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Born in Richmond, Virginia, Powhatan Beaty moved to Cincinnati in 1849, where he spent the majority of his life. Beaty enlisted as a private in the Union Army in June 1863, and two days later was promoted to first sergeant, Company G, 5th United States Colored Troops (USCT). All the officers of Company G were killed or wounded during an attack on Confederate forces at New Market Heights, Virginia, in September 1864. Beaty took command of his company, and for his valor received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Beaty was one of two African-Americans buried in Ohio to receive the Medal of Honor for service in the Civil War. He died on December 6, 1916, leaving two sons, attorney and state representative A. Lee Beaty and John W. Beaty. He is buried in Union Baptist Cemetery along with nearly 150 USCT veterans.
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The Covington-Cincinnati Bridge Company under the leadership of Amos Shinkle built the first Ohio River bridge linking the North and South following the Civil War. The bridge was privately operated until purchased in 1955 by Kentucky and later renamed the “John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge.” Completed in 1866, this National Civil Engineering Landmark was the only bridge in service over the Ohio River during the 1937 flood. Since 1976, its national and local heritage has been commemorated with beautification lighting and flags sponsored by the citizens and institutions for which the bridge stands as a community symbol. (Continued on other side)
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Among the first in America, Cincinnati’s public library dates from March 14, 1853. A public reading room opened in 1856, but funding remained a problem until 1867, when local school board president Rufus King II secured legislation for a renamed Cincinnati Public Library. In 1869, King lured leading librarian William Frederick Poole to organize Cincinnati as a national model for the growing public library movement. Poole designed 19th century America’s most advanced library at 629 Vine Street, which fully opened in 1874. Becoming a countywide system in 1898, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County was a pioneer in the 20th century with special services for the blind and for children, bookmobile services, and circulation of audiovisual materials. (continued on other side)
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The Champion Coated Paper Company began production April 15, 1894, with less than a dozen employees under the direction of Peter Gibson Thomson (December 16, 1851-July 10, 1931). A Cincinnati businessman, bookseller, and publisher, Thomson recognized that recent changes in half-tone printing would increase the demand for coated paper. In 1893, he acquired the patent rights to a card coating machine, incorporated his new company, and set-aside 45 acres along Seven Mile Pike (now North B Street) to build a plant that would coat paper produced by other mills in the Great Miami Valley. The Champion Hamilton Mill shipped its first coated paper order on May 4, 1894. Within a few years, Thomson had dramatically increased plant capacity and, by 1900, Champion was regarded as the largest coated paper mill in the country.
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George Washington Williams was born in 1849 in Bedford, Pennsylvania. At age 14, he enlisted in the Union Army to fight in the Civil War and received a medical discharge in 1868. In 1874, he became the first African American to graduate from the Newton Theological Institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and shortly after married Sarah. A. Sterrett. He became pastor of the Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston before moving to Washington, D.C. to serve as editor of a newspaper called The Commoner. He then moved to Cincinnati to become pastor of the Union Baptist Church and while there served as the first black member of the Ohio Legislature from 1879-1881. Williams went to the Belgian Congo in 1890 where he criticized King Leopold II in an Open Letter for his inhumane policies in the Congo. He died in 1891 in England.
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Spring Grove received its charter by an act of the Ohio Legislature in January 1845. Motivated by crowded conditions of small cemeteries created by the cholera epidemics of the 1830s and 1840s, the Cincinnati Horticultural Society formed a cemetery association in 1844 to find a location for a rural cemetery. Under the guidance of Robert Buchanan, local attorney Salmon P. Chase drafted the charter that was granted, and Spring Grove, consisting of 166 acres designed with a natural setting embellished with shrubbery, flowers, trees, and walks, was dedicated on August 28, 1845. A leader in cemetery design and the landscape “lawn plan” concept, Spring Grove officially changed its name to Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum in 1987.
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The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings made history not only as the most dominant baseball club of its time, but also as the first band of professional ballplayers. Cincinnati’s decision to pay players proved to be a success, and other cities soon began establishing their own professional clubs throughout America. In 1876, the Reds joined the newly formed National League. Baseball soon became one of Cincinnati’s most popular entertainment venues, aided in part by the team’s World Series titles in 1919 and 1940. Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine,” featuring players such as Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and Pete Rose, dominated baseball in the 1970s, picking up additional titles in 1975 and 1976. A surprise wire-to-wire title again in 1990 strengthened the Reds’ legacy and helped ensure future generations of Reds fans.
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Dr. Winthrop Smith Sterling (1859-1943) founded Mu Phi Epsilon International Professional Music Fraternity on November 13, 1903, at the Metropolitan School of Music in Cincinnati, where he served as dean. The Victorian frame house was built by his parents, Samuel Gano and Eliza Smith Sterling in 1867, and was home to Sterling family members until the early 1940s. A highly respected organist and university teacher, Dr. Sterling taught piano and organ in this home in which he had installed a 12-foot hydraulic pump organ in the “music room.”