History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 48

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 48

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The harbor at the mouth of Beargrass creek (above the Falls) is owned by the house of Gray, commission merchant of Louisville. We have not been able to procure a statement of his rates of wharfage; but those of Mr. Tarascon (which are nearly similar) I insert here at length, as it is highly im- portant that they should be known to all Ohio traders. Tar- ascon's landings extend from Rock Island to the foot of Shippingport :

Vessels under 50 tons shall pay. $ 25 37 1/2

per day

Vessels above 50 and not over 100 tons, =

100

150

200

62 1/2

200

250

300

75 87 1/2

1.00

350

400

I. 121/2

400

500

1.25

Vessels above,

. 500

1.371/2

The wharfage for cargoes is intended to be a charge against the goods only ; but John A. Tarascon will charge it against the vessels and recover it from them, their commander or vessel's owners, as an express condition of his letting vessels load or unload on his property. The vessels to be reim- bursed from the shippers or consignees.

Every vessel shall pay one cent for every one hundred pounds weight of goods that she shall load from the aforesaid wharves or landing places, and one cent. for every one hundred pounds weight that she shall discharge on them; half a cent for every one hundred pounds that vessels do de- liver by water to lighters or receive from them when tied to the aforesaid wharves or landing places.

A copy of Mr. Tarascon's "regulations," of date March 4, 1820, is appended; but they hardly possess sufficient interest at this day to justifying their copying at length.

In the same book Lexington is noted as, "though not the seat of government," the chief town in Kentucky, it having then about eight thousand inhabitants.

A FOREIGN NOTICE.

This year was published in London a volumin- ous View of the United States of America, pre- pared by a number of gentlemen. We extract a few sentences from the long paragraph given to Louisville:

The buildings extend from the mouth of Beargrass down the Ohio to opposite the lower end of Corn Island, a distance of one mile; boats can lie with perfect safety at any point of the shore from the mouth of the creek to the middle of the .

250

300

350

Louis Tarascons

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

island, the river being deep, with little or no current in the bend of the river abreast the town. . . The price of boat- ing goods from New Orleans to Louisville ( distance 1,491 miles) is from 18s. to 225. 6d. per cwt. The freight to Ncw Orleans from hence is 35. 472d. to 4s. 6d. per cwt. The aver- age period of time which boats take to go to New Orleans is about 28 days, that from New Orleans 90 days. Steam ves- sels effect the same route in an average of twelve days down and 36 days up; the mail between those towns is now carried by steamboats. Louisville will, in all probability, soon ex- ceed Lexington in size and population; in the spring of 1819 it contained upwards of 5,000 inhabitants. In this flourish- ing town mechanics are in great demand, and are paid from 40s. 6d. to 54s. a week. Wearing apparel sells high; shoes from 15s. to 18s. a pair; best hats from 36s. to 45s. each, and every article of clothing in proportion.

MR. FLINT'S EULOGIUM.

The growing literary tastes of the place are in- dicated, to some extent, by a passage in one of the letters of Mr. James Flint, a Scotchman who spent several months in the region of the Falls during this year and the preceding. He wrote from. Portland October 13th :

When lately at Louisville, I found an acquaintance read- ing Ivanhoe. During my stay with him, which was only about an hour, two persons applied for a Ioan of the book. He told me that there were seven or eight copies of it in that town, and that they are no sooner read by one than they are lent to another. Two copies of The Monastery had just then arrived in town, and were, if possible, more in request than the former.

JAMES GUTHRIE COMES.

Among the notable immigrants to the city this year was the Hon. James Guthrie, then a young lawyer of twenty-seven years, having been born in Nelson county in 1792. His father, General Adam Guthrie, was a well-known pioneer to that region, a brave Indian fighter, and a member of the Kentucky Legislature for several years. Young Guthrie, after some training at McAllis- ter's Academy, in Bardstown, engaged in flat- boating to New Orleans, returning on foot or horseback through the howling wilderness. Abandoning this hazardous business, he studied law with Judge Rowan, began practice in Louis- ville in 1820, and soon became successful and famous. In 1822 he was partner with Judge Rowan. He was not less prominent as a politi- cian, and became in turn member of the lower and upper houses in the General Assembly of the State, and of the convention that formed the present State Constitution, by which he was chosen President of the body. In 1853 he was called by President Pierce to the Secretaryship of the Federal Treasury. In 1865 he was 32

elected United States Senator, but resigned three years afterwards. His later years were spent in the promotion of railway and other enterprises, in which he was greatly influential, being the main instrument in the building of the great bridge across the Falls. From 1860 to 1868 he was President of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. He died in this city March 13, 1869.

EDWARD D. HOBBS.

Another son of a pioneer came to Louisville in 1820. Born in this county in 1810, Edward D. Hobbs was brought to the city when a lad of ten years, and received the major part of his ed- ucation. Developing a bent for civil engineer- ing, he was made, while yet a very young man, City Engineer and Surveyor, and served as such from 1830 to 1835. He opened the first real estate agency in town, and prospered greatly in the business; secured the charter of the Louis- ville Savings institution, and was its first cashier, but resigned in about a year, and retired to his farm near Anchorage; was State Senator for the four years 1847-51, and president of the Louis- vile and Frankfort railroad company twelve years, 1855-67, resigning at the last from ill- health and living thenceforth a retired life on his farm at Anchorage. Mr. Collins says:

Mr. Hobbs's railroad administration was probably the most handsomely successful of any in the history of Kentucky railroads. Before his accession but one cash dividend had been paid ; and the road was burdened with a debt of $1,000,- 000. This he funded, and introduced such system, enter- prise, and economy, that during his presidency were paid over twenty cash dividends, averaging six per cent. per annum, and one stock dividend declared, of fifty per cent. on the entire capital stock ; the market value of the stock, which was thus increased one-half, being seventy cents on the dollar, against thirty to thirty-five cents twelve years before.

'All the younger and more recent inhabitants of Louisville -now a city of some one hundred and twenty-five thousand -will be surprised to learn that Mr. Hobbs, although (No- vember, 1873) not yet an old man, as the agent of the Pres- tons of Virginia and Kentucky, of the Breckinridges, the Carringtons, and of Governor John C. Floyd, laid off into streets, squares, and lots almost the whole of that portion of . the city which lies east of Jackson street. Nearly all of it was covered with a heavy forest, and he had the timber felled to make way for the enlargement of the city. But few, if any, of the present houses of Louisville were standing when Mr. llobbs removed to it in 1820; they have all been built within his personal memory. During all this time Mr. Hobbs has sustained among the citizens the highest charac- ter for integrity and practical good sense, and has been con- stantly honored, useful, and beloved.

JESSE CHRISLER

was another comer of this year. He was long

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

associated with important business interests here ; was for a few years president of the old Mechanics' Bank, and became quite wealthy. He retired at last to his farm in Jefferson county, opposite Six-mile Island, in the Ohio, where he died January 9, 1882, aged eighty-three.

RIVER STEAMERS.

It is calculated, from the statements of Dr. McMurtrie the previous year, that there were now sixty-eight steamboats upon the Western waters, with an aggregate tonnage of twelve thousand seven hundred and seventy. The price of cabin passage at this time from Louis- ville to New Orleans was $125, and of freightage $90 per ton. For a long period, until economy of time became more important in human life, travel and freight stood mostly by the old keel- and flat-boats.

1821-VALUATION.

According to Mr. Collins's Annals of Ken- tucky, in the early part of the first volume of his History, the total valuation of lots and im- provements (making no account of personal property) in Louisville this year was $1, 189,664, $913.50 in 1807-an increase in fourteen years of $1,188,750.50. The assessed taxes on this valuation were $4,637.68, with additional taxa- tion to the amount of $1,369, distributed as fol- lows: On 14 first-rate retail stores at $30, $420; on 24 second-rate retail stores at $20, $540; on 7 third-rate retail stores at $10, $70; on 26 tavern licenses at $10, $260 ; on 70 carriage wheels at 50 cents, $35 ; on 2 billiard tables at $17, $34; making a total of $5,996.68.

THE NEW BANK.

The Louisville Branch of the Bank of the Commonwealth, provided for by the act of As- sembly the preceding year, was established in May. If the references to this bank by a local paper are correctly made, the whole institution, stem and branches, was founded and set in oper- ation without any capital whatever. Its notes, therefore, as already indicated, soon passed at a great discount. The Bank of the Common- wealth and that of Kentucky, with their several branches, furnished about all the currency then available for business transactions in the State, and as the Louisville merchants, in meeting their

obligations in Eastern cities, had to exchange the State bank-notes for Eastern funds or specie at a considerable premium, they declined to take the Kentucky bills at face value. Mr. Casseday con- tinues :

This seems lo have been a grievous trouble to the manage- ment of the bank at Frankfort, and it was suggested by them that the Legislature should remove the branch established here to "some other situation where love of country, love of truth, and love of general prosperity might overcome the combinations of the weak and wicked." This removal, however, was not effected.

The charter of the Bank of Kentucky was re- pealed the next year.

A QUICK TRIP.

The steamer Post Boy, which has come previ- ously into notice as a mail-carrier, achieved an- other line in history in April of this year, by her trip from New Orleans to Shippingport in seven- teen days, then considered remarkably fast time. Captain R. DeHart was now her commander.

REGULATING THE WATCHMEN.

A committee of the trustees was appointed to draft regulations for the government of the watch- men, who was also to be lamp-lighters. Their report was drawn in eleven resolutions. The scale-house, in the market-house, was assigned as the watch-house for the town. Four watch- men were to be hired, they to give bond for the payment of a penalty of $50 for each neglect of duty. The foreman of the watch was to receive a watchword for each night, and a volunteer se- cret patrol of one citizen each night was also to have the watchword and be invested with the full power of a watchman, that he might see that the regular police were up to their duties. Two of the force were to be stationed on Main, and the other two had their beats on Market and Jefferson, one west and the other east of Fifth street. Each watchman was furnished, at ·public expense, with a staff bearing a pike or hook on one end, a dark lantern, a rattle, a trumpet, a small ladder and flambeau, a pair of scissors, and a tin pot with a spout for the purpose of filling lamps. A contract was proposed with the Pres- byterian church for the use of the bell, to ring at IO P. M., at daylight, and in case of fire. Be- tween the evening and morning ringings colored people found on the streets without a pass were to be arrested, and confined in the watch-house. It is an interesting fact that the 10 o'clock stroke

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

of the bell is still kept up, although the reason for it has passed away. Oil and services were to be erected at the expense of the town whenever the owners of lots, or other persons, should put up posts and lamps. It was sensibly recom- mended that the ancient custom of crying the hour of the night and the kind of weather should not be followed, "thereby giving to evil-disposed persons an opportunity to elude the vigilance of the watchmen." Each of the force was to be held responsible for depredations in his district The committee further suggested, though not strictly relating to the policing of the town, that measures should be taken to reduce the number of dogs therein.

Upon the approval of the report of the commit- tee, Messrs. B. Morgan, C. Sly, M. Woodston, and Will Andrews were "elected and appointed town watches during their good behavior and the pleasure of the board." Mr. Woolston was made captain of the watch.

MR. OGDEN'S NOTICE.

Mr. George W. Ogden, of New Bedford, Massa- chusetts, was here in August of this year, and thus makes mention of the place in one of his read- able Letters from the West:

Louisville is pleasantly situated on an elevated and beau- tiful plain, on the south side of the Ohio river, a little above the Rapids, and is one hundred and twenty miles below Cin- cinnati. This town contains an elegant court-house, market- house, jail, and theater, and three banks, one of which is a branch of the United States [Bank], an insurance company, three houses for public worship, three printing offices, six hundred and eighty dwelling houses, principally of brick, and four thousand eight hundred inhabitants.

The manufacturing establishments of Louisville are grand, and the business is carried on here to a greater extent than in any other part of the Western country, if we except Pitts- burgh. One of the principal of these is a distillery estab- lished by a company of gentlemen from the New England States in 1816, and incorporated in this State by the name of the Hope Distillery Company. I was informed Ly one of the principal owners that this distillery produced one thou- sand five hundred gallons per day. Here are also five to- bacco manufactories, a factory for the construction of steam engines, in which seventy-five workmen are daily employed; a candle and soap manufactory, supposed to be the greatest in the Western country. Here are likewise a sugar refinery and steam flour-mill, etc., etc.

There is no place in the world, perhaps, more eligibly situ- ated, in a commercial point of view, than Louisville. From the Falls to the mouth of the Ohio, there are no obstructions that are dangerous, and very few ripples in the river, so that boating up and down it is practicable at any season of the year, except when it is covered with ice. These boats or flat- bottoms, so-called, are generally constructed in the form of scows or ferry-flats, only much larger and planked up at the

sides and covered at the top. Emigiants generally procure the same kind at Pittsburgh and Wheeling, in which to take their families down the river, and which they frequently have the opportunity to sell again when they stop, to those who wish to take produce down to market. Besides these boats, there are a vast number of keels and barges constantly plying up and down the river, and no less than fifteen steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi already running, and several more progressing. These boats find constant employment in freighting the produce of the country, and bring goods and groceries of every kind up the river from New Orleans, to supply the inhabitants, besides carrying stone coal, which is dug in many places out of the earth, to supply the great number of steam-mills in making flour, and some are con- stantly employed in freighting salt to different sections of the country, from the numerous salines or salt-works."

GEORGE KEATS,

brother of John Keats, the famous, yet hapless and ill-starred young English poet, who is said to have died of adverse criticisim, came to Louis- ville this year, and settled in the lumber busi- ness. He died here in 1844. He was one of the original subscribers to the Christ church fund, and Dr. Craik says, "he is described as a gentleman of fine address, literary in his tastes, like his brother of delicate sensibility, and com- manding the respect of all who knew him, and the warm affection of all who knew him in- timately."

THE COLD WINTER

of 1821-22 is said to have brought the ther- mometer to the intense degree of twenty below zero.

1822-THE FEVER YEAR.

A terrible visitation now came upon Louis- ville, in the shape of an aggravated bilious fever, if it was not a genuine visitation of the dreaded "Yellow Jack." An elaborate, carefully detailed account of its rise and progress, and singular fatality, from the pen of Dr. John P. Harrison, then of Louisville, and afterwards of Cincinnati, may be found in Vol. VIII. of the Philadelphia Medical Journal. Judge Robert Wickliffe said long afterwards that, upon going to the town to hold court this year, he was told there was no house within its borders without its sick or dead.

Dr. McMurtrie, in his "Sketches" of three years before, after mentioning as a peculiar dis- ease of the place "a bilious remitting fever, whose symptoms are often sufficiently aggravated to entitle it to the name of yellow fever," plainly predicted the advent of the latter, "unless greater

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

attention be paid to cleanliness in every possible way." More specifically, and with a very graphic illustration, he added: "During the months of July, August, and September, so strongly are the inhabitants of this and the adjacent towns pre- disposed to this disease, by the joint influence of climate and the miasm of marshes, and decayed and decaying vegetable matter, that they may be compared to piles of combustibles, which need but the application of a single spark to rouse them into flame."

The sanitary conditions of this season, throughout a vast stretch of country, seemed pe- culiarly favorable to the outbreak of epidemic disease. It was, writes the learned Dr. Drake, in his Treatise on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, "a sickly year over the West generally ; it [Louisville] was scourged almost to desolation." The pestilence which prevailed here, was no doubt largely in- duced by the miasm of the ponds still remain- ing on the town site, as well as by careless habits of living, then more common than now. What- ever its cause or causes, it was fearfully destruc- tion. Mr. Collins says: "Almost every house seemed to become a hospital. In a family con- sisting of twenty persons, nineteen were sick at one time. In one family, perhaps in more, every individual died." The following extract is from Mr. Casseday's book :

The disease was a highly aggravated bilious fever, so ter- rible as to deserve the dreaded name of yellow fever. The mortality was very great, and the alarm existing on account of it throughout the whole interior of the neighboring States was of the most exciting character. The Trustees were by it awakened from their lethargy. A Board of Health, con- sisting of Drs. Galt, Smith, Harrison, Wilson, and Tomp- kins, were appointed to examine into the causes of disease and report the same to the Trustees, together with the mode or practicability of removing the same. This first Board of Health was appointed too late. Had they been ordered to examine into this matter years before, much might have been effected, but the time for such action was now passed, and this fearful malady, now inevitable, became the most terrible blow ever given to the prosperity of the rising town. The news spread far and wide, and the neighboring towns, instead of seeking to publish only the truth, assisted largely in circulating garbled intelligence and extravagant reports of a fact which tended to their advantage by destroying the fair fame of their rival. Emigrants from abroad as well as from this and neighboring States, for years afterward, dreaded even to pass through the town, and of those who had already de- termined to locate here, many were dissuaded from their purpose by the assertion that it was but rushing upon death to make the attempt. This occurred, too, just at a period when the resources of the town, beginning to develop them- selves, were attracting the attention of capitalists. It was

this alone which gave a temporary semblance of superiority to the neighboring towns, and, for a time, retarded the usual prosperity of this. Had the feeling of alarm ceased with the disease, it would have been less of a blow, but for years after it was referred to as a warning against emigration hither.

The efforts of the trustees and the board of health, however, were not relaxed on account of their comparative failure this year. The next winter a lottery was authorized by the Legislature to raise money for the purpose of draining the ponds; and so well directed and successful were the energies of the authorities that, when the cholera came a decade thereafter, it touched the people of the city much more lightly than if it had made its visitation in 1822 instead of 1832.

THE CHURCHES.

Christ church (Episcopal) was founded this year, as will be detailed in a future chapter.

The Rev. Daniel Smith was installed Presby- terian pastor in Louisville, March 3. He will also receive further notice.

A LOCAL CURRENCY.

The trustees undertook a measure early in this year, for the relief of the local stringency in circulating media. The credit of the town, under their authority, was pledged by the issue of a variety of small notes, ranging in nominal value from twelve and a half cents, or "a bit," up to $1. $4,000 worth of this stuff was authorized, and much of it was probably uttered; but the next trustees passed an order to count and destroy the notes, "leaving the impression," says Casse- day, "either that they were not put into circula- tion or were redeemed, and so withdrawn from a market already glutted with such trash." There is no record, we believe, that anybody lost any- thing by this extraordinary effort to inflate the currency.

TOBACCO INSPECTION.

A new inspection of tobacco was established here this year, "in the lot of William H. Booth," to be called and known by the name of Booth's Inspection, and governed by the same rules as others of the kind in the State.

MIKE FINK, THE BOATMAN.

We make a rather abrupt transition of subject, and here introduce the renowned Mike Fink, the most noted Western boatman of the early day. The only date we find, in connection with his adventurous life, is 1822, when he is reported to

Samuel Cassedays

Among the early citizens of Louisville, who are identified with the establishment of the city as a point of importance, and whose character, sagacity, industry, and public-spirited- ness contributed to its growth and prosperity, none are held in better memory than Samuel Casseday. When it is ob- served that the entire energies of Mr. Casseday's business career, and the marked moral influences of his noble life were exerted in Louisville over a continuous period of fifty- four years, it is not difficult to understand the value of such a man to the people of his home. His history is a pledge to

the young, that true, faithful work and worth cannot possi- bly fail of success, no matter what be the obstacles in the way at the commencement. It is, of course, true that only a man of unusually strong natural powers could have main- tained, after attamning, the position and popularity that Mr. Casseday enjoyed to the very last of his days on earth; and that he remained right to the close happy-hearted as in youth, producing brightness and soul-sunshine wherever he went, making him one of those rare specimens of his kind that humanity of all ages and sexes as well as conditions,

SAMUEL CASSEDAY.

delight to honor-was by no means the least of his numerous points of attraction. It was just such a patriarchal man that Oliver Goldsmith had in mind when he wrote the beautiful lines-

"As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, Thongh round its base the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

Some details as to the strain this man stood, doing so with his courage ever firin and his bearing ever kindly and gentle, will best indicate the quality of the metal of which he was made, and prove his stock. Samuel Casseday, born August 6, 1795, at Lexington, Virginia, was the son of Peter and Mary McC'lung Casseday. Peter Casseday was a farmer who came from Pennsylvania to the valley of Virginia, after the Revolutionary war, in which he bore arms. He died when the subject of this sketch was about seven years old. The boy had early to take a leading place in the conduct of the affairs of the family, already large; and in this way his oppor- tunities for obtaining an education were confined to what could be obtained in the intervals spared from pressing and imperative duties. This, as in the case of scholars and great men not a few, sufficed. Samuel Casseday at this stage of his career, not only laid the foundation on which to build a well-read man, but was a chief factor in cansing his two brothers, Alexander and George, to be thoroughly well edu- cated. From first to last he was an attentive observer as well as reader, and so he necessarily became a well informed man, though what may be termed his schooling ended with his fourteenth year. In 1813 Mrs. Mary McClung Casseday brought the family from Virginia to Paris, Kentucky, the next year removing to Cynthiana, where about four years were spent. The next point of sojourn was Livonia, In- diana. This was with an uncle of the name of McClung, who was also an uncle of the famous Kentucky writer and orator, William A. McClung. In 1822 Samuel Casseday came to Louisville, where the remainder of his long and useful life-his residence at this place covering a period of fifty-four years-was to be spent. When he came to Louis- ville he was ready for anything that offered, and so he made his start here as a carpenter. In November of the same year he accepted a clerkship in the store of Mr. Thomas Jones. From this speedily came opportunity for engaging in business on his own account. He soon had true and influ- ential friends, and among these was Mr. John S. Snead. This gentleman encouraged Mr. Casseday to enter business with Mr. John Bull as partner, Mr. Snead promising and giving substantial aid as often as necessary. Thus deservedly assisted, Messrs. Bull & Casseday, in June of 1824, com- menced as dealers in queensware, glass, and china goods. The house was a success from the beginning, clearing the then large sum of $7,000 the first season; and before the end of the year Mr. Casseday went on a trip to England, making a direct importation, among the earliest on this order made so far west. In 1835 the firm of Bull & Casseday was suc-

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 48

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