Ohio History Journal

OHIO IN KNEE PANTS

 

by VIRGINIUS C. HALL

Director, Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio

 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen:

Here in Columbus on December 31, 1831, there was formed

the first historical society west of the mountains. That Society,

the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, later removed

to Cincinnati. So in coming to Columbus as the representative

of that Society, I am coming back to the birthplace, back to the

old home town, back to our raising.

It seemed to your committee and me that it might be appro-

priate to bring out this evening some impressions of our region

as it was at the time the Historical and Philosophical Society was

founded--i. e., the decade of the 1830's. Ohio by that time had

come out of its pinafores and was running about in knee pants.

A disproportionate share of this talk is going to revolve

around Cincinnati, not because my bump of narrow civic con-

sciousness is overdeveloped, but rather because some aspects of

life in Ohio which I want to talk about are best illustrated in

Cincinnati newspapers and periodicals.

The ambition and desire for improvement which impelled

gentlemen of the State to establish a historical society in the

1830's are traits highly characteristic of our region at that time.

Everybody knows that people were coming out here because the

desire for personal improvement could be gratified best in a new

country. That lust evinced itself in a multitude of ways. News-

papers and travelers' accounts convey the impression of restless

energy, of a region with a head full of extravagant dreams,

erratic passions, and a willingness to try anything--the charac-

teristics of a boy in knee pants.

• 1
 

2     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

These energies blew off in every direction; in commerce, in

politics, in the arts, in social life (in the narrow sense), and in

popular amusements. And yet the physical scene, the backdrop

for these energetic actors, must have been singularly serene, com-

pared with the dynamic and streamlined staging of our life a

hundred years later. This contributes to two extreme sentiments

about the past, sentiments which often fluctuate rapidly in the

same person. On Thursday we talk of the utopian life of our

horse-drawn ancestors of the last century; on Friday we deride

those same benighted creatures who possessed no inside toilet

facilities, who never knew the delight of Wheaties for breakfast.

On Thursday our Jeffersonian dreams are uppermost, on Friday

our Hamiltonian appetites have taken possession of our better

selves.

I have just been looking at five water colors of Cincinnati

street scenes painted by John Caspar Wild in 1835. They are

Jeffersonian. The intersection of Fourth and Vine streets, ac-

cording to Wild, then reposed in quiet beauty. A benign light

lies on the street, flanked with houses of charming color and pro-

portions. A gentlemanly horseman and his lady ride up the street.

Two dogs play unmolested at the corner where the traffic cop now

blows his whistle. The five scenes are a bland mixture of pas-

toral simplicity and small town urbanity. They almost persuade

one to take seriously the Jeffersonian dream.

But it was only a year later that this pastoral calm (If it ever

existed!) was broken by more characteristic violence, a riot

directed against the newspaper printing office of the Philan-

thropist, James G. Birney's antislavery paper. Type was scat-

tered in the streets, the presses were torn down, and the office

was completely dismantled. Shots were fired and citizens were

menaced by an unruly mob. It is a bit of a shock to read the full

account shortly after dreaming over Wild's idyllic water colors.

Which scene represents the town as it was? The obvious answer

is, Both! Then, as now, there was intricate variation in Ohio.

But the contrasts were likely more striking at that time; ranging

from tracts of impenetrable wilderness, through rural simplicity,

to highly urbane neighborhoods and institutions, to human sav-

• 2
 

OHIO IN KNEE PANTS                     3

agery in the city as well as in the backwoods. Let us try to

arrive at a few well-balanced impressions of that decade.

Columbus in 1830 was a town of 2,435 inhabitants. Trav-

elers speak of the stream of animated traffic rattling through the

town. It is pleasant to imagine how the cows feeding on the

grounds of the capitol building must have raised their heads from

time to time to gaze soberly on the passing show of vehicles. If

the population of Columbus seems small, we may contrast it with

Cleveland, showing a scant thousand. Cincinnati at that time had

already enjoyed a growth that excited wonder everywhere. From

1788 to 1830 it had expanded from nothing to twenty-five thou-

sand. It was by far the largest town in the State, followed in

order of size in 1830 by Zanesville and Steubenville, the latter

with 3,000 inhabitants. Marietta, the first settlement, in the

meantime remained conservative in growth as it was in politics.

Only 1,200 persons resided in that community. But most of us

today are less enthusiastic about mere expansion and magnitude

than we used to be. We want to know whether the process is

healthy growth or pathological swelling. Some people in Cincin-

nati would be willing to swap the near West End for the Marietta

Campus Martius and throw in something to boot.

Before turning from statistics to more intimate matters, let

me report that the annual tax budget for the entire State in 1830

was a paltry 600,000 dollars and the rate of taxation about nine

mills to the dollar. That was all! I tell this at the risk of paining

those of you who live in the upper brackets. As an offset to this

blessing, however, there was the terrible cholera epidemic of 1832.

Any sane man, I suppose, would rather suffer the surtax.

Recently I have been reading the Cincinnati Chronicle and

Gazette, trying to see something of the social life of the times.

Cincinnatians were evidently susceptible to the appeal of those

small luxuries that are said to accentuate charm and promote the

social amenities. Merchants, then as now, were ready to gratify

the craving for personal beauty, in so far as merchandise could

accomplish the thing. Advertisements present fine soaps and

cologne, lavendar and rose waters, antique oils, pomatum, Parisian

• 3
 

4     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

cream, extract of roses, and lip salve. At J. W. Picket's in 1832

double and single-eyed spectacles were offered, besides a splendid

assortment of precious stones. There are elsewhere references

to Leghorn, straw, and Navarino bonnets. Offerings in gentle-

men's wear include stocks, beaver hats, and handsome tailor-made

coats and pantaloons.

 

Everybody knows that Mrs. Frances Trollope wrote such

bitter criticism of our boorish manners that she excited a squabble

across the water. In contrast to the complaint of boorishness and

crudity, here is a contemporary satire on the dandy, evidently

very prevalent at the time and called an "Exquisite."  It comes

from the column of Eleazar Eelskin. Flora is speaking: "I'll

have a Corinthian for my beau coming home; I love to walk with

them. They are such sweet fellows that my very dress is per-

fumed with lavendar and Cologne for a week afterwards.     If

you get to windward of them, it seems as if the sweet southwest,

as Shakespeare says, was blowing upon you from     a bank of

violets." This Corinthian of Flora's would be arrayed in tight

fitting coat, similar in cut to the present-day full dress, the

shoulders padded, and the waistline waspish; tight sleeves and

pantaloons conforming to every contour of the limb; a waistcoat

of figured white Marseille, wide open to display the shirt

bosom; a high stock; a gray beaver hat with narrow brim; the

hair worn in loose waves over the forehead; and chin whiskers.

Flora herself might very well be wearing extravagant leg-of-

mutton sleeves, too voluminous to permit of passing through a

door head-on. Add a high-crowned Leghorn hat trimmed with

white ribbons above tight ringlets half way to the shoulders, and

a dress billowing broadly from the waist. Such was the appear-

ance of the "exquisites" of the thirties.

But these Cincinnatians were also attentive to the more basic

requirements of personal attraction, as witness this advertisement

of April 10, 1830:

Cincinnati Bath-House, Sycamore between Third and Fourth Streets

. . . [The proprietor] has been at considerable expense in preparing [the

bath-house] for the operations of the present season, and flatters himself

• 4
 

OHIO IN KNEE PANTS                       5

 

that by diligent attention to the comfort and convenience of his visitors, he

will receive a liberal encouragement.

Terms of Bathing

Season ticket for a gentleman and his lady .................. 6.00 dollars

"               "                              "                                                                                                      "    "    alone .........................        5.00

Five  tickets     of         single       baths .................................                                                           1.00

Entrance to the ladies' baths on the south side of the building, where a

good female attendant is provided. For the accommodation of invalids who

are unable to attend the baths, spare bathing tubs will be sent to any part

of the city.

Bathed and adorned these citizens might then attend a theat-

rical performance at one of two theatres. On the south side of

Columbia Street, between Main and Sycamore, there was, until

the fire of 1834, the Cincinnati Theatre, called also the Columbia

Street Theatre. A second choice in entertainment might be the

New Cincinnati Theatre on Third, between Sycamore and Broad-

way. The audiences were composed mostly of men, according to

Mrs. Trollope; and on the same authority comes praise from

Caesar, for she adds that the Columbia Street managers, Mr. and

Mrs. Alexander Drake, were actors of the first rank, even by

London standards. On the contrary, the behaviour of some per-

sons in the audience was not of the first quality, if we can judge

from these samples of regulations from a poster: "Gentlemen

will be particular in not disturbing the audience by loud talking

in the Bar-Room, nor by personal altercations in any part of the

house." (This is reminiscent of the first act of Cyrano de Ber-

gerac, in which the clash of dueling foils is heard coming from

gentlemen in the audience.) The practice of cracking nuts during

the performance was deprecated at the Cincinnati Theatre; also

gentlemen in the boxes and pit were not expected to wear their

hats or to stand on the railing; and persons in the upper boxes

and galleries were admonished "to avoid the uncourteous habit

of throwing nut-shells, apples etc. into the pit."  (If you have

been to a college town movie house in recent years, you will un-

derstand what these rules imply.)

The weather being hot on July 23, 1830, as is still the custom

in Cincinnati, the management informed the public through the

daily press that the "Theatre shall be kept open, aired, and watered

• 5
 

6     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

during the day, to render it as cool and pleasant as the state of

the weather will permit."  This, of course, is the great-great

grandfather of our air-conditioned movie palaces.

Typical of the theatre was the season of 1832. The company

of N. M. Ludlow opened the evening of Monday, February 12,

at the Columbia Street with a double bill: the comedy entitled

"The Dramatist," and the farce, "The Lottery Racket."   In the

latter, Thomas D. Rice played the role of Wormwood, but he had

become notorious for his rendition of the now famous, "Jump,

Jim Crow"; so the audience interrupted the performance with

demands for his Negro song, although it had nothing to do with

the case. Then Joseph Burke, the Irish boy-wonder, drew full

houses in a two weeks' engagement, including The Irish Tutor,

Speed the Plough, Heir at Law, The Merchant of Venice, Richard

III, and Weathercock, a diversified repertoire for anybody.

All this, however, sounds too gay and giddy to correspond to

the prevailing temper of the town, if we can believe the account

of Michel Chevalier, who was sent to the United States in 1834,

under the patronage of the French Minister of the Interior, to

inspect our public works. He inspected a good deal more than

public works; and his observations on American ways remain

highly entertaining reading. Of the Queen City he writes:

The moral aspect of Cincinnati is delightful in the eyes of him who

prefers work to everything else, and with whom work can take the place

of everything else. But whoever has a taste for pleasure and display, who-

ever 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 for a man of leisure, desirous of devoting

a large part of his time to the fine arts and the rest to pleasure!

Chevalier, in a later passage, recognizes that the New Eng-

land Protestant accent upon thrift and economic effort had con-

structed an empire with bewildering speed. Without these homely

characteristics, "Instead of having that great domain of the West,

immense in its extent and resources, already cleared and culti-

vated, furrowed with roads and dotted over with farms, they

would probably be still confined to the sandy strip that borders

the Atlantic." And yet this economic asceticism was too much

• 6
 

OHIO IN KNEE PANTS                     7

 

for his catholic and European spirit. (We can say in parentheses,

that lust for labor is not too common among us just now.)

Commercial enterprise during the thirties was responsible for

great development in transportation in Ohio. It was the heyday

of the canal system that had been inaugurated in the late twenties,

connecting the Great Lakes and the East with the Ohio-Missis-

sippi waterway. The first railroad charter in Ohio was granted

for a road that was never built--the Ohio and Steubenville. The

date was February 1830. By 1832 Ohio had got the railroad

fever and ten charters were granted. That was the year that the

Erie and Kalamazoo, the pioneer road of the West, was projected.

Going from Toledo to Adrian, Michigan, a few miles of the road-

bed passed through Ohio. Horses drew the first trains over oak

rails but were soon superseded by a Baldwin locomotive capable

of twenty miles an hour.

Simultaneously there was extensive development of the high-

ways of the State; the National Pike reached Columbus in 1833.

Side roads were demanded as feeders to the canals and highways,

with the result that road construction was in full swing during

this decade. The Ohio National Stage Company was also main-

taining regular schedules over the National Road. Add to this a

teeming steamboat traffic on the Ohio River. In Cincinnati alone

twenty-two steamboats were built in 1835, and in the following

year twenty-nine. When we consider that commerce commensu-

rate with these transportation facilities had been developed here

in Ohio, we get some notion of this age of miracles, in which free

enterprise, with a head full of prodigious dreams, was building

an empire on the Western Waters. The Panic of 1837 put a

temporary crimp in many of these schemes.

Commercial enterprise, in fact, was not entirely absent even

in Mrs. Trollope's undertaking. I mean the Bazaar, situated on

the south side of Third Street, Cincinnati, and just east of Broad-

way. She was trying to refurbish the Trollopes' faded fortune,

and so built an emporium worthy of her imagination. The ap-

pearance of the Bazaar is given us by Captain Thomas Hamilton,

English author, who visited Cincinnati in 1832:

• 7
 
• 8
 

OHIO IN KNEE PANTS

 

The most remarkable object in Cincinnati is a large Graeco-Moresco-

Gothic-Chinese-looking building--an architectural compilation of prettiness

of all sorts, the effect of which is eminently grotesque. Our attention was

immediately arrested by this extraordinary apparition, which could scarcely

be more out of place had it been tossed on the earth by some volcano in

the moon. While we stood opposite to the edifice, contemplating the gor-

geousness of its effect, and speculating "what aspect bore the man" to

whom the inhabitants of these central regions could have been indebted for

so brilliant and fantastic an outrage on all acknowledged principles of taste,

a very pretty and pleasant-looking girl, came out, and invited us to enter.

We, accordingly, did so and found everything in the interior of the building

had been finished on a scale quite in harmony with its external mag-

nificence.

A ladies' periodical of the same year describes the Bazaar with

genteel female malice as "A great omnigatherum establishment,

somewhere between Noah's ark and the tower of Babel, where

everything should be sold from a needle to a blunderbuss."

The Bazaar had been designed, however, not only as an em-

porium but also as a kind of dispensary of culture. Mrs. Trollope

and Monsieur Hervieu, the artist, had hoped to plant the seeds of

good taste in the community, and to provide the town with facili-

ties for polite amusement, according to the Continental pattern in

these things. Hervieu's discouragement appears in this pathetic

card in the Chronicle of January 9, 1830:

To the public of Cincinnati: "M [monsieur]. A. Hervieu presents his

respectful compliments to the ladies and gentlemen of Cincinnati. It was

his earnest wish to have offered to them such an entertainment, every

Thursday evening, as might have obtained their patronage.  Painting,

Poetry, and Music were put in requisition at the great room of the Bazaar,

 

Mrs. Trollope hoped, by means of her Bazaar, to reform Cincinnati's

system of traffic and change the place and the objects of its commerce.

She found that Cincinnatians were in the habit of transacting their business

in the center of town, and "of devoting too much attention to pork, flour,

corn, whiskey, &c., and of neglecting toys, trinkets, and tawdry finery. . . ."

So she erected her Bazaar "in a very retired part of the Town . . .; in a

style of architecture totally dissimilar to any other building in the country,--

so that it should have no competitors for our admiration; and calculated

for a kind of business of which we never experienced any necessity." The

project failed and the building was sold to its constructors in payment of

their claims.

• 9
 

10    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

to gratify their taste and to win their favor--but it has failed--on Thurs-

day last, half a dozen gentlemen from a steamboat, were all who presented

themselves. He therefore respectfully withdraws the attempt.

The Bazaar in succeeding years suffered many vicissitudes, too

numerous to detail here.

You may remember that other Cincinnati institution designed

to enlarge the mind and refine the taste of the community; I mean

the Western Museum, directed by that interesting Frenchman,

Monsieur Dorfeuille, and its rival, Letton's Museum. In the

spring of 1829, when Andrew Jackson, hero of the West, was

inaugurated President of the United States, the Western Museum

rode the wave of his popularity. Following is one of its adver-

tisements:

The proprietor flatters himself that he can now present to the public

a specimen of art and taste which may vie with anything of the kind in

the United States. To those who are acquainted with the genius and talents

of Mr. Hiram Powers it will be only necessary to say, that the work to be

exhibited is the production of his hands . . . The subject is a Group,

modelled in wax and composed of two figures, A LOVELY FEMALE

crowning with laurels THE HERO OF ORLEANS. This female figure

who, by universal assent, merits the appellation Beautiful, is habited a la

Turque, and stands most gracefully in the attitude of placing the crown on

the hero's brows. General Jackson, a fine likeness taken from  life, is

dressed in the Roman Costume, and seems unconscious of the compliment

Beauty is offering him.

Monsieur Dorfeuille had set out to offer Cincinnati a museum

of natural history, scientific and serious: Lack of public response

caused him to turn to more picturesque and sensational displays.

His most extravagant effort was the "Infernal Regions" or Dor-

feuille's Hell, thus described in the Advertiser during the winter

of 1831:

Upwards of thirty wax figures (size of life) consisting of phantoms,

imps, monsters, devils, among which Beelzebub and Lucifer are conspicuous,

with a variety of human sufferers, in every stage of mental and bodily

torment, are seen; some of them moving in such a surprising manner as to

almost inspire the beholder with a belief that they are living, whilst unseen

sufferers are emitting unearthly sounds, horrid groans, and terrible shrieks

in every direction.

Interplay of light and darkness, aided by an electrically charged

• 10
 

OHIO IN KNEE PANTS                          11

 

rail, served to accentuate the horrors of this exhibit. When it is

remembered that many of the spectators had been recently ex-

posed to the fire and brimstone of revival preaching it is easy to

believe that the effect must frequently have been truly diabolic.

Michel Chevalier in his fruitless search for the light touch in

Cincinnati should have visited some hot spot like the Appollonian

Garden. The proprietors advertised it in a most engaging way:

Although the verdure of summer has received its blight, and the livery

of spring which mantled creation, has been supplanted by the fleecy robe

of winter, the APOLLONIAN GARDEN is not destitute of attraction.

Refreshments suitable to the season and what ever of good cheer the country

affords, will here be found in perfection. N.B: Rieter and Ott (the pro-

prietors) have on hand Cologne Water of a very superior quality, and

Bologna sausages made in the Italian manner; all of their own manufacture.

Or the traveler might have lingered long enough to pay a

visit to one of those polite dancing classes. There he might have

found old-world urbanity and polished manners; if we can be-

lieve this advertisement from the Gazette:

Messrs. Tosso and Pius deem it altogether gratuitous and unnecessary

to say anything in extenuation or praise of themselves, conscious (inde-

pendent of their good feelings to please) that they have in their possession

the most splendid Ball Room and the most Classical Music for these

refined amusements west of the mountains and will of course be patronized

by those who know how to appreciate these important advantages.

In much of the literature of the time there is the same self-

conscious note of elegance. This is especially true of the ladies'

magazines.    Highly characteristic are the Ladies Museum and

Western Repository of Belle Lettres, and the Cincinnati Mirror

and Ladies' Parterre.    The precious quality of the contents may

be tasted in the titles alone, but I do want to read a few extracts

from the Mirror.   This one, called "A   Sketch":

A mother was kneeling in the deep hush of evening, at the couch of

two infants, whose rosy arms were twined in a mutual embrace. A slum-

ber, soft as the moonlight that fell through the lattice over them like a

silvery veil, lay on their delicate lids--the soft bright curls, that clustered

on their pillow, were slightly stirred by their gentle and healthful breath-

ings and that smile, which beams from the pure depths of the fresh glad

spirit, yet rested on their red lips. The mother looked upon their exceeding

beauty with a momentary pride--and then as she continued to gaze on the

lovely slumberers her dark eyes deepened with an intense and unutterable

• 11
 

12     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

fondness, and a cold shuddering fear came over her, lest those buds of

life, so fair, so glowing might be touched with sudden decay and gathered

back in their brightness to the dust.

After roistering around with such gentlemen as Dreiser,

Hemingway, and Faulkner, loud-mouthed and obsessed with the

subhuman, it is refreshing to take a literary shower in the pure

cool water of the Mirror. Here is another:

If there be, in the long catalogue of guilt, one character more hate-

fully despicable than another, it is the libertine. Time corrects the tongue

of slander, and generosity of friends makes atonement for the depredations

of the midnight robber. Sufferings and calamities may be assuaged or

mitigated by the sympathies of kindred hearts, and the tear of affection is

sufficient to wash out the remembrance of many sorrows to which the flesh

is heir. But for the venom of the libertine, there is no remedy--of its fatal

consequences, there is no mitigation. His victims, blasted in reputation, are

forever excluded from the pale of virtuous society. The visitation of Death,

appalling as is his approach to the unprepared, were a mercy compared to

the extent and permanency of this evil.

And now a final refutation of Michel Chevalier, and his

choleric picture of the Queen City; this, too, from     the Mirror.

A gentleman, native of New England, is writing back home from

the city of his adoption.   He had attended a ball the evening of

April 7, 1835, and says:

There is no mistake, my dear sir, in the style wherein these things

are done in Cincinnati. The social character of its citizens is most vivid,

most lively, most electrical. Never have I resided among a people so uni-

versally buoyant. Each individual seems to be an extract of the condensed

essence of hilarity. For myself, once arctic and icy, living here, I have

become so socially electrified that, I doubt not, I could charge a whole

community of New Englanders, and make every one thereof a prodigy of

vivacity. This vivacity is never more actively manifested than on an occa-

sion like the present. With you, a ball-room is nothing more, at most, than

a receptacle of beautifully wrought statues, gently stimulated into a very

gentle motion. With us it is a scene of the most exhilarating, the most

joyous life.

Other ventures in the periodical field are the Western Monthly

Magazine of James Hall, with a list of notable contributors; the

Western Messenger, devoted to literary subjects under Unitarian

sponsorship; the Hesperian, first published in Columbus, later in

Cincinnati; the Telegraph and the Wahrheitsfreund, devoting

themselves to news of interest to Roman Catholics of the diocese.

• 12
 

OHIO IN KNEE PANTS                    13

 

The decade of the thirties was one of dynamic movement in

solid education. Let me mention a number of the institutions of

the State that made their start at that time: Oberlin Collegiate

Institute, also the colleges now known as Marietta College, Deni-

son University, and Muskingum College; then at Oxford, the

Oxford College for Women, the Akron Lyceum and Library

Society, the Young Men's Mercantile Library of Cincinnati, and

the state school for the blind in Columbus. In 1832 regular

courses were being offered in the study of medicine in two in-

stitutions in Cincinnati, the Medical College of Ohio and the

Medical Department of Miami University, recently established

through the influence of Dr. Daniel Drake; in addition, the Acad-

emy of Medicine offered summer work to students. The Wood-

ward Free and Grammar School announced as its chief object

"to furnish the means of a classical and scientific education, to

such indigent boys as show sufficient talent to justify it." The

Mechanics' Institute proposed to furnish "scientific information

to the laboring classes in the city gratuitously by means of lec-

tures and recitations." The Institute had purchased Enon Baptist

Church which was to be rebuilt, according to the announcement,

"into a splendid Doric Hall, as soon as circumstances will permit."

The Cincinnati Lyceum, a scientific and literary association, was

formed for mutual improvement, and in order to accomplish this

purpose, collected a public library. The promotion of mutual

improvement was also an objective of the Western Academic

Institute and Board of Education; but another aim, allied to the

first, was the encouragement of "harmony and energy amongst

teachers"-a rather quixotic undertaking, it seems to me.

Then Lane Seminary is listed in the Directory of 1831, with

this pleasing piece of information:  "The Reverend Lyman

Beecher, D.D. of Boston, Mass. has been appointed President

and Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology."  The same

Directory tells of the founding during the previous year of a

Roman Catholic Collegiate Institution, to be called the Atheneum.

They had nearly completed a splendid building on Sycamore

Street, adjoining the cathedral. Eighteen free common schools

were then in operation in Cincinnati, besides many private schools

for young gentlemen, and seminaries for young ladies.

• 13
 

14    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

It was in this decade that two famous series of school text-

books were inaugurated.    Dr. Ray began his important contri-

butions to school arithmetic with the publication of Calculations

for the Head. The date is 1831. Then in 1836 William H. Mc-

Guffey and his younger brother, Alexander, introduced the first

of those spellers and readers that made McGuffey a household

word for generations, and popularized "The Spider and the Fly,"

"The Melancholy Days Are Come," "How Does the Water Come

Down at Lodore," "Meddlesome Matty," and scores of others.

Oh, how one ugly trick has spoiled

The sweetest and the best!

Matilda, though a pleasant child,

One grievous fault possessed,

Which like a cloud before the skies,

Hid all her better qualities.

 

Sometimes, she'd lift the tea-pot lid

To peep at what was in it;

Or tilt the kettle, if you did

But turn your back one minute.

In vain you told her not to touch

Her trick of meddling grew so much.

After a grievous episode, you remember, we have stanza nine:

Matilda, smarting with the pain,

And tingling still, and sore,

Made promise to refrain

From meddling evermore;

And 'tis a fact, as I have heard,

She ever since has kept her word.

Add to this list of educational efforts three public libraries

with a total of 10,000 volumes. Consider further that fourteen

newspapers and periodicals were published in Cincinnati alone.

In line with this evidence, the Directory of 1831 contains the

following note:

The number of books sold in a place is some evidence of the number

read--and the latter fact affords some proof of the progress of education.

During the four months past, there have been issued from the Cincinnati

presses, a total of 86,000 volumes. Of these, 20,300 volumes were of

original works.

There were dancing academies, schools of music, French

• 14
 

OHIO IN KNEE PANTS                    15

 

schools, cotillions, a Bachelors' Ball organized for the purpose

of enabling young men to pay off their social obligations, at-home

parties where an extravagant outlay of meats greeted the gentle-

men in the dining room, and the gentlemen brought more delicate

plate offerings to the ladies in the parlor. Newspapers, memoirs,

travelers' narratives, and collections of old letters testify to a

very pleasant and cultivated polite society in the town during the

thirties.

No doubt public places such as theatres and gardens were

perfumed with a melange of tobacco, onions, and whiskey; no

doubt the consumption of ardent spirits was high throughout the

State; no doubt that lounging, slovenly, and coarse manners

were commonly observed where the populace was gathered to-

gether in town and country. Worse still, down on the levee,

flatboatmen roared and fought, kicked and gouged. But that is

only a part of the story. Up on the terraces of Cincinnati and

in other towns, were residences where citizens had set up a mode

of living that seems surprisingly cultivated and urbane, when

one considers that the region was only one generation removed

from the howling wilderness.

Here then are a few impressions of our region, especially

Cincinnati, in that age of wonders, the 1830's.  Measured in

terms of pleasure and pain, I suppose that the balance lay then

just where it lies now, even with that nine mill tax rate thrown

in. For that blessing was counterbalanced by greater bodily dis-

comforts and uncontrolled plagues. But the most vivid impres-

sion for me is Ohio in the rowdiness of its youth, growing rapidly,

charged with ambition, and determined that increasing wealth

and industry must help to promote better manners, better educa-

tion, and a more satisfactory enjoyment of the arts of civilization.

• 15