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Sister Adelia Shocked Cincinnati, Twice, By Forsaking Her Solemn Vows

What was the deal with Sister Adelia? She lived in Cincinnati for just over a year, created an international sensation, and then faded into history.

Adelia may have come from wealth and may have benefited from a high-class education, but we may never know for certain. Very little of what she said about herself or her family checks out. She was a Catholic nun and had reportedly entered the Order of the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis as a teenager. Some sources say she abandoned a hefty inheritance to take her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and that her share was redistributed among several stepsisters. All we can document is that Sister Adelia arrived in Cincinnati early in 1908 as a nun and was assigned to the wards as a nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Lick Run.

Throughout that summer she attended a patient named Jacob Walter, a barber hospitalized for several weeks due to an unspecified condition. Walter required extensive care, provided dutifully by Sister Adelia. The Cincinnati newspapers later conjured scenarios out of some dime novel. Here’s the Commercial Tribune [20 January 1909]:

“Day after day the sister visited the sick man and with each visit his admiration grew for her. Little could he disguise his feelings and he showed by his every word that he was desperately in love with Sister Adelia. One day he thought he saw a strange light in the nurse’s eyes, a light which had never before shone there and which he had never before seen in any woman’s eyes. Yet he instinctively knew that he had awakened a return of affection in the woman whom he loved.”

The Cincinnati Post [20 January 1909] even invented interior dialogue for the forbidden courtship of the patient and his virginal caretaker:

“He tried to reason the situation out, but his tired, aching limbs would not let him think consecutively. He dozed off. Upon awakening he looked up into the nun’s eyes as she bent over him. At first he thought he was dreaming. She had been in his mind in slumber. ‘You,’ he smiled. The trace of a smile came at the corners of her mouth.”

Jacob Walter was discharged as a patient later that summer and almost immediately put into action a plan that he and Sister Adelia had concocted over his sickbed. On the morning of 20 August 1908, Sister Adelia feigned illness to be excused from chapel, snuck into the hospital kitchen and borrowed street clothing from one of the cooks, then took a streetcar into town to meet her former patient at the county courthouse.

The pair secured a marriage license from acting Probate Judge Almon Mitchell Warner and Deputy Clerk Jacob E. Falk. Walter said he was 29 and a barber born in Cincinnati. Adelia claimed to be 34, born in New York City. Her father, she said, was Conrad Conrady but she offered not a clue as to her mother’s identity. She listed her occupation as a “domestic” at St. Francis Hospital.

Both Jacob and Adelia were Catholic, but marriage in the Church was now out of the question. Neither would consent to having their union blessed by a Protestant minister. A friend of a friend found Hiram C. Bolsinger, a lawyer with offices in the Mercantile Library Building, who also happened to be a Justice of the Peace in Millcreek Township.

Bolsinger met the couple at the Duckworth Club on Ninth Street, where he performed the civil rites in one of the club’s parlors. Jacob told the Commercial Tribune:

“My wife and I are very happy and both of us are glad that we have each other. She is the sweetest and best woman in the world.”

Jacob and Adelia set up housekeeping in Cumminsville near the barber shop of William Bernard, where Jacob had a chair. Adelia sought counsel from Father George Schmidt, pastor of St. Boniface Church, who surprised her by offering to take her case to Archbishop Henry K. Moeller and thence to the Vatican. Father Schmidt was so positive a dispensation from Pope Pius could be achieved that Walter and Adelia began to plan for a church wedding. It was not to be.

Adelia again made headlines in July when she left Cincinnati on a train heading for New York City. Neighbors told tales of a troubled household, constant arguments and abusive behavior by Jacob, who had lost his job and refused to work. The couple’s landlady reported that Jacob, brandishing a pistol, had barged into her apartment, looking for his wife and threatening violence. The landlady told the Enquirer [24 July 1909]:

“Mrs. Walter was a woman of refinement. She was always gentle, but sad. Her husband quarreled frequently with her, but she never answered his abuse.”

Fearing that her husband would discover her plan to abandon him, Adelia packed her belongings into a couple of soap boxes and asked a neighbor, a barkeep at a nearby saloon, to escort her to the Pennsylvania Railroad Depot.

The couple’s landlady told the newspapers that a moving van showed up after Adelia departed to haul away some belongings from their apartment but left behind furniture still being paid off in installment. Jacob Walter was never seen in the neighborhood again. The New York Sun [25 July 1909] said Adelia’s intent was to return to the convent:

“She says she will seek a reconciliation with her church and attempt to become a nun once more and that she never wants to see her husband again.”

The Enquirer told a different story, claiming that Adelia’s friends (otherwise unidentified) had received a letter from her stating she was welcomed in New York warmly by her stepsisters who had preserved her share of their father’s bequest. Adelia would soon become a wealthy divorcee.

Whether anyone lived happily ever after in this curious little tale is a mystery. The name Conrad Conrady, Adelia’s purported father, appears in only one single document – her marriage license. All evidence suggests that name was a fabrication. The New York and New Jersey archives offer scant evidence for anyone named Conrady during this time period and no Adelias at all. If Adelia or Jacob ever filed for divorce, documentation has yet to surface.

Meanwhile, the good Sisters at St. Francis Hospital soldiered on for another seven decades. The last patient was transferred from the original 1887 building to a new St. Francis/St. George Hospital up the hill in 1982 and the old facility now serves as senior housing.

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Cincinnati Loves Doughnuts, But It Took A World War For That Pastry To Catch On Here

For whatever reason, 1962 was a banner year for doughnuts in Cincinnati. That was the year two national chains, Mister Donut and Dunkin’ Donuts, unveiled plans to open outlets in the Queen City. Also in 1962, one of our local doughnut shops, Daily Donuts, announced it would open three new locations, creating a homegrown chain stretching from Price Hill to Forestville.

It’s not as if Cincinnati was unfamiliar with the toroidal pastry. In 1960, Daily Donuts debuted in Finneytown, almost simultaneously with Holtman’s opening their first location in Newtown. The very first local shop dedicated entirely to coffee and doughnuts was probably Chatten’s on Fountain Square, in operation since 1920. But it took a long time for the doughnut habit to reach critical mass in our town and the meandering path led through New England, Germany and France.

When doughnuts were first served in Cincinnati, they were quite frequently associated with Thanksgiving and with Down-East Yankees. In 1846, for example, the New England Society of Cincinnati celebrated the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock with a December 22 dinner. The highlight of that festivity was a two-and-a-half-hour oration by attorney Benjamin B. Fessenden, followed by a substantial feast at Melodeon Hall. According to the Enquirer [24 December 1846]:

“The table literally groaned with pork and beans, turkies, chicken pies, pumpkin pies and doughnuts. In the centre of the table was a pyramid formed of doughnuts, which was something less in size than the Plymouth Rock.”

A few years later, a menu for another Thanksgiving feast included turkey, chicken, puddings, pumpkin pie and doughnuts. An 1851 report by a Cincinnati journalist of a tour through New England made sure to mention doughnuts. And you will note that the two national chains set to invade Cincinnati in 1962 were both from Massachusetts – Mister Donut from Boston and Dunkin’ Donuts from Quincy.

As the years rolled on, doughnuts retained their association with autumn as one of the chief treats distributed at Halloween. Cincinnati’s “Food Etymologist” Dann Woellert reports that German immigrants called the traditional Halloween begging custom “kinkling,” a corruption of “kuechele,” the German-Swabian word for doughnut. Woellert notes that door-to-door begging for doughnuts in Europe was mostly conducted before Lent. In Cincinnati, the practice was switched to the fall.

Although strongly connected to autumn in the urban areas, for a long time doughnuts were considered a rural delicacy. When a delegation of Cincinnati Republicans called on President-elect James Garfield, they were welcomed, according to the Enquirer [4 December 1880] by Lucretia Garfield, soon to become First Lady:

“They were introduced to Mrs. Garfield, who, in regular old-fashioned country style, passed around the doughnuts and coffee.”

As late as 1915, the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, in describing activities at a vacation resort, noted that coffee and doughnuts were served “just as such things are found in a country station.”

A major shift in Cincinnati’s appreciation of doughnuts emerged from World War I. As our doughboys deployed throughout France in the “War To End All Wars,” they were greeted by the ladies of the Salvation Army, who had established refreshment stations on routes into the combat zones, offering coffee and doughnuts. Whether it was the threat of bombardment, a special recipe, or the comfort of a feminine smile, our soldiers acclaimed those pastries the pinnacle of gustatory delight. That created, according to the Enquirer [5 September 1919], a predicament back home:

“After coming home from overseas service a Cincinnati boy, who was in the Rainbow Division, urged his mother to make him some doughnuts. When he came home he was met by mother with great platters of sugary doughnuts. He took a few bites and then said: ‘Well, mother, these are mighty good, but they are not up to the Salvation Army doughnuts.’”

Capitalizing on that reputation, the Cincinnati contingent of the Salvation Army employed doughnuts as a fund-raising tool. In an effort to secure $40,000 to fund an affordable housing project, volunteers sold freshly cooked, authentic Salvation Army doughnuts for a dollar apiece from vats of bubbling lard on Fountain Square. Donors gobbled thousands a day.

Sensing a potential goldmine, manufacturers of doughnut-making machines began advertising in Cincinnati newspapers. A 1920 pitch for Chicago’s Jarvis Corporation sounded ecstatically optimistic:

“Rent a store and start a doughnut shop. One person with an Automatic Jarvis Machine can make enough flaky, golden brown doughnuts to keep four people busy selling them!”

Originally dedicated to selling orange drinks, the Chatten Fruit Products store on Fountain Square pivoted in 1920 to coffee and doughnuts and began marketing its own doughnut machine. Chatten’s “Famous Coffee and Doughnut Shop” must have moved a lot of pastries; rent on their storefront was $10,000 a year in 1919 dollars.

A block north, at 28 East Sixth Street, William P. McCrone’s cafeteria was turning out 500 doughnuts every hour by 1928. Celebrating the tenth anniversary of his eatery, McCrone bragged about his automated contraption:

“Crowds of interested people daily watch it cooking the delicious doughnuts Mr. McCrone sells to his rapidly increasing trade. Coffee is served with the doughnuts, which are delivered fresh and hot each minute from the wonderful machine.”

So popular had doughnuts become by mid-decade that the Enquirer’s “Mothers Ask” column [6 November 1925] had to assure housewives that doughnuts were no less digestible than any other sort of baked treat and had only slightly more fat than poundcake.

Cincinnati today offers abundant doughnut options and yet none of our modern purveyors employ Pilgrims or doughboys as mascots, so thoroughly have we forgotten our city’s doughnut heritage.

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It’s No Surprise Someone Shot Thomas Campbell, But The Wrong Person Died

There is no question but Thomas G. Campbell was a bounder and a cad. He treated two wives shabbily and his several girlfriends worse. In addition, Campbell was a poseur who fooled no one at all. It is absolutely understandable why someone would want to shoot him.

Throughout his adult life, according to the city directories and the census, Campbell held a variety of respectable, if modest, occupations. He ran a confectionery for a bit, and then a fruit stand. He was a gas fitter and collected debts for a Cincinnati clothing store. But he really wanted to be a star, to strut and fret his hour upon the stage, or the boxing ring, as the case may be. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer [26 May 1897]:

“Campbell was generally regarded as being ‘daffy’ on the subject of boxing. He was given several opportunities to make a success in other walks of life, but wanted to be mixed up in pugilistic or theatrical affairs.”

For a time, Campbell ran a gymnasium on Freeman Avenue, but he lacked any skills himself and none of his boxers had any luck in the ring. His second wife was an actress and Campbell attempted to promote her as a female boxer by training her in secret while challenging a professional woman gymnast and distaff pugilist named Madame Zorella to a match. Madame Zorella declined to dignify Campbell’s proposition with a response. Campbell, not wanting to waste his investment in training, created an act in which he and Mrs. Campbell sparred with each other on stage. Per the Enquirer:

“Later he and his wife traveled in a joint boxing turn and other vaudeville specialties. They did not make a brilliant hit.”

Those other “specialties” included a blackface domestic comedy sketch. Campbell drifted west, ending up in St. Louis peddling some sort of patented gas fixture without much success but charming a local prostitute named Maude Devere. While romancing Miss Devere, who seems to have financially supported Campbell’s residency in St. Louis, he sent to Cincinnati asking his wife to join him on the stage as he had booked their act for a week at the Globe Theater.

The second Mrs. Campbell was May Schwaab, daughter of a Cincinnati saloonist. As a teenager, she had run away with a vaudeville troupe and married a gambler named John Hart in Texas. Hart abandoned May for another woman. She returned to Cincinnati, divorced Hart and married Campbell, a widower with a young son, in 1894.

Campbell was no prize. Newspapers reported one incident in which he wandered Cincinnati’s streets with a pistol, aiming to shoot May because she accused him of infidelity, based on a newspaper report that he had beat up his girlfriend who confessed their affair to Mrs. Campbell.

Still, May Campbell followed her man to St. Louis, and the couple found rooms on Chouteau Avenue. When Campbell disappeared for a couple of days, then returned home in the depths of a hangover, May searched his pockets and found Maude Devere’s card. She visited the courtesan and they had an educational chat. Maude told May that Campbell claimed to be unmarried and wanted to elope with her. May told Maude that she had suffered enough and wanted a divorce, needing only enough evidence to satisfy the court. Maude offered a plan: She would invite Campbell to her house while May hid in a closet and gathered her evidence. May would get her divorce and Maude would get her man.

Unbeknownst to Maude, May arrived with a five-shot .38-caliber pistol. She later claimed it was for protection; Maude’s brothel on Center Street lay in a rough part of town, after all. May hid while Maude awaited Campbell. Maude told the St. Louis Post Dispatch [25 May 1897]:

“He sat down and made love to me in his usual way. The closet door was partly open and I’m sure his wife heard a good deal that was pretty bitter to her. He said she did not love him and he couldn’t get along with her and he wanted to make arrangements with me to light out next week.”

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat picked up the tale as May Campbell seethed in the closet:

“Finally it became more than she could stand, and, throwing open the door, sprang into the center of the room. With a cry of, “Oh, you dog,’ she raised her weapon and, pointing it directly at Campbell, she began to pump lead at him as fast as she could pull the trigger.”

Emptying the revolver, May ran out of the house down to the new City Hall, where she surrendered to the police court. Campbell staggered after her, bleeding from a gunshot to the jaw and a through-and-through to his chest. He whipped out a pocketknife, yelling threats at his wife, then remembered he had forgotten his hat and returned to Maude’s to get it. As Maude gave him the hat, she realized that she had been shot as well, an apparently mild wound just above her knee. Both she and Campbell ended up at the infirmary.

Told that her husband lay at the brink of death, May was taken by police to the infirmary where she alternately kissed the wounded man and bragged that he got what he deserved. Maude underwent surgery to remove the bullet.

Despite a horrendous chest wound and a shattered jaw, Campbell recovered completely. Maude Devere died five days later. May was charged with murder – for killing her accomplice, not attempted murder of her husband. A coroner’s inquest eventually cleared May completely, after testimony from two interns revealed that a senior surgeon had botched Maude’s operation and treatment. Maude succumbed to a combination of sepsis and blood loss inflicted by the doctor.

Thomas Campbell returned to Cincinnati and moved in with his well-to-do mother, who had apparently financed his pugilistic and theatrical fantasies. Two years after surviving May’s assault, Campbell sued for divorce, claiming his wife had deserted him. It seems May went back on the road, assuming the stage name of May Foster.

Campbell drowned his sorrows. He died in 1905 and the cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver. He is buried at the Vine Street Hill Cemetery.

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Cincinnati Smokers Ignored Health Warnings, Even About The Dreaded ‘Tobacco Heart’

The other day, someone apparently born in the present century posted a photo of an ash tray in the “What Is It?” section of Reddit, a stunning reminder of how precipitously tobacco consumption has declined in recent years. Younger viewers of retro series such as “Mad Men” ask if smoking was really that prevalent. (Spoiler: Yes it was.)

The accepted narrative these days is that almost everyone smoked, and they all smoked everywhere. Cigarette advertisements boasted the many doctors who endorsed particular brands and photos circulate today showing nurses offering cigarettes to hospital patients and it might seem like no one worried about the health effects of tobacco until the United States Surgeon General announced to general shock and amazement in 1964 that cigarettes just might not be good for your health. That story line is enshrined on the website of the Centers for Disease Control, which proclaims:

“The first report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health was released in 1964. It was a landmark first step to diminish the impact of tobacco use on the health of the American people.”

Many people today believe that smoking used to be considered beneficial, and even healthful. That is simply not the case. Cigarettes were described as “coffin nails” as early as the 1890s, and newspapers throughout the 1800s were full of advertisements for medicines guaranteed to cure the tobacco habit, most of which warned against the dreaded disease known as “tobacco heart.”

Tobacco heart was recognized as a legitimate disease by practicing physicians. The Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic, official journal of the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine [18 September 1897] described a typical case:

“There was a slight intermission of the pulse-beat about every thirty beats, which I attributed to a nervous condition superinduced by the excessive use of tobacco, as my patient had been some five years ago an inveterate smoker and chewer – a typical case of ‘tobacco heart’.”

Far from being limited to irregular heartbeats, tobacco heart was often fatal. In 1902, a traveling salesman from Cincinnati, one William I. Casselberry, was found dead in a hotel room. Cause of death was tobacco heart, Casselberry being a “great cigarette smoker.” Likewise, a coroner’s inquest in 1905 determined that John L. Foster, an artificial limb manufacturer, died from tobacco heart. According to the Cincinnati Post [21 April 1905]:

“He had been warned by Dr. Edwin Wiggers that he had a tobacco heart, but persisted in smoking a cigar in spite of his wife’s entreaty, and died five minutes after.”

Tobacco heart struck nicotine fiends at all levels of society. The Cincinnati Enquirer [28 February 1901] reported that Ohio Governor George K. Nash would miss the inauguration of William McKinley in his second term as U.S. President because of tobacco heart:

“Governor Nash is slightly improved this evening though it is announced that he will not be able to leave his office before Friday afternoon. The attack is due to tobacco heart, and not to indigestion, as at first announced by his physicians.”

Despite general agreement that there was a real disease called tobacco heart, there is substantial evidence that doctors did not consider it more than a chronic inconvenience, if they believed it was an affliction at all. The Enquirer [19 August 1900] reported the case of Doctor Charles W. Parsons, who died suddenly:

“The doctor was talking to a friend, when he remarked that he had pains around the heart. ‘You’ve got a tobacco heart,’ said the friend. ‘Oh, no: just watch me,’ said the doctor, drawing out a cigar and striking a match. He had just touched the flame to the tobacco when he gave a cry and fell to the pavement senseless. He was taken to his home, but died within a few minutes.”

It’s impossible to tell whether Doctor William D. Stroud was serious or not when, in a paper presented to a regional medical conference, he promoted alcohol as the best antidote to tobacco heart because it dilates the arteries. According to the Enquirer [23 November 1946]:

“Dr. Stroud said he envisaged a smoker with heart disease ‘going through life with a cigar in one hand and a highball in the other – although I’m sure the Women’s Christian Temperance Union won’t agree.’”

As late as 1956, Dr. T.R. Van Dellen, medical columnist for the Enquirer, acknowledged that “tobacco heart,” although not officially recognized as a medical condition, accurately described the effects of tobacco use on heart health, especially because many symptoms disappeared if the patient gave up nicotine.

Of course, tobacco heart was not the only effect of nicotine addiction. A 1907 advertisement for “Easy-To-Quit” listed cancer, as well as inflammations of the stomach, bowels, liver and kidneys among the curses inflicted by tobacco. An 1898 article about a City Hospital inmate blamed tobacco usage for “fullness about the heart, headaches, flushing about the face and flashes of light in the eyes, feeble pulse and heartbeats now rapid now slow.” Doctors predicted he was destined for apoplexy, or stroke. All of this at least a half-century before the Surgeon General’s pronouncement.

And, if tobacco heart and its associated diseases weren’t enough, smokers also risked tobacco-induced insanity. The Post [25 June 1892] reported the case of Claire T. De Garmo, a young man of great promise, who had been declared insane after he was found wandering around downtown Cincinnati aimlessly, unaware of his name or condition. Doctor James G. Hunt declared De Garmo the victim of nicotine addiction and incurably insane. He determined institutionalization as the only possibility. As early as 1886, the Enquirer quoted medical authorities aware that smoking was definitely not good for health:

“There can be no question but that the inhalation of smoke induces disease of the mucous membrane with which it comes in contact. It will produce a catarrhal state of the nose and throat when none exists, or it will awaken a new one in a patient who has been cured of the disease.”

With apparently general agreement that tobacco heart was bad, not to mention catarrh and insanity, why did it take so long for the general public to give up “cancer sticks”? It’s yet another reminder that common sense is anything but common.

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Cincinnati’s Parks Boasted Trees, Flowers, Birds – And A Lot Of Public Spooning

Cincinnati’s parks report some remarkable statistics regarding acreage, champion trees, visitor tallies and so on. All but unrecorded are the aphrodisiacal influences of all that greenery and fresh air. No one seems to have ever recorded how many marriages (or births) can be attributed to strolls down our municipal sylvan paths.

Today, the Cincinnati Park system encompasses around 5,000 acres, with eight regional parks, 70 neighborhood parks, 34 preserves and natural areas, plus parkways, hiking trails, street trees, nature centers, scenic overlooks, playgrounds, landscaped gardens, and picnic areas. Most of these resources were adopted in relatively recent decades.

In 1904, by contrast, Cincinnati claimed only six parks, most of them relatively compact. The total inventory included Garfield Park (one acre), Lincoln Park (10 acres), Washington Park (not quite six acres), Hopkins Park in Mount Auburn (one acre), Eden Park (214 acres), and Burnet Woods (163 acres). Inwood Park (almost 20 acres), now municipally owned, was then a private facility. And, my goodness, did those parks witness some amorous behavior!

In 1894, an Elm Street man wondered where his wife had gone to. She had not come home the night before. In the morning newspaper, he noticed that a man whom he suspected of alienating his wife’s affections had been arrested along with a certain “May Wilson” on charges of “improper conduct” in Burnet Woods. He visited the Police Court and learned that the alleged Miss Wilson was, in fact, his wife, hiding behind a pseudonym. Although he announced his intention to divorce, the offended husband paid his wife’s fine so she would not be sentenced to the Workhouse.

In 1892, a man who gave his name as James Brown and also James Young, was arrested in Burnet Woods for indecent behavior after he was reported fondling a young woman within view of several children.

The next year, a “well-dressed young man” and a “stylish-appearing young woman” who claimed to be married were arrested for acting in a disgraceful manner in Burnet Woods. Their true names were never disclosed because the Police Court judge conducted their entire hearing in whispers at the bench on the suggestion of the defense attorney. Rumors about their actual identities (and the bribe to keep the court confidential) kept tongues wagging for days.

Such incidents multiplied after 1895 when the University of Cincinnati moved from the McMicken Street hillside to its new campus on Clifton Avenue. A new course was, in jest, added to the curriculum: Parkology. According to the Cincinnati Post [13 June 1906]:

“As its name indicates, this branch of learning has to do largely with the park – Burnet Woods Park, where the University is situated. The course can be taken only in April, May and June. While each class consists only of a boy and a girl, there may be any number of classes, and Prof. Cupid, who is in charge of the department, has the work so arranged that the classes never interfere with one another.”

It was Eden Park that earned the naughtiest reputation among Cincinnati’s parks. A headline in the Cincinnati Post [15 July 1908], “Hold Orgies In Eden Park” captures the public’s opinion on what was then the city’s largest park. And that stigma was of long standing. As early as 1877, park officer Michael Sweeny arrested a man after repeatedly finding him reclining amid the Eden Park shrubbery with various women.

In 1892, Charles Spencer and Minnie Williams were arrested in Eden Park for “making love in the most passionate manner.” The amorous pair were each fined $5 and costs.

Challenging Eden Park as a place of disgraceful behavior was the privately-owned Inwood Park along Vine Street. At Inwood Park, the troubles included the park’s own security detail. The Gazette [30 June 1873] describes how security officer Frank Mulholland, assigned to catch pickpockets at Inwood Park, enjoyed one too many free beers and was roused from bed at a Gano Street brothel. Hauled up on charges, Officer Mulholland protested that he had followed a pickpocket to that address.

The Gazette [25 July 1874] found itself at a loss for words to report the enormity of the Inwood Park scandals:

“Last Thursday night the demi monde, the gamblers, blacklegs, pimps and prostitutes of Cincinnati, headed by Stofe Moore, Godey Martin, and others of that ilk, held a picnic in Inwood Park. This mere statement contains data enough to form an opinion of the scenes which must have presented themselves to the observer, who would have so far forgotten his self-respect, and neglected common decency, as to attend.”

In 1874, Charles G. Petzsch, proprietor of Inwood Park, was hauled into court to answer charges by neighbors that habitués of that park were out of control. An attorney for residents living on the border of the park asserted that, even with five patrolmen on his security detail, Mr. Petzsch could control his customers.

“We are prepared to prove acts of lewdness, and to bring testimony which will rival in disgustingness anything ever brough out in this court. And after the parties are ready to leave the park, the strumpets and loafers stream out, using language which will disgust decent, or even indecent people.”

As early as 1872, a Cincinnati Parks commissioner asked his colleagues to prohibit the attendance and commercial activity of prostitutes in the city’s parks. While the park board was sympathetic, no one could suggest any feasible measures to achieve such a goal and so the matter was dropped.

By 1912, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union blamed the parks for contributing to a general licentiousness resulting in “public lovemaking.” A committee of the WCTU – all in the service of civic morality of course – held their noses and visited the most sordid venues in Cincinnati including the parks and riverfront beaches. The Cincinnati Post [8 August 1912] reported:

“For two weeks a special committee of women, headed by Ms. Cora Shoyer, Miss Elizabeth Dwinnel and Miss Susie Remmick, have visited bathing beaches and parks frequented by young folk. Mrs. Shroyer reported that young girls unchaperoned, who looked under 14 years of age, drank intoxicants in the company of older men at summer resorts; that about 11 o’clock she saw girls sitting in the laps of male escorts on river boats, and that in parks she had observed lovemaking going on under the electric lights in view of every one.”

Even more outrageous, the WCTU complained, was the behavior of couples on the street cars leaving the parks at night. They appealed to Cincinnati’s mayor for an ordinance to criminalize “spooning.” You can evaluate the success of that initiative by your own experience, I will wager.

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A Touch Of Scandal Didn’t Hurt Cincinnatian Josie Jones’ British Opera Career

Musicians, especially singers and especially divas, know that a hint of scandal does wonders for one’s reputation. Not enough tawdry details to be cancelled – just enough spice to add a air of mystery and allure to an otherwise stainless reputation.

And so, one wonders whether Josephine Jones Yorke, a British contralto of some repute, was confused, outraged or even somewhat amused to have her name titillatingly linked to that of a Baltimore doctor. That the rumors bubbled up in Cincinnati, of all places, added to the mystery but then, Miss Jones Yorke had some secrets of her own.

For example, that “Yorke” had no business tacked onto her name. It was plopped there by German-born impresario Carl Rosa, who delighted the United Kingdom by staging wildly popular and remunerative operas in English-language productions at accessible ticket prices. He thought it made Josephine Jones sound more British, don’t you know.

In Cincinnati, she was plain old Josie Jones, the daughter of Charles Taylor Jones, a well-to-do soap maker, and his wife Margaret. The Jones family had a very spacious manse on Eighth Street in the fashionable section between Freeman and Carr out in the West End. C.T. Jones was quite respectable, elected vice president of the Cincinnati Stock Exchange and President of the Mercantile Library. His daughters were educated by the Brown County Ursulines. Josie took voice lessons from Andrea Carlo Alfisi, a Milan-born musician who taught out of his home on Court Street.

Her mother died in 1869, her father in 1871 and Josie Jones decided to make a career of opera. She relocated to Italy and, after a few years of Milanese polish, was recruited by Carl Rosa to make her London debut. Josie, now Josephine, specialized in “pants roles” or “breeches roles” in which a woman portrays a male character, such as Cherubino in “The Marriage of Figaro.” Although rarely the headliner, she was very popular and fêted like a superstar back in Cincinnati, where she often performed at the May Festival when Rosa’s schedule permitted.

Which brings us to Doctor Norman C. McLean. Although he appears prominently in some high-profile news stories, Doctor McLean’s biographical details are somewhat hazy. Usually described as an Englishman, he was probably born in Scotland. His father was awarded rank as a Companion of the Bath, one of the lower orders of knighthood, for military service. His sister was scandalously murdered, and that led to Doctor McLean crossing paths with Josephine Jones Yorke.

Annie Jane Fanny McLean, aged 34, died of acute alcohol poisoning in a rented room above a coffee shop in the Marylebone neighborhood of London’s West End. A man named James Payne, who seemed to have three other extant and undivorced wives, claimed that he was her husband. For a month or more, Payne had denied Miss McLean food while plying her with tumblers of brandy. On her demise, he rapidly took steps to seize her father’s inheritance and property. Doctor McLean sailed to England to assist in the subsequent trial, in which Payne was found guilty and sentenced to life at hard labor.

While in London, Doctor McLean enjoyed several evenings of Carl Rosa’s operatic entertainments and fell into a swoony passion for Josephine Jones Yorke, the lovely contralto. He sent his regards and a bouquet or two, as stage-door admirers did then. Much to his surprise, on his return to the United States, he discovered that Miss Jones Yorke was a passenger on the very same ship, and they developed a friendship over their weeks at sea.

On his return to America, Doctor McLean faced another complicated legal matter involving an Ohio River resort outside of Pittsburgh called Ellanova Springs. A man named George B. Nash, who appears to have mismanaged several hostelries into bankruptcy over a career spanning decades, talked Doctor McLean into dumping a pile of money into renovating and furnishing the hotel at Ellanova Springs which, despite the improvements, was attracting not enough guests to pay the bills. Doctor McLean wanted to extricate himself from the deal, Mister Nash wanted more money. Lawyers were involved.

In the middle of this kerfuffle, Doctor McLean departed on a “business trip” to Cincinnati. Whatever business may have been involved was never revealed, but Doctor McLean made daily visits to the house maintained by Josephine Jones Yorke and her sisters. Unbeknownst to Doctor McLean, his mother-in-law followed him to Queen City, procured the services of a detective and rushed back to Ellanova Springs to share her findings with her daughter. Although the Pittsburgh papers hinted at a trove of incriminating letters, the Cincinnati papers insisted the only fault lay with Doctor McLean, whose fervid fandom got the better of him. The Cincinnati Commercial [26 July 1880] dismissed any untoward implications:

“The suspicious wife sent her mother-in-law to this city, and she engaged a detective to shadow Dr. McLean and Miss Jones to see if they could find anything in the conduct of the Doctor and the contralto to furnish the wife with material on which to base a divorce suit. They were unsuccessful, the old lady returned home and the jealous wife took her husband back to her arms. This is the story.”

Josephine’s sisters were livid. One told the Cincinnati Times-Star [24 July 1880]:

“Dr. McLean came to Cincinnati on business while Miss Josie was home and visited twice at our house while here but never except in the presence of the family, and never, so far as I can remember, passed one moment with our sister Josie.”

As for Doctor McLean, he admitted his infatuation and confessed that he went to Cincinnati specifically because he knew Josephine Jones Yorke would be there but told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette [26 July 1880] that his business partner, Mr. Nash, was the source for all the rumors.

“Well, sir, that story and all this scandal has been started by this scoundrel Nash. I feel as though I ought to strangle him. I would defend Miss Yorke’s honor with my life any day, for I respect and admire her. She is a pure woman. I would fight at the drop of a handkerchief to protect her good name.”

As the gossip bubbled, Josephine Jones Yorke was already on her way back to England. She rejoined the Carl Rosa Company without incident and performed with them for another dozen years to consistently appreciative reviews. For several years, she shared the stage with a suspiciously named mezzo-soprano who went by Lilian La Rue. This was, in fact, Josephine’s younger sister Frances Alice Jones whose very promising career was cut short by her death at age 29 in 1885.

Josie eventually returned to the United States, settling in Chicago with her siblings, where she offered music and voice lessons for many years. She died, aged 81, in 1931 and is buried in the Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery. She never married and whatever stain may have clung to her reputation had evaporated long before.

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Tales From The Blackberry Patch: A Cincinnati Man’s Sojourn Among The Shakers

The Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, near Harrodsburg, Kentucky, is now a historic site and museum, but was a thriving community from 1805 to 1910, the third-largest Shaker settlement in the United States. Like many communal and utopian communities, Pleasant Hill faced abundant challenges. Among the most fraught was the sect’s commitment to pacifism during the Civil War. Sketchy applicants for admission who were not fully committed to the Shaker principles were another. According to the landmark’s website:

“After the Civil War, the community’s population remained fairly stable at more than 300, and the economy somewhat improved. However, with a vacuum of leadership, by 1886 the community was $14,000 in debt, and membership was composed of the very young and very old. New converts were often widowed women with small children or freeloading men.”

Among those freeloading men was a Cincinnatian named Joel Gibbs. He applied for membership at Pleasant Hill around 1869 and spent most of the next couple years supposedly living under the covenants of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, the formal name of the sect.

Founded in England in 1747 and introduced to the United States in 1780 the United Society believed that the end of the world was imminent and that Christianity had drifted apart from the original teachings of Jesus. They believed in communalism, confession of sin, separation from the world, and celibacy. Whatever he believed about common property, isolation and confession, Joel Gibbs was no fan of celibacy.

Born in 1805 in New Jersey, Gibbs arrived in Cincinnati as a young man and found work as a drayman. Today, he’d be a truck driver. Back then, he drove a team of sturdy horses pulling a good-sized wagon around town, making deliveries. He was married and had four children. Joel’s first wife died and he married a seamstress named Susanna Turner in 1849. They had a son together named James.

By the 1860s, that marriage was all but legally kaput. Susanna lived in a very nice house in Walnut Hills. Joel and the younger children were consigned to a house next door. In 1864, Susanna had Joel arrested because he was beating her and the children with his teamster’s whip. On another occasion, Susanna called a watchman into the house. He discovered Joel and son James in a heated argument with Susanna. James held a dirk in his hand. Although Susanna pleaded for assistance, the watchman left the family to sort things out for themselves. Neighbors described fights spilling out of the house into the streets and Joel, during one such incident, threatening his wife with a cudgel. According to the Cincinnati Commercial [11 January 1872]:

“The parties have been living in a condition for many years that was not agreeable. They had separated and got together again, but each time failed to live in harmony. One was excitable, and the other what might be termed ‘immobile.’ No doubt, taking the parties separately from each other, they were respectable people.”

In 1869, Joel Gibbs, claiming Susanna threatened to kill him if he did not leave, departed Cincinnati and found his way to Pleasant Hill. He remained in that community for most of the next three years. Sometime during that extended stay, Susanna discovered Joel’s whereabouts and visited Pleasant Hill, apparently to invite him to return home. She said she was worried and thought he might have committed suicide. Joel rejected her offer, but did make a brief trip to Cincinnati to pick up some additional clothing.

Which brings us to the blackberry patch. The Shakers lived, worked, ate and worshipped communally; men usually being strictly segregated from women. Among the few circumstances in which men and women worked together was berrying. It was the custom to send four or five “sisters” out to the blackberry patch, accompanied by one “brother” to protect them.

On one fateful June day in 1871, Joel was recruited to participate in a berrying crew along with five sisters, among whom were Ella Huston, Maggie Link and Susan Paine. As Ella later recounted, after the women had filled their baskets, Joel said there were larger berries in another nearby field and took Maggie and Susan over yonder. Ella, having heard some rumors, decided to investigate and found Joel and Susan in flagrante, while Maggie sat alone under a tree. The next year, Ella testified in court:

“I had heard remarks of an improper intimacy between them before, but had supposed he was too much of a gentleman to be guilty of anything wrong. I watched them, however, on this occasion, and saw them commit adultery. He cautioned me not to tell what I saw near the blackberry fence, and said, ‘If you do, you will be sorry to the end of your days.’"

This sordid tale emerged in January 1872 as Joel sued Susanna for divorce on the grounds of cruelty and abandonment and she countersued on grounds of cruelty, abandonment and adultery. The court, and the local newspapers, relished the blackberry patch story, Susanna’s attorney asking Ella if she was aware of other incidents of licentiousness among the supposedly celibate commune. Although the judge rejected the question, he wasn’t fast enough, and Ella replied that she knew several “sisters” sent away because of sexual behavior.

As an aside, between the blackberry incident in June and the divorce proceedings in January, Ella Huston had become Ella Gibbs because she had left the Shakers and married Susanna’s and Joel’s son, James. She was, in other words, a witness against her father-in-law.

Although enjoying the salacious testimony no end, the court ruled that Joel had no grounds for divorce. He was unable to produce any credible witnesses to Susanna’s alleged cruelty and, since it was he who had left home to join the Shakers, she had not abandoned him. This was a great disappointment to Joel because he had primarily sued for divorce to impel Susanna to sell the property she owned in Walnut Hills and give half to him as alimony.

The judge ruled that Susanna had not sufficiently proven cruelty, that adultery was an unnecessary addition to the charges and that Joel’s departure to join a celibate sect constituted all the proof that was necessary to prove abandonment. Susanna got the divorce and Joel got nothing.

Three years later, in 1875, a neighbor told Susanna there was an old man in apparent distress at the Walnut Hills train station. From the description, she knew it was Joel. She rushed to the station, where she found her ex-husband in a stupor. Joel told her he was not drunk but had taken poison. Susanna had him brought back to her house and called a doctor. Joel asked her to get a book out of the nightstand drawer and he showed her the recipe for his fatal concoction. There was no antidote and he died shortly thereafter.

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Attorney Thomas F. Shay, A Colorful Counselor From Cincinnati’s Golden Age

He didn’t have to advertise on billboards or radio. He didn’t need a catchy telephone number. (For the record, his number was Main 103.) But everyone in Cincinnati, at least everyone who had troubles with the law, knew where to find Thomas Francis Shay at his office in the old St. Paul Building on the south side of Fourth Street, just east of Walnut.

Tom Shay (1853 – 1907) was the premier defense attorney in Hamilton County, and he defended them all – murderers, thieves and scoundrels of every stripe. Shay’s name was known to every denizen of the demimonde up and down Longworth and George streets, the thoroughfares of Cincinnati’s “red light” district. And not, it must be noted, for what might be the obvious reasons.

For example, Shay defended Kate Riley, described as “the proprietress of a well known house of ill fame” when liquor dealer Thomas B. Leonard attempted to shake her down for $111.50 that, he claimed, she owed him. It appears Leonard not only supplied Riley’s “resort” with booze, he often stopped by and consumed a lot of it himself. In fact, he had the nerve to file suit the morning after a “jamboree” at Riley’s establishment. Leonard testified Riley owed him various sums with very specific dates. On cross examination, Shay produced receipts, signed by Leonard, proving that every one of those bills had been paid. Shay then began reading a series of letters from Leonard to Riley suggesting their relationship went significantly beyond pure business. With typical courtroom flair, Shay handed one letter back to his client, announcing that it would be improper to read it aloud in court. The red-faced Leonard settled quickly and quietly.

When John D. Farrell, a resident of the Dayton Soldier’s Home, accused Kate Riley of theft, Shay again rose in her defense. It came out that Farrell scrimped and shepherded his pension every year into a fair-sized bankroll and then descended upon Cincinnati to paint the town red, as it were, for a week or so. After his 1884 spree, gazing at his empty pocketbook, Farrell complained to the police he had been robbed of $700 at Kate Riley’s bordello. Kate testified that Farrell had spent close to $300 at her place over four days but that was far from unusual. Some of her customers, Kate said, often squandered $500 in an evening. Then Shay got Farrell on the stand for cross-examination. According to the Cincinnati Post [23 May 1884]:

“The testimony all along showed Farrell to be a consummate old fool, who comes to town once a year and blows all his money.”

Kate Riley was absolved of the old fellow’s indiscretions.

Shay’s courtroom tirades were legendary. The story goes that an assistant prosecutor was showing a visitor around the courthouse when they passed a rambunctiously loud courtroom. The visitor asked what matter was being adjudicated. The prosecutor replied that it was only a small case involving $2.50 and the United States Constitution. That’s a lot of exertion for $2.50, opined the guest. “Oh, that’s Tom Shay,” said the prosecutor. “He doesn’t care about the $2.50 – he’s defending the constitution.”

On another occasion, Shay represented a man who had murdered his wife. In his closing arguments, Shay lambasted prosecutor Harry Hoffheimer, insulting him in very personal terms. After adjournment, Hoffheimer retreated to his office, still smarting from Shay’s tirade. The Cincinnati Post [21 August 1907] reported that Shay cheerfully strolled into Hoffheimer’s room with his arm outstretched.

“‘All’s fair in war, you know, Harry. That was for the benefit of the jury. You know I didn’t mean that and wouldn’t for the world say anything like that outside of court.’ Hoffheimer took the proffered hand, and though they fought one another bitterly in many subsequent cases, they always remained fast friends.”

It was known that Shay had a devilish sense of humor. On day, Shay was in court, defending a man accused of murder. The victim had been shot in the abdomen. One of the witnesses, a corpulent surgeon, was asked by Assistant Prosecutor Thomas H. Darby to indicate to the jury the location of the fatal wound. The poor surgeon’s bulk prohibited this entirely, so the prosecutor, who barely weighed 100 pounds soaking wet, volunteered himself as the stand-in for the corpse. Shay immediately rose to object. The judge, very much surprised, asked Shay for the basis of his objection. Shay replied, “I don’t know by what right Mr. Darby claims to have an abdomen.”

Shay was very active in the Hamilton County Democratic Party and was occasionally drafted to sit in for ill or vacationing judges. By the time of his death, he was drifting away from litigation and spending more time as a stockbroker. Yet he still retained friends in high places and that was demonstrated by some unseemly shenanigans when Thomas Shay was found dead in the Lombardy Flats apartment of his stenographer, Ada Taylor.

Shay had told his wife that he was going out of town on business matters. Instead, he dropped into Mrs. Taylor’s rooms on Fourth Street. He was there for several hours and began to feel unwell. He asked for whiskey and she went out to buy some, but he only felt worse, so she summoned Thomas C. Minor, a police surgeon who lived just down the block. Doctor Minor arrived, took one look at Shay and pronounced him dead.

“I’m disgraced! He’s disgraced!” shouted Mrs. Taylor. Doctor Minor took matters in hand. Shay had three $50 bills in his pocket. The doctor gave one to the African American porter for his silence and had him carry the body around the corner to John J. Sullivan’s undertaking establishment on Central Avenue. Minor then procured a room for Mrs. Taylor (she was in the middle of divorcing her insurance agent husband in Kentucky) at the nearby Grand Hotel. Only then did Doctor Minor contact County Coroner Otis L. Cameron. Doctor Cameron was pissed, and conducted a full inquiry the next day, exposing all of the uncomfortable facts Mrs. Taylor and Doctor Minor had hoped to keep under wraps, such as the fact that Shay was partially disrobed when he expired.

Mrs. Shay, for Thomas Shay was indeed married and esteemed as a family man, was not notified of her husband’s demise until after midnight and pronounced herself thoroughly confused because she was certain he had left town hours ago. With her was the couple’s only daughter Rose Cecilia Shay, an opera singer of some talent, married to an operatic tenor, Michael J. McCarthy, who performed on stage as Joseph Fredericks. The vocal duo were expecting their second child, Shay’s second grandchild, at any moment.

Newspapers back then dove into the nitty-gritty of wills and bequests and sometimes printed rumor and innuendo as hard-core fact. (Who knew?) And so, two versions of Thomas Shay’s estate emerged, both involving his talented daughter. Because Rose had found difficulty getting starring roles, Shay bankrolled an entirely new operatic company with his daughter as the headliner. It was an artistic success and a financial disaster. Shay found himself in debt to the tune of $5,000 to George Considine, a New York gambler, who intended to press his case for reimbursement against Shay’s estate.

The question was, how much was that estate worth? One news story pegged Shay’s final tally at just $10,000 which would have severely impacted his widow if she had to honor the gambler’s chit. Other reports said Shay had done pretty well with his investments and had something like $500,000 in stocks, so Considine’s debt was just couch change. It’s likely reality fell somewhere in the middle. Mrs. Shay, her daughter and son-in-law and the kids moved west to Hollywood. Rose and Michael (aka Joseph) kept singing and Rose got a few movie roles. They are all buried out in California.

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The Further Adventures Of Cincinnati’s Curious Real Estate Investors And Scoundrels

Nicholas Longworth’s Still When he first arrived in Cincinnati in 1803, Nicholas Longworth was almost penniless. Twenty years later, he was the second-richest man in America, behind only John Jacob Astor. In 1830, he purchased what is now the Taft Museum as his home. Longworth’s rise to wealth began with a copper still. As a young attorney, he was engaged to defend a man accused of stealing horses. The defendant had no cash to pay the lawyer, but did have a copper still and a horse. Both were entrusted to the care of Joel Williams who, in addition to working as a surveyor, maintained a local tavern. Longworth suspected that both still and horse might be stolen but accepted the still as payment, the horse being more likely to be repossessed. Longworth won the case, his client rode off on the horse, and the attorney visited the tavern to collect his still. He discovered Williams boiling sour mash and unwilling to part with the device. Willliams offered instead fourteen and a half acres out on Western Row near Eighth Street. Longworth agreed. By 1859, that plot was worth $750,000.

Iron Chest Company By the 1830s, despite often violent repression, Cincinnati developed a small but influential Black middle class. Among these citizens were Samuel T. Wilcox, owner of the Dumas House, the only hotel catering to Black guests; Gideon Mercer Langston, who kept a livery stable and John Woodson, a barber who served as superintendent of a school for African American children. In September 1838, these men and others formed a mutual aid society called the Iron Chest Company. Each member contributed one dollar every week and with this fund the company built three brick buildings that they rented to white tenants. The company also helped fugitive Black people escape from slavery and assisted their less fortunate neighbors.

Oh, Susanna! Among the most unusual property transfers in Cincinnati was accomplished in 1902, when Susanna Gibbs transferred a parcel of land at the intersection of Hewitt and Fairfield in Evanston, valued at $6,000, to Susanna Turner. The identical first names were no coincidence. Susanna Gibbs and Susanna Turner were one and the same person. She was born Susanna Turner in 1825 and became Susanna Gibbs when she married Joel Gibbs in 1849. The couple separated in the 1860s and eventually divorced. Her ex-husband took poison and killed himself in 1875 and neighbors said Susanna Turner/Gibbs had acted strangely ever since. When she herself died a few years later, it was hypothesized that Susanna had converted all of her property to her birth name to shield it from her son, a notorious gambler and spendthrift.

Van Tress Empire A farm boy from Waynesville, Roy Van Tress rose quickly from rags to riches. It is too bad that his rise was a fabric of scam and sham, lies and outright larceny. Tress wanted to build an empire out west, centered around a city named for himself. To establish this western empire, Van Tress incorporated in 1910 the McAlester Real Estate Exchange with offices in downtown Cincinnati at the Union Central Life Building. Van Tress enticed customers with options to purchase some of the Indian Lands the U.S. government had grabbed in Oklahoma. Van Tress promised oil rights, timber reserves and lush farmlands for a few dollars an acre. Investigators soon discovered that Van Tress sold options to buy twice as much land as he had authority to sell and that most of the land he actually had rights to were barren, already timbered, and thoroughly devoid of any oil reserves. Some were essentially vertical plots on the side of steep bluffs. Van Tress was arrested in 1913 and spent the next decade in court. The interminable litigation took its toll and Van Tress died from pneumonia complicated by anemia in 1924.

Black Real Estate In A Segregated City On Easter Sunday in 1950, more than 6,000 people toured the brand-new and very elegant Manse Hotel in Walnut Hills. The Enquirer called the Manse “the finest hotel in the United States owned and operated by Negroes.” Because Cincinnati’s downtown hotels were segregated, the Manse for many years accommodated nearly every Black celebrity visiting the Queen City. The Manse was created by Horace Sudduth, a Black man born in Covington who built a solid real estate enterprise in Cincinnati against the considerable obstacles of a very segregated city. Sudduth opened the Creative Realty Company in 1910 on West Fifth Street. His company sold residential property and also provided investment counseling. The secret to Sudduth’s success was his emphasis on service over profits. Sudduth directed his staff to match each buyer with the most appropriate property, and wealth would follow. He counseled his clients to think of real estate as an investment, famously declaring “You do not buy a home like you buy a hat.” By 1950, Time Magazine noted that Sudduth had accumulated a fortune of more than half a million dollars.

Hopple Street Mystery In 1916, a city block’s worth of real estate at the southeast corner of Beekman and Hopple streets was, at least on paper, sold by Charles E. Miller of Northside to Ben Rubenstein, president of the Benn Lumber Company. What, asked the Cincinnati Enquirer [23 July 1916], did Mr. Rubenstein intend to do with that property? Enquirering minds wanted to know because “sources” claimed the land could not be used for storing lumber. Mr. Rubenstein said he had no idea what the land would be used for. He insisted he had no financial interest in the transaction and only allowed his name to be used “as a matter of convenience” for other, unnamed, parties. The Enquirer never discovered who actually owned the land, but Mr. Rubenstein – at least on paper – sold part of it two years later to Hooven & Allison Company, twine manufacturers.

The Park That Became A Castle Don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia. According to that communally edited resource, Loveland Park was created as a subscription gimmick by the Cincinnati Enquirer. Not true. It was the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune that offered, in 1924, a plot of land along the Little Miami River to anyone who purchased a six-month subscription to the newspaper. These lots were too small for building, measuring only 20 feet wide and 100 feet long. The newspaper played up their virtues as a summer resort because subscribers could pitch a tent and walk to the river. Buyers were mostly wealthy; that half-year subscription ran to $58.50. Many of the original buyers bailed. Lillie Gegner was one. On 12 June 1929, she sold two adjacent plots to Harry D. Andrews. Three months later, Andrews laid the cornerstone for Chateau La Roche, later known as Loveland Castle. The quasi-chivalric organization Andrews founded, the Knights of the Golden Trail, now owns more than 6 acres of land surrounding their castle. The Commercial Tribune created a real estate debacle when they subdivided the former Apgar farm into all those tiny parcels. The stunt properties extend beyond Loveland up into Warren County’s Deerfield Township and lawyers were still trying to sort out land ownership and street dedications well into the 1980s.

One Bad Apple Cincinnatians were introduced to the title “Realtor” in 1916, when Thomas Ingersoll, national secretary of the Real Estate Exchange, announced to a gathering of Queen City “real estate men” that, henceforth, they would be known by that trademarked title. According to the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune [17 June 1916] Ingersoll claimed “realtor” would “be synonymous with honesty, straightforwardness, and everything nice and pleasant along real estate lines.” Apparently Edna White didn’t get the message. Mrs. White, owner of Edland Realty Co., spent 1954 in court to face charges she had swindled at least 11 of her clients out of $13,000. Plaintiffs testified they had given Mrs. White amounts ranging from $900 to $1,300 as down payments on houses but, when unable to secure enough financing to complete the deals, Mrs. White refunded their money with personal checks that bounced. By the time she was sentenced to one to ten years in the Marysville Reformatory, 22 counts of embezzlement and additional rubber check charges had been added to the indictments.

What’s Hidden In Your Deed? Homeowners in Hamilton County document their ownership of a parcel of land through a deed and that deed commonly references a prior deed, which references an even earlier deed, and so on. Follow that trail and it is common to find a racially restrictive covenant in the original deed to your property, something along the lines of: “No lots either improved or unimproved on the said subdivision shall ever be sold, leased, rented or occupied, except as servants in a household, by any person not of the White or Caucasian race.” Such covenants were declared illegal by the Supreme Court in 1948, but the language persists in the official records. For many years, The Hamilton County Recorder’s office refused to transfer racially restrictive covenants when a property was transferred. That practice was challenged in 1980 over a piece of registered land – property surveyed by and with boundaries guaranteed correct by the state. Removing the covenant could invalidate registered deeds, a land examiner claimed. The court sided with the examiner, but County Recorder John E. Held removed the covenant on his own authority. The Ohio General Assembly finally eliminated all remaining obstacles to erasing such covenants in 1998.

Friends of Joe If you believe your property taxes are too high today, you may appeal to the Hamilton County Board of Revision. Before 1990, there was another, much more expeditious, method to get your property taxes lowered – you made friends with Auditor Joseph L. DeCourcy Jr. That year, an investigation by Cincinnati Post reporters Randy Ludlow and Molly Kavanaugh revealed that DeCourcy and his staff had improperly reduced the tax valuations on more than 1,000 properties, amounting to $1 million in lost tax revenue over the previous two years alone. The improper reductions were recorded on forms initialed “FOJ,” which, sources said, meant “Friend of Joe.” Although DeCourcy claimed to have no idea what those initials represented, he was indicted on 190 counts of reducing the taxes of his friends and political allies and eventually pleaded no contest to lesser charges, receiving a fine and a suspended jail sentence.

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Presenting A Dozen Of The More Curious Real Estate Incidents In Cincinnati History

Over the years, Cincinnati has accumulated some interesting episodes involving land, property and real estate. Here, you will find a random dozen of some of the more peculiar examples.

In The Beginning . . . It is often forgotten that Cincinnati was founded as a real estate gambit by a trio of developers out to make a profit. A famous old print of “The First House Built in Cincinnati” includes a surveyor hard at work, laying out the city grid so the land rush could begin. Mathias Denman, Robert Patterson and John Filson comprised the syndicate organized to entice buyers to the as-yet untouched woodland soon to be briefly known as Losantiville. They offered an “in-lot” of half an acre near the river, plus an “out-lot” of four acres to any settler paying $1.50 for survey and deed. Cincinnati, in other words, began life as a subdivision.

Battling Plats Of the founding triumvirate, John Filson was enlisted as surveyor, until he mysteriously disappeared one day while traipsing through the woods. The indigenous tribes got blamed and Israel Ludlow recruited to replace Filson, assisted by Joel “Jo” Williams. In 1802, both Ludlow and Williams filed nearly identical plats of the town. Williams’ plat differed from Ludlow’s mostly where Williams claimed the “Commons,” now known as the Public Landing, as his own personal property. The debate between the two surveyors, according to Jacob Burnet, “was marked by great warmth,” including fisticuffs. Ludlow’s plat prevailed, although the citizenry followed Williams in referring to Second Street as Columbia Street for several decades.

Symmes’ Shell Game Denman, Patterson and Filson acquired the land that became Cincinnati from a New Jersey judge and Revolutionary War veteran named John Cleves Symmes who bought 300,000 acres of Southwest Ohio land on condition that he set aside an entire township to support a college. By 1805, Cincinnati’s citizens wanted to know which township Symmes was going to set aside for education. Symmes said it was Millcreek Township, and later Springfield Township, both of which were heavily settled. The federal government sent a commission to investigate. Symmes told the commission that the college township was really Green Township, but the federal inspectors concluded that Western Hills township was, “too rough for farming and too wild for any civilized uses.” The feds eventually identified a college township in Butler County, thus setting the stage for Miami University’s founding in 1809.

The Uncommon Commons Joel Williams’ scheme to snatch the Public Landing did not sit well with the residents of Cincinnati. The Commons, as it was known – all the land south of Front Street between Main and Broadway – was a convenient location for wharf and warehouse activities. In 1807, Williams erected a brick building at the northwest corner of the landing and then erected a fence around the whole thing to assert his ownership. The city sued and Williams, described by Judge Burnet as “quite illiterate and unusually careless,” lost, with the court declaring that the Public Landing was “publicly given and set aside by the proprietors as a common, for the use of the town forever.”

The Vanishing Five Acres In 1819, the city appointed Joseph Gest as official surveyor and Mr. Gest enthusiastically rushed out to acquire brand new surveying equipment, insisting on his own custom-made paraphernalia. Sources differ on whether Gest’s quarter-furlong pole or his imported British brass ruler was to blame but, for the next 25 years, Gest tacked on an additional inch for every 64 feet he measured. When spread over the four or five square miles of downtown Cincinnati, that minuscule error adds up rather quickly. In 1986, a modern surveyor estimated that all of Joseph Gest’s miscalculations, pushed onto a single plot, would total more than 200,000 square feet, or about five acres of missing property. Instead of re-measuring every single piece of downtown property, the county now inserts a footnote into the affected deeds, acknowledging the adjustment, known as the “Gest Standard” that must be applied to accommodate Joseph Gest’s historic boo-boo.

Interminable Litigation In addition to setting aside townships to support education, the very early land grants in the Northwest Territory required land set aside to support churches. That included Section 29 of the now-defunct Storrs Township in Lower Price Hill. Ethan Stone, a blind banker, leased Section 29 from the State of Ohio in 1810 and renegotiated that contract in 1821 into a 99-year renewable lease. What this meant, in real estate terms, is that no one who owned a house in Section 29 also owned the land their house sat on. All tenants paid rent into the Ethan Stone Trust. Stone died in 1852 and, in his will, directed the income from Section 29 to several religious charities. Every 10 years, the residents of Section 29 voted which church would receive the income. Disputes over Stone’s will dragged on and on and were not finally resolved until the dissolution of the Ethan Stone Trust in 2019, making this the longest open trust case in Ohio and possibly the lengthiest court case in the entire United States.

Orphan Plots You probably can’t blame Joseph Gest for this. In 1897, Cincinnati’s Title Examiner, in a thorough review of the tax duplicate, realized there were small plots of land scattered throughout the city with no known owner. One was a narrow strip along the west side of Sycamore Street south of Eighth, once the city’s wood market when kindling was essential for cooking and heating. An open court in the West End, in the center of the block bounded by Freeman, Gest, Clark and Pine streets (and now buried underneath I-75) was another. The city announced it would convert the orphan lots into tiny parks, but dollars spoke louder and all were sold to developers.

Cut On The Bias In August 1900, the Cincinnati Decennial Board of Equalization – they recalibrated the property taxes every 10 years – noticed a most peculiar plot of land in the square bounded by Central, Wade, John, and David streets in the West End. It was roughly 400 feet long, 50 feet wide and ran diagonally from the southwest corner of that block to the northeast corner, cutting the block into two triangles. At the time, the catty-corner lot was occupied by an old frame house on the Central Avenue side and a decrepit stable on the John Street side. The Decennial Board assumed that the weird lot had originally been laid out as a street but never paved. The mystery was solved the next day when the owner, one Peter C. Bonte, visited the Board offices. Long ago, that property was used by the Bonte family as a “rope walk.” This was back in the days before machinery for the purpose existed and ropes were made by men walking up and down a gradually thickening strand, twisting fibers as they went. To make long ropes, one needed a long building – a rope walk – and they could fit a longer walk onto a diagonal plot of ground. An 1831 map of Cincinnati includes at least four rope walks, none diagonal.

St. Bernard vs. Elmwood Place In 1940, the City of St. Bernard attempted a sneaky landgrab. Unsatisfied with the tax revenue from the huge Procter & Gamble Ivorydale complex, the city fathers spotted the Central Steel & Wire Company and the Cincinnati Butchers’ Supply Company in nearby Elmwood Place. Ohio law allowed any Ohio city to annex a portion of an adjacent village providing two-thirds of the voters in that area approved. Elmwood Place is a village and St. Bernard is a city and there were only four voters in the whole contested area – the family of Jerry Helm. Mr. Helm, employed at Central Steel & Wire, lived at 421 Township Street with his wife Emily and their two daughters, Jeanette and Louise. All four – apparently at the behest of Mr. Helm’s employer – signed a petition to approve the transfer. Success would have meant a significant loss in tax revenue for the village. Feisty Elmwood Place went to court and prevailed. Though a little worse for wear, the property, and the tax monies, still belong to the village.

A Fusty Old Tradition Alvin F. Harlow, in his delicious 1950 book, “The Serene Cincinnatians,” describes how real estate traditions persist in the Queen City long after their utility has faded.

“Penetrating several yards into a downtown block, then turning at a right angle for a few feet more and halting, walled in everywhere by buildings, is a little concrete-paved passage, unnoticed by thousands who pass its iron-gated entrance daily, and of whose meaning, even of whose existence, few people are aware. In the pre-sewer long ago, it was an easement, an access to eight of what the Earl of Chesterfield called necessary houses in the middle of the block, used by adjacent businessmen. Though it has been totally useless for decades, so dearly do the property holders still cherish these rights that when an effort was made a few years ago to buy that quarter of a block for building purposes, the value set on this little lane blocked the deal.”

Well, Well, Well Harlow also relates a similar tale about another downtown square in which a well had been dug around 1800. All the homes and shops surrounding that shaft employed its water for drinking, and all adjoining property owners retained rights to that water legally incorporated into their deeds, even though the well in question had been abandoned and covered over since at least 1875. Nevertheless, when a developer proposed to erect a twenty-story building on that spot, the sentimental value of those venerable water rights forced the project to be abandoned.

How Long Is Forever? Do you remember when Cincinnati City Council swapped the Public Landing? Before 1960, going all the way back to the very earliest maps of the city, the Public Landing lay south of Front Street between Main and Broadway. Today, the Public Landing lies between Broadway and the Taylor-Southgate Bridge. When did it get up and move two blocks east? Remember the court ruling against Jo Williams, declaring that the Public Landing was set aside for the town “forever”? Neither did City Council in 1911, when they decided to let a railroad trim off the northern edge, while warehouses nibbled at the perimeter. Nor did Council in 1967 when they voted to build Riverfront Stadium on the original Public Landing, creating a “New Public Landing” as if no one would notice – and no one did.

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Cincinnati Inventor Samuel Barriett Said The Dead Speak, But Left Three Widows (And A Mistress) Mystified

Over its long history, our beloved city has never lacked for cranks, kooks and oddballs. If Cincinnati ever unveils a Screwball Hall of Fame, it will be densely populated, but Samuel Lawrence Barriett would certainly occupy a central display.

Barriett was known as an inventor, and it is true that he held some patents, but his greatest talent was self-promotion. The fact is, lots of people acquired patents for their inventions, but Barriett built his reputation on descriptions of inventions he never actually finished. So effective was his salesmanship that Cincinnati newspapers shamelessly compared Barriett to the “Wizard of Menlo Park” himself, Thomas Edison.

So, what did Barriett actually invent? You must certainly be familiar with the self-oiling ring oiler, the improved punch, the automatic switch for electrical apparatus, and the automatic return rheostat. No? How about the electrical process to depilate sealskins? Or the self-belter for sewing machines? All very useful devices, no doubt, but hardly on the scale of electric light bulbs, phonographs and motion pictures.

Barriett was certainly adept at promoting his own image. When Cincinnati’s entire electrical system went kaput in 1902, the relatively new Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company (previously the Cincinnati Gas, Light and Coke Company) was befuddled. Barriett offered a $30,000 wager to the electric utility as a guarantee he could solve the problem within two hours. CG&E President Andrew Hickenlooper may not have known electricity, but he did know flim-flam, and told the Enquirer [27 September 1902]:

“We will have nothing to do with this man Barriett, because he talked in a manner that impressed me he would be unable to aid us in anyway.”

This is not to deny Barriett’s creativity at all. During the Spanish-American War, Barriett was hired to churn out artillery shells at a factory connected to West Point. He dramatically increased production while lowering costs. Barriett also developed an electric motor of his own design and built a factory in Cincinnati to manufacture it.

But the inventions that built Barriett’s reputation never saw the light of day. Barriett created quite a stir with his announcement that he would soon offer for sale a device that sounds remarkably like Dick Tracy’s Two-Way Wrist Radio. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer [23 October 1904]:

“Barriett has about perfected a little instrument which a man may carry like a watch. It is in fact a limited wireless telephone affair that will carry messages, he says, over a radius of four miles and is for pocket use.”

He also claimed to be working on a sort of videophone, long before television itself had even been invented.

“Barriett has for over a year been working at times on a system all his own, whereby he proposes to make it possible for a person talking over a telephone to see the one at the other end of the line. This has been wrought upon by others, but he affirms that he has a scheme by which this will be accomplished.”

But perhaps the farthest out unpatented invention Barriett boasted about was his method for contacting the dead. He told the Enquirer:

“If the dead speak they shall be heard, no matter if they speak here or elsewhere. I have a plan by which I hope to artificially produce a magnified or refined sense of hearing. When I have concluded one step in this direction it will lead to others, which will culminate in an instrument, by which a man hidden away in a cave or under the sea, far removed from ordinary sound, may hear the spiritual voice, if it exists in the universe.”

For someone so interested in listening to the dead, Barriett was abnormally reluctant to join the departed. He was obsessively paranoid to the extent he would not open mail addressed to him, either business or personal, because he was convinced someone was trying to kill him by an explosive device. He had no qualms about letting his secretary open all of his mail.

For someone so averse to dying, it is therefore beyond ironic that Barriett apparently died by suicide in a Dayton, Ohio, boarding house in 1905. Although friends and business associates vociferously protested that Barriett had no reason to take his own life, investigators discovered that he had locked himself in his room and turned the gas up to full pressure. According to the Enquirer:

“They claim there was a stifling odor in the room Tuesday night, which was doubtless created by unconsumed gas. This, they believe, produced asphyxiation.”

Whether his death was intentional or accidental, Barriett created a most interesting afterlife when three widows appeared to assert their claims to his estate and it was revealed that his business partner was probably also his mistress.

The first wife to emerge was Georgia Barriett, living in New York with two daughters aged 15 and 9 and an infant son. For several years, Samuel Barriett had lived with this family in an apartment on Park Avenue in Walnut Hills. About a year before his death, he and Georgia separated and she moved to New York City, taking the children with her. It came out that Samuel Barriett had applied for a divorce from Georgia five years previously, but the divorce had never been finalized and he continued to live with her for four years as man and wife, qualifying her – even if the divorce had been finalized – for status as a common-law wife.

No sooner had Georgia Barriett staked her claim, than Mamie Barriett of Brooklyn announced her intention to prove that she was the only true and legitimate widow of Samuel Barriett. She arrived in Cincinnati with a young son. It appears that Samuel Barriett married Mamie in 1888. Samuel was arrested on their wedding day for “some mysterious charge, in which a woman was involved.” It proved unclear whether they had ever divorced.

As the two Mrs. Barrietts and their attorneys lined up for a legal showdown, word arrived that there was yet a third Mrs. Barriett in Texas with another child. The Texas widow was identified as Barriett’s first wife and it appeared they were legally divorced.

The source of much of this marital information was Mrs. Lena Behrens, regularly described as Barriett’s secretary. Mrs. Behrens was indeed the secretary, but she was no stenographer. She owned and operated her own saddlery company and was a major investor and an officer in Barriett’s corporation. As his business partner she held the position of secretary in the Barriett Motor Corporation of which Samuel was president. Their tangled relationship caught the attention of the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, which published [16 February 1905] an exposé outing Mrs. Behrens and Mr. Barriett as something more than business partners. The newspaper revealed, for example, that they just happened to live at the same address. Mrs. Behrens, herself a widow, was described as “a most attractive woman of 28.” She (actually 38 years old) denied anything other than a business connection:

“People circulated romantic stories, and I have suffered much to be with him and aid him to the success that seemed within his reach just before his death. Mr. Barriett was one of those peculiar men given to study and experimenting, and not disposed to make love, but, nevertheless most lovable.”

In other words, “We were just good friends.”

Curiously, the two battling widows and Mrs. Behrens all admitted to pouring large sums of money into Barriett’s business. It was not a good investment. At his death, Barriett’s estate was worth just $5,000 and his debts far exceeded his assets. The widows were fighting over the widow’s allowance – a few hundred dollars – rather than any windfall. It appears neither got anything because the estate was declared insolvent, although Mrs. Behrens may have received a small amount as a creditor. The corporation reorganized and renamed itself and was eventually sold.

Samuel Barriett, who has not communicated from beyond, is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery. His widows rest elsewhere. Lena Behrens died in 1949, aged 82, and is buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.

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Meteors Have Bombarded Cincinnati Before And Surely Will Again. Are You Ready?

The Green Day concert at Great American Ballpark on August 22 last year included some unscheduled interplanetary fireworks. The crowd was treated to a meteor flashing through the atmosphere over Cincinnati on its way to disintegration or landfall somewhere south of here. The Queen City dodged a celestial bullet – and not for the first or last time.

The Ohio Geological Survey tallies 14 confirmed meteorites recovered from Ohio, with three of them discovered in the Greater Cincinnati region – one from a quarry in Fairfield, one from the Turner Mounds in Anderson Township and one from within the Cincinnati city limits. The Kentucky Geological Survey records 26 meteorite finds in the Bluegrass State.

One of Kentucky’s bigger space rocks landed near the town of Piner in the far southern reaches of Kenton County. That’s what Steven J. Cornelius told Harry L. Preston, a mineralogist on the staff at Ward’s Natural Science Establishment, when he came to visit in 1892. According to Mr. Cornelius, at about 3:00 p.m. on 7 July 1873, he heard a great rumbling in the heavens, followed by a “quivering of the earth.” Other residents of Piner corroborated this information. Half a mile away from Mr. Cornelius’ location when the earth quivered, his brother, George Washington Cornelius, endeavored in 1889 to clear out a spring on his farm. George struck something with his hoe and discovered a large metallic lump buried three feet underground, ensnared in the roots of an ash tree. George’s find proved to be a meteorite weighing nearly 360 pounds and measuring nearly two feet in length. George sold the meteorite to Ward’s. The company sold replicas of the Piner meteorite, but sawed the original into thin sections and sold it by the slice like so much bologna. A chemically identical meteorite was found in 1892 in nearby Williamstown in Grant County and is believed to be a 150-pound fragment of the Kenton County meteorite.

Perhaps the biggest meteorite to rattle Cincinnati passed overhead at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday, 12 January 1916. It was big, brilliant, loud and – by most accounts – zipping through at a nerve-rackingly low altitude. The Enquirer headline [13 January 1916] announced “Meteor Cause of Terror in Many Ohio Valley Cities.” Despite a heavy fog that morning, thousands of Cincinnatians saw it and generally agreed that the bolide changed colors and made a sizzling sound as it hurled overhead. There were reports from as far eastward as West Virginia, as far north as Columbus, as far south as Lexington and as far west as Louisville. Most reports suggested a flight path from the northeast to the southwest. The Cincinnati Times-Star [12 January 1916] gave a vivid account:

“For a few seconds the earth was bathed in a greenish-blue light of dazzling brilliancy, that resembled the pyrotechnic display of a mass of fallen live wires, only that the light which was shed from the heavens was of a thousand-fold greater intensity.”

That celestial glow really freaked out the folks in Vevay, Indiana. The Cincinnati Time-Star told the tale:

“A peculiar illumination in the sky at 6 o’clock caused uneasiness among those who witnessed it and superstitious persons believed the world was coming to an end. The glow lasted two minutes and is believed to have been caused by a meteor.”

Flashing radiance and heavenly glows were consistent themes in descriptions of the 1916 fireball. Henry Petrosky of Madisonville told the Times-Star that he was walking with his young son when it flew overhead:

“I saw the ball of fire shoot through the air and it seemed as though it would strike us. When it passed closest it seemed only half a block away, and it cracked and spit out flashes of flame. Later we heard the rumbling and explosion.”

Cincinnati pharmaceutical magnate John Uri Lloyd told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the alien invader had, based on his own back-of-the-napkin calculations, exploded somewhere near Georgetown or Sadieville, Kentucky. The Enquirer telephoned some folks in Georgetown who agreed they had been bombarded.

“Citizens of that city confirmed Dr. Lloyd’s opinion by saying that during the explosion heavy objects, supposed to be meteoric fragments, had fallen on their houses with a sound resembling the tumbling of bricks.”

Alas, while it was foggy in Cincinnati, a deluge drenched Georgetown that morning and no one hankered to swim outside to hunt for shooting star shrapnel.

Although the biggest, the 1916 bolide was far from the only meteor to threaten the Cincinnati region. The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune [7 Jun 1904] reported a meteor plunging into the sidewalk at First and Meigs streets in Dayton, leaving a twelve-inch crater and three fragments that were scooped up and sent to the state geologist.

The Cincinnati Post [17 November 1902] heard from residents of Erlanger, who said a meteor fell on their town with a boom as loud as a cannon.

Hamilton recorded a meteor “the size of a bushel basket” plummeting to earth northeast of the city in 1930. A local magistrate attested to the veracity of the report.

The steam packet Buckeye State was narrowly missed by a meteor as it passed Ripley, Ohio. According to the Cincinnati Commercial [1 August 1879]:

“The mass exploded within a few feet of the water, and formed a beautiful sight of but a few moments duration.”

A Price Hill resident, Joseph Mayhew, told the Commercial Tribune [7 September 1913] that he remembered a large meteorite falling on his family’s farm in the 1860s:

“It was about dusk one evening when a farmhand named George Sands, who was working for us, rushed into the house and told how he had seen an immense ball of fire fall through the air and strike the ground with terrific force. We rushed to the outside of the house and ran in the direction in which the frightened farm hand pointed. Where Vincent avenue now is we came upon the meteor, which can be seen today.”

Although never recovered, a blazingly bright meteor fell on or exploded over Glendale, Ohio, in 1896. The Commercial Tribune [10 October 1896] described it appearing in the southwest as a ball of green fire “hurled with terrific velocity toward the earth.” Because of its radiance, no one could determine exactly where it fell.

“The village was brilliantly illuminated for a period of ten seconds with a bright green light. The phenomenon was witnessed at Wyoming and Lockland, where it was seen speeding through the air at a wonderful rate and attracted much attention.”

Today, NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office tracks some of the larger rocks sailing around our planet, but they don’t pay attention to anything much smaller than a school bus. Meanwhile, Cincinnati awaits the next round of planetary pinball.

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Two Cincinnati Orphans Bonded As Hoboes, But Chose Very Different Paths

Around 1890, a couple of boys ended up at the St. Joseph Orphan Asylum in Cumminsville. One was Jim Tully and the other Gabriel Sullivan. They soon became inseparable and everybody knew them as Tully and Sully.

Sully was born in New Orleans in 1885. His father died when the boy was barely one year old and his mother died five years later. Sully and two siblings were shipped off to Cincinnati under the care of an aunt, who abandoned them to the streets when she did not receive the pension she expected for her services. Sully was barefoot, selling newspapers in the snow, when a tender-hearted woman investigated his circumstances and managed to enroll him and his siblings at the orphanage.

Tully was born in St. Mary’s, Ohio, in 1886. His family were considered to be “shanty Irish.” Jim’s mother died when he was just six years old and his father, an alcoholic ditch digger, surrendered Jim to the orphan asylum.

The pair were leased out by the orphanage to a farmer, who treated them like slaves and so they ran away. Sully was about 14, Tully 13 or so. They lived the hobo life, riding the rails from one end of the country to the other. They slept where they could find a comfortable spot and they ate what they could get by begging, odd jobs and larceny.

(Today, we tend to use hobo, tramp and bum as synonyms, but in the late 1800s and early 1900s, each term had a distinct connotation. A hobo traveled around and was willing to work. A tramp traveled but avoided work. A bum neither traveled nor worked.)

Sully was known for his hot temper and occasionally had to fight his way out of situations that his smart mouth got him into. Tully was more analytical and realized he could make a quick $5 or $10 by taking his fights off the streets and into the boxing ring. Paul Bauer, who co-authored a 2011 biography of Tully, observed:

“He was an untrained boxer, to be sure, but he was fearless. He was willing to take punches, to take punishment, all to get inside and score hits. Despite having some success, he had seen men die in the ring. He had seen 'em blinded in the ring. And I think he realized that this was not a career he was going to carry into middle age.”

Tully was known as a “library bum,” the sort of hobo who knew every library in every little burg and hung out there when he wasn’t chasing a freight train out of town. The idea grew on him that maybe someday he could become a writer. Tully decided to leave the road behind and to give his literary endeavors some attention. He returned to Ohio and settled in Kent, landing a job at a chain factory. At 23, he married 18-year-old Florence May Bushnell, daughter of a house painter. He began writing for the local papers, first occasional poetry, eventually freelance articles. His byline graced the Kent Tribune and the Akron Beacon-Journal.

Sully, too, grew weary of the hobo life. He found his way back to Cincinnati, got work as a painter and boarded with a widow named Anna Hand [no relation to your columnist]. In 1912, he married Anna’s adopted daughter Nellie, who worked in a cotton factory. Sully was 27, Nellie 22.

Sully was a union painter at a time when there were few protections for organized labor and his temper got him into some scrapes. He was arrested in 1914 on charges brought by advertising magnate Philip Morton, who claimed that Sully and an accomplice assaulted him because he hired non-union sign painters. The charges were eventually dropped, but Sully’s reputation as a union enforcer was secured.

A year later, Sully’s temper took him one step over the line. He was part of a gang that attacked non-union painters working on a new building at Christ Hospital. While most of the gang carried blackjacks, Sully brought a pistol. The Enquirer [10 December 1915] reported:

“Revolver, knife, blackjack and gas pipe were used by a gang of five unidentified men yesterday afternoon when they attacked nonunion painters at the new $300,000 annex to Christ Hospital, Mt. Auburn. The police say strike trouble caused the assault. One man was shot and died half an hour later. Two others sustained multiple bruises and cuts about the head.”

The dead man was James Shall, 26. His killer was Gabriel Sullivan. Sully made a full confession with no attempt to blame anyone else.

“I saw Shall on a step ladder. When he saw me with a gun he jumped down and attempted to pick something off the floor. I grabbed his wrists and in the tussle I fired twice. It was my own gun. I didn’t mean to shoot Shall, but was told that the men carried guns in the building.”

Sully confessed without benefit of counsel. He pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree murder on the advice of a Cincinnati police officer. Judge William A. Geoghegan sentenced Sully to life in prison. For the next ten years, a number of people expressed sympathy for Sully and worked to get him pardoned.

Among his supporters was Tully, who by then had taken his writing career to the West Coast, where he built a reputation as a hard-hitting Hollywood reporter and the author of some best-selling novels based on his vagabond years with Sully. Sully told the Cincinnati Post [26 January 1925]:

“Jim wrote to me all the time when he found out where I was. The fellows in the State House used to save magazines for me when they had stories by Jim in them. He sent me his two books, too.”

In prison, the hot-headed Sully gained a reputation as a model prisoner. Those “fellows in the State House” were the aides and secretaries in the offices of the Governor and Secretary of State. As a prison trusty, Sully was assigned to duties in the State House. With personal access to Governor Alvin Victor "Honest Vic" Donahey and celebrity endorsements from Tully and his Hollywood pals, Sully was pardoned after just nine years in the Ohio penitentiary.

Tully went on to write nine novels, three volumes of autobiography, a travelogue, two plays and hundreds of articles, mostly unvarnished profiles of movie stars. Early in his career, he was Charlie Chaplin’s personal secretary. Among his friends were W. C. Fields, Jack Dempsey, Damon Runyon, Lon Chaney, Frank Capra, and Erich von Stroheim. So thoroughly had he immersed himself in Hollywood culture that, when he died, aged 61, all the newspaper obituaries claimed he was just 56 years old.

Sully went on to live a very long life, dying at the age of 90 in Cincinnati. He returned to his former career as a painter, retiring after many years as a member of the facilities crew at Dunham Hospital.

As shoeless orphans, as shiftless vagabonds, who could have predicted the divergent paths Tully’s and Sully’s lives would take?

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The Marquis de Lafayette Spent 36 Hours In Cincinnati And Left 200 Years Of Mysteries

It appears that the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, had the power to cloud men’s minds. That is the only possible explanation for the varied and confused memories of his brief visit to Cincinnati over May 19 and May 20, 1825.

Bless The American Friends of Lafayette, who will attempt to commemorate the bicentennial of the French general’s residency in Cincinnati on May 19 and May 20 of this year. The celebrants face a daunting task because nothing Lafayette saw in Cincinnati still exists – even the Public Landing was moved two blocks east from where our hero first stepped foot in the Queen City. The modern organizers will bravely soldier on, with a free and open welcoming ceremony at 11:00 a.m. Monday, May 19, at what is now the Public Landing, a commemorative dinner and ball, and a remembrance of Lafayette’s “adopted daughter,” Fanny Wright, on whom more anon. https://lafayette200.org/event/bicentennial-of-lafayettes-tour-visits-cincinnati-oh/

The clouded recollections may be forgiven when we consider the absolute chaos that reigned in our fair city during Lafayette’s stay. In 1825, Cincinnati’s total population was somewhere around 15,000. It is estimated that 50,000 people from hundreds of miles away crowded into town to catch a glimpse of the man of the hour. Just remember (or not) that porta-potties were far in the future.

Everyone seems to agree that Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, arrived in Cincinnati at noon on Thursday, May 19, 1825. He was nearing the conclusion of a year-long victory lap through the nation he helped create, poised then to celebrate its semicentennial. On the invitation of U.S. President James Monroe, Lafayette, sailed the Atlantic as “The Nation’s Guest” and spent 15 months revisiting old battlefields and new states, while collecting a $200,000 reimbursement for expenses incurred during the American Revolution.

Everyone also agrees that Lafayette departed Cincinnati at midnight on Friday, May 20, 36 hours after his arrival. There is solid consensus that he enjoyed a couple of banquets, a fireworks display, a visit to the theater, a museum, a Masonic lodge named in his honor, a gigantic parade and abundant speechifying during his visit. It’s the details that get fuzzy after centuries of nostalgia.

Accompanied by Joseph Desha, the governor of Kentucky, and other Bluegrass dignitaries who traveled with him on his journey north from Lexington, Lafayette arrived in Covington at 10:00 a.m. on May 19. To this day, there are legends that claim he enjoyed a fancy ball and a night of rest at Covington’s Carneal House. There is even a ghost story about a young lady who, refused a dance with the general, hanged herself and continues to haunt the place. Highly unlikely, since Lafayette departed Covington just two hours later at noon and did not return, of which more anon. If the good general stopped at the Carneal House, it would have been little more than a lunch break, or perhaps a trip to the “necessary.”

Lafayette proceeded to the banks of the Ohio, boarded a festive barge rowed by six stalwart Cincinnati youth and was deposited on the Public Landing at the foot of Main Street, today a location approximately near the intersection of Joe Nuxhall Way and Barry Larkin Way, where the welcoming committee led by Ohio Governor Jeremiah Morrow had rolled out a lush carpet of red velvet. The Nation’s Guest declined to tread upon the ostentatious upholstery, according to the 1943 WPA Guide to Cincinnati, remarking that “the soil of America is good enough for me.” That is a beautiful and memorable quote reported by none of the contemporary newspapers.

Also reported long after the fact was the quandary of a delegation from Covington. Lafayette, as noted, passed quickly through that town on his way to Cincinnati. Our transpontine neighbors sent a delegation over the Ohio River to entice the General back for a lengthier social call. On getting within earshot of their quarry, however, several of the delegation remembered that they were, in fact, wanted by the Cincinnati authorities for non-payment of various debts and swiftly hustled homeward.

Over the years, many prominent Cincinnati families have insisted Lafayette was an overnight guest in their homes. Future proprietors of the Cincinnati Hotel at the corner of Front Street and Broadway claimed that honor too, but, although Lafayette held receptions and attended a grand ball there, he slept not a wink at that establishment. Nor did he sleep next-door at the home of attorney Morgan Neville, son of General Presley Neville, who had served as Lafayette’s aide de camp throughout the Revolution. Likewise, he did not sleep under the roof of Major Daniel Gano, whose grandfather was Lafayette’s brigade chaplain, although the Gano farm out at the rural intersection of Sixth and Main streets was the site of a huge reception and fireworks display. Lafayette did not even visit the “country home” of Judge Jacob Burnet at Seventh and Elm streets, though his descendants insisted he slumbered there. General Lafayette in fact spent the night at the home of Christian Febiger on the west side of Vine Street between Fourth and Fifth, Febiger being the adopted son of General Hans Christian Febiger, known as the “old Dane,” who fought with Lafayette at Brandywine and Yorktown.

On awakening Friday morning, the General was treated to a grand parade from the Public Landing up Main Street to a pavilion decorated with ivy and roses, where he was serenaded with songs, lauded with speeches and entertained by hordes of schoolgirls casting flowers wherever he walked. Today, the location of this pavilion is a complete mystery. It has been variously described as “on the vacant ground west of the Courthouse,” or somewhere on Court Street, or on an otherwise unspecified “open plane [sic] in the rear of the town” or at “a large square near the court-house” or at “the common above Eighth street, west of Walnut” and even at “a grove that was later the site of Schaller's brewery, not far from the location of Music Hall.” Yet another report put it on Plum Street near the canal.

Emil Klauprecht, in his 1864 German-language history of Cincinnati, relates a quite touching story connected to a failed attempt to free Lafayette when he was imprisoned in Austria during the French Revolution:

“Brushing past the guards before the steps of the pavilion, a plainly dressed, peasant-looking woman gained the platform and rushed over to greet the General. Murmurs of protest ran through the crowd. ‘Order! Order!’ thundered the Chairman. Impulsively the woman extended her hand. ‘Don't you remember me?’ she asked. Disconcerted, Lafayette stepped back. ‘My good woman,’ he said, ‘I don't recall ever having seen you before.’ ‘Why, General, don't you recognize the dairy woman who brought you messages from Herr Bollmann when you were in prison at Olmütz?’ Lafayette's expression changed from bewilderment to pleased surprise. Heartily he grasped the hand of the friendly conspirator whom chance had brought to this western country. The woman whose impetuosity had interrupted Lafayette's speech was identified as Frau Caroline Mundhenk, who lived down town on an alley between Wayne and St. Clair streets. A grower of herbs, she was known to many who patronized the city's street markets.”

Despite Klauprecht’s detailed recollection, none of the contemporary reports mention this interruption, but several later reminiscences describe an unnamed German woman reminding Lafeyette that she had provided him with three francs and a cup of milk on his release from Olmütz prison.

A member of the welcoming committee, State Senator William S. Hatch, writing in the Enquirer almost 50 years later, recalls Lafayette’s visit lasting four days instead of two.

Much in the manner of the various old inns claiming “Washington slept here,” Cincinnati businesses exaggerated their connection to Lafayette. Haberdasher Platt Evans boasted that Lafayette ordered a suit from his shop, though there is no record he was ever inside. Sculptor Frederick Eckstein supposedly made a plaster cast of the Lafayette, but where he found time to do so is hard to fathom. Eckstein did produce a very nice bust of the General, now in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Perhaps the most curious artifact resulting from Lafayette’s visit emerged several years after the fact. In 1828, Frances “Fanny” Trollope descended upon Cincinnati, accompanied by a French artist named Auguste-Jean-Jacques Hervieu. Throughout the two years that Cincinnati endured Mrs. Trollope, who would later vent abundant spleen about her treatment in the Queen City, Hervieu labored on a huge sixteen foot by twelve foot canvas depicting the arrival of LaFayette in Cincinnati. Of course, Hervieu was not present at that event but that didn’t matter. Many of the people Hervieu packed into his masterpiece – including future sculptor Hiram Powers, utopianist Robert Owen, a Native American woman and magazine editor Timothy Flint – weren’t there either. Hervieu’s canvas occupied the precise dimensions of the still empty panels in the United States Capitol. It is obvious where Hervieu hoped his historic fantasy would eventually be displayed. He died disappointed.

And then, especially confounding, was the woman no one talked about. Throughout his journeys in America, Lafayette, aged 68, was accompanied by Frances “Fanny” Wright, aged 30, a woman he considered his adopted daughter. Born in Scotland, Wright became known as the “Red Harlot of Infidelity” because of her writing in support free love, equal rights for women, the abolition of slavery, liberalized divorce, birth control and her opposition to organized religion and capitalism. Lafayette shared many of her views and promoted Wright as his protégé. She was with Lafayette every step of his visit, including a two-week stay with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello and formal introductions to Presidents James Madison and John Quincy Adams and future President General Andrew Jackson.

His Highness Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, in his “Travels Through North America During the Years 1825 and 1826,” sniffed:

“In these peregrinations I made inquiries after Miss Wright, who, some years ago, published letters in America, which excited much attention in Europe, as well as in America. I was told that this lady with her sister, unattended by a male protector, had roved through the country, in steam-boats and stages, that she constantly tagged about after General LaFayette, and whenever the general arrived at any place, Miss Wright was sure to follow next day.”

Not a single contemporary newspaper mentioned Wright’s presence in Cincinnati during LaFayette’s stay. André-Nicolas Levasseur, Lafayette’s secretary throughout this pilgrimage, in his very detailed published journal, wastes not a single word on her at all.

Wright spent her last eight years on Earth as a resident of Cincinnati and she is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery. It is therefore fitting that Frances “Fanny” Wright will be remembered as part of the LaFayette bicentennial celebration at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 20, when Tristra Yeager and Eleanor Rust, co-producers of a Frances Wright podcast; Julien Icher, president and founder of The Lafayette Trail Inc.; Chuck Schwam, executive director of the American Friends of Lafayette and others will present a tribute to Fanny Wright at the Rose Garden gazebo at Spring Grove Cemetery. The event, righting two centuries of wrongful omission, is free and open to the public.

[handeaux]

How Did A Baseball-Playing Elephant End Up In The Basement Of The Shubert Theater?

In the autumn of 1939, Cincinnati was a happy place. The Reds, after two decades wandering in the baseball wilderness, were back in the World Series, poised to silence the critics who claimed they took the pennant in 1919 only because the Chicago “Black Sox” gave it away. Although Cincinnati lost the first two games in New York, hopes ran high as the hometown team returned to Crosley Field.

The whole town was buzzing. Even the Gayety Burlesque theater added a second show to entertain fans after the games. Joe Goetz, manager of the RKO Shubert Theater, knew he had to come up with a baseball-themed act.

Joe was known for engaging in some wild and crazy gimmicks to get publicity. A few years back, he had some explaining to do when Cincinnati Police, investigating footprints painted all over the downtown sidewalks, discovered the graffiti all led to the Capitol Theater, where Joe was promoting a new movie. Then there was the time Joe staged a duel in the ballroom of the Gibson Hotel. As diners enjoyed a peaceful dinner, two conspirators staged a rowdy argument, pulled out pistols, stood back-to-back, paced off and fired blanks at each other. Joe told Cincinnati Post columnist Si Cornell [23 May 1975]:

“I looked through listings of vaudeville acts, trying to find something for the Shubert during the World Series, and I saw photos of three cute little elephants that played baseball.”

Joe booked the act and, a couple of weeks later a policeman showed up in his office threatening to book Joe on charges of staging a parade without a permit. The elephants – Myrtle, Tilly and Jenny – were being unloaded from trainer Adele Nelson’s van and had completely blocked traffic on Walnut Street. It turned out the pictures in the vaudeville guide were a decade or more old. The cute little elephants had grown into rather hefty behemoths, each weighing north of 5,000 pounds. Joe accepted reality.

“Well, they still played baseball, so I put ‘em on stage. First performance we had a full house with all the visitors in town, and it looks like we’re booked solid for a week.”

Back in the 1930s, you really got your money’s worth when you went to the movies. When Joe Goetz booked the elephant act, he was filling the bill for an evening’s entertainment that featured “The Under Pup,” a new film introducing actress Gloria Jean in a juvenile drama set at a girls’ summer camp. In addition to the movie, fans got to hear John Boles, a singing actor who was heading into the twilight of his career; Sue Ryan, a comedic soprano who parodied the popular songstresses of the day; the Four Franks, a dance troupe; and a gymnastic act, the Gracella Dancers, “three strapping big chaps [who] throw a little blond girl everywhere but into your lap,” according to one reviewer. Naturally, so many acts require the direction of a master of ceremonies and that role was filled by rotund Milton Douglas and his sidekick and foil, Priscilla. All of that for just 60 cents, 40 cents for the matinee performance. The entertainers presented four shows on weekdays and five shows on Saturdays and Sundays.

The sold-out Friday premiere went off without a hitch and the newspaper reviews were almost universally positive. Halfway through an afternoon show, also sold to capacity, the Shubert provided one of the most unusual spectacles ever witnessed on a Cincinnati stage. The Nelson elephants were deep into their baseball routine when according to the Enquirer [7 October 1939]:

“They were near the end of their second performance when a section of the floor began to buckle, throwing Myrtle to her knees. Trumpeting, she rolled over on her side, kicking out a rear foot. She kicked a rafter, which broke. Then the whole section gave way and Myrtle plunged 15 feet to the basement floor. She landed on her side, deluged by water from pipes broken in the fall.”

The show must go on, of course, and the Gracella Dancers were rushed to the stage, hurling their diminutive ingenue to the periodic wailing of a very confused pachyderm. The Shubert’s evening shows were canceled and a team of carpenters were drafted to cobble together a heavy-duty ramp to extricate Myrtle from the cellar and repair the gaping crater in the stage. Joe Goetz called the Cincinnati Zoo for advice. Si Cornell recalled:

“The carpenters banged away. The Zoo phoned back and said it wasn’t qualified to give advice, its elephants never having been in basements.”

Adele Nelson rushed to the basement with armloads of hay and several loaves of bread, a real treat for her stranded co-star, but could not lure Myrtle up the hastily constructed ramp. Myrtle’s plight attracted celebrity visitors to the Shubert to gape or to offer unsolicited advice, among them screen comedian Joe E. Brown and Frank “Buck” McCormick, the Reds’ first baseman.

Nelson’s husband, Louis E. Reed, suffered his own loss in the accident. He almost plummeted headlong into the basement as Myrtle dropped but was pulled back by a stagehand. Although Reed was safe, his false teeth fell into the hole and Myrtle trampled on them.

The Fire Department sent a rescue team to the theater. Fire Marshal Leo Kuhn called for a wrecker from Engine Company 42. The firemen fitted Myrtle with a rope harness and rigged up a mechanism for leverage, to no avail, according to the Enquirer:

“The fire department placed a block and tackle on her and pulled. Myrtle sat down calmly. It appeared the theater wall would move first.”

Late the next morning, it was John Boles, the headlining star, who came up with the solution. He asked the fire department to run a hose behind Myrtle and to begin spraying her hindquarters. That did the trick. Myrtle walked up the ramp and into the company of Tilly and Jenny.

Although the Shubert management was concerned the act would have to be scratched from the bill, Myrtle and company returned to the stage that afternoon. Per the Enquirer:

“It might be well to mention that Myrtle first had to sniff around the repaired portion of the stage to satisfy herself as to its sturdiness.”

Adele Nelson and her baseball elephants finished the rest of their weeklong engagement at the Shubert. It is not recorded where the human participants in the act stayed while performing in the Queen City, but the elephants enjoyed luxurious quarters at the French Bauer stables on Central Parkway at Plum Street. It must have been quite a sight to see them on their eight-block commute to and from the theater.

[handeaux]

That Night The Cincinnati Zoo Became Venice And A Famed Artist Became A Lifeguard

It is largely forgotten now that the Cincinnati Zoo was originally organized as a for-profit enterprise. The stockholders soon realized that they needed to bring in more paying customers than exotic fauna could entice, and therefore musical concerts, summer dances, beer gardens and other non-zoological affairs soon peppered the Zoo schedule.

As the summer of 1880 wore on, Zoo visitors marveled at the construction underway around the central lagoon. Word got out that the Zoo had planned an extravaganza to exceed any of its previous entertainments and that the city’s finest artists had been recruited to bring this spectacular performance to life. Those artists were Henry Farny and Matt Morgan.

Farny, born in France, sketched for the local newspapers and executed a few theatrical posters before his excursions into the still very Wild West cemented his legacy as a premier painter of Native American life and culture.

Morgan, a Britisher, was lured to the United States by Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly who needed a pen as talented and acerbic as that of Thomas Nast at the competing Harper’s Weekly. For much of the 1880s, Morgan was a leading artist at Cincinnati’s Strobridge Lithographing Company. He also staged “tableaux vivants” or “living pictures” at the Vine Street theaters, featuring nearly nude women posing in scenery reminiscent of classical paintings.

The Zoo seems to have entrusted Morgan and Farny with a substantial budget for their major production, to be titled “Visions of Venice.” The sets featured 40-foot replicas of the columns of San Marco and San Todaro, realistic façades of the Doge’s Palace, the Library of St. Mark, the Arsenal and other Venetian landmarks. The highlight of the presentation was to be a recreation of the traditional Sposalizio del Mare, the “Marriage of the Sea” ceremony, in which the Doge tosses a golden ring onto the waves to symbolize the entwined fates of the “Floating City” and the Adriatic Sea. The two artists succeeded in impressing the Cincinnati newspapers who attended the premiere. The Enquirer [24 August 1880] waxed rhapsodic:

“So much has been written in advance regarding this pageant, that but little other than the fact that the intentions of its design have been nearly realized remains to be told. The spectator is supposed to be seated on the place of St. Mark and all around him are the islands and canals of the Gem of the Adriatic. The effect is wonderfully realistic, and, to quote the words of one who lived long in the city of the Doges, ‘more beautiful by far than the original.’”

On opening night, the audience included many of Cincinnati’s leading citizens and their families. The Cincinnati Gazette [25 August 1880] identified Zoo founder Andrew Erkenbrecher, fur merchant A.E. Burkhardt, the McAlpin dry goods family, Times-Star publisher Charles Taft and others.

The evening began around 9:00 p.m. with a number of gayly decorated gondolas gliding into the Zoo’s lagoon, sporting colored lanterns at prow and stern, and carrying faux Venetians clad in elaborate Renaissance costumes. A serenade thrilled the crowd, though the Gazette confessed it was not exactly authentic in nature:

“In the middle, too, stood a minstrel, who sang to the accompaniment of a guitar. The moon was just rising over the roof of the Doge’s palace on the left and, as though apostrophizing it on the scene, he sang his song, ‘Wie Schoen Bist Du!’ – How beautiful art thou! The singer was Conrad Mueller, a German actor, and his Italian was very German; but his voice rang out high and clear and the effect was very beautiful.”

It was about this moment that the tableau was disrupted by a most amusing, if unscheduled, performance by the Venetian band. The Cincinnati Gazette recorded the ensuing debacle with undisguised relish:

“A fine orchestra had been engaged for the occasion and perched upon a platform built at the edge of the treacherous sea. While the musicians were waiting for the approach of a stately gondola the platform listed toward the water. A fat tuba player slipped over the side and fell into the Adriatic with a frightful splash. The ’cello player, who was related to him by marriage, plunged in to rescue him. This created a rush to the other side of the platform and, the whole thing giving way, the entire band was precipitated into the sea, instruments and all. The big fiddler jumped upon his fiddle and rode away to shore as majestically as though sealed in a pinnace. Not so easily did the others escape.”

The Cincinnati Commercial [24 August 1880] concurred that the impromptu orchestral bath was as entertaining as any of the intentional scenes arranged for the audience’s enjoyment:

“Fiddles and bows, horns and violincellos went flying through the air, and then gently floating on the receiving waves they danced there, but they made no music. That was furnished by the musicians sans instruments. They cried aloud and with a strong voice, ‘Save me, save me, I can not swim.’ It was Mr. Farny, who must be a most comfortable object for a drowning man to contemplate, who rescued these trusty musicians from their untimely fate.”

While Farny, the celebrated artist, was performing in his new and improvisatory role as a lifeguard, someone – this being Cincinnati, the City That Sings – managed to round up a completely new and completely dry orchestra and the ceremonial pageant resumed with only a slight delay.

The next event of the evening was billed as a jousting contest. The jousters were mounted on little platforms secured to the front of the gondolas. The young men of Cincinnati, although intimately familiar with horses, had little acquaintance with jousting outside Scott’s Waverly novels and put on a decidedly lackluster demonstration. According to the Enquirer:

“The first pair were very tame and afforded little sport. After they had ‘monkeyed’ around awhile and punched at each other much after the style of a washerwoman punching clothes in a boiler with a clothes-stick, they were allowed to retire, and a fresh pair took their places.”

Eventually, a proper joust was conducted, the Doge tossed a matrimonial ring into the Zoo lagoon, the Queen of Love and Beauty (a Main Street debutante) bestowed crowns upon a couple of ersatz knights, and the evening closed with a choral ensemble. Perhaps to encourage positive reviews, the Zoo restaurant picked up the tab for all the journalists in attendance that evening. “Visions of Venice” enjoyed a popular run over several weeks until the weather chilled.

[handeaux]

Strangest Landmark In Cincinnati History? It May Have Been The Gilmore Tower Of Spite

An old African proverb states, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” That was literally true in a dispute among some of Cincinnati’s wealthiest men in 1877. Their dispute led to the creation of a most bizarre, if temporary, landmark, planted amid a downtown lawn.

The first combatant was James R. Gilmore (1814-1897). Mr. Gilmore was a very private man. He regularly visited his Masonic lodge and the Mercantile Library, but otherwise rarely left his office or his house, both located on the north side of Fourth Street between Vine and Race streets.

With various partners, Mr. Gilmore operated a commercial bank and brokerage firm, the front door of which faced Fourth Street. He lived in a comparatively modest house located in the middle of the block, just outside the back door of his business. With tall office buildings sprouting throughout the downtown area, and with the nearby intersection of Fifth and Vine streets decaying into its reputation as the “Nasty Corner,” Mr. Gilmore maintained a little pastoral retreat here, tending a lawn and garden adjacent to his house that was variously described as “ample” and “commodious.”

Into this garden in 1877 crept two titans of Cincinnati real estate, the brothers Emery, Thomas and John. Sons of Thomas Emery Sr., who built a fortune transforming Cincinnati’s abundant pig fat into candles and lamp oil, the brothers became Cincinnati’s most acquisitive landowners. The Cincinnati Enquirer [17 January 1906] described them as “the largest taxpayers and probably the most extensive holders of paying real estate in Ohio.”

“Their tax bill for the past six months in Cincinnati alone was more than $55,000. Many of the most valuable business blocks and hundreds of houses in Chicago, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Toledo, San Francisco and Denver belong to the Emerys and, while it is not possible to give a correct estimate of the amount of their wealth, it can safely be estimated at from $25,000,000 to $35,000,000.”

The Emery family would eventually build Cincinnati’s iconic Carew Tower, but in 1877 the brothers’ interests were somewhat more modest. They planned to build a hotel with its entrance located in a skylit arcade running across the entire block housing dozens of little shops. Kenny’s 1893 “Illustrated Cincinnati” describes this landmark addition to Cincinnati’s mercantile environment:

“The Emery Arcade is a covered passage-way, leading from Vine to Race streets, at a point about midway between Fourth and Fifth streets. There are numerous small stores at each side, filled with notions, trinkets, laces and nick-nacks of various kinds. The roof is of glass, supported upon light, iron girders, and is about forty feet from the pavement, thus affording two stories. The upper rooms, called the Arcade Chambers, are devoted to offices. The passage-way is about fifteen feet in width, and at night is illuminated by gas lamps suspended from the centre of the roof. The restaurant, and entrance to the Arcade Hotel fronts on the Vine street end of the Arcade, and is generally ornamented with evergreens in tubs, presenting a very pleasing effect.”

For the next 50 years, the Emery Arcade was a must-see attraction in Cincinnati, but in 1877, it was a nuisance to Mr. Gilmore. Not only did the six-story Emery project dominate his lawn and garden, but the Emerys had the affrontery to puncture their invading wall with an array of round windows like portholes to provide light and ventilation into the hotel and arcade. These so-called “bullseye” windows irritated Mr. Gilmore to no end and he invested enormous effort into searching for a way to banish the Emery Brothers forever.

To no avail, Mr. Gilmore claimed that the offending bullseyes allowed tenants of the Emery property to spy upon his private lawn. The Emerys responded that the bullseyes were seven feet above the floor and accessible only by stepladder. Mr. Gilmore then hypothesized that burglars could rent space in the hotel and scramble through the bullseyes to burgle his bank. In response, the Emerys offered to install iron bars on the bullseyes, but Mr. Gilmore remained unsatisfied.

Mr. Gilmore got enormously good news when a survey he commissioned determined that the Emerys, in building their new hotel, had infringed upon his property by an inch and a half. He immediately set to work, hiring contractors to construct a stone tower to cover up the offending bullseyes. According to the Cincinnati Commercial [8 April 1877]:

“The Gilmore Tower, as our picture shows, is quite an ornamental affair, finished off with regular battlement. It is about ten feet in diameter at the base and nearly forty feet high, and is really rather an ornament to the back yard. It has become such an attraction that there are advertisements telling of the points from which it may be seen to advantage. It is Mr. Gilmore’s purpose to have it covered with ivy, when it will be the most picturesque object in the back yard of any gentleman in Cincinnati.”

The kerfuffle garnered national attention and was featured in the 21 April 1877 edition of The American Architect and Building News, which reported the saucy details with relish.

The Emerys fumed and consulted attorneys and announced to the local newspapers that they would file suit to recover some $20,000 in damages inflicted by removal of light and air circulation from their new construction. It appears that resolution was achieved via nonjudicial methods, and the Gilmore Tower was dismantled within a year or so. At least one newspaper opined that Mr. Gilmore and the Emery Brothers were entirely missing the point. The Cincinnati Commercial [8 April 1877] suggested:

“The only thing surprising about this is, that neither the Emerys nor Mr. Gilmore look upon the structure in its relations to the adornment of the city, or from the humorous point of view.”

In 1878, Mr. Gilmore sold his bank and brokerage to the National Bank of Commerce. His property on Fourth Street was leased to the H.S. Pogue dry goods store. Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore spent much of their retirement in Europe. Mary Ann Gilmore died in Florence, Italy, in 1891; James Gilmore in Tyrol, Austria, in 1897. Both are buried in Spring Grove Cemetery where, as fate would have it, the brothers Emery also slumber through eternity.