A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

as Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and some of the Eastern State Banks - the rest, of which there werehundreds, were of the wild cat kind. These were located in all kinds of out of way places, the harder to getat the more valuable the locations were. Many were found in what was then termed the back woods, milesfrom any town, with only mud roads to reach them. There were no railroads anywhere this side of theAllegheny Mountains, at that time stage lines over mud roads were all the means of communication to behad, so the redemption of the notes of the wild cat banks was expensive as well as dangerous. To presentnotes at some of these banks was as much as the collector’s life was worth as the banks never expected toredeem them, as when they put them in circulation that was supposed to be the end of them. Many ofthem were never redeemed at all, they passed from hand to hand until worn out or the bank closed up.The result of this state of business by trading one with the other, little or no money passing between them.For instance, you wanted to build a house, being in the furniture business, you would go to the lumberdealer, bricklayer, carpenter or any other of the trades necessary in building it, agreeing to pay for it infurniture. The party you made the deal with would give orders upon you in such sums as he could trade tohis workmen or to others who might be in need of furniture. The orders were for goods and were the sameas checks on a bank against any gross sum that had been agreed upon. When all the orders combinedequaled the full amount of the original deal that part of the house would have been provided for, and thesame with all the other branches necessary in the construction of the house. The same way the employerwould go to the clothing store, giving orders to your employees for clothing, and the clothing merchantwould give orders to his workman upon you for furniture or trade them off to other merchants for otherthings wanted. Thus there were exchanges innumerable made, sometimes several exchanges having to bemade before the desired article could be obtained. This was going back to the original system of barter butin the absence of money it brought back primitive customs. It was a cumbersome way of doing businessbut seemed to answer the purpose, at any rate it was the only way business could be transacted. It lastedmany years, gradually giving way to the cash system as money became more abundant.As I mentioned, there were a great many English here at the time of our arrival in 1844 and theywere all mostly dissatisfied, and soon had father converted to their way of thinking and changed his viewsentirely. He had made arrangements to purchase a large tract of ground on Central Avenue, at that timecalled Western Row. This land was then an orchard and it was offered at a very low price, even for thedepressed times. The price was by the acre. It had not been laid out for streets. Father also rented a storeon Sycamore St. intending to open a store and start manufacturing...but father having taken the advice ofhis friends not to remain in America, at once canceled the arrangements he had made and proceeded atonce on his way to New York, taking all of the family with him...Mr. John Spring tried his best topersuade him to remain in Cincinnati, but his arguments were futile against the combined persuasions ofall his other countrymen to leave while he had the means to do so. They were no doubt sincere in theirconvictions that the country would never recover from the conditions from which it was suffering, thingshad been bad ever since 1837 and showed little signs of improvement up to this time. Values were at thelowest ebb, as a sample, flour was but two dollars and a half per barrel and the other produce inproportion. Transportation was so high that goods could not find a market except at prohibitive cost, infact there was no way to reach a market except by river or canal, and these markets were so glutted attimes that dealers were afraid to risk shipping to them. All travel was by stage, there were but fewmacadamized roads, most of them but primitive mud, which in wet weather made them impossible.A new era was, however, just beginning that in a few years made great changes in the whole face ofthe country. Railroads were the magic that caused the change, they soon had lines laid out to reacheverywhere. A great many of them were premature and failed before being finished but it brought a newera to the nation and it soon developed those cities that were in the natural route of communication andthey began to grow rapidly...We left all these chances that would have come to us and proceeded on our return back to London.We left Cincinnati by steamboat for Pittsburgh, taking several days to reach that city, and we immediatelytook passage by canal for Philadelphia, going by way of Holidaysburg. There the passengers were takenover the mountains by an incline road to the canal on the other side, where the passage was resumed.163