Select County Adams Allen Ashland Ashtubula Athens Auglaize Belmont Brown Butler Carroll Champaign Clark Clermont Clinton Columbiana Conshocton Crawford Cuyahoga Darke Defiance Delaware Erie Fairfield Fayette Franklin Fulton Gallia Geauga Greene Guernsey Hamilton Hancock Hardin Harrison Henry Highland Hocking Holmes Huron Jackson Jefferson Knox Lake Lawrence Licking Logan Lorain Lucas Madison Mahoning Marion Medina Meigs Mercer Miami Monroe Montgomery Morgan Morrow Muskingum Noble Ottawa Paulding Perry Pickaway Pike Portage Preble Putnam Richland Ross Sandusky Scioto Seneca Shelby Stark Summit Trumbull Tuscarawas Union VanWert Vinton Warren Washington Wayne Wood

 

HAMILTON COUNTY—Continued

 

Page 817

 

broader. He was then seventy-six years of age; Mr. CLAY several years younger. The Judge was a thorough gentleman of the old school, of Scot descent his complexion very dark, swarthy; eyes black, and general expression forbidding, and manner reserved and dignified. He walked with a cane, his hair in a queue, and we think he wore a ruffled shirt. His residence at this time was in a large old—style mansion, square in shape, with a broad hall running through the centre, on Seventh street, corner Elm, Cincinnati, of which city he was its first citizen.

 

This eminent man was the son of Dr. William BURNET, surgeon-general of the Revolutionary army, and a member of the Continental Congress; was born at Newark, N.J., in 1770 was educated Princeton, and in 1796, when twenty-six years of age, came to Cincinnati to practise law, then a village of a few log-cabins and 150 inhabitants. The entire territory, now comprising five States and ten millions of people, was mostly wilderness, containing scarcely the semblance of a road, bridge, or ferry. This territory was divided into four counties—Washington, Hamilton, St. Clair, and Knox. The seats of justice were respectively at Marietta, Cincinnati, Kaskaskia and Vincennes, in each of which Courts of Common Pleas and General Quarter Sessions of the Peace were established. From 1796 to 1803 the Bar of Hamilton county occasionally attended the General Court at Marietta and Detroit, and during the whole of that time Mr. ST CLAIR (son of the General), Judge SYMMES, and Judge BURNET never missed a term in either of those counties. These journeys were made with five or six in company and with pack-horses. They were sometimes eight or ten days in the wilderness, “and at all seasons of the year were compelled to swim every water-course in their way which was too deep to be forded.” They had some hair-breadth escapes.  One night their horses refused to go any farther, and they were obliged to camp; the next morning they found they had halted on the verge of a precipice.

 

In 1799 Judge BURNET was selected by the President of time United States as a member of the Legislative Council of the Territorial Government, of which he was the leading mind.

 

“Thus,’’ said the late Judge ESTE, “in less than four years he was at the head of the bar of the West, the popular, intelligent and official leader of the Legislature. Almost an entirely new system of laws was undertaken, and the labor devolved on him. He cheerfully engaged in it and was so clearly convinced of the necessity of giving himself up to the business of legislating for the Territory that he would not listen to the friends who urged him to be a delegate to Congress. Thus early and permanently did his mind make its impress upon the legislative history of the country.” Judge BURNET was the author of the first constitution of Ohio. From 1812 to 1816 was a member of the State Legislature. In 1831he was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, serving until 1828, when he resigned to accept the position of United States Senator, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of General HARRISON. As a senator he was the intimate personal and political friend of WEBSTER. From the notes taken by Senator BURNET in the celebrated discussion between HAYNE and WEBSTER the latter in part framed the reply which stamped WEBSTER as the matchless orator of our country.

 

He was a life-long friend of General HARRISON, and as a delegate to the Harrisburg Convention secured his nomination for President. He influenced Congress to relieve the settlers of the West and Southwest from much of the indebtedness for their lands, which otherwise would have involved the great mass in irretrievable ruin. Mr. BURNET possessed great public spirit and was eminent for solid integrity and acuteness of intellect. MANSFIELD says such was the construction of his mind that, “it was impossible for BURNET not to have been a partisan.” His likes and dislikes were held with great tenacity. When Aaron BURR was in Cincinnati he was peremptorily refused an interview by Judge BURNET, who sent him word that he would never shake hands with the murderer of his own and his father’s friend.

 

Originally a Federalist, he became a strong Whig, and in the United States Senate came up to the level of its great leaders, WEBSTER and CLAY. He died in 1853; a firm believer inspiration of the Bible, a Presbyterian in faith but far removed from, sectarian bigotry.

 

NICHOLAS LONGWORTH was born in Newark, N. J in 1782 was for a time a clerk in his brother’s store in South Carolina, came to Cincinnati in 1803 and died in 1863, leaving an estate of many millions from early in-vestment in Cincinnati land. He studied law and practised for a while, and in 1828 began the cultivation of the Catawba grape, and from it manufactured wine of a high marketable value, he had 200 acres of vineyards, a large wine-house, and was favor-ably known by his experiments on the strawberry. The Catawba grape was cultivated with great success for a number of years, producing about 500 gallons of wine per annum; then it gradually failed. It is thought that the clearing of the forest has changed the climate of Southern Ohio, which is now afflicted with what is regarded as destructive to the grape culture this is heavy fogs, wet atmosphere changes from warm to cold without wind—a condition from which the islands and shore of Lake Erie are free, and where the grape culture is so successful.

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tage mansion, in the centre of a three or four-acre lot, at the east end of Fourth street, originally built by Martin BAUM, now the residence of David SINTON. Forty years ago the spot was known as LONGWORTH’S Garden, and was one of the chief attractions of the city from its display of flowers and fruits, notably grapes. “He was very shrewd, quick witted; with great common sense and acquisitiveness. He had little dignity or learning, but had a quiet good humor and a readiness at repartee which made him very popular.’’ He was a friend to artists and kindly to the poor, and very eccentric. He was short in person and careless in his dress. As was often his wont, he had shown a stranger through his grounds, when the latter, mistaking this man of mil-lions for a serving man, on leaving him at the gate dropped a dime in his hand, which Mr. LONGWORTH accepted with thanks and put in his pocket. Every Monday for a term of years he had at his house a free gift distribution to the poor. At the appointed hour strings of old ladies, German and Irish, would be seen, flocking there with baskets to receive at their option a load of bread or a peck of corn meal for a dime. When he started out in the morning to make calls upon his numerous tenants or otherwise, he would have the business of each call written on a separate slip of paper and pinned on his coat-sleeve. These would be pinned on in the order of calls and torn off in rotation. He had continuous appeals for charity, and he was wont to say in certain cases, “Ha! A poor widow is she? Got a struggling family of little ones? I won’t give her a cent. She is the Lord’s poor—plenty to help such. I will help the devil’s poor, the miserable drunken dog that nobody else will do anything for but despise and kick.” And he did. He used to talk of himself in the second person, as once we heard him say, “There’s LONGWORTH; it takes him $30,000 to pay his taxes, and it keeps him poor to raise the money.” This was true; he owned much earth, but had little cash. His son Joseph and grandson Nicholas were noted as patrons of art, as his granddaughter, Mrs. Maria LONGWORTH STORER. The entire family is unusually popular from its beneficence and public spirit, especially in the fostering the things of beauty that give to life it efflorescence and fragrance.

The first banker west of the Alleghenies, a successful merchant and most enterprising citizen, was JOHN H. PIATT. He did so much

 

NICHOLAS LONGWORTH JOHN H. PIATT.

 

 

for Cincinnati in developing its resources that President William H. HARRISON, in his last speech at home before going to his inauguration, gave most of it to an eulogy of Mr. PIATT, saying among other things that a statue should be erected on the river landing to the memory of the man who had done so much for the city. That he has no monument and now scarcely a memory, that the one street named for him had its name changed, does not speak well for Cincinnati.

 

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1817 the first bank west of the mountains. One of the bills of this hank is in the hands of Mr. George H. SCHOENBERGER, and greatly prized by him. His prosperity and success were unequaled—evidenced by the possession of a large estate and a commanding position as a banker and a merchant. His name had gone out over the Northwest Territory; he knew its leading men and was familiar with its resources when the war of 1812 came on.

 

“In an evil hour for Mr. PIATT he contracted with the government to furnish provisions to the Northwest army, then under HARRISON. Congress adjourned without making appropriations for a continuance of the war. The consequences to the country at large were disastrous, to John H. PIATT fatal. Rations that he agreed to furnish at twenty cents rose through a depreciated currency to forty-five cents. After six months he had drawn on the government for $210,000, the drafts for which had gone to protest for non-payment.

 

“During this time about $46,000 had come into Mr. PIATT’S hands as a commissariat fund, resulting from the sales as commissary of the army. He applied this sum to the payment of debts incurred for surplus. This was treated by the department as a violation of law. This was the state of his offering. This condition obtained on the 26th of December, 1814, when Gen. McARTHUR made a requisition on him for 800,000 rations to be delivered in thirty days which at existing rates would have cost $360,000 more.

 

“Unable to meet this requisition and unwilling that the public should suffer PIATT immediately repaired to Washington to lay the matter before the Department, accompanied by the Hon. Justice MC LEAN, then his representative in Congress. They found the war minister of the United States sitting in the ashes of the burned capital, in an agony of despair over a bleeding country and an empty treasury.

 

‘‘The Secretary appealed to Mr. PIATT’S patriotism for help, and save him verbal assurances, that if he could furnish the supplies called for he should be remunerated and allowed the market price for the rations regardless of the original contract.

 

Upon these assurances John H. PIATT returned home, and put his entire fortune and credit in the service of his country.

 

When the final settlement came the government refused to allow him the difference between the first contract price of rations and the market value of supplies purchased under the assurances of Secretary MONROE.

 

We have not the space to follow in detail the heart-breaking struggle of this great patriot for justice at the bands of a government he had so nobly served. For years he haunted in vain the ante-chamber of a department that had once only been too glad to welcome him.

 

Once thrown into prison by the department for his technical violation of law, he was released only to have his creditors imprison him again.

 

“At last, heart-broken and bankrupt, he died a prisoner, without enough money to give him a decent burial.

 

“Sixty years after the Supreme Court of the United States adjudicated the claim and allowed the principal. But to this day the government has not paid the interest.”

The PIATTS are all descended from John PIATT, a French Huguenot, who settled in New Jersey about 1740. Four of his five sons were soldiers of the American revolution. One, Captain William PIATT, was killed at ST. CLAIR’S defeat; two others emigrated with Judge SYMMES to North Bend. The family were numerous and of high intellectual reputation

 

JACOB WYKOFF PIATT—This noted citizen of Cincinnati was born in Kentucky in 1801. Brought to Cincinnati when quite young, he grew to man’s estate in the home of his father, Benjamin N. PIATT, elder brother of the more famous John H. PIATT.

 

Jacob WYKOFF became a successful lawyer, and accumulated quite a fortune in his practice, and successful operations in real estate.

 

The one event in his life was his success in establishing a paid fire department that is now known in every city of the civilized world. The old volunteer fire system, once the pride of the citizens, had fallen into disrepute.

 

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municipality that possessed a fire department. Mr. PIATT returned to the city council at a time when the most reputable citizens considered it an honor to be a councilman, opened war on the volunteers, by introducing an ordinance providing for the se1ection of, and paying the firemen for their services.

 

There was scarcely a member of council that did not privately admit the necessity for such a reform, and yet when the vote was taken, in a chamber crowded by roughs, whose noisy demonstrations left no doubt as to their opposition, but one man was found brave enough to vote with Mr. PIATT in favor of this measure. This gentleman was Judge Timothy WALKER, the well-known author and jurist.

 

Nothing daunted Mr. PIATT continued his efforts. At every assembly of a new council, his ordinance was offered to be again voted down. But the minority grew slowly in spite of the brutal opposition. Mr. PIATT was wont to defy the crowd in the debate that preceded defeat, and the feeling got so intense, that it was dangerous for the bold reformer to go to and from the chamber. As it was a volunteer guard of Irish constituents accompanied representative. One night after a heated debate a mob assembled in front of Mr. PIATT’S residence and amid groans, hisses, howls and yells, he was burned in effigy.

 

This contest continued for years. A happy event, however, came to end it. This was the invention and building of the Latta fire-engine. After being tested by a commission of experts, the engine was accepted. What to do with it was the question. Turn it over to the volunteers was to insure its immediate destruction. It was resolved, at length, to organize a paid company to use and protect the machine. A committee was appointed having on it Messrs. PIATT, WALKER, KESSLER and LODER to organize a company. To the amusement of his associates Mr. PIATT nominated Miles GREENWOOD as the captain of the new company. Judge WALER remonstrated. It was, he said, putting the new engine in the hands of the enemy, for Miles GREENWOOD was the pet of the volunteers, and had been loud in his denunciation of what he called the degradation of the paid system. Mr. PIATT persisted and asserted that GREENWOOD was the only man in the city who would make the new machine a success.

 

“Well try him,” was the response, “he won’t accept.”

 

GREENWOOD was sent for. He was startled at the offer but immediately accepted, provided that he could select the men.

 

“The machine will be attacked at the first fire, and I want to know whom I am to rely on.’’

 

The first alarm of fire that brought out the new engine proved the correctness of GREENWOOD’S prophecy. The fire was a serious one on Sycamore street above Fourth. The general alarm brought all the engines to the fire and among the rest the new steam machine. Drawn by huge horses at a gallop, driven by Miles himself, a noble figure in his brass helmet, red shirt and speaking trumpet swung to his side. The impression made on the swiftly gathering crowd was impressive. Miles had about him the newly made firemen in their splendid uniforms. He had in addition all the men of his great foundry and workshops; and hurrying to the front of his first and only fight came Jacob Wykoff PIATT, followed by two hundred and fifty bold Irish-men from the old Thirteenth.

 

The volunteers were prompt to a redemption of their word. They attacked the new fire company. The fight was fierce, bloody and brief Miles GREENWOOD led the van. His tall figure, bright helmet and trumpet-toned voice, made him a leader to follow and a man to fear. The engagement lasted about thirty minutes. A few bloody heads, and damaged countenances, and the tumult ended in the volunteer companies striving to put the steam “squirt,” as they called the new engine, omit of public favor, through their own superior management and work.

 

It was all in vain. The new device won, and in less than a month all the fire companies were clamoring for the new invention, organization and pay.

 

We write with unusual gratification the name of MILES GREENWOOD, who died in 1885. He was one of the strongest, most useful public-spirited men in the annals of Ohio. He was of a large, strong physique, a great worker, labored incessantly in his own business and in many public enterprises. He was of Massachusetts stock, but was born in Jersey City, March 19, 1807; mingling in his veins were English, Huguenot French and German blood. In 1831 with ten hands he started iron founding in this city and eventually had an immense establishment.

 

In 1861 he turned it into a United States Arsenal for the manufacture of implements of war. Upward of 700 hands were employed, and among the goods turned out were over 200 bronze cannon, the first ever made in the West, hundreds of caissons and gun carriages, also a sea-going monitor; and forty thousand Springfield muskets were turned into rifles and supplied with percussion locks——a very effective weapon with tremendous “kicking qualities,’’ so the soldiers who used it laughingly said.

 

To Mr. GREENWOOD the Cincinnati Fire Department was greatly indebted for its efficient organization.

 

Having been a leading spirit in time old volunteer fire department, he was induced by Jacob Wykoff PIATT to assume the leadership of the paid steam fire department. Once enlisted in behalf of the paid system, he quickly perceived the possibilities of vastly increased efficiency, and with iron will and never shrinking bravery determinedly fought and overcame all opposition. At one time the City Council failed to appropriate money to pay the men, and during this time Mr. GREENWOOD advanced for this purpose $15,000, to keep the men together by paying them regularly.

 

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He had no time to attend to his own business, but paid a man $1,500 to attend to it for him. Of this sum the city subsequently reimbursed him $1, 000, which he at once paid into the funds of the Mechanics’ Institute. Eventually every difficulty was overcome, and to-day such a thing as a volunteer fire department is unknown in any city of the first class in Europe or America.

 

The first steam fire-engine ever built that was used at a fire was constructed at GREENWOOD’S establishment by Messrs. SHAWK & LATTA, and was first used on a Sunday morning in May, 1852. It was named the Uncle Joe Ross. It initiated a moral reform, as under the old system the engine houses had been the nurseries where the youth of the city were trained in vice, vulgarity and debauchery.

 

DR. DANIEL DRAKE was born in Plainfield, N. J., in 1785, and died in Cincinnati in l852. He was a man of genius and did more to advance the intellectual life of Cincinnati than any one who had lived there. His family emigrated to Mayslick, Ky., where they dwelt in a log-cabin. When a lad of 16, he came to Cincinnati to study medicine, and then finished his course at the University of Pennsylvania. He was at one time a medical Professor in the Transylvania University of Kentucky, and at another in that of the University of Louisville. In 1835 he organized the medical department of the Cincinnati College. In this city was past most of his life. An eloquent summary of the qualities of this distinguished man was given by Dr. COMEGYS before a medical convention in Cincinnati, wherein he said in conclusion:

 

“Nothing seemed to escape him for the adornment of the city and the comfort of the people. The line of elm trees on the south side of Washington Park were planted under his own direction over sixty years ago.

 

“He was a voluminous writer on professional and general topics, but the work with which he crowned his life’s labor was his ‘Systematic Treatise on the Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America,’ to which he devoted more than twenty years of travel throughout the vast Mississippi Valley. It was, so to speak, dug out of the very elements of the continent and society of America. It is a great work of absolutely original research in medical topography, and will always remain a monument to his fame that has no parallel in the science and literature of medicine.

 

Though DRAKE has long been dead, yet all of his great undertakings remain and are flourishing. The Cincinnati College is the large Law School of the Ohio Valley; the Medical College of Ohio, now a Medical Department of the University of Cincinnati was never so prosperous; the Clinical and Pathological School of the Hospital is attended by four hundred students. It has a large and growing library and museum, and is now undertaking to establish a pathological laboratory for original research. The beautiful elm trees are now as verdant as ever.

 

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animated his mind; for he was possessed of that gift of genius which sees beyond all the apparent disparity of phenomena; that severe unity, after which all true philosophy is continually aspiring.

 

“To him the universe was not a summation of material phenomena conveying sensuous impressions merely, but a revelation. His was a reverent and devout soul. He felt like Von Barden, who declared that ‘he who seeks in nature nature only and not reason: he who seeks in reason reason only and not God; he who seeks God out of and apart from reason, or reason out of and apart from God, will find neither nature nor reason nor God, but will assuredly lose them all.’

 

“All the institutions he planted exhibit his great powers of mind and will always pre-serve his memory fresh and venerated in the great Western Valley. In the medical firmament bending over the world, reaching from the past and stretching indefinitely away, amidst all the glittering galaxy and burning orbs that represent the immortal dead, the orb of DRAKE will shine as a star of light forevermore

 

BENJAMIN DRAKE, a brother of the above, who died in 1841, was the author of several works of value on Cincinnati, Lives of Tecumseh, Gen. HARRISON, etc. Another brother, CHARLES, born in Cincinnati in 1811, represented Missouri in 1867 in the U. S. Senate, and later became Chief Justice of the Court of Claims in Washington.’’

 

EARLY INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN CINCINNATI.

 

As mentioned, no one so stimulated the intellectual life of Cincinnati as Dr. DRAKE. A great factor was his SOCIAL and LITERARY REUNIONS. And what a galaxy of characters he brought together under his roof! Mr. MANSFIED, in his “Personal Memories,” has described them, and also “THE COLLEGE OF TEACHERS,” from which we quote in an abridged form:

 

In1883 my friend and relative, Dr. Daniel DRAKE, instituted a social and literary reunion at his house, which possessed all the charms of information, wit, and kindness. They were really formed for his daughters, then just growing into womanhood. They were small enough to meet in his parlor and conversational, thus avoiding the rigidity of a mere literary party. We met at halt-past seven, when the Doctor called attention by ringing a little bell, which brought them to the topic of the evening, which might be one appointed beforehand and sometimes then selected. Some evenings essays were read; on others nothing. Occasionally a piece of poetry or a story came in to relieve the conversation. These, however, were interludes rather than parts of the general plan, whose main object was the discussion of interesting questions belonging to society, literature, and religion.

 

The subjects discussed were always of a suggestive and problematical kind; so that the ideas were fresh, the debates animated, and the utterance of opinion frank and spontaneous. There, in that little circle of ladies, I have heard many of the questions which have since occupied the public mind, talked over with an ability and fulness of information which is seldom possessed by larger and more authoritative bodies. These were persons of such minds whose influence spreads over a whole country. They were of such character and talent as seldom meet in one place, and who, going out into the world, have signalized their names in the annals of letters, science, and benevolence.

 

Dr. DANIEL DRAKE was himself the head of the circle and a man of great genius, whose suggestive mind furnished topics for others, and was ever ready to revive a flagging conversation. He studied medicine with Dr. GOFORTH, the pioneer physician of Cincinnati, and for thirty years a leader in medical science and education.

 

Gen EDWARD KING, another member, was, in spirit, manners, and education, a superior man. He was a son of the eminent statesman and senator from Massachusetts, Rufus KING, and father of Rufus KING, to-day eminent lawyer of Cincinnati, and author of “Ohio,’’ in the American Commonwealth series of State Histories. Gen. KING married Sarah, a daughter of Gov. WORTHINGTON, at Chillicothe, practised law, became speaker of the Ohio legislature and, in 1831, removed to Cincinnati. He was both witty and entertaining. He died in 1836 His wife, later known as Mrs. SARAH PETER (having eight years later married Mr. PETER, the British Consul at Philadelphia), was a most instructive member of the circle. Mr. PETER died in 1853, and then again, until her decease, Cincinnati was her home.

 

Her life has recently been published by Robert Clarke & Co., and illustrates the truth of the statement made by Mr. MANSFIED, viz., that “The activity, energy, and benevolence of her mind accomplished in the next forty years probably more of real work for the benefit of society than any one person, and that work has made her widely known at home and abroad.” Not any Ohio-born woman has probably done so much.

 

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women, and engaged a teacher to conduct it. From this germ sprang the Philadelphia School of Design, which now has over 200 pupils, and an institution of great utility. She also founded an institution there for the protection of poor sewing women.

 

Her accounts of her several journeys to Europe and the Holy Land are among the best books of travel. When in Europe, Mrs. PETER urged the art-loving people of Cincinnati to secure good copies of painting and sculpture. In this and other regards she made a broad mark upon its art-history.

 

“It was in 1852, while visiting Jerusalem that Mrs. PETER found herself tending toward the Roman Catholic Church, and she was soon in full communion with it. She was one of the most active and powerful members it has ever had in America. Her devotion to the sisterhoods and the hospitals was untiring and most generous. She was one of the good angels of the sick and wounded soldiers during the civil war. Her passion for charity was so great that she lived herself a simple convent life. She went to the battle-field of Shiloh with a relief-boat, and her ministrations continued until the war ended.

 

This good woman, of so many noble achievements and of such commanding influence, passed to her rest February 6, 1877.”

 

Another member of our circle was Judge James HALL, then editor of the Western Monthly Magazine, whose name is known both in Europe and America. He also, in the long time that elapsed before his death, accomplished much and good work as a writer, citizen and man of business. The Western Monthly Magazine, which he then edited, was an excellent periodical, to which many of the literary young men of Cincinnati contributed. Judge HALL left the magazine to become cashier and president, of the Commercial Bank, a much more profitable business. In the meanwhile he published several stories, novels, and essays on the West, which made him widely known, and deserves the success they receive, by their very pleasant style and pictures of Western life.

 

Professor Calvin E. STOWE, then a comparatively young man, was also present, and contributed his share to the conversation; he is the best Biblical scholar I ever knew. His first wife, a New England lady, quite hand-some and interesting, also attended the reunions. His present wife, then Miss Harriet BEECHER, was just beginning to be known for her literary abilities. Two or three years after this time, I published in the Cincinnati Chronicle what I believe was her first printed story. I had heard her read at Miss PIERCE’S school, in Litchfield, Conn., her first public composition. It surprised every one so much that it was attributed to her father, but in fact was only the first exhibition of her remarkable talents. In the reunion I speak of she was not distinguished for conversation, but when she did speak, showed something of the peculiar strength and humor of her mind.

 

Her first little story, published in the Chronicle immediately attracted attention, and her writings have always been popular. Notwithstanding, the world-wide renown of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” her real genius and characteristics were as much exhibited in her short stories as in her larger books. Her Sister, Miss Catharine BEECHER, was a far more easy and fluent conversationalist. Indeed, few people had more talent to entertain a company, or keep the ball of conversation going than Miss BEECHER, and she was as willing as able for the task.

 

Conspicuous in our circle, and manners, both in person and manners, was Mrs. Caroline Lee HENTZ, whom none saw without admiring. She was what the world called charming; and though since better known as an authoress was personally quite remarkable.

 

I have thus mentioned, out of a sit all circle gathered in a parlor, names which I’ve have been renowned both in Europe and America, and whose public reputation has contributed to the fame of our country. I have dwelt more particularly on these meeting to illustrate what I think I’ve seen in other eases, and to which people in general seldom give due weight. I mean the influence of social sympathy in forming and developing individual minds.

 

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At that time public education was just be-ginning, and almost all in the Ohio educational system was created and developed after that period. To do this was the object in view, and, accordingly, a large array of distinguished persons took part in these proceedings. I doubt whether in any one association to promote the cause of education there was ever in an equal space of time concentrated in this country a larger measure of talent, information, and zeal.

 

Among those who either spoke or wrote for it were Albert PICKETT, the president, and for half a century an able teacher; Dr. Daniel DRAKE, the Hon. Thos. Smith GRIMKE, the Rev. Joshua L. WILSON, Alexander KINMONT, and James H. PERKINS, Professor STOWE, Dr. BEECHER, Dr. Alexander CAMPBELL, Bishop PURCELL. President Mc GUFFEY, Dr. AYDELOTTE, H. D. MANSFIELD, Mrs. Lydia SIGOURNEY, and Mrs. Caroline Lee HENTZ.

LYMAN BEECHER HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

 

The BEECHERS lived in Cincinnati (Walnut hills), from 1832 to 1852, twenty years, and were so closely connected with the anti-slavery and educational history of this region as to require a further notice than that given by Dr. MANSFIELD, Dr. Lyman BEECHER, the head of this remarkable family, was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1775, the son of a blacksmith and the direct descendant of the Widow BEECHER, who followed the profession of midwife to the first settlers there about 1638. Lyman was educated at Yale, but as we heard in our youth could not “speak his piece” on graduating day from the inability of his father to supply him with a suit of new clothes in which to appear. He studied theology under the famous Timothy DWIGHT, and was settled as an Orthodox Congregation minister successively over churches at East Hampton, Long Island; Litchfield, Conn.; and Hanover Street Church, Boston. To fight evil in whatever form he saw it and help on the good was the love of his life. Old men who remember him in his prime pronounce him the most eloquent, powerful preacher they ever heard, surpassing in his greatest flights of oratory his highly gifted son Henry WARD.

 

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many languages and had a large scale even after the lapse of fifty years. The rapid and extensive defection of the Congregation Churches under the lead of Dr. CHANNING was the occasion of his being called to Boston to uphold the doctrines of Puritanism; which he did with such great power as to soon be regarded as “unequalled among living divines for dialectic keenness eloquence of appeal, sparkling wit, vigor of thought and concentrated power of expression. His personal magnetism was intense and his will unconquerable.”

 

MANSFIELD in his Personal Memories writes that Dr. BEECHER spells of eloquence seem to come on by fits. One hot day in summer and in the afternoon, says he I was in church and he was going on in a sensible but rather prose half sermon way, when all at once he began to recollect, that we had just heard of the death of Lord Byron. He was an admirer of Byron’s poetry, as all who admire genius. He raised his spectacles and began with an account of Byron, his genius, wonderful gifts, and then went on to his want of virtue and want of true religion and finally described a lost soul and the spirit of Byron going off and wandering in the blackness of darkness forever! It struck me as with an electric shock.

 

The Lane Theological Seminary having been established at Walnut Hills and the growing importance of the great West having filled the thought of the religious public at the East, a large sum of money was pledged to its support, on the condition of Dr. BEECHER accepting the presidency, which he did in 1832. Then to eke out his salary for ten years he officiated as pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, in Cincinnati. One of his first acts here was to startle the Eastern orthodoxy by a tract upon the Roman Catholic supremacy at the West.

 

Soon after, in consequence of a tract issued by the abolition convention, at Philadelphia, the evils of slavery were discussed by the students. Many of them were from the South; an effort was made to stop the discussions and the meetings. Slave-holders went over from Kentucky and incited mob violence in Cincinnati, and at one time it seemed as though the rabble might destroy the seminary, and the houses of the professors. In the absence of Dr. BEECHER, a little after, the board of trustees were frightened into obeying the demands of the mob by forbidding all discussion of slavery; whereupon the students withdrew en masse. A few returned, while the seceders laid the foundations of Oberlin College.’’

 

Dr. BEECHER in person was short, and substantially built, his complexion was florid and he had such a genial, fatherly expression and withal was so very odd one could not but smile on meeting him. He was proverbially absent-minded, cared nothing for the little conventionalities of life; as likely as anything else when out taking tea with a parishioner to thrust his tea-spoon into the general preserve dish and eat direct therefrom; evidently unconscious of his breach of manners. Like many nor so great, he never could remember where he put his hat. Topics of vital welfare to humanity seemed to fill his mind to the exclusion of thought himself, or to what people thought of him, or where he had last put his hat. In 1846 we made his acquaintance and walking with him on Fourth street one day he described the situation at the time of the mobbing of the Philanthropist The seminary was some three miles distant and over a road most of the way up-hill, ankle-deep in clayey, sticky mud, through which the mob to get there must of necessity flounder, even without being filled as they would undoubtedly have been with Old Bourbon. The mud was really what probably saved the theologian. “I told the boys,’’ said he, “that they had the right of self-defense, that they could arm themselves and if the mob came they could shoot,’’ and then looking in my face and whispering with an air that was irresistibly comical, he added, ‘‘but I told them not to kill ‘em, aim low, hit ‘em in the legs! hit ‘em in the legs!

 

Those who knew the road to Walnut hills in those days will remember it was largely a mere shelf cut out of the mud of the side hills whereupon omnibuses and single vehicles were often upset. The old divine coming down one night after dark was crowded off by some careless teamsters, and went rolling down the precipice perhaps some thirty feet, and so badly hurt he could not preach for three weeks. The stupid teamsters, attracted by his cries for help, came to the verge and peering down in the darkness hollowed, “How can we get there?” “Easy enough,” he answered, “come down as I did!’’

 

On one occasion a young minister was lamenting the dreadful increasing wickedness of mankind. “I don’t know anything about that, young man” Replied he in his whispering tones. “I’ve not had anything to do with running the world the last twenty-five years. God Almighty now has it in charge.”

 

This good man was wont, after preaching a powerful sermon, to relax his mind from his highly wrought state of nervous excitement, sometimes by going down into his cellar and shoveling sand from one spot to an-other; sometimes by taking his “fiddle,” playing “Auld Lang Sync,’’ and dancing a double shuffle in his parlor. His very eccentricities only the more endeared him to the public. He was great every way. On a platform of a hundred divines, his was the intellect that all felt was their master. No American, except Benjamin Franklin, has given utterance to so many pungent, wise sentences as Lyman BEECHER. In time power of concentrated expression he has been rarely equaled, and in his more sublime solemn outbursts he was hike a thunderbolt.

 

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Seminary; and it was on Walnut hills that his daughter, Harriet BEECHER STOWE, met the originals of the persons that figure in her novel of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and got filled up for that famous work, which was published on her return East.

 

Her maiden sister Catharine’s entire life was marred by a tragic event. She was betrothed to Prof. FISHER, of Yale College, who lost his life in 1822, by the wreck of the packet ship Albion off the coast of Ireland, at the age of twenty-seven years. He was a young man of extraordinary genius, thought to be akin to that of Sir Isaac Newton, and his loss was regarded as national. In the Yale Library to-day is an exquisite bust of him in marble. The face is very beautiful and refined. Evidence of his masterly power was shown by the opening article (an abstruse paper on the science of music) in the first volume of Stillman’s Journal of Science, issued in 1818.

 

In conversation Miss BEECHER was humorous, incisive and self-opinionated, but kindly. While at the head of a female seminary she became a convert to the Graham system of diet, and practised it upon herself and pupils, whereupon some of them invited her to par-take of a good generous dinner at a restaurant. It operated to a charm, converted her, and she came to the conclusion that a rich, juicy, tender, well-cooked beefsteak, with its accompaniments was no object for contempt with a hungry soul.

 

An anecdote of her we heard in our youth was that, on being introduced at a social gathering in Hartford to the poet Percival, she went at him in an exciting adulatory strain upon his poetry, which had then just appeared and was eliciting general admiration. Percival, who was then a very young man, and the most, shrinking of mortals, was completely overwhelmed; he could not answer a word, but as soon as possible escaped from her, and then, in his low, whispering tones, inquired of a bystander, “Is not that the young lady who was engaged to Prof. FISHER?’ “Yes.’’ “Ah!’ rejoined he, “it is well he died.’’ No American family has so much influenced American thought as the BEECHERS, and none, through its genius and eccentricities, has been so interesting; and it did Ohio good that she had possession of them for twenty years. It used to be a common expression forty years ago that the United States possessed two great things, viz., the American flag and the BEECHERS.

 

LEVI COFFIN. CATHARINE COFFIN.

 

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Meanwhile his interest in the slaves continued, and he was active in the Underground Railroad, by which thousands of escaping slaves were aided by him on their way to Canada, including Eliza HARRIS, the heroine of ‘‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” In 1847 he removed to Cincinnati and opened and continued for years a store where only were sold goods produced by free labor, at the same time continuing his efforts for the escape of slaves, in the war period he aided in the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau visited England and held meetings in the various cities and collected funds for the Freeman’s Commission. On the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment he formally resigned his office of President of the Underground Railroad, which he had held for more than thirty years. He died in 1877. His “Reminiscences,” published by Robert Clarke & Co., is a highly interesting volume, from which the following narratives are de-rived in an abridged form.

 

ELIZA HARRIS’S ESCAPE.

Eliza HARRIS, of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’’ the slave woman who crossed the Ohio river on the drifting ice, with her child in her arms, was sheltered for several days and aided to escape by Levi COFFIN, he then re-siding at Newport, Ind.

 

Harriet BEECHER STOWE’S graphic description of this woman’s experiences is almost identical with the real facts in the case.

 

The originals of Simeon and Rachael Halliday, the Quaker couple alluded to in her remarkable work, were Levi and Catharine COFFIN.

 

Eliza HARRIS’S master lived a few miles back from the Ohio river, below Ripley Ohio. Her treatment from master and mistress was kind; but they having met with financial reverses, it was decided to sell Eliza, and she, learning of this and the probable separation of herself and child, determined to escape. That night, with her child in her arms, she started on foot for the Ohio river. She reached the river near daybreak and instead of finding it frozen over, it was filled with large blocks of floating ice. Thinking it impossible to cross, she ventured to seek shelter in a house near by, where she was kindly received.

 

She hoped to find some way of crossing the next night, but during the day the ice became more broken and dangerous, making the river seemingly impassable. Evening came on when her pursuers were seen approaching the house. Made desperate through fear, she seized her infant in her arms, darted out the back door and ran toward the river, followed by her pursuers.

 

Fearing death less than separation from her babe, she clasped it to her bosom and sprang on the first cake of ice, and from that to another, and then to another, and so on. Sometimes the ice would sink beneath her then she would slide her child on to the next cake, and pull herself on with her hands. Wet to the waist, her hands benumbed with cold, she approached the Ohio shore nearly exhausted. A man, who had been standing on the bank watching her in amazement, assisted her to the shore. After recovering her strength, she was directed to a house on a hill in the outskirts of Ripley, which is that shown on page 336 of the “Ohio Historical Collection, this edition. Here she was cared for, and after being provided with food and dry clothing, was forwarded from station to station on the Underground Railroad until she reached the home of Levi COFFIN. Here she remained several days until she and her child, with other fugitives, were forwarded via the Greenville branch of the Underground Railroad to Sandusky, and from thence to Chatham, Canada West, where she finally settled, and where years after Mr. COFFIN met her.

 

THE MARGARET GARNER CASE.

 

One of the most remarkable of the cases that occurred under the Fugitive Slave law and one which aroused deep sympathy and widespread interest during part of January, 1856, was that of Margaret GARNER, the slave mother who killed her child rather than see it taken back to slavery.

 

She was one of a party of seventeen who, though closely pursued, had escaped to Cincinnati. The party had separated at this point for greater safety, and Margaret with her four children and husband Robert, together with Robert’s parents, Simon and Mary, had sought shelter at a house below Mill creek, the home of a free colored man named Kite, who had formerly been a slave in their neighborhood.

 

Kite did not consider his house a safe place for the fugitives and had gone to consult Levi COFFIN as to measures for their removal along the Underground Railroad and was returning, when he found the house surrounded by the masters of the slaves, with officers and a posse of men.

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and the other children, but was overpowered. The whole party was then arrested and lodged in jail.

 

The trial lasted two weeks, during which time the court-room was crowded. Colonel CHAMBERS, of Cincinnati, and Messrs. WALL & TIMMEN of Covington appeared claimants; Messrs. JOLIFFE & GETCHELL for the slaves. The counsel for the defence proved that Margaret had been brought to Cincinnati by her owners, a number of years before, and, according to the law which liberated slaves who were brought into free States with the consent of their masters, she had been free from that time, and her children all of whom had been born since, were likewise free. The Commissioner, however, decided that a voluntary return from a free to a slave State reattached the conditions of slavery.

 

A futile attempt was made to try Margaret for murder and the others as accessories, and State warrants were issued. Lawyer JOLLIFFE pressed the motion to have them served, for said he, “The fugitives have all assured me that, they will go singing to the ga1lows rather than be returned to slavery.’’

 

They were finally indicted for murder, but owing to the provisions of the law of 1850 they could not be tried on that charge while in their owner’s custody.

 

Margaret was a bright-eyed, intelligent-looking mulatto, about twenty-two years of age. She had a high forehead, arched eye-brows, but, the thick lips and broad nose of the African. On the left side of her face were two sears. When asked what caused them she said, “White man struck me.” That was all, but it betrays a story of cruelty and degradation and perhaps gives the key-note of her, resolve rather to die than go back to slavery.

 

During the trial her bearing was one of extreme sadness and despondency. ‘‘The case seemed to stir every heart that was alive to the emotions of humanity. The interest manifested by all classes was not so much for the legal principles involved as for the mute instincts that mould every human heart—the undying love of freedom that is planted in every breast—the resolve to die rather than to submit to a life of degradation and bond-age.”

 

After the trial the slaves were returned to Kentucky.

It was reported that Margaret while being transported down the Ohio river had jumped off the boat with her babe in her arms, that the deck hands rescued her, but the child was drowned. Her subsequent fate is wrapped in obscurity.

 

HUGH PETERS was born in Hebron, Conn., in 1807, and being educated for the law, came to Cincinnati to practice, and was drowned in the Ohio river at the early age of twenty-four years, it was supposed by suicide. He was a young man of high moral qualities, the finest promise as a writer of both prose and verse, and was greatly lamented. One of his poems, “My Native Land,” is one of the best of its character. We annex a few of its patriotic verses. It was written while sailing from the shore of his native State, Connecticut, at the moment when it had shrunk in his vision to one “blue line between the sky and sea,”

 

 

 

On April 6, 1879, there died at the Good Samaritan Hospital, Cincinnati, PROFESSOR DANIEL VAUGHAN, his friend, the late William M. CORRY, in his eulogy said: “He was the only man among the hundreds of thousands of our people whose name will survive the next century. ‘‘He was born of wealthy parents near Cork, Ireland, came to America at the age of sixteen, became a teacher of boys in Bourbon county, Kentucky, but soon moved to Cincinnati, where he passed the remainder of his days. He was drawn thither by his desire for its library privileges—to study the grand topics of science.

 

For his support he lectured on science and gave private lessons in mathematics, astronomy and the languages. He thus managed to eke out a miserable existence and in an almost abject poverty. He lived in a room, cheap, inaccessible, and cheerless. A chair, and a bedstead with a pile of rags, a worn-out stove, and an old coffee pot, with a few musty shelves of books covered with soot, were all his furniture. An autopsy revealed the wreck of his vital system and proved that the long and dreadful process of freezing and starving the previous winter had dried up the sources of life.

 

It was his intense absorption in science that had thus made him a martyr. For that he had overlooked the wants of his body, and suffered. The European scientists through his contributions to scientific journals by correspondence with him had learned of his extraordinary attainments in the most pro-found topics of human thought. And, whenever a stranger from Cincinnati appeared among them, the first question would be in regard to Professor VAUGHAN, and to not a few that question was their first knowledge of such an existence. He treated with great originality such topics as “The Doctrine of Gravitation,” “The Cause and Effects of the Tides,’’ The Light and Heat of the Sun,’’ ‘The Remote Planets,” “The Geography of Disease,” “Origin of Mountains,” “The Theory of Probabilities in the Detection of Crime,’’ etc.

 

It was a bleak, cold, cheerless day on January 13, 1808, in a neat frame on the snow—clad banks of the Connecticut river, in the town of Cornish, New Hampshire, that was born SALMON P. CHASE. His father, Ithaman CHASE, was a farmer of English and his mother was of Scotch descent. His father died when be was yet a boy, and the family left in straitened circumstances.

 

Salmon was a studious lad, so when his uncle, Rev. Philander CHASE, the earliest Episcopal Bishop, came to Ohio, he sent for him to come and live with him, and for a couple of years he studied with his uncle at Worthington, near Columbus, and then one year with him at Cincinnati. Then his uncle went to England on a visit and Salmon entered Dartmouth College, where he graduated in 1826, paying for his college expenses by school-teaching. He then went to Washing-ton, where he taught a classical school and studied law with William Wirt. Having been admitted to the bar in 1830, he settled in Cincinnati to practise his profession, his age 22 years.

 

Finding but little business he occupied about two years of his leisure in compiling the Statutes of Ohio, preceded by an outline history of the State. The work, known as “CHASE’S Statutes,’’ which proved of great service to the profession, was regarded of extraordinary merit. From his Puritan training he had early learned to view all questions in their moral aspects, and so from the very beginning of his career he was the friend of the slave being when in Washington active in procuring signatures to a petition to Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

 

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destroyed the Philanthropist, the anti-slavery newspaper, he was engaged by Mr. BIRNEY, the editor, to bring the offenders to justice. About this time miscreants, in and about Cincinnati, not only made it a business to hunt and capture runaway slaves for the sake of reward, but to kidnap free-blacks, carry them across the Ohio and sell them into slavery In 1837, in what was known as the Matilda case, where a master brought a slave girl to the city and afterwards endeavored to take her back into slavery. Mr. CHASE appeared in her behalf, as he frequently did in similar cases without expectation of pecuniary reward. After the case had been closed a gentleman of note who was present said, “There goes a promising young lawyer who has ruined himself,” he feeling how unpopular in those days was the defence of the enslaved and defenceless. None but a man of the highest moral courage and humanity would have been willing to endure the obloquy. Governor HOADLEY said of him, “What helped him—yes, what made him was this. He walked with God. The pre-dominant element of his life that which gave tone and color to his thoughts and determined the direction and color of all he did, was his striving after righteousness. . . . Behind the dusky face of every black man he saw his Saviour, the divine man also scourged, also in prison, at last crucified. This is what made him what he was. To this habit of referring to divine guidance every act of his life we owe the closing words of the Proclamation of Emancipation, which Mr. Lincoln added from Mr. CHASE’S pen as follows: ‘And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the favorable judgment of all mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.” He had dainty tastes, disliked the unclean in word or person but he put his pleasure under his feet when duty led him to the rescue of the lowly, he had a large frame and mighty passions, but they were under absolute control.’’

 

When the Liberty party was organized in Ohio, in 1841, Mr. CHASE was foremost and wrote the address which gave the issues which were finally settled only by a bloody war. In this he said the Constitution found slavery and left it a State institution—the creature and dependent of State law—wholly local in its existence and character. It did not make it a national institution. . . . Why then, fellow-citizens, are we now appealing to you? . . . It is because slavery has overleaped its prescribed limits and usurped the control of the national government, and that the honor, the welfare, the safety of our country imperiously require the absolute and unqualified divorce of the government from slavery.

 

Mr. CHASE defended so many blacks who were claimed as fugitives from slavery that the Kentuckians called him the “attorney-general for negroes,” and the colored people of Cincinnati presented him a silver pitcher “for his various public services in behalf of the oppressed.”

 

Mr. CHASE brought his great legal learning and a powerful mind to the task of convincing men that the Fugitive Slave law could and should be resisted as unconstitutional, because though the Constitution embraced a provision for the return of fugitives it added no grant of legislative power to Congress over that subject, and, therefore, left to the States alone the power to devise proper legislation.

 

The original of John Van Trompe, in “Uncle Turn’s Cabin,’’ was John VAN ZANDT, who was prosecuted for harboring fugitive slaves, because overtaking a party of fugitives on the road he gave them a ride in his wagon, and his defence by Mr. CHASE was one of the most noted. In the final bearing in 1846 he was associated with Mr. SEWARD.

 

Mr. CHASE almost singly wrote the plat-form for the Liberty party, which in 1843 nominated James C. BIRNEY for the Presidency. In 1840 this party cast but 1 vote in 360, in 1844 1 vote in 40, which caused the defeat of Henry CLAY. In l848 Mr. CHASE presided over the Buffalo Free Soil Convention, and the party cast 1 vote in 9. In 1849 by a coalition between the Free Soilers and the Democrats in the Ohio Legislature Mr. CHASE was elected to the United States Senate. The Democracy of Ohio had declared in convention that slavery was an evil, but when the party in the Baltimore Convention of 1852 approved of the compromise acts of 1850, he dissolved his connection with it. He opposed the repeal the Missouri compromise, and made such strong, persistent attacks upon it as to thoroughly arouse the North and greatly influence the subsequent struggle.

 

In 1855 Mr. CHASE was elected Governor of Ohio by the newly formed Republican party formed solely to restrict the extension of slavery and the domination of the pro-slavery power, add by a majority of 15,651 over the Democratic candidate, Gov. MEDILL. Ex-Governor TRIMBLE, the candidate of the Know Nothing or Native American party, received 24,276 votes. In 1857 he was re-elected governor by 1503 over Henry B. PAYNE, the Democratic candidate. In the Chicago Republican Convention of 1860, which nominated Mr. LINCOLN, the first ballot stood: SEWARD, 173½; LINCOLN, 102; CAMERON, 50½; and CHASE, 49.

 

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the expenses of a war of four years—this was the work accomplished by Salmon P. CHASE.’’

 

On June 30, 1864, Mr. CHASE resigned his position as Secretary of the Treasury, was succeeded by Wm. P. FESSENDEN of Maine, and on the nomination of Mr. LINCOLN, was confirmed on the 5th of December, 1804, Chief Justice of the United States, an office he filled until his decease. He presided at the impeachment trial of President Johnson in 1868. In his politics he was a Democrat, and his name being frequently mentioned that year as the probable Democratic nominee for the Presidency, he wrote, in answer to a letter from the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee: “For more than a quarter of a century I have been in my political views and sentiments a Democrat, and still think that upon questions of finance, commerce, and administration generally the old Democratic principles afford the best guidance. What separated me in former times from both parties was the depth and positiveness of my convictions upon the slavery question… In 1849 I was elected to the Senate by the united votes of the old-line Democrats and independent Democrats, and subsequently made earnest efforts to bring about a union of all Democrats on the ground of the limitation of slavery to the States in which it then existed, and non-intervention in those States by act of Congress. Had that union been effected, it is my firm belief that the country would have escaped the late civil war and all its evils.”

 

As a public speaker Mr. CHASE was not eloquent. His speech was at times labored and hard, but he was impressive from his earnestness and the weight of his thought. The listener felt that he was no common man, and had the highest good of all only in view. In every position he ever held he always displayed excellent executive capacity. On entering upon the duties of his office of Secretary of the Treasury he had by long and successful professional labors accumulated about $100,000, and when he left it, after controlling for years the vast pecuniary business of the nation, he was poorer than when he went in.

 

In appearance he was the most imposing public man in the country—over six feet high, a blonde, with blue eyes and fresh complexion portly, with handsome features and a massive head. His manners were dignified, but he had but little suavity, had none of the arts of the demagogue, and his great reputation was solely due to his great services and capacity, for he had but little personal popularity the multitude never shouted for him. His great ambition arose from the patriotic conviction that he could render great public service. He was married thrice, and died a widower, leaving, of six children, two accomplished daughters.

 

Mr. CHASE died in New York, May 7, 1873, of paralysis. He was buried in Washington and on Thursday, October 14, 1886, his remains were removed to Spring Grove, Cincinnati. On this occasion, ex-Gov. HOADLEY, his once partner, gave a masterly oration upon his life and services, in Music Hall, and addresses were made by Congressman BUTTERWORTH, Gov. FORAKER, and Justice MATTHEWS; James E. MURDOCK read a poetical tribute from the pen of W. D. GALLAGHER. Conspicuous in the crowd who had assembled to pay their last tribute to the distinguished dead were some old colored men who had been slaves, and who felt a debt of gratitude to a man who had done so much for their liberty.

 

Charles CIST was born in Philadelphia, in 1793; in 1827-28 came to Cincinnati, and died there in 1868. He was the author of “Cincinnati in 1841;” ditto in 1851; ditto in 1859; and “The Cincinnati Miscellany,” composed largely of incidents in the early history of the West. He wrote the descriptive article upon Cincinnati in 1847 in the first edition of this work; and here reprinted. He conducted for a term of years Cist’s Weekly Advertiser. His editorial columns were largely personal, well sprinkled with “I’s “—those “I’s” meaning himself—which enhanced their interest. As one read, there appeared to his vision “Father CIST” looking in his eyes, smiling and talking. He was filled with a love of Cincinnati, and ministered to the extraordinary social fraternal feeling that existed among its old people—its pioneers. He would often print some gossipy item like that upon Judge BURNET, who, having used tobacco for a lifetime, had broken off in his old age, and was waxing in flesh under the deprivation. Another week, perhaps, it would be Nicholas LONGWORTH, Judge ESTE, Bellamy STORER, Nathaniel WRIGHT, or possibly that eccentricity, finical, poetical, and artistical Peyton SYMMES, that would come in for an item.

 

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with tobacco-smoke. It made me deadly sick, but I said nothing. While we changed horses at Hamilton I made a little purchase in an apothecary shop. The coach started again; the boys continued smoking. In a few minutes one and then another exclaimed “Whew! what a horrid smell! What is it? Oh! Awful!” I sat for a time in silence, enjoying their expressions of disgust. Then I said ‘Young gentlemen, we have all our especial tastes. You are fond of tobacco-smoking, to me it is excessively disagreeable I have just made a purchase, which I am rubbing in my hands as an antidote to your smoke and I must confess I rather enjoy it. You will say it is a curious idiosyncrasy of mine; it’s a piece of assafœtida.’ For a moment the youths were dumbfounded; next they burst into a roar, and then out of the window went their cigars, and my lump of assafœtida followed after.’’

 

Lewis J. CIST, his son, who died in 1885, aged sixty-seven, had a local reputation as a poet and writer of music. He published the “Souvenir” the first annual of the West. He was an enthusiastic collector of auto-graphs and old portraits, his collection numbering 11,000 of the former and one of the largest and most famous in the United States. To him was ascribed the authorship of “The Spotted Frog.’’ a parody on GALLAGHER’S popular ballad, “The Spotted Fawn ’’ spoken of elsewhere in this work..

 

HENRY M. CIST, a younger son, born in 1839, is now a lawyer in Cincinnati. He was a general in the rebellion, and noted for his contributions to war literature, as Cincinnati with the War Fever,’’ “The Romance of Shiloh,” and “Reports of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland.” Mr. CIST’S father opened and superintended the first Sabbath-school in Cincinnati, and his grand-father, also named Charles CIST, born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and graduated at Halle, was a printer and publisher in Philadelphia, and was the first person to introduce anthracite coal into general use in the United States. He was also the original printer of Paine’s “American Crisis.”

 

BELLAMY STORER, jurist, was born in Portland, Maine March 9, 1798, died in Cincinnati, June 1, 1875. He was educated at, Bowdion, and in 1817, began the practice of the law in Cincinnati. He was in Congress from 1835-1837; in 1844 was a Presidential elector on the Henry CLAY ticket; for nineteen years was a judge of the Superior Court of the city. He was popular as a speaker at both political and religious meetings. At one time in his early life Judge STORER was a leading spirit in a religious band of young men called “Flying Artillery,” who went from town to town to promote revivals. When the Superior Court of the city was organized in 1854, the three judges were SPENCER, GHOLSON, and STORER, and they were thus characterized: SPENCER as excelling in perception of law principles, GHOLSON for his knowledge of precedents, and STORER for his great memory and fervid eloquence.

 

Gen. ORMSBY MCKNIGHT MITCHELL was born of Virginia stock, in Union county, Kentucky. When a four-year-old boy he was taken to Lebanon, Warren county, Ohio, by his parents.  He was naturally of a studious disposition, and before he was nine years of age he was reading Virgil. At twelve years of age, the family being poor in circumstances, he was placed out to service as a boy in a store, and working morning’s and evenings in the family of his employer. At a little less than fifteen year’s of age he received a cadet-warrant, and, with knap-sack on his back, footed it a large part of the way from Lebanon, Ohio, to West Point, and arrived there in June, 1825, the youngest of his class, and with only twenty-five cents in his pocket.

 

He resigned from the army after four years of service, and began the practice of the law in Cincinnati, in partnership with E. D. MANSFIELD, who wrote of him in his “Memoirs:” “MITCHEL was noted at West Point for his quickness and ingenuity. My father, who was professor of philosophy there, used to say, “Little MITCHEL is very ingenious.” He was more than that, for he was what you seldom see, a man of real genius. A great many people are spoken of as men of genius, but I never saw more than half a dozen in my life, and Ormsby MITCHEL was one of them. . . . He was my partner in a profession for which I think neither of us was well adapted; we were really literary men. The consequence was, MITCHEL resorted to teaching classes, and I became a public writer.”

 

Both the young men joined Dr. BEECHER’S church, where MITCHEL became noted for his fervid zeal at prayer meetings. In 1834 MITCHEL was appointed professor of mathematics, natural philosophy, and astronomy in the “College of Cincinnati,” an office he filled admirably.

 

When the project was entertained for building what is now known as the Little Miami Railroad, he warmly encouraged it, examined the route, and with Mr. Geo. NEFF prevailed upon the city to loan $200,000. Prof. MITCHEL became its engineer. Three or four years of railroad engineering and attention to his college duties kept him busy.