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OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest                    Volume 99 : Issue 437

Today's Topics:
  #1 HAMILTON COUNTY - PART 33            [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE]


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X-Message: #1
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 13:01:51, -0500
From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER)
Subject: HAMILTON COUNTY - PART 33


HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898

                        HAMILTON COUNTY - part 33

        From Mr. Henry B. Teetor's "Past and Present of Mill Creek Valley,"
we quote: "Mr. Piatt entered with great energy and intrepidity indeed upon
business enterprises. He was among the foremost in starting institutions,
foundries, banks, launching steamboats, building houses and in imparting a
spirit of progress to the young city. He founded in 1817 the first bank
west of the mountains. One of the bills of this bank is in the hands of Mr.
George H. Schoenberger, and greatly prized by him. His prosperity and
success were unequaled -evidenced by the possession of a large estate and a
commanding position as a banker and a merchant. His name had gone out over
the Northwest Territory. He knew its leading men and was familiar with its
resources when the war of 1812 came on.
        In an evil hour for Mr. Piatt he contracted with the government to
furnish provisions to the Northwest army, then under Harrison. Congress
adjourned without making appropriations for a continuance of the war. The
consequences to the country at large were disastrous, to John H. Piatt
fatal. Rations that he agreed to furnish at twenty cents rose through a
depreciated currency to forty-five cents. After six months he had drawn on
the government for $210,000, the drafts for which had gone to protest for
non payments.
        During this time about $46,000 had come into Mr. Piatt's hands as a
commissariat fund, resulting from the sales as commissary of the army. He
applied this sum to the payment of debts incurred for supplies. This was
treated by the departments as a violation of law. This was the state of his
offending. This condition obtained on the 26th of December, 1814, when Gen.
McArthur made a requisition on him for 800,000 rations to be delivered in
thirty days which at existing rates would have cost $360,000 more.
        Unable to meet this requisition, and unwilling, that the public
should suffer Piatt immediately repaired to Washington to lay the matter
before the Department, accompanied by the Hon. Justice McLean, then his
representative in Congress. They found the war minister of the United
States sitting in the ashes of the burned capital, in an agony of despair
over a bleeding country and an empty treasury.
        The Secretary appealed to Mr. Piatt's  patriotism for help, and
gave him verbal assurances, that if he could furnish the supplies called
for he should be remunerated and allowed the market price for the rations
regardless of the original contract.
        Upon these assurances John H. Piatt returned home, and put his
entire fortune and credit in the service of his country.
        When the final settlement came the government refused to allow him
the difference between the first contract price of rations and the market
value of supplies purchased under the assurances of Secretary Monroe.
        We have not the space to follow in detail the heart-breaking
struggle of this great patriot, for justice at the hands of a government he
had so nobly served. For years he haunted in vain the ante-chamber of a
department that had once only been too glad to welcome him. Once thrown
into prison by the department for his technical violation of law, he was
released only to have his creditors imprison him again.
        At last, heart-broken and bankrupt, he died a prisoner, without
enough money to give him a decent burial.
        Sixty years after the Supreme Court of the United States
adjudicated the claim and allowed the principal. But to this day the
government has not paid the interest.
        The PIATTS are all descended from John Piatt, a French Huguenot,
who settled in New Jersey about 1740. Four of his five sons were soldiers
of the American revolution. One, Captain William Piatt, was killed at St.
Clair's defeat; two others emigrated with Judge Symmes to North Bend. The
family were numerous and of high intellectual reputation.
        JACOB WYKOFF PIATT. -This noted citizen of Cincinnati was born in
Kentucky in 1801. Brought to Cincinnati when quite young, he grew to man's
estate in the home of his father, Benjamin M. Piatt, elder brother of the
more famous John H. Piatt.
        Jacob Wykoff became a successful lawyer, and accumulated quite a
fortune in his practice, and successful operations in real estate.
        The one event in his life was his success in establishing a paid
fire department, that is now known in every city of the civilized world.
The old volunteer fire system, once the pride of the citizens, had fallen
into disrepute.
        The better class had either neglected the companies to which they
belonged, or had been shouldered out by the worse elements of a prosperous
town. This evil was not confined to Cincinnati. Every city in the Union
suffered from the same cause. The Mose of New York, the brazen-cheeked,
red-shirted ruffian was duplicated in every municipality that possessed a
fire department. Mr. Piatt returned to the city council at a time when the
most reputable citizens considered it an honor to be a councilman, opened
war on the volunteers, by introducing an ordinance providing for the
selection of, and paying the firemen for their services.
        There was scarcely a member of council that did not privately admit
the necessity for such a reform, and yet when the vote was taken, in a
chamber crowded by roughs, whose noisy demonstrations left no doubt as to
their opposition, but one man was found brave enough to vote with Mr. Piatt
in favor of this measure. This gentleman was Judge Timothy Walker, the
well-known author and jurist.
        Nothing daunted Mr. Piatt continued his efforts. At every assembly
of a new council his ordinance was offered to be again voted down. But the
minority grew slowly in spite of the brutal opposition. Mr. Piatt was wont
to defy the crowd in the debate that preceded defeat, and the feeling got
so intense, that it was dangerous for the bold reformer to go to and from
the chamber. As it was a volunteer guard of Irish constituents accompanied
their representative. One night after a heated debate a mob assembled in
front of Mr. Piatt's residence and amid groans, hisses, howls and yells, he
was burned in effigy.
        This contest continued for years. A happy event, however, came to
end it. This was the invention and building of the Latta fire engine. After
being tested by a commission of experts, the engine was accepted. What to
do with it was the question, turn it over to the volunteers was to insure
its immediate destruction. It was resolved, at length to organize a paid
company to use and protect the machine. A committee was appointed having on
it Messrs. Piatt, Walker, Kessler and Loder to organize a company. To the
amusement of his associates Mr. Piatt nominated Miles Greenwood as the
captain of the new company. Judge Walker remonstrated. It was, he said,
putting the new engine in the hands of the enemy, for Miles Greenwood was
the pet of the volunteers, and had been loud in his denunciation of what he
called the degradation of the paid system. Mr. Piatt persisted and asserted
that Greenwood was the only man in the city who would make the new machine
a success.
        "Well try him," was the response, "he wont accept."
        Greenwood was sent for. He was startled at the offer but
immediately accepted, provided that he could select the men.
        The machine will be attacked at the first fire, and I want to know
whom I am to rely on.
        The first alarm of the fire that brought out the new engine proved
the correctness of Greenwood's prophecy. The fire was a serious one on
Sycamore street above Fourth. The general alarm brought all the engines to
the fire and among the rest the new steam machine. Drawn by huge horses at
a gallop, driven by Miles himself, a noble figure in his brass helmet, red
shirt and speaking trumpet swung to his side, the impression made on the
swiftly gathering crowds was impressive. Miles had about him the newly made
firemen in their splendid uniforms. He had in addition all the men of his
great foundry and workshops; and hurrying to the front of his first and
only flight came Jacob Wykoff Piatt, followed by two hundred and fifty bold
Irishmen from the old Thirteenth.
        The volunteers were prompt to a redemption of their word. They
attacked the new fire company. The fight was fierce, bloody and brief.
Miles Greenwood led the van. His tall figure, bright helmet and
trumpet-toned voice, made him a leader to follow and a man to fear. The
engagement lasted about thirty minutes. A few bloody heads, and damaged
countenances, and the tumult ended in the volunteer companies striving to
put the steam "squirt as they called the new engine out of public favor,
through their own superior management and work.
        It was all in vain. The new device won, and in less than a month
all the fire companies were clamoring for the new invention, organization
and pay.
        We write with unusual gratification the name of MILES GREENWOOD,
who died in 1885. He was one of the strongest, most useful, public-spirited
men in the annals of Ohio. He was of a large, strong physique, a great
worker, labored incessantly in his own business and in many public
enterprises. He was of Massachusetts stock, but was born in Jersey City,
March 19, 1807; mingling in his veins were English, Huguenot French, and
German blood. In 1831 with ten hands he started iron founding in this city
and eventually had an immense establishment.
        In 1861 he turned it into a United States Arsenal for the
manufacture of implements of war. Upward of 700 hands were employed, and
among the goods turned out were over 200 bronze cannon, the first ever made
in the West, hundreds of caissons and gun carriages, also a sea-going
monitor; and forty thousand Springfield muskets were turned into rifles and
supplied with percussion locks - a very effective weapon with tremendous
"kicking qualities," so the soldiers who used it laughingly said.
        To Greenwood the Cincinnati Fire Department was greatly indebted
for its efficient organization.
        Having been a leading spirit in the old volunteer fire department,
he was induced by Jacob Wykoff Piatt to assume the leadership of the paid
steam fire department. Once enlisted in behalf of the paid system, he
quickly perceived the possibilities of vastly increased efficiency, and
with iron will and never shrinking bravery determinedly fought and overcame
all opposition. At one time the City Council failed to appropriate money to
pay the men, and during this time Mr. Greenwood advanced for this purpose
$15,000 to keep the men together by paying them regularly.
        Night and day he was constantly engaged in fighting the opposition
to the organization. He had no time to attend to his own business, but paid
a man $1,500 to attend to it for him Of this sum the city subsequently
reimbursed him $1,000, which he at once paid into the funds of the
Mechanics' Institute. Eventually every difficulty was overcome, and to-day
such a thing as a volunteer fire department is unknown in any city of the
first class in Europe or America.
        The first steam fire-engine ever built that was used at a fire was
constructed at Grenwood's establishment by Messrs. Shawk & Latta, and was
first used on a Sunday morning in May, 1852. It was named the Uncle Joe
Ross. It initiated a moral reform, as under the old system the engine
houses had been the nurseries where the youth of the city were trained in
vice, vulgarity and debauchery.

        -continued in part 34

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End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #437
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