Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary
by
Mary Sayre Haverstock, Jeannette Mahoney Vance, Brian L. Meggitt, Jeffrey Weidman
Compiled by Mary Sayre Haverstock
Kent State University Press
2000
Letton, Ralph. Ornamental painter, silouettist, wax-figure maker, and proprietor of "Letton's Museum," born in Maryland in 1778. A son of Michael Letton, a Revoluntionary War soldier, he was active by April 1808 in Wethersfield, Connecticut, where he advertised as a silhouette cutter, with an accompanying waxworks exhibitiion. The following year he was traveling in Rhode Island with a two-headed, seven-legged calf. He later worked in Kentucky and by 1818 had opened his museum in Cincinnati (Hamilton). In 1823, in direct competition with Joseph Dorfeuille, owner of the Western Museum, he acquired an organ, called the Panregal, which not only seemed to play itself but also activated a band of wax-works "musicians" to provide additional brass and percussion effects. The instrument was the brain-child of Luman Watson, a local clock and organ builder, and his young assistant, Hiram Powers, who modeled the figures after the "prettiest children" in John Lock's Cincinnati Female Academy. Until 1836 Letton displayed this and a number of other curiosities, which included, according to Drake and Mansfield's Cincinatti "about 200 birds, 40 animals, 2,000 minerals, 50 mammoth bones, 23 wax-figures, besides a variety of Indian antiquities, marine shells, and miscellaneous articles." The museum's collections also included the portraits of some fifty Cincinnatians. Cincinnati dir. 1825-36; Drake and Mansfield 1827, 46; Carrick 1828, 117-18, illus.; Whitley 1956; Groce and Wallace 1952; Wunder 1991, 1:43.
Letton, Van Wyck ["Wick"]. Portrait painter from Kentucky, boarding in 1831 with museum owner Ralph Letton in Cincinnati (Hamilton). Cincinnati dir. 1831; Whitley 1956.
Nov. 2. Ralph Letton advertised that he had taken a convenient room designed for a museum, next door to the corner of Chapel and State streets, and had already collected a variety of curiosities adapted to such an institution, and solicited curiosities from the public, either as donations or for a price.
Wax Exhibition. R. Letton, informs the ladies and gentlemen of the vicinity of Wethersfield that he has an elegant collection of new wax figures at the ... where he will continue for 5 days only.
Ralph Letton who has failed to give in a test of his taxable for eighteen hundred and fifteen appeared in Court and waved the necessity of a summons and on Oath gave in a list of the same and being heard is discharged.
Indenture: Tyree Oldham and Nancy his wife; Tandy Oldham and Simpson Oldham of Pendleton County deed to Ralph Letton of Boone County, for $1200, lots in Falmouth, #143, #144, #145, conveyed by Julius Coleman to said Oldhams. 14 Jul 1817.
June 2, 1822
In April or May, 1822, Ralph Letton and wife, Sarah, dismissed by certificate.
[Note: It meant that they were leaving that church in good standing and were given a certificate so stating to present to any other church they wished to join. They were probably leaving that area for new territory.]
LETTON'S MUSEUM
This establishment, owned by Mr. Ralph Letton, is kept in two spacious halls in the second and third stories of the brick building, at the corner of Main and Fourth streets. It was commenced in this city, by Messrs. Letton and Willet, in the year 1818. The upper hall is principally occupied by wax-figures. The Museum contains about 200 birds, 40 animals, 2,000 minerals, 50 mammoth bones, 23 wax-figures, besides a variety of Indian antiquities, marine shells, and miscellaneous articles. The number of yearly subscribers is about 300. A course of lectures on Ancient and Modern History, has recently been delivered in this institution.
Letton's Museum, commenced in 1818, was owned by Ralph Letton and was housed at the corner of Main and Fourth streets. It consisted of two halls, the upper one being principally occupied by wax figures. It also contained birds, animals, minerals, Indian antiquities, marine shells, and miscellaneous articles.
FERRIES.
AN ACT to authorize Ralph Letton to estahlish and keep a ferry across the Mississippi river, at the town of Parkhurst.
SEC. 1. Be it enacted by the Council and House of Representatives of the Territory of Iowa, That Ralph Letton, his heirs and assigns, be and they are hereby authorized to establish and keep a ferry across the Mississippi river, at the town of Parkhurst, in the county of Scott, within the following limits: commencing at a point in said town known as the Public Landing, and extending from said point up and down said river, one mile each way; and that said Letton have the exclusive right or privilege of ferrying, within the above limits, for the term of ten years: Provided, That said ferry, when so established, shall be subject to the same regulations, and under the same restrictions, as other ferries are, or may hereafter be, by the laws of this Territory (or state as the case may be), fixing the rates of toll, and prescribing the manner in which licensed ferries shall be kept and regulated.
SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the said Ralph Letton, his heirs and assigns, shall, within four years from the passage of this act, procure for said ferry a good and sufficient horse or steam ferry boat, which shall be kept at said ferry for the transportation of all persons and their property across said river, without delay; and until said ferry boat shall be provided as aforesaid, the said Letton, his heirs and assigns, shall keep at said ferry a good and sufficient flat boat, with a sufficient number of hands to work the same, for the transportation of all persons and their property across said river, when passable, without delay.
SEC. 3. This act to take effect and be in force from and after the first day of April next.
Notes by the Governor: "As far as this act may be construed to interiere with the property Of the United States, or individual rights, it will be considered void: in other respects valid. With this note of explanation, I yield to it my assent." Approved, January 4, I839
HISTORY OF THE TOWNSHIP AND CITY OF LECLAIRE
EARLY SETTLERS
Between 1837 and 1840 there settled in the township, James Jack, James Spear, William Hopson, Robert Carleton, Parce Barber, George Long, Jacob Carber, Stephen Purcell, Samuel Stopher, Aaron Lancaster, Thomas Lancaster, D.V. Dawley, William Allen, Charles Ames, John Allen, Joseph Turner, Nathaniel Wilson, Ralph Letton, William McGinnis, William Wilson, William Gardner, Isaac Cody, John H. Sessions and James Turner.
In the summer of 1837, Eleazer Parkhurst having disposed of a part of his claim to T.C. Eads, they jointly laid out the town of Parkhurst.
The first important improvement made in the place was by Col. Eads in the erection of a large frame building in the summer of 1837. This building was one of the wonders of the age; and is yet standing. Ralph Letton, of Cincinnati, in the spring of 1838 purchased a portion of Col. Eads' interest in the town, and a disagreement among the owners retarded the settlement of the place for several years, and no improvement took place until 1841.
Presbyterian Church of LeClaire, Ia. - In the year 1841, when the state of Iowa was only a Territory, the present city of LeClaire was only a small village, and there were scarcely any Presbyterians in the village or in the country. Mr. James Jack, from Allegheny Co., Penn., had settled here some time previously, and being an elder and having a desire for the ordinances of the gospel administered by his own church, formed with his family a nucleus for the future. The Rev. Michael Hummer at this time was settled in Davenport, and occasionally performed missionary labor in the region around. We are informed by the session book that on the 9th day of January, 1841, after a sermon by the Rev. Michael Hummer, and after a long deliberation of the members present, it was unanimously resolved that a church be organized after the manner and according to the form of government of the Presbyterian church in the United States of America, to be denominated "The Presbyterian Church of Berlin." The following persons were received as members at the time of the organization: James Jack, Eliaz Jack, Christian Kilsey, Ralph Letton and Mary Van Horn.
EARLY DISCOVERIES OF THE MASTODON
by Theresa J. Freeman
There are several localities in the United States, and especially that part embraced by the Mississippi Valley, on which the bones of the mastodon have been found, sometimes in connection with the bones ot other extinct animals and sometimes separate. The more notable oí these are the Big Bone Lick in Boone County, Kentucky, the swamp in Gasconade County, Missouri, and various localities in the Slates of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa, one ot which was visited by the Editor of this journal, in Ashtabula County, Ohio, and an account was published in 1876. The first locality received its name from the discovery, though the name of the person who secured the most of the bones lias been forgotten, and his part in the transaction is now hatdly known.
Dr. Koch, of St. Louis, the explorer, of the second-named locality, on the contrary, became known at once, and now his name is very familiar, because of the fact that he claimed to have found evidence that man and the mastodon were contemporaneous, though many have taken special pains to break down his evidence by charging him with a lack of scientific information.
The other finds have made less sensation, as there was no such actual claim made, though, in one case, that of Ashtabula County, there were pretty strong hints, such as the presence of ashes within a foot or two of the bones, and a discovery of a flint relic within thirty feet of the skeleton and buried at the same depth in the peat swamp.
It is because recent discoveries have brought to light many extinct animals in the neighborhood of Gasconade County, and because there is a considerable enquiry about the character of the animals found in Big Bone Lick, and especially because the question is still in dispute whether man was actually contemporaneous with the mastodon in America that we present the following communication. It was written by a lady who was familiar with the locality, and knew all about the circumstances, and has them very fresh in her memory, though she makes no claim to a scientific knowledge of the animals or the relics which might or might not be associated with these animals, or even the special bearing of the finding of them together, upon the question in dispute.---EDITOR.
It was in 1812, in the town of Paris, Bowman County, Kentucky, a town which rested between two beautiful creeks which were large enough to run a couple of mills, one of them a saw-mill, where the logs from the adjoining forest were sawed into lumber, the other a wind-mill, where the wool which was grown in the region, was woven into cloth, and the grain ground into flour.
Here the State roads leading to Lexington and Winchester and Georgetown concentrated, so that the stage coach and horse teams were almost as frequent and numerous as electric cars are now in other localities. At this place, lived Mr. Ralph Letton, an educated man, a master of French, German, and Latin, a chemist, a botanist, a taxidermist, and an expert in scientific studies, though a person whom the ordinary man seemed not to understand or to appreciate, as he could not bring himself to the habits which were common at that time, of knowing more of his neighbor's business than of his own, though he was a social man and affable with those who were learned and intellectual enough to appreciate him.
He fitted up his home, and embellished his grounds with rare plants and shrubs, some of which grew wild in the forest, and busied himself with watching the insects that were attracted to the place by the same sweet-scented flowers in which he himself delighted. His dwelling was a tasteful brick house, built after the old fashion, with a double door in the center, surrounded with glass transoms, which opened into a wide hall which passed through the house, a deep white cornice and a dormer window, giving a finish to the whole front, while a fine lawn, shaded with evergreens, pines, cedars and the Balm of Gilead, made the place attractive.
A wooden structure containing four rooms was erected for his cabinet. Here the botanist, chemist and taxidermist kept the birds which he had stuffed, including the eagle, crane, duck, goose, pelican, swan and humming-bird, which were then common in that region but have now wholly disappeared. Among other curiosities were horned frogs, bats, snakes and scorpions, which he had gathered from the caves and rocks. He found great delight in the living flowers and plants, and insects which were so numerous in his garden; also another kind of delight in the same objects when gathered into his cabinet, and so treated as to be permanently preserved. It was at this time, that the discovery was made by an exploring party, of the wonderful spring which burst forth from the rocky ravine, situated in Boone County, about fifteen miles from the Ohio River.
In this spring, amid the boiling sands, were occasionally found bones and teeth, some of which weighed many pounds and were large and double, showing that they were from the jaws of immense animals. The spring had attracted attention, and its contents seemed to be almost inexhaustible. The bones were of such size and were so numerous that the spring was called the Big Bone Lick Spring, and became a curiosity throughout the country, and its notoriety constantly increased.
The bones are supposed to have come from some great cavity of nature which had opened and swallowed the various quadrupeds which at some former time had frequented the place, and on this account the Big Bone Lick became a wonder and a marvel. Mr. Letton procured many of these bones and teeth, and gathered them into his cabinet. The people who came from far and near to see the spring, would visit his place. He also procured various curiosities from "Mammoth Cave," Kentucky, among them, the female mummy, which was found in 1815, in a recess of this cave.
This discovery also excited much attention, and stories were told about how the woman had wandered into the cave; overcome by fright and darkness, she had fallen and died, and was preserved by the saltpetre which dripped upon her body and petrified it, leaving the features as delicately chiseled and covered with the marks of youth as when she was alive. There were romantic tales and strange conjectures rife at the time of the finding, though these were not known or heeded by the scientific world. Mr. Letton procured this at very heavy expense, and soon after accepted a proposition from the growing city of Cincinnati to move his whole collection there, and to make it the nucleus of a museum; having the opportunity to sell in a short time, a sale was made for his delightful home to Mr. Thomas Kldridge, and the well known taxidermist moved to the city, where the Ralph Letton Museum became a fixed institution.
Here soon after the wife and son passed away, and Mr. Letton was left alone, but lived for many years in the enjoyment of all his faculties, honored by the citizens, and holding many offices in the municipality. When he died, his remains were taken to "Flat Rock," Kentucky, and were buried in the old Litton cemetery, where his parents were at rest.
The above sketch of his life, and picture of the scene are given by one, who, as a grand daughter of Mr. Thomas Eldridge, was brought up on the Letton estate and was familiar with the scenes, the locality and with its early history, and was so impressed by the life and character of this self-taught naturalist, and by the scenes in which he began his career, and in which she herself spent her youth, that she has taken delight in furnishing the sketch.
.... Ralph Letton ....
LATONIA SPRINGS
by Dr. Joseph Gastright
In the summer of 1829, Ralph Letton told his contractor to hurry the work on the hotel at Latonia Springs. Letton had families at Cincinnati waiting to occupy the rooms and begin to take the waters. Letton was proprietor of the Western Museum in Cincinnati. He had purchased the land on the 4th of July from William Curry who had inherited rights to the parcel of land on his father William's death in 1811.
However, the division of the family's 425 acres was not completed until 6 April 1826. The land was part of a 600 acre parcel made to Joseph Davis in 1785.
Hydrotherapy or "taking the waters" was a widely prescribed medical treat- ment in 1829. Daniel Drake, Cincinnati's most respected physician, had published a review of Kentucky's mineral water spas in 1828. He described the medical benefits of the springs, but warned that the gambling, and profligate living at some springs were liable to be more dangerous than was beneficial. He mentioned a newly discovered spring, "only four miles from Cincinnati", which was located in a healthy place and which "had attracted considerable attention".
On 30 July 1832, Ralph Letton sold his 57 acres with the hotel to Elisha Morgan for $8,000.00. Morgan, who realized the importance of high quality appurtenances, constructed a 50 room hotel, three stories high with 100 foot piazzas running the full length of the building. In back, he constructed a "large and splendid ballroom .... for the person whose mind is tinged with romance". In 1833, the dreaded Cholera epidemic made the spas of Kentucky financial as well as social successes.
Rich Southerners fled the heat, yellow fever, malaria, and worst of all the cholera, for the dozens of Kentucky spas. The spas north of the Mason Dixon line could not accept the required domestic slave, and Kentucky blossomed as the social center of the South. Trading horses, political opinions, and marriageable daughters were the significant business at the Latonia Springs, with a side trip to Cincinnati to buy some manufactured goods.
The Latonia Springs were probably named after the goddess Leto, or in her Roman guise, Latona. She was the mother of Apollo and Diana, and in Greek mythology, she was tied to a famous incident involving water, "Latona and the Rustics". In the early 1840's Doctor Stephen Mosher, an Eastern physician, purchased the springs from Morgan's heirs. The springs thrived in the period prior to the Civil War under Mosher's direction. In 1866, the springs were sold to Messrs. Walker and Gibson of the Gibson House in Cincinnati, who set up daily omnibus transportation to the springs.
For a time, Latonia Springs thrived without the southern trade, but during the 1870's the old magic waned, and the owners installed "amusement devices" to attract business. A murder near the springs in 1879, roused the memory that the site was "at one time, one of the most popular summer resorts in the state" but also the reality of "a delapidated wreck of its former prosperity".
Frank Northcutt, a local resident, attempted a revival of the springs in 1880. In 1882, the Latonia Agricultural Association developed a fairgrounds in the Milldale section of South Covington. The fairgrounds, named after the springs, developed into a nationally famous racetrack. In 1893, a small six block section in the middle of Milldale incorporated as the sixth class city of Latonia. Latonia began to annex the surrounding unincorporated sections of Milldale, and in 1899 became a fifth class city.
The Latonia Springs did not thrive and in 1891, Frank Wolftang leased the acreage to two former Cincinnati residents as the site of a dairy farm. Herman Summe and August Ratterman later purchased the land and used the spring water to cool their product. Sometime about 1910, the springs ceased to flow and Summe and Ratterman built a modern milk processing plant on 20th Street in Covington. For many years a picnic ground and later a tavern survived on the site of the old Latonia Springs Hotel at the corner of Highland Pike and the 3-L Highway.
CLOSE TO HOME: LATONIA
Neighborhood clings to identity
Annexation changed little
By Gregory A. Hall
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON - Latonia residents of 1909 feared their city would be ignored when it became part of Covington.
Now, 89 years later, the Latonia neighborhood is as identifiable as the steeples of Holy Cross Church. The community of nearly 20,000 provides the residential core for Northern Kentucky's largest city. The community that makes up almost half of Covington's population is politically powerful - home to two of the five members on the city commission and a third who attends church there.
Latonia's 19th century roots were as a remote vacation spa, far beyond Cincinnati. Now, as in many neighborhoods losing their suburban feel, Latonia residents are dealing with small crime problems that are relatively new to the area.
Through its assimilation into Covington and the sea of humanity that is Northern Kentucky, Latonia has managed to keep its identity as a distinct neighborhood. Funeral directors and other businesses still advertise being from Latonia, rather than saying Covington. That identity is all resident Barb Cook, who has lived there almost all her life, has known. Six generations of her family have lived in the burg where her great-grandmother owned a grocery store. Everybody she had contact with when she was young lived in Latonia. ''You still have neighbors in Latonia,'' she said. ''You still have convenient shopping. You've got everything you need here.'' A handful of landmarks - Holy Cross, the old Latonia racetrack and the business district centered at Ritte's Corner - have combined to make the neighborhood nestled between Madison Pike and the Licking River a place no one had to leave.
In a city where nearly half of the households contain renters, Latonia is almost three-fourths owner-occupied.
What's in a name?
How Latonia came to be named isn't clear, Covington historian Joe Gastright said. ''It's a very mysterious thing how it got the name Latonia,'' he said.
Ralph Letton, proprietor of Cincinnati's Western Museum, found a spring south of Covington and called it Lettonia Springs. Either that evolved into Latonia, or the town was named for a Roman water goddess, Latona.
''It could have been they didn't even know anything about the mythology,'' Mr. Gastright said.
A famous spa with a 100-room hotel and ballroom became a big attraction for the area.
Following the spa, the next big boom for the area was the Latonia Agricultural Association, which opened the fairgrounds along Winston Avenue, roughly where the shopping center is now. The fairgrounds became the Latonia racetrack.
''The big races down there paid as much as the Kentucky DerBY and had some of the same horses in them,'' Mr. Gastright said.
Not all the influences from the track were positive. The track created some of the area's first traffic jams.
Despite being Latonia's largest attraction from 1883-1939, the track didn't give back to the community in the way most businesses did.
For all of those years - and even today - the land where the track was is in the county school district. That means property tax revenue for schools from Latonia's landmark went to the county.
Streetcars started going to the racetrack in the 1890s, and with them came increased residential development.
''That made it practical to work in downtown Cincinnati or Cincinnati proper and live out there,'' Mr. Gastright said.
Also in 1890, Holy Cross parish was formed. The Latonia area is home to several large churches of different faiths, but Holy Cross was at the center of them all.
''The city of Latonia was really basically the area right around Holy Cross,'' Mr. Gastright said.
In addition to the church and grade school, Holy Cross District High School is on the grounds.
Keeping the faith
The Catholic influence is evident.
''I happen to be one of the few Baptists,'' Mrs. Cook said. ''I married a boy from Holy Cross, because half the town is Holy Cross.'' The dominance of Holy Cross and other churches made for a tight-knit neighborhood. Mrs. Cook recalled neighbors taking kids to their parents if they were seen misbehaving.
''People cared about each other, and to a large extent, Latonia's still like that,'' she said.
The familiarity also provided residents with the political pedigree to run for city office. Far from being forgotten, some think Latonia runs the city of Covington.
City Commissioners Jerry Bamberger and Butch Callery live in Latonia and go to Holy Cross. Commissioner Jim Eggemeier lives in another neighborhood but is a Holy Cross parishioner.
''The voters are here, for one thing,'' Mrs. Cook said. ''We're a large voter bloc. The people out here seem to register. They seem to take an interest in what's going on in the city.''
As in other one-time suburbs that have become more centrally located, there are more complaints about graffiti, vandalism and petty thefts, said Mrs. Cook, who coordinates the Covington Neighborhood Watch program.
''I think (that's) because people have access to transportation that they didn't have before,'' she said.
''For the most part, we have very little trouble out here,'' she said, ''and when we do, we try to work on solutions.''
Neighbors pull together
Never was the neighbor-helping-neighbor attitude in Latonia more evident than during last year's flooding. The Licking River swallowed the western edge of Latonia - also known as Rosedale - a year ago.
The Latonia Kroger parking lot served as a checkpoint for residents of nearly 200 homes trying to reach their homes.
The flooding didn't reach the business district. The area - centered at the five-way Ritte's Corner - has provided a fairly stable base. The addition of a strip mall center where the racetrack was, including a regionally popular Value City Department Store, completed that.
What defines Latonia are businesses such as Bob's Variety Store on Decoursey Avenue, which has been the home of odds and ends on shopping lists for 50 years.
Another institution would be Harry Nieman Jr., who worked at Boeckley Pharmacy for more than a half-century before the delivery boy-turned-pharmacist retired last year.
Town traditions
Then there's Ed Hook, who has worked at Holian's Hardware for 41 years. The store's been there since 1917.
''You can't find my services hanging on a pegboard,'' he said. Latonia still has two walk-up ice cream stands, which have lines packing the sidewalks on sticky summer nights.
''We've always had the ice cream places,'' Mrs. Cook said.
'I like it that much'
All of that has allowed Latonia to remain a constant in the local vocabulary even though it's no longer its own separate city.
''I think place names persist,'' Mr. Gastright said. ''People still talk about Walnut Hills and Avondale, and those were all annexed in the 1890s. I think you're used to it. On the other hand, when you don't use it is (when you're) out of town because nobody'd know what you're talking about.''
The atmosphere and the identity provide an attachment that doesn't go away, residents say.
Patty Pickett lived in Latonia for most of the last 15 years. She recently moved to Edgewood because of a death in the family. But she still works in Latonia.
''I plan on moving back someday,'' she said. ''I like it that much.''