CINCINNATI 



1382 



CINCINNATI 



Commerce and Industry. Cincinnati is ad- 

 vantageously located to bid for business from 

 the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and with 

 Lake Erie through the Miami Canal. Its 

 commerce has been further increased by the 

 construction of the Fernbank Dam. This was 

 built at a cost of $1,300,000, and at the time 

 of its completion in 1911 was the largest 

 movable dam in the world. The manufactur- 

 ing and commercial interests are large, the total 

 output of manufactures being estimated at 

 $260,000,000 annually. There are more than 

 2,800 manufacturing houses, the more impor- 

 tant products of which are soap, machine tools, 

 wood-working machinery, playing cards, print- 

 ing ink, sectional office furniture (bookcases, 

 etc.), and trunks. The city is noted as a hard- 

 wood lumber center, also for its exquisite 

 Rookwood pottery. If the city has a single 

 paramount industry it is the production of 

 iron, including pig and ornamental iron, cast- 

 ings and foundry and machine-shop products. 

 Formerly slaughtering and pork packing was 

 the leading industry, but though still extensive, 

 it is not so great as formerly. 



History. When the site occupied by Cin- 

 cinnati was first visited by the white man it 

 was thickly dotted with the ancient works of 

 the Mound Builders. In 1780 George Rogers 

 Clark built two blockhouses here, but the per- 



CINCINNATI IN 1789 



When Fort Washington comprised almost the 

 entire settlement. 



manent settlement was made in 1788 when a 

 party from Kentucky and New Jersey settled 

 on ground purchased by John Cleves Symmes 

 and others. The village was organized by 

 Israel Ludlow and called Losantiville, a name 

 taken from the Latin and French and meaning 

 city opposite the mouth oj the Licking. Fort 

 Washington was erected in 1789. In 1790 Gen- 

 eral Arthur Saint Clair outlined Hamilton 

 County and made the new town its seat, chang- 

 ing the name to Cincinnati, in honor of the 

 Society of the Cincinnati, a celebrated society 

 of Revolutionary soldiers, of which he was a 

 member (see CINCINNATI, SOCIETY OF THE). In 

 1802 the village became a town, and when in- 



corporated as a city in 1819 it had a popula- 

 tion of 7,500. After the opening of the river 

 to navigation in 1816, the construction of the 

 Miami Canal (1827) and the building of rail- 

 roads, the growth of the city was so rapid 

 that it was given the popular name of The 

 Queen City oj the West. Between 1840 and 

 1860 Germans were attracted to Cincinnati in 

 large numbers and at that time comprised 

 about one-fourth of the population. 



Several times the city has been visited by 

 floods, the overflow of 1832, when the lower 

 part of the city was submerged, being the most 

 destructive. Previous to the War of Seces- 

 sion the place was frequently in a state of tur- 

 moil over the abolition movement; anti-negro 

 riots were frequent, and the Philanthropist 

 press, established by James G. Birney, was 

 destroyed by mobs in 1836. During the war 

 the city was the harbor for slaves seeking 

 refuge in Canada. In 1862, during the "siege of 

 Cincinnati," it was placed under martial law 

 by General Kirby Smith. The most noted 

 event of its later history was the "Cincinnati 

 Riot" of 1884, when an infuriated mob broke 

 into the jail and attempted to lynch some 

 prisoners who had received undue mercy in the 

 courts. The courthouse was burned, with some 

 of the adjoining buildings. The Centennial 

 Exposition of the Ohio Valley, held in 1888, 

 celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of 

 the settlement of the city. 



Features of special interest in the locality 

 are Fort Thomas, above Newport, Ky., one 

 of the important army posts of the United 

 States; and Fort Washington, built by the 

 national government in 1789. The latter be- 

 came the home of Lyman Beecher; there his 

 daughter, Harriet Beecher Stowe, dwelt while 

 collecting material for her book, Uncle Tom's 

 Cabin, and there she met the originals of the 

 characters in her celebrated story. On Mount 

 Adams, in 1843, John Quincy Adams laid the 

 corner stone of the Cincinnati Observatory, 

 which was the first observatory erected in the 

 United States. C.R.H. 



CINCINNATI, SOCIETY OF THE, a patriotic 

 memorial society, organized by officers of the 

 Revolutionary army, American and foreign 

 allies, to perpetuate the remembrance of the 

 war and the mutual friendships "formed under 

 pressure of common danger." It was organized 

 1 May 13, 1783, while the Continental army was 

 at Fishkill, on the Hudson River. Like Cin- 

 cinnatus (which see), they had left the plow 

 to serve their country and were returning to 



