deserved to be ranked among the most progressive people of the
world.[29] Their friends endeavored to enable them through schools,
churches and industries to embrace every opportunity to rise. These
2,255 Negroes accumulated, largely during this period, $209,000 worth of
property, exclusive of personal effects and three churches valued at
$19,000. Some of this wealth consisted of land purchased in Ohio and
Indiana. Furthermore, in 1839 certain colored men of the city organized
"The Iron Chest Company," a real estate firm, which built three brick
buildings and rented them to white men. One man, who a few years prior
to 1840 had thought it useless to accumulate wealth from which he might
be driven away, had changed his mind and purchased $6,000 worth of real
estate. Another Negro, who had paid $5,000 for himself and family, had
bought a home worth $800 or $1,000. A freedman, who was a slave until he
was twenty-four years old, then had two lots worth $10,000, paid a tax
of $40 and had 320 acres of land in Mercer County. Another, who was
worth only $3,000 in 1836, had seven houses in Cincinnati, 400 acres of
land in Indiana, and another tract in the same county. He was worth
$12,000 or $15,000. A woman who was a slave until she was thirty was
then worth $2,000. She had also come into potential possession of two
houses on which a white lawyer had given her a mortgage to secure the
payment of $2,000 borrowed from this thrifty woman. Another Negro, who
was on the auction block in 1832, had spent $2,600 purchasing himself
and family and had bought two brick houses worth $6,000 and 560 acres of
land in Mercer County, said to be worth $2,500.[30]

This unusual progress had been promoted by two forces, the development
of the steamboat as a factor in transportation and the rise of the Negro
mechanic. Negroes employed on vessels as servants to the travelling
public amassed large sums received in the form of "tips." Furthermore,
the fortunate few, constituting the stewards of these vessels, could by