USA > Kentucky > Fayette County > Lexington > History of Lexington, Kentucky : its early annals and recent progress, including biographical sketches and personal reminiscences of the pioneer settlers, notices of prominent citizens, etc., etc. > Part 25
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The Lexington Orphan Asylum originated from the cal- amities occasioned by the cholera, which left children desti- tute and unprotected. A public meeting was held at the court-house on Wednesday, July 17, 1833,; to raise funds to establish an asylum for these children. It was largely attended, and $4,400 were collected for the purpose. A house and lot, formerly the property of Dr. James Fish- back, and located on Third street, between Broadway and Jefferson, where the asylum has ever since remained, was purchased, and on Wednesday, August 14th, the institu- tion was organized with the following managers, viz : Mrs. Wickliffe, Mrs. Sayre, Mrs. Tilford, Mrs. Gratz, Mrs. Er- win, Mrs. Bruen, Mrs. W. Richardson, Mrs. Putnam, Mrs. Chipley, Mrs. J. Norton, Mrs. Graves, Mrs. Dewees, Mrs. Ward, Mrs. L. Stephens, Mrs. J. W. Hunt, Mrs. Peers, Mrs. Leavy, Mrs. Macalester, Mrs. Ross, Mrs. Geohegan, Miss Edmiston, Miss Barry, Miss M. Merrill, and Mrs. Short. The managers furnished the house, procured a matron and an assistant, and gathered and sheltered all the destitute orphans in the city who had been deprived of both parents.
The institution has no permanent fund, and is supported
*City Records.
fObserver and Reporter.
327
THE ORPHAN ASYLUM.
1833.]
by subscriptions and donations from any who are disposed to aid in the support of orphans.
The citizens of Lexington have never allowed it to lan- guish for want of support, but the most liberal and sub- stantial aid it has received since its establishment, was in 1866, when, by means of public liberality, its buildings- were greatly enlarged and improved.
328
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
i 1834.
CHAPTER LVIII.
Great Revival-Branch Bank of Kentucky-St. Catharine's Academy-City Schools-James O. Harrison's Adminis- tration.
THE fearful cholera experience of Lexington was not without its beneficial effects. Saddened and chastened, the city turned to religion for consolation, and in 1834, a great revival was the result. Meetings were held for nearly a month, and four hundred additions were made to the various churches .*
A branch of the Bank of Kentucky was established in Lexington in 1834, its first board being Benjamin Gratz, Norman Porter, James Hamilton, Stephen Swift, Joseph Bruen, W. H. Rainey, J. G. Mckinney, David Heran. After a successful existence of thirty-one years, the insti- tution discontinued business March 13, 1865. The last officers of the bank were Henry Bell, president; H. B. Hill, cashier; H. B. Hill, Jr., teller; E. S. Duncanson, book-keeper; John Carty, D. M. Craig, George Brand, M. P. Lancaster, John G. Allen, directors.
St. Catharine's Academy, on Limestone street, between Winchester and Constitution, was transferred to Lexington in 1834,; from Scott county, Kentucky, where it had been founded four years before. St. Catharine's is a branch of the Roman Catholic Academy of Nazareth, near Bardstown, in this state, and is conducted by sisters of charity. The first superioress of St. Catharine's was Annie Spalding, a relative of the late Archbishop Spalding, and a gifted and accomplished woman. She was poisoned, in 1852, by a negro woman owned by the institution, and who she had
*Davidson's History.
¡Academy Records.
329
CITY SCHOOLS.
1834.]
unwittingly offended. She was buried in the old Catholic Cemetery on Winchester street. The academy has been blessed with success and prosperity since its removal to Lexington, and its buildings have been greatly enlarged and improved. St. John's Academy, located on the same lot, was partially built from the brick that once composed the walls of the old Catholic Chapel in which the celebrated Father Baden officiated for so many years.
The first city school established in Lexington was organ- ized in 1834, and, like the Orphan Asylum, resulted from the devastations of the cholera, which left many children unprovided with means of education. The old Rankin Church, on the corner of Short and Walnut streets, was obtained by the city, and the school was opened on the 1st day of March, 1834, with one hundred and seven pupils in attendance. Joseph Gayle was principal, assisted by his daughter. The school committee appointed by the council consisted of James O. Harrison, William A. Leavy, and Thomas P. Hart. The establishment of this school was largely due to the exertions of Charleton Hunt, then mayor of Lexington. In 1836, William Morton, an old and greatly respected citizen, left a legacy of $10,000 to advance the interests of this school, which is now known as "Morton School (No. 1)." The old school-house was replaced by the present one in 1849. Harrison School (No. 2), named in honor of James O. Harrison, was organized in 1849, and Dudley School (No. 3), so called in honor of Dr. B. W. Dudley, in 1851.
In 1853, the public schools had attained a prosperity, character, and efficiency greater than they ever enjoyed before or since. The number of pupils at that time was one thousand three hundred and seventy-eight,* and so great was the public confidence in the schools, that not a single private school for the education of boys was in exist- ence in che city .¡ Everybody, without regard to either ocial or financial distinctions, sent their children to the city schools, and the processions, speeches, festivities, and
*City Records.
+Id.
330
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
[1834.
crowds which attended the closing exercises of the schools, indicated the interest and pride that were taken in them by the citizens. These gratifying results were mainly due to the energy and enlightened management of James O. Har- rison, who was for a long time chairman of the school committee, and who devoted a number of the best years of his life to the upbuilding of the schools. At the present time, the city schools, owing to various causes, are neither as well attended nor as useful as they were twenty years ago.
331
NORTHERN BANK-JOEL T. HART.
1835.]
CHAPTER LIX.
Northern Bank-Joel T. Hart-James Haggin-George Rob- ertson-John Boyle.
THE Northern Bank of Kentucky was founded in June, 1835, at which time it purchased from the United States Bank its branch house in Lexington, its debt and specie, and became the agent to wind up the business of the con- cern. The first directors of the Northern Bank were B. W. Dudley, D. M. Craig, John Tilford, W. A. Leavy, P. Bain, W. Dunn, B. Gratz, H. Johnson, and W. Barr.
The officers of the bank at the present time are M. C. Johnson, president; A. F. Hawkins, cashier; E. Bacon, teller ; J. T. Davidson and C. Y. Bean, book-keepers.
The Northern Bank, ever since its establishment, has used the old United States Branch Bank building, on the corner of Short and Market streets.
The now justly famous Joel T. Hart dates his career from 1835, in which year he settled in Lexington. This great self-made man, who has reflected so much honor upon our city, was born, poor and almost friendless, in Clark county, Kentucky, in 1810. After going to school for a short time, he was compelled, by necessity and the unconscious promptings of his genius, to labor with the stone-mason's hammer, and lived, up to the time of his arrival in Lexington, by building stone fences and chimneys. He was already twenty-five years old when he came to this city, and obtained work in a marble yard, on the corner of Upper and Second streets, where he cut his first letters on a tombstone. His guardian angel, who had thus pushed him one step in advance, placed him full in the path of his great destiny two years after, when he met
332
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
[1835.
Clevenger, a young sculptor from Cincinnati, who discov- ered in him a fellow artist, and kindly instructed him in his high calling. In a short time, Hart was freed from the weight that held him down. The rough stone-mason had become what he was born to be-a sculptor.
Hart's first studio was in a building connected with, and in the rear of the present residence of Mr. Thomas Brad- ley, on Second street, and his first effort, as an artist in marble, was a bust of Cassius M. Clay. He soon attracted great attention, and in a short time had made himself famous by superbly executed busts of John J. Crittenden, Andrew Jackson, and Henry Clay. In 1849, Mr. Hart was engaged by the ladies of Richmond, Virginia, to execute the marble statue of Mr. Clay, which now adorns the capi- tol grounds of that city. He went to Italy, and settled in Florence, where he modeled the statue, and, at the same time, invented two valuable instruments to be used in his art. By means of one of these, the workmen are en- abled to transfer the compositions of the sculptor from the plaster to the marble, with a degree of precision utterly impossible by the ordinary method of calipers. By means of the other invention, the form of the living subject may be transferred to the desired material, with an absolute exactitude. As a consequence, therefore, any of the great antique statues may be perfectly reproduced.
He went to London to obtain a patent for his invention, and while struggling to effect his object, suffered the direst extremes of poverty, until he fortunately attracted the at- tention of some discerning and cultivated gentlemen, who engaged him to make a bust of the noted Dr. Southwood Smith. His success was such as to obtain for him the patronage of the nobility of the realm, and give him a European reputation. Shortly after this, he shipped to America the marble statue of Clay, and also a bronze statue of the same statesman which he had modeled for the city of New Orleans.
Mr. Hart returned from Italy in 1860, and was received by the city of Lexington with every demonstration of re- spect and honor. At Frankfort, also, he met with distin
333
JOEL T. HART.
1835.]
guished consideration, and the legislature, then in session, appropriated $10,000 to complete the Clay monument in this city, by surmounting it with a statue of Mr. Clay, to be executed by his gifted fellow-townsman, Mr. Hart. A compliment more just or deserved was never more grace- fully paid by a state to its greatest artist. But unfortu -- nately the Monumental Association found it necessary to use six thousand dollars of the sum appropriated, to pay expenses already incurred, and the remainder was paid to a stranger for "the statue" which surmounts the Clay monument.
In the fall of 1860, Mr. Hart returned to Florence, Italy, where he still resides. He has never married. He is now known, not only as a sculptor, but also as a philosopher, a poet, a scientist. His poems, many of which have been published anonymously in England and America, are char- acterized by versatility, and considerable beauty and ele- gance of style.
Mr. Hart is at present still working upon an ideal group, the "Triumph of Chastity,"* which has engaged his genius for several years, and which, in the opinion of noted foreign and American critics, will be the most perfect achievement of modern art. The conception is entirely original. Cupid, fully armed and equipped, is ignomin- iously defeated in an attack upon a virgin just arrived at per- fect womanhood. The figures are nude. An artist who has seen the group says : "It is scarcely too much to say that, as a carefully studied composition, evincing a thorough knowledge of anatomy and of the subtle laws of form and curvature, there is no modern work which may challenge comparison with the 'Triumph of Chastity.'"
Lexington may well be proud of her great genius, Hart. He is famous throughout the old world and the new. The splendid productions of his chisel drew from his gifted fellow-artist, Hiram Powers, the lofty and generous eulogy, " Hart is the best sculptor in the world."
Judge James Haggin, for many years a distinguished member of the Lexington bar, died of bilious fever, August
*Cor. Evening Post.
334
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
[1835.
21, 1835. Judge Haggin was born in 1789, and re- moved from Mercer county, Kentucky, to Lexington, in 1810. His wife was a Miss McBrayer. Although Judge Haggin never filled any prominent public station but that of judge of the court of appeals with Barry, in 1824, he was none the less known, and his influence during some of the most stirring periods in the political history of the com- monwealth was commensurate with his talents, which were of the first order. As a land lawyer, he had no superior in Kentucky, and he was long considered one of the ablest jurists in the western country. Judge Haggin's residence was on the site of the present Hocker school building, on Broadway, between Third and Fourth streets.
Judge George Robertson settled in Lexington on the 4th of July, 1835. His parents were Virginians of Irish descent, and were both endowed with sterling qualities of head and heart. They emigrated to the wilderness of Ken- tucky, and settled at Gordon's station, in 1779.
Judge Robertson was born in 1790, in that part of the then county of Mercer which is now known as Garrard county. After obtaining a good English education at "neighbor- hood schools," he spent a year at Transylvania University, and then continued his classical studies under Rev. Samuel Finley, at Lancaster, after which he assisted that gentle- man in teaching.
In 1808, he commenced the study of law at Lancaster, under Martin D. Hardin, and in 1809, Judges Boyle and Wallace of the court of appeals granted him license to practice.
At the age of nineteen, he married Miss Eleanor, aged sixteen, a daughter of Dr. Bainbridge, of Lancaster. The young couple commenced life under difficulties. Poor and inexperienced, they suffered and struggled for a time, but the young lawyer was energetic, and in two or three years had a good practice. He worked on, and in 1816, was elected a representative to Congress against strong opposi- tion, and was subsequently twice re-elected without oppo- sition.
335
JUDGE GEORGE ROBERTSON.
1835.]
While in Congress, he took an active part in the legisla- tion of the nation. He drew and introduced the bill to es- tablish a territorial government in Arkansas. On that bill the question of interdicting slavery was introduced, and elaborately discussed. The restriction was carried by one vote. A reconsideration was had and the bill finally passed, divested of the restriction, by the casting vote of the speaker, Mr. Clay.
He was the author of the present system of selling public lands in lieu of the old system and two dollars minimum ; his object being to redeem the West from debt, and pro- mote its settlement and independence. Upon considera- tions of expediency, the bill was first carried through the senate.
After his retirement from Congress, Governor Adair ten- dered him the appointment of attorney-general of the state, but he declined it to pursue his profession and secure a competence for his family. In 1822, he was elected a representative to the legislature by the people of Garrard, in view of the all-absorbing and all-exciting relief ques- tions. He was made speaker of the house in 1823, and was re-elected every session afterward while he remained in the legislature, except the revolutionary session of 1824. He remained in the general assembly until the relief con- test was settled in 1826-7, and during that memorable period several of his speeches were extensively published. He wrote the celebrated protest of. 1824, signed by the anti-relief party in the legislature, and was also the author of the manifesto signed by the majority in 1825-6.
Appointments to the office of governor of Arkansas, and subsequently as minister to Bogota, were tendered him by President Monroe, and the mission to Peru by President Adams, but all were declined. He accepted the office of secretary of state under Governor Metcalfe, and for many years was professor of constitutional law in Transylvania University.
After the rejection of the nominations of Judges Mills and Owsley to the bench of the court of appeals, he was
336
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
[1835.
confirmed as a judge of that court, and subsequently com- missioned chief justice, which elevated position he held until April, 1843, when he resigned it to return to the bar.
He was called again to the appellate bench in 1854, and there remained for seventeen years, being chief justice most of that time. In the summer of 1872, after more than half a century of public life, Judge Robertson was stricken with paralysis, and on the 5th of September of that year, in the city of Frankfort, he resigned his elevated position under most affecting circumstances, and now in the eighty-second of his age, suffering, but in full possession of all his great mental faculties, he lingers yet a little while on this side the Jordan, in the sunshine of an honored life. He is the last survivor of the stormy and momentous con- gressional session, which ended in 1821. All of his con- temporaries and colleagues of that eventful period-presi- dent, cabinet members, senators, and representatives-have gone before him to the mystic land.
Judge Robertson has been a laborious and persistent student, a clear, skillful, and strong speaker, noted for his wonderful command of language, his extensive informa- tion, and the power and grasp of his intellect. But it is as a lawyer that he is most distinguished. He studied law as a philosophical system; he mastered it as a science; he investigated, reasoned, and became one of the greatest jurists of this country. In dealing with constitutional questions of magnitude and difficulty, he was at home in the lists with Webster, Clay, and the other giant associates of his life. As a judge, his decisions are consulted and quoted, not only in the United States, but in Europe. This venerable and distinguished citizen of Lexington still lives in the residence he has occupied for many years, on the corner of Mill and Hill streets.
John Boyle, at one time sole professor of law* in Tran- sylvania University, and for sixteen years chief justice of Kentucky, died in 1835, aged sixty-one years. He was born of humble parentage, in Virginia, but married, com-
337
JUDGE JOHN BOYLE.
1835.]
menced the practice of law, and began life in Garrard county. He was three times elected to Congress on the Jeffersonian Democratic ticket, was appointed governor of Illinois by President Madison, and commenced his connec- tion with the Kentucky court of appeals in 1809. His great abilities as a jurist may be inferred from the fact that the appointment of associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was twice within his grasp, but was declined. At the time of his death he was district judge of Kentucky.
*University Records.
338
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
[1836.
CHAPTER LX.
Hunt's Row-Runaway Negroes and Negro Jails-Thomas A. Marshall.
"HUNT's Row" was built in 1836, and was named by the city council in honor of Charleton Hunt, the first mayor of Lexington. In the summer of this year the "Lexing- ton Ladies' Legion," composed of volunteer emigrants, left for Texas, after having been presented with a stand of colors.
It was not uncommon at this period, and for many years after, for advertisements like the following to appear in the Lexington newspapers. A cut of a negro running, and with his bundle tied to a stick and thrown over his shoulder, always adorned the advertisement :
"THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD .- Ran away from the subscriber, living near the city of Lexington, on the night of the 4th inst., two negroes, one a bright mulatto boy, named Isaac, about six feet high, about twenty-five years of age, very bushy hair, and very likely; the other, his wife, Celia, about twenty-one years of age, very dark com- plexion, very likely, and pretty stout built. The man had on a broad-brim black hat, with a beaver cloth overcoat; his other clothing not recollected. The woman's clothing is not known.
"I will give a reward of $10 for each, if taken in this county ; $20 each, if taken in any of the surrounding counties ; $100 each, if taken in any county bordering on the Ohio river, and $150 each, if taken out of the state, and delivered to me in Lexington, or secured in jail so that I get them, and all reasonable expenses paid."
There were several negro jails, or pens, in Lexington.
339
JUDGE THOMAS A. MARSHALL.
1836.]
where negro slaves were kept, bought, and sold. The old theater on Short street, opposite the residence of J. B. Wilgus, was converted into one. The building now used as the Statesman office, on Short, near Limestone street, was another, as was also the house on Main, between Lime- stone and Rose streets, now used as a barracks for federal soldiers.
Thomas A. Marshall, son of Humphrey Marshall, the author of a history of Kentucky, settled in Lexington in 1836, and was for a long series of years professor of law in Transylvania University. Judge Marshall was born in Woodford county, Ky., January 15, 1794 .* After gradu- ating at Yale he studied law, married a niece of Mrs. Clay in 1816, and moved to Paris in 1819, where he practiced his profession until elected to Congress, in 1831. Judge Mar- shall was four years in Congress, and the same length of time in the Kentucky legislature. He adhered to the " Old Court " party, and was influential as a Whig leader. In 1835, he was made a judge of the court of appeals, and served in that capacity for twenty-two years, all his terms included. During his judgeship he ignored politics alto- gether. He removed from Lexington in 1857, and finally settled in Louisville, where he died, April 15, 1871.
Judge Marshall was more eminent as a jurist than in any other respect. Pure, logical, just, and honest, he was pecu- liarly fitted by nature for high legal station. His decisions are the best monument of his calm greatness. No other man in Kentucky did more to shape the character of our state laws. While residing in Lexington, Judge 'Marshall lived at the head of Sixth street, on the place lately owned by Mr. John Burch.
*Louisville Courier-Journal.
340
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
[1837-8.
CHAPTER LXI.
Independent Order of Odd Fellows-Friendship, Covenant, and Merrick Lodges - Incorporators - Halls - Lexington Athencum-Railroad Festival.
THE history of Odd Fellowship, in Lexington, commences with the founding of Friendship Lodge, No. 5, May 6, 1837, just eighteen years after the establishment of the order in the United States. The charter members of this lodge were John Candy, T. J. Harrison, Gabriel Beach, William Wilson, N. P. Long, Abram Spolen, and A. Mayd- well .* The lodge was organized in the room in the rear, and on the second floor of the building now known as Whitney & Co.'s drug store, on the corner of Mill and Main streets, and there its meetings were regularly held for sev- eral years.
The growth and prosperity of the order was such that, on the 4th of October, 1845, Covenant Lodge, No. 22, was established, its incorporators being R. T. Timberlake, C. C. Norton, Jesse Woodruff, George Stoll, Sen., C. G. Young, W. S. Simpson, Josephus Happy, and W. H. Newberry. The first meeting of this lodge was held in the hall on the corner of Church and Market streets, where the library building now stands.
The corporators of the third and last lodge established, Merrick, No. 31, March 3, 1856, were Daniel W. Young, W. S. Chipley, Edgar A. Brown, Joseph Lanckart, and A. H. Calvin. The organization of this lodge was effected, and its meetings were held in the same building first used by Covenant Lodge.
The meeting places of the Odd Fellows have, at different
#I. O. O. F. Records.
341
HALLS-ATHENAEUM, ETC.
1837-8.]
times, been in Hunt's row, on Water street, in the old Methodist Church, on Church street, between Upper and Limestone, which was converted into a hall, and in the Medical Hall, where the library now stands. In 1856, the large hall, on the corner of Main and Broadway, was com- pleted. No better indication of the rapid progress of the order in Lexington is seen than the Grand Hall on Main street, between Upper and Limestone, now used by all the lodges in the city. This handsome and commodious edi- fice was dedicated with impressive ceremonies, in the pres- ence of a large concourse, February 3, 1870, opening prayer by the G. C., John W. Venable, dedication charge by the R. W. G. M., Speed S. Fry, and the oration by P. G. M., M. J. Durham. There is probably no city in the United States where Odd Fellowship is in a more flourishing con- dition than in Lexington.
The "Lexington Athenæum," a literary association, was established in Lexington, in April, 1838, and used a room in a building in Jordan's row.
On Wednesday, August 29, a festival, in honor of the president and directors of the Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad Company, was given by the citizens of Lexington, at which an address was delivered by General Robert T. Hayne, president of the company.
-
342
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
[1839.
CHAPTER LXII. Richard H. Mennifee.
RICHARD H. MENNIFEE, one of the most wonderful men that Kentucky has ever produced, settled in Lexington in 1839. He was born in Bath county, Kentucky, December 4, 1809, and was left an orphan when but four years old, to struggle with poverty and obstacles of the most discour- aging kind. Endowed with an ambition second only to his great gifts, he struggled on through a wretched boy- hood. He longed for an education, and had succeeded at twelve years of age in entering a school, but was compelled, after a few months, to leave it and act as bar-keeper in a tavern in Owingsville. At fourteen, he obtained some "winter schooling," and, when but a boy of fifteen, he taught a school to get means to prosecute his studies; and thus he struggled and thus he studied until he succeeded in entering Transylvania University, where he made the most astonishing progress. Subsequently, after obtaining some assistance, he studied law with Judge Trimble, and his in- tense energy and great ability soon gained for him the smiles of fortune.
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