First impressions of the New World on two travellers from the Old, in the autumn of 1858

by Isabella Strange Trotter

LETTER X.

CINCINNATI.—MR. LONGWORTH.—GERMAN POPULATION—-"OVER THE RHINE."—ENVIRONS OF CINCINNATI.—GARDENS.—FRUITS.—COMMON SCHOOLS.—JOURNEY TO ST. LOUIS.

Vincennes, Indiana, Nov. 1st, 1858.

My last letter brought us up to our arrival at Cincinnati, and our passing the evening at Mr. Longworth's on the following day. Next day, Wednesday the 27th, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Longworth's daughter, called and asked us to spend that evening also at her mother's house. She took me out in her carriage in the morning to see some of the best shops, which were equal to some of our best London ones in extent and in the value of the goods; and in the course of the day we called at Monsieur Raschig's; he not being at home, we made an appointment to call there late in the evening.

The party at the Longworths was confined to the members of their large family, all of whom are very agreeable. There were two married daughters, Mrs. Flagg and Mrs. Anderson, and the grandson and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Stettinius; and we also saw the little great-grand-daughter, who is a pretty child of eighteen months. The dining-room not being long enough to accommodate us all at tea, the table was placed diagonally across the room, and it was surprising to see Mrs. Longworth pouring out tea and coffee for the whole party as vigorously as if she were eighteen years old, her age being seventy-two. She is remarkably pretty, with a fair complexion, and a very attractive and gentle manner and face.

We had quails and Cincinnati hams, also oysters served in three different ways—stewed, fried in butter, and in their natural state, but taken out of their shells and served en masse in a large dish. Our friends were astonished that we did not like these famous oysters of theirs in any form, which we did not, they being very huge in size and strong in flavour. We said, too, we did not like making two bites of an oyster; they pitied our want of taste, and lamented over our miserably small ones in England. After tea we saw some sea-weed and autumnal leaves beautifully dried and preserved by Mrs. Flagg, and we also looked over an illustrated poem on the subject of Mr. and Mrs. Longworth's golden wedding, the poem being the composition of Mr. Flagg. Towards ten o'clock a table was laid out in the drawing-room with their Catawba champagne, which was handed round in tumblers, followed by piles of Vanilla ice a foot and a half high. There were two of these towers of Babel on the table, and each person was given a supply that would have served for half a dozen in England; the cream however is so light in this country that a great deal more can be taken of it than in England; ices are extremely good and cheap all over America; even in very small towns they are to be had as good as in the large ones. Water ices or fruit ices are rare; they are almost always of Vanilla cream. In summer a stewed peach is sometimes added.

We left the Longworths that evening in a down pour of rain, so that papa only got out for a minute at the door of Miss Raschig's uncle, and asked him to breakfast with us next morning. He accordingly came; we found him a most quick, lively, and excellent man, full of intelligence, and he received us with the warmth and ardour of an old friend, having during the twenty-five years he has been in America scarcely ever seen any one who knew any of his relatives. He is a Lutheran minister, and has a large congregation of Germans. He said a good deal had been going on during the revivals at Cincinnati, and he thought the feeling shown was of a satisfactory kind; there had been preaching in tents opposite his church.

The part of the town where he resides beyond the Miami Canal, which divides it into two portions, is known by the name of "Over the Rhine," and is inhabited almost entirely by Germans, of whom there are no less than 60,000 in the town. Mr. Raschig's own family consists of nine sons and one daughter, the youngest child being a fortnight old. We went to see them before we left the place, and found the mother as excellent and agreeable as himself, with her fine little baby in her arms. She said that boys were much easier disposed of than girls in this country, and their three eldest sons are already getting their livelihood, the eldest of all being married. We saw the third son, a very intelligent youth, who is a teacher in one of the schools in the town, and the daughter, a pleasing girl of fourteen, sung to us. She promises to have a good voice, though it will never equal her cousin's.

On the evening of the 28th we went by invitation to Mr. and Mrs. King's. He is a lawyer, and they are connected by marriage with the Neils of Columbus and with the Longworths. The Andersons were there, and we again had a liberal supply of ices. The following evening, the 29th, we went to the Andersons, where there was a large party consisting of the Directors of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway, with whom, by the bye, I had dined that day at the hotel, there being ten gentlemen and myself, the only lady, at table. The party at the Andersons was also an assemblage of some of the beau monde of Cincinnati. The ladies were all dressed in high silk dresses remarkably well made, and looking as if they all had come straight from Paris. I never saw a large party of prettier or better chosen toilettes. The dresses were generally of rich brocaded silk, but there was nothing to criticise, and all were in perfect taste. We assembled in a long drawing-room carpeted, and sufficiently supplied with chairs, but there being neither tables nor curtains, the room had rather a bare appearance, though it was well lighted and looked brilliant. Towards ten o'clock we were handed into the dining-room, where there was a standing supper of oysters,—the "institution" of oysters as they justly call it,—hot quails, ham, ices, and most copious supplies of their beloved Catawba champagne, which we do not love, for it tastes, to our uninitiated palates, little better than cider. It was served in a large red punch-bowl of Bohemian glass in the form of Catawba cobbler, which I thought improved it; but between the wine and the quails, which, from over hospitable kindness, were forced on poor papa, he awoke the next morning with a bad headache, and did not get rid of it all day.