In the late 1850s, author Henry Howe made the first of several passes through Butler County collecting information for an encyclopedia of the State of Ohio.
He made it a point to visit James McBride, one of Hamilton’s most accomplished citizens.
“He was a silent, modest man,” Howe wrote in a later edition of his tome, “avoiding public gatherings and all display, of sterling integrity, and charitable to a fault… I was impressed by the beautiful modesty of the man, and the guileless, trustful expression of his face as he looked up at me from his writings.”
Much has been written in local history books about the accomplishments of James McBride, and his presence is felt today at the Butler County Historical Society, which displays his writing desk, and the Butler County Engineer’s office, which displays his surveying equipment.
The blue-eyed grandson of Scottish immigrants, McBride was born in 1788 in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. His father was killed by Indians a year later while surveying land near Lexington, Kentucky. The young McBride was a quiet, studious, self-educated youth who knew French, Latin, and Greek, and while still in his teens earned money teaching Greencastle children.
Through a friend, he met James Findlay, a Cincinnati pioneer and owner of the land now occupied by Findlay Market. Findlay’s hometown was nearby Mercersberg. Findlay must have filled the young man’s head with tales of unbounded opportunity in the Northwest Territories, for McBride walked thirteen miles to Hagerstown, Maryland, sold a book manuscript to fund a trip west.
Findlay referred McBride to John Reily, who had left Cincinnati for the rugged frontier of Hamilton, where he was Clerk of Courts and owned a farm on the block now occupied by the Rentschler Building and the Robinson-Schwenn Building. In fact, Journal Square was originally Reily Street, a shortcut through the Reily farm.
McBride was but 18 years old when he arrived in Hamilton in 1807, and Reily gave him a job in the Clerk of Courts office.
“In Hamilton at that time, nearly all east of Front Street was an impenetrable thicket covered with scrubby oaks, blackjacks, vines and hazel bushes, only in some parts that man could make his way through,” McBride would later write. “The improvements in Rossville were still fewer than in Hamilton. A log house, near where the west end of the bridge now is, was occupied as a tavern and a ferry. Michael Delorac’s house in the upper part of town, and one or two log buildings in the lower part, comprehended the extent of improvement. Brushwood, elder bushes and high weeds occupied the remaining parts of town.”
He worked in the Reily office for a few years before entering into a business arrangement with Joseph Hough, transporting flour, whiskey, and other goods down to New Orleans. It was War of 1812 time, and McBride apparently made enough money from that venture to place him in “easy circumstances,” according to one biographer.
But the industrious young Scotsman did not take it easy. Not at all. He used the proceeds to launch both an entrepreneurial career and a lifetime of public service.
In 1813, at 25 years old, he was elected Butler County Sheriff. While holding that office, he met and married Hannah Lytle, daughter of a Milford Township judge. They settled on property between modern-day Monument Avenue and Front Street and reared five children, three boys and two girls.
He held many public offices through the years, including mayor of Hamilton and Clerk of Courts, but seemed to have a part in just about everything that helped Hamilton and Butler County grow into an industrial powerhouse.
McBride bought the first printing press to be shipped to Hamilton in 1814 as part owner of the Hamilton Miami Intelligencer. In 1816, he was a stockholder in the first bridge to join Rossville and Hamilton. He took part in creating the laws regarding the Miami Erie Canal and in the surveying of the land, reportedly walking between Cincinnati and Lake Erie “many times over.” He was likewise instrumental in developing the Hamilton Hydraulic, a local canal that powered mills and factories in the northeast part of the city.
McBride served on the founding boards of the Hamilton-Rossville Library Association (now the Lane Libraries) and the Greenwood Cemetery Association, the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, and was affiliated with Miami University from its origin until his death, at which time he was president of the Board of Trustees.
McBride created the first map of Butler County in 1836, a five-foot-by-four-foot copperplate showing every stream, spring, pond, school, orchard, and farm, detailing the names of the farmers in his distinctive cursive hand. This endeavor inspired an interest in archeology, and McBride’s three decades of research resulted in a large collection of Native American artifacts, field notes, and maps detailing the locations of earthworks and other aboriginal sites in the Miami Valley, including 221 mounds in Butler County alone.
All the way, he studied. He spoke—or rather, listened to—the founders of the city and took copious notes. He wrote the first history books of Hamilton, Oxford and Miami University, as well as “The Pioneer Biography of Butler County.” By some estimates, he wrote over three thousand pages of manuscript regarding Hamilton, Butler County, and Indian archaeology.
He actively collected books, amassing a library of over 5,000 volumes, and was said to have kept every pamphlet that reached him. Much of this collection has been destroyed, though history doesn’t seem to know the circumstances of that loss, other than to remark that it is “incalculable to the student of Western history.”
For all his wisdom and acquired knowledge, however, he was also a champion of John Cleves Symmes Jr.’s cockamamie “Hollow Earth Theory,” even wrote the book on it, “Symmes’s Theory of Concentric Spheres Demonstrating that the Earth is Hollow, Habitable Within, and Widely Open About the Poles.” It should be noted, however, that he wrote the book as a gift to his friend Symmes, pointedly took no part in seeking its anonymous publication, and all proceeds benefitted Captain Symmes.
Amid this life-long flurry of activity and scholarly accomplishment, it shouldn’t be forgotten that James McBride was a devoted family man. When his beloved wife Hannah died on September 23, 1859, McBride “instantly lost all interest in life” and began looking forward to his own departure.
“From that moment on he lost all desire to live,” Howe wrote in language quite florid for an encyclopedia, “and prepared to follow her, which he did ten days later—a beautiful sunset to a beautiful life, and then the stars came out in their glory.”