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

still worked for Mr. Chidsey until father rented a store on Sycamore St. a few doors above Third on theeast side. We occupied this store for some months. Next door north was a museum owned by Mr. Franks,as was also the building we occupied. Part of the entertainment was called the Infernal Regions, arepresentation of hell, and was known all over the country. Hardly any one came to the city that did notvisit it. The figures and scenery were the work of Hiram Powers, the great American Sculptor when ayoung man, and before he became celebrated as a great genius. He was the creator of the well knownstatue of the Greek Slave, which has a world wide reputation. There are copies of it in most of thegalleries in Europe. The infernal regions were no doubt very realistic and as near a replica of hell aspreached by the average divine of those days.The family at this time was living in Newport, which at that time was a very small place. We rentedthe house from a Mr. Cole, who while we were there opened one of the first pleasure resorts for thebenefit of the residents of Cincinnati. It was three miles up the Licking River and was popular for manyyears. One of the Shinkles of Covington afterwards started a line of boats to Coles Gardens, as it wascalled, and on Sundays the boats were crowded. It was on the order of our present Coney Island...Father and Edward were quite successful with the store on Sycamore Street and began to makefriends and customers. I went to work at turning for a party by the name of Holmes, who made shoe pegs,brushes and drawer knobs. I worked piece work, that is, the more work I was able to turn out the more mypay was. I always preferred to work in that way, as I was a hard worker and was always making somenew contrivances to facilitate my work. At first I worked turning brush handles. I could not make morethan four dollars per week when I took the job, but I gradually improved until in a few weeks I wasearning six dollars per week (note: age 14)...The next place was with a Mr. Ritchie, who had a turningshop on Fifth Street between Sycamore and Broadway. There they took in all kinds of job work. He paidmore than six dollars per week. There I turned table legs and bed posts, which I found much easier than inAlbion as the lathes were run by steam power...I can’t remember how long I worked for Mr. Ritchie butwhen I left he paid me seven dollars and fifty cents per week. When I left there I went to work at afurniture factory owned by John K. Coolidge.Our furniture store on Sycamore Street prospered very well. We had one for some time on WalnutStreet between Pearl and Third Sts. and at this place we manufactured quite a number of articles. We hada good run on a very pretty lounge that father had made in London. We could sell them just as fast as theycould be made. I think this couch was the foundation of our getting along so well as we did. Edward andfather made them all alone at the start but we soon had several workmen and the place became crowded.It was at this juncture that the store on Sycamore Street was taken and Edward took charge of it. Wemanufactured on Walnut Street and sold on Sycamore Street the most of what we made. After I had myday’s work done at the factory where I was employed I used to turn for our own store. Father bought alathe like I learned to work on in Albion, that was worked by foot and on this I could do all the turningthat was wanted for our own shop. I worked usually until eleven or twelve at night. Edward alwaysstopped with me and we went home together.The store on Sycamore was doing a good business and we were looking forward to soon having afactory with steam power, but at this time we suffered one of the most severe misfortunes of our businesscareer. The Commercial newspaper began erecting a new building at the S. E. Corner of Sycamore andThird Sts. The north end of their building reached to the south end of the building we occupied. Therewas no law at that time limiting the depth of an excavation for the foundation of a building. This buildingfor the Commercial newspaper was the first building in Cincinnati ever erected with a double basement,and because there was no law to govern the depth of the excavation the contractor took any precaution tosecure the safety of the adjoining buildings. The consequence of this negligence was that one night thebuilding we occupied went suddenly into the excavation, the building and all it’s contents fell. We werenotified of this occurrence in the middle of the might and we went at once to the site and found thedestruction of the building and stock complete. Our furniture was reduced to matchwood and wasperfectly worthless and we were reduced to a state of bankruptcy. We, however, did not shrink in meetingthe emergency. We told no one the severity of our misfortune but kept a stiff upper lip and immediately166