Churches and Cincinnati has about 270 church bodies, 56 Roman Catholic (besides 5 convents), 219 Protestant of various denominations, 12 Jewish synagogues and 38 unclassified, including Christian Science, Spirit ualist, etc. The city is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop and a Protestant Episcopal bishop, with cathedrals of both. The finest church building in Cincinnati is the cathedral of Saint Peter in pure Grecian style, 180 feet by 60 and 90, with a spire 224 feet high, and its priceless altar-piece Murillo's original ((St. Peter Delivered." Other prominent churches are the First Presbyterian, with a tower and spire 285 feet high, the loftiest in the West; the Second Presbyterian; Saint Francis Xavier and the Saint Francis de Sales (Roman Catho lic), Christ's and Saint Paul's Protestant Epis copal and Saint Paul's Methodist Episcopal, the Ninth Street Baptist, Unitarian, New Thought Temple and the church of the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian). There are 61 benevolent associations in the city covering every class and grade of alleviable human misfortune, and an infirmary, a workhouse, with workshops and workgrounds. Prominent among 17 hospitals, public and private, are the Cincinnati General, Jewish, Good Samaritan, Longview Insane Asy lum, Bethesda, Ohio Hospital for Women and Children, the Presbyterian, Elizabeth Gamble, Deaconess Home, Christ, and the Branch Hos pital (the first tuberculosis hospital established in America for the scientific treatment of tuber cular subjects). There are also numerous homes for the aged and infirm, for orphans, for incurables and the friendless, non-sectarian and denominational, all splendidly equipped, and a fresh air fund and farm.
Government, Finances, The govern ment is a modified federal form, there is a four year mayor, who appoints directors of public service and safety, a legislative council of one from each ward with four elected at large and a board of education elected by the people. The city debt is about $55,000,000, but $27,000,000 of this is for the Cincinnati Southern Railroad which returns $1,000,000 per year rental. The tax rate is $15.46 per thousand dollars. The rarly disbursements are about $14,457,725, of which over $2,500,000 is for schools.
Population.-- In 1800, 750; (1810) 2,540; (1820) 9,642; (1830) 24,831; (1840) 42,338; (1850) 115,435; (1860) 161,044; (1870) 216,239; (1880) 255,139; (1890) 296,908; (1900) 325,902; (1910) 363,591; (1914) 402,000. The census bureau estimate for 1915 was 406,706. This is inaccurate, however, without supplemental figures based on the population of the city with nearly one-third of its business population residing across the river in another State, as well as several populous suburbs in other town ships to the north, Newport, Bellevue and Dayton, Ky., east of the Licking, Covington and Ludlow, west of it, Millcreek, Columbia and Delhi and Norwood on the north adding about 200,000 to the population above stated. About 79 per cent of Cincinnati people are native white Americans, a greater proportion than any other large city in the United States. The foreign-born population is 15.6 per cent of the total. Male aliens over 21 years of age form only 2.6 per cent of the population. Negro population is but 5.4 per cent df the total; 78 per cent of the foreign-born population is made up of English, Irish and Germans; 10.3 per cent of the foreign-born population is made up of Russians, Italians and Hungarians.
History.— The site of Cincinnati at the time it first came under the eye of the white man was covered with "ancient works," monuments of a prehistoric race. Traces of many of these "works" still abound in the neighborhood, which is a centre of the so-called "Mound Builders" remains. Here, too, ran the old Indian trail leading from the British trading post at Detroit to' the Licking River, and into the section south of the Ohio. Numerous bands of savages swept through the valley of the Miamis, subse quently called the "Miami Slaughter House," on their marauding expeditions against the Ken tucky pioneers. It was in pursuing one of these bands of "Horse Thieves" that Benjamin Stites first noticed the fertility of the section and its desirability for settlement. As a result of his efforts came the "Miami Purchase.° John Cleves Symmes, with other members of Congress who had been interested by Stites, in 1787 began negotiations with the govern ment for the land lying between the Miamis, which resulted in a conditional purchase that on survey proved to be some 600,000 acres, of which he ultimately received about half. Early in 1788 he sold 740 acres opposite the mouth of the Licking to Matthias Benman and others, with whom he visited the spot later and selected it as the site for a city, to be called Losanti ville — a combination of Latin and French, meaning "Town opposite the mouth of the Lick After some shiftings of ownership a firm consisting of Israel Ludlow, a surveyor, and two others took possession 28 Dec. 1788, and Ludlow laid out a village with the present Central ave nue and Broadway, about three-quarters of a mile apart, fo? east and west boundaries, and Seventh street, about as far from the river, for northern, blazing the street lines on the trees. Three or four log cabins were built, and the flooding out of several Ohio River town sites about this time left Cincinnati the chief sur vivor. The building of Fort Washington by the government in the summer of 1789, just east of Broadway, still further confirmed its primacy, for the Indians were a terrible menace until long after. In January 1790 Gen. Arthur St. Clair, newly-appointed governor of Northwest Territory, arrived, laid out Hamilton County (named after Alexander Hamilton), and made its seat the new town, whose name he changed to Cincinnati (Symmes who professes to have suggested the change, was tenacious for Cin cinnata), after the famous society of Revolu tionary officers, of which he was a member. By the end of 1790, it had some 40 log houses. The defeats of Harmar (1790) and St. Clair (1791) nearly caused its abandonment in a panic, but the importance of the fort kept the settlement alive. In 1792 as many as 354 lots had been taken for building; and so important a centre of commerce had it become even then that 34 of its buildings were warehouses well stocked with goods. It had some 900 inhabit ants, but many of them were floaters. A visit ing missionary reported that the people re sembled those of Sodom, and the town, like others on the north bank of the Ohio, was thronged with frontier idlers and lawless ruffians, who took refuge in Kentucky when brought to book; but as the first church (Pres byterian) was built this year, and the first school (pay) opened with 30 scholars, perhaps some of this language was "common form' Also as settlers were compelled by law to take their loaded guns to church for protection against Indians, it was no place for the tamer sort. In 1793, the Sentinel of the Northwest Territory, he first newspaper published north of the Ohio, appeared, and a year later the first through mail to Pittsburgh was started in a canoe, and a packet line of keel boats to Pitts burgh was organized. Wayne's crushing defeat of the savages at Fallen Timbers, bringing peace to the frontier, was in one sense disastrous to Fort Washington, as settlers swarmed all over Ohio, and it ceased to be the one centre. This defeat, however, assured the permanency of Cin cinnati, which increased slowly but surely until in 1800 its population was 750, a growth of 50 per cent since 1795. In December 1801 the seat of territorial government was removed to Chillicothe. But its 12 years' primacy, the army post making it a depot for supplies, and its frontier position, had given it a safe start. In 1802 Cincinnati was incorporated as a town. A well-known picture of the town also dates from this year, in which, too, a "Young Ladies' School" was started, indicating a superior grade of population, and from February to May 1802 over 4,400 barrels of flour were exported, show ing its development as a distributing port. The
first bank, that of the Miami Exporting Com pany, was started in 1803. In 1805 the town had 960 people and 172 buildings. But immigration set in much more strongly a year later, and the names show an extraordinary intellectual cali bre, in the settlers it was attracting. In 1810 it had 2,300 inhabitants, and was the largest town in the State, the centre of immigration to Ohio, and with a great commerce along the river, and was contemplating a university. The first book descriptive of the place appeared this year writ ten by the celebrated Dr. Drake. In October 1811 the steamboat New Orleans passed the town on her first trip from Pittsburgh to Louis ville. A stone steam mill 110 feet high of nine stories and with foundation walls 10 feet thick dates from 1812. In 1814 Lancaster Academy, afterward Cincinnati College, was founded. In 1819 the town received a city charter, having ac cording to the first directory, published this year, 9,873 inhabitants, mostly from the Northern and Middle States, but also many foreigners, so that it was "not uncommon to hear three or four languages spoken in the streets." Another little book descriptive of the city published in 1826 was republished in England and translated into German, circulated on the Continent and attracted a large number of immigrants, es pecially Germans, who by 1840 numbered one fourth of the population. But its great develop ment came with the opening of the Miami Canal, the most important single influence in the history of the city, for which ground was broken in 1825 at Middletown, and which was completed to Cincinnati in 1827. This not only developed commerce but furnished great water power for manufacturing. The first railroad, the Little Miami, was chartered in 1836, but was not opened until 1846, the first section not until 1843. Even before this the growth was very rapid, population nearly trebling 1820-30, and doubling 1830-40, but the next decade showed the tremendous leap from 46,000 to 115,000. From 1840 the immense immigration of Germans increased so rapidly as to make it for years the typical German city. The Germans took great interest in grape culture and the city for some years was a great wine market. It was the great German population that caused the first Saenger fest of the North American Saengerbund to be held here in 1849, a great stimulus to the musical activity of the city since so famed in the musical world. Several times the city was fearfully ravaged by the cholera, beginning with 1832-34; in 1849 and 1850 over 9,000 souls, nearly 8 per cent of the entire population, per ished of it. Yellow fever came in 1878. Floods have also risen over its platform several times and laid the lower section under water; those of 1832 (the year of flood, fire, pestilence and famine), of 1883, 1884, having been especially high and destructive. In 1838 the new and beautiful steamer Moselle exploded in front of the landing with a loss of almost 140 lives, one of the most terrible river disasters of the cen tury. Two years later the city was the centre of the "lo g cabin" campaign, which sent a favorite son, William Henry Harrison, to the White House. At a later time Hayes, whose pre vious active life had been spent in this city, occupied the presidential position, and Salmon P. Chase, another famous Cincinnatian, was chief justice of the United States. A continu ous excitement of the city was its fury over the race question and later the abolition movement. The vast Northern interest in Southern trade was everywhere a powerful restraining influ ence on this; but Cincinnati, on the border, and with its daily bread' dependent on this trade, be sides having a considerable percentage of its people of Southern birth and detesting the movement on general principles, felt menaced with entire industrial ruin, if the agitation were not put down by force. Lane Seminary was threatened with fire, and its faculty with lynch ing, if the students were not prohibited from discussing slavery; and in 1836 and 1841 James G. Birney's philanthropist press was wrecked by the mob. In fact anti-negro riots were fre quent and arose upon the slightest provocation. The t rouble was later aggravated by the fact that Cincinnati, being a border city, was a chief station on the "underground railroad"; one Quaker citizen boasted of aiding 3,000 fugitive slaves to escape, and in all several times that number must have been Smuggled across. Here, too, were tried the celebrated "fugitive slave cases," the Rosetta and Margaret Garner cases. In 1856 Buchanan was nominated for the presi dency; later nominees of Cincinnati conventions were Greeley, in 1872, Hayes, in 1876, and Han cock, in 1880. When the war broke out, however, it became a strong Union city, and its record is noble. In 1862 the fear of an assault by the Confederate, Kirby Smith, caused the city to be put under martial law for a while; a some what similar experience carne in 1863, at the time of the John Morgan raid. Another war incident was the Vallandingham case. Cincin nati sent its citizen, George B. McClellan, to command the armies of the North. The dec ade prior to the war had not been one of great progress, but in spite of the decay of trade with the South, the city leaped forward with the resumption of peace. The desire to renew the relations with its old business asso ciates induced it to enter upon the construction of the Cincinnati Southern Railway to Chatta nooga, which was built by the city itself, an ex treme instance of municipal ownership. The i celebrated °Bible" case in 1869 resulted in the abolition of religious instruction from the pub lic schools and gave national fame to the bar that included such lawyers as those who argued the case. In 1869 began a series of annexations, which in a few years increased the city's area from 7 square miles (3 miles when incorporated in 1819) to 24 square miles. Annexations in 1895 and 1903-04, 1912-13-14 and -15 brought the area to 72 square miles. The most notq rious event in its later history is the "Cin cinnati Riot" of 28-31 March 1884. As usual in modern times, the law had protected the criminal against the community till the crim inal law was felt to be a farce; some murdererd had received absurdly light sentences, and the patience of the lower orders gave way; they attempted to break into thejail and lynch the prisoners; foiled in this, they assaulted the courthouse, and burned it, as well as its rec- • ords and other buildings adjoining; the State militia had to be called in, and in the fray that, ensued 45 persons were killed and 145 wounded. In 1888 the centenary of the settlement of the State and city was celebrated by a Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley, the culmination of a series of industrial expositions that had attracted the attention of the country and given a director-general to the Centennial at Philadelphia in 1876.
Bibliography.— Burnet, J., 'Notes oil Northwest Territory' (1845); Cist, C., 'Cin cinnati in 1841,' 'Cincinnati in 1851,' 'Cincin nati in 1859' ; 'Cincinnati Miscellany' (1844 45) ; 'Directories of 1819, 1825 and 1829' ; Drake, D., 'Picture of Cincinnati' (1815) ; Drake, B., and Mansfield, E. D., 'Cincinnati in 1826' ; Ford, H. A., 'History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County' (Cleveland 1880) ; Greve; C. T., 'Centennial History of Cincinnati' car 1904) ; Mansfield, E. D., ones' (1803-43) ; Miller, F. W., 'Cincinnati's Beginnings' (1880) ; Stevens, G. E., (Cincin: nati> (1869) • Trollope, Mrs. F., Manners of the Americans' (London 1831).