USA > Kentucky > Madison County > Glimpses of historic Madison County, Kentucky > Part 7
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Lots at the intersection of Main and First sold for $26 while some others brought as much as $50. The people of the county were prosperous in those days and a little log manufacturing village developed rapidly. It was incorporated in 1809. By 1812 there was a log tavern at Main and First streets. By 1818 Joseph Lee was spinning cotton by steam in large quantities and the women sang his praises far and near; nails in quantities were being hand cut by John Grimes, the local printer; there was a weekly news- paper and even books were being printed by the local press; saddles were made by the thousands; hemp and rope factories were num- erous; and much furniture of a desirable quality was hand made. In 1812 a log hotel built by Robert Miller stood at the northeast corner of Main and First streets. Later it was replaced by a three story brick hotel which burned in 1874.
In 1817 an Independent Bank for Richmond was chartered with capital stock of $200,000, but it, like many other private banks of those days, was short lived, its charter being repealed three years later. Notes issued by this bank may be seen today in the Eastern Museum.
In an early day, before any concerted effort was made to improve roads, during the rainy months, the streets of Richmond as well
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as the country roads were almost impassable. It was necessary to walk out to the west end of Main Street to take the stage coach and it is said that on Sundays at church time a boy with a saddled horse was stationed at Main and First to ferry the ladies across to the courthouse to church. Church buildings were late in coming to the town therefore, services were held in the courthouse.
One land mark which has long since disappeared was the powder magazine built in 1857 by the trustees of Richmond on the bluff of the old cemetery on East Main Street opposite from what is now Smith Ballard. The cemetery had been removed farther out on the opposite side of the street a few years earlier, being dedi- cated on May 30, 1856. The magazine was not used much by local merchants because of dampness. Gen E. Kirby Smith used it while in Richmond in 1862 and kept it guarded. Perhaps it was used by the Federals too while they were in control here. In size it was about six by ten or twelve feet, and nine feet high and had heavy iron doors. It was torn down in 1879.
It might be interesting to note that the first powder used here was sent out from the still existing powder magazine at Williams- burg, Virginia and was brought in by way of the Ohio River.
The first locally made powder in Kentucky was made by Monk, a faithful slave who came in 1776 with his master Capt. James Estill. In an Indian attack on Ft. Estill in 1782 Monk was captured but through his cunning remarks about the large number of men within the fort-there were only two and they were both ill-he saved the fort from further attack. Late the following day he escaped from his captors at the Battle of Little Mountain and after the disastrous loss of brave men, Monk carried the wounded James Berry of Harrodsburg back to the settlement. The Estill family soon gave Monk his freedom and he lived for many years a highly respected citizen of the community.
The East Main Street bridge across Dreaming Creek or Town Creek as it was first called was built in 1818 at a cost of $250. Evidently the dam of a mill established at that point at a much earlier date had served as a crossing.
The streets of Richmond were not to be muddy always. In 1835 First and Second streets opposite the courthouse were macadamized. In 1837 East Main Street from First to the bridge was macadamized. The court had appropriated $500 for the im-
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provement of Main Street adjoining the courtyard in 1830 on con- dition that the property owners on the opposite side cooperate.
In 1853 the office of police judge for Richmond was created and soon thereafter that of town marshall was created.
There has been a gradual growth in population through the years and several times has it felt the need of extending its limits. In 1890 it was extended to a circle one-half mile in radius from the courthouse. The town has made rapid growth in the decade since World War II. Now in almost every direction land which was blue grass pasture or producing golden tobacco a few years ago is today developed into improved streets lined with beautiful modern homes with numerous children playing on the green. The present population of Richmond is about 11,000.
In 1878 Prof. T. W. Tobin of Central University, having read a description of the recently invented Bell telephone, proceeded to construct one himself. He first talked between the University and Taylor's clothing store. A line was extended to Silver Creek, then on to Stanford. Richmond had a telephone system in 1879, the only system in the state outside of Louisville. In 1880 several private lines were put up in Richmond,-one of the systems earliest directories may be seen in the museum at Eastern-but for a period during the eighties the exchange was closed because of a suit against Prof. Tobin for infringing on patent rights.
Richmond was relatively early in securing public utilities. The gas works, a private corporation, was chartered in 1873. The plant was constructed at the foot of Walnut Street at a cost of $60,246. This included seven and one-half miles of ten inch gas mains and street lamps. The gas was turned on May 14, 1874.
The Electric Light Company was chartered in 1884.
In 1881 Richmond prided herself on possessing twelve public wells and cisterns. But in 1888 a water works corporation was chartered. Ten and one-half miles of water main were laid and sixty-five fire hydrants were installed besides a fountain and four water troughs all at a cost of $120,000. The city paid $3,000 per year for fire protection. In 1890 the Richmond Water and Light Company was formed by the purchase and consolidation of the three above corporations under one syndicate. In later years there was another reorganization, natural gas replaced artificial and the Water, Gas, and Sewerage Works was organized and is owned by
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the city, Electric power is operated by the Kentucky Utilities.
A splendid stone three story Federal building was erected on West Main Street in 1891. The first floor is occupied by the post office while the second floor is the seat of the Federal Court of the Sixth Judicial district.
For many years Richmond has had a splendid nine-hole golf course and only in recent years has the membership erected an attractive club house and swimming pool thus easily caring for the recreational activities of its membership.
Richmond is today a thriving third class city surrounded by a prosperous farming community; stimulated by a college of about 2,000 students; and bolstered economically by a Westinghouse plant and the near by Bluegrass Ordnance Plant.
WESTINGHOUSE IN RICHMOND
When the Lamp Division of the Westinghouse Electric Corpo- ration embarked on its post-war expansion program of building four new manufacturing plants, it surveyed possible sites the country over. Many requirements had to be met, but chief among them was a good supply of natural gas, which is essential to lamp making; convenient rail shipping facilities, such as the Louisville and Nashville Railroad; and the availability of labor, plus the willingness of the citizens to have a plant in their town. All of these requirements were met in Richmond, and in March, 1947 Westinghouse announced its plans to build a lamp plant here.
Selecting a 13-acre site on 2nd Street that was formerly known as the Moberly Farm, the company constructed an L-shaped building of brick and aluminum containing some 75,000 square feet of floor space. An additional warehouse building is contemplated in 1955 that will add another 16,000 square feet for the storage of raw materials and finished lamps.
Beginning operations with only 15 machine operators and machinists on the rolls, the plant produced its first finished product in October, 1948. Only a year later, employment had reached nearly 250, and it now stands at well over 500. Early production con- sisted of only a few kinds of miniature lamps-today more than 2,000 different types of lamps are produced every year at a rate of more than seven million a month.
In getting the plant into operation, lamp making specialists
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from other Westinghouse plants served as instructors in teaching new employees from Richmond and nearby Kentucky towns, but most of this training cadre has since returned to jobs in other plants. The transition from earlier jobs, in most cases nontechnical, to the precision job of lamp making has been a notable employee accomplishment. A great number of foreman and other supervisory employees are natives of the Richmond area.
The line of miniature lamps manufactured by Westinghouse at Richmond runs the gamut from a tiny lamp with built-in-lens for pencil-size flashlights to a lamp some two inches in diameter for searchlight use. In between come Christmas tree lamps, lamp bulbs for sewing machines, refrigerators, pinball games, switch- boards, automobile dashboards and many other specialized ap- plications.
Special designing and precision manufacturing are the most important activities at the Richmond plant. The factory manu- factures lamps that are manufactured at none of the other Westing- house lamp plants, and in some cases, by no other manufacturer in the lamp industry.
One of the more interesting lamps is one containing krypton, one of the rare gases, that is used in miner's caps throughout the world, from the coal mines of this country to the diamond mines of South Africa. To avoid the explosions that can occur when ordi- nary lights come in contact with volatile gases, the krypton bulb, mounted in an airtight headlamp, will cease burning instantly if the glass shield is broken in an accident.
Other highly special lamps include those used to translate the sound track on the edge of motion picture film into the audible sound you hear in a movie theater; shockproof lamps for Army tank control panels; lamps with light output in all directions for use on floating buoys; and precision lamps for use in electronically measuring the wheel alignment on automobiles.
The special skills and manufacturing techniques available at Richmond are a vital factor in supplying the numerous types of lamps required by industry, and in making Westinghouse a leading contributor to the market.
BEREA
The formal government of the city of Berea originated in the
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year 1890 as a result of an act of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky to incorporate the town of Berea, in Madison County, Kentucky, passed April 3, 1890. The Constitu- tion of the Commonwealth at that time provided for the incorpora- tion of villages with a population of under one thousand persons into sixth class cities.
This act provided for an election to be held on the first Saturday in May, 1890, by the qualified voters resident in the incorporated limits in order to elect five city trustees, a police judge, and a town marshall. This board of trustees was to be a "body corporate and politic" for the town of Berea.
Thus it was that on May 9, 1890, in the office of the Treasurer of Berea College, Josiah Burdette, P. B. Johnson, A. W. Titus, Richard Cornelius, and P. D. Dodge, as the newly elected trustees, held the first meeting of the town board. This board elected Josiah Burdette as their chairman, E. T. Fish as secretary, and A. J. Hanson as treasurer, as was required by the charter. It is interesting to note that among these original offices and members of the first board, Mr. E. T. Fish is still living on a farm not far from Berea.
The charter granted to the town provided not only for the dates of the city elections and the governmental officers, but also set forth the corporation limits of the town, and provided for the board to set the tax rates and pass ordinances.
The power to levy taxes was limited in amount to not more than twenty-five cents on each one hundred dollars worth of property, and a maximum of one dollar for each tithe (poll tax). The board could also tax auction sales and shows. Fines could be levied by the board for violations of the city ordinances not in excess of fifty dollars, the sum of which was to be recovered by the police judge.
The board was given exclusive control over the streets, alleys, and sidewalks, and could direct the improvement of these in order to benefit the town. When the newly formed town board held its second meeting it was necessary for it to divide itself into three committees, one on streets and sidewalks, one on stock and sanitation, and one on law and order. This committee division represented the major areas of concern of the first city government, and the city council today divides itself into similar committees.
The first ordinances passed by the board set a ten dollar
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penalty for shooting firearms in the city limits, prohibited the riding of horses on the sidewalks, and set a fifty cent fine for each hog found loose in the town. They also ruled that no game of chance was to be played within the town. A license fee was set for persons vending from booths or wagons in the town, and it is evident through all of the early records that the town had a major job in licensing all the vendors who ran booths and peddled goods, especially at the time of the annual college commencement day.
Five months after the first town board was elected they passed an ordinance requiring all the town's able bodied men between the ages of sixteen and fifty to work two days out of each week on the streets and alleys until the ways were passable. There was to be a two dollar fine for not reporting, and the city marshall was to supervise the work. This ordinance brought about the first legal case against the town of Berea. A Mr. Coyle sued in the county court against the legality of the ordinance, and the court issued an injunction stopping the work which was later upheld. This suit cost the city fifty-seven dollars and fifty cents, and the board had to press the town marshall to increase the collections of taxes and license fees in order to pay the costs.
The first property assessment and tax for the town was voted a little less than a year after its government was organized. The tax was fifteen cents on one hundred dollars worth of property, and one dollar tithe. By July, 1893, the town's tax assessor reported $105,511 worth of taxable property within the corporation limits.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky had adopted a new Constitution in 1891, which set forth new laws for the governing of sixth class cities, but the board had been unable to obtain copies of the new laws until May 10, 1894, and by that time it was discovered there should have been a new election for the village trustees the previous November. The county clerk was supposedly responsible for the election arrangements. The clerk in Richmond, however, had not provided for a city election, so a committee was appointed to petition the county judge to re-appoint the trustees until the following November elections. The judge did make the appoint- ments, and the town was prevented from being without legal officers for several months.
Since its organization the board of trustees had been having con-
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siderable trouble with the town's police judge and the city mar- shall for their negligence in properly reporting the handling of the fines and taxes which they had collected. This brought about, on May 19, 1894, the appointment of the town's first attorney, a Mr. O. H. Brewer, whose first duty was to investigate the records of these officers. His report stated that the records were "most un- satisfactory."
The first application for the installation of a public utility in the town came in 1895 when the Berea Telephone Company applied for permission to erect a telephone line between the post office and the railroad station. This application represents the first of many that followed for the use of the city's streets by public service utilities.
The town board was also responsible for the maintenance of the town pump, which was the nearest thing to a public water supply at that time, and almost every board meeting was concerned with seeing that the pump was repaired and kept in a sanitary con- dition. The board also found it necessary to establish a town- lock up for prisoners, the first one being a room rented from the college. A stray pen for hogs found running on the streets was also maintained by the city under the supervision of the marshall.
By the year 1898 the problem of keeping the streets in good repair was solved by allowing the payment of a maximum of ten cents an hour for persons hired to work on the streets. This money was to come from a raise in property taxes to twenty-five cents on one hundred dollars. The population of the town in 1898 is listed in the record books at 567 white and 204 colored residents, with 371 males and 402 females. Also in this same year an ordinance was passed forbidding the playing of marbles or the rolling of hoops on the sidewalks of the town.
Some interesting personalities appeared early in the govern- ment of the town of Berea. In 1896 John L. Gay was appointed clerk to the board of trustees, and this is the same Mr. Gay who in 1949 has been the mayor of the city for forty consecutive years. The city also had a colored man as a clerk for a term during its first years, a Mr. J. S. Hathaway.
A census of the town's population taken early in 1908 showed that the city had at that time 1224 persons as residents. Under the new state constitution cities with a population of over 1000 and
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under 3000 were to be classed as fifth class cities, so the Town Board petitioned the State Legislature for a re-classification. This started the proceedings for bringing the city under new laws and a new system of government. This new organization instituted in 1908 by the re-classification resulted in the form of government as we know it in Berea today-by William B. Welsh, opening section of a paper entitled "Government In The City Of Berea, Kentucky," Berea College, May 1949.
VILLAGES
There are villages of the County that should be mentioned. Kirksville was first called Centerville (1843-45). Its name was changed to honor Samuel Kirkendall, who began the operation of a store there about 1832. It is in the midst of a prosperous farm- ing region and is certain to be seen by visitors to the large pre- historic mound near on the highway at another place called Mounds. Kirksville has an attractive public school plant. Elliott's Institute, established in 1882, and operated until about 1900, was located there.
A post office was located at Kingston in 1846. The village was named for Theodore King, the first merchant and tailor in the community. The old two-story, frame building there was used as a school for colored children after enactment of the Day law in 1904 forbidding Negroes and whites to attend the same schools in Kentucky. Colored pupils and students could no longer attend the Foundation School and College at Berea. Later Lincoln Memorial Institute, near Shelbyville, caused the school at Kingston to be abandoned. A chapter of the Masonic Order now occupy the building. One of Madison's consolidated schools is located at this village.
About 1847, apparently, Phil A. Huffman came to the community now called Waco and bought a pottery from Mathew D. Grinstead. According to French Tipton, Huffman named the place Waco, be- cause he liked Waco, Texas, which got its name from the Huero Indians. At Waco and nearby Bybee a fine grade of pottery has been made since the 1840's. The superior clay of this community was awarded a centennial medal at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876. Some of General John Hunt Morgan's raiders visited Waco during the Civil War and, on learning that Valentine Baumstark,
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the operator of the pottery plant there, was a Union sympathizer, broke up the ware ready for the market and damaged the establish- ment. Another County consolidated school is at Waco.
Near Waco is a community, now a group of buildings, once named Texas. Oldham, a commissioner appointed to divide Nathan Lips- comb's 2700 acre estate in 1843, while riding over the land, was pulled from his horse by a large growth of briers. When he got up he exclaimed: "I wouldn't have all this damned Texas country as a gift." After the Civil War the postal authorities rec- ognized a community in Washington County as Texas and as- signed the name College Hill to the community heretofore called Texas in Madison. College Hill was chosen because a school established there in 1860's had been changed from Texas Seminary to College Hill Seminary. This school was also known as Ayer's Seminary from its chief benefactor, Dr. Jeremiah Ayers, who lived in the community. (See the senior author's Old Cane Springs, pp. 133-34. )
Valley View was laid out on the Kentucky River and named in 1891, by J. H. Powell and S. F. Rock, the latter, apparently, a civil engineer. For some time after 1900 the village flourished as a lumber producing community. The Mobry-Robinson Lumber Company converted hundreds of thousands of logs, rafted down the Kentucky River to that place, into millions of feet of lumber. Dur- ing this period the town prospered and increased to 1500 or 2000 people. With the disappearance of timber in the upper river area the sawing of lumber ceased, and Valley View decreased con- siderably in population. The village of Ford on the Clark County side of the Kentucky River, a short distance above Boonesborough, also prospered during the same period. A great hydro-electric plant has recently been constructed at Ford.
Elliston was named for Thomas S. Ellis, who bought a water mill on Muddy Creek, in 1848, from Talton Embry. Ellis ground corn and flour, and operated a saw mill at the place. He had a store, was postmaster, and was treasurer of the Richmond-Irvine Pike Company. He was a great nephew of Captain William Ellis, the military leader of the historic Traveling Church ( Baptist ) which came to Kentucky from Virginia in 1781.
D. G. Martin named Brassfield for his grandmother, whose maiden name was Brass. Doylesville was named for Pat Doyle, 1. Abrer O.
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who was the first merchant in the community. This region abounded in cedar, which was cut and rafted to mills down the Kentucky River, in early times. Cedar fences enclosed many farms. Some twenty or twenty-five years ago many miles of cedar rail, worm fences were sold to a Tennessee pencil manufacturer. The com- pany removing the fences replaced them with wire and post fences. Some time later the growing cedar in the community was cut and sawed into lumber at a mill near Richmond.
CHAPTER VI The Madison Press
RICHMOND PAPERS
T HE NEWSPAPERS played an important role in the life of Madison . County from an early date, and never since the establishment of the first press has the community been without one or more presses. Lexington had supported a newspaper since 1787 when the Bradford brothers established The Kentucky Gazette.
Dr. Thomas White Ruble, a Virginian, came to Richmond in 1805, but it was not until he had moved about and he and his son had run The Globe or Universal Register at Danville for a brief time that he returned to Richmond and started the town's first newspaper, The Globe-Register on November 2, 1809. The follow- ing year he sold his interests, excepting the press, for $300 to John A. Grimes, who changed its name to The Luminary. A copy of The Luminary, dated August 28, 1813, is in the library of the Kentucky Historical Society at Frankfort. According to the Sec- retary of the Society, Mr. Bayless Hardin, it is number six of volume three, and contains "four pages, each twelve by nineteen inches, with four columns to the page. The first page carries a list of acts passed at the first session of the Thirteenth Congress. There is also a letter from Major General William Harrison to the Secretary of War, and other material about the War of 1812. The second page carries more news on the War of 1812. The same is continued on the third page, the last column carrying ads about tobacco. The last page carries ads in the last two columns, one about Irvine's Inn, and 'cash for wool.'" Other ads were "cash for wool," again, new goods for sale, and about the saddle business. Richmond was then really only four years old since the town had been chartered in 1809. The manufacture of saddles seems to have begun early in Richmond and continued until the day of automobiles. There was a misunderstanding over the deal and a lawsuit ensued. However, that first year, 1810, Grimes and his printer, E. Harris, printed for Dr. Ruble a two volume work entitled The American Medica Guide for the Use of Families, probably the first of its kind published west of the Alleghenies. Dr.
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