USA > Kentucky > Hardin County > Elizabethtown > A history of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and its surroundings > Part 8
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The losses were about as follows :
I. The large two-story brick of Isaac Radley, fronting on Main street and running back about one hundred feet on the alley, occupied partly in the lower story by Mr. John Ryno as a store room, and back of that as a tinner's shop. Next on the alley was Mr. H. D. Kendall's Coffee House, called the Hole in the Wall. Back of that L. I. Warren's Coffee House, connected with a ten-pin alley running the whole depth of the lots. Loss, $5,000 ; insurance, $1,600.
2. The three story drug store and residence of J. W. Matthis, Esq., with kitchen and stable back. Loss, $6,000 ; no insurance.
3. The store house and residence of Jacob Kaufman, a dry goods merchant. Loss, $5,500 ; insurance, $3,000.
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4. The shoe store and dwelling of C. Hotopp. This building had three tenants-one occupied by the owner, the next as a drug store by Dr. Warfield, the next by Joseph Lott as a beer and coffee house. Loss, $8,000 ; insurance, $1,500.
5. Adam Beeler, as a provision store and sausage factory. Loss, $10,000 ; insurance, $3,000.
6. John Rihn's shoe and variety store and family residence. Loss, $5,000 ; insurance, $1,200.
7. The store house of Thomas H. Duncan, Esq., on the corner of Mulberry street, occupied by Duncan & Yeager as dry goods mer- chants. Loss, $4,000.
Then crossing the street.
8. The large two story residence of Sanford J. Poston, Esq., at the corner of Mulberry and Main Cross streets. Loss, $7,000; no insur- ance.
9. The confectionery store of Henry Raubold & John Heller build- ing, owned by F. Raubold ; family residence above. Loss to the occu- pants, $4,000.
IO. The office attached to Poston's building, occupied by D. H. Gardner, silversmith. Loss, $1,200; no insurance.
II. F. Raubold's residence and bakery, handsomely and newly re- modeled. Loss on the two last buildings, $8,000 ; insurance, $4,800.
12. The store house owned by J. B. Slack. Loss, $2,500.
13. The hotel of W. C. Hawkins. Loss, $12,000; no insurance.
14. The dry goods store house and residence of Antoni Rihn. Loss, $5,500 ; insurance, $2,740.
15. A. H. Cunningham, dry goods merchant. Loss, $3,000; no insurance.
16. H. G. Wintersmith heirs' Summit House. Loss, $10,000; no insurance.
17. H. M. Middleton, grocer. Loss in goods, $1,600.
18. S. Kaufman & Co. Loss in goods, $3,000.
19. R. L. Wintersmith & Son. Loss in groceries, $700.
20. Duncan & Yeager. Loss in dry goods, $900.
21. Mrs. A. F. Yeager. Loss in fancy goods, $500.
22. John B. Shepherd. Loss of property, $2,000.
23. D. H. Gardner, silversmith. Loss, $500.
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24. Mary C. Warfield in drugs and medicines. Loss, $250.
25. G. V. Matthis, druggist. Loss, $2,000; insurance, $2,000.
26. W. H. & L. I. Warren, coffee house keepers. Loss, $800. The foregoing estimates made by the sufferers.
Besides the losses enumerated-in removing goods and furniture from the buildings not in the burnt district, but threatened to be con- sumed-much loss was sustained by injury to furniture and beds and covering, and household articles, lost or stolen. Under this head, it is impossible to make an estimate as several valuable libraries were burned, including the valuable law library of the Hon. Charles G. Wintersmith, and the valuable historical library of C. Hotopp, includ- ing his German works of rare value, the loss of which he more deeply regretted than the loss of his fine houses. Also the library of Mrs. Martha Poston.
BENEFACTORS
It is due to other towns and cities and individuals to notice their liberality in aiding the sufferers by the fire.
Captain Harry I. Todd, keeper of the penitentiary, sent to Dr. B. R. Young one hundred chairs worth $200.
The citizens of Frankfort, through Thomas Samuels, Esq., assistant secretary of state, contributed $118.
Franklin, through S. Sympson, $12.
Lebanon, through Hon. J. Proctor Knott, $107.50.
The neighborhood of Red Mills, by Wm. Gannaway, in produce, sold for $37.10; cash $2.50.
H. & A. McElroy, of Springfield, $50.
The Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company transported free of charge all the lumber necessary to rebuild and iron fronts free of charge worth more than $2,000.
Through the agency of the Hon. Samuel B. Thomas the last arrangement was made, and a liberal sum in money collected by him in Louisville in addition to his own large donation.
Mr. Thomas also effected an arrangement with the following banks in Louisville : Louisville People's Bank, Bank of Kentucky, Bank of Louisville, Western Financial Corporation, Commercial Bank, Citi- zens' Bank, Merchants' Bank, Northern Bank, Falls City and Tobacco Bank.
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By which arrangement these several banks agreed to loan the sufferers a sufficient sum to rebuild at six per cent, payable in such calls as they could meet. This liberality on the part of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the banks in the city of Louisville disproves the old adage that corporations have no souls.
As soon as it was possible for the owners of houses burnt to approach their heated cellars, they commenced clearing off the debris, and in most instances enlarging their plans, and in an incredibly short space of time laid anew their foundations and reared up new and sub- stantial buildings, with iron fronts and tastefully finished a beautiful row on the north side of Main Cross street from the alley at Green row to Mulberry street, with the exception of one on the corner of Mulberry and Main Cross streets all covered with tin.
Among them I would mention the large house on Green row alley owned by Isaac Radley, Esq., with an elegant and spacious store room, finished and occupied in the month of December by our enterprising citizen, John A. Ryno, as a dry goods and variety store. In which store can always be found the pleasant and accomplished clerk, Jo McMurtry, a handsome young man, whose delight is to wait upon the ladies. Back of the store Mr. Ryno has an extensive stove and tin store; this de- partment is presided over by our young friend, Otto Davis, almost as pleasant and likely as Jo, but not quite so blooming.
Back on the same alley you may find H. D. Kendall's Coffee House and R. M. Mock's Gunsmith Shop.
2. The drug store house of J. W. Matthis, Esq., with family resi- dence above, occupied 3rd of January, 1870, by G. V. Matthis and Dr. E. Warfield.
3. The store house of Jacob Kaufman connected with residence occupied in December, 1869.
4. C. Hotopp's Boot and Shoe Store and family residence above occupied in December, 1869.
5. Adam Beeler, one of the most complete provision stores and sausage factories to be found in the land, with a family residence above.
6. John Rihn, boot and shoe and variety store, with residence above.
7. On the south side of the street Mr. S. J. Poston has erected a three story building.
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8. F. Raubold has put up a store room and residence above.
9. Antoni Rihn, in addition to his ground, has purchased the site on which Mr. Cunningham's stood, and has erected thereon a beautiful building with two store rooms and family residence above.
IO. Wm. C. Hawkins has put up a portion of his building and lives in it.
The energy of all those citizens are in the highest commendable, and bids well for the prosperity of the town, having Phoenix-like arisen from their ashes and donned new and brilliant exteriors, indicative of their determination not to stay put down. They should all not only have the sympathies, but the patronage of a liberal and appreciative community.
CHAPTER XXII
RETRACING STEPS
Having brought the history of building up to the present date (Jan- uary, 1870), I want to take my readers back and run them up and down on the line of mechanics and artisans who have opened and shut in the town since 1797.
TANNERS
The discovery of the art of tanning leather is doubtless of ancient date, whether it was discovered in the days of Adam I cannot say, for Adam went naked until he partook of the forbidden fruit, then his eyes were opened to his nakedness and he adopted the primitive cover- ing of fig leaves, nor is there any account whether shoes were worn by Noah while he was building the ark. The Bible, which is admitted by all to be the most ancient and reliable history, in the third chapter of Exodus gives an account of Moses beholding a flame of fire in the midst of a bush, and the bush burned not. This exciting the curiosity of Moses, he turned aside to see the sight, and see if he could ascertain why the bush was not burnt. And as Moses approached the place the Lord spoke to him out of the midst of the bush and said, "Draw not nigh hither ; put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground."
Thus we have it certain that shoes were worn 3,441 years ago, but leaves it doubtful whether these shoes were of tanned leather.
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The first account of a tanner by profession is in the forty-first year of the Christian era. His name was Simon, and lived by the sea shore at Joppa, and he must have been a prosperous man, for the Apostle Peter chose his house as a comfortable place at which to lodge and rest himself. But Simon must have learned his trade from some one else, and his boss must have also had a teacher, and so running back to remotest antiquity the origin is unknown. The fact is that tanners are in the world and no historian, dead or alive, has given the origin so we give it up. There are many other things in the world that cannot be accounted for ; for instance, how came cats here, and how have they stealthily crept up through all time and made choice of mice for a living. Or who first discovered that oysters were good for human diet? or that tobacco was a decent thing to use in company of ladies particu- larly, smoking it in crooked necked pipes, and so on ad infinitum.
Moreover there is a kind of posthumous advantage in being a tan- ner. In Shakspeare's tragedy of Hamlet, Hamlet inquired of a grave digger how long a man would last in the ground? The old grave digger leaning on his spade replied, "If he be not rotten when put in the ground he will last six or seven years, but a tanner will last you full nine years," and that is some encouragement.
The first tanner that I at present remember as operating in our community was one Jacob Bruner, who imagined that the people had worn buckskin moccasins or went barefooted long enough, opened a tan-yard on the ground where the Metropolitan saloon now stands, and commenced operations. Tanners then had no money to buy hides, but tanned on the halves. When a raw hide was brought in the tanner by some mystical operation cut the initials of the owner on the hide about the neck, and entered on a book suited to that purpose the owner's name and the mystic mark intended for initials-and when the hide, if for sole leather, had lain in the lime and bate and tan bark ooze and such decoctions as a tanner only knows-the tail, due-claws and horns taken off and thrown on a shed and the hair in a barrel-in two years or a little less the owner came to draw his share, and then the important point of splitting the hide came off, the tanner always performs it and his knife zigzags in such a manner that the customer never knew which side to take. But the tanner, of course, a disinterested man, advised the customer which side to take-and the owner generally came off
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second best, but always thought that he had got the tanner badly. This tan-yard went backwards and forwards between the Brunners and the Bruces and the Stouts for several years.
About the year 1805 or 1806 William D. Stone, from Nelson county, bought out the concern and carried on the business success- fully up to the time of his death. Mr. Stone also followed butchering beef cattle. The habit then was to kill the beef, the same morning it was cut and sold to customers, by which means his tannery was partly supplied with hides. The profit to the butcher in those days was the hide and tallow. Stone was an industrious and provident man and a respectable citizen, and when he died left an interesting and genteel family-three sons and a daughter. Hayden Stone, one of the sons, resides in Nelson county, and has been the county judge of that county. James E. Stone, another son, is now clerk of Hancock county, and has been for many years, and is a Baptist preacher. He was the father of the lamented Frank Stone, one of the promising young preachers of the state. He was lost by the burning of a steamboat on the Ohio river. His death was a melancholy occurrence. He could not swim, but seeing the only alternative was to burn alive or drown, he knelt down on the boat and devoutly in prayer, committed himself to God, then choos- ing the flood to fire, he plunged into the stream and for a time seemed to buffet the waves, but finally sank and was drowned. His death was a severe stroke to his pious father and mother, and to his young wife and a numerous host of sympathizing friends.
Another son, Stephen W. D. Stone, Esq., who acted as deputy in my office for several years, and was afterwards clerk of La Rue county and circuit courts, he was and is now an excellent clerk and of high moral integrity. He afterwards removed back to Hardin county, and proved himself to be a fine practical farmer until the late war, when the force of circumstances made it necessary to sell his farm and re- move to this town, where he owns a very desirable property.
The daughter married a gentleman named Jonathan Mckay, a respectable gentleman of Nelson county. After the death of Wm. D. Stone the yard was purchased by James Park, an excellent worthy man of much promise. But he only lived a few years. After the death of James Park the yard fell into the hands of John Park, a poor, young man of untiring industry. He was cramped for means, but his industry
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and honest dealings attracted the attention of Hon. John Helm, Sr., who asked Park if he could not get along better with some ready cash. Park replied that he could but that he was too poor to ask anybody to enter as his security. Mr. Helm then said, "I will lend you the money on your own note and your industry will be the security," and there- upon furnished him several hundred dollars. This generous act greatly encouraged Mr. Park, and from that day pushed ahead and eventually established a new yard and in course of time accumulated a handsome estate. He was scrupulously honest and a conscientious man, and a devout member of the Presbyterian church, and was an elder and a pillar of the church, and when he died it was considered a calamity to the community.
Some time after Park commenced, Allen Singleton with Hon. Wm. S. Young started a tannery, which was kept up for several years.
Then Baker & Walker opened a tanyard on the lower end of Main street, which flourished for a while and then went down. Some years since Samuel V. & William Leedom opened a yard near the Presby- terian church. This establishment under the supervision of Samuel V. Leedom, the senior partner, did a fine business up to the untimely death of both partners. Mr. S. V. Leedom was a fine business man, well educated and an accomplished gentleman of unsullied character and an ornament to our town, social and pleasant in his habits and his death was a severe loss.
After the death of the Leedoms the property was sold and the tan- / nery fell into the hands of James B. Slack, Esq., the present holder, and under his management and personal labors he has accumulated an estate of a larger amount than he is willing to acknowledge (as his neighbors think). He seems always to have the cash to buy hides and bark without troubling anybody else. To see him in the streets, with his sleeves rolled above his elbows and his arms dyed yellow with sun- shine or tan-ooze, one would not suppose he was worth much. But watch him on Sundays when he goes into the Catholic Church to hear Father Dizney-then he might be taken for a Russian ambassador. Then go to his well-furnished house and see his genteel and accomplished family, and you would conclude that he was a gentleman of the first water. Then go to the board of trustees, of which he had been a mem- ber for three years, and you would take him for a man of sense. It
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was to him we are indebted for the placing of the lights in our streets and for which the trustees got more cursings than dollars when first started, but I think the opposition has abated and the lights have become popular. I do not know that he ever learned the profitable art of hide- splitting, nor do I know that he tans on the shares as in olden times, for I think he buys all his stock of bullock hides, deer skins, sheep skins, hog skins and groundhog skins and sells the manufactured articles to his customers for cash. Now I have said enough about tanners and desist, lest one of them should want to use my hide.
MANUFACTORIES
Elizabethtown is as favorable a location for manufactories as any other place in the State, and it only requires men of enterprise and some capital to make a start. A water course running through the town, abundant water and never failing springs, inexhaustible forests of timber of the best kind, and our railroad and turnpike facilities makes it easy of access.
In the shoe trade we have enough engaged to supply our home demand and much more. First, there is C. Hotopp, a sensible and well- educated German, who carries on the business of shoe and boot making at his new building on an extensive scale, and all who call on him will find him an accomplished and accommodating gentleman, and the only drawback on him is that he is a member of the board of trustees. On matter of policy he will not swerve an inch from what he thinks right, and he generally thinks correctly. Next is our friend John Rihn. Be- sides his fancy store he carries on his shoe and boot making. He is an honest workman, in proof of which I have in my possession a fancy pair of long-toed, turn-up slippers manufactured in his shop twenty-two years ago, and yet they are in an excellent state of preservation. Next there is William Christen, on Mulberry and Main Cross streets, who has carried on the business successfully for several years. He is a constant worker and an unobtrusive gentleman. Then there is John Heller, who is also a German, with a voice as clear as a bell-clapper, always wideawake. He has some workmen that I cannot say ever go to bed, for as I go home late at night I see them through the window stitching away, and as I return to my office before daybreak I find
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them still hammering on their lasts. I think John will get along-if he doesn't his journeymen will.
Now I have said enough about shoemaking.
WAGON AND CARRIAGE FACTORY
Dr. H. Baldwin carries on extensively. He keeps a supply of excel- lent workmen on carriages, buggies, springwagons and road or farm wagons, and turns out most beautiful work, either strong and substan- tial or light and airy, finished and painted in the most approved style, equal to any in the State. The establishment seems neither to slumber nor sleep, and it would be worth a man's while to spend an hour in going through his establishment. He operates by steam, and makes every- thing tell. His boiler is in a room where he dries his timber. Then the steam is conducted out to drive his planing mill and sawing ma- chinery, splitting plank from a quarter of an inch to any required thick- ness, also driving an excellent corn mill. All kinds of blacksmithing is done.
The Doctor is a first-rate mechanic himself, and as a dentist no man in the State can beat him, so far as I know. He has adjoining his fac- tory a neat and handsomely finished and carpeted office, into which he occasionally takes a gentleman or lady, and in short order he fixes up their mouths and teeth to any required shape. He can take a snaggle- toothed man or woman into his shop, take the dimensions of their mouth organs, and in due time turn them out so much improved in looks that their neighbors hardly know them.
Then our friend James B. LaRue and Major Dollins, who estab- lished a broom factory a short time since, are running full blast and turning out six dozen brooms daily of the neatest finish, fanciful and useful, and calculate shortly to increase the daily quantity to double the present number. They are Kentuckians, and are making arrangements to supply all the South with the means of keeping clean floors and hearths without going any further north than Elizabethtown. They deserve encouragement, and it is to be hoped they will receive it.
CHAPTER XXIII
It would be impossible for a mortal man to give a detached account of all the merchants who have opened and shut in this town from 1795
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up to this date, nor would it add much to this history to do so. Some have come here and set up business and flourished for a brief period of time. Of such it is needless to say anything more than to remark that they came in like a meteor and departed leaving a blue streak behind them, and some were of such light metal that they made no streak at all, except a streak of a board bill on some landlady's day book unpaid. But as a class our merchants have been the most useful and influential men in our community. They labored harder and risked more to minister to the wants and comforts of the people, and to bring to their doors from distant cities not only the necessities of life but extra comforts. All our citizens before the time of merchants wore the home manu- factured articles for shirts, coats, vests and pants-so unusual was it to wear store clothes that a boy as a piece of news remarked : "Don't you think Bill Haywood wears a store bought shirt?" How did that come about? Why he dug ginseng, and sold it to Mr. Crutcher, a store-keeper, and he paid him in shirt stuff and some other fixens. Before the merchants bought sugar, tea, and coffee, our worthy pro- genitors were content to drink sassafras, spice-wood or sage tea, as for coffee there was no substitute, nor was any substitute for the latter article attempted until after coffee was introduced, for after having tasted coffee and a relish for it accomplished, and purses being light in those days, a great many attempts were made to substitute by parching wheat, rye or corn enclosing it in a strong leather apron and with a shoe hammer, beating the mass on the door sill or a flat stone until it was sufficiently pulverized. It was then shook out of the apron into an iron pot, a sufficiency of water poured on it, then adding a sufficiency of maple sugar, (that was not to be grinned at) and some new milk or cream added, and all boiled together, until it was thought to be sufficiently cooked. It was then poured out into a piggen or small pail and placed on the table, which was formed of two long legged stools butted together so as to make the representation of a table, and dipped or poured out into tin cups and eaten with Johnny-cake bread, shortened at that, now don't think that I am going to forget the merchant. I will come back to him as soon as I have told you how a johnny-cake was made. First, every family had a johnny-cake board on hand ready for use. The board was nothing more or less than a thick clapboard about three feet
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long and six or seven inches wide, shaved smooth with a drawing- knife. Then the corn-meal was worked up into a dough, mixed in with cracklings. Do you know what a crackling is? Well, it is that part of swine's fat that refuses to go into lard. Or if no crackling was to be had, a slight admixture of lard or beef suet was stuck about in it. This mess was skillfully laid on the board, and properly spread, and the board propped up before a good fire. When baked nearly through the skillful use of a case knife liberated the cake from the board, then turned and the other side underwent a baking. Then on the table it went and was greedily devoured and washed down with this coffee. The johnny-cake was first-rate, and as old as I am I would now ride two miles to breakfast with some old lady who under- stood the mystery. But, alas! for human progress, it has banished the good old johnny-cake and substituted light rolls, corn batter cake and buck-wheat cakes and all such like. But lest you might undervalue the living of our ancestors, they had fried crout, fried bacon, ham and eggs (at five cents a dozen if their own hens did not lay them) sometimes fried chicken, turkey breast, partridge, squirrel or rabbit. But I must stop here for fear I should lose the thread of my dis- course in this long parenthesis and return to the merchant again.
It took not only a man of enterprise, but a man of true courage to be a merchant in the days of yore, when there was no stage or railroad, or steam boat. It was a two months' trip to Baltimore or Philadelphia and back. Before starting on this hazardous and laborious trip, the merchant made his will, and called his friends together to take possi- bly the last leave of them, and it was generally noised over the country before the trip was taken that such a storekeeper was going for goods- I well remembered those times.
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