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

worst trouble we had was to pay off the men we owed money, when times were good they would drawbut a portion of their weekly wages, leaving the rest of it to accumulate and draw interest, and when thetimes because of the war became so bad we could not no matter how hard we tried raise enough to paythem. I remember father, Edward and I after we had divided what we had between the men, we wouldonly have a couple of dollars between the three of us. I remember just after I was married and we werekeeping house on Dayton Street things had about reached their worst, and although we had a large stockof goods and material on hand worth thousands of dollars and practically free of debt except the smallamounts we were indebted to the workmen, my wife’s father dropped in to lunch, we had already dinedand had no bread left, I was going to the store and should have brought money back with me but at thatparticular time neither I or my wife had enough to buy a loaf of bread. I did not know what to do, we hadonly just moved into the neighborhood and were not acquainted with any of the grocers. I could not tellmy wife’s father the condition we were in so I went to the grocer expecting to have to explain matters tohim, but I was both pleased and surprised to have him speak my name and state he had heard I had movedinto the next street and solicited our trade. I picked up the bread and told him I would stop in pay for itwhen I passed next day. He was as pleased to see me take it as I was to get the bread. This showed us theweakness of owing money to employees.We determined never to allow the possibility of such a state of affairs again and to this day it neverhas. For nearly fifty years we have never owed any man in our employ a cent on the evening of ourregular pay day. It was fully six months after the war began before we could find any way to utilize ourfactory. We had been able to dispose of some of our stock which had made us quite independent andcomfortable.About this time Miles Greenwood took a contract from the U.S. Government to supply them with alarge number of Black Walnut gun stocks. By good fortune just after the trouble began and when thingswere almost at the worst, Mr. John Green, of whom we had bought large quantities of lumber ever sincewe had been manufacturing, brought down two canal boat loads of 2” black walnut such as the gun stockswere made from. We contracted with the Greenwood people to sell them the lumber which we had boughtfor fifteen dollars the thousand feet at thirty-five dollars and cut them into gun stocks for six cents each,all the lumber that would not make a gun stock to be ours. This deal looked and was a very profitable oneas it enabled us to begin work in the factory, and gave us quite a large lot of ready money we badlyneeded. A few weeks after this a party came from the gun works at Springfield, Mass. and offered usseventy-five dollars the thousand feet for all the 2” walnut we could furnish. At first sight it looked as ifwe had made a great mistake in selling at the first offer but I think it was lucky we did, as it obliged us tostart the factory to cut out the gun stocks, and when once we had the factory running we received ordersfor hard tack boxes. We had to take them very low at first, but as the demand increased we were enabledto advance the prices until finally we were able to make a fair profit in making them. The furniture tradebecame better and as the stock in certain lines became low we gradually put the men back to their regularwork and discontinued making the army biscuit boxes. When business began to improve it went aheadvery fast until in a short time we could not make our goods fast enough. Prices advanced very rapidlywith the increased demand our customers advanced our prices themselves. It became so good at last wecould not supply our customers. Father would not sell goods to others while our regular customers hadunfilled orders with us. I remember an instance, we were shipping a lot of Dressers, they were on thesidewalk ready for the boat, when a dealer from the south wanted to buy them. Father told him they wereall engaged, he asked what we were getting for them and was told twenty-five dollars each, heimmediately offered us ten dollars advance but father would not take it as they were promised to others.The customer said we were fools, and I rather thought so myself, but father was that kind of a man. Thisexample goes to prove that prices are made by demand and supply.I have forgotten to mention that our store at #85 Sycamore Street having become too cramped forour increased business, we moved about 1856 to #26 Sycamore St. This building was very much larger,being twenty-five feet front and two hundred feet deep. It was very convenient to the river for shipping asthere was as yet no railroads of much value running south. We often had this house packed to its fullest169