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

took steps to retrieve our fortunes. We rented No. 85 Sycamore St. opposite the National Theatre. It was amuch better house than we had. We manufactured in the top floors and kept the two lower floors for salerooms. We removed all the goods from the Walnut St. store into the new house. We bought fresh goodssuch as we did not make ourselves. Our credit was still good as we had always paid as we agreed to do.There was but one party from whom we had purchased before the misfortune came to us raised anyobjection to giving us credit...All the others had sympathy for us and extended to us all the credit weneeded, in fact they pressed us to buy more than we wished to. The new store was rented from Taft andMallon, I don’t know whether it was owned by them or whether they merely acted as agents for theowner. Our President is the son of the above. We kept this store at No. 85 Sycamore for several years, ourbusiness increasing year after year until our quarters became too cramped for our extended business.We commenced a suit against the Cincinnati Commercial paper and also the contractors for thebuilding, for damages in destroying our stock of goods. We suffered great worry and expense. Sometimeswe got a verdict and then the other side would appeal on one ground or another and they would begranted new trial. Perhaps we would lose on some technicality and it would all have to be gone overagain. It cost us in the end more than the original loss and I think fifteen or twenty years of litigation. Thebuilder, John Noble, died leaving no estate, and the Commercial paper having plenty of means tocontinue the suits, we dropped the whole matter. It would have been much better had we suffered the losswithout trying to recover any damages. Our experience in this I think has prevented us from going intoother lawsuits when we had justice on our side, but preferred to settle as best we could rather than run therisk of the law’s delay.It was about the year 1851 father had an opportunity of renting a factory with machinery on theCanal between 14th and 15th streets from an Irishman named Fitzgerald. Our quarters had become socramped that the business suffered and kept us from prospering as we should have done. As soon as weacquired possession of the factory we immediately went to work to adapt it to our use. Factories in thosedays were no more than bare brick walls and floors, they had none of the facilities as they have today.There was little or no provision made for heating further than a stove here and there, and in cold weatherthe workmen suffered, especially the men working on the machines and the turners. The feet suffered themost, it was usual to wear shoes made from buffalo skins with the hair inside, but even then the feet couldnot be kept warm. Men would not work now under such conditions. I myself worked in the basementwithout any heat, and most of the time with open doors to bring in the lumber often covered with snowand ice. The harder you worked the warmer you kept and I used to work hard and you may be sure mostof the men for the same reason did the same. I, at once left the position I had at that time, having left JohnK. Coolidge about a year before and had taken a job with H. B. Mudge. I had left the former placebecause we disagreed on the price of turning bedstead posts, he made the price at thirty-five cents the set.I was able to make over three dollars a day at that price which he thought was too much for a boy lessthan twenty years of age. He would not pay the price any longer so I went to the Mudge concern. John K.Coolidge, after I left, could not get the work done at the price he had agreed to pay me and he tried to getme to return to him but I was making more than twenty dollars per week at Mudge’s so I refused toreturn. I was one of the fastest workmen known at that time and I could do double the work of other men.I was no doubt a great help to father as also was brother Edward, we both took a great interest in thebusiness and did everything possible to help it along. We often remained at the factory until 12 o’clock atnight to pack goods for shipment after we had worked all day. Edward at the books and I in the factorywe soon had trade all over the country and made considerable money.I had forgotten to mention that while we lived in Newport the soldiers returned from the MexicanWar. They were in a terrible condition, ragged and dirty, quite different from the men I saw come by theMiami Canal from Michigan and land at Camp Washington. They went into camp on their return in openground at the back of our house in Newport. They had suffered from want of food and had not yetrecovered. Mother used to get up early in the morning and make biscuits and coffee for them. Formother’s kindness to them they were very grateful and they were there several weeks before beingmustered out of service. Public opinion was much divided on the merits and honesty of this war. It was at167