50 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

CHAPTER V.

CINCINNATI, PAST AND PRESENT.

[A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH, BY W. H. VENABLE, LL.D.]

INTRODUCTORY OUTLINE-FIRST ACCOUNTS Of THE MIAMI COUNTRY-OHIO UNDER FRENCH RULE-UNDER ENGLISH RULE-THE ORDINANCE OF 1784-THE ORDINANCE OF 1787-THE OLD NORTHWEST-THE OHIO LAND COMPANY OF MASSACHUSETTS-SETTLEMENT OF MARIETTA-THE MIAMI PURCHASE-SETTLEMENT OF COLUMBIA-LOSANTIVILLE-LOCATION OF CINCINNATI-PRIMITIVE CINCINNATI-AGRICULTURE CREATES CINCINNATI-DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE-MANUFACTURING IN CINCINNATI-STATISTICAL VIEW OF CINCINNATI IN 1825-THEN AND NOW-A RICH CITY-A COSMOPOLITAN CITY-A CENTER OF EDUCATION A UNIQUE AND PICTURESQUE CITY--THE SUBURBS-THE STREETS AND BUILDINGS--THE PEOPLE OF CINCINNATI; THEIR NUMBER, CHARACTERISTICS AND AMUSEMENTS-CONCLUSION,

THIS sketch is in process of preparation while the " World's Columbian Exposition" is in the full tide of its mid-progress, in Chicano. The stupendous Fair commemorates the greatest event in modern history, the discovery of America, which occurred four centuries ago. But more than one hundred years elapsed from the date of the voyage of Columbus to the time when the first permanent settlement of Englishmen was made on the continent. Jamestown was founded in 1607, and the Pilgrim Fathers did not land at Plymouth until 1620. The white population of the British American colonies, two hundred years ago, was less than the population of the city of Cincinnati is now. While nearly four centuries have rolled away since the caravels of the great Genoese captain first furled sail on the

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borders of the New World, we should not forget that it is within a period of about, two hundred years that the growth and development of the parts now called the United States of America, mainly fall. The history of Cincinnati, and of Ohio, covers little more than one hundred years but what years! The people of the United States, in 1876, celebrated the Nation's birthday, by holding a grand Exposition in Philadelphia. The people of Ohio and the central States, in 1888, signalized the hundredth anniversary of the organization of the Old Northwest, and of the adoption of the National Constitution, by a magnificent Exhibit lasting one hundred days, hold in Cincinnati. It is of this Queen City, the metropolis of the Ohio Valley, that the present chapter treats. mainly from a historical and descriptive point of view.

FIRST ACCOUNTS OF THE MIAMI COUNTRY.

The beautiful region lying between the lower course of the rivers Little Miami and Big Miami, and bordered on the south by the Ohio, was famed, long before the days of the Revolutionary war, for its rich productiveness and its lovely scenery. The enterprising Virginians, who organized the Ohio Land Company of 1749, sent their agent, the wood-wise scout and surveyor, Christopher Gist, the comrade of Washington, to explore the valley of the Ohio, in the year 1750. Gist traversed Ohio, crossing the Scioto and other streams and reached the Miami Country near the middle of March, 1751. The bold pioneer was enchanted with the richness and beauty of the Big Miami valley, in which he beheld " the fairest meadows that ever can be." He waded in deep grass, and remarked that white clover grew abundantly, and that herds of buffaloes were feeding in the open fields. His journal tells of "fine, rich, level land, well timbered with large walnut, oak, sugar-trees, cherry, etc., well watered with a great number of little streams," and abounding in " turkeys, deer, elks, and most sorts of game, particularly buffaloes." It is more than probable that, in the spring of 1751, now more than one hundred and thirty years ago, the moccasins of Capt. Gist trod the hills and plains destined to be the site of the city of Cincinnati. Nor was it far from the same tempting region that Daniel Boone, twenty-seven years later, in 1.788, against his will passed up the valley of the Little Miami, a prisoner of the Indians, forced to go to Old Chillicothe near where Xenia now stands.

OHIO UNDER FRENCH RULE.

The conflicting claims of England and France for dominion in the interior of the continent were settled by the sword in what is known as the French and Indian war, which began in 1753 and ended in 1760. This was the war in which Washington won his first laurels, in which Braddock's defeat occurred, and in which both Montcalm and Wolfe were slain. We have told how, in 1750-51, Gist under the direction of an English Land Company crossed the Ohio on an expedition of discovery. The French government, in 1752, formally declared that the Ohio and its tributaries belonged to France, by virtue of the discoveries of La Salle. War followed, ending in the conquest of New France. In 1763 France ceded to England her possessions east of the Mississippi. The French claimed jurisdiction over Louisiana, including the Ohio Valley, for a period of eighty-three years, from 1682 to 1763.

UNDER ENGLISH RULE.

From the close of the Old French war, 1763, to the Treaty of Paris, which closed the Revolutionary war, in 1783, a period of twenty years, Great Britain held possession of North America, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. During the war settlement went on steadily to western Pennsylvania, western Virginia, and central Kentucky. In 1790 the State of Kentucky had a population of 73,677.

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THE ORDINANCE OF 1784.

The period between 1783 and 1789, from the Treaty of Paris to the adoption of the constitution, has been well named the critical period in America's history, for it was a time of transition, anxiety and uncertainty. Soon after the conclusion of peace, and in anticipation of the assumption by the general government of the western lands, Thomas Jefferson proposed to Congress a plan for the organization of the public lands.

This plan is known as the Ordinance of 1784. It proposed to divide all the western country into seventeen divisions or States, ten of which, on the north side of the Ohio, were to be named Sylvania, Michigania, Chersonesus, Arsenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washingtonia, Polypolamia and Plisipia. The Ordinance of 1784 did not accomplish its design, but the discussion of it prepared the way for Congress to consider the famous organic law of 1787, which determined the destinies of the old Northwest.

THE ORDINANCE OF 1787.

The year 1787 gave to the American people two famous national documents, the Constitution of the United States and the Ordinance organizing the Territory northwest of the Ohio river. The constitutional convention, over which Washington presided, and of which Franklin was a member, first met in May, 1787, at Philadelphia, and, after four months' deliberation, produced what Gladstone calls " the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man," namely, the Constitution.

While the Federal convention was in session at Philadelphia, the Continental Congress held its last meeting at New York, and demonstrated its wisdom by framing and enacting the body of law named the Ordinance of 1787. Of this celebrated State paper the profound Webster said: " We are accustomed to praise the lawgivers of antiquity; we help perpetuate the fame of Lycurgus and Solon; but I doubt whether one single law of any law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. We Bee its consequences at this moment, and we shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the Ohio shall flow." This was uttered in 1830, and could Webster reappear now, and review the accomplished results of the law, his quoted words would but feebly express the truth. Five great States, with their innumerable farms, towns, cities, are the flower and fruitage of the Ordinance of 1787. Chicago, Cleveland. Cincinnati, and a score of other noble cities owe much of their prosperity to the wise provision of this inspired organic law.

THE OLD NORTHWEST.

What was the territory organized under the Ordinance of 1787, and now distinguished as the old Northwest? How extensive was it and where were its boundaries? It was the original " public domain " of the country, our first public or government lands. The entire area was 265,878 square miles. It included the land now embraced by the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, a considerable part of Minnesota. and a small corner of Pennsylvania.

THE OHIO LAND COMPANY OF MASSACHUSETTS.

The white population of the United States in 1787 was 3,800,000, about the present population of Ohio. The territory north of the Ohio was mainly savage woodland, the abode of deer, bears and buffaloes, and was roamed over by wild Indians whose rude villages were scattered here and there in rich valleys. The only white people in the Ohio country were a few traders and hunters, and a few captives taken by the red men in border war. The heroic Moravians were destroyed or

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driven from the settlements on the Tuscarawas the very year that gave origin to the Constitution and the Ordinance of 1787.

But the time had now come for the Saxon race to take possession of Ohio, and to establish permanent States there. The eye of speculation had long been fixed with impatient desire upon the wide acres between the Great Lakes and the Beautiful River. To a friend in Paris, Col. Pickering wrote in April, 1783: "A new plan is in contemplation-no less than forming a new State westward of the Ohio." In the autumn of 1785, Gen. Benjamin Tupper, authorized by Congress, went from Massachusetts to the Ohio country, prospecting, and after his return he told what he had seen and heard to Gen. Rufus Putnam, and the result was the organization of a land company to buy and settle new lands in the " far west." The company chose Rufus Putnam, Mannasseh Cutler and Samuel H. Parsons, directors, and it was through the agency of Cutler that a purchase of land was negotiated with the National Congress at New York. William F. Poole truly says: " The Ordinance of 1787 and the Ohio purchase were parts of one and the same transaction. The purchase would not have been made without the Ordinance, and the Ordinance would not have been enacted except as an essential condition of the purchase." The Ordinance was enacted on July 13, and the land purchase completed on July 27, 1787. The purchase was located north of the Ohio river, west of the seven ranges, and east of the Scioto. The extent of the purchase was 5,000,000 acres, and the price paid for it $3,500,000, payable in public securities, equivalent to eight or nine cents an acre.

SETTLEMENT OF MARIETTA.

The first settlement made on the land of the Ohio Company, or in Ohio, was at Marietta, just east of the mouth of the Muskingum, and opposite Fort Harmar, an outpost built in 1785. The settlers landed April 17, 1788. The settlement of this first town in Ohio was nearly coincident with the establishment of a governmental administration for the newly organized territory. Territorial officers were elected by Congress, October 5, 1787, as follows: Governor, Gen. Arthur St. Clair; judges, James M. Varnum, Samuel H. Parsons, John Cleves Symmes_; secretary, Winthrop Sargent. Governor St. Clair reached Fort Harmar July 9, 1788, and on the 15th he took formal charge of his office. Soon afterward he and the judges organized the territorial government in accordance with the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787; laws were issued, courts were established, churches and schools were put into operation, and New England industry soon caused the wilderness to be transformed. Thus began the State of Ohio, whose extent, at the time of organization was nearly 300,000 square miles, stretching westward to the Mississippi and beyond. Not until fifteen years later, in 1802, was it that the present State of Ohio was established.

THE MIAMI PURCHASE.

The New England colony, planted at the mouth of the Muskingum, grew to be the fair city of Marietta; but it was reserved for a settlement began near the mouth of the Little Miami, seven months after the founding of Marietta, to expand and develop into the metropolis of the Ohio Valley. Few, indeed, are the streams of a comparatively level region, that can rival the Little Miami for tranquil beauty; it may be called the Arno of Ohio; and the valley through which it flows is an agricultural paradise. The many attractions of this virgin valley were known to the red tribes who sought its hilly nooks in which to build their villages; and the enthusiastic tongue and pen of Capt. Gist had detailed the charms of the place nearly forty years before the first fixed settlement was made within its limits.

As early as the year 17815, the year in which Putnam and Tupper were organizing the Ohio Company to purchase lands on the Muskingum, Maj. Benjamin Stites, a native of New Jersey, brought down the Ohio river from Red Stone, Pennsylvania,

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a flatboat laden with flour and whiskey, which valuable freight he sold to the inhabitants of Limestone or Maysville, Kentucky. High excitement was prevailing at the time. among the Kentucky pioneers, on account of late depredations of Indians who had stolen many horses. A company of whites was collected to go in pursuit of the red thieves, and Maj. Stites, keen for any adventure, joined the party as a volunteer, and became its leader. Following the trail of the Indians, the pursuers came to the Ohio at a point nearly opposite the mouth of the Little Miami, and then crossed to the Ohio, or " Indian side," of the river, a locality so often (trenched in the blood of savage warriors that it came to be called the "Miami Slaughter House." Still tracking the flying horse-thieves the Kentuckians went up the Little Miami to Old Town or Old Chillicothe, an Indian village north of where Xenia now stands; thence they went westward to the Big Miami, and down southward by way of Bill creek valley, to the Ohio. This excursion, which happened in summer, enabled Maj. Stites to see and examine delectable valleys of both Miamis, with their deep, rich soil, and magnificent natural growth of forest and grass, which had so taken the eye of Gist in 1.751. Stites wisely concluded that the sooner he cast his own lot in this land of more than promise, the better. Well for him and for his happy descendants, still living in plenty in the region, that he did so. Like Benjamin Tupper, this equally enterprising Benjamin was seized with the fever of land speculation. We are told by good authorities that the courageous Major walked from Ohio to the city of New York, where Congress was in session, to confer with Hon. John Cleves Symmes, then a member of Congress from Trenton, and to propose the purchase of lands in the West. The prospect of profit from an early purchase, like a swift contagion, worked in the imagination of Symmes, who immediately went to the Miami Country himself, and by the testimony of his own senses verified the report of Stites. Symmes returned to the East, a company was formed of twenty-four men, among whom were Symmes, Jonathan Dayton, Elias Boudinot; Dr. Witherspoon, and Benjamin Stites. In his own name Symmes petitioned Congress for a grant of 2,000,000 acres of land, to be located within designated boundaries; but when surveyed the tract was found to contain only 600,000 acres, of which 20,000 acres were sold to Maj. Stites.

The grant by Congress was signed October 22, 1787, and the transfer to Stites was made November 9, 1787. On December 7, 1787, Stites purchased 10,000 acres more, making in ale a snug farm of 30,000 acres of Miami valley, for the Major.

The reader will bear in mind that when the Territorial government of Ohio was organized, at Marietta, October 5, 1787, John Cleves Symmes was chosen one of the judges. The Miami purchase was consummated three months after the Muskingum purchase, and both were taken possession of in the following year, 1788.

SETTLEMENT OF COLUMBIA.

Maj. Benjamin Stites, anxious to take possession of his 30,000-acre farm on the Miami, induced a number of bold adventurers from Pennsylvania to join him, and, in the summer of 1788, lie descended the waters of the Monongahela and Ohio, on a "broad-horn" boat, arriving at Limestone (Maysville), Kentucky, in July. At this point the migrating company made a stock of clapboards to roof their anticipated cabins, and completed other plans for settling in the wilderness. Thirty of the band signed an article of agreement, but several seem to have backed out, deterred from venturing their lives in the " Miami Slaughter House," by the rumor of fresh danger from the Indians. On the 16th of November, 1788, Maj. Stites with a party of twenty-six persons, including four women and two boys, embarked at Maysville, and started clown the river to seek their future homes. They landed a little after sunrise, on the morning of November 18, somewhat below the mouth of the Little Miami, at a spot nearly in front of the present residence of Athan Stites, now within the limits of Columbia, a part of the corporation of Cincinnati. It is

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said that the first to plant foot upon the shore was Hezekiah Stites, brother to Benjamin. According to Rev. Ezra Ferris, the company, "after making fast the boats, ascended the steep bank and cleared away the underbrush in the midst of a pawpaw thicket, when the women and children sat down. They next placed sentinels at a small distance from the thicket, and having first united in a song of praise to Almighty God, upon their knees they offered thanks for the past, and prayer for future protection." This devout and pious scene, in the paw-paw thicket, near the shore of the Ohio, furnishes a study for some Cincinnati artist to immortalize in a painting. The bold brush of C. T. Webber would do it justice. Blockhouses were erected as promptly as possible, for the storage of goods, and the protection of the women and children, and thus was begun the settlement of Columbia, the nucleus of a great city.

The first county erected in Ohio was named after Washington, and its capital was Marietta; the second, with Cincinnati for its seat of government, was called Hamilton, after the wise and honored federal statesman.

It will be appropriate here to give a complete list of the names of the first settlers of Columbia: James H. Bailey, Zephu Ball, Jonas Ball, James Bowman, Edward Baxton, W. Coleman, Benjamin Davis, David Davis, Owen Davis, Samuel Davis, Francis Dunlevy, Hugh Dunn, Isaac Ferris, John Ferris, James Flinn, Gabriel Foster, Luke Foster. John S. Gano, Wm. Newell, John Phillips, Jonathan Pitman, Benj. F. Rudolph, James Seward, William Goforth, Daniel Griffin, Joseph Grose, John Hardin, Cornelius Hurley, David Jennings, Henry Jennings, Levi Jennings, Ezekiel Larned, John McCullough, John Manning, James Matthews, Aaron Mercer, Elijah Mills, Ichabod B. Miller, Patrick Moore, Wm. Moore, John Morris, Benjamin Stites, Thomas C. Wade, John Web, Mr. Wickersham, Daniel Griffin.

The settlers passed through the usual hardships of backwoods life, beset with danger from savages, droughts and floods. The rifle was .always at hand, in the cabin home, in the field, and at meetings on Sunday. In the winter and spring of 1788-89, the supply of food gave out, and the pioneers subsisted on wild game, and the bulbous root of the bear grass. There was abundance of fish in the rivers, and Turkey Bottom was so named from the fact .that plenty of wild turkeys frequented it. This same Turkey Bottom, the flats of the Miami, which now produce annual crops of corn, was cultivated in prehistoric years, by the savages; and the white settlers by a more careful tillage made it bring over a hundred bushels of corn to the acre, the first year it was broken by the plow.

LOSANTIVILLE.

Matthias Denman, of New Jersey, purchased of Judge Symmes, in January, 1788, a tract lying on the north side of the Ohio, opposite the mouth of the Licking, for which be paid (ifs cents per acre, in Continental certificates, or about $125 for the entire plat. In the summer he visited his purchase, designing to lay out a town and establish a ferry across the Ohio. Meeting with Col. Robert Patterson at Maysville, and John Filson at Lexington, Denman discussed his projects with them and proposed a partnership which was accepted, and on the 25th of August the three men entered into an agreement by which they became joint proprietors of the town plat. Sometime in September, Filson, who understood surveying, marked out a road from Lexington to the proposed settlement. Filson it was also who invented the name Losantiville, as an appropriate designation for the station the proprietors were about to locate. The word was intended to signify "the town opposite the mouth of the Licking." The hybrid compound is thus explained: The initial L stands for Licking, the syllable os is Latin for mouth, anti means opposite, and ville is French for town-L-os-anti-ville. Much ridicule has been heaped upon Filson for bestowing this pedantic name upon the infant village which, two years later, was rechristened by Governor St. Clair. According to Col. Jones, a story is

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related of St. Clair, to the effect that when he arrived near Losantiville, standing on the roof of the boat, looking at the cluster of cabins, he asked " What in the hell is the name of this town anyhow?" The bluff general changed the name to Cincinnati, which, though historically significant, is also pedantic, and open to the objection that it may be translated either as a genitive singular or a nominative plural-of Cincinnatus or Cincinnatuses. Doubtless St. Clair was thinking of the " Society of the Cincinnati," rather than of the curly-haired Roman who left his plow in the furrow and went to join the army. One cannot help thinking that the beautiful Indian name " Miami " would have been a more fitting name for the town than either Losantiville or Cincinnati. There is a handsome brick edifice on one of our streets which the owner had the historical fancy to name "The Losantiville."

Before much progress had been made toward planning or surveying the town plat, Filson's life came to a mysterious termination. While wandering alone in the Miami woods, he is supposed to have been killed by Indians. Robert Clark has an old schoolbook, once the property of a brother of the murdered man, in which is an inscription recording that "This book was the property of my brother John Filson who was killed by the Indians." Some of the direct kindred of Filson now reside in Gallipolis, Ohio. The Cincinnati street, now called Plum, was originally named Filson avenue. Filson was a man of ability and education, a diligent explorer in Kentucky, Illinois and Ohio, the first historian of Kentucky, and the first to prepare an authentic map of that State. The historical investigators of Louisville have named a very important society "The Filson Club," in his honor, and it would be fitting that some lasting work of architecture or other art should be dedicated to his memory in Cincinnati. One of our artists has sketched on canvas a spirited picture of Filson and his partners discussing the plan of the town they were about to found, and the suggestion is here ventured that the public or some publicspirited citizen might do the city a service by providing means for the completion of this design on a large scale.

After the tragic vanishing of Filson, his interest in the company was disposed of to Col. Israel Ludlow, who had come to the west as a surveyor for Judge Symmes. A part of the original Indian fort " Ludlow Station," erected in 1790, was built into the locally famous Ludlow Mansion, which is still standing in Cumminsville, Dear Mill Creek. Israel Ludlow laid out the town, which, it is probable, Filson had begun to survey.

The first colonists of Losantiville, or Cincinnati proper, like those of Columbia, made the town of Maysville their place of rendezvous before setting out for their permanent destination. They embarked on the 24th of December, 1788, perhaps somewhat late in the afternoon. The river was choked with floating ice, which made navigation difficult and perilous. The voyage was safely accomplished, and the company, consisting of twenty-seven men, landed on December 28, 1788, at a small inlet near what is now the foot of Sycamore street. This point, and others of historical significance, should be marked by appropriate granite tablets, for the benefit of future generations, and as a matter of municipal duty and pride. The little harbor in which the boat was moored for many years bore the name of "Yeatman's Cove," and near it was erected the first noted public resort of Cincinnati in pioneer days, "Yeatman's Tavern."

No part of history is more useful than correct names and accurate dates, for the man and his time are essential facts. The names of the men who stepped ashore on t lie border of Yeatman's Cove, December 28, 1788, now (1893) one hundred and five years ago, are Col. Robert Patterson, Israel Ludlow, Noah Badgely, Samuel Blackburn, Thaddeus Bruen, Robert Caldwell, Matthew Campbell, James Carpenter, William Connell, Matthew Fowler, Thomas Gizzel, Francis Hardesty, Captain Henry, Luther Kitchill, Henry Lindsey, Elijah Martin, Wm. McMillan, Samuel Mooney,

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John Porter, Evan Shelby, Joseph Thornton, Scott Traverse, Isaac Tuttle, John Vance, Sylvester White, Joel Williams.

We subjoin a complete list of the names on the record of the distribution and -sale of lots in the town Losantiville, 1789-90: Adams, Dr. ; Adams, George; Adams, John; Atchison, Henry; Badgeley, Noah; Baker, Melyn; Barns, Stephen; Bates, Daniel; Bates, Isaac; Beazeley, William; Bechtle, Henry; Bedell, William; Benham, Richard; Benham, Robert; Black, Thomas; Blackburn, James.; Blackburn, Samuel; Blanchard, John; Bostwick, Truman; Brown, Thomas; Bruen, Thaddeus; Brunton & Dougherty; Burd, Moses; Burns, James; Caldwell, Robert; Campbell, James; Campbell, Matthew; Campbell, William; Carpenter, James; Cavender, Garret; Cheek, John; Cochran, Thomas; Coleman, Ephraim; Colwell, James; Cook, Peyton; Cooper, Daniel C.; Coulson, John; Covert, John; Cummings, John; Cunningham, James; Cutter, John; Cutter, Joseph; Cutter, Seth; Danalds, Matthews; Darling, Edward; Davis, Jonathan; Davis, Elijah; Davison; Denman, Matthias; Devin, William; Dillan, William; Dougherty (Brunton &); Dorrough, William; Dument, Benjamin; Dument, James; Ellis, John; Farnum, Russell; Ferguson, Captain; Filson, John; Finlay, Joshua; Finley, Elijah; Fitts, Jonathan; Flinn, Benjamin; Ford, Lieut. Mahlon; Fowler, Jacob; Freeman, Isaac; Freeman, Samuel; Fulton, Jesse; Funk, Adam; Garrison, Abraham; Gaston, John; Gates, Uriah; Gizzel, Thomas; Goald, James; Gowen, William; Gray, Archibald; Groves, George; Griffin, John; Hamblen, Joel; Hardesty, Hezekiah; Hardesty, Uriah; Harris, William; Harway, James; Hedger, William; Heooleson; Hinds, Robert; Hole, Daniel; Hole, Darius; Hole, Dr. John; Hole, William; Hole, Zachariah; Holland, Edward; Holt, Jerum; Hunt, Israel; Hunt, Nehemiah; Johnston, Nicholas; Joyce, David; Jones, Nicholas; Kearsey (or Kearney?), John; Kelly, Joseph; Kelly, William; Kemper, Rev. James; Kennedy, Francis; Kennedy, Samuel; Kibby, Ephraim; Kingsbury, Lieutenant; Kitchell, Bethuel; Kitchell, Daniel; Kitchell, Luther; Kitchell, Samuel; Lindsay, Jarry; Lindsicourt, Cobus; Logan, David; Lore, John; Lowry, James; Ludlow, Israel; Ludlow, John; Lyon, James; McClure, Daniel; McClure, David; McClure, George; McClure, John; McClure, Mary; McClure, William; McConnel, James; McCoy, William; McHendry, Enoch; McHendry, Joseph; McKnight, James; McLaughlin, Henry; McLaughlin, John; McMillan, William; Marshall, James; Martin, Elijah; Martin, Isaac; Martin, Margaret; Martin, Samuel; Mellen, Luke; Meuser, Jonas; Mercer, Jonathan; Millan, James; Miller, James; Miller, Moses; Mills, Jacob; Mooney, Samuel; Moore, Alexander; Moore, Robert; Morrel, Dr.; Mott, Jesse; Munn, Capt. John; Murfey, George; Murfey, John; Neilson, Mr.; Niece, George; Noon, Christopher; Orcutt, Darius C.; Parks, Andrew; Parks, Culbertson; Patterson, Col. Robert; Peck, Presley; Persons, Thomas; Phillips, Jabesb; Pierson, Matthew; Pierson, Samuel; Porter, John; Potter, Enos; Pratt, Captain; Pursley, James; Reed, Henry; Reeder, Jacob; Reeder, Stephen; Richards, Thomas; Riddle, John; Ritchison, Abraham; Rolstein, Nathaniel; Rolstein, William; Rood, Reuben; Root, Asa; Ross, Jonathan: Ross, John; Ross, John, Jr.; Ross, Moses; Ross, William; Rusk, William; Sargent, Col. Winthrop; Sayre, Levi; Scott, David; Scott, James; Scott, Obediah; Seaman, John; Seaman, Jonas; Shaw, Niles; Sheets, Casper; Shoemaker, Daniel; Stewart, Archibald; Stewart, Jesse; Stibbins, Ziba; Strong, Captain; Sullivan, Dennis; Symmes, John Cleves; Tapping, Jacob; Taylor, Henry; Terry, Enos; Terry, John, Sr.; Terry, Robert; Tharp, John; Thornton, Joseph; Traverse, Scott; Turner, Judge George; Valentine, Benjamin; Vance, John; Van Cleve, Benjamin; Van Cleve, John; VanDoran, Jacob; Van Eton, John; Van Motor, Isaac; Van Nuys, Cornelius; Wallace, James; Warwick, Jacob; Welch, David; White, Sylvester; Whiteside, Samuel; Wiant, John; Williams, Joel; Winters; Wood, Amos; Woodward, Levi.

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LOCATION OF CINCINNATI.

The site chosen by Denman and others, for the location of a city, was most advantageous. It would seem that Nature suggests where great towns will flourish best, and she refuses to aid man when he selects unsuitable places to build for multitudes. Environment determines the character and controls the growth of a city. There must be some strong and lasting motive to draw or drive many people together in one compact community for purposes of organized gregarious life. The sagacity of self-interest often fails to " boom " a badly situated town into importance; and the untutored reason or instinct of primitive tribes sometimes reveals to them where they may wisely pitch their tents or build their .social villages. Richness of ;oil, abundance of mineral products, nearness to water courses, and natural facilities for road making, are among the essential requisites to supply man's needs. The site of Cincinnati was occupied in the remote past by a permanent encampment or town of mound-building savages. Those strange prehistoric people, whether Indians or belonging to some other race, left mysterious records of themselves in endless earthworks long since erased to give place to streets and blocks. One of our streets bears the name, Mound, and at its southern terminus, where Hughes High School now stands, once rose a great tumulus, the monument of a forgotten people,

Subsequent to the time of the mound-building folk, the site of Cincinnati was the temporary abode of the wild red men of the Miami tribes, and, after it was abandoned as a camp the spot continued to be familiar to the roving savages, who bent on war, or the hunt, or trade, or theft, followed the worn paths southward through Ohio, or northward across Kentucky, or up and down the Ohio in canoes to a converging point at the mouth of the Licking. It is conjectured, not altogether fancifully, that these wild bow-and-arrow men were guided in their course toward the future Queen City by tracks and roads which the buffalo and the deer had trodden, these animals seeking richest grazing fields and sweetest waters, as, led by a similar instinct, the wild turkeys flocked to Turkey Bottom. Thus centuries before the white man's foot was attracted to pursue the obscure paths and traces that led to the charmed garden, "opposite the river's mouth," the Indian, the Mound Builder, and the wild beasts of the forest and birds of the air had sought out the same well-omened spot. We may say with perfect truth that Creative Power formed the peculiar geological and geographical features of the locality in such a. way as to point out to living creatures an area of subsistence strikingly adapted to the needs of man and brute.

In the year 1829, only forty years from the time when settlement was first begun on the Ohio, Timothy Flint contributed to the "Western Souvenir" a fanciful story, entitled "Oolemba in Cincinnati." Oolemba was drawn to represent a Delaware chief, who tells us in the tale: "Five hundred moons have waned since I dwelt under a huge sycamore on the brow of the hill whose margin is washed by the silver wave of the Ohio. This sweet valley is bounded toward the rising sun by the gentle stream of Dameta, or the creek of dears; and on the side of the setting sun by the transparent waters of Elhena, or the stream of the green hills. Wood crowned ridges shut it in on the north." The chief goes on to relate events which caused him to leave his home and^- birthplace, and to wander far to the west. He is represented as finally returning, after long absence, and sometime in 1828 he first sees Cincinnati. The impression the town made upon his simple mind Oolemba. thus conveys in words:

"At length I had clambered over a thousand fences, been barked at by a thousand dogs, been covered with dust, and scorched with the sun, when I arrived on the wooded banks of the Licking. I thanked the Great Spirit and prayed that the valley of Elsindelowa [Ohio] might be as green and wooded as these banks. But when I emerged from the woods at the mouth of the Licking--what a sight spread

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before me on every side!-Spirit of my fathers! Would that I had fallen to the earth at the sight. The hills still remained, as if to mock me. They rose in the blue air, and were covered with green trees as when I left them. The waters of the Licking still made their way over their rocky bed. But how was everything else changed! All the vale of Elsindelowa was filled with the big cabins of the white men. The big canoes and buildings vomited up smoke. A dim dust arose above the cabins, and a dull but incessant noise, as of all kinds of life and movement rose upon my ear. The big canoes covered the silver wave. Even the shore on which I stood was covered with the cabins of the whites. I stood amazed. My head became dizzy, and my thoughts confounded. `Is this,' I asked, the place I left forty winters ago, one wide forest, without a white man's cabin in the land?"

The words put into the mouth of the Indian chief describe just what Flint himself must have seen a thousand times. And the route traveled by Oolemba, on his approach to Cincinnati, was the one marked out by Nature and surveyed by Filson, and which is still a main highway of communication into the south. Hon. Job E. Stevenson, in a communication to the "New England Magazine," says, speaking of the favorable location of his adopted city: "A slight knowledge of Ohio and Kentucky will convince anyone that the situation of the Miami Purchase was advantageous. The Licking river, opposite the purchase, gave an outlet from Kentucky, for two hundred miles; and the dividing ridge called `Dry Ridge,' which stretches from Central Kentucky to the Ohio at Covington, formed a natural road without a bridge for fifty miles, and then, crossing a small stream, entered the Eden, called `The Blue-Grass region,' of which Lexington was then, as she still is, the capital. This route was then the way from Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas, and is now the line of our Southern Railroad track. Between the Miamis, up the valley of Mill creek, was a corresponding route from the Ohio river northeast, extending to the watershed of the State. Here was the crossing of the river, the thoroughfare north and south, northeast and southwest, at the point of embarkation and debarkation to and from the Ohio. Add the fact of the unrivalled fertility of the Miami Country and of the Blue-Grass region, and we have an assemblage of excellences, which have been rarely if ever equalled."

PRIMITIVE CINCINNATI.

From 1788 to 1802-About ten months after the landing of Cincinnati's first settlers, at Yeatman's Cove in the winter of 1788, Maj. Doughty, of the United States army, began to build Fort Washington, a log structure made of large trees cut from the space on which it was located, a tract of fifteen acres sloping up from the river bank, in that part of the city now lying between Broadway and Main, and bounded on the north by a line somewhere between Third and Fourth streets. The site of the fort is now partly covered by the Lorraine building, which took the place a few years a o of Mrs. Trollope' a Bazaar, on Third street near Lawrence and Broadway. The fort when completed, in December, 1789, was occupied by Gen. Harmar, with a garrison of ninety men, to protect the settlement against Indians. Most of the town plot was still covered by trees, sycamore, maple, oak and beechprimeval trees, stately and glorious. The first survey of the town marked its outer limits by the river and three streets-Northern row (now Seventh street), Eastern row (now Broadway) and Western row (now Central avenue).

Gen. Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, came from Marietta to Fort Washington in January, 1790, and it was then that the town's name was changed from Losantiville to Cincinnati. Fort Washington was for several years the most important building in the town, and was a post of much importance during the Indian wars waged by Harmar, St. Clair, Zeigler, Wilkinson and Wayne. The post was abandoned in 1844, when the National Government removed its gar-

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rison to the barracks in Newport, Ky., where it remained until its recent transferrence to Fort Thomas, further up the Ohio river.

Some effort of the imagination is requisite to reproduce a true picture of the Cincinnati of St. Clair's day; Cincinnati the capital and emporium of the old Northwest Territory; Cincinnati the muddy-streeted, woods-surrounded, stump dotted, log town, protected by the swaggering, whisky-loving, dare-devil soldiers of Fort Washington. During the first four years of the town's existence its inhabitants and the other settlers of the Miami Country lived in constant dread of the native tribes whose rich lands they had so long coveted. The military protection afforded by the troops at the fort was inadequate. Harmar was defeated in 1790; St. Clair's terrible repulse and defeat was in 1791; the people were panic-stricken; the settlements seemed on the edge of ruin, until, in 1792, the sword of " Mad Anthony Wayne" flashed along the border and led civilization to victory. Let some patriotic citizen mark with a suitable enclosure and memorial stone the great elm tree near the corner of Chase and Dane streets, Cumminsville, under which encamped St. Clair in 1791 and Wayne in 1793. After the Treaty of Greenville, in 1794, the doomed Indian sullenly removed his tents to other fields. The farmers began to breathe easily, and could leave the rifle on its hooks over the chimney-piece while they went out to plow or to harvest. The traders under the shadows of the wooden walls of Fort Washington ordered new stocks of goods with gathering confidence. New families from the East floated down the Ohio on their arks."

But the irresponsible soldiers, no longer on duty in the field, and doing the proverbial mischief which Satan finds for idle bands to do, became an intolerable nuisance to the citizens. The officers were insolent and overbearing; the men in the ranks were quarrelsome and intemperate. Dr. Drake tells us that the best trodden road in the village was that which led from the fort to a still house on Deer creek. The settlement was infested, as frontier places and river towns were wont to be, by lawless rascals of every description-thieves, gamblers, cutthroats and robbers. Law had not yet got a firm grip on the throat of license and crime. Society was not organized. Confusion reigned. Self-interest was the ruling motive of many individuals. And yet the better class of people soon dominated the worse elements. Institutions took shape. The first church, the first school, the first ferry, each a classifying and regulating agency, were got into operation in 1792, even while "Mad Anthony" was expelling the wielders of the tomahawk and scalping knife. The jail and the newspaper, antagonistic forces, came in 1793. As for the court of justice, it was supplemented and sustained by those cheerful moral supports, the pillory, stocks and whipping-post, as in the good old days of Winslow and Endicott in New England.

The Opus and Epic of the border was singing itself all around. Man was doing over the old Sisiphus work of rolling the stone up hill. The gun, the axe, the plow, the boat, the assembling of men with ideas in the primitive wilds, to shape a new State of new material; the struggle with rude nature; the beginning of a city; that is what we must try to realize when we think of the doings and sufferings of Cincinnati's founders in the first decade from 1790 to 1800. The scene was rude, the life was hard and unpoetical. The men and women were actually forced to live, at the outset, like an earth-sprung race. They had not always enough to eat. They became victims of strange diseases. They wore uncouth dresses, as savages doclothing made, in part, of the fells of beasts, buckskin breeches, vests of the deer's hide, caps of fox-skin. They pounded their corn in a mortar, or ground it, as Arabs do, in a band-mill. They ate the roots of wild grass. They went armed not only to the woods, but to the house of prayer. They killed wild deer, and bear, and turkey, for food, and are said to have relished an occasional rattlesnake stew. Such were the necessities of those who started civilization on the banks of the Ohio, a hundred years ago! As late as the year 1795, Cincinnati was a huddle of log cabins,

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direct " quotations from the forest," occupied by a population of not more than five hundred. There was not a brick house in the town, nor so much as a single brick to begin a house with. The original comers to Losantiville found the place mud, and left it logs. Nor did the town change much, except for the worse, as regards building and paving, for five years more; for in the year 1800, when the first census was taken, the figures show that only 750 inhabitants dwelt within the town. The Territorial legislature, organized in 1798, held its first sessions in Cincinnati, but, in 1801, the seat of government was transferred to Chillicothe, a change which gave a backset to the older village.

Cincinnati was incorporated as a town in 1802, the year in which Ohio was admitted into the Union as a State. Ohio had then a population of over sixty thousand, of which number, though Cincinnati had less than one-sixteenth part, she was yet far the largest town in the State. The officers who administered the town government when it was first incorporated were: President, David Ziegler; recorder, Jacob Burnet; trustees, William Ramsay, David E. Wade, Charles Avery, John Reily, William Stanley, Samuel Dick, and William Ruffner; assessor, Joseph Price; collector, Abram Cary; town marshal, James Smith.

AGRICULTURE CREATES CINCINNATI.

A German botanist wrote a chapter to prove that man subsists on dust and air, since our breath and our food come directly or indirectly from earth and atmosphere. Surely the climate and the soil surrounding Cincinnati are her chief nourishers; tillage supplies her means of wealth. Cincinnatus was a Roman farmer, and his name, like that of Putnam, suggests the plow first and the sword next. A historian tells us that the titular hero, Cincinnatus, whose statue adorns the front of a Fourth street business house, "was a frugal man, and did not care to be rich; and his land was on the other side of the Tiber, a plot of four jugura, where he dwelt with his wife Racelia, and busied himself in the tilling of his ground." After conquering the enemies of Rome, Cincinnatus retired to his country home; so George Washington, surrendering military command, went back to Mount Vernon to cultivate his plantation. In like manner hundreds of Revolutionary officers and soldiers, when the war was over, beat their spears into pruning-hooks, and their swords into plowshares. Not a few chose out their four or more jugura on the smiling banks of the Ohio.

It is impossible to conceive a more purely bucolic community than that which founded Cincinnati. An Ohio poet, John J. Piatt, in a poem called "The Lost Farm," surprises the reader by revealing in the closing line of his story that

The lost farm underneath the city lies.

The Queen City, like many other American cities, was farm-land before it was houses. The ground on which the business part lies, and that on the top of the surrounding plateaus, was as rich as soil can be. Even the side-hills and the abandoned quarries are fertile, and soon clothe themselves with luxurious vegetation. Almost every original lot-holder planted a garden and an orchard. In 1795, Dr. Allison, Surveyor-General of the Army, had, we are told, on the east side of the fort, a large lot cultivated as a garden and fruitery, known as Peach Grove. Also, we read in the old records, that in 1795-1800, Hezekiah Flint cultivated, as a cornfield, the square between Fourth, Fifth, Walnut and Vine streets. At the same period, the grounds, where the Cincinnati Hospital now stands, were a half-cleared field overrun with blackberries. On the slope to the river, between Main and Walnut, was a small vineyard, probably the first in the Ohio Valley. There must have been at least a suggestion of apples on Walnut street, which was called " Cider street," by our not totally abstinent fathers. We still have an Orchard street, as well as a Vine, a Plum, and a Cherry street.

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The cluster of log cabins, into which the forest oaks, beeches and maples were turned, grew by aggregation, and spread from street to street, square to square, covering the fertile acres. The little town opposite the mouth of the Licking lengthened up and down the Ohio shore, and widened toward the hills, filling up the space of the bottom lands. Then the ambitious city began to climb the terraces, and to take possession of the uplands. The stimulating cause of this growth and expansion was agriculture. The surrounding country fed the town, and fattened it. The farms nourished the trade-center, and were, in turn, made valuable by the reaction of commerce. "Nothing," says Charles Cist, our best early annalist of the Miami Country, "Nothing could surpass the fertility of the soil, which was as mellow as an ash-heap. Benjamin Randolph planted an acre which he had no time to hoe, being obliged to leave the settlement for New Jersey. When he returned, be found one hundred bushels of corn ready for husking."

The lands immediately adjoining the city are surpassingly productive. The soil is deep and strong, sustaining the mighty roots of huge trees, and stimulating to quick thriftiness grasses and grains. The Blue Grass region of Kentucky, the opulent valleys of the Miamis, teem with vegetation. Every product of the farm known to the temperate zone, and many plants of an almost sub-tropical nature, bloom and fruit on the lowlands or the Highlands that border the Ohio, and that spread away miles on miles in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. The cereals, the marketable " vegetables," orchard fruits, the grape, berries of many sorts, flax, hemp, tobacco, hay-all these, and other products as useful, grow abundantly within the continent and circle of Cincinnati's home trade.

Such products, the direct fruit of the earth, the farmer plucks from her bosom. Many of them are food ready prepared for his palate, not even requiring to be cooked. But from these vegetable treasures come the animals. All flesh is grass. Cincinnati came to be called "Porkopolis" because the corn of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky was metamorphosed into hogs, and hogs are bacon, ham and lard. Cattle are beef and tallow and butter and leather; sheep are mutton and wool; poultry is edible flesh, eggs and feathers; and the bee is honey. Agriculture created Cincinnati. Beginning a village of farmers, it became a farmer's city. From near and far the country wagons drove in with loads of farm products. Down the river floated the boats laden with the results of the husbandman's toil. In the cold weather the streets of the town were noisy with squealing processions of fat swine. The horse-market was a great feature of the town. The countryman was ever in touch with the city-man. No wonder that when, in the days of the Civil war, Cincinnati was threatened by an invading foe, the "Squirrel Hunters," the minute men of the farms, came swarming to town, with rifle in hand, to defend the city which their acres had done so much to build, and which was to them a storehouse and reservoir of strength.

DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE.

Before manufacturing can fairly begin in a new country, commerce and exchange must provide for the wants of a community in many directions. Local trade sets in as soon as there is anything to buy or sell, be it only a fish hooked from the water, or venison shot in the forest. When Demand calls "Hello!" Supply answers "Here I am." The Cincinnati pioneers in 1789 wanted seed-corn, and corn for hominy and bread, and immediately corn-meal came from Lexington, down the Licking, in canoes. The hungry garrison at Fort Washington craved meat, and forthwith Jacob Fowler and his brother Matthew agreed to deliver, at the barracks, a regular supply of the flesh of buffalo and bear, taken in the Miami woods. Commerce, on a small scale, was thus carried on. Lexington was older than Cincinnati, and for many years kept the lead as a source of supply. Cincinnati merchants obtained their goods from Lexington.

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A frame building belonging to Israel Ludlow was used as a general store in 1791. This was the first store in the settlement, and was located on the site of what was afterward the "Cincinnati Hotel" on Sycamore street. It was kept by John Barth, who sold flour at ten dollars a barrel, and salt at eight dollars.

In 1702, Wayne's victory having opened the doors of traffic, the town was overstocked with stores. Nevertheless, there was in July, of that year, a scarcity of corn and flour. Shoes sold well; and there was an enormous demand for strong drink, which demand was met by ample shipments of Monongahela whisky and peach brandy. The military gentry of the barracks required New England rum and plenty of imported wine. It was the urgent call for spirituous liquor that induced an early beginning of the distillery business, one of the first of Cincinnati's manufacturing enterprises. In 1793 Matthew Hueston, merchant, realized large profits on leather goods. In 1796 gunpowder sold at from $1 to $1.50 per pound; wheat, seventy-five cents to one dollar per bushel; pork, fifty to seventy-five cents per 100 pounds. The English traveler, Bailey, describes Cincinnati, in 1790, as a noted depot for stores for supplying other western points, and a place of great business.

The sightseer of to-day, looking for curious landmarks of Old Cincinnati, will notice, at the corner of Pearl and Broadway, a quaint brown market-house, formerly called " Fly Market, " on the end of which is inscribed the words, " Erected in 1816. " This seems to the modern eye a rather ancient piece of architecture, but Dr. Drake has left, in one of his graphic sketches, a description of the only markethouse of the city as it appeared in 1800, when the Doctor first came to Cincinnati. He says, "In front of the mouth of Sycamore street, near the hotel, there was a small wooden market-house, built over a cove [Yeatman's Cove] into which pirogues and other craft, when the river was high, were paddled to be tied to the rude columns."

By the close of the eighteenth century the commerce of the young city had assumed considerable magnitude. From February to May, 1802, there were exported from Cincinnati 4,457 barrels of flour. Martin Baum (builder of the Sinton residence on Pike street) had recently organized the "Miami Exporting Company." The day of small things was drawing to a close. The Ohio river was to add to her proud title, the Beautiful, the mercantile epithet, Useful. The merchants began to call the town an "Emporium, " and some spoke of it as a new Tyre. The Ohio Gazette, of Marietta, was not so sanguine in regard to the growth of commerce and the importance of river navigation. Herman Blennerhassett wrote for its columns in 1804: "It will forever remain impracticable for shipping to perform a return voyage against the current of our great rivers." But the steamboat was soon to be invented, and to that invention our city owes the rapid development of her commerce before the time of railroads. Mr. Carnegie has estimated that, in 1884, the annual trade of the Ohio river alone amounted to eight hundred million dollars! The river brings annually to Cincinnati two million five hundred thousand tons of coal.

The routes and modes of transportation to and from Cincinnati, at first, were few and primitive. Bridle-paths, wagon-roads, and rivers furnished the lines of travel. Pack horses were much used. One of the few early roads was that marked out by Filson from Lexington to the mouth of the Licking. In 1799, Capt. Libby cut a road to Vincennes, Ind. Good roads were slow enough in coming, and, in fact, there is yet much room for improvement in the roads of Hamilton county. One of the most useful exhibits at the Columbian Fair, of 1893, was that showing the latest approved methods of road-making.

The early commerce of Cincinnati depended mainly upon water transportation. The first regular ferry between Cincinnati and Newport was established in 1792. The first regular line of keelboats plied between our city and Marietta in 1 794. Of

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course Pittsburgh, Gallipolis, Wheeling and Maysville were sources of supply to the young markets of the Miami settlements. In due time, navigation extended not only along the main water courses-the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Missouri-but also up the larger tributaries of these streams. The exporting association of Cincinnati established commercial relations with Europe, by way of New Orleans, a city which long held preeminence over all other cities in the Mississippi Valley, in population and trade. Many ships were built and rigged in yards along the Ohio, and the marine commerce came to be closely associated with the river business.

With the increase of population and the multiplication of farm products and manufactures, more and better facilities for travel, transportation and trade necessarily were constructed. "Dirt-roads" and turn-pikes stretched from the "Tyre of the West" to the tributary towns. The wheels and hoofs, that bore burdens over the land, like the keels and oars that furrowed the streams, were as so many flying shuttles weaving the web of an ever lengthening and widening commerce.

The application of steam to the propulsion of water-craft, followed soon by the adoption of the same tremendous force to drive locomotives over land, wrought changes that revolutionized the commerce of the world. Cincinnati was among the first cities of the continent to avail herself of the power of steam. The first steamboat that plowed the Ohio made its first trip in 1812. The steamboat interest rapidly rose to commanding importance. The western rivers swarmed with magnificent vessels, hundreds of which, and thousands, were built in the docks of this city and were owned by resident capitalists. In 1840 there were launched, at Cincinnati, thirty-three boats, costing six hundred thousand dollars.

The first train of cars that carried passengers and goods out of Cincinnati sped along its new-laid, strap-iron track, up the lovely valley of the Little Miami, in the year 1845. The writer of this sketch, then a lad, saw with wide-opened eyes of wonder the steaming prodigy, as it roared past the station of Corwin, now East. Waynesville. Compare, or rather contrast the Little Miami road of that period, with the state binding lines of the vast Pan Handle system of to-day. There are now twenty-four railroads entering the city, uniting her with all the chief sections of the continent. One of these, the Cincinnati Southern railway, is peculiarly a Cincinnati enterprise. It was built by the city, at a cost of twenty-five million dollars, the right of way having been bought through Kentucky and Tennessee, a length of 340 miles, by our people, the first instance, it is claimed, in the world's history, of a city making a railroad for her own special convenience, and the benefit of local commerce.

Before steamboats and steam-cars had come into much use, the active promoters of internal improvement gave great, energy to the furtherance of the canal interest. Turnpikes and canals were regarded as the ne plus ultra of transportation, when Clinton, Clay and Corwin were making speeches and laws for America. The National road and the Erie canal were considered as the climax of human achievement, and, indeed, they were and are great works. The Queen City was smitten in her youth with the canal mania. The Miami canal was dug, its picturesque locks were placed, the water was let in, and the slender, slow boats were roped along the watery way by horse and mule, tugging tandem, over the narrow tow-path. An inspiring sight it was to the crowd of enthusiastic Cincinnatians, who, on a grim day in November, 1520, gathered by the canal to see the first two boats start on a trial trip to Middletown. The old Miami canal was put to a novel use during the Exposition of 1888, when a fleet of real Venetian gondolas carried innumerable pleasure parties over its waters which shone and sparkled under electric lights. Now it is thought by many that the old canal has outlived its usefulness, and that it should be abandoned, and its place occupied by a boulevard. Others think it should be widened and deepened into a ship canal, and made a connecting aqueduct between Lake Erie and the Ohio river. Such a piece of engineering would not seem over-

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difficult, compared with the Chicago enterprise of uniting Lake Michigan with the Mississippi, by the extension of the Chicago river.

Every modern city is indebted to railroads, and the means of rapid transit furnished by steam and electricity; and many cities have the advantage that navigable waters afford. Cincinnati is well supplied with railroads, and has also the benefit of river and canal navigation. Five bridges, costing about twelve million dollars, span the Ohio at this point, and give transportation ready access to the South. The valleys of the two Miamis are the natural base of roadbeds to the North. And such is the surface of the United States that all the great trunk lines running across the continent, east and west, must of necessity pass through Ohio, and it is convenient for them to make Cincinnati a central point. The city is not far from the present center of population for the Union. These facts and conditions give assurance that, with proper enterprise and city pride, Cincinnati, though outnumbered in population by rival cities, and though, in some respects, necessarily less prosperous than other cities, may continue to wear the crown and bear the name of the Queen City. Her commerce is increasing with her manufactures. In the words of another: " Her exports go .to all parts of the habitable world. Only a few years ago one of her booksellers sold a large invoice of their law publications to the Japanese government. Wood working machinery made here has penetrated to the frozen regions of Siberia and the burning zone of Africa, has gone to Spain, to Italy, to Greece, to Palestine, to India, to China, to Japan, and to the islands of the Pacific. Invoices of Cincinnati saddles have been sent from here to Jerusalem, and Cincinnati-made carriages may be found in South Africa, in Egypt, and in every other part of the globe where vehicles are used. It has been said that the sun never sets on the English drum-beat, and, with closer fidelity to the fact, it may be said that outside the frozen zones the rising sun never ceases to shine on the products of Cincinnati."

MANUFACTURING IN CINCINNATI.

The situation and environment of Cincinnati destined it to become a manufacturing city. Every condition favors mechanical industry, and the practice of the liberal arts. The resources of the country around invited to discovery and provoked to invention. The forest yielded best timber for building; the near quarry offered limestone; the clay was good material for brick; the mine produced coal and iron.. Raw material from the farm demanded to be metamorphosed into food and clothing.

One of the first experiments of Robinson Crusoe, on his solitary island, was the attempt to make vessels of clay. The potter's wheel began to turn in Cincinnati as early, at least, as the year 1799, when William McFarland started the manufacture of earthenware, thus inaugurating an industry which has since made our city distinguished over the world. Brick making was not undertaken until 1805.

Guns were necessary to the backwoodsman. The first gunsmith of Cincinnati was Andrew Danseth, who set up his shop in 1800.

Cotton and woolen fabrics were woven by Cincinnati looms before the year 1409.

Mr, John Melish. an English traveler who visited Cincinnati in 1811, mentions that there were, at that time, in the place, cabinetmakers, coopers, turners, machine makers, wheelwrights, smiths, coppersmiths, tinners, silversmiths, tanners, saddlers, boot and shoe makers, glovers, tailors, spinners, weavers, dyers, printers, bookbinders, rope-makers, and bricklayers, certainly a respectable array of guilds.

The manufacturing of malt liquors, now conducted here on a prodigious scale, seems to have originated in the first decade of the century. The first Cincinnati brewery, the property of John Embree, was located on the river bank at the foot of Race street. The annual product of the establishment, in 1811, was five thousand barrels of beer and porter. A Cincinnati brewery in the World's Fair exhibit at Chicago, in 1893, displayed, as an advertisement, a booth with fixtures and decora-

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tions costing ton thousand dollars! Cincinnati's annual product of beer is nearly twenty-five million gallons.

The business of pork-packing, which gave the city the disagreeable title of " Porkopolis," but which also, like the equally unpoetical whisky business, did much to lay the foundations of her prosperity and to enrich individuals, was carried on in Cincinnati as early as 1812, by Richard Fosdick, and by others. In the pork trade Cincinnati hold the preeminence above all other cities of the world, until the distinction was captured some years ago by a younger western city.

The carriage trade in which Cincinnati now forges far ahead of most rival cities, and for which she has a world-wide reputation, began to assume importance in the city just after the war of 1812-15. George C. Miller's plow-works were started in 1812. There stood on the river's bank, about the year 1812, a steam-mill with a seventy-horse power engine. The mill is referred to in an old city directory, as " a noble and sublime piece of architecture."

The town contained, in 1815, a factory of red and white lead, a sugar refinery, and a place for manufacturing mineral waters. At that date there had been in operation for several years, manufactories of glassware, tobacco and snuff, soap and candles, furniture and clothes. Cincinnati hats and Cincinnati beer were exported to New Orleans.

The Cincinnati Bell, Brass and Iron Foundry was established about 1814, by William Greene & Co. The church bells cast in the Queen City are famed for sweetness of tone. Dom Pedro, the emperor of Brazil, when visiting the city asked especially to be taken to one of the celebrated bell foundries. In 1819 the Phoenix Foundry was in operation.

The Cincinnati Directory for 1825 contains the following:

STATISTICAL VIEW OF CINCINNATI IN 1825.

" The inhabitants of this city are principally emigrants from the different States and from every kingdom in Europe. And it may be said, to the credit of the citizens in general, that the greatest harmony exists between the people of different nations and tongues, all viewing each other as brothers drawn together by the natural consequence of emigration.

"Such is the security and safety of the citizens that a night-watch is thought unnecessary by the city council.

" The trade and manufactures exceed those of any other town in the western States. The healthfulness and pleasantness of the city are such as to induce strangers from many parts to make it their residence during the warmer season. Almost all articles of importation are sold here nearly as cheap as in the eastern cities. The facilities for conveying articles to and from this place have become so improved, that the expense is small compared to what it once was.

"The number of arrivals and departures of steamboats in five months, beginning the 1st day of April, 1824, and ending the 31st day of August following, was 480. Of the number of keel and fiat boats no account was kept, though the greater proportion of the exports was carried in them.

" During the past year, eight steamboats have been built in and near this place. The manufactories in general are fast improving, some of them have been doubled and tripled within the past five years. The type foundry of this city is the only one west of the Alleghany Mountains; it furnishes type for the principal part of the Western States. There are upward of fifty mechanical trades carried on here, many of which furnish a large surplus for exportation. The city is regularly improving from year to year, ninety-nine houses, sixty-eight of which are brick, have been erected during the past year. The public improvements of 1824 are such as might be expected from an efficient and enterprising city council. The new

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wharf alone bears honorable testimony of their ability to plan, and energy to execute their design.

"The markets in general are well supplied, and at a cheap rate. It may be said, with great propriety, that there is one advantage to the citizen here over most other places, viz.: that all articles of provision, of clothing, in short, almost everything, whether of necessaries, convenience, or luxury, may be procured in greater plenty, greater variety, and at a cheaper rate, than in any other part of the Western States."

THEY AND NOW.

The foregoing records sufficiently show that Cincinnati took on the character of a manufacturing place, near the commencement of her career. Her increasing commerce stimulated manufacture, and was, in return, quickened and enlarged by the necessity of handling a constantly growing out-put of manufactured goods. Both manufacture and commerce were sustained and accelerated by agriculture, stockgrowing, by the lumberman and the miner. As, by degrees, competing cities encroached on the agricultural area of supply and subsistence which had at first been monopolized by the Queen City of the West, that city was obliged to rely more and more upon her internal and local resources, and so her people turned their attention more decidedly to manufacture, the arts, and to mercantile pursuits.

The total product of the manufactures of the city, in 1826, was valued at one million eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It is now estimated at more than two hundred million dollars annually. Col. Sidney D. Maxwell, late superintendent of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, in an address on "The Manufactures of Cincinnati," said: "We all recognize the fact that a diversity of production secures a more sure and steady prosperity. Here again is found an element of strength at Cincinnati. Our manufactures extend to a great variety of articles, many of them entirely distinct from each other. They embrace productions from wood, metal, stone, animals, earth, paper, leather, grain, vegetable fibre, tobacco, drugs, and other articles differing widely in their nature and in the wants and localities they are called upon to supply. The number of different kinds of goods made here is beyond the estimate of many of, the best informed. If anything of a surprising nature were revealed by our industrial displays, it was the scope of our production. The statistician finds it difficult to pursue the vocations. Men are working in their own houses. They are in obscure places. They are doing their business in a small way, but are swelling production. The kinds of manufactures are steadily increasing in number. You will hear of producers, in unlooked-for localities, commencing the manufacture of new articles, doing it in an unpretending manner, but laying the foundation of great future usefulness to the city."

The number of manufacturing establishments in Cincinnati, according to the statistics of 1802, was 8,667; the number of hands employed 115,944; the capital invested was $106,599,000; and the total value of the products $250,000,000. Selecting the eight items of the highest commercial importance we find the values of these several products as follows: Iron, $30,422,000; liquors, $29,580,000; clothing, $28,631,000; food, $26,092,000; wooden goods, $22,195,000; leather, $15,000,000; carriages, $13,000,000; soap, candles, etc., $11,000,000. The value of commodities received in the city last year was $346,400,000, and the value of shipments from the city $346,383,000. The amount of business transacted may be indicated by the amount of exchanges at the clearing house, which, for the year, was over seven hundred and twenty-one million dollars.

Whoever visited the great industrial display made by Cincinnati firms at the Centennial Exposition of 1888, must have been impressed by its vastness, variety and beauty; and the hundreds of thousands who saw the majestic palace of the Liberal Arts, in the World's Exposition of 1893, could not fail to observe that many of the finest exhibits there admired were from the city of Cincinnati.

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A RICH CITY.

Cincinnati is a rich city. The tax duplicate, for the year 1892, indicates returns. of property valued at nearly one hundred and eighty-nine million dollars, and this. probably does not represent half the actual wealth of the city. The revenue from taxation is over five million dollars. The total banking capital, employed, by the seventeen banks, is $9,918,000, and, if we include the banks of Covington and Newport, the total capital is $12,918,000. The Cincinnati Clearing House returns for 1892 show the actual exchanges for the year represented $720,980,450. Though the city taxes at present are high, the rate being 2.740 cents, and though the municipal debt now amounts to over twenty-four million dollars, the people have received the value of the levy, and, in a proper reckoning of the property holdings of the city, including the Southern railroad, there is no indebtedness not more than balanced by assets. The tax rolls show a long list of the names of millionaires, and not a few names of persons who own several millions. The source of this wealth is not far to seek. Cincinnati became rich, not by speculation, but by the industrial development of her own resources. She did not so much borrow capital as produce property. The land, the teeming soil, the primary source of all wealth, was at hand to begin with. It cost the original proprietors almost nothing; but, occupied and improved, it became a means of prosperity, a bank of supply richer than Fortunatus' purse. The corner, on which the Chamber of Commerce now stands, was offered to a Swiss hat-maker, in 1810, for twelve straw hats, but the hat-maker preferred six dollars in cash.

We have described the original state of the Miami Purchase, and the marvelous natural advantages of the area of subsistence spreading away for hundreds of miles in every direction from Cincinnati. The town opposite the Licking's mouth was like a stripling tree set in deep soil containing all elements to feed and stimulate growth and vigor. From what has been said in the preceding topics on the agricultural and commercial activities of the city and surroundings, and the rapidly developing manufacturing industries, it follows that wealth must needs accrue in somebody's hands. And it is safe to say that the wealth of Cincinnati is as equitably distributed as the social and economic systems of our day will allow. Comparatively, the people are well off. Poverty is not abolished, misery not expelled; neither is want widely prevalent, nor labor habitually discontented.

The men who developed the resources of the central States, and who built up the business establishments of Cincinnati, were men of steady perseverance. Some, like our first millionaire, Nicholas Longworth, had the sagacity to buy land cheap and wait until it became dear. But the waiting required self-denial and entailed hardship. Mr. Longworth used to say it kept him poor to pay his $30,000 taxes on land. The reproach has been brought against some of the early property owners of the city that they were too conservative, too plodding, and gave all their attention to material interests and none to the things of higher import. They were prudent, they were saving, they built up a secure property of their own, and held on to it. Their fortunes were what they appeared to be, and not fictitious. Their credit was good as gold. They built their own ample houses and each lived in his independent home. This characteristic economy, and self-dependence was transmitted from generation to generation. Our rich men are men of affairs-they attend punctually to their business concerns. On this point Col. Maxwell, who, as superintendent of the Chamber of Commerce for many years, had a good chance to observe. says: "It is a noticeable feature of Cincinnati, that they who are managing our industrial establishments are generally men who are thoroughly acquainted with the practical features of their business. They are mechanics themselves who did not. commence to build at the top of the structure, but att the bottom, when they had small means, These oak,, whose great spreading branches now shelter so

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many families of workingmen, were once small producers, who have grown up by degrees, gathering skill with experience, and strength with their skill. The result is a large intelligence in the prosecution of business. Then, as a sequel to this, we find that the capital used by our manufacturers consists largely of the accumulations from their business. Their surplus has not been committed to the treacherous wave of speculation, but has been turned into their business to enlarge their usefulness.

"Again, our manufacturers largely own the real estate which they occupy. Among the great producers, those who are manufacturing tinder the roofs of other people are limited in number. These conditions secure a stability which is not attainable under other circumstances, an endurance during periods of financial distress which is peculiar, and an ability to accommodate production to reduced wants, without impairing, in any way, the capacity of the manufacturer for promptly and advantageously providing for increased demand, when such demand may be warranted by the improved condition of the country."

The accumulation of property in private fortunes, public trusts, and in the resources of the municipality itself, makes it possible, when a demand arises, to raise a large guarantee fund, to consummate a vast purchase, or to bestow a great benefaction upon a worthy cause. The strong individuality of leading citizens, the stubborn personal opinion of capitalists, and the prevailing spirit of independence among the citizens of Cincinnati, render it difficult to induce a unity of feeling and a concentration of action in matters of general interest. While all have city pride and public spirit, each insists on his own mode of accomplishing a good object, and no one will submit to dictation as to how he should spend his own money. The quick tendency to association and combined effort which has done so much for the institutions of Boston, and the up-building of Chicago. is not so pronounced in Cincinnati. And yet the popular enterprises of the city have not been few or small. Nor have the wealthy citizens locked up their money from the public. The University lacks adequate endowment, and the parks and public drives require a liberal expenditure to make them what they should be, and there is crying need for more money to establish several new institutions and to place old ones on a secure financial basis; but, on the other hand, the city owns a railroad, has an excellent system of streets, and enjoys the benefit of as magnificent public buildings as can be seen in America. On occasion the city can open her purse and pay one million eight hundred thousand dollars for a bridge, six million dollars for pavements, or thirty million dollars for means of transportation to the south. In like spirit, her philanthropic citizens, her Springer, her Longworths, Probasco, West, Sinton, McMicken, Greenwood, Butler, Wilson, Dexter, and a shining list of others as generous, have made bequests and given gifts of princely cost to the endeared city that bestowed so much on them. The Music Hall, the Art Museum, the Davidson Probasco Fountain, the University and the High Schools, the Y. M. C. A. and the Union Bethel, are a few examples of the fruits of a noble liberality on the part of private citizens. When lavish wealth is thus bestowed, no one can reproach the motives of the rich.

A COSMOPOLITAN CITY.

Some enthusiastic natives of Cincinnati claim that their city is the freest city in America, therefore the freest in the world. This may be a hasty conclusion founded on insufficient knowledge, and smacking of provincial vanity. Founded only five years after the close of the Revolutionary war, only twelve after the first Fourth of July, the new town on the banks of the Ohio inherited all the glorious memories of the the past and few of its cramping influences. In a sense she was the first strictly American city that grew up on the continent, certainly the first great western city. It is true that her geographical position, on the border line between the South

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and the North, involved her business interests with those of a slave-holding people, and therefore, for a time, embarrassed her action concerning the moral questions which eventually drove the sections to civil war. But the very fact that slavery found apologists and supporters in the city was the direct provoking cause why Cincinnati became the burning focus of abolitionism. In this town Birney was mobbed; Phillips was egged; colored men were persecuted; but in this town Lyman Beecher erected the citadel of anti-slavery, Mrs. Stowe meditated her revolutionary story; and the union party that rallied around Lincoln was organized. When the fighting began, Cincinnatians did not waver. Their record in the war proves them worthy to be citizens of a city claiming to be the freest on the globe.

The two great political parties are here pretty evenly matched, and each vies with the other to represent and advance the rights of the people. Though the city suffers, too frequently, as all large American cities do, from the evils and corruption of partisan politics and the temporary rule of the gang-the people, in the main, control the bad element, and have both their will and their way, in vital matters. The administration of public affairs is reasonably wise and honest, the council is generally prudent, the courts are almost invariably true to their duty and dignity. We had a courthouse mob, but even this had its origin in a sentiment sternly just.

The several national and racial elements of our population, whether derived from England. Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, France, or from other lands in Europe, Asia or Africa, all agree in claiming the fullest and freest rights of American citizenship, and each is willing to concede to others what it claims for its own privileges. There are many Germans in the city-one third of its population; there are many Irish, not a few from Russia and other north European states; not a few from south Europe. These people bring their national peculiarities, their habits, their modes of thinking. They have their organizations, their memories, their hopes, their politics, their religions. The Queen City has ever been an arena of wrestling ideas and beliefs, therefore it has become a city of practical toleration. Extreme radicalism lives amicably side by side with extreme conservatism, and though discussion never ceases, discord seldom arises, and the Cincinnatian is distinguished for his customary obedience to law and order, no less than for his irrepressible opposition to what he deems injustice or folly. There have been as yet no inflamed and perilous disturbances of the relations of capital and labor, no long continued wasteful strikes, no vindictive and tyrannical lockouts.

The free play of public opinion, in matters of social, moral and religious characters, has given the city a cosmopolitan variety of standards of personal conduct, faith and belief. Here are agnostics who profess to know nothing, and agnostics who think they know everything. Here Jews and Gentiles meet in harmony and emulate one another in forbearance. Catholic and Protestant, while opposed in theology, agree in forwarding the common truths of Christianity. The city supports a Presbyterian Theological Seminary; a Hebrew College and several Synagogues; a Catholic College and priesthood. Orthodoxy "fights" heterodoxy, but each concedes the right of the other to exist, to proselyte and to worship in its own way. The city is full of churches, and while each congregation thinks itself in the right, every preacher grants that his brother clergymen, in a hundred neighboring pulpits, are like himself trying to do good and disclose truth. An occasional trial for heresy forms the exception that proves the rule. No sight more interesting to the thoughtful stranger who visits Cincinnati can be pointed out, than the impressive variety of steeples that rise from the houses of worship which one may take in at a glance from the corner of Eighth and Plum streets. There the sacred minarets of a Synagogue gaze across the street at the stone pinnacle of St. Peter's Cathedral, and in near proximity the domes and towers of Protestant churches of half a dozen different denominations lift their spires toward Heaven, and in the goodly company of these

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religions edifices the Children's Home stands, a practical illustration of the application of faith to good works.

A CENTER OF EDUCATION.

That Cincinnati is a center of education and polite culture, is sufficiently shown in the chapter of this work devoted to the history of schools and literary institutions, to which the reader is referred. Perhaps it will not be inappropriate or untimely here to remind the interested student of Cincinnati's progress and achievement, that, in the Columbian Exposition, our city's showing of educational, scientific and artistic work, was highly creditable to the exhibitors. Cincinnati and Cleveland each had a beautiful and elegant apartment in the " Ohio Building," while in the " Wom^an's Building" the ladies of this city had the only room appropriated to a particular city-a magnificent room, decorated with perfect taste, and made the depository of works in art and artizanship that were the admiration of all beholders.

A UNIQUE AND PICTURESQUE CITY.

It is not easy for a stranger, without a guide, to obtain a just idea of Cincinnati by a hurried attempt to observe its varied features. There is no one point from which even a correct birds-eye-view of it can be taken. Unlike New York, Chicago and other cities, which, though extensive are very simple in plan, owing to the prevailing regularity of surface on which they are built, Cincinnati is singularly complex and confusing, on account of the different levels to which it is accommodated, and the many windings of the streams and valleys that cut their way through it. He who sees the town in the low part where most of the business houses are located, without going to the hills: and he who sees only the hill portions without, visiting the valley, are alike unprepared to say: "I am familiar with the Queen City." Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, in a study of Cincinnati, published in Harper's Monthly, confessed that he was glad the nature of his obligation to his readers did not require him to describe the topography of the city. But, in fact, it is upon the topography of the city that its distinctive external character depends. Nature, and the exigencies of engineering for the purpose of street-making, grading, drainage, valley-filling, hill-carving, and hill-climbing, have given many sections of the town a remarkable aspect. The imperious caprices of the Ohio river, which sometimes falls to a shallowness of two or three feet, so that boys can wade it, and sometimes floods up to a high-water mark of over seventy feet, gives the city now the look of a town to which navigation is impossible, and now the appearance of a seaport when the tide is in. The serpentine valleys of the Miami, of Mill creek, of Deer creek, of Crawfish creek, with deep ravines dividing the bordering hills, and the long, arbitrary line of the old Miami canal, stretching, with many turns and angles, from southeast to northwest, through the city, are things that puzzle the tourist who can not understand how nature fashioned this locality before man transformed the scene. Poor little Deer creek. the " Dameta " of the Indians, the purling stream which was the delight of Dr. Drake in 1800-who that is unacquainted with the fact would suspect that the captive stream now creeps its diminished way along its vaulted prison below his feet, seeking the Ohio, as the waste water of the canal does, through a sewer? Not only is Deer creek buried, the entire valley of "Dameta" is largely lost and sunk tinder the dump-heaps of the city carts. And Mill creek. at the oozy month of which are moored the swarming crafts of "Shanty-boat Town," and whose valley is rapidly filling up with high-piled roadbeds for railways-who would now think of singing the beauty of Mill creek banks, once celebrated in song as " Makatewa's Flowery Marge? " But while many of the original natural charms of the city proper are lost and gone forever, the general contour of the locality remains unchanged, and art has added much to compensate for what the needs of business have taken away.

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Cincinnati rambles along the Ohio river, up and down, for a distance of ten or twelve miles. The low plateau or bottom ground on which it, and the Kentucky cities, Covington and Newport, are located, is, in form, irregularly oval or almost circular, with a rim of hills till round, except where the river cuts through, pursuing a southwesterly course, with a deep bend to the south sweeping down from Dayton to Covington, and a northward curve from West Covington to Ludlow. Near the lower -curve of the southern bend the Licking flows in from the south, and near the highest point of the northern curve Mill creek runs in from the north. This alluvial plain, on which the compact business part of the city mostly lies, is not flat, slopes gently back from the river, for a varying distance, with an average width of three miles, and then rises abruptly. The highest of the hilltops is about 300 feet above the level of the river, the whole valley with its several terraces having been cut, in the course of ages, by the erosion of the water. Strictly, we have no hills; that is the earth was not bulged up by pressure from below, but hewn down and sculptured by the busy fingers of rain and flood.

The streets of old Cincinnati, the original town plot, and its extension, from Ludlow, on the east, to Smith, on the west, running from the river toward the hills, and then intersecting them at, right angles, from Water street to far beyond Fourteenth, were not conformable to the points of the compass, as are most of the streets and avenues recently platted. Main street, for example, does not run due north and south, but one in walking down it toward the Ohio goes in a southeasterly direction. Freeman and Linn, and the streets parallel to them, run exactly north and south, and Liberty street runs straight east and west. Going toward the river is not necessarily going south, for the river constantly bends.

When the comparatively level tracts spreading back from the river and between the two creeks became pretty well occupied by houses, business began to press upon the residential parts of the city, and, as there was no more space below for building, the people sought places for homes on the uplands. They began to scale the terraces. Streets and winding roads were projected to the most eligible situations, not too far from the conveniences of the mart, the school and the church. The city, gradually extending its limits in all directions along the lines of least resistance, and to the most inviting regions, met and was met by the widening corporations of neighboring towns and villages, and the many gradually coalesced into one. Thus it came about that Cincinnati, being an aggregation of once independent towns, each built without reference to the plan of the other, or of the great city, is now about as irregular in its structure as a " crazy quilt," made of different shaped patches. But to this accidental irregularity the city owes much of its unique charm. If we except certain monotonous areas of the old city, which remind one of the least interesting parts of Philadelphia; and some oppressively uniform squares, "over the Rhine," and in the northwestern part of the city between the canal and Mill creek, we will find the remaining parts of Cincinnati abounding, not only in variety of surface and scenery, but in striking architectural features and picturesque surprises. Long ago the city swallowed up Fulton, Pendleton, Buxton ("Buck Town"), and Texas, so that these have as entirely lost their identity as Losantiville itself. In 7.868 the city began a regular policy of annexing, and since then Mount Auburn, Columbia, Mount Tusculum, Walnut Hills, Woodburn, Corryville, Clifton Heights. Mount Harrison, Barrsville, Fairmount, Camp Washington and other places have been annexed.* The traveling guest, exploring the maze of hill and hollow answering to the common name Cincinnati, may be pardoned for not mastering in a day the confused topography and nomenclature of twenty towns in one. By streetcar lines he may be conveyed through much of the labyrinth; from the deck of an excursion steamer he will see a world of striking scenes and objects, that no view from land could give an idea of;

*Since this chapter was written Clifton, Avondale, Linwood, Westwood and Riverside have been annexed to the city.

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and by a twenty-mile drive through "Cincinnati on the Hills," he would be made to realize why the people of this city are so enamored of their home, and why they hold on to its pseudonym, Queen City of the West, and are quick to quote Longfellow's verses about:

The Queen of the West

In her garlands drest.

Access to the diversified plateau, that half encloses and overlooks the lower city, is afforded not only by numberless declivitous roads and footpaths, not only by electric cars and cable cars that ascend by winding roads of steep grade, but, more than all, by a series of strongly constructed inclined planes, up which passenger cars and heavily-laden wagons are lifted, as if flying, over tracks varying from 788 to 1,000 feet in length. There are four of these, one ascending Price Hill, west of the city; one leading up to Mount Auburn, one at the foot of Elm street, lifting the passengers on the way to Clifton, and one bearing them up to Eden Park, and summit of Mount Adams, east of the smoke of the city.

It is owing, of course, to the beautiful river and its tributaries that such variety of surface and altitude, so many hills and dales, entitle Cincinnati to the epithets unique and picturesque. The manner, also, in which the city was built, the modes of street engineering, and the styles of architecture add to its peculiarities and its attractiveness. The luxurious, almost tropical abundance of trees and shrubbery which embower the town give it another charm. The landscape views, which take in the river and the hills of Ohio and Kentucky, are not excelled in beauty anywhere in the world.

THE SUBURBS,

New York has her Broadway and her Hudson river; Chicago has her system of parks and bouvelards; Cleveland shows her miles of Euclid avenue, but the pride of Cincinnati is her suburban scenery and palaces. Of the seven city parks within the corporate limits, though they comprise 539 acres, only two are of considerable importance, Eden Park and Burnet Woods; but to compensate for the lack of sufficient park space within the city proper, the entire region immediately surrounding the incorporated area is a continuous park and pleasure ground, though owned by private individuals. All the parks in Cincinnati together occupy less ground than Jackson Park. Chicago; and the whole space devoted to parks and public squares in Chicago is 1,974 acres. There can be no question that it is now high time for the people of Cincinnati to demand and secure additional land for public pleasure grounds, by purchasing suitable tracts in the suburbs. There is crying need for provision of this kind in the East End, in the vicinity of Tusculum Heights, and in the neighborhood of Avondale.

The suburbs of Cincinnati combine, in a most remarkable manner, the charms of nature and the superadded adornments of human skill, taste and imagination, exhibited in the arts of the landscape gardener and the architect. There are numerous villas, near the city, which for harmony of relation between the buildings and the grounds, and for general effects of elegance and beauty, must command the admiration of the most critical beholder, An old citizen of Cincinnati, writing in 1855, and referring to a time before the city had much encroached on the plateau, says: "At that time these hills formed a border of such surpassing beauty, around the plain on which Cincinnati stood, as to cause us who remember them in their beauty, almost to regret the progress of improvement which has taken from us what it can never restore." Fortunately the grand features of the wide-spreading, infinitely varied plateau, that like the terraces of an amphitheater half encircle the city on the east, north, and west, have, thus far, been devoted mainly to residential purposes, and to gardens, parks, reservoirs, and public resorts which add to, rather than detract from, the original attractiveness of the scene. It is upon these majestic

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hill-tops that the Queen City of the West really has her throne. Twenty-five years ago, James Parton, writing for the Atlantic Monthly, used the following language "Behold the Fifth avenue of Cincinnati ! It is not merely the pleasant street of villas and gardens along the brow of the bill, though that is part of it. Mount to the cupola of the Mount Auburn Young Ladies' School, which stands near the highest point, and look out over a sea of beautifully formed, umbrageous hills, steep enough to be picturesque, but not too steep to be convenient, and observe that upon each summit, as far as the eve can reach, is an elegant cottage or mansion, or a cluster of beautiful villas surrounded by groves, gardens and lawns. This is Cincinnati's Fifth avenue. Here reside the families enriched by the industry of the low, smoky town. Here upon these enchanting hills and in these inviting valleys will finally gather the greater part of the population, leaving the city to the smoke and heat, when the labors of the clay are done. As far as we have seen or read, no inland city in the world surpasses Cincinnati, in the beauty of its environs. They present as perfect a combination of the picturesque and the accessible as can anywhere be found. There are still the primeval forests and the virgin soil to favor the plans of the artist in 'capabilities.' The Duke of Newcastle's party, one of whom was the Prince of Wales, .were not flattering their entertainers when they pronounced the suburbs of Cincinnati the finest they had anywhere seen."

With the quarter century which has passed since Parton wrote his enthusiastic description, his prophecy in regard to the exodus from the business part of the city to the hill-tops has been realized. The lower city is largely given tip to business purposes, and the people have built them new homes in the suburbs. They have, in many cases, erected fine schoolhouses and stately churches on the hills. The delightful Mount Auburn, which Parton mentions as belonging quite to the environs, is now thickly settled and closely built, and must soon give up the rural distinction of being a place of secluded villas. The large estates have been divided, and sold in parcel, and blocks have taken the place of pleasure gardens. The suburbs have receded, and are receding. The circle is constantly widening. Hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands, retaining their business houses and connections, in the city, have removed their place of residence to Clifton, Avondale, Madisonville, Norwood, Pleasant Ridge, Delhi, Fern Bank, Home City, Riverside, Alt. Airy, Westwood, Addyston, Bond Hill, Carthage, College Hill, Elmwood, St. Bernard. Winton Place, Mount Tusculum, Linwood, Mt. Lookout, Arlington, Wyoming, and twenty other suburban towns; while, on the Kentucky side, multitudes doing business in Cincinnati have their homes in Covington, Newport, Dayton, Bellevue, Ludlow, and points farther away. These surrounding cities, towns and villages, constitute the present suburbs of the Queen City, who sits in their midst, and smiles upon their prosperity, as a mother smiles on a family of fair daughters.

THE STREETS AND BUILDINGS.

For the most part, Cincinnati is well and solidly built, as to her streets and bridges, her reservoirs and retaining walls, her railways of all kinds, and her edifices, public and private. The drainage of the lower or business portion of the city is almost perfect, owing to the fortunate circumstance that a vast bed of gravel and sand furnishes a substratum that absorbs and purifies any waste fluids that ma_y penetrate to its depths. The upper city is founded upon a rock, The sewerage is pronounced excellent by the best judges of such engineering, and the sanitary condition of the city, though it may be much improved by a stricter cleanliness, is better than in most large cities. That the city is one of the healthiest on the globe is the clear testimony of statistics. The streets are from fifty to a hundred feet wide, and are laid out as regularly as the uneven character of the surface will allow. They are paved in a manner that gains the city credit and applause from the traveler. The principal avenues have been paved with granite at a cost of about three

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million dollars. Several streets are paved with asphalt, and not a few retain the old-fashioned but substantial surface consisting of small boulder stones gathered from the bed of the river. Brick is also used as a paving material, and, to a small extent, wood. The large, firm blocks of blue limestone, from the inexhaustible quarries of the river hills. supply a building material not more esteemed for its great durability than for it.s remarkable beauty. Stone of various kinds is also imported for building purposes, especially granites and red-sandstones. Brick and iron are extensively used in the construction of houses.

Cincinnati holds a very respectable rank among cities on the score of architectural achievements. The greater number of her public buildings were designed by home architects and constructed by local builders. The city, however, boasts of one of the noblest designs of Richardson-namely, the Chamber of Commerce building, on the southwest corner of Fourth and Vine streets. The City Hall, the Armory, the great Exposition and Music Hall, and the Odeon, all designed by Hannaford, are among the most imposing of our public buildings. The Art 11uscum and the Art Academy, in Eden Park, are noble specimens of the work of the architect, McLaughlin. The government building, in which are the post office, the custom house and the United States courts, was designed by Mullet.

The terminal stations belonging to the great railroads, the hotels, theaters, apartment houses, business blocks, club houses, hospitals and other benevolent institutions, the school buildings and churches of Cincinnati are, as a rule, quite as large, elegant and tasteful in their several lines as are the corresponding structures in rival American cities.

Of numerous private residences in or near the city, it may be said without exaggeration that they are magnificent. There are scores of stately mansions in the suburbs of Cincinnati, more costly, more beautiful, and far more conveniently and richly furnished than many a prince's palace in Europe.

THE PEOPLE OF CINCINNATI; THEIR NUMBER, CHARACTERISTICS AND AMUSEMENTS.

In the foregoing pages an attempt is made to sketch the beginnings of Cincinnati; to show that her wealth was derived from three main sources--agriculture, trade and manufacture-and to present a brief summary and description of the city's present condition. It remains to write a few paragraphs concerning the people of Cincinnati, their number, character and amusements.

There is a saying that corporations have no soul; but they certainly have the passions of ambition, pride, emulation. Great cities, like powerful families, or enterprising men, are influenced by the spirit of rivalry; they strive to excel, and are humiliated by failure and defeat. One element of distinction among cities is largeness of population. Though it does not follow that the most populous city must be the most excellent, any more than that the heaviest man must be the wisest, yet there are many advantages which the accumulation of numbers can give, The more people, the more production, the more demand for public improvements, the more activity, the more accumulation of capital, the more power. At least so it is generally thought, and therefore the census returns are regarded as an index to the prosperity of states -and cities. According to the census of 1890 Cincinnati had within the limits of her corporation boundaries 296,308, and it is estimated that the number has since increased to 300,000. But this enumeration does not include that great multitude of families which, though not in the city, are of it-families residing in the suburbs, but maintained by city capital, and by the labor of fathers, sons, and often of daughters and mothers, following their vocation within the city limits. These thousands flock to their places of business every morning, coming into town by street cars and suburban trains, and returning in the evening to their suburban homes. From the Kentucky cities, Covington and Newport, and the fast growing towns of Bellevue, Dayton and Ludlow, thousands who carry on regular

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business in Cincinnati come swarming over the great bridges, or on ferry boats, and go back at night to sup and sleep. Covington has a population of nearly 35,000, and Newport has about 25,000. These cities and the other Kentucky towns adjacent to them belong commercially to the mother city, Cincinnati. If we include as properly belonging to the population of Cincinnati the people of these Kentucky cities, and of the suburban towns and villages which are directly dependent on this city, and have their business and social interests in its institutions, the whole number of inhabitants amounts to about 500,000. There is no reason why the greater part of these, the people residing in the suburbs on the Ohio side of the river, might not be taken into the city proper by annexation, as so many have been thus added to Chicago and other cities. Whatever the City Directory may show to be the actual population housed inside of the corporation lines, a true count will also prove that within the circle naturally comprising the city's unified interests and improvements half a million people now dwell. By counting these the Cincinnati statistician may claim that his city ranks in population fifth in the scale in the list of American cities. It is impossible to foretell what changes, absolute and relative, the census of 1900 may reveal in regard to centers of population; but from present prospects there is no reason to fear that Cincinnati will not continue to grow. Now that facilities for the rapid spread of population on the upland are provided, there is no limit to the available room for expansion. The whole of Hamilton county is eligible for city purposes. The rate of increase of population for the last eighty years has been regular and comparatively rapid. The population in 1810 was 750; in 1820, 9,602; in 1830, 24,831; in 1840, 46,338; in 1850, 115,438; in 1800, 161,044; in 1870, 21.6,239; in 1880, 255,139; in 1890, 296,308.

But numbers are not the only or the chief thing that makes a city great. Not bow many but what kind of men determines the character of a community. Every city in the long run finds its true mission in the world's affairs, and fulfills its destiny. Cincinnati has passed through several phases of development, and present indications seem to promise for her a high career in the skilled industries, liberal arts, and in enterprises social, intellectual and aesthetic. No longer is she called Porkopolis or the Tyre of the West, but the City of Beautiful Suburbs, the Paris of America, the Central Metropolis of Art and Music, the Social Capital of the Ohio Valley.

A majority of the original settlers of Cincinnati was from the middle States, from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. They were property-getting, steadygoing conservatives, who believed in prudential maxims, safe land-titles, and reliable neighbors. They were patriotic and moral, honoring George Washington, and the precepts of "Poor Richard's Almanac;" their religion while not so aggressive as that of the Puritans was quite as austere, and they found the Bible full of stern requisitions and uncompromising judgments. These men from the middle zone, between the Yankees of New England and the Planters of Virginia, came to the Miami Country, bought their lots, and went about their business, `' improving" the settlement, and putting money in their purses.

The shaping influences that modeled young Cincinnati came from Philadelphia. The town was laid out regularly, its streets like those of its prototype were named Walnut, Vine, Sycamore, and so on, from the sylvan catalogue. Dr. Drake, a native of New Jersey, completed his medical education in Philadelphia, and brought to the West ideas and opinions imparted by Dr. Wistar, and, like a second Franklin, he impressed many of the early institutions of Cincinnati with the stamp of his conclusions, original or acquired. Dr. Drake's "Picture of Cincinnati," published in 1815, was patterned after a little book called "Picture of Philadelphia," and the author more than once draws comparisons between the new city on the Ohio, and the old one on the Delaware.

The direct influence of the middle States was soon modified by two other pow-

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erful elements which flowed to the Ohio Valley, and to Cincinnati, from New England and from the South. The history of civilization presents no more significant chapter than that which explains the blending of different classes of people, and the interaction of ideas, in Cincinnati, from the close of the war of 1812, to the end of the Civil war. Massachusetts and Virginia were brought together, with all their respective prejudices and predilections, under new conditions, in a new town, and were held together and compounded by the moderate sentiments of Pennsylvania. Afterthe war of 1812-15, the tide of migration to the Ohio Valley was swollen by a foreign stream: the Germans began to pour in, and the Irish. One consequence of this, which gradually developed, was an inhospitable opposition to foreigners in general, and the consequent organization of the political party called the "KnowNothings." Cincinnati and Louisville were chief centers from which started the movement, the old Cincinnati Times, and Prentice's Louisville Journal being its organs. The discussions of the" Know- Nothing" campaign involved not only political questions, but points of religion and social order, which led to fundamental inquiry concerning nationality, and race, and forced debate on the nature of liberty and the primary rights of man. The final result was a larger toleration, a liberal welcoming of the foreigner, and the doing away with slavery. Whatever the nationality, color, or belief of the new-comer to Cincinnati, he is now sure of a friendly reception, and his tenure of personal freedom depends upon his good behavior as a citizen. The population of Cincinnati, like the English language, is composite, though most of the elements are naturalized, making a genuine American municipality. No other class of citizens is more loyal to the city, or more obedient to the State than the German, a class embracing more than one hundred thousand individuals, enough to form a large city. That part of the city which lies north and east of the canal is called "Over the Rhine," because it was once specially occupied by Germans who there kept up most of the customs of the "Fatherland." But now the German inhabitants are to be found in every quarter of the city-they own much property, and are distinguished for industry, frugality and public spirit. They are devoted patrons of education, and the foremost promoters of music and the fine arts. The German language is taught in the public schools, the city has several German newspapers, some book-stores, a German theatre, and innumerable German Societies. The Germans take a leading part in city politics, and represent every shade of opinion on religious subjects, some belonging to the Church of Rome, some to the Protestant Churches, some to the Jewish, and some to what is called the "Broad Church," which is no sect at all.

The Irish population of Cincinnati is important, numerically and otherwise. They are mostly Catholic. Not a few of the leading citizens are Irish; they are prominent on every public occasion, are noted for energy and wit, for bravery and enthusiasm. The"Emerald Island" is never forgotten here: nor the cause of "Home Hale;" nor St. Patrick's Day; nor the names of Burke, Goldsmith and Tom Moore. It is a glorious memory in Cincinnati that when the Union drums beat to arms in 18f31, the Irish and the German soldier, side by side with the American, marched away to the common defense of liberty, and that, among the thirty-six generals whom the Queen City gave to the army, a noble quota drew their blood from German or Irish stock.

The Hebrew element in Cincinnati is large, energetic and zealous. Many of the business establishments are owned by Jews, and much of the best residential property. Two magnificent synagogues, and several smaller temples of Hebrew worship may here be seen; the Hebrew Union College is located here; and here the American Israelite, is published. The Jews are profoundly interested in education, and the high schools and the university are largely attended by their voting people.

The several racial, national and sectional elements just noticed as entering into the make-up of the Cincinnati people, tend to unite and coordinate. The band that

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binds the sheaf together is the Anglo-Saxon element, which, of course, is numerically strongest. The city, while it is cosmopolitan in its population, is distinctly American in its ideals.

The dependence of Cincinnati upon agriculture and manufacture, determines the occupation of a large body of her people. Most are busily engaged in earning a living, or amassing a surplus. There are many property owners, and but few that are absolutely poor. Food, clothing and fuel are cheap in Cincinnati. The markets are stocked with the meats of the North and the fruits of the South.

The half-northern, half-southern character of the city, a natural result of its location and climate, is discernible in the habits and tastes of the people, in their favorite pursuits and leisurely ways. One floes not encounter, on Fourth street, the rush and noise of New York or Chicago; he sees a rather easy-going multitude, who seem to be living at home and not going on a journey. They are indeed a home loving people, given to hospitality and domestic enjoyment.

Compared with other western cities, Cincinnati is old, and has the air of an old city, with well established institutions and customs. She has a history, and traditions and local haunts fraught with dear associations. She has hereditary estates and old families who derive distinction from honored ancestors. She has great wealth, and a class of rich people who have retired from the rush of business to the repose of leisure. Society is as completely organized, and all its distinctions are as rigidly observed in Cincinnati, as in Boston, or conservative old Philadelphia.

If it were asked: "How do the people of Cincinnati employ their leisure? How do they rest and recreate themselves in a city so far inland? " The answer is, their inland situation has compelled them to invent a hundred modes of enjoyment, several of which are peculiar to the town. Perhaps it is due to the introduction of some foreign tastes and customs, derived from Germany and more southern countries of Europe, that many of the modes of recreation in vogue here, have become popular. Sunday amusements, both out of doors, and in theaters and public halls, are common.

The number and variety of summer amusements that attract crowds, in and around Cincinnati, are extraordinary. When the warm weather comes on, the Zoological garden, with its wonderful collections, its pony-tracks, its " Mr. and Mrs. Rooney," trained chimpanzees, its concerts and fireworks, is thrown open to young and old. Throngs of people go by steamboat to " Coney Island," on the Ohio, or by rail to "Woodsdale Park," on the Big Miami. Other multitudes swarm to the hill-tops, or to the Art Museum in Eden Park. Burnet Woods Park is always open to the public, and there, on stated days, concerts are given by the best bands that can be engaged. There are innumerable summer picnics and driving parties, and trips in sailboats or naphtha launches on the river. Hundreds camp out, along the Little Miami, and the Ohio, to hunt and fish. Short excursions are made to Fort Thomas, the United States Military Post, just across the river, in Kentucky, to see the soldiers parade, and to hear the music; or to Fort Ancient, the famous earthwork, some distance. up the Miami; and longer outings to High Bridge over the Kentucky river, or to the Mammoth Cave, or up the river to Blennerhassett's Island, or down to Louisville or to New Orleans. Besides all these attractive pleasures, there are swimming schools, riding schools, tennis courts, bicycle clubs, gymnasiums, field day sports, base ball games, and the exciting annual races at Chester Park, near Carthage, and at the far-famed race-track of Latonia, in Kentucky. Occasionally the citizens are treated to a great military display, or a sham battle. For a number of years the Order of the Cincinnati has provided for the public entertainment every summer, an immense spectacular show, representing on a vast scale such subjects as " The Fall of Babylon," " Rome under Nero," " The Last of the Montezumas." But most notable of all the city's enterprises designed both to amuse and elevate her

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people are the grand " Expositions," held at Music Hall, and the delightful May Musical Festivals which draw audiences from all parts of the United States.

When cold weather sets in, the craving for excitement and amusement is gratified within doors, excepting when a deep snow makes coasting possible, or a cold wave brings a coating of ice for the canal, the river and the ponds in the parks. But the absorbing pleasures of winter in the Queen City are those of the reception room, the ball and the social party. There is a constant round of banquets, dances, card parties, fashionable weddings, club-meetings, lectures, concerts and visits. "Society" controls everything. The several church organizations, with their adjunct societies for instruction and entertainment, make duty a pleasure, and utilize, for religious ends, the banquet, the bazaar, the illustrated lecture, the concert, the private theater, and even the dance. The Unity Lectures for the million are given on Sunday afternoon, as are the excellent concerts known as the " Sunday Pops," the word "Pop" being an abbreviation of the word popular. The eight theaters, which the city amply supports, attract crowds of pleasure seekers to their ever-varying performances, which are given every night of the week, and frequently at afternoon matinees.

CONCLUSION.

In concluding this sketch of Cincinnati, past and present, it is perhaps due to the reader to say that no attempt at completeness or continuity of narrative has been made, nor any endeavor to furnish a minute description of the city and its people. Only a broad outline is given; only the most significant facts and figures, and the most suggestive generalizations. Although written in full sympathy with the subject, the chapter is based upon clear evidence, amply proven, and claims to be a judicial statement rather than an advocate's special plea. If it be such, the sketch seems to justify the conclusion that Cincinnati may be proud of her past career, contented with her present prosperity, and confident of her future progress and distinction.