Cincinatti, Ohio in 1870 - Part 1 by Denise M. Colby

 

Since my next book release has part of the story in Cincinnati during 1870, I found myself doing a lot of research of this city and wanted to share some of the amazing little tidbits I found:

 

map of Cincinnati, 1870

Public Transportation:

 

In 1870, Cincinnati had a horse-bus, otherwise called a horse-drawn omnibus for public transportation. One would pay a fee and be carried from one stop to another. When the first horse-bus started (before 1850), they were not too reliable and it was still faster to walk, but by the late 1850s, steel rails were installed throughout the city, so if a carriage had steel wheels it could be pulled by a team of horses or mules easier.

 

In one article I found there were six different companies managing separate lines all around Cincinnati in 1870.

 

Sometimes the buses were built as double deckers (I can only imagine!)

 

This picture I found looks similar to an early design of a cable car (the very first successful cable car was invented and operated in San Francisco in 1873, but Cincinnati had some shortly after that too).

 

What a small omnibus looked like in Cincinnati, 1870

I have my characters using this omnibus transportation in my most recent release.

 

 

The Cincinnati Conservatory:

 

The Cincinnati Observatory was built in a neighborhood high on a hill called Mount Ida. The location was renamed to Mount Adams when President John Quincy Adams presided over the dedication.

 

This observatory was unique for many reasons. The original 1845 telescope was the largest refractor in the western hemisphere, and the third largest in the world (the lens was found in Germany and shipped to Ohio). It also was called the people’s telescope because it was the first one open to the public (see photo below).

 

Known as ‘The Birthplace of American Astronomy’, the Cincinnati Observatory and first director MacKnight Mitchel published the first astronomical publication, The Sidereal Messenger. Cleveland Abbe, the second director, published the nations’s first weather forecasts and assisted in the creation of the National Weather Service.

 

 

But wait, there’s more.

 

Most people relied on church bells, jeweler clocks, and pocket watches to keep time. And most communities in different cities had their own time zone. But the invention of the railroads called for some sort of standard time (which they had their own system to build a consistent time). Imagine if the time your city kept was different than the train? I’m sure many people missed their train due to no standard time.

 

At the time most observatories used a sundial or a shadow clock, including the observatory in Cincinnati. But the city was so large that the these means meant time could be off if you were situated on the west side versus the east side. So the observatory received a transit telescope from the United States Coast Survey which allowed them to observe the crossing of the sun at its highest point in the day more precisely (called solar time). Professor Abbe coordinated with local jewelry shops to help regulate time around the city, thus keeping everyone on the same time. Thus making the Cincinnati Observatory the official time keeper in all of Cincinnati (I estimated the population to be about 215,000 people in 1870 - ranked the 9^th largest in the US).

 

Later (1873) when the observatory was moved five miles east of the city to a place called Mt. Lookout, and they needed a new way to communicate the time around the city (not everyone could see it now), so with the help of the Army Signal Service, it built a time ball (think New York’s New Year’s Eve ball). At noon, every day, a five-foot canvas ball was hoisted up a 60-foot pole in three stages - halfway (11:45am), top (11:55am), dropping at exactly noon, signaling the correct time. The Time Ball was used through the mid-1880s.

 

 All of this is to say that the Cincinnati atronomical observatory was the only source for exact time in Cincinnati. If you check out the website to the observatory, it states that it has been recently restored and is still fully functioning. To learn even more about time balls, you can check out this website document which is full of details.

 

One of my characters uses the time-ball in my story (not exactly the right year - but since it’s fiction, I wanted to incorporate this fascinating historical tidbit).

 

 

Women’s College:

 

The Western Female Institute (1832-1837) operated in the neighborhood of Walnut Hills. It was founded by Catharine Beecher (yes, older sister to Harriot Beecher Stowe). The school was intended to train teachers for the western frontier. Due to several reasons, it closed after five years. But it was the early foundation for future schools including the American Woman’s Educational Association.

 

Catharine Beecher (1800-1878) advocated for women’s roles as teachers and mothers. She believed providing professional training to women would allow them to become independent professionals. Schools before this mostly focused on fine arts and languages, but Catherine’s schools offered a full range of subjects. She also introduced calisthenics to her students to improve women’s health (and to negate the idea of women fragility).

 

She established the American Woman’s Educational Association in 1852 and although it did not have a location in Cincinnati, from what I understand, she ran it from the area. As an association it provided funding to help establish other women’s colleges in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin that taught with this focus. Its sole purpose was to recruit and train teachers for frontier schools (sending women West to civilize the young - a direct quote).

 

In my fictional story world, I established a school in Cincinnati supported by this association that sent my teachers west to California. I had Catherine Beecher teaching these teachers directly.

There's more - but I save the rest to share in next month’s post. In the meantime here is more about my next release (that I gathered all this research for).

 

 

 Book 4 in the Best-laid Plans Series releases May 26, 2026

 

 California, 1870. Pastor William Baker built his life on steady faith and safe choices, but the arrival of Lydia Spencer upends everything. Independent and outspoken Lydia is unlike any woman he’s ever known. Lydia is a Pinkerton detective, undercover as a schoolteacher while tracking a dangerous crime boss. She’s determined to protect her friends in Washton even if it means keeping her distance from the kind, steadfast pastor who sees too much. But when Will and Lydia are thrown together in a search for truth they find themselves fighting not only for justice, but for a future neither had planned.

 

 

Denise M. Colby writes historical romance sweetened with faith, hope, and love. She finds history fascinating and contemplates often how it was to live in the 1800's. Her debut novel, When Plans Go Awry, is a 2025 Carol Award finalist. Sign up for her newsletter at www.denisemcolby.com or follow Denise on Facebook, Instagram, Bookbub, Pinterest, or GoodReads.

Those Amazing Beechers

Thomas Beecher among Elmira notaries

In the Nineteenth Century, a certain form of Biblical progressivism rapidly changed the dynamics in regards to women's rights, abolition of slavery, and many other social causes. As I researched several of my stories from The Abolitionist's Daughter, set in a Civil War town where women could get the same college degree as a man in the mid1800's, to my newest Barbour novella project involving school teachers, one family's influence kept coming up over and over, and that is the Beecher Family.


I've previously written about Thomas K. Beecher, a beloved pastor and influential figure in my hometown of Elmira, NY. Members of his congregation were active on the Underground Railroad and committed to Abolition. Reverend Beecher himself ministered to Confederate Prisoners of War at Elmira Prison camp, and served the community for decades, creating a true community where the church extended beyond the walls of his Independent Congregationalist building. He enjoyed people, and loved life, and valued education, and it showed. He helped organize baseball teams in town, led parties to the local observatory and planetarium, participated in croquet, billiards, target shooting, cricket, and encouraged community activity and relationship building with other faiths. He could often be seen riding a three wheeled bicycle through town, wearing his straw hat, waving and calling citizens by name. He organized a library in his church building with his own collection of books for community use. He was a devout man of the Word, and his sermons are filled with inspiration, clearly a man motivated to love others because of a passionate love for the Lord. He had the privilege of officiating the marriage of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, to Elmiran Olivia Langdon. He himself was married to the granddaughter of Noah Webster. Beecher helped sponsor and raise up two different regiments of recruits in Elmira during the Civil War--NY 107th and NY 141st, and served briefly as chaplain for the latter.

I was delighted to learn some time ago that Thomas was brother to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the renowned author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. She wrote 30 books, none as successful as this record-setting novel about the perils of slaves after the Fugitive Slave Law, a book which most scholars argue was a catalyst to the Civil War. The book sold more than 300,000 copies in the US and over a million in Great Britain. It was made into a play which ran in New York City. Stowe was received by President Lincoln in 1862, where it is alleged he greeted her as "the little lady who started this great war." Stowe was active in education and in abolition and the Underground Railroad with her husband.

Henry Ward Beecher was another minister brother, who was also active in the Abolitionist cause. Henry was perhaps the most controversial in the family. He raised money to purchase slaves' freedom, and guns to distribute to the abolitionist militants in bleeding Kansas and Nebraska. The rifles were euphemistically called "Beecher's Bibles." Later in life he took a kindler, gentler view of social reform and the gospel, emphasizing God's love. He championed women's suffrage, and the temperance movement. But he also supported Darwinism and evolution, and was accused of adultery. The subsequent trial over his former business partner's accusation of philandering with his wife resulted in the most sensationalized court proceeding if its day, like an OJ Simpson Murder trial of its time. Despite this controversy in his later years, one can still find inspirational Henry Ward Beecher quotes in calendars and publications. His biographer considered him "The Most Famous Man in America."


Today I learned that one more sibling left a significant mark in history, in the area of education, and women's roles. I've been researching early schools and classrooms in America for a brand new collection in which I have been contracted to write a novella. As I was reading, the name Catharine Beecher appeared as one of the pioneers credited with gaining acceptance for women teachers in the classroom. I thought, no way. Couldn't be. Must be a coincidence. But sure enough, she was also born to Lyman Beecher, the father of Henry, Thomas and Harriet. Catharine grew up in a time when men led classrooms, and women were often undereducated. She achieved her own education, meaning she was self taught in the subjects not offered to girls back then, including math and Latin. She taught a private classroom in Hartford, Connecticut in 1821, and soon started a school for educating women to be teachers, Hartford Female Seminary, which grew in three years time from 7 to 100 students, and where her sister Harriet graduated and assisted. She wrote many of her own textbooks for the school.

Catharine was a crusader. She led the very first national women's political movement, which was against Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal bill. She called on women to write their congressmen and urge them not to fund the bill. Her greatest fame, however, was in her lifelong voice for women as educators. In a time when the country was pushing westward, the need for new educators was strong, and more and more qualified men were leaving the profession for better prospects. Other voices pushed for women to fill the role, especially because they were the cheaper alternative, and readily available. Catharine modeled that women were not only intelligent and capable, but argued that women were a moral force and uniquely created as nurturers to fill the role to shape the next generation. She helped establish teacher training schools in communities on the frontier, women's colleges, and had strong ideals on what the curriculum should include. Physical education, reading aloud, and studying English authors rather than classical Greek literature. She wrote and published books on women's roles in society and the classroom.




Curiously, Catharine was not a proponent of women's suffrage. She believed men and women were created for different roles, and that politics was too dirty if women wanted to retain their moral authority. She felt as instructors, women could shape politics by shaping the young men who would later serve.




Lyman Beecher, the venerable patriarch of this clan, which includes a total of 13 children, was once called "the father of more brains than any man in America." He was a graduate of Yale Divinity School and seemed to witness every major religious and social revolution of his time. From being a proponent of temperance, to favoring gradual emancipation of slaves, to finding agreement with the new evangelism style of revivalism and bucking Presbyterian tradition for the new, Lyman modeled free thought and independence. He headed Lane Theological Seminary and was called "America's most famous preacher."




To study the Beecher family is to understand many of the forces at play in our early republic. Social and religious reform, the Second Great Awakening, slavery and women's issues--all causes that seemed to be taken up by one Beecher or another. And at the center was a deep and abiding love of education. The Beechers were a smart, vital, culture-changing dynasty of America's nineteenth century.







Kathleen L. Maher has had an infatuation with books and fictional heroes ever since her preschool crush, Peter Rabbit. She has a novella releasing with BARBOUR in the 2018 Victorian Christmas Brides collection, featuring her hometown of Elmira, New York. Her debut historical, Bachelor Buttons, blends her Irish heritage and love of the American Civil War. She won the 2012 ACFW Genesis contest for her Civil War story, releasing this summer under a new title The Abolitionist’s Daughter. Kathleen shares an old farmhouse in upstate New York with her husband, children, and a small zoo of rescued animals.

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