sippi, supplanting the flat- and keel-boats used up to that time. His vessels made regular trips between Cincinnati and New Orleans. He was a public-spirited man, interested in every important undertaking. He was mayor of Cincinnati in 1807, was reëlected in 1812, and served as recorder from 1816 to 1819. With his brother-in-law, Judge Burnet, and the physicians, Drake, Sellmann, and Busch, Baum labored to give Cincinnati a start also in matters of art and literature.' He was interested in schools and museums, helped to found the Cincinnati College in 1818, and the Western Museum in the year before. In his numerous undertakings he needed reliable laborers, and brought many German redemptioners to Cincinnati, whom he treated well. In his beautiful home, which was famous for its gardens and vineyards, he was the host of many German scholars and cultivated travelers. In conjunction with some of the wealthiest men of Cincinnati, he met reverses in 1821-22, arising from the failure of the Cincinnati Exporting Company, which they had founded. Baum sold a great part of his property to Nicholas Longworth, like Drake and Burnet giving up his house in payment of bank debts. He recovered from his reverses and lived nine years longer to foster the commerce of the West, though he was not able to support great and daring enterprises with as large capital as before. One of his last undertakings on a large scale was the establishment in 1829 of a cotton trade with Liverpool. He was also the first land-owner and projector of the present city of Toledo, near Lake Erie (it was in 1817 called Port Lawrence), which he regarded as the

2

1 He was one of the founders of the Cincinnati Literary Society, 1818; the Apollo Society, 1824; and the Society for Vocal and Instrumental Music. Cf. Eickhoff, pp. 278–279, where their names are given.

terminus of a line of communication from Cincinnati, through the Miami district, to the Lakes. His financial reverses, however, compelled him to sell his interests. He died in 1831, with the distinction of having been, in his generation, the greatest pioneer of Western commerce.'

Though Cincinnati did not contain a large number of Germans during her beginnings, it is very different at the present day. The great increase of the German population began about 1830. In that year only five per cent of the population was German; in 1840, twenty-three per cent; in 1850, twenty-seven per cent; in 1860, thirty per cent; in 1869, thirty-four per cent; in 1900, over fortyone per cent. The Germans always remained influential. The manufacturers, Gross and Dietrich, who had come to America in 1828, built on their own resources the Dayton and Michigan Railroad from Dayton to Toledo, a distance of one hundred and forty-three miles, at a cost of nearly three million dollars. They thus executed the plan which Baum had dreamed of, and which he started to realize by his purchase at Port Lawrence.

3

An interesting German settlement was the first colony in the Miami Valley, on the banks of the Little Miami (1795). The founder was Christian Waldschmidt, who in 1785 had lived at Gengenbach in Baden. He was a Separatist, and though well-to-do, refused to pay church taxes. He finally sold all his property, including a paper-mill, and in 1786, with about twenty families, sailed for the United States. He first settled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, then sent a party to examine the Miami

1 Der deutsche Pionier, vol. x, pp. 42 ff. Cf. also Eickhoff, pp. 277-279. 2 The total population in 1900 was 325,902; the total of persons of German parentage (including those with one parent German, the other native or foreign) was 136,093.

8 Der deutsche Pionier, vol. x, pp. 346 ff.

country, and getting a favorable report, the whole company went westward. The site chosen was near the present postal station of Milford. It extended three miles north and south, was about two miles broad, and lay in a fruitful valley. Barns, mills, forges, and comfortable homes were soon built. There an industry, then rare in the West, the manufacture of paper, was established by Waldschmidt, who had already been familiar with this art in his native land. His was the first paper-mill in Ohio. The “Western Spy," which in April, 1800, had had to shut down because no paper could be obtained, even from the East, encouraged Waldschmidt to build the mill. On May 27, 1800, the "Western Spy" was enabled to reappear, printed on paper made in the mill of the Miami settler. Advertisements like the following appeared in the "Western Spy": "Storekeepers and printers may be supplied with all kinds of paper at the store of Baum & Perry, Cincinnati, or at the mill." (1811.)

Numerous groups of German settlers followed the first of 1795, coming in 1796-97 and 1798. A number of the later settlers came from Pennsylvania; the earliest were from Baden. Christian Waldschmidt (Wallsmith) died in 1814 a rich man, leaving a property valued at $48,914, in those days considered a great fortune. The settlement called "Germany" was prosperous until 1861, when the United States military camp, called Camp Dennison, was

1 The oldest mill in the West was in Virginia, at Brownsville, called the Red Stone Paper Mill (of Jonathan Sharplus). This mill, however, could not supply the large demand.

2 The various groups are named in Der deutsche Pionier, vol. x, pp. 346–351. The changes of name are interesting. Waldschmidt becomes Wallsmith; Freiberger, Frybarger; Harmar, Horne; Freis, Ferris ; Laudon, Langdon ; Bohne, Boone; Bechenbach, Peckinpaugh; Späth, Spade; Rüthi, Reedy; Orth, Orr; Bockenheim, Buckingham; Prisch, Parrish or Price; Montag, Montauk.

established there by General Rosecrans. The camp ruined the town, and the old settlers migrated to neighboring counties or larger cities.

On the Great Miami, the German settlements were thickest in the present county of Montgomery, centring in two places, Dayton and Germantown, which as late as 1825 were rival cities, each hoping to surpass the other. Immediately after the treaty of General Wayne, in 1795, German settlers came to Dayton, among them Georg Neukomm.' Germantown was laid out in 1814, by Philipp Gunkel. In 1845 all of its five churches used the German language in divine service. In 1820 the town promised to outstrip Dayton. In 1825 it still maintained the same rank, but three years later the building of a canal from Dayton to Cincinnati gave Dayton a decisive advantage. Miamisburg, Pyrmont, and numerous other towns were founded by Germans. On the whole the German element preponderated throughout the county. German names are seen in all the public books and documents of the county, and in the maps of the villages. Much of the German character is noticeable in the rural population of the district: industry, domesticity, frankness and merriness, along with the petty jealousies and quarrels, perhaps incident to village life more than to nationality.

2

All of the counties on the line between Cincinnati and Toledo received German pioneers between 1820 and 1835.

1 He was the son of Christian Neukomm of Zweibrücken, who came to America in 1754-55, adopting the name Newcomer, and later Newcom. The Newcoms were not Irish, the mistake probably arising from the marriage of one of the boys with Margaret McCarthy. Other names among the earliest settlers were Gosz, Hammer, Glaszmeier. Der deutsche Pionier, vol. xi, pp. 170-180, etc. Other lists of names are found in the same volume, pp. 219, 254, etc.

2 Names not previously mentioned are Gottesburg, Snydersburg, Philippsburg, Bachmann, Harschmannville, etc.

In Miami County,' Piqua has a large German population. Auglaize County had numerous German settlers at Wapakoneta, Minster, and New Bremen.' A little later, Germans settled Glandorf in Putnam County, and Delphos on the border between Allen and Vanwert counties. Germans from Frederick, Maryland, settled in the twenties at Tiffin, on the Sandusky River, in Seneca County. The city of Toledo, as all the large cities of Ohio, including the capital, Columbus, received an ever-increasing German population. In the south, Highland, Brown, and Hamilton counties had early German settlers.

3

An interesting record of the distribution and numerical strength of the German settlers throughout Ohio is found in the works of German travelers. Charles Sealsfield, in 1825, journeyed from Kittanning, Pennsylvania, about thirty-five miles north of Pittsburg, to New Orleans. He described the Moravian colony in Tuscarawas County, and was impressed by the number of Germans in Zanesville, Lancaster, Canton, and Dayton. The early pioneers of Ohio did not have opportunities for regular church service, but were visited by traveling preachers with greater or less frequency. The Moravian missionary, Zäslein, was eagerly listened to, just as subsequently the Methodist, Heinrich Böhm. The Pennsylvania German pioneers, and 1 The earliest settler of Miami County was the German named Knoop. Eickhoff, p. 274.

? This settlement was made from Cincinnati. Cf. Der deutsche Pionier, vol. i, pp. 84 ff.

Die vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika nach ihrem politischen, religiösen, und gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse betrachtet, von C. Sidons (Charles Sealsfield). Cotta: 1827. Zweiter Band, zweites und drittes Kapitel, pp. 20–54.

♦ Heinrich Böhm was the real apostle of German Methodism in the United States. He was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1775. His greatgrandfather was a Swiss by birth, a Pietist who settled in the Palatinate and became a Mennonite. Jacob Böhm immigrated to America in 1715 and settled in Lancaster County, where Martin Böhm and also his son Heinrich