciate the character of Dr. Drake. Nothing could be more fitting than the peaceful close of a life so pure, so gentle and so useful, in a charming country residence, near Morrow, Ohio. 134 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY The work of Drake and 'Mansfield "Cincinnati in 1826" was to a certain sense official as the council appropriated $75.00 of the city funds to help them in its publication, and is in the highest degree authoritative. Mrs. Trollape. In 1828 there came to Cincinnati from England a very remarkable woman by the name of Mrs. Frances Trollope, from whose caustic comments upon the city of her adoption we derive some of our most vivid conceptions of those early days. She had determined; it appears, to throw in her fortunes with the people who were creating a greatty in a western wilderness, and decided to set her son up in a business most unique for such a place as Cincinnati. For this purpose she erected an amazing building which was to be used as a bazaar and to contain such wonders as would astonish the natives of this new world and make them disgorge their ever increasing wealth to see its sights. Mrs. Trollope's judgment was evidently as unsound as her resources were inadequate. She found herself unable to pay for the construction of the building and after losing it (and her courage) went back to England to wreak her vengeance on the city which had witnessed her failure, in a description which enraged the people about whose city it was written. It was so gross an exaggeration as to be almost a caricature ; but now that the persons interested are dead and gone and time has set all things in their true perspective, we cannot help but smile at the discomfiture of the complacent citizens who, for the first time, were made to see themselves as those with keen and whimsical vision saw them. Afflicted with that characteristic "density" of the English mind, Mrs. Trollope missed the most essential elements in the phenomena she tried to comprehend and describe. That which was genuine and significant escaped her vision because so thickly overlaid with those artificial, ephemeral, extravagant charteristics which develop so luxuriantly in pioneer life. These things she did see and lampooned them well. Under her biting observations about their crudeness and stinging criticisms of their rudeness, the suddenly awakened Cincinnatians writhed, protested and denounced. But we cannot help the feeling that Mrs. Trollope's letter after all presents a picture far more realistic than a more careful and fairminded study could possibly have produced. In 1861 Mrs. Trollope's distinguished and gifted son Anthony returned to America and found that the bazaar after passing through experiences that were positively melodramatic had become a "Physico-Medical Institute" and its prpprietor confessed with undisguised disappointment that no one else ever made a dollar out of it and that, for himself, he had not the faintest expectation of accomplishing what they could not. Atwater. In the month of May, 1829, Caleb Atwater, a distinguished historian residing in Circleville, Ohio, passed through Cincinnati and recorded impressions which were far more sane, if considerably less meaty, than those of Mrs. Trollope. To him its future was as brilliant as its present was impressive, and he thought it would be the metropolis of the state unless surpassed by Cleveland and possibly Zanesville ! CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 135 These visitors were followed by Captain Thomas .Hamilton, another Englishman, and in 1832 came Godfrey Vigne, Charles Hoffman, Michel Chevalier, John W. Ellis and Harriet Martineau, Charles Augustus Murray and Captain Marryat, all of whom have left invaluable information as to those far-off days. The most brilliant person among them all, however, was Harriet Martineau, who visited Cincinnati in 1835 and concluded that it ought to be the capital of the United States and that it would be the most desirable place in America for a permanent residence. Every page of these letters is replete with interest and they may be found in extenso in another portion of this book ; but are only mentioned here to reveal the sources of information on the state of affairs in the first decade or two of our life as a city. Besides these letters there are, of course, the files of newspapers and some printed reminiscences, of which those of the so-called "Old Man" (gossipy and vivid to a high degree) are the most important ; and last but not least there are the paintings and engravings which have preserved for us pictures far more realistic than any that could be drawn by words alone. As a fitting summary of the facts embodied in these various sources and as an introduction to the period under contemplation, let us read a paragraph from "Cincinnati, Past and Present" in which George Warren eloquently presents the town, which now as if a beautiful dissolving view is about to become a city : "Cincinnati in 1817 was a bright, beautiful and flourishing little city. It extended from the river to Sixth 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 hundred 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 faces 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 vests and roundabouts and woolen 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 bricklayer 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 rich had led too many into wild speculations on borrowed money from the United States bank and other banks. They were willing to lend to almost anyone who could get two endorsers. This was no difficult maxim for it had got to be a maxim "You endorse for me and I endorse 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."—Past and Present, Greve, 496. A few brief words occasionally convey impressions so manifold, so accurate and so comprehensive as to set before the mind an almost perfect conception of 136 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY situations and even eras. These do, both of the town as it was and of the crisis which awaited it. From these sources, therefore, we are now to strive to reproduce in thought the little new made city. What we shall feel most deeply is that the city “found herself," that she "came to her own," that she acquired her individuality and achieved her destiny through grappling again and again with the, same old problems, and, only occasionally, with new ones. Some cities evolve through sruggles a thousand times more dramatic ; one by incessant fighting with an enemy forever thundering at the gates ; another by heroically resisting a long line of municipal tyrants ; another by battling with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, pestilence, famine and what not. Their histories are far more exciting, but not one whit more instructive to minds capable of being interested in these essential things—development through effort and resistance ; no matter of what kind. The characters of Cromwell, Napoleon, Frederick the Great and Augustus Adolphus were formed or hardened amidst the din of arms and scenes of terror, but those of Melancthon and Erasmus, Spencer and Shakespeare, Tennyson and Carlyle, in circumstances where they acquired an equal dignity and charm by conflicts with poverty, loneliness, misunderstanding, or possibly luxury and flattery. Does this diminish the fascination of the process or the result? In the study of this new period we shall find that progress was made and wealth created and character formed by the old, old struggles to solve the problems of food and water supplies, of fire and police protection, of education, religion, art, etc.; but always, in each new period, it is the new conditions which render those problems ever new and their solutions of perennial interest. Let us begin almost at random with the problems of business, then take up the public utilities, and finally consider the evidences of an ever developing culture. We have learned that the application of steam power to river transportation marked an era in the history of our city. The change began during the period of its existence as a town ; but it was not until about the time when the city charter was secured that the full significance of the new industry was discovered. It became apparent then that prodigious movements were on foot and that an era of immeasurable commercial expansion had set in. But aside from the mighty impulse communicated to life by the increase of business, a result of another character, but not of less importance followed. This was a more Ultimate contact of the people with the great outside world. The principal peril of such remote and isolated communities is, of course, provincialism. There had been a parochial narrowness in society, business amd religion ; but now the reduction of time in the trips to and fro from the great centers of culture in the east made possible a more rapid interchange of ideas. The citizens could take more frequent excursions to Philadelphia, Washington, New York and Boston ; newspapers and periodicals could bring information about the big, outside world, and, above all, the tide of immigration and travel increased to such a degree that every day and almost hour brought to their hotels and places of business, their streets, their houses, their churches, an ever increasing throng of people who were in the closest possible touch with the largest interests of life. In 1829, for example, 497 steamboats carrying 8,318 passengers tied up at the wharves ! CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 137 No other single aspect of life increased the charm of existence in the young metropolis to such a degree as this constant influx of strangers. New faces were seen at every turn, new languages were heard, and new ideas stimulated the brains of people. New ambitions stirred their hearts and a new enjoyment, that of river travel, enhanced the charm of existence. The luxury of a journey to Pittsburgh or New Orleans in an elegant steamer with refined companions was as great in that day as is ocean travel in our own. Life on those boats was unique. It was not altogether moral, nor even sane ; but it was exciting and it was enlarging and it told tremendously in the broadening out of the views of the people. It is a fair question whether at any time in the history of America people have ever enjoyed travel more. The novelty of such excursions has worn off today ; but at that time they were so unprecedented as to possess the freshness of a child's trip into fairyland, or a grown man's into Brobdignag or Lilliput. No one who took a trip on such a boat could keep his parochial views of life intact. His vision widened, whether he would or no, and he grew to be a cosmopolitan. In fact, at that time, the life of the little city was cosmopolitan to a wonderful degree. Unquestionably, it was the river traffic which exerted the deepest influence upon life and afforded the greatest opportunity for enterprise ; but there was another factor scarcely less important. This was, of course, the opening of the canals. Canals. As early as 1815, Dr. Drake had taken up the problem of such transportation in his usual vigorous way and eloquently advocated the construction of a Vast system for the internal improvement of the state. In 1819 the matter was officially noticed by Governor Brown: In 1822 a Cincinnatian whose name is one of our greatest ornaments, Micajah T. Williams, prepared so exhaustive and convincing a report upon the whole subject that the legislature passed a bill to cover the expenses of a preliminary survey. In 1825 the construction of two of these canals was authorized—the "Ohio" and the "Miami." It was the latter which affected us most powerfully, of course, and alone deserves our attention. Commencing at Dayton near the mouth of the Mad river, it descended the valley of the Miami, passing the villages of Miamisburg, Franklin, Middletown and Hamilton. At this point it left the Miami and took the course of the Mill creek to the upper level of Cincinnati. It was intended to connect this level with the Ohio river by proper locks and dams ; but this was never done. The length of the canal between Dayton and Cincinnati was sixty-seven miles, and this link was completed in 1828. The inauguration of a work of such importance deserved some splendid ceremonial and DeWitt Clinton (the great promoter of canals in the east) was invited to be present and turn up the first shovelful of earth when ground was broken at Middletown. .Governor Morrow and ex-Governor Brown were present and the principal citizens of Cincinnati, like Dr. Drake, E. D. Mansfield, Micajah Williams and others, participated in the exercises. The opening of the canal was an event of first class importance in the life of our city. Roads into the state were wretched; communication was slow and rates of shipment almost prohibitive ; but now the capacious boats gliding over 138 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY the smooth inland waters afforded the cheapest possible transportation and a most delightful mode of travel. For several decades the canal, therefore, played a more conspicuous part in the development of the young metropolis than it is easy for us now to understand, when these primitive waterways all over the state are falling into decay and we are doing our utmost to divert the waters of the Miami canal from their present useless course through our city and turn the spaces :which they occupy into a boulevard and subway for our "interurbans.” A feeling of sadness and insecurity steal, in upon the mind when reading of the sacrifices which. our predecessors made to secure those instruments and vehicles of progress, the wrecks of which we see along the pathway of advancing civilization; but we must console ourselves by thinking that they served their generation and that they have been replaced by others better suited to the present needs. Railroads. The success which had attended the plan of propelling cars upon rail by use of steam in the East excited the emulation of the West, of course. Distance had been their principal obstacle to competition and to growth and here, at last, was the prospect of its annihilation. As early as in 1827 a Mr. Thomas, traveling through Cincinnati, was struck by the need of a railroad from Cincinnati to Charleston, South Carolina. He broached the matter to Joseph Walker immediately and to Morgan Neville later on. In 1830 an active interest in the project was awakened and a section extending to Louisville at least seemed feasible. A meeting was called for the purpose of realizing this bright dream and leading citizens took part ; but the movement evidently was premature. The idea was too big ; too new ; too incomprehensible for all but those of the largest mould. It was a curious feature of this tentative effort that the first conception of a line of transportation: across country should have run southward instead of northward. Perhaps it was the difficulties of the route rather than the nature of the project which defeated it. At any rate, a year or two afterwards the scheme for a road up into Ohio instead of down through Kentucky and Tennessee to Charleston, excited a far more favorable attention. It was on the 23rd February, 1830, that Representative William B. Hubbard, of Columbus, submitted to the legislature a bill to incoporate the "Ohio Canal and the Steubenville R. R. and the quick response to the proposal set the wise men of Cincinnati to work upon schemes to connect themselves with the great outside world by means of the iron rails. The railroad microbe had lodged itself in the system of the city and the city’s head was' throbbing with ambitious plans. There was the plan, e. g., for the Cincinnati and St. Louis R. R. chartered in 1832 ; the Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland R. R. chartered in 1836 ; the Mad River and Lake Erie R. R.; the Covington and Lexington Road ; and the Little Miami Road, which was the first of all to materialize. The proposed route lay along the Little Miami river and up the valley to Xenia, sixty-six miles away, and finally to Springfield (eighty-five miles), where it was to meet the Mad River and Lake Erie R. R., and so keep on to Sandusky. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 139 We have seen wonderful revolutions wrought by new inventions in our own days—by the telephone, the electric motor and the gasoline engine, for example: But none have surpassed in their far reaching results those that followed the introduction of the steam engine, and especially its use as a motor for land transportation. The opening of irrigating ditches into a western valley produces changes but little less startling than those which followed when business began to pour into Cincinnati over these new arteries of trade. The steam and canal boats are therefore the two great factors in the progressive movements of the epoch from 1819 to 1839; but the building of country roads and turnpikes, together with the construction of bridges, went steadily forward at the same time and gradually cemented the connection between the cityand the vast region from, which it was drawing an ever-increasing trade. In these two decades this trade extended in all directions ; to the north, the south,  the east and the west, giving the growing community an ever greater prominence in the whole region and steadily multiplying the wealth of its inhabitants. Manufactories, banks, stores, shops, mills and business of every kind 'sprang up. and grew with a rapidity hindered only by two tragedies of so dark a nature and so far-reaching an influence as to demand an extended consideration. The Panic. The story of that financial panic in the early "twenties" depresses the mind of the reader even at this far-off day, for it fell like a pall over the bright prospects of the growing city and shattered the fortunes of many of its noblest and most unselfish citizens. It is true, of course, that its victims had. no one to blame but themselves for the disaster and its origin is to be traced almost solely to that insane optimism which develops in all new regions where men discover great natural opportunities and exploit them with reckless abandonment to the love of gain. To the minds of men in this abnormal condition the difference between real and fictitious values is substantially unrecognizable, and even the shrewdest and most far-sighted are likely to be victims of the wide-spreading mania for quick and extraordinary profits. The story of the panic possesses not only a dramatic interest, but an educational value. It is an impressive experience to lead of delusions as mad as our own in the brains of those shrewd old merchants of a hundred years ago, and ice need to be taught that most difficult of lessons, that in all speculative periods there is an universal madness. The mania for gambling is contagious and the sanest minds are crazed. About once in a decade, they tell us, the contagion stalks over the land. We have been its victims and shall be again unless we learn from our forbears the susceptibility of human nature to such wild hallucination. It would be as fascinating as it would be profitable to dwell at length upon this ;Ric story, if we had the time ; but a meager outline of the great calamity is our limitations will allow. Panic-1820-1822. In accordance with the plans involved in the establishment of a national bank, branches had been opened in Ohio ; one at Chillicothe and the other at Cincinnati. By the arrangement between the central and branch banks, the latter sent to the former, as cash, a vast amount of what proved to be depreciated Vol I-10 140 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY paper and when it became evident that this was not a dependable asset, about $900,000 of this "trash," as Judge Burnet called it, was sent to Cincinnati to be collected from the various banks that had issued it. This sudden cashing up, and the violent manner in which it was carried into effect, proved fatal. The wealth of the leading men of the city consisted largely in real estate which, under the circumstances, could be neither quickly nor advantageously sold. When therefore, they were pushed for the hard cash with which to redeem their notes a terrible panic followed. The attempt to dispose of their property (one to another) depreciated its value to such a degree that it seemed to have no worth at all and business houses and homes were sacrificed at an awful loss. "As a result," says Judge Burnet, "the business of the city and vicinity was completely prostrated. Many of our most intelligent business men were ruined and Cincinnati did not recover from the shock for years. In 1820-1822, when this radical remedy was undertaken, the whole country was embarrasses and creditors found it everywhere necessary to indulge their debtors. Otherwise the whole west must have become assuredly a community of bankrupts. * * * It is a fact highly honorable to the persecuted debtors of that institute (the bank) that the statute of usury was not plead in a .single instance; though it was a fact easy of woof that in at least one-half of the cases the defendants did not receive from the' bank more than sixty or at most seventy per cent of the amount for which they gave their notes." "This bank," wrote Colonel James Taylor, "was a large-sized shark, as it ate up all the small banks in the city, to-wit: the Miami Exporting Company, the Farmers and Mechanics Bank and the Bank of Cincinnati, together with other banks in Ohio. Many citizens in Cincinnati were injured by the bank-among them General Lytle (it broke him up), Judge Burnet, Mr. Carr, St. Clair Morris, William Baum and others. "Lytle had to give up his homestead, now owned by Dr. Foster and others, and some tracts of land in Hamilton and Clermont counties. Burnet gave up his home where his, the Burnet house, now stands." "When the crash came the citizens involved in the wild speculations which had preceded began to scatter like rats from a sinking ship. Sheriff Heckwilder complains that "his friends had taken a sudden notion to travel at the very time he most wanted them." Some fled east, some to Kentucky and some to the Lord knows where. It soon became impossible to get money anywhere. Building was entirely stopped. The spring of 1820 was a gloomy time. All business was brought to a sudden end. No more brick wagons, or 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 the custom from sunrise to sunset; few could get employment at that. They were willing to work at anything they could do at any price. One of our boss carpenters bought a wood-saw and buck went about sawing wood. Our leading bricklayer 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 wood, brought it to market, sitting on his load, CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 141 and it for one dollar and a half a cord. Other good mechanics went chopping wood in the country for thirty-seven and a half cents a cord. One of 'these e late A. F. Ernst, Esq. The writer would have done the same, but no offered. There was no money and people everywhere going to market d to barter. A cabinet maker, for instance, would want two pounds of amounting to twenty-five or thirty cents. Without a penny in his pocket would take his basket, go to market, find a farmer who had some, take two ;, and give him a table, bedstead or even a bureau, agreeing to take the rest out in truck, as he would call it. This could not be done by carpenters and 3. They would go into the country and build ovens or springhouses, and buildings, taking their pay when the work was done. Our merchants, liable or unwilling to bring on fresh supplies of dry goods and groceries, ran up to enormous prices; coffee was seventy-five. cents and common brown sugar thirty-seven and one-half cents a pound. Rye coffee, sweet-molasses, was found a poor substitute; and we suffered considerably for want of our customary breakfast." Public meetings were held to consider what must be done. At one of these Mr. Blake, an attorney, had expressed a fear that "our wives and children would starve!" Mr. Gazley, the next speaker (also an attorney), humorously replied: “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 it won't starve !" Country produce was never so low before nor since ; but the difficulty lay in getting money tp pay even these low prices. . . A prominent and truthful citizen now living relates that, being then a young man 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. Finally it was found that money of some kind must be had. This induced sometimes 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 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," so much in "Piatt," so much in "Leathers." Such was the scarcity of many 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 reminder." The disaster was widespread and so terrible was the suffering of the people that public demonstrations were not infrequent: Some of them were peaceable and in them people pledged themselves to unusual, and painful economies. But others were of a different character. In 1820, for example, when the Miami Exporting Company's bank failed, a crowd of depositors with their friends assembled in the streets and marched towards the building where the defunct organization was housed, intent upon discovering some means of saving at least a portion of their wealth, if possible. They were-quiet enough at first ; but in all such cases the passions of human nature become inflamed by agitation and had it not been for the courage of Isaac G. Burnet, the mayor, a terrible catas- 142 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY trophe would have had to be recorded. Unable as he was to walk or even stand without crutches, he made his way somehow to the head of the procession and, by the exercise of that mysterious power by which remarkable persons sometimes dominate their fellow-men, persuaded the mob to disperse. In this widespread disaster, General Harrison, General Findlay, O. M. Spencer and many others, suffered lamentably ; while three of the most distinguished citizens were all but ruined. Martin Baum, a German, was the principal founder and promoter of the Miami Exporting Company and of the Cincinnati Manufacturing Company, the sugar refinery, the iron foundry and steam flour mill. He had contributed largely in every way to public improvements ; was regard as the wealthiest man in town and one of the most benevolent ; had been the mayor for a term ; been president of the branch bank ; had built the first and most famous house (the Taft mansion), but he went down with the wreck. So also did Dr. Drake, who was badly enough crippled to be compelled to sacrifice everything and retire to a log cabin sixteen squares in the outskirts of the town until he could recover himself. Judge Burnet was another victim. Every concern in which he was interested went to the wall. Eighty thousand dollars (his life savings) were swept away and he retained only some real estate of which he could not dispose at all; but whose intrinsic value later on enabled him to recoup a considerable portion of his fortune. In his efforts to make good to his creditors the judge decided to dispose of his magnificent home (where the Burnet house now stands) and offered it to the city for a park at the nominal price of $25,000; but the people were not far-sighted enough to accept. "The total want of sagacity as well as economy manifested by city corporations was in this instance most strikingly exhibited," says Mansfield, and .regrets over this civic blunder still torture the hearts of all true philopolists. From such a favorable text for a sermon on the obligation of a city to grasp such opportunities it is hard to turn away and if we preach a little one, our justification shall be that we have finished our sketch of the panic and may make a slight digression without losing our train of thought. Shortsightedness. This was the third failure of our ancestors to secure park sites which would have possessed a. priceless value. They had already missed preserving the old fort and the Indian mound and this time they permitted the Burnet property to slip through their fingers as if it were nothing but sand. And not long afterward, in 1842, they (or their likes—we do not mean to be disrespectful) acted just as foolishly once more. At that time, sagacious old Nicholas Longworth had urged the necessity for a reservoir for the city's water and offered a fine tract on Mount Auburn for $500.00 an acre, which he claimed was not a quarter of its value. The, city fathers thought the price too great ; but four years later, discovering their blunder, sent a committee to open negotiations anew. Mr. Longworth one more made them an offer ; but that ineradicable distrust of the motives of a good man which has done so much to curse us all our life, blinded them to its generosity. They considered $1,400.00 an acre so exorbitant a demand that they did not even report the offer to the council. Mr. Longworth was properly disgusted and prophesied that "the time would come when such CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 143 mumskulls would be called to account for their ignorance and indifference to the public welfare." They never were ; but they ought to have been, for in three years' time the land was selling at from ten to fourteen thousand dollars an acre, instead of at fourteen hundred ! And yet the history of such stupidity went on repeating itself until the recent vote on the extension of our park system ! If the era of it has been safely passed, a day for rejoicing has certainly arrived. Reconstruction of Business. To go back now to the point of our digression, that panic which had all the ear marks of an unmitigated curse begun to prove a boundless blessing by checking speculation. Business was forced to reconstruct itself upon a normal basis. Habits of economy were developed among the people. Necessity became the mother of invention. The real things of life challenged and gained a more thoughtful consideration. Individual characters of a noble type were developed under the stress of a great emergency. The task of building a city in the wilderness upon the foundations of righteousness excited a deeper seriousness and a more unselfish devotion. Fire and Flood. But the shadows were not altogether lifted. In fact, they only seemed to deepen, and one misfortune after another of all kinds and descriptions fell upon the ill fated city. It has been noticed a thousand times that physical disasters are likely to dog the heels of calamities in the immaterial realm. It certainly proved so then. For example a great fire broke out in the business portion of the city in 1832 and devastated a large part of the region between Third and Fourth streets, and not long afterwards the first of the great floods filled the hearts of the people with terror. On the 8th of February the river began to rise and on the 18th had attained a maximum stage of sixty-four feet and three inches. As this was before the days of railroads and telegraphs there had been no warning of impending danger and therefore no preparation for the terrible catastrophe. Two men lost their lives, and property to an inestimable value was destroyed. So widespread was the devastation and so acute the suffering that collections were taken and benefit performances given to provide relief. So sudden was the rise of water that provisions and groceries were destroyed to an extent that threatened famine, and exorbitant prices were demanded for food. Nturally enough indignation was excited. at this and retaliatory riots were threatened. Cholera. Nor were the fire and flood to be the only enemies of the peace and prosperity of the city. Before their ravages had been restored an affliction far more terrible fell upon the suffering people. The Asiatic cholera arrived in America by an emigrant ship at Quebec. From thence the dread disease ascended the St. Lawrence, entered the basin of the lakes and sweeping down the Mississippi penetated the valley of the Ohio. It arrived in Cincinnati about the 20th of September, and for thirteen months spread its terror everywhere. After a brief 144 - CINCINNATI —THE QUEEN CITY  intermission it broke out again in the following year and 813 citizens were sacrificed to its appetite for death. Language would be exhausted in any effort to describe the horrors of the plague. Business was paralyzed ; social life was abandoned ; funeral bells were heard from every steeple, and wagons bearing the dead went rumbling through the streets. The details are revolting and imagination must be invoked to picture the scene unaided. As if two visitations were not punishment enough (if punishment it was) a third followed in 1834; but fortunately its stay was short and its mortality but slight. You would think perhaps, in pausing to reflect a moment, that in these early years of the city's life there was nothing but misfortune and sorrow, diaster and death. But this is because our attention cannot be fixed upon the complex whole of events at a single glance. Shadows and sunlight lay upon the landscape together. To comprehend a city's life it is necessary to visit the suburbs as well as the slums ; the houses as well as the places of business; the churches as well as the prisons. And one must never forget that marriage bells are ringing at the same time that funeral knells are being tolled ; that babies are being born while old people are being carried to their graves ; that some fortunes are being made at the instant when others are being lost. Light in Darkness. In this darkest period of our city's history (the period from 1819 to 1839) the population doubled and life striking its roots into death, grew apace. Out of the grave of sorrow joy was born. Upon this dark background we have now to paint a brilliant picture of life, activity and achievement, and before the period is completed we shall arrive at what was known as the "anus mirabilis" of our history, 1835. It was in this darkest period of our life that the revolution by transportation on land by steam as a motive power began. So rapid was the development in every sphere of life that our attention must be turned once more to those great improvements that took place in all the forms of public service. Public Service-Water. The problem of water supply became each year increasingly difficult, of course, and excited constant irritation. In 1820 a private and wholly inadequate system of wooden pipes, small sized reservoir and imperfect pumping machine caused general dissatisfaction. Three years later it was considerably improved, but Colonel Davis, the proprietor, finding himself unable to furnish the necessary capital to make it what it ought to be offered the outfit to the city, which very foolishly shrank from the responsibility of running the plant for itself. The Colonel organized a stock company which struggled along until 1832, when another attempt was made to unload upon the municipality. Another failure compelled new improvements ; but private ownership was still proving itself unsatisfactory and after voting upon the subject five different times, the citizens decided in 1839 to undertake the work of providing the city with water as a public function. CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 145 Fire. In a period during which the water supply was so inadequate, protection from fire would necessarily be imperfect. In 1819 the attention of the public was called to these defects and the system earnestly investigated. That system was most crude and became a source of evils which attained colossal proportions at last. The various associations or companies which undertook to protect the city from conflagrations were composed of volunteers whose obligations were pledged to their individual organizations instead of to the city. The peril involved in this system at first did not appear ; but slowly and, at last, convincingly disclosed itself in evils from which the people shook themselves free by efforts little short of Herculean. What appeared at last was this : that each organization would sacri¬fice the public welfare to its individual glory. In 1819 there were three such private companies, each having its engine. These multiplied with the passing years, each new organization growing in numbers and influence as the city rapidly demanded an increased protection. Before long they acquired political influence and, at last, social prestige, until at the end of this period they were among the most powerful factors in the city's life. The leading men in every line of business and even in the professions found it to their advantage to belong to and even to become the captains of organizations which could be made to promote almost any enterprise in which they were engaged. Such men as Fenton Lawson, General Charles H. Sargent, Henry E. Spencer, J. T. Torrence, Pollock Wilson, Ferdinand K. Martin, Calvin W. Thomas, Seth C. Gordon, George W. Neff and Miles Greenwood became ardent participators in the activities of organizations whose influence was felt in every sphere of life. The rivalries between the companies furnished an element of public interest and .the champions of the "Silk Stockings," "The Rovers," "The Checked Skirts" and almost a score of others urged the fire fighters on to deeds of daring and to struggles for priority which at last became a public peril. It must have been glorious fun to have seen a "turn out" of those furious fire lighters when in "the thirties" they had acquired fifteen engines and ten thousand feet of hose! To throw the first stream upon the burning building was a supreme ambition, and before the system was finally abandoned there were plenty of in. stances in which the most valuable property was permitted to burn to the ground while rival organizations fought in the streets to achieve it. If picturesqueness, excitement, glory were the chief elements in a first class ire fighting system, the old order should never have been destroyed. At a great ire in 1829 while the captains were screaming through their trumpets and the ,.earns of water flying in every direction, a line of citizens was formed, and even the women, inspired by the great actress Mrs. Drake, helped pass the buckets full and empty to and fro. Police. The protection of the city from the criminal classes in its early history had by necessity a voluntary service like that of protection from fire. For many years there had been more or less efficient relays of night watches who served bout pay; hut as the population increased and the dangerous elements multiplied it became necessary to have a force of experts. By 1826 an organization 146 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY consisting of eighteen paid policemen and two captains had been developed and the foundation laid for the great department which the city boasts today. The changes which took place in its evolution have little of romantic interest. They have been gradual and normal, consisting in the main of ever increasing numbers and efficiency rather than in elaboration of organization or method. The Courts. The chief value of history is not charm, of course ; but profit ; the education of the mind; the comprehension of the laws of progress in civilization; preparation to seize the advantages and escape the perils which forever recur. But charm is a secondary value of high degree and both are mingled in the story of the “Old Court House" and its heroes. Being the seat of a county as well as the metropolis of a region, Cincinnati became as a matter of course the Mecca for lawyers and men of extraordinary legal talent were found in droves among the citizens of those gone days. About the old court house memories and traditions cluster which can never lose their interest. In the comparative leisure of those clays and in a social environment favorable to the development of individual traits of character, the men who sat upon the bench and argued at the bar became original, unique and often eccentric. Their habits were social even to conviviality. The graces of character, in men and the charms of life were not sacrificed as too often now to the mere acquisition of fortune and preferment. They took an interest in each other and were sensitive to the value of great personal gifts, not as a means of advancement, but as general asset in, human life. The age of the "commercial lawyer" had not arrived. The principal function of the attorney was to plead his case in court and eloquence was cultivated and admired. In all great cases the public took a profound interest, and men who could make a learned argument with an orator’s impassioned eloquence acquired immense prestige. A vivid picture of the life in and about the old court house in those days, and later on, is painted in indelible colors in Carter's "Old Court House," coarse and even vulgar at times ; but realistic and of priceless value. No impressionable person can read it without longing to have seen the venerable building and heard its walls resound with eloquence whose echoes still reverberate. To merely name the heroes of that great period, is, even after the lapse of six decades, to write a history, so ineffaceable are the marks they have left upon our municipal life and so familiar are their words and deeds. Nathaniel Wright, David Wade, Nicholas Longworth, Charles Fox, Judge Burnet, Bellamy Storer, Joseph S. Benham, Samuel R. Miller ; William. Greene, Dan Stone, Daniel Van Mater, James W. Gazley, Vachel Worthington, John C. Wright, Henry Starr, Edward King, Robert T. Lytle, Peyton Short are names to conjure with and occupy an exalted place upon the roster of our great men. Every one of them possessed a personality which would repay a careful study, and many of them were so wise and witty, so unique and entertaining that to pass them by without rehearsing the incidents which made them famous appears almost a literary crime. Who can read this characterization of Joseph S. Benham in "Horace in Cincinnati" without an insatiable curiosity to have known more of that impressive creature? CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 147 "With person of gigantic size With thundering voice and piercing eyes When great Stentorius deigns to rise Adjacent crowds assemble. To hear a sage the laws express In language strong, by reasoning sound Until, though not yet guilty found The culprits fear and tremble." And what would one not sacrifice to have heard one of Bellamy Storer's classic arguments ; or Nathaniel Wright's convincing pleas ; or Vachel Worthingtin's irresistible appeals ; or one of Robert T. Lytle's stump speeches ; or been present when General Samuel Findlay discovered how he had been fooled by General John Ross, who passed himself off on the unsuspecting lawyer for a ditinguished Cherokee chief when he was in fact an ignominious "half-breed ?" What fond associations cluster around that "old court house !" What would we not give to see it restored ? There are other buildings which we would see restored if it were possible, of course,—Yeatman's Tavern, Fort Washington, Lancaster Seminary, the Lytle homestead, and scores of others that have gone up in smoke, or fallen into ruin or been demolished by the sacrilegious hands of men. But that "old court house" was an almost sacred place, consecrated as it by so much learning and eloquence ; so many decisions of profound questions of right and wrong; so many hearts broken by sentences imposed ; so many souls made glad by exonerations from false charges ; so many good stories told ; so such innocent fun enjoyed ; so many noble characters developed and so many florious reputations won ! But it went the way of all the earth. Opened for business in 1819, it was burned to the ground on the afternoon of Monday, July 9, 1849, having caught fire from a neighboring pork house conflagration. It took but a short time for its demolition, and with it disappeared invaluable hooks, papers, associations, tries and traditions. "For a time the lawyers driven out like the pigeons the belfry, circled about at a loss where to settle, but finally found lodgmeiit in temporary quarters in a building on the northwest corner of Court street and air alley." In 1851 the county committee awarded a contract for a new building which became the seat of justice until destroyed in the riots of 1884. Medicine It is not so strange that Cincinnati should have attracted to it so many distinguished lawyers because its political and commercial prominence afforded the necessary conditions of success in the legal profession. It seems, however, disy remarkable that it should have been the seat of such wonderful schools a medicine and the home of so many remarkable doctors. But there is a natural enough explanation of this phenomenon in the presence and enthusiasm of that extraordinary doctor, Daniel Drake, whose fame as 'ter and practitioner had already gone abroad and when he finally founded for the study of the healing art, it was inevitable that kindred spirits d begin to gravitate toward the little frontier city, remote as it was from great centers of culture in the east. It was in 1820 that the medical college 148 - CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY was founded by Dr. Drake with a faculty consisting of himself, Dr. Jesse Streeter. and Dr. Benjamin Bohrer. A defect of organization by which the faculty were also the trustees, enabled the two other members of the staff to expel Dr. Drake, and the history of the institution was full of incidents for years. The charter was amended in 1822-1823 to correct this blunder and between the inception of the school in 1820 and 1834, 1,019 students received an education in its Halls. But for a decade or more the conditions for successful development were most unfavorable on account of the personal animosities between the physicians. The friends and foes of Dr. Drake were engaged in a bitter struggle for preeminence, and that great and good man expended his talents in an unworthy effort to defeat his rivals. One attempt followed another to fuse these discordant elments; but lamentably failed and at last in 1835, those which were hostile to the medical college undertook to establish another school, entirely. In order to do this they resuscitated the Cincinnati College and galvanized it into a new life with the purpose of developing two new departments, one of law and the other of medicine. For a few years the latter was the chief intellectual glory of the city. Drs. J. W. McDowell, Samuel D. Gross, Willard Parker, Landon C. Rives, James B. Rogers and John P. Harrison were selected for the faculty, and being men of extraordinary gifts and filled with burning zeal they each in his own way shed a luster upon the city. Several of the doctors of that period compare favorably with the greatest of the lawyers in personal charm and professional ability. Dr. John P. Harrison was not Only a fine practitioner and teacher, but, at various times, editor of The Western Journal of Medicine and the Western Lancet and also the author of several technical treatises. Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland, educated in the best schools of the east and in Great Britain, became an expert in fruit and flower culture; a distinguished geologist and, after a brilliant career in the college here, added luster to his fame in Cleveland. Dr. John Eberle was a surgeon in the war of 1812, one of the founders of the Jefferson Medical College of Pennsylvania, and after several years of eminent and brilliant service in Cincinnati, was transferred to the Transylvania University at Lexington where he wrote much while lecturing incessantly. Dr. Samuel D. Gross surpassed in gifts even such giants as these, and was a really extraordinary man. Born in Pennsylvania in 1805, he was graduated at Jefferson College in 1828, and in 1833 came to Cincinnati to be a professor in the Medical College of Ohio, where he delivered the first systematic course of lectures on morbid anatomy ever given in the United States. Five years later he became professor of surgery in Louisville and afterwards returned to Philadelphia to occupy the same chair until 1884. The experiments which he made were revolutionary ; the books he wrote would form a library and it is one of the glories of our city that the light of his genius first shone here. Towering above all, however, rises the figure of Dr. Daniel Drake, our first great, and, up to the present time our very greatest citizen. The Dawn of Civic Self-Consciousness. In the struggle to found these medical colleges there is the first indubitably evidence of an effort on the part of the city to "find itself." Up to the middle of CINCINNATI—THE QUEEN CITY - 140 this period (1819-1839) the city simply grew of its own accord without conscious effort and without a serious attempt to direct its development. It was the period of adolescence when the activities Of the spirit still are dormant. But now, on every hand the evidences of an awakening self-consciousness commence to appear. In a half blind way the people began to perceive that the city needed to be guided to some definite goal, and while the ambition to become commercially great predominated, the desire to develop culture was undoubtedly awakening. This rapidly growing purpose revealed itself in every domain of intellectual life ; but preeminently in that of the schools. Schools. The evidences of this are not clear enough yet to enable us to distinguish them with ease, but can certainly be discerned with effort, and particularly in the sphere of education. We have stumbled upon them in this brief account of the strivings of the physicians after a great institution in which to study medicine, and shall find a no less proof in the effort to reorganize the old Lancaster Seminary into the Cincinnati College and to form a school for the study of the law. The college was organized in 1820 with Elijah Slack as its president, and in 1821 felt itself in a dignified enough position to confer degrees upon William Henry Harrison, Josiah L. Wilson and James Kemper. But its financial support was inadequate and in spite of every effort it sank so low that its charter had to be kept alive by a primary school. In 1832 a new spasm of interest seized its patrons and an attempt was made to graft upon the parent stern these ambitious institutions, the Ohio Mechanics' Institute, the Lyceum and the Public Library. Dr William H. McGuffy was called to the presidency and he and Ormsby M. Mitchell, the popular lecturer on astronomy, threw their whole souls into its revivification. At about the same time it was concluded, the Law School, (an institution of the greatest promise founded in 1833 by John C. Wright, Timothy Walker and Edward King) could be made an added attraction to the college (as well as afford it another leg to stand upon) if it also should be engrafted onto the parent stem. These other institutions, however, seemed rather to act like artificial buttresses which only serve to support a tottering edifice than to become integral parts of the original building. The Law School managed to survive ; but could not keep the college from falling and in spite of the heroic efforts of McGuffy, of Mitchell, of Asa Dury, of Charles L. Telford, Edwin D. Mansfield, Lyman Harding and Joseph Herron, it gradually went down for lack of a proper financial endowment. The lease from the First Presbyterian church had stipulated for a certain gratuitous annual instruction and as the college could not meet the terms, the trustees demanded its surrender. A long litigation followed and a compromise was reached in 1840, by virtue of which the college released to the church the southern part of the lot and received a deed for 140 feet on the north side on which the college building stood until destroyed by fire in 1845. The tragic story is completed by the single announcement that all that remains of the institution begun in such high hopes is the Cincinnati law school, now a part of the university. Undoubtedly there is a deep pathos in the futility of so many noble sacrifice and the disappointment of so many brilliant hopes. These men of vision were a