Cincinnatus

“ Cincinnatus is only one of a long line of public men in ancient and modern times who have served their country in the ploughfield as well as on the field of battle and in the halls of Legislation. We hear the song of the poet rising with that of the lark as he turns the sod. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So Cincinnatus departed to Rome; and when he came to the other side of the Tiber there met him first his three sons, and next many of his kinsfolk and friends, and after them a numerous company of the nobles. These all conducted him to his house, the lictors, four and twenty in number, marching before him. There was also assembled a very great concourse of the people, fearing much how the Dictator might deal with them, for they knew what manner of man he was, and that there was no limit to his power, nor any appeal from him. ”

“ Cincinnatus, when at his plow, was summoned by voices from the city. The tendency toward congregate life is witnessed by the enormous increase in the number of play-houses and in the attendance upon them. In an earlier day one stood for a time in solitary prominence and has become grandfather to a big brood. ”

“ When they had greeted each other, the messengers said, "May the Gods prosper this thing to the Roman people and to thee. Put on thy robe and hear the words of the people." Then said Cincinnatus, being not a little astonished, "Is all well?" and at the same time he called to his wife Racilia that she should bring forth his robe from the cottage. So she brought it forth, and the man wiped from him the dust and the sweat, and clad himself in his robe, and stood before the messengers. These said to him, "The people of Rome make thee Dictator, and bid thee come forthwith to the city." ”

“ It happened that Cincinnatus had four sons, who were exceedingly fine young men, with very coarse manners. One of them, named Kæso, was continually getting into street rows, or disturbing public meetings; and frequently went so far as to interfere with Virginius, a tribune, in the execution of his duty. ”

“ CINCINNATUS, the hero of one of the early Roman legends, was born about 519 B.C. According to the story, he was ruined by the fine which was imposed on his son Cæso for the murder of a plebeian during the commotions caused by the introduction of a bill by Terentilius Arsa. This measure, which proposed the creation of a code of written laws applicable to plebeian and patrician alike, was also strongly opposed by Cincinnatus himself. Cincinnatus is, in fact, the type of the ancient patrician agriculturist. ”

“ Cincinnatus, a stock character in modern comedy, 106. Civilization, progress of, an alias, 65 —rides upon a powder-cart, 79. Clergymen, their ill husbandry, 64 —their place in processions, 105 —some, cruelly banished for the soundness of their lungs, 123. Cocked-hat, advantages of being knocked into, 77. College of Cardinals, a strange one, 25. Colman, Dr. Benjamin, anecdote of, 38. Coloured folks, curious national diversion of kicking, 19. ”

“ 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 was born again,—began a new life. There is now prevalent among the rulers of the city that noblest trait of freemen, that supreme virtue of the citizen,—Public Spirit; the blessed fruits of which are already apparent, and which is about to render the city a true metropolis to the valley of the Ohio, the fostering mother of all that aids and adorns civilization.
Cincinnati, like New York, is a cluster of towns and cities, bearing various names, and situated in different States. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Towards ten o’clock in the morning we reached Cincinnati, four hundred and forty-nine miles from Pittsburgh, one hundred and thirty-one from Louisville, and fourteen hundred and eighty from New Orleans. It is situated on the right shore of the Ohio, and built at the foot of a hill, which is surrounded by a half circle of higher hills covered with forests. This city presents a very fine aspect. The hills on the opposite side likewise form a half circle, and in this manner the hill on which Cincinnati is built, lies as it were in a basin. On the left shore, the Licking river flows into the Ohio. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A volume might presently be filled with descriptions of our drives about the environs of Cincinnati. There are innumerable points of view whence the city, with its masses of building and its spires, may be seen shining through the limpid atmosphere, like a cloud-city in the evening sky. There are many spots where it is a relief to lose the river from the view, and to be shut in among the brilliant green hills, which are more than can be numbered. But there is one drive which I almost wonder the inhabitants do not take every summer day, to the Little Miami bottoms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The trade, especially the exports, formed a very large element of the business of Cincinnati. Birkbeck, writing in 1818, says, "Cincinnati is, however, a most thriving place, and backed as it is already by a great population and a most fruitful country, bids fair to be one of the first cities of the West. We are told, and we cannot doubt the fact, that the chief of what we see is the work of four years. The hundreds of commodious, well furnished brick houses; the spacious and busy markets; the substantial public buildings; the thousands of prosperous well dressed, industrious inhabitants ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ I have no statistics by me of the population and property of the colored people of Cincinnati, but I am told that their wealth exceeds that of the same class, in any other city in the American Union—that is, according to their numbers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It placed Cincinnati under martial law. It totally suspended business, and sent every citizen, without distinction, to the ranks or into the trenches. "Citizens for labor, soldiers for battle," was the principle underlying the whole plan,—a motto by which he reached every able-bodied man in the metropolis, and united the energies of forty thousand people,—a motto original with himself, and for which he should have the credit.
Imagine the astonishment that seized the city, when, in the morning, this bold proclamation was read,—a city unused to the din of war and its impediments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”