USA > Ohio > History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I > Part 65
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June 2d, liberal appropriations were made by the Legislature for the benefit of the American Printing House for the Blind, at Louisville.
June 3d, Governor Bramlette removed Chief Justice Joshua F. Bullitt from office, and de- clares his seat vacant, on account of his long absence from the State and residence in Canada.
The First Presbyterian church was taken June 15th for a military hospital.
General Palmer, now commanding at Louis- ville, ordered the arrest, on the night of July 8th, of all dealers of faro or keepers of faro- banks. Every bank of the kind in the city was elosed, and its implements seized. They had been prolific of loss to the officers and soldiers stationed at or passing through the city.
The income-tax levied by the General Govern- ment was collected in July from 2,336 citizens of Louisville, of whom I paid over $75,000, 2 over $70,000, 2 over $60,000, 2 over $50,000, 10 over $40,000, 21 over $30,000, 29 over $20,000, 33 over $15,000, 76 over $10,000, 82 over $5,000, 248 over $3,000, 505 over $1,000, and $1,236 under $1,000; making an aggregate of $7,296,390 of income in a single year.
In the autumn of this year many negroes still held as slaves were given passes by the military authorities to leave the State. For a short time the passes were not honored on the ferry-boats to Jeffersonville; but a guard was finally stationed to compel their recognition. On the Ist of November General Palmer was indicted by the grand jury of Louisville for violation of the law prohibiting the enticement of slaves from the State, and held to answer in the sum of $500. The indictment was dismissed in the Jefferson Circuit Court December 8th, Judge Johnston
holding that, before the indictment, the requisite number of States had adopted the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery; therefore all criminal and penal laws of Kentucky relating to slavery are of no effect.
Statistics of valuation: Realty, $36,012,434; personalty, $503,815; merchandise, $9, 183,875; residuary, $6,007, 100 ; total, $51,707,224. Tax- ation on each $100-city, $1.45; State, 40c. The increase of valuation, over 1864, is nearly $11,000,000.
The Falls City Tobacco Bank was incorporated this year.
1866.
January 2d, Mr. Philip Tomppert, who had been elected Mayor by the Democrats at the preceding April election, was removed from office by vote of the City Council, and James S. Lith- grow unanimously promoted to his place.
A murder wrapped in mystery occurs January 9th, when the Rev. Thomas J. Fisher, a noted Baptist revivalist for thirty years or more, is de- prived of life by an unknown assassin.
A measure was before the Legislature this month to charter a bank in Louisville, to be managed altogether by colored men and be called the Grant Bank. It passed the Senate by a ma- jority of more than three to one, but failed in the lower House. The blacks suffer terribly during a visitation of small-pox the latter part of the month.
January 27th, Mr. John H. Harney, a well- known Louisville journalist, was elected by the Legislature Public Printer for the State.
In February a notorious guerrilla, bearing the sobriquet of "One-arm Berry," was tried by mili- tary commission in this city, and convicted of eleven murders. He was sentenced to be hanged March 3; but before that time arrived General Palmer commuted the penalty to imprisonment for ten years in the penitentiary at Albany.
February 13th the proposition to remove the seat of Government of the State from Frankfort again came up, and committees were appointed by both branches of the Legislature to receive proposals for the removal from Louisville and any other places that might enter into competi- tion for the capital.
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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
On Washington's birthday a large popular meeting was held, in which men of all parties shared, to discuss the policy of President An- drew Johnson, then much in debate throughout the country. Ex-Governor Bramlette served as chairman, and addressed the assemblage at some length. It was resolved that the measures of President Johnson for the pacification of the South should be approved.
A veteran editor and publisher died in Louis- ville March 25th-Mr. Thomas Smith, who was in charge of a newspaper in Lexington more than half a century before. His first journal was the old Kentucky Gazette, and he then was con- nected with the Reporter.
On the 5th of April Dr. Stuart Robinson re- turned from Canada and resumed his pastorate of the Second Presbyterian church.
On the 23d Mr. Isham Henderson, of the Louisville Journal, was arrested by the military and taken to Nashville for trial, where he is re- leased under bonds to appear. Considerable conflict of authority between the civil and mili- tary tribunals grew out of the case.
On the 26th eleven distilleries were closed up in the Louisville district, for neglect to observe the Federal revenue laws.
The Democratic State Convention again met in Louisville May Ist. Judge Alvin Duvall was nominated for Clerk of the Court of Appeals. On the 30th the Union State Convention was held here, and Mr. R. R. Bolling nominated for the same office. He declined to make the can- vass, and General Edward H. Hobson was nomi- nated, but defeated at the polls. There was much ill-feeling at this election, and not less than twenty men were killed at election fights in different parts of the State.
Captain Thomas Joyes, who was widely reputed to have been the first white male child born in Louisville, died here May 4, aged seventy-seven years. He was born in 1789.
May 31st, a National Tobacco Fair was held in Louisville, with very liberal premiums, a large attendance, and a fine exhibit. The premium hogsheads were sold at prices varying from $5.50 to $19 per hundred weight.
A somewhat notable decision was rendered July 9th by Judge James P. Harbeson, of the City Court. According to Mr. Collins, he decides the civil rights bill incompatible with
State laws in some of its provisions, and so far inoperative in Kentucky, and refuses to admit negro testimony in the case of Ryan, charged with a deadly assault upon a negro; his is a Kentucky court, and Kentucky statutes must rule. He regrets that the Kentucky Legislature did not pass an act giving free negroes the right to testify in such cases, and leave the credibility of their statements to the judges and jurors.
The Hon. George Alfred Caldwell, a very em- inent lawyer, and member of Congress in 1843- 45 and 1849-51, died suddenly at Louisville, of rheumatism of the heart, September 17.
October 5, in Breckenridge county, died Mr. Fred A. Kaye, Mayor of Louisville for sixteen years. He was a native of the place, born in the first brick house ever built here.
November 24, Mr. Prentice was the recipient of an elegant banquet at the hands of his asso- ciates and employes of the office, it being the thirty-sixth anniversary of his editorial connec- tion with the Journal.
December 8, the city is sued by Mr. George Brumback, for $25,000 damages on account of the loss of his wife and daughter by cholera dur- ing the preceding summer. He alleges that the careless grading of Tenth street caused the over- flow of water into neighboring yards, and induced the disease.
Assessments of the year: Real estate, $45,- 194,327 ; personalty, $612,005 ; merchandise, $9,998,225 ; residuary, $7,129,097; total, $62,- 933,654. Taxes, city, 1.59 per cent ; State, 4-10 of one per cent.
There were in the city this year 116 fires in all. Total of losses, $408,055; insured, $290,- 230.
1867.
January 26th the city made a subscription, by the vote of her citizens 1, 101 to 698, of $1,000,- ooo to complete the extension of the Lebanon branch of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad to Knoxville, Tennessee.
The Jefferson County Court of Common Pleas was established by the Legislature February 8th.
The flood of 1867 did considerable mischief. February 22d it reached the height of thirty- three and one-half feet above low water above
-
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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
the Falls and fifty-six and one-half below. The corresponding figures March 15th were thirty- seven and sixty, the same as those of the freshet ten years before.
On the 13th of this month votes were taken in the Legislature upon the various proposals to remove the State capital. Louisville, among other places, was moved and rejected, and the whole matter was finally laid upon the table. March I, however, a bill for submitting to an election by the people the question of re- moving the capital to Louisville was passed in the House by 42 to 37 votes ; but the next day the Speaker decided that the measure had failed for want of a constitutional majority. The next year the Legislature formally resolved that it was inexpedient to remove the capital ; and yet a few weeks afterwards, passed another resolution in- viting new proposals from cities and towns of the State for the removal.
Upon the new apportionment of the State by the Legislature March 2d, Louisville was given eight Representatives and two State Senators.
The new theatre was opened in Louisville March 15th. A poetical address, from the pen of George D. Prentice, was recited by Miss Dar- gon, one of the actresses.
April 11th, the Union Democratic (" Conser- vative Union ") State Convention met in the city, and nominated Aaron Harding for Governor and Judge William B. Kinkead for Lieutenant-Gov- ernor.
Colonel Theodore O'Hara, the well-known journalist of Louisville and Frankfort, and au- thor of the Bivouac of the Dead, died June roth, in Alabama. July 12th, at Houston, Texas, died Dr. Robert J. Breckenridge, Jr., who lived most of his years in Louisville, and was during the war Chief Medical Director of the Confederate Army of Virginia, serving on General Lee's staff.
On the 30th of May the Clay statue in the Court-house was unveiled. The poem by Mr. Prentice, written for this occasion, and sung by a choir of one hundred voices, is as follows :
Hail! true and glorious semblance, hail!
Of him, the noblest of our race.
We seem, at lifting of thy veil,
To see again his living face !-
To hear the stirring words once more,
That like the storm-gods' cadence pealed
With mightier power from shore to shore Than thunders of the battle-field.
Lo! that calm, high, majestic look,
That binds our gaze as by a spell -- It is the same that erstwhile shook
The traitors on whose souls it fell! Oh! that he were again in life !--- To wave, as once, his wand of power,
And scatter far the storms of strife
That o'er our country darkly lower!
Again, again, and yet again, He rolled back Passion's roaring tide,
When the fierce souls of hostile men Each other's wildest wrath defied. Alas! alas! dark storms at length Sweep o'er our half-wrecked ship of state,
And there seem none with will and strength To save her from her awful fate!
But thou, majestic image, thou Wilt in thy lofty place abide, And many a manly heart will bow While gazing on a nation's pride; And, while his hallowed ashes lie Afar beneath old Ashland's sod,
Our gaze at thee should sanctify Our hearts to country and to God.
We look on thee, we look on thee, Proud statue, glorious and sublime,
And years as if by magic flee, And leave us in his grand old time!
Oh, he was born to bless our race As ages after ages roll!
We see the image of his face- Earth has no image of his soul!
Proud statue! if the nation's life, For which he toiled through all his years,
Must vanish in our wicked strife, And leave but groans and blood and tears ---
If all to anarchy be given, And ruin all our land assail,
He'll turn away his eyes in Heaven, And o'er thee we will cast thy veil!
August 1st, one of the most notable events in the history of the city occurred in the laying of the corner-stone of the great railway bridge across the Falls. This time the work was de- stined to go steadily forward to completion.
The Daily Journal closed its thirty-seventh year November 28th. Says Mr. Collins: "The vet- eran editor, George D. Prentice, commemorates the anniversary in an article of singular beauty and power."
December 2d, the Hon. John J. Bunch, of Louisville, was elected Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives, upon its organization for the session, by a nearly unanimous vote.
On Christmas Day, near Louisville, died Major Aris Throckmorton, a veteran of the War of 1812, landlord of the Lower Blue Lick Springs hotel many years before, and for twenty years in charge
334
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
of the Galt House. He is mentioned, it will be remembered, by at least one of the travelers of that period, in a published book. Mr. Collins remarks in his annals: "His social qualities were remarkable, and the greatest men of Kentucky and the West prized his company and friendship."
Assessment valuation for 1867: Real estate, $47,927,068; personal, $634,915; merchandise, $9,258,749 ; residuary, $5,539, 100; total, $63,- 369,832. Taxation, $1.61 per $100 for city pur- poses, thirty-five cents for railroads, and forty cents for the State.
I868.
On the 8th of January (battle of New Orleans day) the city council passed a resolution asking the Senators and Representatives in Congress from Kentucky to insist upon some assurance from the General Government that General John C. Breckinridge "will be free to return home at any time, unmolested by any agent of the Fed- eral Government in resuming the pursuits of civil life," etc.
On the 26th of the same month, at his home near Louisville, Mr. John H. Harney departed this life. He had been editor of the Democrat for twenty-four years, and was aged sixty-five years-"a cultivated and genial gentleman, and a graceful, vigorous, and spirited writer" [Collins]. The next day Judge Andrew Monroe, of the city, strangely disappeared, and nothing more was heard of him until four months afterwards, when his body was found floating in the canal. He is believed to have been accidentally drowned.
February roth, Hon. James Guthrie resigned his seat in the United States Senate, from con- tinued illness and physical inability to perform his duties. Hon. Thomas C. McCreery was elected to the vacant seat.
July 27th, the Union State Convention, in session at Frankfort, declared in favor of the Hon. James Speed, of Louisville, as a candidate for the Republican nomination to the office of Vice-President of the country.
A charter was granted in March to the Ken- tucky Cotton-mill at Louisville; also, about the same time, others to the Falls City Cotton-mill Company and the Louisville Cotton-mill Com- pany. None of these enterprises were pushed to final success.
Among the taxes on incomes collected in April by the Federal authorities, are those from eight leading citizens in Louisville, who report incomes over $20,000 each. They are thus mentioned by Mr. Collins: Dr. John Bull, $105,625; Benjamin F. Avery, $62,324 ; Eb- enezer Bustard, $46,744; Thomas T. Shreve, $36,121 ; Richard Burge, $30,859; Michael Kean, $28,616; William B. Belknap, $26,127 ; Samuel S. Nicholas, $20,162.
May 9th, the people of the city voted in favor of a subscription of $1,000,000 to the capital stock of the Elizabethtown & Paducah Railroad.
On the 18th the State Society of Fenians was in session in Louisville, with a large attendance and development of much interest.
About this time the statement is published that three thousand eight hundred and seventy- one Federal soldiers lie buried in the ceme- teries at Louisville.
June Ist General Simon B. Buckner, late of the Confederate army, goes on duty as editor of the Courier. On the sixth, Alexander C. Bullitt, a journalist of some note in New Orleans and Washington City, died at Louisville, aged sixty years.
The Very Rev. Benjamin J. Spalding, Vicar- General of the Catholic diocese of Louisville for many years, died here August 4th, aged fifty-six, from injuries received by fire, which caught his mosquito-bar and then his bed-clothes, .while he was sleeping. He had held a number of eminent and responsible positions in the church.
A singular but harmless monomaniac known as " Live-for-ever Jones" died in this city Sep- tember 14th, at the age of seventy. Says Collins :
He was a native of Henderson county, and for fifty years wandered about, preaching the doctrine that by prayer and fasting a man would live always. He made frequent jour- neys to Washington City, being an aspirant for every high office, State and Federal.
A lamentable suicide occurred November 9th, by which General Henry E. Read lost his life. He was a prominent lawyer and political parti- san; had been a soldier in the Mexican and civil wars, and a member of the Provisional Govern- ment of Kentucky and of the Confederate Con- gress ; and closed his eventful career at the early age of forty-four.
On the night of December 4th, at Rail's Land- ing, above Madison, Indiana, a terrible collision occurred between the mail-steamers United
335
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
States and America, which resulted in the total loss of the former. Among the dead of this disaster was the oldest merchant of Louisville living to that time-Mr. William Garvin, an Irish citizen who came to the place in 1827, and for forty-one continuous years was a wholesale dry-goods merchant on Main street. He was first of the firm of Chambers & Garvin, then of Carson, Garvin & Gelty, of William Garvin & Company, and finally Garvin, Bell & Company. He was a man of great business ability, and his death was widely lamented.
On the 23d of December, upon his planta- tion near Greenville, Mississippi, suddenly de- ceased, of disease of the heart, ex-Governor Charles S. Morehead. He was a native of Nel- son county, but removed to Louisville in 1859, to practice law, and was received with a public welcome. He left the city during the war, and after it closed resided upon his plantation. He had been a State legislator and Representative in Congress, Attorney-General and Governor of the State, and three times Speaker of the House in the State Legislature.
The catalogue of notable deaths in Louisville this year closed by the demise, December 8th, of " Aunt Katie Caro," a colored woman, at the great age of one hundred and eight.
On the 8th of November, the first number of the consolidated Courier, Democrat, and Journal newspapers is issued, under the title of The Louisville Courier-Journal. Walter N. Halde- man, of the late Courier, is made president of the new company, and becomes Business Man- ager. The venerable Prentice is retained on the editorial staff ; but Mr. Henry Watterson, who has been an attache for a time, is made Mana- ging Editor. This famous journalist was born in Washington, District of Columbia, February 16, 1840, son of Hon. Harvey Watterson, of Tennessee, himself a journalist, and also a mem- ber of Congress from that State. He was liber- ally educated, saw some journalistic and military service inside the Confederate lines during the war, went to Europe in 1866, and upon his re- turn the next year was invited to a place upon the staff of the Journal, of which he had charge after the spring of 1868. He is now regarded as the ablest and most influential of Southern editors.
Assessments in 1868 : Realty, $49,212,579 ;
personalty, $622,772 ; merchandise, $8,826, 125 ; residuary, $4,661,600 ; total, $63,323,076. Taxes -city, 1.98 per cent .; State, 3-10 of I per cent.
The Mechanics' Co-operative and Building Association of Louisville was organized this year. Its operations are said to have been attended with many beneficial and helpful results.
1 869.
At the opening of this year, the Institution for the Blind had forty-eight pupils from Kentucky, two from Indiana, and one from Alabama.
January 30 a number of the most prominent citizens of Louisville, anong them ex-Judges Samuel S. Nicholas, Henry J. Stites, Joshua F. Bullitt, William S. Bodley, and Thomas E. Bram- lette, Judge P. B. Muir, and Isaac Caldwell, of Louisville, memorialize the Legislature in favor of negro testimony and other liberal laws toward the colored people. The next month, however, a resolution introduced in the lower house in favor of such testimony in the courts goes to the table.
The Louisville Gas company was rechartered about this time, the old charter having expired on the Ist of January. A writer of 1873 says:
The new company was incorporated with a capital of $1, 500,000, divided into 30,000 shares of $50 each. The city is the owner of 12,807 shares, amounting to $640, 350. The dividends arising from this stock are applied to paying for the public lights of the city, and the excess is invested by the directors of the gas company as trustees, with the con- currence and advice of the general council, and is to be held as a permanent trust during the continuance of the charter. This fund now amounts to about $120,000, and is invested principally in the bonds of the city.
By the requirements of the charter the company is bound to extend its main pipes whenever the public and private lights immediately arising from said extension will pay seven per cent profit on the cost thereof: and for this, or other nec- essary purposes, new stock may be issued by the company, to the extent of the capital stock-the sales of which are to be made at public auction, after ten days' notice in the city papers.
The company is under the control of a board of directors, nine in number, four elected on the part of the city by the general council, and five by the private stockholders. They are required to own stock to the amount of twenty shares each, and are elected each year.
General Rousseau, Louisville's best known soldier in the late war, died on the 7th of Janu- ary. We have the following sketch of his life from Mr. Collins's History :
General Lovell H. Rousseau, a lawyer, soldier, and politi-
336
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
cal leader, was born in Lincoln county, Kentucky, August, 1818, died in New Orleans, Louisiana, January 7, 1869. His limited education and the death of his father in 1833, leaving a large family in straightened circumstances, made manual labor a necessity, and while employed in breaking rock on the Lexington and Lancaster turnpike, he mastered the French language. When of age he removed to the vicinity of Louisville and began the study of law; he was entirely without instruction, and had no conversation on the subject previous to his examination for license. In 1840 he removed to Bloomfield, indiana, was admitted to the bar in 1841, and soon attained considerable success; was a member of the Indiana Legislature in 1844-45.
In 1846, he raised a company for the Mexican war, and took a prominent part in the battle of Buena Vista, his com- pany losing fourteen out of fifty-one men. He was elected to the Indiana Senate, four days after his return from Mexico; removed to Louisville in 1849, before the expiration of his term, but not being permitted by his constituents to resign, served them for one year while living out of the State. He immediately took a prominent position at the Louisville bar, his forte, like that of most lawyers who became promi- nent as successful commanders during the late war, being with the jury and in the management of difficult cases during the trial. He began recruiting for the United States army early in '61, but was obliged to establish his camp in Indiana; participated in most of the principal engagements in Ken- tucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia; was early made a brigadier-general; for gallant services at Perryville won a major-general's commission. He served with distinction in the battes of Shiloh, Stone River, and Chickamauga, and was commandant of the district of Northern Alabama, and afterwards of Tennessee. In 1865 he was elected as a Union man to the United States House of Representatives, where he sided with the Democrats. In 1867, a brigadier-genera] in the regular army, he was sent to take possession, in the name of the United States, of Alaska, and upon his return was appointed to the command of the Gulf Department. General Rousseau was a man of commanding figure and ex- traordinary personal presence, and seems to have been a bet- ter soldier than administrative officer or legislator. .
The Hon. James Guthrie died here March 13, 1869, aged seventy-six years. A full biographi- cal sketch of him will appear hereafter.
The deaths of both these distinguished sons of Kentucky were fitly noticed soon after in res- olutions by the Legislature of the State.
On the 18th of April the Louisville Short Line railroad, which had been for some years in prog- ress, was completed to Covington. Its total cost, including equipment, was $3,933,401. The road was not fully opened for business, however, un- til June 28th.
May 20th was observed as a decoration day of Confederate soldiers' graves in Louisville and other cities of the State.
On the 14th of July a large convention of colored men, representing nearly every county in Kentucky, was held in Louisville, to take into consideration the educational interests of their
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