Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1873-02-12

go, and in company with Sam. Pease,
of Aurora (afterward a lawyer in Mas
silOn), made a quick run of five days
to Cincinnati, where he sold the
whole lot to one man at nine cents a
pound; and this, Mr.. Baldwin AYERS,
is the first full cargo of cheese ever
sold in Cincinnati, though piece lots
may have been sold there before.
Ia the fall of 1920. our young cheese
merchant took a cargo of five tons,
for which he paid q cents pound, to
Louisville, where he spent some three
also to Lexington and Frankfort with
a part of it. This lot was sold at nine
cents by the cask, and ten to twelve
cents at retail.
In the years which followed, Mr..
Baldwin continued his traffic by tax
! ing many lots of cheese down the riv-
er. Louisville had grown in size, and
as the people had come to learn what
a good thing it was to have cheese in
the house, he found less trouble to
work off cargo Of fifteen or twenty
tons in few days, from the mouth of
Bear Grass, than he had in selling the
first lot of seven hundred pounds.
MIR. Baldwin extended his annual
trips to New Orleans, the YazOo and
Red rivers, besides trips up the Cum
berland into middle Tennessee. Nine
times he made the journey home from
Louisville on foot, carrying pack of
forty pounds weight on his back, and
on one OCcasiOn walked from Cincin-
natl 10 Xenia, a distance of nearly
fifty miles, between daylight and dark
of one day. He also walked the dis
tance mtny times between Louisville
and Nashville. In trade of twenty
nine years he shipped from Beaver
one hundred and three boat loads, be-
side others from Wellsville and from
Portsmouth, after the Ohio Canal was
opened. His average business was
about three hundred tons a year. He
brought up great many hard dollars
from down the river, but the best hit
he ever made there was in the finding
of lady in Louisville who became
his wife, and now walks by his side
in loving companionship, toward the
sunset Of life.
In 1888, Mr.. Baldwin and Mr.. Gran |
ger, of Aurora, shipped at Beaver, in |
two keel boats, which they named re- !
spectively Dairyman I" and "Dai-
rymaid,n lis tons of cheese, with !
which they dropped down to Cincin-
natl, and making fast at the foot of
Main street las there were no cheese |
houses in Cincinnati at I
that time, they opened up and sold /
out the whole two boat loads between (
Monday and Saturday, realizing the
sum of $4,000. '.Er
By this time the cheese trade had /
become large and popular business;
were made and fortunes were
lost in it, as many of you know. 1t
had its flush times and its hard times.
Country cheese merchants, princes
One day, were paupers the next.
The introduction of the factory sys-
tenn has created a revolution in the
of handling milk and dispos-
ing cheese; of all this l need not
speak, since it is so well known to
Jou all. OF the present production of
Outttr and cheese in Ohio the figures
ook enormous. The returns for 1871
show: Pounds of butter, 44.994, ,946;
pounds of cheese, 81, ,394, ,152. Increase
,ver 1870: butter, 1874, ,392 pounds
cheese, 1,0l3, ia pounds. There were
J, ,524. .6l2 pounds more butter made,
md 10, 337 ,913 pounds Of cheese man
lfactured in 1871, than the average
or the eleven previous years.
When the report for the year 1872
hall have been made out, we will see
! further extension of this staple pro-
luct of Western Reserve industry.