USA > Ohio > History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I > Part 67
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Other factories.
II
53
187
Banks ...
3
6
26
Churches.
3
26
86
Schools and colleges.
I
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During 1871 an increase was made in the bonded debt of Louisville to the amount of $1,243,000-from $4,910,500 to $6,153,500. Of this increase $500,000 had been voted for stock in the St. Louis Air Line Railroad, $300,- ooo for sewers and other local improvements, $250,000 for the new City Hall, and $107,000 for the change of guage on the Louisville, Cin- cinnati & Lexington Railroad. The city now owned $604, 150 stock in the Louisville Gas Company.
The aggregate of deaths in Louisville during the year was 2,672, or r to every 40 inhabitants.
342
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
IS72-STATISTICS, ETC.
There were 36,486 names on the lists of the Directory this year -- an increase of 2,040.
The city now had twenty-eight incorporated and five private banks, with a total capital of $10,630,529, and deposits to the amount of $8,- 454,748. The capital employed in manufact- ures was about $18,000,000, with an annual prod- uct of $20,000,000.
The assessments on real estate were $61,526,- 5So; on personal property, $680,035; merchan- dise, $8,834,055; residuary, $6,335,954; total, $77,376,624. Taxes: city, 2.04 per cent .; rail- road, 17 per cent .; State, 45 per cent.
The entries at the Louisville custom-house this year amounted to $288,940, on which the tariff or duty paid was $109,062. Embraced among these articles of importation were steel railroad bars, marble in blocks, manufactured marble, granite, pig iron, trace chains, manufact- ured iron and steel, hardware, books and sta- tionery, machinery, candle moulds, fancy soaps, perfumery and extracts, earthenware, cigars, hu- man hair, brandy, cordial, wine, and gin, eaustie soda, coffee, and many others.
January 30th and 31st the Grand Duke Alexis, of the royal family of Russia, was a guest at Louisville, where he was most hospitably received and entertained with a ball and banquet. On the Ist of February he visited the Mammoth Cave.
February 13th the City Council took an ex- cursion to the coal-fields of Ohio and Muhlen- burg county, in this State, along the Elizabeth- town & Paducah railroad.
March 13th, the Republican State Conven- tion met in Louisville. It was notable, partly, as having a colored man for one of the officers- Mr. J. B. Stansberry for temporary secretary ; also some umbrage being taken at certain action of the assembly, for the withdrawal of four- teen out of seventeen delegates from Kenton county. One of the seceders was a colored man. The Convention declared in favor of General Grant's renomination.
On the 14th, the publication of the Daily Sun was suspended.
On the 20th, a law was approved incorporat- ing the Boone Bridge Company, with a capital of $2,000,000 and exclusive right for ninety-nine years to build and operate a railroad and foot
passenger bridge across the Ohio River, "from some convenient point within the corporate limits of the city of Louisville to some conve- nient point on the Indiana side;" and the city of Louisville (on behalf of its Eastern District, which alone shall be taxed to pay the interest and principal) is authorized to subscribe, if the people so direct by vote, not less than $500,000 nor more than $1,000,000 of the capital stock.
On the 28th died General Humphrey Marshall, one of the most famous members of the Marshall family, of Kentucky, and a prominent soldier of the Mexican war and of the Confederacy in the late Rebellion. He was a graduate of the West Point Military academy, but after short service in the army became a lawyer and began practice in Louisville in November, 1834. In June, 1846, he led out, as colonel, the Kentucky cav- alry regiment, for service in Mexico. Upon the close of the war he became a farmer in Henry county, but went to Congress as a member of the House in 1849, and again in 1851. He was recommended in 1852 for a seat on the supreme bench of the United States, and the same year was made Minister to China. In 1855 and 1857 he was again returned to Con- gress, and was a fifth time nominated, but de- clined the canvass. In September, 1851, he joined the Confederate service, and was shortly made a brigadier-general, with a command in Eastern Kentucky. He resigned in June, 1863, became a member of the Confederate Congress, and after the war settled again as a lawyer in Louisville. He was renominated to Congress in 1870, but declined to run. He was sixty years old at the time of his death. Mr. Collins says: "While General Marshall was by no means great as a military man, he was a statesman of considerable ability, and one of the strongest and most profound lawyers of Kentucky or the West."
April Ist, the Louisville, Cincinnati and Cov- ington (or Short Line) railroad trains changed their eastern terminus from Covington to New- port, and began to run over the new railroad bridge into Cincinnati. It was held by some Louisville newspapers and people that the western terminus ot the Pennsylvania railroad system had thus been virtually changed from Cincinnati to Louisville.
On the 24th, the Louisville, Cincinnati and
343
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
Lexington Railroad company bought the branch road from Anchorage to Shelbyville, eighteen miles, for $23,000 a mile.
On the same day, at Louisville, General C. McFerran died, aged fifty-two. According to Mr. Collins, he was born in Glasgow, Barren county, son of Judge W. R. McFerran; gradu- ated at West Point in 1843, and promoted to brevet second lieutenant, Third infantry; was at the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, in the Mexican war; assistant quarter- master in 1855 ; November, 1863, chief of staff to Brigadier-general Carleton; 1865, in the ac- tion of Peralta, New Mexico; March 13, 1865, for faithful and meritorious services during the rebellion was made brevet lieutenant colonel, brevet colonel, and brevet brigadier-general United States army; at the time of his death, was deputy quartermaster-general United States army, and chief quartermaster of the Department of the South. He was a noble and faithful officer, and an estimable gentleman.
The first coroner's jury in Kentucky made up altogether of negroes, was impaneled June 19th, to decide the cause of death of another negro, who had fallen by the hand of violence.
July 3d, $1,000 damages were recovered in the Jefferson Common Pleas Court, against a druggist, for his clerk's mistake in using one drug instead of another, when compounding a pre- scription.
A very advantageous sale was made by the mayor in New York about this time, of one hun- dred and fifty thirty-year bonds, issued in aid of railroads, and two hundred twenty-year seven per cent. bonds, issued to build and equip city insti- tutions. They brought, as net price, ninety and one-sixth per cent. and accrued interest -- total amount $326,885.45-the best sale, it is said, ever made of the city bonds.
July 20th, the Industrial Exposition building, at the corner of Fourth and Chestnut streets, was finished and dedicated, with addresses by Governor Bramlette, General William Preston, the Rev. Dr. E. P. Humphrey, General Finnell, and others. A very large audience was present, and the occasion was deemed to mark an im- portant era in the growth of the city. The struc- ture is of brick, of attractive design, two stories high, three hundred and thirty feet on Fourth street, by two hundred and thirty on Chestnut.
At the opening of the building a noteworthy in- cident occurred in the presence of three of the most venerable citizens of Louisville, who had helped to make it the splendid metropolis it had become, with its flower and fruitage represented by this exposition. They were Elisha Applegate, aged ninety years and four months; William S. Vernon, eighty-nine years and eight months, and Colonel David S. Chambers, eighty-six years and three months old. These gentlemen were brought together in the carriage of Mr. John T. Moore, and occupied it near the speaker's stand, in the building, during the exercises. Their presence was thus fitly recognized in the opening remarks of the Rev. Dr. Humphrey, one of the orators of the occasion:
We are honored this afternoon by the presence of the three oldest citizens of Louisville. They are sitting in their carriage in the midst of this great company-the venerable Elisha Applegate [applause], William S. Vernon [applause], and the venerable David S. Chambers [applause]. One of them is more than ninety, and the others are upon the verge of it. One was born in this neighborhood more than ninety years ago, another in Rhode Island, and the other in Vir- ginia. They are among us this evening to witness this glad festival and ceremonial. Old Louisville stands face to face with new Louisville-young, vigorous Louisville. It is a pleasure on this happy occasion to welcome among us these venerable old men-venerable in their years, venerable in their efforts. I propose a sentiment to you this evening: The three oldest citizens of Louisville-their sun shone bright in the eighteenth century; may it shine far down the nineteenth century.
Colonel Chambers, the youngest of this inter- esting trio, was the first to die, passing away March 13, 1873. Mr. Vernon followed soon after ; and the oldest of all, Mr. Applegate, who was born at a fortified station on the Bardstown road, in this county, March 25, 1782, lingered until May 25, 1874, when he too departed this life. He became a resident of Louisville, as be- fore noted, in 1808.
The first Exposition was held in this building September 3d to October 12th, and was a great success.
August 8th, the authorities of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary decided to remove it to Louisville, if the sum of $300,000 should be raised in Kentucky for its buildings and en- dowment.
August 14, a great sensation was made in Louisville, by the development of frauds and forgeries perpetrated by Robert Atwood, head of an insurance firm in the city. They amounted
344
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
to near $500,000, and involved many persons in heavy losses or utter ruin. Thirty-eight indict- ments were returned against Atwood by the grand jury, and his bail was fixed at $57,000. The next year Atwood pleaded guilty to several of the indictments, the others were withdrawn, and he was sentenced to the penitentiary for twenty years.
On the 3d, 4th, and 5th of September, a national convention was held of the "Straight- out Democrats," or the bolters from the nomina- tion of Greeley and Brown, at the late National Democratic convention in Cincinnati. Charles O'Conor was nominated for President, and John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, for Vice-Pres- ident, by the Louisville convention.
A remarkable meteor was seen in Louisville and at many other points, on the evening of September 5.
A "Peace Reunion" was held in the city Sep- tember 11 and 12.
On the 20th Colonel Blanton Duncan's Daily True Democrat, organ of the "Straight-outs," is forced to suspend, after a life of about six weeks.
The next day Horace Greeley, nominee of the Democrats and Liberal Republicans for the Pres- idency, was received at Louisville with great en- thusiasm. .
On the 25th and 26th a National convention of the colored Liberal Republicans met in Louis- ville, with delegates from twenty-three States, and declared in favor of Mr. Greeley for Presi- dent.
October roth an immense excursion from Mo. bile, Montgomery, and other points on the line of the South and North Alabama Railroad-the southern extension of the Louisville & Nashville road, completed September 2 1st-visited Louis- ville, and had a most cordial reception.
The next day a terrible disaster occurred, in the fall of an unfinished brick store, four stories high, on Market street. Four persons were killed, and three others badly hurt. The walls of this building were only nine inches thick, and the architect, contractor, and chief bricklayer were arrested and held to bail, to answer a charge of manslaughter.
Much interest was awakened in the city this month, by the project of another railroad be- tween Louisville and the South. A large meet- ing of citizens was held, and the Council called
upon to submit to the people a proposal for the issue of $1,000,000 in city bonds, to aid the building of a road connecting with the Eliza- bethtown & Paducah Railroad, and using it for access to the city. A special election for the purpose was afterwards ordered.
October 24th, the Railroad Conductors' Life Insurance Association had a meeting in Louis- ville. The same day met here the twenty-fourth anniversary assembly of the General Missionary Convention of the Christian (Reformed) Church. Richard M. Bishop, of Cincinnati, afterwards Governor of Ohio, presided over the convention.
On the 25th some interesting relics of an ex- tinct animal, supposed to have been about fifteen feet long, were exhumed by the workmen on the Broadway sewer, twenty-two feet below the sur- face.
November Ist, the statistics of tobacco sales for the preceding three years were made up, as follows: 1869-70, 40,067 hogsheads, $4,823,- 330; 1870-1, 48,006 hogsheads, $4,601,046 ; 1871-2, 38,342 hogsheads, $4,616,459. Mr. Collins adds the following : " In 1872, 14 plug-tobacco factories, with $462,000 capital, em- ployed 1,180 hands, paying $320,900 for labor, and with $3,925,000 annual product ; and 123 cigar factories, with 200 hands, paying $120,000 for labor, produced 11,835,500 cigars, valued at $355,065. Of 66,000 hogsheads, the Kentucky leaf tobacco crop of 1871, 48,071 were marketed in Louisville."
The same day the First and Second National Banks declared semi-annual dividends of five per cent. each, and the Kentucky National six per cent.
November 3d, Mr. Virgil McKnight, Presi- dent of the Bank of Kentucky for thirty-five years, an esteemed and very able business man and financier, died; also, the same day, the Rev. Henry Adams, preacher to the colored Baptist church in the city for just the same period.
Music and musicians in Louisville had a little glory on the 12th, by the performance, at a grand concert in Liverpool, England, of the new piece, "Victorious Land of Wales," written by George F. Fuller, and set to music by J. W. Parsons Price, both residents of this city.
Small-pox was greatly afflicting the people here about this time, at least one hundred cases being reported.
345
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
Nov. 18th, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton lectured in Louisville on "The Coming Girl" --- a plea for woman suffrage. Dr. Stuart Robinson, a few days before, issued a protest against her employment by the Library Association.
An unusually exciting city election was held December 3d, resulting in the choice of Mr. Charles D. Jacob for Mayor.
On the 9th the Rev. Amasa Converse, D. D., died. He was a Presbyterian clergyman, for nearly forty-six years editor of The Christian Ob- server, or its predecessor, published here and elsewhere.
On the 12th a remarkably large and brilliant detonating meteor was seen at Louisville and throughout a wide extent of neighboring country. It was estimated in appearance to be about one-quarter as large as the moon.
The same day the new Protestant Episcopal Church of the Merciful Saviour, for the colored congregation of that faith, was opened. The church, chapel, school-room, and lot, accounted worth $15,000, were entirely a gift of the Rev. John N. Norton.
Thomas W. Riley, formerly a prominent lawyer in Louisville, and one of the counsel in the Matt Ward case, died in Bullitt county, December 27th.
1873.
The City Directory issued this year contains 38,793 names-2,307 more than that of 1872.
During this year nine hundred and thirty-three new buildings were erected in Louisville at a cost of $1,793,965.
The total number of houses in the city Febru- ary, 1873, was estimated at twenty-five thousand. There were seventy churches, with more than fifty thousand sittings-a very unusual number, as compared with the total population ; likewise five distilleries, with a product of 6,830 gallons of whisky per day.
The Fire Department, according to another publication of this year consisted of ten steam fire engines, two hooks and ladders, and two coal carts, operated by one chief, at a salary of $2,- ooo per annum; one chief telegraph operator, at a salary of $1,500 per annum; two assistant operators, at a salary each of $3 per day; one line repairer, at a salary of $2.75 per day, and
one at $2.50 per day; one hose and harness- maker, at a salary of $1, 200 per annum, with two assistants, at a salary each of $2.50 per day; ten engineers, at a salary each of $100 per month ; twelve captains, at a salary each of $2.75 per day; forty-six firemen, at a salary each of $2.50 per day-who are permanently employed, with thirty four runners and laddermen, at a salary each of $135 per annum.
The pamphlet issued in May of this year, en- titled, Kentucky and Louisville, the Material in- terests of the State and City, designed to stim- ulate immigration, contains the following valu- able statistics in the article on the city, by Mr. J. B. Maynard :
Material.
No. of Amount Factories. invested.
Annual Product.
Metals.
61
$5,824.400
$11,479,500
Wood.
105
3,922,800
9,680,900
Mineralogical and chemical .. 73
2,822,000
5,503,000
Textile fabrics.
1, 182,000
2,555,000
Leather
40
1,274,000
2,895.000
Paper.
12
750,000
1,589,000
Articles of consumption
.226
3.723,000
22,208,066
5.57 $19,498,200 $55,919.465
Hands employed . . . . 15,957 Total wages .. .. . .$8,168,200
The assessments of 1873 were : Upon real estate, $61,364,731; personal, $685,465 ; mer- chandise, $9,410,340 ; residuary, $6,219,078 ; total, $77,679,614-very nearly the same as the previous year. Taxes: City, $2.40 per $100 ; railroads, eleven cents ; State, forty-five cents ---- a trifle more than in 1872.
The new City Hall was completed and occu- pied this year. A history and description of it will be included in a future chapter on the City Government.
The new High School for Girls was also com- pleted. It will be fully noticed hereafter.
HEALTHINESS OF THE CITY.
The compiler of a little volume relating to city affairs, to which we are elsewhere indebted, has the following to say of the city this year:
Louisville was for a long time, during its early history, noted for its unhealthiness. Medical science and the energy of the inhabitants, though, at a period dating as far back as fifty years, succeeded in eradicating the causes which produced the diseases almost constantly prevalent, malarial fevers, and since then Louisville has become one of the most healthy local- ities in the country, attracting the attention of the medical fra- ternity of other cities, both near and distant, by its repeated es- capes from epidemic visitations when neighboring and other localities were scourged. A notable instance of such escape was witnessed last year during the prevalence of cholera in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Nash-
44
346
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
ville and Memphis, and other cities and towns in these four States, were fearfully depopulated by this dread scourge. Cincinnati was also visited only less severely, while the mor- tuary records of Louisville at that time showed no increase over the average mortality of former years. Medical writers both here and elsewhere have explained the causes why this city enjoys such immunity from epidemic disease, and have accorded to her the reputation of being the healthiest city in the Union.
EVENTS OF THE YEAR.
The railroads, banks, and other stock institu_ tions generally declared handsome dividends at the opening of this year. The Louisville, Cin- cinnati & Lexington railroad declared four and a half per cent, the Louisville & Nashville, three; the Bank of Louisville, three per cent; the Falls City Tobacco Bank, four; the Bank of Kentucky, and five others, with the gas company, five; the German Security Bank and the Franklin Insur- ance company, six; the German Insurance Bank and the Western Bank, seven; the Louisville Banking company, ten per cent, with an extra dividend of ten from its profit and loss account.
During the first week of January, more than half the deaths in the city (66 out of 124) were from small-pox.
January 21, Judge Thomas P. Cochran de. ceased. He had been for five years chancellor of the Louisville chancery court, and was a State Senator 1865-67. Judge Horatio W. Bruce was appointed his successor.
The State grand lodge of Knights of Pythias was in session here January 21 and 22.
The last day of January an act of the Legis- lature was approved, authorizing the school board to build three school-houses for colored children with certain revenues under their control.
The latter part of January the matter of the removal of the State capital came up again in the Legislature. Louisville had made an offer of $500,000 and the temporary use of the court- house or city hall, for the removal thither of the seat of government. The confident belief of many citizens was also expressed that, if neces- sary to obtain the removal, the court-house and lot would be deeded in fee simple to the State, or else leased, rent free, for five years. Three out of a committee of seven reported favorably to the House on this proposition; but nothing decisive was done.
Mr. N. W. Clusky died during this month at Louisville. He had some repute as a writer, a journalist, and a soldier.
February 18th the city was authorized to sub- scribe the additional million desired for the extension of the Elizabethtown & Paducah rail- road.
The bankrupt statistics made up about the middle of this month showed, according to Col- lins, that a number of bankrupt estates were small, from $400 to $r,ooo in gross, and in these the expenses were disportionately heavy. The dividends ranged from one and one-quarter to one hundred per cent .- the whole averaging thirty-one cents on the dollar. The average per- centage of costs was ten and four-fifths.
On the 18th the Remington street-car, pro- pelled by steam, had a successful trial here.
February 18th and 19th another State educa- tional convention of colored men was in session at the court-house.
The small-pox continued to afflict the city. February 26th seventy-four cases of small-pox and varioloid were reported.
Ten students were graduated from the Univer- sity Law School February 27th. The next day fifty-one were graduated from the Louisville Medical College.
The project for a new bridge over the Ohio at this point received a check February 28th, in the refusal of Governor Hendricks, of Indiana, to sign a bill granting a charter to an Indiana company formed to aid its construction.
Lieutenant-Colonel Cary H. Fry, of this city, died in San Francisco March 5th, aged fifty-nine. Mr. Collins says:
He was a native of Danville, Kentucky; graduated at the United States Military Academy 1834; was brevet second lieutenant of Third infantry, resigning in 1836; major of Sec- ond Kentucky volunteers in Mexican war. 1847, and distin- guished for services at Buena Vista, where his Colonel, Wil- liam R. McKee, and Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Clay, Jr., were killed; paymaster United States Army, 1853; deputy paymaster-general during and since the late civil war, and since October 15, 1867, brevet brigadier-general. The Ken- tucky Legislature ordered his remains to be brought to Frank- fort for re-interment in the State Cemetery.
On the 9th, at Louisville, died the Hon. Edgar Needham, Assessor of Internal Revenue for this district, aged sixty. Mr. Collins furnishes the following notice of him:
He was born in England, March 19, 1813; emigrated when young to the United States, and in 1834 to Louisville; was one of the four in Kentucky who, in 1852, voted for John P. Hale for United States President; one of three hundred and fourteen who voted for Colonel John C. Fremont in 1856; and one of 1, 364 who voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
.
347
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
He started life a stone mason, became a builder of fine stone- fronts, and then of monuments; was self-made, a man of great energy and of marked intelligence, and a handsome and effective speaker; no man more highly appreciated the advantages of finished education and elegant culture. He was an earnest Christian and a remarkable man. It is said said that he has been regarded by the law officers of the Gov- ernment at Washington City and in Louisville as the ablest internal revenue lawyer in the whole United States-so thor- oughly did he master every thing he undertook.
On the 10th the vault of the Falls City To- bacco bank was forcibly entered and robbed of $2,000 in gold, $5,000 in jewelry, and $300,000 in government bonds and other securities, includ- ing about $60,000 belonging to Centre college, at Danville.
The same day the tent of the Great Eastern circus, exhibiting in Louisville, was blown down upon an audience of seven thousand, killing one person, mortally wounding another, and injuring several others. The proceeds of the performance on the 12th were given to the families of the dead.
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