USA > Kentucky > Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. I > Part 58
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Pounds of tobacco 158,184,929
Pounds of hemp 21,375,306
Tons of hay. 151,832
Bushels of corn.
65,052,002
Bushels of wheat. 5,007,097
Bushels of barley 332,007
Tons of pig metal 40,151
Tons of bloom
1,004
Tons of bar iron
878
NEGROES.
The following is the valuation of each item of taxation, viz :
Value.
123,564 acres of land. ยท$1,103,893 00
4,561 town lots ..
1,491,025 00
14,395 horses and mares 655.090 00
2,781 mules
67 jennets 160,969 00
1,3S1 00
11,674 cattle
31,713 00
45 stores
8,160 00
Under the equalization law ...
96,529 00
Pleasure carriages, barouches,
buggies, stages, coaches, gigs, omnibuses, and other
vehicles for passengers ......
10,623 00
Gold, silver, and other metalic
watches and clocks .. ..
8,476 00
Gold and silver plate. 296 00
Pianos.
885 00
Total value as above. .$3,569,040 00
Tax at 25 cents on the $100 ... 8,922 06
Number.
Black males over 21 years ...
45,604
Qualified voters ..
41,125
Children bet. 6 and 20 years ...
41,289
Hogs over 6 months old .. ...
17,437
Studs, jacks, and balls (and rates per season at $ ) ....
60
Tavern licenses, at
59
Free blacks that are blind ...
8
Dogs over two (2).
140 97
Value of sheep killed by dogs Pounds of tobacco.
$202 00
Pounds of hemp.
329,000
Tons of hay.
388
Bushels of corn.
2,338,322
Bushels of wheat. 78,907
Bushels of barley. 1,42
11,468,236
18,852,106
43,095,725
Sheep killed by dogs.
1,997 jennets
Value.
349,644
Free whites, deaf and dumb ...
1873.
ANNALS OF KENTUCKY.
246%
Dec. 1-Steamer Fleetwood makes the | firms ; and about the same number from run from Cincinnati to Huntington, West Maysville, by one house. Va., 159 measured miles, in 14 hours 35 minutes-an average of 10.9 miles per bour up stream.
Dec. 2-Continuation since Nov. 25, in the Louisville Courier-Journal, of the com- munications and controversy about the " Galt House tragedy " of Dec. 15, 1838, when two brothers from Mississippi, Judge and Dr. Wilkerson, and their companion from Richmond, Va., John Murdaugh, were attacked in the office of that hotel, in Lou- isville, where they were guests, by John W. Redding, -. Rothwell, -. Meek, Wm. Holmes, Henry Oldham, Wm. Johnson, and 5 or 7 others ; and in self-defense killed Rothwell and Meek, and wounded 2 others, and were themselves wounded and mobbed. Their trial, by change of venue granted by the legislature, took place at Harrodsburg in March, 1839; and the jury acquitted them, after being out but a few minutes. They were prosecuted by the commonwealth's attorney and Hon. Ben. . Hardin ; and defended by Hon. John Rowan, Col. Wm. Robertson, Col. Samuel Daveiss, John B. Thompson, Chas. M. Cunningham, Jas. Taylor, and C. M. Wickliffe, and by the brilliant Mississippi orator Hon. Sergeant S. Prentiss. It was one of the most remarkable of the crimi- nal trials of America.
Dec. 2-Meeting in New York city of clergymen and laymen, who organize as " The Reformed Episcopal Church," upon the basis of the Book of Common Prayer of 1785, and with Rt. Rev. Geo. D. Cummins, D. D., of Ky., as presiding bishop.
Dec. 2-Col. Benj. H. Bristow, of Louis- ville (formerly of Hopkinsville), nomina- ted by President Grant as U. S. attorney general-in case the present attorney gen- oral Williams be confirmed as chief justice of the U. S.
Dec. 2-Gov. Leslie's annual message announces that the state debt of Ky., is virtually liquidated in full ; excepting the school debt, which by the constitution is made a permanent loan and not redeema- ble. On Oct. 10, 1872, the outstanding bonded debt of the State was ... .$966,394 Paid before Oct. 10, 1873 .. $435,000
Paid since 200,000-635,000
Leaving yet unredeemed only .. .$331,394 To meet which the sinking fund commis- missioners have deposited in New York city $350,000 in U. S. 5-20 bonds.
Revenue receipts for year
ending Oct. 10, 1873 ... $1,032,522 17 Expenditures during same
year .. 1,182,601 48
Expenditures over receipts ...... $150,079 31 Deficit previous to Oct 10,'72. 365,366 67
[Total deficit, paid from sink- ing fund]. $515,445 98 Dec. 2-Over 8,000 turkeys shipped from Paris to Boston, since Nov. 10, by two'
Dec. 3 -- American Short-Horn Conven- tion in session at Cincinnati ; many lead- ing Ky. breeders present.
Dec. 3-Augustus and Anselm C. Shrop- shire, of Bourbon co., bring suit in Cin- cinnati vs. Geo. W. Rusk, proprietor of the Chicago Live Stock Journal, for libel -attacking their character as short-horn breeders ; damages claimed, $20,000.
Dec. 3-Meeting at Louisville of direc- tors of Cumberland and Ohio railroad. Engineer reported cost of completing grad- uation and masonry from Lebanon to Greensburg, 30 miles, including tunnel through Muldrow's Hill, $118,200; and from Shelbyville to Taylorsville, 16 miles, $77,100 ; 10 miles from Scottville, Allen co., to Tennessee State line, just put under contract at lower rates than any portion of the road ; and 24 miles in Barren county ordered to be put under contract.
Dec. 3-A white man, convicted last week of petty larceny, at Lexington, re- ceives ten lashes in jail-probably the last legal whipping to disgrace the State, as whipping for crime was abolished by the new General Statutes which went into ef- fect on Dec. 1.
Dec. 3-Great storm of wind and rain in northern and middle Ky. ; Benson and other creeks higher than for many years ; saw-logs and lumber swept off, and sev- eral barns and other houses blown down.
Dec. 3, 4-Convention at Louisville of the North American Bee Keepers' Society ; Gen. D. L. Adair, of Ky., elected corre- sponding secretary.
Dec. 4-Terrible hurricane in R. part of Clinton co. and w. part of Wayne co .; several dwellings, and a number of barns and stables unroofed and badly injured, the timber torn down for miles in extent, and some stock killed.
Dec. 4-Death at Paris, aged 87, of John Rootes Thornton, the oldest member of the Paris bar ; was born in Caroline co., Va., Nov. 4, 1786 ; removed with his father, Col. Anthony Thornton, in 1808, to Bour- bon co., Ky. ; practiced law from 1810 un- til prevented by broken health a few years ago; representative in the legisla- ture for one year, 1812, and senator for eight years, 1829-37.
Dec. 5-Two negroes, Lindsay Brown and Levi Clapp, hung at Blandville, Bal- lard co., for rape on a married woman, on Aug. 13, 1873 ; a third negro, charged with same offense, is in jail a waiting his trial ; they were saved from death by Lynch law at the hands of 75 armed men who searched the jail, by having been recently run off to Paducab jail for safe-keeping.
Dec. 6-Democratic State convention called to meet at Frankfort, Feb. 18, 1874, to nominate a candidate for clerk of the court of appeals.
Dec. 7-The Ky. house of representa- tives, by 54 to 38, adopted this resolution, offered, yesterday, by George Morgan Thomas :
2460
ANNALS OF KENTUCKY.
1873.
" Resolved, That the superintendent of public instruction be requested not to pay for COLLINS' HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, as authorized by a former act of the Legisla- ture, until compelled to do so by a court of competent jurisdiction."
[If the house of representatives desires to initiate an act of repudiation, it is espec- ially appropriate to begin with a histori- cal work to which a former Legislature gave encouragement and contracted to give to it substantial aid, and which should faith - fully record at once the glory and the shame of the proud old Commonwealth ! It is but just to record here that the senate de- feated the resolution ; and that if it had passed both houses, the governor would promptly have vetoed it.]
Dec. 7-A train of 45 cars, carrying 2,- 250 hogs, passes Frankfort for Louisville.
Dee. 8-U. S. house of representatives passes, by 149 to 29, a bill to repeal the iron-elad or test oath of 1862, and to re- move all remaining political disabilities imposed by the XIVth amendment to the U. S. constitution. [This will include Gen. John C. Breckinridge, Gen. John B. Hood, and other Kentuckians, resident and non-resident.]
Dec. 8-Bill before congress to make Covington a port of entry and delivery.
Dec. 8-John Thompson Gray, of Lon- isville, appeals to the Legislature to reduce the court costs of the various courts in that city, claiming that the clerks' costs, by " splitting orders," are multiplied sev- eral times in an illegal manner. In three insurance cases in the chancery court, the aggregate costs to date amount to $83,000. The officers of that court receive in fees- the clerk about $20,000, marshal and com- missioner each about $12,000, and receiver about $4,000; whereas the chancellor and vice chancellor, men of far higher qualifi- cations, receive only $3,000 each from the State and $1,000 from the city.
Dec. 9-Maj. Philip Speed, of Louis- ville,. introduces to the school board of Cincinnati his plan for improving the school books for our public schools : Let congress authorize the Department of Ed- ucation or the Smithsonian Institute, to offer premiums for the best elementary books on each branch commonly taught ; and appoint a commission of the best edu- cators to pass judgment on such as may be offered-the selected books to be offered to the publishers free of copy-right. The object is to secure cheapness, and prevent the frequent changes in text-books now made in the interest of publishers and dealers.
Dec. 9-Henry Bergh, originator and president of the first society in America for prevention of cruelty to animals lec- tures in Louisville.
Dec. 10-City of Louisville claims back taxes on $1,000,000 property of the Louis- ville and Portland Canal Co .; which the latter disputes as to all over $100,000.
Dec. 10-Debate, at Port Royal, Henry co., of the proposition " Baptism of peni-
tent believers is in order to remission of sins." Elder I. B. Grubbs, of the Re- formed or Christian church, affirms, and Rev. A. C. Caperton, D. D., of the Baptist church, and editor of the Louisville West- ern Recorder, denies.
Dec. 10-The bonded debt of Bowling Green is $129,226.
Dec. 11-Marriage, at Harrodsburg, of Gen. Wm. W. Belknap, U. S. secretary of war, to Mrs. Amanda T. Bower, daughter of the late Dr. John A. Tomlinson. The bride, one of the most beautiful and ele- gant of Ky. ladies, was given away -by the Hon. Geo. H. Pendleton, of Cincin- nati O.
Dec. 12 -- Cincinnati Southern railroad line located from South Danville (Shelby city), Lincoln co., to Chitwood, Tenn., SO miles, on the Burnside military survey : and the tunnel (over 4,000 feet long, and to cost $163,000) through King's Moun- tain, in Lincoln co., 12 miles s. of Stan- ford, let.
Dec. 13-Col. Wm. H. Herndon, a law partner of the late President Abraham . Lincoln, delivered, this evening, at Spring- field, Ill., a most remarkable lecture ; in answer to a lecture delivered, in July, 1873, in the same city, by Rev. James A. Reed and published in Scribner's Monthly for July-who elaimed that " there is well authenticated evidence of Mr. Lincoln having been born in wedlock, and being & believer in Christianity," (both of which claims Col. Herndon emphatically dispu- ted and very strongly argued to the con- trary.) He says he took a copy of the original record in the family Bible of Thomas Lincoln, father of the late Presi- dent. "The most of that record, if not the whole of it, was in the handwriting of Abraham Lincoln, who would have re- corded the marriage if true. It fails to state that Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were ever married ; and yet it does not fail to state the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah Bush, Thomas Lincoln's second wife. It commenees or opens thus : 'Nancy Lincoln was born February 12, 1807,' and concludes thus: 'Nancy, or Sarah Lincoln, daughter of Thomas Lin- coln, was married to Aaron Grigsby, Au- gust, 1836.' It says also: 'Abraham Lincoln, son of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Lincoln, was born Feb. 12, 1809.'" Col. HI. says he thinks the omission of Abraham Lincoln to record the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, " one link in the chain of evidence in favor of those who thought and argued that Abraham Lincoln was illegitimate-the child of Abraham Enlow."
On the other point, Col. Herndon says : " I affirm that Mr. Lincoln died an unbe- liever-was not an evangelical Christian. It is admitted on all hands that Mr. Lin- coln once was an infidel; that he wrote a sinall book, or essay, or pamphlet against Christianity ; and that he continued an unbeliever until late in life. Col. Jas. H. Matheny bad often told him (Herndon)
1873.
ANNALS OF KENTUCKY.
24600
that Mr. Lincoln was an infidel ; and never intimated that he believed that Mr. Lincoln in his later life became a Christian I have often said that Mr. Lincoln was by nature a deeply religious man, and I now repeat it. I have often said he was not a Christian, and I now repeat it. He was not an unbeliever in religion, but was as to Christianity. Mr. Lincoln was a the- ist."
After quoting the opinions of various persons to show that Mr. Lincoln experi- enced no change of heart, Col. Herndon quotes a conversation he had with Mrs. Lincoln after her husband's death : " Mr. Lincoln had no hope and no faith, in the usual acceptation of thousands. His maxim and philosophy were, ' What is to be will be, and no cares (prayers) of ours can arrest the decree.' He never joined any church. He was a religious man al- ways, as I think. He first thought-to say think-about this subject when Willie died; never before. He read the Bible a good deal, about 1864. He felt religious, more than ever before, about the time when he went to Gettysburg. He was not a technical Christian."
[A correspondent of the Louisville Com- mercial says, upon the authority of a con- versation with Capt. Samuel Haycraft, of Elizabethtown, Hardin co., that Thomas Lincoln [then generally pronounced Link- horn] and Nancy Hanks were married in that county ; that " Abraham Lincoln bore a striking resemblance to Abe Enlow, and a great many believed that he was his father, although he (Enlow) was only 17 years old at the time of Lincoln's birth."]
Dec. 14-Death at Lexington, from con- gestion of the langs, of Chas. B. Thomas, circuit judge, aged 50. Judge T. was a native of South Carolina ; educated at the Bloomington (Ill.) State University ; grad- uated at the Transylvania Law School, and practiced law in Lexington ; was city judge for several years ; a colonel in the Confederate army ; and in 1868 elected circuit judge for six years, which term would expire in Sept. 1874.
Dec. 15-In June, 1867, Win. P. King and Abraham Owens were convicted of the murder of Harvey King, a brother of the former, and hung; on the gallows, both men repeatedly and solemnly averred their innocence, and called upon God to witness that they told the truth. It now appears that a man named Evans, who was recently lynched in Kansas, confessed that he bad once committed a murder in Ky. for which two men were hung; it is believed that he referred to the above case.
Dec. 16 -- 116 granges of the Patrons of Husbandry organized in Ky. to date, and 9,297 in the U. S.
Dec. 16-Col. William G. Terrell, the Covington and Newport reporter of the Cincinnati Commercial, stabbed in the ab- domen, a painful and dangerous wound, by Thos. P. Francis.
Dec. 17-A bill to take the sense of the people of Ky. on calling & convention to
form a new constitution passes the legisla- ture-in the senate by 23 to 11, and in the house by 58 to 38. The Republican mein- bers all voted for it, 21 in the house and 6 in the senate.
Dec. 17-An act in aid of common schools approved ; designed to remedy somewhat the blunder of many trustees in making contracts for teaching beyond what the distributable school fund (in which " an unanticipated decrease " has occurred ) will pay for. It shortens the school terms to 4 and 212 months, and authorizes the pay- mentof certain.school claims ont of the (gen - eral treasury ) " revenue proper." [Thus it seems that trustees (carelessly, or igno- rantly ) contract to pay out of the school fund more than they have any legal right to do, and the legislature makes up from the general treasury the deficiency thus caused ; but a contract made by a former legislature " for the use of the children of the common schools" is forbidden, by part of the same legislature, to be carried out " unless compelled by a court of com- petent jurisdiction." The former action was liberal and right, for this once; but the latter was disgraceful to the State, and unjust to the party with whom the con- tract was made.]
Dec. 20-From the catalogue for 1874 of Berea College, in Madison co., it ap- pears that 287 students are now in attend- ance-106 white and 181 colored ; of the whites, 70 are male and 36 female; while there are 106 colored males and 75 colored females. 15 white and 19 colored students are not from Ky. There are 16 teachers, but how many of each color not stated. The buildings are among the finest for educational purposes in the State.
Dec. 20-By an act of the legislature, a diploma from the law department of the University of Louisville has the same ef- fect as a license to practice law.
Dec. 20-An interesting newspaper ar- ticle revives the recollection of Gen. Zebu- lon M. Pike, who was killed in 1813, while capturing the British stronghold, ar- senal and storehouse of York in Upper Canada, and in honor of whom Pike co. was named in 1821. His remains lie bur- ied in the little family graveyard, on the bank of the Ohio, in its " North Bend," in Boone co.
The monument a few miles from Louis- ville, over the remains of Maj. Gen. Zach- ory Taylor, who died while U. S. presi- dent, is said to be sadly out of order. [Would not the State do an act of compara- tive justice, and respect the settled public sentiment, by removing the remains of these great soldiers to the State Cemetery, and erecting to each a suitable monument ?]
Dec. 20-Nathan Marx, a merchant from Evansville, Ind., murdered by Thomas L. Sullivan, railroad agent and merchant at " The Narrows" station on the Elizabeth - town and Paducah railroad, while asleep in bed at the house of the latter.
Dec. 22-Legislature adjourns to Jan. 5, over the holidays.
246z
ANNALS OF KENTUCKY,
1873.
Dec. 22-Gov. T. A. Hendricks, of Indi- | 12 years. The examining trial proved that Pettit was under the influence of liquor ; he was held to bail, in $15,000.
ana, pardons John M. Carlisle (aged 65) and his son Cyrus Carlisle (aged 43) citi- zens of Hopkins co., Ky., now in the In- diana State prison, sentenced on June 3, 1867, for life, for the alleged murder of Lieut. T. Y. Hampton, U. S. A., while being conveyed from Indiana to Ky. to be tried for the murder of a son and brother of the above and others, during the latter part of the war. It now appears that not they, but two others, were the guilty ones. Lieut. H. and his command had been guilty of some most atrocious murders of citizens.
Dec. 25-John Pettit, at 6 P. M., while riding on horseback through the town of Princeton, Caldwell co., had some fire- crackers thrown at him by small boys, and drew a pistol and fired into the crowd, killing Charley Scott, a lad of
Dec. 29-Rev. Stuart Robinson, D. D., lectures in Louisville, giving his personal experience in a three months' tour through Southern Europe, Lower Egypt, and Pal- estine.
Dec. 30-Jail of Oldham co., at La- grange, set on fire by a negro prisoner, and burned.
Dec. 30-The Ohio River Bridge Co., at Louisville, declares & 6 per cent. divi- dend.
Dec. 30 to Jan. 9-Examining trial of Philip B. Thompson, Sen., and his three sons, charged with the homicide of Theo- dore H. Daviess and two of his sons, on Nov. 26. . The sons discharged, but the father bound over in $5,000 to the circuit court.
THE FIRST SMALL CURRENCY IN KENTUCKY.
The early settlers of Kentucky experienced a difficulty common to all newly- settled countries-that of making " change." The skins of raccoons and other animals constituted the first currency. It was not long, however, before the tide of immigration brought in a small supply of silver coin. This was usually in the shape of Spanish milled dollars, and did not relieve the necessity for small change. The ingenuity of the people hit upon this expedient: The dol- lars were cut into four equal parts or quarters, worth twenty-five cents each, and these again divided into eighths or twelve-and-a-half-cent pieces. But it was a work of time and skill to thus make change; and it soon happened that the dollars were cut into fire quarters or ten eighths -or rather into pieces which passed for those sums - and this practice was justified on the like ground that toll is allowed millers, viz., to pay the expense of coinage. Mr. Charles Cist, in his Miscellany of pioneer history, says "this last description of change was nicknamed sharp shins, from the wedge shape, and speedily became as redundant, and, of course, as unpopular, as dimes were in 1841, when they ceased to pass eight or nine for a dollar." He remembered, as late as 1806, that the business house in Philadelphia in which he was an appren- tice received over one hundred pounds of cut silver, brought on by a Ken- tucky merchant, and which was then sent on a dray to the United States Mint for recoinage, greatly to the loss and vexation of the Kentuckian. Smaller sums than 123 cents were given out, by the retailers of goods, in pins, needles, writing-paper, &c. Mr. Bartle, who kept store on the corner of Broadway and Lower Market streets, in Cincinnati, for the convenience of making change, had a barrel of copper coins brought out from Philadelphia, in 1794, which 80 exasperated his brother storekeepers that they were scarcely restrained from mobbing him.
The writer of this remembers hearing a gentleman tell that, when a small boy, in 1806, in Fayette county, Kentucky, needing a spelling-book, he was required to stop school for a day, and "drop corn," to enable him to buy one-at nightfall receiving as his wages a "cut ninepence," of the pinched kind last above referred to.
The suspension of specie payments in 1837 is memorable for the entire dis- appearance of silver change, and the substitution of paper promises-to-pay or "shinplasters," in amounts usually less than one dollar, issued by cities, towns, villages, corporations, merchants and traders of all kinds, and even by coffee- house keepers. But when, in 1862, the exigencies of the civil war demanded a substitute for the retired silver change. the more fortunate expedient was adopted of confining the issue of fractional currency or small notes entirely to the General Government-thus giving them all the uniformity of value, freedom of circulation, and certainty of redemption of the larger national currency, the legal tender and National-bank notes.
CLARK. GEORGE ROGERS
GOV. ISAA O
SHELBY.
COL. DANIEL BOONE.
SIMON KENTON.
WILLIAM
STEWART.
KENTUCKY PIONEERS.
Engraved for Collins' History of Kentucky. Strobrigo & talath. tin.
The first six Chapters of the following OUTLINE HISTORY, to the top of page 328 in lusive, were written in 1846, by Hon. JOHN A. McCLUNG, then an eminent lawyer at Maysville, Ky., after- wards a distinguished Presbyterian clergyman. A few changes of dates and words have been made, to correspond with fuller information since.
R. H. C.
The closing Chapter of the OUTLINE HISTORY was written by Gen. GEORGE B. HODGE, of New port, Ky., at my special request. R. H. C.
OUTLINE HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
KENTUCKY was first explored by the Anglo-Saxon race, about the middle of the eighteenth century. It then formed a vast hunting-ground, upon which the savage tribes of the south and of the north killed the elk and buffalo, and occasionally encoun- tered each other in bloody conflict. No permanent settlements existed within its borders. Its dark forests and cane thickets separated the Cherokees, Creeks, and Catawbas of the south, from the hostile tribes of Shawanees, Delawares, and Wyandots of the north. Each, and all of these tribes, encountered the Anglo-American pioneer, and fiercely disputed the settlement of the country.
,It is certain, however, that these were not the original occu- pants of the country lying between the Alleghany mountains and the Mississippi river. Ancient monuments of deep interest, but as yet imperfectly investigated, speak in language not to be mistaken, of a race of men who preceded the rude tribes encoun- tered by Boone and Finley. Their origin, language, and history, are buried in darkness which, perhaps, may never be dispelled ; but the scanty vestiges which they have left behind them, enable us to affirm, with confidence, that they far surpassed the rude tribes which succeeded them, in arts, in civilization, and in know- ledge. They had certainly worked the copper mines of the west, and were in possession of copper tools for working in wood and stone. Their pipes, and household utensils elaborately fashioned, of clay, are far above the rude and clumsy contrivances of their successors ; while their large fortifications, constructed of solid masonry, and artificially contrived for defence and convenience, show that they had foes to resist, and that they had made con- siderable progress in the military art.
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