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

capacity with the goods we manufactured after there had been low water. As soon as the river would rise,being so close to the shipping, we could get our goods down to the boats before others that were at agreater distance. We found this a great advantage, as we got possession of more southern territory, ourbusiness increased in proportion until at the close of the war we found our factory much too small for thebusiness we would command. We had expected to have built an addition to the factory on the vacant partof the ground but would not do so until we had bought the ground upon which the factory stood. Whenwe applied to the owner of the ground, he made the preposterous claim that the buildings that were on theground at the time it was sold should be appraised with the ground, although, here was no improvementon the property when it was leased to the Mechanical Bakery Co. who were the original leasers. Ofcourse, we objected to such an interpretation of the lease and commenced a suit for the immediatecompliance with it’s provisions. Of course, like most suits at law when it is commenced there is no tellingwhen or how it will be settled. This one was a long time before we could get it to trial. We were in ahurry, the other party was not. We waited until our patience was exhausted. As our trade was demandingmore goods than we could manufacture we purchased a lot on the Canal east of Elm Street andimmediately put up a six story factory for the purpose of making a larger quantity of chairs which part ofour business had greatly increased. This is the property now owned by the L. A. Strobel & Co. and whichwe sold to them after the first financial and business depression. The whole country suffered after theconclusion of the war, owing to the depreciation of the paper money and the inflated value of all articlesmanufactured or grown. Suddenly everything both personal property and real estate began falling in priceand many landlords reduced rent to tenants. The bottom seemed to have dropped out of everything. Whenprosperity was so great we had taken two stores on Walnut Street below Fourth Street on a lease of sixyears at a rate of six thousand dollars a year. We were to take out the dividing walls, making the two intoone, put in plumbing, painting inside and out and putting in a new front costing several thousand dollars.This proved to be the worst investment we ever made, we had hardly moved into the new premises whenthings began to get bad....We always carried in stock a large quantity of lumber but it was, we thought,better to sell the property than reduce our stock of lumber as properly seasoned lumber was what hadmade our reputation for good work. We always carried from seventy-five to one hundred thousand dollarsworth of lumber. ..Soon after this father retired from the business...We concluded to dispose of the chair factory,discontinue the manufacturing of furniture and confine the business to chairs alone. We succeeded indisposing of the chair factory to L. A. Strobel...Father died on Feb. 20th, 1881. Mother died Oct. 16th,1883. Had she not been so worn down and exhausted with waiting night and day on father I am sure shewould have lived a number of years longer...She died at my house on E. McMillan St. No. 1429......In May 1878 7 the north end of the factory was entirely destroyed by fire...in the south end therewas practically no damage to the building...Father declined to assist in rebuilding the factory...We hadbeen renting a building next door for a number of years as a store house, it had formerly been an icehouse, it was owned by James Beatty...We built it the full size of the combined lots, making a five storybuilding and a good light basement. The frontage on Elm Street and Canal is one hundred and twenty-fivefeet. It made a very handsome factory and greatly increased our capacity for manufacturing. We were ableto do a much larger business that we had done since Edward and I had controlled the business, and tradehaving improved we were able to make a lot of money. We made some years as much as twenty thousanddollars. Our business was greatly helped by an Association formed by most of the chair makers in themiddle west, profits were very small and competition great. And lumber began to advance which it has7 History of the Cincinnati Fire Department, 1895. At 12:24 oclock in the early morning of May 8, an alarm from box 69 announcedthe fire in the G. Henshaw & Sonss furniture factory, a four story brick structure at the corner Elm and Canal streets. It was a fierce and hot fire,the buildings across the canal being scorched by the intensity of the heat. The factory was completely destroyed, the loss amounting to $71,379.35on which there was $54,102.99 insurance. During the fire a sudden wind and rain storm came up and whirled the flames in fantastic shapes, whilethe glistening drops of rain reflected the light through the sky a million fold. The storm lasted but a short time, but produced a grand spectacle forthe time. While it drenched the spectators, the rain had little effect on the burning building, in which the fire contained until there was nothing leftto burn.170