History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 33

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 33

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Stirring times the little settlement by the Falls of the Ohio must have witnessed while this di- vision of the expedition was preparing. Time was given in the orders of Bowman for corn- planting, which the men were instructed to look to before the appointed day of assembly at the mouth of the Licking. This over, Captain Har- rod, as a deponent testified a quarter of a cen- tury afterwards, "harangued the people then there [at the Falls], showing the necessity of the expedition, and that the settlements from the. the other parts of Kentucky were desirous of having the expedition carried into effect." The volunteers were already equipped with the simple weapons and accouterments of the pioneer; the few necessary preparations were rapidly com- pleted; and the brave company disappeared in the dense woods and up the broad and rippling river. It was a silent and solemn time then for the feeble colony, left almost denuded of its de fenders in a hostile land. For many days it was without news of the living or the dead of the

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

campaign ; but by and by the noble warriors of the Falls, flushed with success, and each, prob- ably, bearing a share of the Indian plunder "dis- posed of among themselves by way of vendue" -after crossing the Ohio from the mouth of the Little Miami, pretty nearly at the spot now occu- pied by the Newport water works-came gaily marching home again.

THE FIRST BIRTH.

It is very probable, reasoning from analogy and the number of families now on the spot, that the first white native of the pre-Louisville village was ushered into existence this year. The Louisville Journal, in June, 1852, published the claim of Mr. Isaac Kimbly, then of Orleans, Orange county, Indiana, to be regarded as the first-born of the colony. He had called personally upon the editor, Mr. Prentice, affirming that he first saw the light upon Corn Island in 1779, and that he was the first child born in what is now Jefferson county. This claim, however, as regards the county at large, is made more reasonably for the late Elisha Applegate, who was born in 1781, five miles from Louisville, on the Bardstown road, at Sullivan's Station. Captain Thomas Joyes, a lifetime resident of this city and brother of John Joyes, Mayor in 1834 -- 35, is often re- puted to have been the first white child born here. But his natal day was December 9, 1787; and it is incredible that no other infant was pre- viously born in the colony, then nearly ten years old, unless the laws of nature were quite miraca- lously suspended.

Mr. Collins (vol. ii, page 358, History of Ken- tucky) presents still another claimant for prece- dency in nativity at Louisville, in the person of Captain John Donne; but dates and details are left altogether out of the account.

The first marriage in the place, according to Collins, was that of Mrs. Lucy Brashears, a na- tive of Virginia, who was in the fort at Boones- borough during the savage attack of 1778, and died in Madison county, November, 1854, at at the great age of ninety-three. We are left in the dark as to the exact date of this marriage, or who was the happy groom in the case.

THE BOONES AT THE FALLS.

The founder of Boonesborough was again here this year, probably on a friendly visit to the new- comers, and perhaps also on a surveying expedi-

tion. The fact of his visit at this time was not ascertained until about thirty years ago, when some gentlemen happened to observe, inscribed upon an aged tree near the southeastern limits of the city, the name "D. BOONE," with the date "1779." The annual rings of growth in the tree, apparently formed since the carving was done, confirmed the authenticity of the inscrip- tion, and a block containing it was cut out and deposited with the Kentucky Historical society. No incidents of Boone's visit are recorded.

The other famous Boone of Kentucky was also here, possibly at the same time. An inter- esting narrative, immediately related to the visit, is thus recited by Mr. Casseday:

In the spring of 1779 'Squire Boone, the brother of Daniel, in company with two others, went from the Falls to Bullitt's lick to shoot buffalo. After finishing their sport, they were returning home, when night overtook them at Stewart's spring. The young men proposed to remain here for the night, but Boone objected, fearing an attack from the In- dians. They accordingly turned off some three hundred yards to the west, where they encamped for the night. There, while Boone and another of the party were arranging for the encampment, the third, being idle, amused himself by cutting a name and a few words on the bark of the tree. Afterwards, in 1811, during some legal investigation about lands, Boone testified to the existence of these marks near Stewart's spring, and upon examination they were found just as he had stated, although thirty-two years had elapsed since the cut was made. This fact is placed upon record in the court of ap- peals, and does not admit of a doubt. The instance before referred to [ that concerning Daniel Boone] is of a precisely similar character, and the marks are probably equally an- thentic as those of the last.

AN AMUSING STORY.

The single reminiscence of social life in Louisville this year which has come down, is that of a general banquet of the settlers upon a simple flour-cake, made from the earliest wheat product of the season. The old story runs thus:

It is related that, when the first patch of wheat was raised about this place, after being ground in a rude and laborious hand-mill, it was sifted through a gauze neckerchief, belong- ing to the mother of the gallant man who gave us the infor- mation, as the best bolting-cloth to be had. It was then shortened, as the housewife phrases it, with raccoon fat, and the whole station invited to partake of a sumptuous feast upon a flour-cake.

THE HARD WINTER.

Not so amusing, however, were the terrible experiences of the coming winter. The immi- grants of 1779 had an inhospitable and unex- expected welcome to the supposed genial climate of Kentucky. The winter of that year and early 1780 set in cold and hard, though pre-

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ceded, like that of 1880-81, by mild fall weather. It is believed to have been the severest ever known in this region in modern times, and has been handed down in local tradition and history as "the Cold Winter." Its effects, like those of the late memorable season (1880-81), extended far to the southward. The Cumberland river, in the vicinity of Nashville, was frozen so hard that cattle crossed upon it. At the East the cold was yet more intense. The ice in the Delaware at Philadelphia was three feet thick, and the river was frozen fast for more than one hundred days. Long Island sound was covered with a continu- ous sheet of ice, and Chesapeake bay was crossed to and from Annapolis with loaded sleds. Of the long and terrible winter in this quarter it is said that around Harrodsburg, in the interior of Kentucky, three months from the middle of No- vember there was not once a thaw of ice and snow; driving snow-storms and dismal, cutting winds were almost daily in their occurrence. The smaller rivers and even brooks were so solid- ly frozen that water could only be had by melting ice and snow. The suffering thus brought upon human beings was exceedingly great; but what the poor dumb brutes had to endure is told in part only by their actions. All night long, the bellowings and roarings of herds of wild buf- faloes and other animals, as they struggled for shelter and warmth, sounded in the ears of the pioneer, and daylight not unfrequently showed the dead bodies of the poor creatures frozen and starved to death.

For themselves, in their close, warm cabins and with unlimited supplies of fuel at the very door, the settlers were comparatively heedless of the season, which served them a very good pur- pose in one particular, to keep the marauding Indian away. Their cattle were almost univer- sally destroyed by its inclemency, however, and corn became so scarce as to rise to a price vary- ing from fifty to one hundred and seventy-five dollars per bushel in Continental money, the chief currency of that time. It is somewhat sadly inter- esting to note that, such was the persistence and perseverance of the large immigration now set- ting into Kentucky, that many hapless persons undertook the movement in the very face of the awful rigors of this season. A number of fami- lies were caught by it between Cumberland Gap and their intended places of selttement, and some

were compelled to stop and dwell in tents or huts until the spring brought relaxation of the blockade of ice and snow.

CHAPTER III. LOUISVILLE'S FIRST DECADE.

1780-The Great Immigration-Louisville at Last-The Act Establishing the Town-Named from Louis XVI., King of France - Biographical Sketch of Louis -- Surveys of the Town Plat -lared Brooks's Survey-The Prices of Lots-Original Owners-Accessions to the Settlement -- Thomas Helm-Military Movements. 1781-Transactions of the Town Trustees-Account of Their Stewardship- Ancient Rules of the Board-Immigration of Young Woman-Military Matters-Residents of Louisville in 1781-The First Fight-Another Hard Winter. 1782- The "Old Forts"-Fort Nelson-Named from Governor Nelson-A Terrible Year-The Beginning of Commerce- More Cold Winters. 1783-The First Store-Peace and Prosperity- William Rowan Comes to Louisville-Reduc- tion of the Military -- A Troublesome Disciple of Paine- Some Important Legislation-Prices-Colonel R. C. An- derson-Major Harrison. 1784-Another Act-The First Land Office - The Surveyor's Office Opened - The County Surveyors-Crevecoeur's Wonderful Stories. 1785 -Beginning of Shippingport-The Taylors-Visit of Lewis Brantz to the Falls -- Visit of Generals Butler and Parsons-Extracts from Butler's Journal. 1786-Clark's Last Expedition-Logan's Expedition-Major Denny's Journal-Immigration Down the Ohio-The Spanish Com- plications-Green's Letters from Louisville-Free Naviga- tion of the Mississippi Secured-Extension of Time for Building on Lots-New Commissioners and Trustees. 1787-Dr. James C. Johnston Born in Louisville-First Kentucky Newspaper. 1788-The First Census-Cold, Floods, and Sickness -- Adventure with the Indians. 1789 -The First Brick House-Additional Trustees of the Town.

When the Ohio river had re-opened and balmier airs returned, an emigration hitherto un- precedented in Western annals was observable upon the river. During this spring no less than three hundred " large family boats" are recorded as arriving at the Falls. Not all stop here, but some do. Many of the new-comers have brought their heavy wagons and horses upon the boats, and as many as ten or fifteen wagons per day are counted at times passing into the interior.

Among the more transient visitors is a pioneer of some note, who has left a permanent mem- orandum of his trip-Mr. Thomas Vickroy, who was one of the war-party under General Clark that built the block-houses the same year

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upon the site of Cincinnati, and who afterwards aided in laying off the plat of Pittsburg. He gives valuable testimony to the difficulties of the situation at this point and in the vicinity. In a narrative contributed to the press long after, he says :

In April, 1780, I went to Kentucky, in company with eleven flat-boats with movers. We landed, on the 4th of May, at the mouth of Beargrass creek, above the Falls of Ohio. 1 took my compass and chain along to make a for- tune by surveying, but when we got there the Indians would not let us survey. General Clark raised an army of about a thousand men, and marched with one party of them against the Indian towns. When we came to the mouth of the Licking we fell in with Colonel Todd and his party. On the Ist day of August, 1780, we crossed the Ohio river and built the two block-houses where Cincinnati now stands.

LOUISVILLE AT LAST.

It is estimated that the village upon the Ken- tucky shore at the Falls, with the adjacent stations upon the Beargrass, now contained a population of not less than six hundred souls. The fullness of time was come for the settlement to have a name and authorized town site, as it had already a "local habitation." In May, 1780, the follow- ing memorable enactment passes the Assembly of Virginia-for there is no State of Kentucky as yet :

Act for establishing the Town of Louisville, at the Falls of Ohio.

WHEREAS, sundry inhabitants of the county of Kentucky have, at great expense and hazard, settled themselves upon certain lands at the Falls of Ohio, said to be the property of John Connollv, and have laid off a considerable part thereof into half-acre lots for a town, and, having settled thereon, have preferred petitions to this General Assembly to establish the said town, Be it therefore enacted, That one thousand acres of land, being the forfeited property of said John Con- nolly, adjoining the lands of John Campbell and --- Taylor, be, and the same is hereby vested in John Todd, Jr., Stephen Trigg, George Slaughter, John Floyd, William Pope, George Merriweather, Andrew Hines, James Sullivan, and Marshal Brashiers, gentlemen, trustees, to be by them or any four of them laid off into lots of an half-acre each, with convenient streets and public lots, which shall be, and the same is hereby established a town by the name of Louis- ville.

And be it further enacted, That after the said lands shall be laid off into lots and streets, the said trustees, or any four of them, shall proceed to sell the said lots, or so many of them as they shall judge expedient, at public auction, for the best price that can be had, the time and place of sale being advertised two months, at the court-houses of adjacent coun- ties; the purchasers respectively to hold their said lots sub- ject to the condition of building on each a dwelling-house, sixtcen feet by twenty at least, with a brick or stone chim- ney, to be finished within two years from the day of sale. And the said trustees, or any four of them, shall and they are hereby empowered to convey the said lots to the pur-

chasers thereof in fee simple, subject to the condition afore- said, on payment of the money arising from such sale to the said trustees for the use hereafter mentioned, that is to say : If the money arising from such sale shall amount to $30 per acre, the whole shall be paid by the said trustees into the treasury of this commonwealth, and the overplus, if any, shall be lodged with the court of the county of Jefferson to enable them to defray the expenses of erecting the publick buildings of the said county. Provided, That the owners of lots already drawn shall be entitled to the preference therein, upon paying to the trustees the sum of $30 for such half-acre lot, and shall thereafter be subject to the same obligations of settling as other lot-holders within the said town.

And be it further enacted, That the said trustees, or the major part of them, shall have power, from time to time, to settle and determine all disputes concerning;the bounds of the said lots, to settle such rules and orders for the regular build- ing thereon as to them shall seem best and most convenient. And in case of death or removal from the county of any of the said trustees, the remaining trustees shall supply such vacancies by electing of others from time to time, who shall be vested with the same powers as those already mentioned.

And be it further enacted, That the purchasers of the lots in the said town, so soon as they shall have saved the same according to their respective deeds of conveyance, shall have and enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities which the freeholders and inhabitants of other towns in this State, not incorporated by charter, have, hold, and enjoy.

And be it further enacted, That if the purchaser of any lot shall fail to build thereon within the time before limited, the said trustees, or a major part of them, may thereupon enter into such lot, and may either sell the same again and apply the money towards repairing the streets, or in any other way for the benefit of the said town, or appropriate such lot to publick uses for the benefit of said town. Provided, That nothing herein contained shall extend to affect or injure the title of lands claimed by John Campbell, gentleman, or those persons whose lots have been laid off on his lands, but their titles be and remain suspended until the said John Campbell shall be released from his captivity.

The same act made provision for the creation of another town, somewhere in Rockingham county, Virginia. It has hardly made the name in the world that the Falls City has.

This act was not signed by the Speaker of the House of Delegates until the Ist of July ; but by the rule of the Legislature it was of full force and effect from May 1, 1780, which is the true birth- day of Louisville. Its passage did not become known at the Falls until some months afterwards, and, as we shall see, there was no meeting of the town trustees until the next year.

The new town took its renowned and royal name in honor of

LOUIS XVI., KING OF FRANCE,

who had a little more than two years before, February 6, 1778, concluded a treaty of alliance with the American colonies, and then sent his armies, with the young Marquis de la Fayette

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and other military and naval heroes, to aid the struggling cause of independence. The Sixteenth Louis, of the house of Bourbon, grandson and immediate successor of Louis XV, was born in the palace of Versailles August 23, 1754, and perished by the guillotine in Paris January 21, 1793. At the age of eleven he became heir pre- sumptive to the crown, on the death of his father; in his sixteenth year was married to the celebrated Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, whose head also went to the basket in the bloody '93. May ro, 1774, still not twenty years of age, Louis became king by the demise of his grandfather. He had received a good education, had already done some literary work, was an accomplished locksmith, and had given much attention to the mechanics of printing. He now cut down the expenses of the royal household and the number of the guards, and otherwise attempted reforms, one of which was attended by serious riots. He was averse to en- gaging in war on America's account, but was overborne by his ministers and the queen, and became involved in a costly war with England which nearly ruined the nation. Much of the rest of his reign was spent in grappling with financial difficulties and the disaffection of his subjects. In 1789 the Revolution broke out, and the Bastile was stormed July 14. Just a year from that time he took oath to be faithful to the constitution which the National Assembly had then in preparation. One year more and he was a prisoner in the hands of the Assembly in his own capital, provisionally suspended from his functions as king. He became king again in September, but a year thereafter France was de- clared a republic, and the end for him soon came. Tried and condemned on absurd charges, he was sentenced to death, and the next Jan- uary counted one more among the victims of "La Guillotine." He was godfather and the queen stood as godmother of the infant Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis Philippe, King of France, who visited Louisville in his tour of the United States in 1796-97.

SURVEYS OF THE PLAT.

There had obviously been some subdivision of the larger tracts into lots at a period or at periods anterior to the passage of the act, as pro- bably in the early part of 1779, though we think

none of them date back so far as 1773. Un- doubtedly the movement from Corn Island to the mainland was preceded by a survey of the ground proposed to be occupied, its division into lots (of half an acre each, and quite probably with out-lots also), and their apportionment by lottery to the settlers thereon. The last indi- cated operation was altogether common in the establishment of new towns in that day, and seems to be implied distinctly in the mention in the act of 1780 of "lots already drawn." But, whatever the surveys before or immediately after the passage of the act, the record of them has perished, except for the Bard map of 1779, as utterly as the annals of the Mound Builders. Singular as it may appear, no other register, no copy, no authentic description, no intelligible reference in detail, exists at this day of the surveys by which the settlers of the ante-Louisville village, established their boundaries and reared their homes. It is only known that Colonel William Pope made the survey contemplated by the act, in the same year of its passage, and that at no distant time thereafter a re-survey, or ad- ditional survey, was made by William Peyton and Daniel Sullivan, the latter of whom is credited with the staking of the out-lots, and with the running, July 20, 1784, of the division line between the halves of the two thousand acre tract originally granted to Connolly, and distin- guishing the one thousand acres belonging to Campbell from the tract of equal size, which had been confiscated as the property of the Tory Doctor .*

Much confusion, annoyance, and loss were naturally caused by the failure to preserve in au- thoritative shape the records of their surveys; but it was not until 1812 that an attempt was made to ascertain the true boundaries established by them, and make an official record which would stand in the stead of their lost documents. This work was accomplished by Mr. Jared Brooks, whom we shall hear of again in 1812; and his survey, officially adopted the same year, has since been the standard for early locations and bound- aries. According to Dr. McMurtrie, the out-

* The compass and chain used in some of these early sur- veys is reported to have been in possession of Colonel Quin- tus C. Shanks, of Hartford, Ohio county, Kentucky, as late as 1871. It was once the property of William Peyton, who surveyed much in company with the father of Colonel Shanks. Collins, vol. ii, 666.

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courses of this survey were "from thirty-five poles above the mouth of Beargrass creek, on the bank of the Ohio river, south eighty-three, west thirty-five poles to the mouth of the creek, thence north eighty-seven, west one hundred and twenty poles, north fifty, west one hundred and ten poles to a heap of stones and a square hole cut in the flat rock, thence (the division line) south eighty- eight, east seven hundred and sixty-nine to a white oak, poplar, and beech, north thirty-seven, west three hundred and ninety to the beginning; no variation." Bearing in mind that the mouth of Beargrass was then nearly at the foot of Third street, it is not difficult to get the limits of the town-plat as indicated by the present map of the city. Six streets - Main, Market, Jefferson, Green, Walnut, and Chestnut-intersected the plat in the east and west direction, and the pres- ent streets numbered from First to Twelfth inter- sected these at right angles. The general lines of these are probably unchanged to this day. The most remarkable and lamentable departure from the original plat was in the subdivision and sale to private parties of a beautiful slip of one hundred and eighty feet breadth, from the north side of Green to the south side of Grayson streets, and running entirely across the plat, from First (Colonel Durret says from Floyd) to Twelfth streets. At Twelfth it ran into a triangular piece of land between Grayson street on the north, the lots laid out on Twelfth street, and the old town line, which was devoted also to public purposes. This was reserved for a public common or park, and as such is constantly referred to in the early legislative acts relating to the site of Louisville ; and its abandonment and sale must ever be re- garded as a public calamity. Such a beauty-spot and breathing-place in the heart of the business quarter of the great city to come, with the im- mense trees of the primeval forest still upon it, would now be worth even more than the golden eagles that would cover every square inch of its surface. But the foresight of the "city fathers " of 1786 was not sufficient to tell them this. May 4th of that year, they sold so much of it as lay between Floyd and East streets to William Johnson; on the 5th, the strip between East and Seventh to Major William Croghan; on the 3d of August the triangular tract to James Sullivan; but the destruction was not completed until fif- teen years later, when, March 7, 1801, Colonel

R. C. Anderson bought the gap remaining from Seventh to Twelfth streets. The last opportunity of an adequate park in the heart of the city thus passed away.

THE PRICES OF LOTS

in Louisville, under the early surveys, may be easily ascertained by a reduction to Federal money of the Virginia pounds (at $3.331/3 per pound, mentioned in the list of sales presently to be given. Some were sold, Mr. Collins tells us, at merely nominal prices-as a lot on Main street, near Fourth, which was knocked off by the crier on the bid of a horse in exchange for it, worth but $20.00. The prices commonly, however, as will be seen below, must be regarded as very respectable for the times. They were half-acre lots, 105 x 210 feet each, and some brought $7.00 to $14.00 apiece.

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 33

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