History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 39

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 39

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

As we might naturally expect, Major Quirey made a most efficient soldier and officer. He enlisted, during the war, not less than six thou- sand men. Soon after he became a captain in the Seventeenth regiment, United States Army, a rather unusual incident occurred which might have terminated seriously. He had a pair of pet bears, and once passing near them he was seized by the male and quickly drawn under him. The situation was critical, but the man was not to be conquered by a bear. With one hand he seized the animal's tongue and, drawing it over his teeth, caused him to bite off his own tongue. The other hand tore out one of the creature's eyes. Thus the pain given aided him

in extricating himself, but not without wounds in his body from the long sharp claws and the loss from his hip of a mass of flesh weighing not less than twelve pounds. Such is the statement given by the Major's own son. He continued in office after recovery from this affray, till his regi- ment was disbanded in 1815. In 1817 he died. The life of his widow is also full of romantic incident. She survived him many years, her death occurring about the year 1850. Her recol- lections of the early days in Louisville were always of interest, and her death to many are the cause of much regret.

A NOTICE.

Toulmin's description of Kentucky, in North America, printed in England in November of this year, says merely :

Louisville stands on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, oppo- site Clarksville, at the Falls, in a fertile country, and prom- ises to be a place of great trade. Its unhealthiness, owing to stagnated waters behind the town, has considerably retarded its growth.

1791-EXPEDITIONS.

The Kentucky board of war was formed in January, under authority of Congress, and con- sisted of Generals Scott and Shelby, Colonel Benjamin Logan, Henry Innes, and John Brown. Under its direction General Scott, the chief offi- cer, undertook a successful expedition in May against the Indian towns on the Wabash, cross- ing his force at the mouth of the Kentucky.

On the 21st of August the expedition of Gen- eral James Wilkinson, which had also been or- ganized under authority of the board, and had operated fortunately against the native villages near the junction of the Eel and Wabash rivers, reaches Louisville on its return with prisoners and plunder, and the force is here disbanded.

Some of the men of Louisville were undoubt- edly in both these expeditions. Many Kentuck- ians were also in the terrible defeat sustained near the Maumee November 4th of this year, by General Arthur St. Clair-the worst disaster, it is believed, in proportion to the numbers engaged, that ever befell the American arms. General Butler, whose observations at Louisville are re- corded in the last chapter, was among the killed of this action.

An act of the Virginia Assembly this year

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

vested all the right and title of the Common- wealth in the escheated tract of Connolly, so far as it affected Campbell's moiety of the two thou- sand acres, in Colonel Campbell and his heirs, in fee simple.

Dr. Benjamin Johnston, father of William Johnston, the immigrant with General Clark in 1778 and first Clerk of Jefferson county, and grandfather of Dr. James Chew Johnston, re- moved to Louisville with all his family this year. A daughter of his married Major John Harrison, and the veteran of more than eighty years, Hon. James Harrison, the well-known Louisville law- yer, was born of that marriage. His grand- father, Benjamin Johnston, lived on the corner of Main and Sixth streets, where he died about six years after his arrival, in 1797. Most of his de- scendants live in Indiana and Illinois.

1792-FLAGET.

Towards the end of November, a young Frenchman, a priest of the Order of St. Sulpice, or the Sulpitians, landed here from the flat-boat upon which he had floated from Pittsburg, on his way as a missionary to the French Catholics of Vincennes, who had been long without a spiritual guide. His biographer, Bishop Spal- ding, makes an interesting, though partly mis- taken, note of the visit:

There were but three or four cabins in Louisville. Here he had the happiness to meet with his old friends, Rev. MM. Levadoux and Richard, on their way to Kaskaskias and Prairie du Rocher. At the foot of a tree with wide-spreading branches, he made his confession to M. Levadoux; his heart was filled with lively emotion, for he knew not how long it might be before he would haveanother opportunity to receive the grace of the holy sacrament of penance.

In Louisville he stopped at the cabin of a French settler, who owned one hundred acres of land at the mouth of Bear- grass creek, embracing the central portion of the present city. His host, who had no heirs, pressed him to take up his abode permanently at his house, promising to convey to him all his property, in caseof compliance. But the disinterested missionary told him at once that he was a child of obedience and that he must repair promptly to the station to which he had been sent by his superiors. This property is now [1852] worth, probably, more than a million of dollars.

This young priest was subsequently the Right Reverend Benedict Joseph Flaget, first Catholic Bishop of Kentucky, and the first of Louisville. His devoted and generous host was a well-known pioneer hither from the Old World.

BEGINNINGS OF POLITICAL DISTINCTION.

It is a fact of considerable interest, and re- dounded not a little to the glory of Louisville and Jefferson county, that they furnished the very earliest presiding officers of the Kentucky Senate and House of Representatives. In the first year of the State Government it was the fortune of Alexander Scott Bullitt, nephew of the sur- veyor of 1773, Colonel Thomas Bullitt, to be chosen an elector of the Senators, under the peculiar provision of the first Constitution, then a Senator, then Speaker of the Senate, as there was no Lieutenant-Governor under the first Con- stitution, which he had also helped to form, as a member of the Convention. He presided over the Senate until the Constitution of 1799 (which he again aided to construct, being now presiding officer of the Convention) went into operation, when he became the first Lieutenant-Governor elected in the State, and as such re-occupied the chair in the Senate from 1800 to 1804, making in all twelve years of presidency in this body. He remained four years longer in the Legislature as Representative or Senator, until 1808, when he retired from public life.

The first Speaker of the House of Representa- tives was also a Jefferson county man-Robert, of the famous family of Breckenridges. He had been one of the Kentucky members of the Vir- ginia Convention which ratified for that State the Constitution of the United States, and a mem- ber of the Convention of 1792, which formed the Kentucky State Constitution. Under that he was chosen one of the earliest Representatives from Jefferson county, and was elected by the House Speaker of that body. He was three times re-elected by his constituents and by his fellow-legislators, and for four years served as Speaker; and it is a fact worth noting that, dur- ing the first twenty-seven years of the State government, for eight years, or through nearly one-third of the whole time, the chair of the House of Representatives was held by a Breck- enridge-by Robert Breckenridge four years, 1792-95; by John Breckenridge two years, 1799-1800; and by Joseph Cabell Breckenridge two years, 1817-18.

The first Kentucky Legislature met June 4th of this year, just after the admission of the State, in a two-story log house in Lexington. The first session lasted but twelve days; the next, begin-

206

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

ning November 5, 1792, was somewhat longer.

In this year was published in London the first edition of [Mr. Gilbert Imlay's Topographical Description of the Western Territory, belonging mainly to Kentucky. It was an octavo of two hundred and forty-seven pages, and contained, as previously noted, one of the first maps of Louis- ville ever published.

1793-CHARLES M. THRUSTON.

One of the notable natives of Jefferson county was born this year-Charles Myron Thruston, son of a famous pioneer family residing on Bear- grass creek. He was educated in the classical schools at Bardstown, read law with his brother- in-law, Worden Pope, of Louisville, and began practice here with great success. Originally a Jeffersonian Democrat, he became a Whig, and in 1832 was a candidate for Congress against the Hon. C. A. Wickliffe. He failed of election but largely reduced the Democratic majority in the

district, and was the first candidate for any office to secure a Whig majority in this city. He was an eloquent speaker, and lent his voice and energies to all schemes for the advancement of the place or the amelioration of the race. He married Eliza, daughter of the elder Fortunatus Cosby. January 7, 1854, after long illness he died here, at the residence of his son-in-law, Dr. Lewis Rogers.

1794-THE FRENCH INTRIGUES.

This was the year when all Kentucky was stirred to the core by the intrigues instigated by "Citizen Genet," the pestilent minister of the French Republic to the United States. Disre- garding the Government's proclamation of neu- trality in the wars then pending, he sent four French agents to Kentucky, instructed to enlist two thousand men for the reduction of the Span- ish settlements about the mouths of the Missis- sippi, and the forcible return of Louisiana to France. General Clark was easily persuaded to undertake the office of generalissimo of this expected force, with the sounding title of "Major- General in the Armies of France, and Com- mander-in-chief of the French Revolutionary Legions on the Mississippi river," and to issue proposals for volunteers to attack the Spanish posts, free the inhabitants of Louisiana from the

tyranny of his Most Catholic Majesty, and open the navigation of the Mississippi. Democratic societies, resembled somewhat to the desperate and bloodthirsty Jacobin clubs of France, were formed at several places in Kentucky, and there was for a time great activity in recruiting officers and men for the unlawful and foolish expedition. In December of the preceding year, however, General St. Clair, Governor of the Northwestern Territory, issued his proclamation warning citi- zens not to join any expedition against the Span- ish possessions, and enjoining neutrality as be- tween the contending powers. The President soon after directed General Wayne, commanding the Western army, to send a force with artillery to Fort Massac, on the lower Ohio, to stop any expedition of the kind; and when, early in the present year, "Citizen Genet" was recalled at the request of our Government, the scheme col- lapsed completely, involving, unhappily, General Clark again in disappointment and chagrin. Lachaise, one of Genet's agents, in his bombas- tic way notified the democratic society at Lex- ington that "unforeseen events had stopped the march of two thousand brave Kentuckians to go, by the strength of their arms, to take from the Spaniards the empire of the Mississippi, insure to their country the navigation of it, hoist up the flag of liberty in the name of the French repub- lic;" and there was an end. Louisville had par- taken somewhat in the commotions, though we do not learn that any revolutionary society was formed here, or that any of the more active trans- actions of the affair went on at the Falls. As the home of General Clark, however, we may be sure that this region was profoundly agitated by the intrigues.

INCIDENTS.

The village of Newtown, in Jefferson county, was founded this year.

The great victory of Wayne August 20th, at the battle of the Fallen Timbers, succeeded a year thereafter by the peace of Greenville, went far to assure the settlers of Kentucky against any further Indian attacks.

1795-TOBACCO INSPECTION.

The tobacco trade had already begun in Louis- ville, and Colonel Campbell's warehouse had

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

been open for the business for some time. But this year the inspection of tobacco at his estab- lishment was suppressed by legislative action, and a new warehouse founded at the mouth of the Beargrass, with an inspector appointed under the law and his inspections regulated accordingly. He was allowed the munificent sum of twenty- five Virginia pounds ($83.337/3) per year for his services, and had commonly to be sent for by special messenger when any tobacco came in to be inspected.

AN EARLY NOTICE.

Mr. W. Winterbotham's Historical, Geograph- ical, Commercial, and Philosophical View of the American United States, published in 1795, con- tained the following brief notice of this place:

Louisville is at the Rapids of Ohio, in a fertile country, and promises to be a place of great trade; it has been made a port of entry. Its unhealthiness, owing to stagnated waters at the back of the town, has considerably retarded its growth.

The writer of this note, like almost every writer upon Louisville in the early days, must be convicted of at least one mistake. The town was not made a port of entry until four years after this date.

A fine map of Kentucky, which precedes a good account of the State in Winterbotham's book, shows roads from Louisville to Lexington and to Bardstown, and from Clarksville-the only town shown on the opposite side in "Gen- eral Clark's Grant, one hundred and fifty thou- sand acres," in the "Northwestern Territory"- to Post Vincent, and thence westward. Cincin- nati is not shown upon this map, but only a "Fort" near the mouth of the Little Miami.

THE SPANISH TROUBLES.

Fresh Spanish intrigues are going on in Ken- tucky this year, but originating this time with the Spanish Governor at New Orleans, Carondelet, who sends an agent, Thomas Power, to Louisville in July with a letter to Judge Benjamin Sebastian, suggesting the negotiation of a treaty for the opening of the Mississippi to the West alone, between a representative of Spain and commis- sioners to be appointed by the people of Ken- tucky. Sebastian was now Second Judge of the Court of Appeals of the State, and a prominent man. He had been an Episcopal clergyman, having been educated in America, and receiving orders in England, but had been diverted to the

pursuits of the law. He settled in Jefferson county, which he represented in the State con- ventions of August, 1785, of 1787, 1788, and 1792, the latter of which framed the Constitu- tion. Under this he became one of the three original judges of the Court of Appeals, com- missioned June 28, 1792. He unfortunately gave ear to Carondelet's schemes of action on the part of Kentucky independent of the Federal Government, and it subsequently came out that he was in receipt of a Spanish pension, or bribe, of $2,000 per annum, from about 1795 to 1806. Any arrangements contemplated between Sebas- tian and the Spanish Governor in the former year were anticipated and stopped by the negotia- tion in October of a treaty between the United States and Spain, which conceded to all the country the free navigation of the Mississippi to the ocean and the right of deposit of goods at New Orleans. But in 1797 Power again ap- peared in Louisville, with a letter to the judge, proposing the withdrawal of Kentucky from the Federal Union and the formation of an indepen- dent Western government; $100,000 and the value of any office that might be forfeited by the effort would be appropriated for this purpose by the King of Spain, with a full equipment of can- non, small arms, and munitions of war. Se- bastian received the proposal very coolly, although Power made favorable report of his views; and nothing finally came of it except to bring the judge into odium and suspicion, as also Colonel Wilkinson, whom Power visited at Detroit, where the Colonel was commanding the garrison. The judge had previously, with the Chief Justice of the Court, George Muter, brought great censure upon himself by an obnoxious decision in a land case. The Kentucky Legislature voted an ad- dress asking their resignation, which they did not give, but instead revised and reversed their de- cision.

THE PIONEER SPEED.

John Speed, progenitor at Louisville of the famous Speed family, of this city, came to the Falls this year, but shortly went out to the place on the Bardstown road, near the town, where his descendants have since lived, and which is now in the possession of his son, the Hon. James Speed, late Attorney-General of the United States. The progenitor of the family in this State was John Speed's father, James Speed

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

who removed from Mecklenburg county, Vir- ginia, to Kentucky in 1783, and settled near Danville. A large number of his progeny in the various generations now reside in different parts of the State. John was but twenty-two years old when he came to Louisville. He was made in due time an associate judge of the Jefferson circuit court, and left a reputation as an up- right magistrate, a superior farmer, and a well- informed, hospitable gentleman. He died upon his farm in March, 1840, in his sixty-seventh year.

1796-ANDREW ELLICOTT'S VISIT.

In 1796 Louisville entertained for a day a somewhat distinguished company, the head of which was the Hon. Andrew Ellicott, of Massa- chusetts, Commissioner on behalf of the United States for determining the boundary between the United States and the dominions of His Most Catholic Majesty (of France) in America. They came floating down in barges from Cincinnati. The following is an extract from Mr. Ellicott's journal:

8th | December, 1796]. Detained till evening by our com- missary, who was employed in procuring provision. Set off about sundown.

The town of Louis Ville stands a short distance above the rapids on the east side of the river. The situation is hand- some, but said to be unhealthy. The town has improved but little for some years past. The rapids are occasioned by the water falling from one horizontal stratum of limestone to another; in some places the fall is perpendicular, but the main body of the water when the river is low runs along a channel of tolerably regular slope, which has been through length of time worn in the rock. In the spring, when the river is full, the rapids are scarcely perceptible, and boats de- scend without difficulty or danger .- Thermometer rose from 22° to 29º.

LACASSANGE THE FRENCHMAN.

In this year, says Colonel Durrett, in his Centennial Address -- which was probably not the year of his subject's immigration hither --- "Michael Lacassange, a Frenchman, who fled from the storms of his own country to find re- pose in our own, was the owner of the property on the north side of Main street, extending from Bullitt to Sixth. Here stood his dwelling-house, and around it was a rich carpet of bluegrass, with fruit and flowers. So much was he enamored of his ample lot, and green grass, and blooming trees, and fragrant flowers, that he bequeathed the property to his friend Robert K. Moore, on

condition that he was not to sell it until the year 1860, and in the meantime his trees were to be cared for with the same kind care he had be- stowed upon them. This love of a home, sur- rounded by atry grounds beautified with green grass and trees and flowers, found not a lodg- ment in the heart of the Frenchman alone. It has manifested itself among the citizens of Louis- ville from that time to this. There is no city in our country that can present such a number of private residences with vacant grounds around them, rendered lovely by shade trees and shrub- bery and flowers and bluegrass."

Lacassange's house was near the northeast corner of Main and Fifth. Here he died in 1797.

ANOTHER COLD WINTER.

The winter of this year is reported as being an- other of extreme severity. On the 20th of De- cember several parties of emigrants going down the river in flatboats were stopped by the ice, which broke up two days afterwards with such violence as to wreck part of the boats and cost some of the wayfarers their lives. Baily, the scientific traveler of the next year, to be men- tioned further below, reports the cold of this winter at seventeen degrees below zero. There was again considerable suffering among the ill- provided pioneers.

1797-LOCAL TAXATION.

We have now the first tax duplicate of the town of Louisville that has been preserved, in the records of the Trustees or elsewhere. It shows that on the 3d day of July of this year, Dr. Hall being Assessor and likewise Collector, the following tax-levy was made " on all who re- side within the limits of the half-acre lots " -- res- sidents on the outlots apparently escaping scot- free :

50 Horses at 6d per head is. 5$

od.

65 Negroes at Is per head. 3

2 Billiard Tables at 20s each 2

3 Tavern licenses at 6s each. I

10 O

5 Retail Stores at Ios each . 2

IO 0

Carriages : 6 wheels at 2s per wheel .. 12 O

Town Lots at 6d per [100 is 8

80 Tithables at 3s each. 12

Making the startling total of. L31

15S 6d.

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

THE FALL PILOTS.

On the 21st of February of this year, the first enactment relating to pilots down the Falls was passed by the Kentucky Legislature. The fol- lowing preamble justified the law: "Whereas great inconveniences have been experienced and many boats lost in attempting to pass the rapids of the Ohio for want of a Pilot, and trom per- sons offering their services to strangers to act as Pilots, by no means qualified for this business," etc. The pilots were to be appointed by the County Court of Jefferson county, and to hold their offices during good behavior. Any person, except those licensed as pilots, attempting to conduct boats for hire down the Falls, should pay a penalty of $10 for each offense. A pilot was entitled to a fee of $2 for each boat piloted through.

A ROYAL VISITOR.

It was this year that the young Duke of Or- leans, afterwards Louis Philippe, the "Citizen King " of France, accompanied by two younger brothers, the Ducs de Montpensier and Beau- jois, all virtually exiled by the terrors of the Revolution, visited Kentucky, and included Louisville in their tour. Their father, Philippe Egalité, perished by the guillotine ; the two youngest princes died away from France; and the oldest brother was not allowed to return until 1814, when he had been exiled twenty-one years. In the course of their tour they visited Wash- ington at Mt. Vernon, entered Kentucky at Maysville, and took Lexington, Louisville, Bardstown, and other points in the State, on their way to Nashville. At Bardstown, where the Catholic colleges and episcopal residence then were, they were so well received that, forty years afterwards, when the Duke became King, he sent to Bishop Flaget a beautiful clock for his cathedral.

VISIT OF FRANCIS BAILY.

On Tuesday, April 11, a young Englishman, then comparatively unknown, but already a care- ful scientific observer, and afterwards one of the kings of science, floated down the Ohio from Cincinnati and moored his boat above the Falls. His Journal of a Tour was published long subse- quently, when it was named upon the title-page as by "Francis Baily, F. R. S., president of the Royal Astronomical society," and published with

a memoir by Sir John Herschel in 1856. Mr. Baily wrote:

At nine we came to Louisville (seventy-five miles from the Kentucky), where all the boats going down the Ohio put ashore to take in a pilot to conduct them over the Falls. Louisville, which may contain about two hundred houses, chiefly frame-built, is pleasantly situated on the second bank of the river, which is about fifty feet higher than the bed; and you do not catch a sight of it till you come into the mouth of Beargrass creek, which is a stream of water flowing along the eastern boundary of the town and emptying itself into the Ohio, thereby forming an excellent harbour for the boats which come down that river, so that they are in no danger of being driven from their moorings and carried over the Falls. The reason you cannot see the town till you come immedi- ately upon it is that you are obliged to keep to the left shore, in order to get into the creek; otherwise, if you ventured far out in the stream, you would get into the suck of the rapids ere you could possibly recover yourself, which would prove the destruction of the boat and yourself too.

The prospect from Louisville is truly delightful. The Ohio here is near a mile wide, and is bounded on the opposite side by an open champaign country, where there is a fort kept up for the protection of this infant colony, and called Fort Steuben.

Louisville is the last place of any consequence which you pass in going down the Ohio.

Mr. Baily thought the uncertainty about land titles, which he discusses at some length, a great obstacle to the settlement of Louisville and of Kentucky.

PETER BENSON ORMSBY

came from Ireland this year, and settled in the little town. He became a very prominent citizen during his long residence here, and was the father of Mrs. John T. Gray, who died February 3, 1862, in her seventy-fifth year, at the country- seat of her daughter Elizabeth, widow of Dr. Norbonne A. Galt. Mr. Ormsby was the ori- ginator of the proposal to erect the first (Christ) Episcopal church here, and gave part of the lot on Second street, on which it is erected. He visited his native land repeatedly during his res- idence in Louisville, and was detained abroad in virtual exile by the outbreak of the War of 1812 during one of his visits, but returned upon the conclusion of peace.

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 39

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