Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II, Part 58

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co.
Number of Pages: 1654

USA > Kentucky > Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II > Part 58

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The Falls of the Ohio, opposite Louisville, have a length of about 3 miles in the center line of the river, and the canal measures about 2 miles. The fol- lowing table shows the difference, at the different stages of the river, between the stand or height of the water at the head and that at the foot of the Falls .*

Rise in feet at head of the Falls.

Corresponding

Aggregate rise at the foot ascent of the of the Falls.

Rise in feet at head of the Falls.

Corresponding]

Aggregate

rise at the foot ascent of the

Falls.

of the Falls.

Falls.

2514

2814 to 2934

41% to 6

1 to

2414 to 2514

3034 “ 3134

315

41%

234 "

33%

2312

241/2

3216 " 3314

3 " 212

434

2214 " 2312

34 " 3434

215

714 “

834

2016

: 22

3514 " 36

214

1014 "

1311

" 20

14 to 20

3 1/2

1334 "

1714

“ 17 1/2

21 “ 4013

11/2

1914 " 2234

" 13

41@

2414 " 2714

91% 6

# Extreme high flood of 1832.

Thus the greatest fall of water is 25} feet; while the Schuylkill canal near Philadelphia-in a length of 3 miles and by means of a large dam stretching across the river-has only a maximum fall of 24 feet. More than 100 fac- tories and mills-supporting a population of over 20,000-are located along the banks of the Schuylkill canal; and yet the water-power of the Ohio can furnish motive-power to more than 300 factories and mills, and thereby sup- port more than 50,000 people. Four plans for the utilization of the Falls are

Material Interests of Kentucky and Louisville, p. 93.

HOWLAND

ST. PAUL'S (EPISCOPAL) CHURCH, LOUISVILLE.

-2

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, LOUISVILLE.

363

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

suggested : 1. Enlarge the present Louisville and Portland canal, and in- crease the height of water therein by building a dam clear across the river; 2. Build a new canal, parallel with the Portland canal, only for the location of factories and mills ; 3. Tap the Portland canal east of its lower locks, and build a new canal through Portland-gaining an enormous water-power and very convenient sites for factories and mills ; 4. Tap the Portland canal east of its lower locks, and cut a canal across Shippingport.

The Hydraulic Limestone, from which is manufactured at and opposite to Louisville immense quantities of water-lime or cement of superior quality, is shown, at the head of the Falls, 8 feet above low water; whereas, at the foot of the Falls, it is only 4 feet above low water; and at the quarry on the In- diana shore, 11 to 13 feet. It is an earthy limestone, of a slightly bluish- green ashen tint, with an earthy flat conchoidal fracture. Its characteristic constituents are : Lime 28.29, magnesia 8.89, pure silica 22.58, other earthy insoluble silicates 3.20, potash 0.32. The lime and silica are exactly in the proportion of their equivalents-to which definite chemical relation is due the hydraulic properties of the cement rock. This rock is remarkable for the facility with which it cracks, splits, and turns to calcareous mud, where ex- posed to the vicissitudes of the weather. After the rock is properly burnt and ground, the lime and silica unite, in connection with the water, to form a hydrated silicate of lime, in which there is one equivalent of silicic acid united to one equivalent of lime-which acts as a powerful cement, to ag- glutinate the grains of sand added in the mixed mortar, which is usually three times the bulk of the hydraulic lime employed .* In and near Louisville are 8 hydraulic cement factories, with an aggregate capital of $1,000,000, employ- ing 400 hands, to whom they pay $210,000 wages per year; their total annual product reaching $1,000.000.

The First Church was built in 1811, a Catholic chapel.

Second Church .- In 1812, by subscriptions of all the citizens, a church was built, under the direction of the Methodists, but open to ministers of all denominations.

The First Presbyterian church in Louisville was organized in 1816, with 16 members; the next year a building was erected for them.

Of Churches, in 1819 (when the population was nearly 4,000), there were but three-Presbyterian, Methodist, and Roman Catholic-the first named only being at all attractive in architecture. In Feb., 1873, there were 70 houses of worship, with over 50,000 sittings.

In 1832, the first Unitarian church was dedicated, the Louisville Hotel built, and the first City Directory, with a brief history of Louisville by Mann Butler, was published by R. W. Otis.

The First City School House was erected in 1829.

The First Daily Paper (the Journal) was published in 1838, on an imperial sheet. at $10 per annum. Soon after its establishment, the newspaper war between Geo. D. Prentice, of the Journal, and Shadrach Penn, jr., of the Ad- vertiser, was commenced; and became so well known for its wit and satire, that it was sought after far and near by the lovers of fun and humor; even the English journals had each their column headed-" Prenticeana."

The Court House built in 1811, after a plan drawn by John Gwathmey, was > then the handsomest structure of the kind in the west. It was of brick, con- sisted of a body and two wings-the body ornamented with an Ionic portico supported by four lofty columns, and by a cupola with a spire.

The Theatre, in 1818, was a handsome brick building, of three stories-pre- viously but little better than a barn-but in that year altered and fitted up with much taste by Mr. Drake.

The Hope Distillery, in 1819, at the lower end of Main street, opposite the commencement of the turnpike to Portland, was the first large establishment of the kind in the west, in which superior machinery was made to save vast amounts of hand labor ; 1,200 gallons of whisky per day were produced, and 5,000 hogs fed upon the residuum. In Feb., 1873, there were five distilleries in Louisville, producing 6,830 gallons of whisky per day.

* Ky. Geological Survey, ii, pp. 70, 71, 220.

364

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

The First Foundry in Louisville was in 1812, when Paul Skidmore com- menced the casting of iron, succeeded in 1815 by Joshua Headington, and in - 1817 by David l'rentice and Thos. Bakewell; the latter, in 1819, employing in the manufacture of steam-engines and other iron work, 60 hands whose wages were $600 per week. In Feb .. 1873, in the same branches of business were employed 1,550 hands, receiving $927,000 in wages, turning out $5,000,000 worth ; capital employed, $2,651,000 .*

The Louisville Library company was incorporated in 1816.

Of the Tobacco Manufactories, in 1819, two were employed in preparing strips for foreign markets, and several others made cigars, snuff, and chewing- tobacco; total annual product $80,000. In 1872, 14 plug-tobacco factories. with $462,000 capital, employed 1,180 hands, paying $320,900 for labor, and with $3,925,000 annual product; and 123 cigar factories, with 200 hands, paying $120,000 for labor, produced 11,835,500 cigars, valued at $355,065. Of 66,000 hogsheads, the Kentucky leaf tobacco crop of 1871, 48,071 were marketed in Louisville.

Bilious Fever .- In 1822. an epidemic almost depopulated the place. A . Board of Health was appointed to examine into the cause of the scourge fall- ing so heavily upon Louisville, but too late. The news spread and was so exaggerated that the growth of the city was greatly retarded; as it had pre- viously been by its general unhealthiness.

The Flood of 1832, in the Ohio, destroyed nearly all the frame buildings in Louisville near the river, and caused almost an entire cessation of busi- ness.

Portland was annexed to the city in 1837, the First Presbyterian and St. Paul's (Episcopal) churches were built; and also the Bank of Louisville. A new school of medicine was established, for which the city set apart 4 acres of ground and appropriated $50,000, part of which money was expended in Europe for a fine library and apparatus.

During the year 1839 Louisville was visited by America, a descendant of Amerigo Vespucci, for whom this continent was named.

In 1840 Louisville was lighted with gas.

A Great Fire occurred in 1840-destroying 30 houses-worth $300,000, be- sides much of their contents, on Third street, from near Market north to Main, and on both sides of Main, west of Third. The houses were mainly oc- cupied as large commercial stores.

Seven Children at a Birth .- On June 29, 1850, Dr. N. B. Anderson delivered a colored woman, in Louisville, of seven well formed children-four girls and three boys, all still-born.

Shippingport, with its few cabins at that early day, was incorporated in 1785 as Anonymous, in the act of the legislature; but the name supplied was Campbelltown, after the proprietor of the land, Col. John Campbell -- who, in 1803, sold the site, 45 acres, to James Berthoud. and he conveyed the greater part of it in 1806 to Louis A. and - Tarascon, two brothers from France, remarkable for enterprise and public spirit. The town-which had a popu; lation in 1810 of only 98, in 1820 of probably 400, and in 1830 of 606-was at the head of the navigation of the lower Ohio, for three-fourths of the year, and Louisville at the foot of that of the upper Ohio, until the completion of the Louisville and Portland canal in 1830-31. Its streets were curiously named-Front, Market. Tobacco, Bengal, Jackson, Hemp, Mill, Tarascon, the rest numbered 2d to 16th. In 1815-19, Messrs. Tarascon built at a cost of over $150,000, an enormous merchant flouring mill. 6 stories (102 feet) high, with capacity to manufacture 500 barrels of flour per day ; its machinery the most beautiful and perfect in the world ; with arrangements to drive wagons with grain under an arch, by the hopper of a scale. and discharge and weigh at the rate of 75 bushels in 10 minutes. The mill-race which supplied the water-power for it, had 2,662 feet of room for additional mill seats. The owners experimented, also, on the plan of a series of undershot wheels in the race above, to be propelled by the current only-designing to erect mills for cotton spinning, fulling, weaving, etc.

" The Material Interests of Kentucky and Louisville, 1873, page 69.

365

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

Antiquities .- Mounds or tumuli around Louisville were at an early day tol- erably numerous. Many have been opened by the curious, and the earth hauled away. In most of these only human bones, sometimes a few bones of the deer, were found. Some contained but one skeleton, from others, mounds of similar size, the remains of twenty or more were taken-mak- ing it very probable that the former were designed for the mausoleums of chiefs or distinguished persons, the latter for those of the community.

A few miles below Louisville, 60 years ago, two hatchets of stone were discovered, at a depth of 40 feet, near an Indian hearth-on which among other vestiges of a fire, were found two charred brands, evidently the extrem- ities of a stick that had been consumed in the middle, on this identical spot. " The whole of this plain is alluvial, and this fact shows to what depth that formation extends. But at the time the owners of these hatchets were seated by this fire, where was the Ohio river ? Certainly not in its present bed, for these remains are below its level. Where else could it have been ? for there are no marks of any obsolete water-course whatever, between the river and Silver Creek hills on the one side, and between the river and the Knobs on the other side."*

About 1808, in Shippingport, an iron hatchet was found under the center of an immense tree over six feet in diameter, whose roots extended 30 or 40 feet in each direction. The tree was cut down and its roots removed, to make room for the foundation of Tarascon's great mill. The hatchet was evidently formed out of a flat bar of wrought iron, heated to redness and bent double-leaving a round hole at the joint for the reception of a han- dle-the two ends being nicely welded together and hammered to a cutting edge .* The tree was over two hundred years old, and no human power could have placed it under the tree in the particular position in which it was found. It was there, and the tree grew over it. Who placed it there, and who made it ?

Almost exactly opposite this-a little below where Clarksville, Indiana, was situated in 1819-was the site of an Indian village, covered to a depth of six feet with alluvial earth. At that date, large quantities of human bones, in a very advanced stage of decomposition, were found interspersed among the hearths, and scattered in the soil beyond them. The village must have been surprised by an enemy, and after the terrible battle which ensued, the bones of the combatants in large numbers left upon the spot. "Had it been a common burial-place, something like regularity would have been evinced in the disposition of the skeletons; neither would we have found them in the same plane with the fire-places of an extensive settlement, or near it, but below it."*

In Nov., 1871, in a gravel-pit at the corner of 14th and Kentucky streets, in Louisville, were found, 14 feet below the surface, the tooth of an ele- phant, and a petrified fish. A few feet deeper, other curiosities were found- such as pieces of coal, a silicious pebble containing golden-colored micaceous scales, fossil polyps, etc.

Clarksville, on the. Indiana shore, immediately opposite Shippingport, was established in 1783 by the legislature of Virginia, as part of the Illinois grant; but was an unhealthy site and had a sickly existence. In 1819, there were only a few one-story log houses, with less than 100 inhabitants.

Clark's Conquest of Illinois .- See page 19, vol. i, and the biography of Gen. George Rogers Clark, under Clark county.

Charles Gratiot -- born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1747; educated in Eng- land in the Huguenot faith of his fathers; died in St. Louis in 1817: at the time of the conquest of Cahokia and Kaskaskia by , Gen. Clark in 1778, had stores at each place, and was the managing head and master-spirit of a nun- ber of trading-stores at points convenient to the Indians. Although Gen. Clark had conquered the country, he had little means to purchase stores, and no supplies of provisions and stores for his small army. The army was in a starving and destitute condition, and must perish unless supported off the re- sources of the country. No relief came from Virginia ; but Gratiot stepped forward and paid or assumed to pay to the poor citizens the supplies they

* McMurtrie's Louisville, page 87.

366

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

furnished to the American army while it remained there. It was a large sum. The state of Virginia was honorable, but she was poor. The Revolu- tionary war was exhausting her resources at home. Not much, if any thing, has ever been paid back to him or his family by the government. " Virginia, always noble and generous in her councils, agreed to give Gratiot 30,000 acres of land-on the south-east bank of the Ohio, including the present city of Louisville; but before the grant was completed, Kentucky was organized as a state, and the promise to Gratiot was never completed-more for the want of timely application than otherwise. The general assembly of Virginia placed the claims of Gratiot on the list to be paid prior to many other debts; but it remains unpaid."*

The Kentucky Giant, James D. Porter, was born near Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1810, and taken by his parents in 1811 to Shippingport, at the foot of the Louisville and Portland canal, where he spent his life, dying there, April 24, 1859. For the first 14 years of his life he was small for his age-so much so that he was often engaged to ride races on the old track where the " Elm 'i'ree Garden " was. His remarkable growth commenced at 17, when he was apprenticed to coopering. It is said that the most he ever grew in one week was one inch. So singularly rapid was his growth, that he prac- ticed the habit of measuring himself every Saturday night. When he grew too tall to make barrels, he was employed on hogsheads; but this soon be- came an impossible kind of work, owing to his extraordinary height. He was 7 feet 9 inches (or as he jocularly expressed it, 6 feet and 21 inches) in height-the tallest man in the world, since the death of the celebrated Irish giant, Patrick O'Brien, who was over 8 feet high, and his hands measured 12 inches from the commencement of the palms to the end of the middle finger; he was born in 1761, and died in 1806, having been exhibited at all Euro- pean fairs for 22 years. Porter, when he had gotten " too big " for his trade, kept'and drove hacks for a living, but soon grew tired of the univer- sal curiosity and staring at his presence, and inquiries about himself. He then opened and kept a coffee-house, until his death-except in 1836-7,when he was persuaded to travel about awhile and exhibit himself, in company with Maj. Stephens and another dwarf, in a dramatization from Swift's "Gul- liver's Travels," prepared for him by a literary friend. In the summer of 1842, when traveling in this country, Charles Dickens, the great English novelist, called to see him, and was heartily amused at Jim's description of his growth-" while he was growing his mother had to sew a foot on his pantaloons every night." MeKaskell, the Scotch giant who traveled for ex- hibition, claiming to be 8 feet 5 inches high, called upon Mr. Porter, whom he found to be at least a head taller; and when they stood face to face, and reached out their hands, the Scotchman's fingers did not reach to Porter's wrists. Porter scorned to magnify his height, and still more to see others magnify themselves as McKaskell did. He was large-boned and angular, weighing when in good health about 300 pounds. He kept a cane, a rifle, and a sword proportioned to his size-the rifle 8 feet long, the cane 4} feet high, 2 inches thick, and weighing 6 to 7 pounds; it resembled a bed-post twisted, it being spiral in shape; the sword was 5 feet long, and large in pro- portion, made and presented to him by a Springfield, Mass., manufacturer. Geo. D. Prentice, in his obituary notice of M .. Porter, wrote that "among his fellow-men, he was a high-minded, honorable gentleman."

First Child born in Jefferson County .- Isaac Kimbly, in June, 1852, called upon the editor of the Louisville Journal, and stated that he was born on Corn island, in 1779, and was the first child born in Jefferson county. His home then was in Orleans, Orange co., Indiana. In 1854, Capt. Thomas Joyes had the reputation of being the first child born in Louisville. If born Dec. 9, 1787, as stated, it is probable that several children were born there before that date, the settlement having been begun 11 years before, in 1778. During the spring of 1780, 300 large family boats arrived at the Falls, and as many as 10 or 15 wagons could be seen of a day, going from them. By this time

* Gov. John Reynolds' Pioneer History of Illinois, p. 257.

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

367

there were six stations on Beargrass, with a population of 600 men .* Elisha Applegate, still living in Louisville (Feb., 1873), was born in 1781, at Sulli- van's Old Station, 5 miles s. E. of Louisville, on the Bardstown road.

The First Woman Married in Louisville was Mrs. Lucy Brashears. She was born in Virginia, in July, 1761 ; was in the fort at Boonesborough during the siege in 1778; and died in Madison county, Ky., in Nov., 1854, aged 93.+

Early Surveyors .- On Dec. 17, 1775, as appears from a deposition, Abraham Hite, Isaac Hite, Joseph Bowman, Peter Casey, Nathaniel Randolph, Ebenezer Severns, and Moses Thompson were together, surveying on Harrod's creek.

Capt. James Knox-who was the leader of the party of "Long Hunters " in southern-middle, Kentucky in 1770-71, Capt. Edward Worthington, Henry Skaggs, and others, about 40 in all-on Oct. 30, 1779, was "entitled to " 400 acres of land on the waters of Beargrass creek, "on account of marking out the said land, and of having raised a crop of corn in the country, in 1775."

The Names of the Surveying Party, to recall whom, on account of threatened Indian hostilities, the colonial Gov. Dunmore sent an order by Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner, in the summer of 1774, are not certainly known. But depositions and other papers make it reasonably certain that Hancock Taylor, Abraham Haptonstall, and Willis Lee (who were surveying together in now Jefferson county on May 26th, 1774,) and Col. John Floyd, James Sandusky or Sodowsky, and John Smith, were of the party. James Harrod was in the country at the same time, and may have been connected with the company.

Oldham's Expedition .- In June, 1787, a military expedition was made, under Maj. Wmn. Oldham, upon the waters of the Wabash, but nothing was done.

The Muster Roll of Capt. James Brown's company of mounted Kentucky volunteers in the service of the United States against the Wiaw Indians, com- manded by Brig. Gen. Charles Scott-" mustered in at the Rapids of the Ohio, June 15, 1791, by Capt. B. Smith, Ist U. S. reg't."-is still preserved. It con- sisted of 1 captain, 1 lieutenant, 1 ensign, 4 sergeants, and 71 privates present and 1 absent (James Craig, who was "lost in the woods" while traveling from the interior to Louisville).

James Brown, Phillips Caldwell, John Hadden,

Jas. Nourse,

Captain,

Peter Carr,

Robert Hall,

Robert Patterson,

Wm. McConnell,

John Caswell,

Thos. Hanna, John Peoples,

Lieutenant,

Wm. Clark,

Win. Hanna, Arthur Points,

Joshua Barbee, Ensign,

Robert Conn,

Randolph Harris,

Francis Points,

Joseph Mosby, 1st Sergeant,

Wm. Davidson,

David Humphreys, Benj. Price,

Adam Hanna, 2d Sergeant,

Wm. Dougherty,

David Humphries, Wm. Reading,

Robert Irvin, Win. Rogers,

Samuel Mellvain, 3d Sergeant, Wm. Kincaid,

Hugh Drennon, Nat. Dryden, Alex. Dunlap, Jas. Dunlap, Robert Elliston,

Samuel Jackson,

Geo. Sia,

Gabriel Jones,

Wm. Smith,

4th Sergeant,

Matthew English, Nicholas Leigh,

Jos. Stephenson,

Wm. Baker,

John Ferrell, - Benj. Fisher, Morgan Forbes,

Abraham McClellanJohn Strickland,

John Brown,

Jos. McDowell, Edmund Taylor,

Samuel Buckner,

Jas. Forgus, John Fowler,

John Mellvaine, Stephen Trigz,

John Caldwell,

Alex. Gilmore, Job Glover,

Moses Mellvaine, Joshua Whittington

Percy Pope,

James Craig, Robert Curry,

John Henderson, Andrew Hodge,

Samuel Porter,

David Knox,

John Speed,

James Knox,

John Stephenson,

Aaron Adams,

Richard Lewis, Geo. Loar, Sam. Stevenson,

Robert Stephenson,

Edward Bartlett, Alex. Black,

Richard Burk,

Louisville Soldiers Build the First House at Cincinnati .- In the spring of 1780, severe retaliation was determined upon as the surest means of stopping the. incursions of the Indians. Accordingly, Gen. George Rogers Clark sum- moned troops from the interior of Kentucky to meet him at the mouth of Licking; and gathered other troops from the fort at the Falls, and from the six stations (with their 600 men) on Beargrass, near the Falls. " The people

* Col. John Floyd. See Butler's Ky., p. 99, t Maysville Eagle, Nov. 23, 1854.

368

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

placed themselves, myself among them," says John McCaddon, of Newark, Ohio, in a communication* dated May 16, 1842, " under the command of Col. Clark, who at that time was almost the idol of Kentuckians. We started from the Falls, now Louisville. On our way up the river to where Cincinnati now stands, Capt. Hugh McGary, a famous Indian hunter, had placed him- self on the Indian side of the river-frequently boasting that they lived better than we did, for they kept their hunters out to procure ineat. The main body kept the Kentucky shore. One day, when the main body stopped for dinner, MeGary's men, as usual, halted opposite to us. When we were ready to march, they concluded to cross over to our side-as they discovered fresh Indian tracks. They had got but a few yards from the shore, when they were fired upon from the top of the bank. They seemed to have no alternative but to jump out and mix with the Indians as they ran down the bank. Col. Clark's barge was instantly unloaded and filled with men ; but before they got across, they heard the Indians give the scalp halloo, on the top of the river hill. . . . At the place where Cincinnati now is, it was necessary to build a block-house, for the purpose of leaving some stores, and some wounded men we got of McGary's company. I may therefore say, that although I did not cut a tree, or lift a log, I helped to build the first house ever built on that ground-for I was at my post in guarding the artificers who did the labor of building. When this was done, we penetrated into the interior in search of Indians. We found their town, Chillicothe, on the head of the Little Miami, already burned by themselves. We next arrived at Piqua, on the Mad river; where they gave us battle, but were forced to fly. After cutting down their corn-which was then in roasting ear, and on which we subsisted while there-we burnt their town, and made the best of our way home. We were not so fortunate as to reach Kentucky without the loss of a few more men."

A Presidential Visit .- The only president of the United States who, during his official term, ever visited Kentucky-excepting the two from Tennessee, Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, when passing through on a visit to their homes at Nashville, and Ulysses S. Grant, when on short visits to his aged parents in Covington-was the 5th president, James Monroe, in the summer of 1817. He made a personal examination of the arsenals, naval depots, for- tifications, and garrisons along the northern border, from Maine to Michigan, and passed down to Louisville, thence to Washington. He wore the undress uniform of officers in the Revolutionary war-a blue military coat of home- spun, light-colored underclothes, and a cocked hat. Many surviving soldiers of that war met him at Louisville, and in conversing with their comrade, who had been a colonel in the war, " fought their battles over again." It will be remembered that Gen. Washington, while surveying lands in western Virginia, between 1770 and 1772 (some 18 years before he became president), got over into what is now Kentucky, and surveyed for John Fry one tract on the Little Sandy river in Greenup county, and another on the Big Sandy, in Vir- ginia and extending into what is now Lawrence county, Ky., where Louisa is. [See under Lawrence county.]

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Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II, Part 58

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn Publication date: 1874 Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co. Number of Pages: 1654

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co.
Number of Pages: 1654