From Cincinnati Commercial Gazette 22 June 1890, Image extracted from microfilm by Greg Hand
The year before he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, the actor John Wilkes Booth was in Cincinnati, performing at Wood’s Theater in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” and “The Taming of the Shrew.” Throughout the run, Booth was a frequent visitor to Grandpa Hawley’s newsstand, just two blocks south at Vine and Fourth. Years later, Hawley told the Cincinnati Post about Booth’s visits [28 April 1903]:
“He was in my store while here and I remember a conversation with him. I do not remember what we talked about in particular, but there was nothing to indicate that he had the least thought of perpetrating the dark crime with which his name is stained.”
By coincidence, James R. “Grandpa” Hawley also had a connection to Lincoln. Hawley first opened his business on Tuesday, 12 February 1861, and watched from the shop door as President-Elect Lincoln, on his way to Washington, was paraded down Vine Street to the Burnet House. Throughout the Civil War, Grandpa Hawley was the place to go for news of the conflict. Hawley told the Times-Star [10 January 1891]:
“That was in the war time, you know, and then the illustrated periodicals monopolized the sale, for in them were pictures of the generals and battles and the printed material dealt with the doings of the army.”
In fact, Hawley’s patrons often included those very generals themselves, picking up the latest weekly to read what was being said about the war. Generals Ulysses Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman famously mapped out the strategy to ensure a Confederate defeat in Parlor A of the Burnet House and gathered a lot of their information from Grandpa Hawley’s newsstand. He told the Post:
“I do not believe I ever saw them in uniform. Grant was not very talkative, but Sherman frequently started a conversation.”
Another regular military visitor to Hawley’s was Philip Henry Sheridan, whose triumph at the Battle of Cedar Creek was memorialized in Thomas Buchanan Read’s poem, “Sheridan’s Ride.” That poem was required reading for generations of American school children and the author, a Cincinnati resident, was also a frequent customer of Grandpa Hawley’s. It is not recorded whether poet and subject ever met at the Vine Street newsstand, but they might well have.
From Cincinnati Post 29 April 1903, Image extracted from microfilm by Greg Hand
Vice President Andrew Johnson spent so much time at Hawley’s that the news vendor took to calling him “Andy.”
In addition to generals, politicians and poets, Grandpa Hawley’s shop was also a gathering place for the actors who trod the boards at Cincinnati’s theaters throughout the Nineteenth Century. Edwin Forrest was among the first Americans to gain distinction as a Shakespearian star. He frequently performed in Cincinnati and always stopped by to see Hawley, who recalled:
“In my mind I can see him now with his tragedy stride and hear his deep rumbling voice.”
In almost every interview he gave, Hawley mentioned Adelaide Neilson, whose fame as an actress almost equaled her fame as a great beauty.
“Neilson, the actress, has been here many times, and always used to pat the little newsboys on the head and give them an encouraging word.”
Hawley himself was something of a Cincinnati celebrity, mostly because of his enormous beard, which ran from his chin almost to his belt buckle. Most of the Cincinnati papers remarked about the “biblical” dimensions of his whiskers, rivaled only by those of Vine Street saloonist Andy Gilligan.
Many folks stopped by just to chat with Hawley, who was an especially entertaining raconteur, but most came for the news. In those pre-electric days, when “the media” meant print publications, Grandpa Hawley moved a lot of paper. He told the Times-Star that New York daily newspapers sold the most in his shop, followed by dailies from Chicago, St. Louis and Louisville. Among the weeklies, Harper’s and Leslie’s ran neck-and-neck, followed by the London Illustrated News. Some readers were quite dedicated to their favorite publication:
“One lady used to walk down from Walnut Hills every week to get the New York Ledger, because it would not be delivered to her until the morning following its arrival here. One day a Walnut Hills man who was a regular customer of mine asked me if I knew why he always took two copies of the New York Ledger. I told him I supposed he got one for a neighbor, but he said it was because he had two daughters and they were always squabbling about which should read it first, until, to keep peace in the family, he decided to give both a chance.”
Those were the days when multiple magazines appealed to every specialized interest. Hawley sold dozens of sports magazines, humor magazines, fashion magazines, science magazines and literary journals of contemporary thought like Atlantic Monthly and the North American Review – both of which are still published today. He carried most of the major periodicals published in German and French.
After 40 years in business, Grandpa Hawley found himself evicted from his landmark shop to make way for the construction of the Ingalls Building, the first reinforced concrete skyscraper in the world. Railroad magnate Melville E. Ingalls spent so much effort convincing city officials to allow him to build his revolutionary building that he gave little thought to the businesses he displaced.
Grandpa Hawley ended up relocating to the nearby Emery Arcade on the other side of Vine, but years of generosity caught up with him and bankruptcy was a real possibility. According to the Post:
“Everybody’s word goes with ‘Grandpa’ Hawley and were his customers so disposed they could carry away in overcoat pockets or under their arms several times as much as they paid for.”
At this dark moment, Hawley’s theatrical friends, accumulated over the decades, sprang into action and staged a benefit extravaganza for him at the Grand Opera House on 1 May 1903, raising more than $650 and saving the old man’s finances. It was a short-lived victory. Not quite a year later, Grandpa Hawley was dead. As he was laid to rest in Covington’s Linden Grove Cemetery, the Post [20 February 1904] eulogized:
“’Grandpa’ Hawley did not have an enemy in the world. For a lifetime he jogged along in an even, quiet way. He was honest and fair. He was never too busy to clasp hands warmly and talk entertainingly. He possessed a smile that was born of the natural kindness in his soul.”
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