Cincinnati

“ Cincinnati is a very fine town, and elegantly (not only in the American acceptation of the word) situated on the banks of the river, nearly opposite to Licking Creek, which runs out of Kentucky, and is a stream of considerable importance. The country round the town is beautiful, and the soil rich; the fields in its immediate vicinity bear principally grass, and clover of different sorts, the fragrant smell of which perfumes the air. The town itself ranks next to Pittsburgh, of the towns on the Ohio, in point of manufactures. ”

“ The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their city as one of the most interesting in America: and with good reason: for beautiful and thriving as it is now, and containing, as it does, a population of fifty thousand souls, but two-and-fifty years have passed away since the ground on which it stands (bought at that time for a few dollars) was a wild wood, and its citizens were but a handful of dwellers in scattered log huts upon the river’s shore. ”

“ There are hundreds of these inclines—ascenseurs, finiculari, in the world—all fascinating from above or below—but I know of none so fascinating as this even among the numbers at Cincinnati—none in which the pitch is steeper, the stop so sudden—none where the streets lead direct to the heart of the city; no city so dominated, concentrated, at its heart, by its lone white skyscraper, as Cincinnati. ”

“ He had never been to Cincinnati. Indeed, except on picnic days, he had scarcely ever been outside of Dexter. But Cincinnati was the great city of his State, the one towards which adventurous youth turned its steps when real life was to be begun. ”

“ I ran up the ascent to the right, and was startled at finding myself on the top of a precipice. Far beneath me ran the Little Miami, with a narrow white pebbly strand, arrow-like trees springing over from the brink of the precipice, and the long evening shadows making the current as black as night, while the green, up to the very lips of the ravine, was of the sunniest, in the last flood of western light.
For more reasons than one I should prefer Cincinnati as a residence to any other large city of the United States. ”

“ 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 its smoke and heat when the labors of the day 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; and there are still the primeval forests, and the virgin soil, to favor the plans of the artist in "capabilities." ”

“ There is no such street in Cincinnati, and for a reason which becomes apparent during the first long walk. When the stranger has panted up the slope on which the city is built, to a point one mile from the river, he sees looming up before him an almost precipitous hill, four hundred and sixty-two feet high, which has been dug into, and pared down, until it has about as much beauty as an immense heap of gravel. ”

“ And yet, when I look at you, citizens of Cincinnati, I see no race of giants, astonishing by uncommon frame: I see men as I am wont to see all my life, and I have lived almost long enough to have seen Cincinnati a small hamlet, composed of some modest log-houses, separated by dense woods, where savage beast and savage Indian lurked about the lonely settlers, who, as the legend of Jacob Wetzel and his faithful log tells, had to wrestle for life when they left their poor abode. ”

“ Early in its career the great difficulty and expense of transporting goods across the mountains and down the winding Ohio had forced the people into manufacturing, and Cincinnati became the great workshop, as well as the exchange, of the vast and populous valley of the Ohio. Its wealth was legitimately earned. It was Cincinnati which originated and perfected the system which packs fifteen bushels of corn into a pig, and packs that pig into a barrel, and sends him over the mountains and over the ocean to feed mankind. ”

“ Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated. I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as this does: with its clean houses of red and white, its well-paved roads, and foot-ways of bright tile. ”

“ It is not surprising that the pioneer butcher of the city found time from his chopping blocks to strike the tuning-fork, for Cincinnati, even after the location there of Fort Washington, was many times on the verge of starvation, and would have starved but for the timely help of frontier hunters under the noted Colonel Wallace, who brought the meat of buffalo, bear and deer to the stricken settlement. To-day the city dines well. In truth, it is famed for its good cheer and its bohemian independence. ”

“ A few hundred settlers, and perhaps a hundred log cabins, made up a village where now stands the great city of Cincinnati. Indians and buffaloes roamed over the rich plains of the West which to-day furnish grain for Europe. Only seven of the states then had well-defined boundaries. Thousands of the marvelous inventions and discoveries which have added so much to the comfort and convenience of life had at that time no existence. ”

“ A strong head wind, meeting this surging tide, is lashing it into a white-capped fury. But lying to with paddle and oars, and dodging ferries and towing-tugs as best we may, Pilgrim bears us swiftly past the long line of steamers at the wharf, past Newport and Covington, and the insignificant Licking,A and out under great railway bridges which cobweb the sky. Soon Cincinnati, shrouded in smoke, has disappeared around the bend, and we are in the fast-thinning suburbs—homes of beer-gardens and excursion barges, havens for freight-flats, and villas of low and high degree. ”

“ I do not believe that Cincinnati is your true field for future work, and I cannot persuade myself that the city will ever become a permanent artistic centre; but I am satisfied that you will drift out of the newspaper drudgery before long, and if you have an opportunity to obtain a good footing in the East, I would take it. ”

“ Till I thoroughly understood that Cincinnati is the centre of a circle embracing the populous towns of the south, and the increasing populations of the lake countries and the western territories, with their ever-growing demand for the fruits of manufacturing industry, I could not understand the utility of the vast establishments for the production of household goods which arrest the attention of the visitor to the Queen City. ”

“ A City Founded by a Woman.
Cincinnati was built by a woman. Its founder was neither carpenter nor speculator, but in the legitimate feminine pursuit of winning hearts. Seventy years ago, Columbia, North Bend, and Cincinnati—all splendid cities on paper—were rivals, each aspiring to be the metropolis of the West. Columbia was largest, North Bend most favorably located, and Cincinnati least promising of all.
But an army officer, sent out to establish a military post for protecting frontier settlers against Indians, was searching for a site. ”

“ We might wonder whether a town with a name like that would ever grow into a great city. It did not have to try, for it was not long before General St. Clair, who had come there, made fun of the name and insisted upon a new one. He and other officers of the American army had formed a society commemorating their experience in the Revolution, and in honor of the Roman patriot Cincinnatus had called themselves the Order of Cincinnati. St. Clair thought this a good name for the town, and Cincinnati it has been since that time. ”

“ Since then the growth of Cincinnati has been in keeping with the development of the nation. It does not hope, as Harriet Martineau [79] suggested during her visit here, ever to become the home of the country's capital, but it rejoices in being the great city nearest the American centre of population. Its library of a quarter of a million volumes and its Historical Society cherish the splendid stories of its past and the accumulating data of its current achievements. Its artists and citizens delight in dignifying that record in bronze and marble in the environing parks and city squares. ”

“ Before long, however, the steamboat revolutionized river travel, and thenceforth Cincinnati leaped by bounds from a village to a great city, and every recurrent trip of these harbingers of vast commerce seemed to find a new suburb springing into bustling life on the Cincinnati uplands. ”

“ Cincinnati is handsomely situated on a first and second bank of the Ohio, opposite Licking river. It is a flourishing town, has a rich, level, and well settled country around it. It contains about four hundred dwellings, an elegant court house, jail, three market houses, a land office for the sale of Congress lands, two printing offices, issuing weekly Gazettes, thirty mercantile stores, and the various branches of mechanism are carried on with spirit. Industry of every kind being duly encouraged by the citizens, Cincinnati is likely to become a considerable manufacturing place. ”

“ Cincinnati is the most healthy large city in the United States. The streets are wide; and the terraces afford fine situations for houses. The furnishing of the dwellings is as magnificent as the owners may choose to make it; for commerce with the whole world is carried on from their port. ”

“ Cincinnati even then laid claim to the title of Queen City of the West, and seemed to me to deserve it. It had already over two hundred thousand inhabitants. It occupied as fine a natural site as could well be found, rising gradually from the river to the hills that picturesquely enclosed it like an amphitheatre. It was regularly laid out in streets running parallel with and at right angles to the river. The streets adjoining the Ohio were solidly built up with business edifices, and those farther away with private residences. ”

“ While growing into greatness, Cincinnati did not forget, in the critical times of the Civil War, its honorable history as the former outpost of the Republic. Its trade was largely with the South, but sternly its citizens decided that arguments in favor of trade interests smacked of treason, and with stoic heroism closed the city to rebellion. And when Lew Wallace, fortifying Cincinnati to anticipate attack, called for volunteers, the whole community responded, and from the Ohio valleys came the sharp-shooting "squirrel hunters" in procession seemingly endless to defend the city. ”

“ Cincinnati is built on a bend of the Ohio river, which takes here a semicircular form, and runs nearly west; it afterwards flows in a more southerly direction. A complete chain of hills, sweeping from one point of the bend round to the other, encloses the city in a sort of amphitheatre. The houses are mostly brick, and the streets all paved. There are several spacious and handsome market houses, which on market days are stocked with all kinds of provisions—indeed I think the market of Cincinnati is very nearly the best supplied in the United States. ”

“ In a place like Cincinnati, where every man may gratify his virtuous will, and do, with his own hands, the deeds of a generation, feelings should be as grand as the occasion. If the merchants of Genoa were princes, the citizens of Cincinnati, as of every first city of a new region, are princes and prophets at once. ”

“ Cincinnati is distinctly American. In Cincinnati proper the proportion of foreign born to native born is smaller than for any other large American city. Practically 80 per cent. of the population is native born. Cincinnati is also the only large American city in which the percentage of foreign born has tended to decrease. It is a city of beautiful homes and stately buildings. ”

“ Industries.—Although the second city in population in the state, Cincinnati ranked first in 1900 as a manufacturing centre, but lost this pre-eminence to Cleveland in 1905, when the value of Cincinnati’s factory product was $166,059,050, an increase of 17.2% over the figures for 1900. ”

“ Clean hearts abound in Cincinnati, but not clean hands. The smoke deposits upon all surfaces a fine soot, especially upon men's woollen clothes, so that a man cannot touch his own coat without blackening his fingers. The stranger, for a day or two, keeps up a continual washing of his hands, but he soon sees the folly of it, and abandons them to their fate. A letter written at Cincinnati on a damp day, when the Stygian pall lies low upon the town, carries with it the odor of bituminous smoke to cheer the homesick son of Ohio at Calcutta or Canton. ”

“ The moral aspect of Cincinnati is delightful in the eyes of him who prefers work to every thing else, and with whom work can take the place of every thing else. But [Pg 206] whoever has a taste for pleasure and display, whoever needs occasional relaxation from business, in gaiety and amusement, would find this beautiful city, with its picturesque environs, an insupportable residence. It would be still more so for a man of leisure, desirous of devoting a large part of his time to the cultivation of the fine arts and the rest to pleasure. ”

“ There are seven mayors about Cincinnati for the reasons following. On the southern bank of the Ohio, opposite the city, many large manufactories have found convenient sites, and thus the city of Covington has grown up, divided into two towns by the river Licking. ”

“ Long before the reign of merchant princes began, stately churches, colleges, and commodious dwellings had arisen, and replaced the hut of the early settlers, so that Cincinnati, with the exception of Philadelphia, is become the most regular and beautiful city of the Union. The scene of the accumulation of large fortunes, cultivation has followed in their train, so that it is difficult for one who first visits it from the east to realize that he is seven hundred miles from the seaboard. ”