History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 15

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814

USA > Ohio > History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I > Part 15

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Soil, labeled "Soil, ten miles from Louisville, on the Salt river road, thirty or forty years in cultivation; primitive growth, beech, and some poplar and gum. Jefferson county, Kentucky."

Color of the dried soil, dark yellowish-grey. A few small rounded ferruginous pebbles were removed from it by the coarse sieve. Washed with water, it left 76.33 per cent. of sand, etc., of which all but 4.37 per cent. was fine enough to go through the finest bolting-cloth. This coarser portion is composed of rounded grains of hyaline and yellow quartz, with ferruginous particles. One thousand grains of the air-dried soil, digested for a month in water containing carbonic acid, gave up nearly two grains of light- brown extract, which had the following compo sition :

GRAINS.

Organic and volatile matters. 0.370 Alumina, oxides of iron and manganese, and phos-

phates .114 Carbonate of lime. .880

Magnesia. .052

Sulphuric acid. .081

Potash .044

Soda .081

Silica.

.200

I.822

The air-dried soil lost 3. 1 per cent. of mois- ture at 400° F., dried at which temperature it has the following composition :

Organic and volatile matters. 4.231

Alumina. 3.580

Oxide of iron .. 4.421

Carbonate of lime .. .230

Magnesia ·359

Brown oxide of manganese .445

Phosphoric acid. .262

Sulphuric acid. .084

Potash .045

Soda.

Sand and insoluble silicates. 86.006

Loss.

IIO

100.000

Sub-soil, labeled "Subsoil, ten miles from Louisville, on the Salt river road, field thirty to forty years in cultivation. Jefferson county, Ken- tucky."

Color of the dried sub-soil a little lighter than that of the soil above it. The coarse sieve re- moved from it some rounded particles of ferrugin- ous mineral and a few milky quartz grains about the size of mustard-seed. Washed with water, this sub-soil left 70.7 per cent. of sand, etc., of which all but 14.47 per cent. passed through the finest bolting-cloth. This coarser portion con- sisted principally of clear grains of quartz, more or less rounded, with some rounded ferruginous particles. One thousand grains of the air-dried soil, digested for a month in water containing carbonic acid, gave up more than five grains of brown extract, dried at 212°, which had the fol- lowing composition :

GRAINS'

Organic and volatile matters.

2.100

Alumina, oxides of iron and manganese, and phos-

phate. .863

Carbonate of lime. I.713

Magnesia. .I33

Sulphuric acid. . 125

Potash .048

Soda

.012

Silica. .200

5.191

The air-dried soil lost 3. 175 per cent. of moist- ure at 400° F., dried at which temperature it has the following composition :

Organic and volatile matters. 4.983

Alumina 3.245

Oxide of iron 4.130

Carbonate of lime. .195

Magnesia ·335

Brown oxide of manganese. ·370

Phosphoric acid. .295

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

Sulphuric acid.

.085

Potash .213

Soda

.051

Sand and insoluble silicates. 85.895

Loss

.203

100.000

This would be good soil, if it were drained. The sub-soil is rather richer than the surface soil.

CHAPTER II.

CIVIL ORGANIZATION-JEFFERSON COUNTY.

"Virginia"-The County of Fincastle-" Louisiana " --- "Ohio"-The Indian Claims Relinquished-"Louisa," " Cantuckey," " Transylvania"-The County of Kentucky -Colonel John Floyd-Jefferson County-Its Ancient Limits-Fayette and Lincoln Counties-Counties Carved from Jefferson-The First Officers of Jefferson County .- Some other Historic Matters.

"VIRGINIA."

The territory to the south of the Ohio, at least within the latitudes of Virginia, was held by the English Government, under the discoveries by Sir Walter Raleigh, in the valley of the James river. That part of it now lying within the boundaries of the State of Kentucky was in- cluded in the grants bestowed by the royal patent upon Sir Walter in 1584, and in the charter granted to the Colony of Virginia. In this was presently formed

THE COUNTY OF FINCASTLE.

This was an immense tract, large as several of the present States of the Union, and stretching virtually from the further borders of the county now existing under the name in Virginia to the Mississippi. It included the whole of the Ken- tucky country.

"LOUISIANA."

By right of discovery, however, the French had long before claimed the entire valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio, with the whole of Texas and the region of the great lakes. So lately as 1782, when the preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and her revolted Amer- ican colonies were being discussed at Paris, both France and Spain made protests against the Illi- nois country, conquered by George Rogers Clark in 1778, being considered as British territory, to be ceded to the United States as a part of its

conquest; and it was only by virtue of Clark's conquest that the claim of the new Republic was finally allowed.

Upon one of the old maps the whole of this vast region is designated as "Canada, or New France," with "La Louisiane" as an integral part. But others, including the great map of Franquelin, who was official hydrographer to the king, represent the domain in two separate di- visions, New France and Louisiana. The bound- ary between them was drawn by Franquelin from the Penobscot river to the south end of Lake Champlain, thence to the Mohawk, crossing it a little above the site of Schenectady, thence by the sources of the Susquehanna and the Alleghany, the south shore of Lake Erie, across Southern Michigan to the head of Lake Michigan, and northwestward to the headwaters of the Missis- sippi. All south of that line was "La Louisi- ane." The tract occupied by Louisville and Jefferson county, then, was originally a part of the far-reaching French province of Louisiana

The result of the French and Indian war of 1755-62 was to transfer to the crown of Great Britain all the possessions and territorial claims of France east of the Mississippi, except some fishing stations. The Kentucky region, there- fore, passed into the undisputed possession of the British Crown.

"OHIO."

Upon the second map of Lewis Evans, pub- lished in Philadelphia in 1764, the Kentucky country is shown for the first time in cartography, and is designated, as well as the great tracts to the north of the Beautiful river, as "Ohio." There was no reason, however, in the govern- mental arrangements of that time, for such desig- nation. Ohio was not yet known as the title of any political division. Mr. Evans simply fell into one of the blunders which abounded among the geographers of the period.

THE INDIAN CLAIMS RELINQUISHED.

November 5, 1768, by the treaty of Fort Stan- wix, the all-conquering Six Nations, and the Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingoes of Ohio, granted unto the Crown of Great Britain all their territory south of the Ohio and west of the Cherokee or Tennessee river, back of the En- glish settlements, for the sum of £10,460, or about $50,000.

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

The Five Nations, or Iroquois, had previously, in 1846, in a treaty at Albany between their chiefs and Lord Howard, Governor of the Colony of Virginia, associated with Colonel Dungan, Governor of the Colony of New York, placed themselves under the protection of the British Government and made a deed of sale to it of the vast tract south and east of the Illinois river, and extending across Lake Huron into Canada. The present land of Kentucky was included in this immense cession.

"LOUISA"-"CANTUCKEY"-"TRANSYLVANIA."

In the autumn of 1774 nine North Carolin- ians, of whom the leader was Colonel Richard Henderson, made overtures for a treaty with a branch of the Cherokee Indians, which was com- pleted March 17, 1775. By this the Indians assumed to cede, for the consideration of £10,- ooo, no less than seventeen millions of acres, extending from the Cumberland to the Kentucky rivers, and bounded on the south by a line drawn from the headwaters of the most southerly branch of the Cumberland to the summit of Powell's mountain, and thence to the most northerly branch of the Kentucky. Colonel Henderson in his journal designates this tract as "Louisa" and "Cantuckey"-the first name being derived from what was understood to be the English name of the Cuttawa, Chenoca, or Kentucke river. Upon it, however, when Daniel Boone and his companions had made the famous "trace" into the promised land, from the Long Island in the Holston river to the present site of Boonesborough-the company was to attempt to found the colony of Transylvania. In April they laid off the village at "Fort Boone," and soon after appointed the 23d of May for a meeting of delegates. Six members of the "House of Delegates or Representatives of the Colony of Transylvania" attended on that day "under the divine elm," to represent the town of Boonesborough, three for Harrods- burg, and four each for the Boiling Spring Settlement and the town of St. Asaph. A min- iature legislature was organized -"the first Anglo-American government on the west side of the Alleghany range of mountains." The colony seems already to have been formed and named merely by the will of the proprietors. Bills were duly introduced, read twice, and passed, ad- dresses voted to the company, and a compact

between them and the people entered into. The proprietors, as a self-appointed governing coun- cil, passed finally upon all measures, and signed or disapproved them. The "House of Dele- gates" was in session five days, and then ad- journed to meet at Boonesborough in Septem- ber. It never re-assembled, but a petition "to the Honorable the Convention of Virginia," was sent, probably in December, 1775, from "the in- habitants, and some of the intended settlers of that part of North America now denominated Transylvania," praying for relief against the exac- tions of the proprietors.

In September a meeting of the company had been held, at which James Hogg was appointed to represent the "colony" in the Continental Congress, and present a memorial asking the ad- mission of Transylvania into the Union of Col- onies. It is needless to say that neither lie nor it was admitted. A large number of persons were persuaded or hired by the company to go into the new country ; but its sort of proprietary government proved unpopular, and its title was presently altogether invalidated by the Virginia Legislature, under a wise and ancient colonial policy which forbade transfers of territory by the Indians to private persons, as contrary to the chartered rights of the colonies. In November, 1778, that body passed the following :

Resolved, That all purchases of land, made or to be made, of the Indians within the chartered bounds of this Commonwealth, as described by the constitution or form of government, by any private persons not authorized by public authority, are void.

Resolved, That the purchases heretofore made by Richard Henderson & Company, of that tract of land called Tran- sylvania within this Commonwealth, of the Cherokee Indians, is void.

Thus passed away the transient glory of Tran- sylvania. Ample compensation was made to the company, however, by the grant of two hundred thousand acres of land, in a tract twelve miles square on the Ohio, below the mouth of Ken- tucky river. The musical name was preserved for nearly seventy years, in the designation of Tran- sylvania university, at Lexington.

THE COUNTY OF KENTUCKY.

For a few years the great county of Fincastle exercised nominal jurisdiction over the bears and wolves, the panthers and buffaloes, the roaming Indians, and the handful of whites already on the Dark and Bloody Ground. The few civilized

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

immigrants that first made their way into the deep wilderness found, however, no protection or aid in the far-away colonial or county govern- ment, and were altogether a law unto them- selves .*

The first subdivision or county organization really known to the great wilderness tract since covered by the State of Kentucky was the "County of Kentucky," formed from the western part of Fincastle county, by the Virginia Legis- lature, on the 31st of December, 1776, soon after the independence of the colonies was de- clared. George Rogers Clark, then a young mna- jor in the Virginia militia, must be regarded as the father of the new county. The story of his journeyings on foot through the wilderness, his securing ammunition for the defense of the in- fant settlements, and his procurement, as a dele- gate to the Virginia House of Burgesses, of the erection of the county of Kentucky, has been told in part in our General Introduction, in the biographical sketch of General Clark, and need not be repeated here. The young major had procured the act for the erection of the county, while he was on the expedition after the powder and lead for the Kentucky settlers.

This gigantic county comprehended, in the definitions of the creative act, "all that part thereof [of Fincastle county] which lies to the south and westward of a line beginning on the Ohio river, at the mouth of Great Sandy creek, and running up the same and the main or north- easterly branch thereof to the Great Lawrel ridge or Cumberland mountain, thence south- westerly along the said mountain to the line of North Carolina." It includes substantially what now belongs to the State of Kentucky.

The chief official of such subdivision in those days was a "County Lieutenant," or Governor. In 1778 Thomas Jefferson, then Governor of Virginia, appointed as such officer Colonel John Bowman, who had been made a colonel of mili- tia in the county, by commission of Governor Patrick Henry, soon after it was formed. The county was also entitled to a court of its own, a sheriff, and other customary officers. The first court of general quarter sessions of the peace for the county sat at Harrodsburg in the spring of 1777, composed of Justices John Bowman,

John Todd, John Floyd, Benjamin Logan, and Richard Callaway, with Levi Todd as clerk. April 18, of this year, Colonels Richard Callo- way and John Todd were chosen burgesses to represent Kentucky county in the General Assembly of the Old Dominion. General Green Clay, Colonel John Miller, 'Squire Boone (brother of Daniel Boone), and Colonel William Irvine, were afterwards members of the same body from Kentucky. Substantially the same tract, but now divided into three counties, was subse- quently, June 1, 1792, admitted into the Union as a sovereign State.

COLONEL JOHN FLOYD.

One of the most notable men of the early day was Colonel Floyd, one of the first justices of the court of quarter sessions, whose name is prominent in the annals of Jefferson county, and from whom Floyd county, on the Indiana side of the Falls, takes its name. The Hon. James T. Morehead, in his Address in Commemora- tion of the First Settlement of Kentucky, at Boonesborough May 25, 1840, pays this tribute to Colonel Floyd:

Towards the close of the year 1773 John Floyd came to Kentucky, like Bullitt and Taylor, on a surveying excursion. A deputy of Colonel William Preston, principal surveyor of Fincastle county, of which the region in Virginia west of the mountains was then a part, he made many surveys on the Ohio, and belonged to the party that was recalled by Lord Dunmore, in consequence of the dangers attending the per- formance of their official duties. Colonel Floyd returned in 1775, and became a conspicuous actor in the stirring scenes of the drama. Alternately a surveyor, a legislator, and a soldier, his distinguished qualities rendered him at once an ornament and a benefactor of the infant settlements. No individual among the pioneers was more intellectual or better informed; none displayed, on all occasions that called for it, a bolder and more undaunted courage. His person was singularly attractive. With a complexion unusually dark, his eyes and hair were deep black, and his tall, spare figure was dignified by the accomplishments of a well-bred Virginia gentleman.

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

In May, during the session of 1780, the pop- lation of the county of Kentucky having grown sufficiently to create demands for and warrant the measure, the huge county was divided by the Virginia Legislature into three governmental sub- divisions, known respectively as Jefferson, Fay- ette, and Lincoln counties. The second, named from General the Marquis de la Fayette, included that part of the larger county "which lies north of the line beginning at the mouth of the Ken

*There were already, in 1773, it is said, sixty-nine voters upon the present tract of Kentucky.

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

tucky river, and up the same to its middle fork to the head; and thence southeast to Washing- ton line"-which formed the present boundary between the States of Kentucky and Tennessee, the latter of which was about that time known as the "District of Washington."

Jefferson county, named from Thomas Jeffer- son, author of the Declaration of Independence and afterwards President of the United States, but just then Governor of Virginia, took in all "that part of the south side of Kentucky river which lies west and north of a line begin- ning at the mouth of Benson's big creek, and running up the same and its main fork to the head; thence south to the nearest waters of Hammond's creek, and down the same to its junction with the Town fork of Salt river; thence south to Green river, and down the same to its junction with the Ohio."

The rest of the older Kentucky county was embraced within the limits of Lincoln county, which took its name from General Benjamin Lincoln, a distinguished soldier of the Revolu- tion.

Jefferson was originally an immense county, as may be inferred from the fact that out of it have been carved, wholly or partly, twenty-eight other counties. Less than four years after its forma- tion, in October, 1784, Salt river was taken as the dividing line for a new county, which was called Nelson. Subdivisions of the other counties were made in 1785 and 1788, so that there were nine counties-Jefferson, Nelson, Fayette, Bourbon, Mason, Woodford, Lincoln, Mercer, and Madison -in Kentucky when it was admitted into the Union. The counties which have since been formed directly from Jefferson are Shelby, in 1792; Bullitt (partly), in 1796; and Oldham (in part), 1823. Washington, "the first-born of the State," 1792; Hardin, Henry, Ohio, and twenty other counties have been erected upon the terri- tory originally assigned to Jefferson.

The first officers appointed to this county by the organic act of the Legislature, after the man- ner of the time, were John Floyd colonel, Wil- liam Pope lieutenant colonel, and George May surveyor. Each of the new counties had a county court or court of general quarter sessions of the peace, which met monthly, and a court of common law chancery jurisdiction, in session once a quarter, with an abundance of magistrates

and constables. There was as yet, however, no tribunal for the trial of high crimes, as the court of quarter sessions could take cognizance only of misdemeanors; but the defect was remedied early in 1783, when Kentucky was made a judi- cial district and a court established which had full criminal and civil jurisdiction. It was opened at Harrodsburg the same season. John Floyd, of Jefferson county, and Samuel Mc- Dowell, were judges; Walker Daniel was prose- cuting attorney, and John May clerk.

We subjoin an historic note or two found among our memoranda :

A QUARTER-CENTURY'S GROWTH.

Some figures reported by the city civil en- gineer, of Louisville, in 1866, exhibit in brief compass the growth of the county in wealth and power from 1840 to 1866. In the former year the valuation of the State (excluding vehicles, time-pieces, pianos, and plate) was $272,250,027, and that of Louisville and Jefferson county was $26, 162,463, or nearly one-tenth of the entire State. In 1844 the valuation was reported at but $18,621,339, the next year $21,270,500, in 1846 $22,940,533, and 1847 $24,206,443. The next year the city and county regained and passed the figures of 1840, having $26,697,663; in 1849 it was $27,974,735; in 1850, $29,187,- 023. The State valuation this year was $299,- 381,809, so that the city and county had again pretty nearly one-tenth of the whole. The figures for the next decade are: 1851, $32,830,347 ; 1852, $35,236,899; 1853, $42, 106,310; 1854, $49,755,832; 1855, $47,031, 150; 1856, $44,- 533,518; 1857, $50,034,033 ; 1858, $50,443,- 532; 1859, $52,407,083; 1860, $54,680,868. The valuation of the city and county had now grown to about one-ninth of the whole. The average annual increase during the previous twenty years had been but about $13,000,000 in the State; while it had been nearly $1,400,000 a year in the city and county, showing a very satisfactory rate of gain. The valuation of the latter in 1860 was more than one-half that of the entire State ($108,549,638) thirty years ago. In 1861 the local valuation was $50,492,510; 1862, $36,711,943; 1863, $41,676,811; 1864,

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

$55,141,938; 1865, $62,211,339; 1866, $76,- 028,753. There was much fluctuation in these years; but while the State valuation had fallen off between 1860 and 1866 about $20,000,600 a year, that of the city and county had increased $21,347,685, or about $3,500,000 per annuni. In the latter year the city and county contributed very nearly one-fifth of the whole revenue of the State, and their valuation was three-fourths of that of the State in 1830, one-fourth of that in 1840 and 1850, one-seventh of that of 1860, and one-fifth of all in 1866.

THE FIRST COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, so far as we have been able to learn, was formed in 1837. The following-named were its officers in 1844: Stephen Ormsby, president; Lawrence Young and E. D. Hobbs, vice-presidents ; Wil- liam Mix, secretary and keeper of the funds ; George W. Weissinger, corresponding secretary ; J. W. Graham, L. Sherley, S. Brice, H. Arter- burn, S. Brengman, executive committee. Meet- ings were held twice a year, in the fall and the spring, at the former of which premiums were awarded.

CHAPTER III. COURTS AND COURT-HOUSES.

The Old County Court-The Circuit Court-The Court of Common Pleas -- The County Court-The County Judge -- The City Courts-A Reminiscence of 1786-Mr. Flint's Notes-The County Court-house-The Old "Gaol"-The New Jail.

THE OLD COUNTY COURT.

This was a monthly court established by the former constitution, held in each county at the places assigned for the purpose and on the days fixed by law, and at no other time and place. It was composed of the justices of the peace ap- pointed for the county, three of whom were suf- ficient to constitute a quorum. It had power to recommend the appointment of the surveyor, coroner, and justices of the peace, and itself to appoint inspectors, collectors, and their deputies, surveyors of highways, constables, jailors, and other minor officers. Its further jurisdiction was thus defined by the act of 1796 :

The County Courts shall and may have cognizance, and shall have jurisdiction of all causes respecting wills, letters of administration, mills, roads, the appointment of guardians and settling of their accounts, and of admitting deeds and other writings to record ; they shall superintend the public inspections, grant ordinary license, and regulate and restrain ordinaries and tippling-houses, and appoint processioners ; they shall hear and determine, according to law, the com- plaints of apprentices and hired servants, being citizens of any one of the United States, against their masters or mis- tresses, or of the masters and mistresses against the appren- tices or hired servants; they shall have power to establish ferries and regulate the same, and to provide for the poor within their counties.

In 1844-45 as many as twenty-five justices composed the county court of Jefferson county.

THE CIRCUIT COURT.

The system of circuit courts was substituted in 1802, under the act of Legislature passed in November, 1801, after the adoption of the second State constitution, for the old system of district and quarter-sessions courts. Under this the courts had jurisdiction in all causes, matters, and things, at common law and chancery, within their respective circuits, except in causes where the property or claim in controversy was of less value than £5, and also in some few other speci- fied cases.

December 19, 1821, authority was given this court by the Legislature to purchase sites and provide for the erection of poor-houses thereon.

When the new constitution was adopted in 1850, it was provided that each county then existing, or thereafter to be erected in the Com- monwealth, should have a circuit court. The first election of circuit judges occurred on the second Monday in August, 1856, and elections of said officers have since been held every six years, on the first Monday of August. An eligible candidate for the office must be a citi- zen of the United States, a resident of the dis- trict for which he may be a candidate at least two years next before his election, must be at least thirty years of age and a practicing lawyer at least eight years, which term, however, may include any time he has served upon the bench of a court of record. After the first term under the constitution, the judges hold their offices for terms of six years. They receive their commis- sions from the Governor and hold until their suc- cessors are qualified, but are removable from office in the same manner as a judge of the Court of Appeals. The removal of a judge from his district vacates his office. When a vacancy

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 15

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co. Number of Pages: 814

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814