History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 56

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 56

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).

287

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

All below Twelfth street was a " waste," if not a howling wilderness. We had to drive up our cows from that "ilk." and you recollect what our boyish ideas were of the dangers of that part of the world if we were caught out alone by the dusk. The great foot-ball ground for many years after was between Fourth and Fifth, on Chestnut. Our swimming place, when we did not go to the river, was the deep-hole in Beargrass, near Chestnut or Broadway, to reach which we had a long walk through commons and woods, beset with Paddies terrible to the straggling and lone down- towner.

CHAPTER IX. THE SEVENTH DECADE.

1840-Population and other Statistics -- Gas-works in Opera- tion-Louisville College-Franklin Museum-Lodge of Antiquity, No. 113, Free and Accepted Masons-Tenth Amendment to City Charter-The Great Fire-Visits of President-elect Harrison and General Van Rensselaer- Revolutionary Soldiers-What Mr. Buckingham Saw here -Mrs. Steele also-And George Combe-Patrick H. Pope. 1841-Growth of Manufactures-Taxable Valua- tion of the City -- A Quick Trip-Duel between Clay and Wickliffe-Military Encampment-Bishop Flaget-Mon- roe Edwards, the Forger. 1842-Valuation -- Water-works -The Blind Institution-Mercantile Library Association --- Canal Charter Amended-Editorial Affray-Death of Rev. Benjamin O. Peers-Charles Dickens at Louisville, and What He Said about It. 1843- The State Capital- Steamer-building-More Earthquakes-General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church -- The Louisville Democrat Started- Death of Hon. John Rowan. 1844-The Cou- rier Started - Business Growth - Steamer Explosion- Death of Revs. D. C. Banks and William Jackson-Gen- eral Assembly of the Old School Presbyterian Church. 1845-Population - Business Statistics-Valuation - The Canal-Methodist Episcopal Church South-Test of Ken- tucky and Russian Hemp-River Frozen Over. 1846- The Mexican War-Louisville & Frankfort Railroad-Uni- versity of Louisville-The New Theatre-Curious Post- office Statistics - Breach of Promise Case - Mt. Zion Lodge, No. 147, Free and Accepted Masons-Hon. John James Marshall-Mr. Mackay's Remarks. 1847-Assess- ments - Business - Clerical and Ecclesiastical Notes- Newspapers of 1847 -- Law School-Tremendous Flood. 1848-Population, Etc .- Cave Hill Cemetery Opened- Mr. Peyton's Visit and Observations-Hon. William J. Graves. 1849 - Cholera in Louisville - First German Daily, the Anzeiger --- Corner-stone of the Cathedral Laid -Emancipation Meeting-Notable Deaths-The Quickest Trip yet - Visit of President-elect Taylor to His Old Home-Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley here-Valua- tion.

1840-POPULATION AND OTHER STATISTICS.

Notwithstanding the exaggerated estimates or careless enumerations of population which had been made from time to time during the last

decade, the census-takers of the Federal Govern- ment were able to find but 21,210 inhabitants in Louisville this year. This, however, was an in- crease, from 10,341 in 1830, of 10,869-1009 immigrants, very nearly, every year, or more than 105 per cent in all. Portland, however, which had 398 inhabitants in 1830, and Shippingport, whose 606 of population were also then seperately enumerated, were now included in the total cen- sus of the city, reducing somewhat the actual in- crease from the above calculation. Jefferson county had added but little more to its inhabit- ants than the growth of the city, showing an in- crease of 12,367, or a rise from 23,979 to 36,- 346-a trifle more than 53 per cent. The State at large had grown in 10 years by 91,911, or but 1373 per cent., now numbering 779,828-590,- 253 whites, 180,258 slaves (increase of 1073 per cent.), and 9,317 free blacks.

The following are details of the Louisville census: White males, 9,282; females, 7,889; total, 17,171. Slaves, 3,420; free colored per- sons, 609; total blacks, 4,029. Mr. Casseday remarks: "This census is not considered authen- tic, as many transparent errors were found in various parts of it. Other computations, made from reliable data at the same period, give the city 23,000 to 24,000 inhabitants. As the for- mer number, however, has received official sanc- tion, it would be idle to dispute its correctness."

He also furnishes the following statistics of business in Louisville, as ascertained by the cen- sus: I commercial and 11 commission houses in foreign trade, with a capital of $191,800; 270 re- tail stores, with a capital of $2,128,400; 3 lum- ber yards, with a capital of $52,000; 2 flouring- mills, 2 tanneries; 2 breweries; 1 glass-cutting works; 1 pottery; 2 ropewalks ; 7 printing offices ; 2 binderies; 5 daily, 7 weekly, and 3 semi-week- ly newspapers; and I periodical. Total capital employed in manufactures, $713,675. One col- lege, 80 students; 10 academies, 269 students ; 14 schools, 388 scholars.

The value of taxable property in the city now was: In the Eastern District, $8,558,321; West- ern District, $9,565, 185; total, $18, 123,506. Mr. Casseday gives the assessment of the year (per- haps of real property alone) as $13,340, 194- more than triple that of 1830-and adds in a foot-note:

Speculation in city lots ran very high at this time, and

2SS

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

property bore an enormous fictitious value. As will be re- membered, this feeling was not confined to Louisville, but was prevalent all over the Western country. This was the era of speculations in Western town-lots, an era which will not be recalled with pleasure by most Western men.

THE GAS-WORKS,

for which Legislative provision had been made by the charter of a company in 1839, with power to create a capital of $1,200,000, erect gas- and water-works, and do all banking business except to issue bills, were finished and set in operation this year. The new light was adopted at once in all the stores and shops, and in most of the dwellings of the wealthier residents, as well as upon the principal streets. It was the first city in Kentucky lighted with gas. Mr. Casseday, writing twelve years afterwards, had not yet recovered from the exuberant feeling consequent upon its introduction. He says :

The city is better supplied with gas, and better lighted than any in the United States, if not in the world; most of the wealthier citizens use it in their dwellings, and all the shops are lighted with gas. The perspective view of the miles of brilliant lanıps stretching away in the distance is very beauti- ful, and very attractive to strangers. Before the introduction of this sort of tight, the city had been for two or three years greatly infested by robbers, who, favored by the darkness, made nightly attacks upon passengers through the streets, striking and disabling them with " colts," and in no few in- stances murdering them outright. Residents were seldom attacked by these banditti, but the streets were considered unsafe for strangers. Finding it impossible to pursue their avocations where the streets were brilliantly illuminated, these gentry changed their place of operations immediately on the lighting of the town, much to the relief of the citizens as well as the re-establishment of the fair fame of the city.

THE LOUISVILLE COLLEGE

was chartered this year, on the 17th of January, as lineal successor of the old Jefferson Seminary. There were fourteen public schools in the city · this year besides. A new free-school system, abolishing the monitorial system and all tuition fees was introduced.

The Franklin Museum was also an incorpora- tion of the year.

The Lodge of Antiquity, No. 113, Free and Accepted Masons, was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Kentucky in September. Mr. John R. Hall was the first Master.

THE TENTH AMENDMENT

to the city charter, passed February 17th of this year, changed the city limits so as to begin at the northwest corner of the former town of Port- land and run thence with its line to the south- west corner of said town, thence to the south-

west corner of the city on the Shippingport & Salt river road, thence with the city line to low-water mark on the south fork of Beargrass, thence to the northwest corner of James Southard's land, common to him and Petitt, on the Bardstown turnpike road, thence with Southard and Petitt's line to the middle fork of Beargrass to low-water mark, thence to a point, formerly Jacob Geiger's upper corner, on the Ohio river, thence north across the river to low water mark, thence with the river at low-water mark to a point due north from the beginning, and thence across the river to the beginning.

THE GREAT FIRE.

This is one of the leading historic events of the city's century of life. It was the first exten- sive conflagration from which the place had suf- fered, and the greatest in any period of its annals, in proportion to the size of the city. It is still traditionally known as the great fire. Begin- ning at midnight, in John Hawkins' chair factory, between Main and Market streets, on Third street, it extended almost to the post-office, then on the corner of Third and Market streets, and north as far as Main. Thence moving down Main street, every building was burned to within two doors of the Bank of Louisville. Here far- ther advance was stopped, only to proceed across the street, where ten large buildings were con- sumed before the devastation could be stopped. In all thirty buildings were burned and the loss counted up beyond $300,000. In the main the houses were importing and commercial stores, out of which many of the goods were saved. The burnt region was quickly covered, however, with buildings of a more durable character than before, so that, in the end, the disastrous event may be reckoned as a gain to the city rather than a loss.

SOME DISTINGUISHED VISITORS.

This was the great year of the Harrison cam- paign, forever memorable in the history of Amer- ican politics. The hero of Tippecanoe-"and Tyler, too"-received a majority in Kentucky of 25,873, the largest given by any State in the Union, and which came within 6,743 of equalling the total vote of their opponents. A few days after the election, and when the fact of his choice for the Presidency was placed beyond question, the General visited Louisville on

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

289

private business, and thence journeyed to Frank- fort, Lexington, and Shelbyville. He was every- where received, as here, with unbounded en- thusiasm, but declined all public demonstrations of honor. In Frankfort he received his friends in the same room in which nearly a generation before (June, 1812), he had received from Gov- ernor Scott his commission as major-general of the Kentucky volunteers, which he resigned at the close of the War 1812-15.

In July General Solomon Van Rensselaer, an old soldier of the Revolution, who had also been a captain at Fort Washington, Cincinnati, in 1794, was revisiting the Valley of the Ohio, and was very handsomely entertained in the Queen City. Desiring also to see him in Louisville, a committee of citizens was appointed July 10th, consisting of Messrs. George M. Bibb, William Cochran, J. E. Pendergrast, Francis Johnson, John O. Cochran, George W. Anderson, and William H. Field, to visit or write to the dis- tinguished veteran, and "in the name and on behalf of the citizens of Louisville, tender him a public dinner at the Galt House." He declined this honor, but came and spent a day in Louis- ville, during which a large number of citizens called upon him, and many flattering attentions were shown the old warrior.

An enumeration of Revolutionary soldiers still surviving and residing in Jefferson county was made this year, exhibiting five of the veterans, of ages from seventy-six to ninety-five. Their names will be found in out Military chapter.

WHAT MR. BUCKINGHAM SAW.

Another distinguished visitor of this year was Mr. J. S. Buckingham, an English traveler of some note, who published no less than eight elaborate volumes of narratives of his travels in North America. In the third volume of his book on The Eastern and Western States of America, he says :

We reached Louisville from Frankfort] soon after 6 o'clock, having been ten hours performing a distance of fifty- two miles, and the fare being $4 each. We alighted at the Galt House, where apartments had been kindly given up to us by the family with whom we had traveled through the greater part of one day, and who, not requiring their rooms immediately-as they lived usually at the Galt House- allowed us to occupy them in their absence during our stay, so that we were most comfortably lodged and accommo- dated.

During the week that we remained at Louisville, there were various causes of excitement all in action at the same time.

Horse-racing, in which the Kentuckians take great delight, had drawn together a great number of sportsmen, as they are called here. A large bazaar, or fancy fair, was holding in the city, to raise funds for an orphan asylum. Bargain- making and gallantry, philanthropy and coquetry, were here strangely mingled; and all the arts of the most worldly tradespeople were put in requisition to entrap inexperienced buyers, while pious frauds were justified in the eyes of the sellers by the gains realized for charitable purposes. The theatre and the circus were at the same time crowded every night, at the benefits of favorite actors and actresses; and concerts, given at the public ball-room, were also well at- tended. After these, or rather contemporaneously with them, several religious meetings were held, connected with a great Baptist convention, which met here during this week, to hold its anniversary. To crown all, the city was said to be full of gamblers, this being the season at which they period- ically ascend the river from New Orleans, and usually stop here for a month or two, before they scatter themselves among the fashionable watering-places, to allure their game. Many of the haunts of these gamblers were pointed out to me, and no pains were taken to conceal them. Their per- sons also are readily recognizable, by the greater style of fashion and expensiveness in which they dress, and the air of dissipation by which they are marked from other men. Pis- tols and bowie-knives are carried by them all; while their numbers, their concentrated action, and their known ferocity and determination, make them so formidable that neither the community nor the public authorities seem willing to take any bold or decisive step against them; and while lottery offices abound in all the principal streets, under the sanction or sufferance of the public, it would be difficult to justify an interference with any other kind of gambling without sup- pressing this at the same time.

The town is well laid out, as to symmetry of design, but it is greatly inferior to Cincinnati in size and beauty. It has no background of hills to relieve its monotony, no gradual rise from the river to show its buildings to advantage; and its reddish-brown aspect, from the great mass of the houses be- ing built of brick, gives it a gloomy air, compared with the brightness of Cincinnati, in its buildings of stone. .

The streets have brick pavements at the side ways, and are the only ones I remember yet to have seen without posts or awnings to shelter the passengers from the sun, though the latitude 38° 18' north is nearly two degrees farther south than New York, in which, as in almost every one of the Northern cities, this convenience is provided. The central . parts of the streets are paved with narrow slabs of limestone, standing on their edges; and the roughness of a ride over these in one of the hackney coaches of the town, is equal to the punishment of a corduroy road, and makes riding more fatiguing than walking, its only advantage being the shelter afforded from the sun, The principal streets are lighted with gas; but by far the larger portion of the town is without lights or lamps.

Of the public buildings, there are not yet many of great beauty; though one is now in the act of being erected-a new court-house-which will be a splendid edifice, and cost upwards of $500,000. It is at present nearly roofed in, is built of fine hewn-stone, is in excellent taste and proportions, and will be, when completed, the greatest ornament of the city. The old Court-house, the Marine hospital for boatmen, the academy, and the city school-house are the only other public buildings of the place; and there is nothing in the architecture of either to command admiration.

There are eleven churches in the city-two Episcopalian,

290

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

two Presbyterian, two Baptist, two Methodist, one Catholic, and two African for the use of the negroes only. Of all these there are but two that can be called handsome struc- tures, and these are the new Presbyterian, with a square Gothic spire, intended to be surmounted with an octagonal turret, after the manner of St. Dunstan's in the West, near Temple Bar in London, of which it appeared to me a copy; and the other the new Episcopalian, with a pointed Gothic spire, after the manner of some of the churches in Oxford, to which it bears a general resemblance.

The stores and private dwellings have nothing remarkable in their character, being in all respects inferior to those at Cincinnati, and about equal to those at Pittsburg. In a commercial point of view, however, Louisville is superior to both the places named; and when slavery shall be abolished in Kentucky, and the vast resources of the State shall be fully developed by free labor and energetic industry, Louisville will overtake, if she does not surpass, them both. At pres- ent the trade of New Orleans and St. Louis, with the North- ern States, may be said to center here, and large establish- ments are employed merely as commission agencies for the purchase, transfer, and transport of goods between these places and Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. Besides this, direct importations of sugar from the West Indies, coffee from the Brazils, and wines from Europe, are made by bouses here, through the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi; while cotton from Arkansas and Tennessee, hemp and tobacco of their own growth, lead from Galena and Missouri iron ore from several neighboring States, and grain of all kinds from the surrounding country, find here a central mart of deposit and sale.

Some manufactories of hemp and cotton have been estab- lished here, as well as iron foundries, steam saw-mills, steam engine manufactory, sugar refineries, tobacco and snuff mills, which convert about $120,000 worth of this noxious weed every year into chewing or smoking tobacco or snuff, besides the 15.000 or 20,000 hogsheads of tobacco exported in the raw state to other quarters, and whiskey distilleries naturally follow in the train. There is one large soap and candle man- ufactory here, which is said to be the largest west of the Alleghanies, and several smaller ones, the united products of which amount to nearly 2,000,000 of pounds of soap and upwards of 1,000,000 of pounds of candles in a year.

There are four newspapers published daily in Louisville; the Journal, edited by Mr. Prentice, who has a reputation all over the Union for his wit, and who is the real author of the most racy and piquant political paragraphs, and the reputed author of a great many more that are put forth under his name to attract attention for them; the Advertiser, as ably conducted on the other side of politics, the Journal being Whig and the Advertiser Democratic, and each having a very extensive circulation beyond its own State. Besides these there is a small evening paper, the Messenger, con- ducted in a fair and gentlemanly spirit, and of high moral tone and character ; and a small morning paper, the Gazette, conducted in as opposite a spirit and with as different a tone and character as if the object were to show how great could be the contrast. There is a radical journal of some reputa- tion also published here. But taken altogether, Louisville is much less literary than Pittsburgh, Zanesville, Columbus, Chillicothe, or Cincinnati ; though it is so much older and so much larger, as well as so much wealthier, than several of these. But the pursuit of gain is perhaps a more exclusive object here than in either of the other places named, and hence there is less time and less taste for literary pleasures.

The men of Kentucky generally are remarkable for being

taller and stouter than those of the Atlantic States ; and at Louisville we saw a greater number of large men in its pop- ulation of 30,000 than in New York with its 300,000. Porter, the Kentucky giant, whom I had seen at New York and Baltimore, exhibiting as a show, is a native of Louisville, and having become tired of the restraint and confinement of such a life, he has relinquished it and returned to Louisville, where he now resides, and where I saw him several times in the streets; he is proprietor of several hackney coaches, which he lets out on hire, and sometimes drives himself ; though his height-seven feet four inches, and, being under twenty, he is still growing-makes him top-heavy for a coach-box, though it gives him a fine command of his horses.

The women of Louisville are many of them tall also, and of good figure; but there are not so many handsome faces to be seen among them as in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Female beauty, indeed, seemed to us much more rare on the west of the Alleghanies, than we had found it on the east ; and we had not seen so many pretty women for the last two months, including Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville, as we have seen in a single day's walk up the Broadway, through Chestnut street, or along Baltimore street, in the three cities named. Among the ladies of Louis- ville, there is, however, a greater prevalence of fashion and style than anywhere else in the West ; not merely in the ex- pensiveness of their dresses and ornaments, but in the taste with which they are made and worn. and in the gait and tournure of the wearers ; Louisville, in this, as in many other features, more resembling New Orleans than any other place with which it might be compared.

MRS. STEELE HERE.

During the same year a visitor in Louisville, in the course of her journeyings, was Mrs. Steele, author of Heroines of Sacred History, and also of A Summer Journey in the West. In the lat- ter book she says:

When we had left the canal, we beheld before us the slop- ing bank covered with houses, manufactories, churches, etc. This was Louisville, the capital of Kentucky, seated upon a gradually rising bank, commanding a fine view of the river and the Indiana shore opposite. We landed, and as we had but two hours to remain there, we immediately entered a coach, and directed the man to drive us through all the principal streets, past every remarkable building, and in fact show us all the lions. My head was out of the window a dozen times, calling, "Driver, what building is that?" The streets are wide and straight, containing many handsome buildings. Main street is the principal business street, and is lined with rows of shops upon each side for, it seemed to me, a mile, and in the suburbs, iron and cotton factories, steam mills, etc. The private houses are handsome, and some of the new ones, built of the native limestone, threaten to rival any in the State. The hotels seem calculated to ac- commodate a large number of travelers. The court-house which is now building is very large, and when finished will be quite an ornament to the city. It is built of an oolite limestone found in Indiana. We passed a high-school, seminary, twelve churches, a theatre, three markets, and a large build- ing with wings, having a portico in front, supported with marble columns, which is, we are told, the Marine Hospital. This city carries on a brisk trade. There are twenty-five steamboats, over a hundred tons burthen, which ply between this port and Cincinnati and New Orleans. Louisville is

291

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

five hundred and thirty-four miles from St. Louis, and we have one hundred and thirty-two more to go to Cincinnati. If we are to believe one of their papers, the cause of education flourishes, as there has been published, this year, by one firm, thirteen thousand volumes of school books; they have in these and other works expended $16,000 worth of paper. Our driver stopped at the gate of a public garden, which he said was a fashionable resort. We peeped in, but were more anxious to behold works of art than nature, and soon re- entered the carriage, and finding our time expired, retired to the vessel. Here we were obliged to wait some time, and in the meantime amused ourselves in examining the shore- Corn Island, with the rapids glittering in the morning sun, was upon one side, and upon the other the town of Jefferson- ville is situated upon an elevated bank on the Indiana shore. The buildings are very strong, being of red brick, and some of them pretty. Steam ferryboats are continually passing be- tween this place and Louisville. Corn Island is said by the Indians to have been the last stand of the last of the Mound Builders, who, they say, were driven away from the country by their ancestors. 1 forgot to mention New Albany, which we passed a few miles beyond Louisville, It is a considerable place, doing much business, and having several churches, lyceum, schools, and other public institutions.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 56

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