History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 60

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 60

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bounded by Third and Fifth streets, where most of the retail dry-goods business is done, the entire extent of this street is given up to the retail grocers, provision dealers, and clothiers. Jefferson is recently beginning to be used as a fashionable street for the retailers, but yet contains many handsome resi- dences. The streets south of Jefferson are all entirely occu- pied with dwelling-houses. No business is done on any of them except an occasional family grocery or drug-store. The fashionable shops are fitted up in a style of unexampled mag- nificence and contain the most beautiful products of human ingenuity. No city in the Union is better supplied with or finds more ready sale for the finest class of articles of every description than Louisville.

The city south of Jefferson street is very beautiful. The streets are lined on either side with large and elegant shade- trees, the houses are all provided with little green yards in front, and are cleanly kept, presenting a graceful and home- like appearance, An impression of elegant ease everywhere characterizes this part of the city. The houses seem to be more the places for retirement, comfort, and enjoyment than, as is customary in most cities, either the ostentatious discom- forts of display, or the hot, confined residences of those whose life of ease is sacrificed to the pursuit of gain. There is little appearance of poverty and little display of wealth; every house seems the abode of modest competence that knows how to enjoy a little with content, careless of produc- ing a display of wealth to feast the eyes of a passing idler. Even the more ambitious residences on Chestnut and Broad- way streets are constructed rather for the comfort of the in- mates than to produce an impression on the stranger. This latter is the most beautiful street in the city. It is one hun- dred and twenty feet in width from front to front and is per- fectly straight. The sidewalks are twenty-five feet wide. The view up and down this street is extended and beautiful. It is destined to become the fashionable street for residence. Already many beautiful buildings are being erected upon it, and the former less elegant houses are being removed to more remote situations.

Much of this description, it will be observed, is still applicable to the city, although its popula- tion has nearly tripled since then.

THE SCHOOLS.

The subject of public education comes now to claim its share of consideration. The free-school system is the same in its outline here as in other cities. The city schools are under the direction of a Board of Trustees, who are elected by the people, and are open to all those persons who are not able to pay for the tuition of their wards. Children of all ages and of both sexes are placed under the care of. compe- tent instructors, and educated in all the ordinary branches of learning without any charge to the pupil. The sexes are kept separate, and male and female teachers are employed. The standard of study is as high as in other unclassical schools, and every pupil has equal advantages of improve- ment. A high school is about to be established, where all the branches of study usually employed in colleges will be taught to those pupils who have successfully passed through the lower schools, also without any charge. By this magnificent educational scheme, the children even of the poorest and humblest member of society are afforded all the advantages which the wealthiest person could purchase.

The attendance at the public schools of Louisville has not been so large as it should have been; firstly, because there are comparatively few parents who are not able to pay for

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

he tuition of their children; and secondly, because of a foolish pride which prevents parents from accepting this edu- cation as a gratuity. The number of children taught in private schools, as compared with those who embrace the free school privileges, show that these reasons have immense weight with the people. It is probable, however, that the opening of the new high school will bring about a change in this regard. 'There are twenty-four free schools in the city, having thirty-one female and twenty-five male teachers, whose salaries range from $250 to $700. The number of pupils entered for the year reaches about three thousand six hundred and fifty, while the number in attend- ance does not exceed one thousand eight hundred and fifty. This affords an average of only thirty-three pupils to each teacher; so that all the pupils are able to receive every requis- ite attention.

PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS.

The city also has control of a Medical and of a Law school, which are recognized as departments of the Louis- ville University. The first of these is one of the most dis- tinguished schools of its class in the United States. Some- thing has been said of its history in a previous part of this volume. Three thousand eight hundred and sixty-one young men have been attendants on this school since its commence- ment. The names of its Professors are well known in the medical world and afford a sure guarantee for its position.

The Law Department of the University has been in active operation only since the winter of 1847. It has, however, obtained a wide-spread and deservedly great reputation as a school. The number of pupils educated in this department since its commencement is one hundred and ninety-six.

The prospects of this school for the ensuing year are more flattering than they have ever been. The distinguished gentlemen who are at the head of this in- stitution have reason to congratulate themselves as well on their past success as on their brilliant prospects for the future.

A notice follows of the Medical Department of the Masonic University of Kentucky, whose beginnings we have recently recorded.

ST. ALOYSIUS COLLEGE,

under the care of the Jesuits, is an academical institution of some celebrity. It has six professors and several tutors.

THE BLIND INSTITUTION.

The Kentucky Institution for the Education of the Blind is also located here. This noble monument of philanthropy has been the means of much good to the class for whom it was intended. It has an average attendance of about twenty pupils. The course of instruction is ample, and the results have been in the highest degree creditable to the teachers. The proficiency of many of the pupils is truly wonderful ; and their aptitude in learning many of the branches taught them, more especially that great solace of the blind, music, is every- where noted. They are also instructed in various kinds of handicraft, by which they are enabled to earn an honorable support after leaving the school. The price of board and tuition for those who are able to pay is only one hundred dollars per annum; while indigent children, resident in the State, are educated gratuitously. The spacious building erected for the use of this school was recently destroyed by fire, but will be speedily rebuilt on a more favorable site and in a better manner than before.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

Beside the schools above-mentioned there are a great num- ber of private schools of various grades of excellence. Among these the Young Ladies' schools of Bishop Smith and of Pro- fessor Noble Butler are perhaps the most widely known. They offer advantages for the education of young ladies which are not surpassed in any city. Indeed, the educational oppor- tunities afforded by the many excellent public and private schools of Louisville are in the highest degree creditable to the city, and have attracted and still continue to attract to it many families from distant parts of the country. To those who know how properly to estimate the value of educational privileges, the training of their children is an all-important consideration ; and, as nothing can supply the want of pa- rental care, it is not uncommon for families to seck as a resi- dence those places which at once possess great facilities for instruction and are free from the dangers of ill-health. Louisville has both these advantages, and hence this city owes to these facts much of her best population.

THE HEALTHINESS OF LOUISVILLE

is everywhere a subject of remark. Its past reputation for insalubrity is long since forgotten, and its singular exemption from those epidemic diseases whose ravages have been so terrible in other places, have gained for it a very enviable dis- tinction among cities. The following recent report of the committee on public health of the Louisville Medical society will tend still further to confirm what has just been said:

"Since the years 1822 and 1823," says this document, "the endemic fevers of the summer and autumn have become gradually less frequent, until within the last five or six years they have almost ceased to prevail, and those months are now as free from disease as those of any part of the year. Typhoid fever is a rare affection here, and the majority of cases seen occur in persons recently from the country. Some physicians residing in the interior of this State see more of the disease than comes under the joint observation of all the practitioners of the city, if we exclude those treated in the hospital.

"Tubercular disease, particularly pulmonary consumption, is not so much seen as in the interior of Kentucky. Our exemption from pulmonary consumption is remarkable, and it would be a matter of much interest if a registration could be made of all the deaths from it, so that we could compare them with those of other places.

"For the truth of the remarks as to the extent and fre- quency of the diseases enumerated we rely solely upon what we have observed ourselves, and upon what we have verbally gathered from our professional friends.

"This exemption of Louisville from disease can be ac- counted for in no other way than from its natural situation and from what has been done in grading, in building, and in laving off the streets.

"Louisville is situated on an open plain, where the wind has access from every direction; upon a sandy soil which readily absorbs the water that falls upon it; susceptible of adequate drainings; supplied bountifully with pure limestone water, which is filtered through a depth of thirty or forty feet of sand; its streets are wide and laid off at right angles- north and south, east and west-giving the freest ventila- tion; and the buildings compact, comfortable, and generally so constructed as to be dry and to admit freely the fresh air. It is situated upon the border of the beautiful Ohio, and environed by one of the richest agricultural districts in the world, supplying it with abundance of food and all the com- forts and luxuries of life. It must, under the guidance of

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

science and wise legislation, become, if it is not already, one of the healthiest cities in the world. Its proximity to the rapids of the Ohio may add to its salubrity, and it is certain that the evening breezes wafted over them produce an exhil- arating effect, beyond what is derived from the perpetual music of the roar of the Falls."

COMPARATIVE BILLS OF MORTALITY.

It may be proper to add the following table of the com- parative statistics of annual mortality of the resident popula- tion, as ascertained from official sources:

In Louisville the deaths are one to 50; Philadelphia, one to 36; New York, one to 37; Boston, one to 38; Cincinnati, one to 35; Naples, one to 28; Paris, one to 33; London, one to 39; Glasgow, one to 44.

THE MARKET-HOUSES

of Louisville, five in number and all located upon Market street, are profusely supplied with every production of this latitude. Markets are held every day, and prices are much lower than in Eastern cities. The Kentucky beef and pork, wbich is everywhere so celebrated, is here found in its true perfection. The vegetables and fruits peculiar to this climate are also offered in excellent order and in great abundance. Irish and sweet potatoes, green peas, corn, cucumbers, lettuce, radishes, asparagus, celery, salsafie, pie-plant, melons, peaches, apples, cherries, strawberries, and many other vege- tables and fruits are plentifully supplied. The Irish potato is sold at from twenty-five to forty cents per bushel, green peas command about twenty cents per peck, strawberries fifty cents per gallon. The choice pieces of beef can be had at from six to eight cents per pound, less desirable pieces bring three and four cents. Pork is bought at about five cents per pound. Turkeys bring fifty to seventy-five cents each. Spring chickens, from seventy-five cents to one dollar and fifty cents per dozen. Ducks, fifteen to twenty-five cents each. Eggs are sold at four to eight cents per dozen. But- ter, fifteen to twenty cents per pound. The lamb and mut- ton sold in this market cannot be surpassed in point of quality in the United States. The extreme fertility of the country around Louisville, and its perfect adaptation to the wants of the gardener and the stock-raiser must always give to the city the advantage of an excellent and cheap provision market.

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.

The following is a list of all the publications issued from this city :

Journal, daily and weekly, Whig: Courier, daily and weekly, Whig; Times, daily and weekly, Democrat; Demo- crat, daily and weekly, Democrat; Beobachter am Ohio, daily and weekly, Democrat; Louisville Anzeiger, daily and weekly, Democrat; Union, daily, neutral; Bulletin, daily, neutral; Sunday Varieties, weekly, neutral; Presbyterian Herald, weekly, Presbyterian; Western Recorder, weekly, Baptist; Watchman and Evangelist, weekly, Cumberland Presby- terian; Christian Advocate, weekly, Methodist; Kentucky New Era, semi-monthly, Temperance; Christian Repository, monthly, Baptist; Indian Advocate, monthly, Baptist; Bible Advocate, monthly, neutral; Theological Medium, monthly, Cumberland Presbyterian; Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, monthly; Transylvania Medical Journal, monthly.

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS.

This review of the social statistics of Louisville will be concluded with a notice of the number of

persons engaged in the various avocations of life, as shown in the following :

Agents 58, agricultural implement makers 5, apothecaries 113, architects 6, artificial flower-makers 2, artists Io, auction- eers 26, barbers 198, bakers 362, bar-keepers 231, basket- makers 15, bellows-makers 5, blind-makers 5, blacking-makers 4, blacksmiths 251, bird-stuffers 2, brush-makers 15, brokers 28, bricklayers 205, brick-makers 45, brewers 37, bristle- cleaners 4, booksellers 18, boot and shoe dealers 58, book- binders 102, butchers 201, candle and soap-makers 38, caulk- ets 18, carpet-weavers 8, carvers 13, carmen 452, carpenters 874, camphine-makers 4, cabinet-makers 275, cement-maker I, clerks r, 130, clothing dealers 57, cigar-makers 159, com- position roofers 2, cotton-packers 22, cotton canlk-makers 3. collectors 22, confectioneries 96, coach-makers 78, coopers 116, comb-makers 3, dancing teachers 10, daguerreotypists 23, dentists 13, distiller I, doctors 162, druggists 75, dry goods dealers 275, dyers 11, editors 18, edge tool-makers 11, egg-packers 4, engravers 15, engineers 139, farmers 17, feed dealers 15, fishermen 10, file cutters 3, foundrymen 369, fringe-makers 4, gardeners 31, gentlemen 36, gilders 8, glass- setters 3, glass-cutters 2, glass-stainer I, glass-blowers 21, glue-makers 2, grocers 504, guagers 3, gunsmiths 17, hatters 117, hackmen 95, hardware dealers 34, hucksters 45, hose- makers 2, ice dealers 6, ink-makers 6, insurance agencies 27, iron safe-maker r, lamp-makers 2, laborers 1, 920, last-makers 3, leather-finders 16, lawyers 125, liquor dealers 45, lock- smiths 47, livery-keepers 43, lightning rod-maker I, lathe- makers 2, watch-makers 12, machinists 33, marble-cutters 21, merchants 85, millers 37, milliners 186, milkmen 8, mill- wrights 17, midwives 23, music-dealers 9, music-teachers 30, music publishers 3, oil cloth-makers 15, oyster brokers 5, organ-builders 4, oil-stone-makers 10, opticians 2, oil-makers 27, paper-makers 22, paper box-makers 8, painters 267, ped- lars 47, plasterers 94, plane-makers 26, planing-mill and lumbermen 33, piano-makers 36, printers 201, paper-hangers 48, potters 17, professors 26, pump-makers 16, pickle dealer I, plumbers 9, pork-packers 25, preachers 57, presidents' com- pany 45, policemen 32, queensware dealers 26, railroad car- makers 6, refrigerator-makers 6, river-men 330, rope-makers 65, saddlers 195, semptresses 311, scale-makers 7, silver- platers 5, silversmiths 63, shoemakers 356, ship-carpenters 113, soda-makers 8, speculators 43, starch-makers 10, stereo- typers 3, stone-cutters 219, stocking-weavers 2, surveyors 13, students 638, saw-millers 8, stucco-workers 4, stove-makers 4, sail-makers 2, surgical instrument-makers 4, tailors 375, tanners 42, tavern-keepers 275, teachers 67, telescopic instru- ment-maker 1, tinners 115, turners 22, tobacconists 6r, trunk- makers 35, upholsterers 29, umbrella-makers 5, variety-deal- ers 46, vinegar-makers 8, wig-makers 3, wire-workers 12, wagon-makers 144, whip-makers 3, wood and coal dealers 30, white lead-makers 2, wall paper-makers I.

COMMERCIAL AND MANUFACTURING STATISTICS.

The statistics which are here offered to the reader are de- rived from the best authority and are believed to be correct, but are necessarily far less complete than could have been wished. This outline will, however, serve to give some idea of the general business character of the city.

All departments of business in Louisville are trans- acted upon a very large scale. It is perhaps the great- est fault in the commercial character of the city that everything is conducted upon too large a scale. There is, to use a painter's phrase, too much of outline and too little in detail. The wealth and importance of cities de-

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pends less upon the great than upon the small dealers and manufacturers; these latter are content with doing each a small and careful business, which may gradually rise to be, of vast extent, and which will thus really improve and profit the city more than the mighty efforts of the larger dealer. In Louisville, however, none are content to do a little business. The feeling seems to exist that mercantile or manufacturing pursuits are respectable just in proportion to the capital em- ployed in them, and the desire of every one seems to be to attain a high point of respectability. Louisville greatly lacks thatclass of inhabitants, so useful to a city, who are content to attain wealth by careful and laborious means, who can commence with a basket of apples and gradually work up to the proud proprietorship of extensive warehouses or factories. There is everywhere prevalent among those who should seek to rise gradually, a desire to place themselves at once in a rank with the largest dealers. It is the small dealer and the small manufacturer, who is content to rise by his own efforts, unaided by factitious means of any sort, who is needed here. There is abundant room and abundant work for such, their advent is courted; and, if they will avoid the characteristic desire for extensive business relations and be content to seek their fortunes by painstaking progress, their success is in- fallibly certain.

It has already been remarked that the aggregate amount of sales in any one department of business, divided by a number of houses engaged in that business, would show a very large result. In this statement reference is had only to those exclusively wholesale houses whose sales are made to dealers. No exclusive retail houses of any sort are placed in the enumeration, though the sales of many of the retail stores would fully equal, if indeed they did not exceed, some of the wholesale houses. The difficulty of reaching any proper account of the retail business will, however, prevent any notice being taken of it in this volume.

Louisville contains twenty-five exclusively wholesale dry- goods houses, whose sales are made only to dealers and whose market reaches from Northern Louisiana to Northern Kentucky, and embraces a large part of the States of Ken- tucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Illinois, Mississipi, and Arkansas. The aggregate amount of annual sales by these houses is $5,853.000, or an average of $234,000 to each house. The sales of three of the largest of these houses amount in the aggregate to $1.789.000. Neither this statement nor those which follow include any auction houses.

In boots and shoes, the sales of the eight houses of the above description reach $1, 184,000, $148,000 to each house. The sales of the three largest houses in this business reach $630,000.

The aggregate amount of annual sales by eight houses in drugs, etc., is $1, 123.000, or $140,375 to each house; and the sales of the three largest houses amount to $753,000.

The sales of hardware by nine houses amount annually to $590,000, being an average of $65,555 to each house.

The sales of saddlery reach $980,000, of which nearly one- half are of domestic manufacture.

The sales of hats and caps, necessarily including sales at retail, amount to $683,000.

The sales of queensware, less reliably taken, reach $265 .- 000.

There are thirty-nine wholesale grocery houses, whose ag- gregate sales reach $10,623,400, which gives an average of $272,400 to each house. A brief statement of some of the principal annual imports in the grocery line will perhaps give a better idea of this business. The figures refer to the year 1850. Louisiana sugar, 15,615 hogsheads; Refined sugar,

10, 100 packages; molasses, 17,500 barrels; coffee, 42,500 bags; rice, 1,275 tierces; cotton yarns, 17.925 bags; cheese, 25,250 boxes; flour, 80,650 barrels; bagging, 70,160 pieces; rope, 65,350 coils; salt, Kanawha, 110,250 barrels; salt, Turk's Island, 50,525 bags.

It will be seen that these statistics do not include many of the largest departments of business. Beside the houses already mentioned are many commission houses, whose sales in cotton, tobacco, rope, bagging, hemp, provisions, etc., would very greatly increase the amounts above stated. The impossibility of procuring accurate and reliable statistics of the amount of sales by these houses will prevent any attempt to fix the exact ratio of their business. The Western reader who is at all connected with commerce does not, however, need to be told that the trade in these articles in Louisville is of immense extent. The great superiority of this city as a market for hemp and its products, bagging, and rope, is so obvious, so well known, and so widely acknowledged, that any dissertation upon these merits is unnecessary here.

As a tobacco market, Louisville possesses advantages which are not afforded by any other Western or Southern city. The rapid and healthful increase in the receipts and sales of this article during the last few years is of itself suffi- cient evidence of this fact. Even as early as the year 1800 the prospects of the city in this regard, though in the distant future, were looked upon as highly flattering.

The entire crop did not then exceed five hundred hogsheads. There are at present in the city three large tobacco ware- houses, all receiving and selling daily immense quantities of this article Speculators are attracted to this market from great distances and the receipts are continually upon the in- crease. The following table of receipts since 1837 will show how steadily and securely this increase has been effected :

Years.

Hogsheads.

1837

2,133

1838

2,783

1839*

1,295

1840.

3.113

1841.

4.03I

1842 ..

5,131

1843.

5.424

1844.

18.15.

8,454

1846.

9,700

1847.

7.070

1848.

4,937

1849

8,906

1850.

7,155

1851. .

11,300

1852. 16,176

These figures are of themselves a strong argument in favor of this city as a market for tobacco. The reasons for the steady and rapid increase in the receipts of this article, as well as for the opinion that this is the best market for tobacco in the United States, are very simple, very convincing, and very easily stated. In the first place, it is a fact well known to all tobacco dealers, that in the three divisions of Ken- tucky-to-wit: the Northern, Southern, and Middle-a variety of leaf, suitable to all the purposes of the manufac- turer, is grown. In no other State is so great and so com-

* "In this year a line of 46 hhds brought $3,390.84, aver- aging $73-73 per hhd. The crop was short, and speculation ran high. Dealers in the article were heavy losers."-Direc- tory for 1845.

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

plete a variety of leaf produced. The cigar-maker, the Jump manufacturer, and the stemmer all find in this State the article just suited to their various purposes. These tobaccos all naturally find their way to Louisville as a market, and, of a necessary consequence, attract buyers to this place.

Besides this advantage, another important point is gained in the presence of the numerous manufacturers of tobacco in Louisville. These persons, having to compete with the es- tablished markets of older States, offer large prices to the planter, and so attract here great quantities of the article. It is well known that really fine tobacco, for manufacturing purposes, has brought and will always command here as high rates as can be had for it at any other point in the United States. The number of manufacturers is rapidly increasing, the character of the article which they produce is steadily growing into favor, and the market for its sale is enlarging every day, so that planters cannot be so blinded to their in- terests as to seek foreign markets for an article which will pay them so handsomely at their own doors. Again, the facilities for the shipment of the article from this point to the various Eastern markets are recently so increased that an en- tirely new demand has sprung up for Louisville tobacco. Western New York, Western Pennsylvania, Northern Illi- nois, Ohio, and Michigan, all of which were formerly obliged to look to New York City for their supplies of this article, have recently turned their faces westwardly, for the simple reason that they can now get the same article at less rates of freight and without the former numerous and onerous com- missions. Nor is this the only benefit procured to these pur- chasers in choosing this market. It is well known that, unless tobacco is in unusually excellent order, it is always seriously injured by being confined on shipboard in its passage through the warm climate of the Gulf of Mexico and along the coast of the Southern States. And as Louisville is the only other prominent shipping point for the article, it has, of course, this great advantage over rival markets. The facts above enumerated indicate only the prominent and leading reasons for believing Louisville to be the best tobacco market in the Union. Many other advantages might be enumerated, but these, which are all acknowledged and have been demon- strated over and over again, are considered sufficient to es- tablish the proposition. .

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 60

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