History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 82

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 82

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Mr. George Taylor, now principal of the Seventh-ward school, is the son of the late Lieutenant-colonel Frank Taylor, of the First United States artillery, and was born at Anna- polis, Maryland, where his father was stationed. He was prepared for college at various Eastern and Southern schools, and entered Kenyon Col- lege at Gambier, Ohio, in 1857, graduating in 1861. Coming to Kentucky, he taught private and public schools in turn, in Oldham county, for a number of years, remaining there until 1874, when he was appointed teacher of the first grade of the Madison School in Louisville, which he retained until 1876. In 1877 he received appointment to the position which he now fills.

Frederick Turner Salisbury, a son of J. O. Salisbury, a native of Providence, Rhode Island, and Laura Turner Salisbury, of Milford, Con- necticut, was born in Louisville March 4, 1839. He was educated in the city schools, which he left in 1855 to go into business with his father, at the same time taking private lessons to supplement his school training. He continued in business with his father until 1868, when the

partnership was dissolved and he accepted a po- sition as teacher in the Tenth-ward school. In this place he remained until 1874, resigning it to engage in the grocery and commission bus- iness. He was almost immediately elected a member of the School Board for the Ninth ward of the city of Louisville. In 1876 his business and office were relinquished for a posi- tion as teacher in the Madison street Interme- diate School, from which he went at the begin- ning of the school year of 1877 to the post of Principal of Portland School, again removing, in 1878, to his present place at the head of the Tenth-ward school, at Thirteenth and Green streets.

R. C. C. Jones, one of the senior educators of Louisville, was born in that city October 17, 1837, the son of G. Scott Jones and Esther H. Camp Jones. He was educated first in the public schools of his native city, then in a private school taught by William H. Butler, and, later, attended a school at Pleasant Hill, Warren county, Kentucky, for the study of Latin only. He commenced teaching in September, 1853, as assistant in the old Tenth-ward school build- . ing, at the corner of Tenth and Grayson streets. The present Ninth-ward school edifice was then building, and he was shortly transferred to that. In 1855 Benjamin Harney, principal of that school, resigning, Mr. Jones was appointed to succeed him, and remained until 1861. During the last years of his connection with the Ninth- ward school, he began the study of medicine un- der the preceptorship of Dr. David Cummings; in 1859-60 he took a course of lectures at the Kentucky School of Medicine, and, in 1861, re- signing his position as principal, attended a course at the Ohio Medical College, Cincinnati, graduating in 1862. Returning to Louisville and passing the necessary examination, he be- came a contract surgeon in the United States army and served at Fort Nelson, Totten Hospi- tal, Louisville, and other hospitals until 1864, when he resigned, and, opening an office, prac- ticed medicine until late in 1865, when he ac- cepted the principalship of the Fifth-ward school at Floyd and Chestnut. This he retained but a short time, when he was elected physician of the Louisville Alms-house. At the expiration of his term he was elected school trustee for the Tenth ward of Louisville, which post he resigned in

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

1867 to become principal of the Madison Inter- mediate school, which position he still holds.

Mr. O. B. Theiss, now principal of the Dun- can Street school, was born in Bullitt county, Kentucky, in 1848, and removed to Louisville with his parents in 1850. He was educated in the ward and high schools of the city, but, leaving the latter in 1866, went into business. In 1871 he graduated in medicine from the University of Louisville, and in the fall of the same year com- menced teaching in Falmouth, Kentucky. In 1875 he was appointed to his present post, which he has since held.

Mr. Benjamin F. Roberts was born in the State of Virginia on the 6th day of May, 1843. At an early age he removed with his parents to Louisville, where he was educated principally in the graded schools, though such attendance was supplemented by some study at the city high school. In 186r he was appointed an assistant at the Portland secondary school, where he remained until 1866. From that position he was transferred to the principalship of the Ninth- ward school. In 1878 he retired from the latter and was for three years engaged in other pur- suits, returning to his profession as principal of the Portland school in 1881, which post he still occupies.

Colonel Durrett adds the following sketches to his historical article upon the schools, written early in 1881 :

We have yet in our public schools, however, one who was a teacher when Mr. Tingley was a pupil. In the directory of 1840 we find the name of Miss Sally S. Mason, as a teacher in the grammar school on Jefferson, between Preston and Jackson. As Mrs. Maury, this estimable lady is yet a teacher in the school on the corner of Walnut and Center. In a later directory appears the name.of Miss Helen ]. Clark, as a teacher in the same grammar school in the year 1847. This excellent lady is yet a teacher in the school at the Ma- sonic Widows' and Orphans' Home.

There is one lady in our city, however, who, though no long- er connected with our public schools, had a connection with them as teacher which antedates that of all others now living. It is the wife of our esteemed fellow-citizen, Alexander Du- vall. In the directory of 1832 her name appears as Miss El- liott, assistant teacher in the female department of the school on Walnut street, between Fifth and Center. All her as- sociate teachers in that early school-Mann Butler, the his- torian; Malbon Kenyon, Thomas Alexander, A. N. Smith, and Miss Catharine Ewell-have long since been gathered to their fathers, but this venerable lady still lingers among us, a golden link in the chain that binds the thirty-one schools of to-day with the single one of half a century ago.

None of the teachers who inaugurated the two high- schools now dwell in Louisville except one. Professor Spen- cer and his immediate successor have gone to their long

homes. Professor Hailman is in Detroit, Michigan, con- ducting an English and German academy, and Professor Harney is among the orange groves of Florida, now and then sending sweet verses and bright paragraphs to the press. Mrs. L. L. Monsarrat, who appears upon the first roll of teachers of the Female High School as Miss Laura Lucas, is the only one that remains among us. She is now one of the teachers in the Holyoke Academy, on the corner of Broad- way and Third streets. To a natural gift for imparting in- struction, the experience of years has made her one of our most accomplished and successful educators.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LOUISVILLE LIBRARIES."

The Older Kentucky Libraries-The First Library in Louis- ville-The Second-The Kentucky Historical Library- Franklin Lyceum-The Mercantile Library-The " Peo- ple's Library"-The Various " Louisville Libraries"- Young Men's Christian Association Library-The Public Library of Kentucky-The Polytechnic Library of Ken- tucky.

OLDER KENTUCKY LIBRARIES.

A library was founded in Lexington at a meet- ing of citizens on the ist of January, 1795, and called the Transylvania Library. In the act of Legislature incorporating it, library associations were also chartered at Georgetown and Danville; in 1804, one was chartered at Lancaster; in 1808 one at Paris ; and others at Newcastle in 1809, at Shelbyville and Winchester in 1810, at Washington in 1811, at Versailles and Frankfort in 1812, and Mt. Sterling in 1814. None of the dozen libraries thus provided for reached success and permanence, except that in Lexington, which still survives, with ten thousand volumes, and is accounted one of the most valuable old collec- tions in the West.

THE FIRST IN LOUISVILLE.

All these preceded a library at the Falls of the Ohio. But in February, 1816, a charter was granted to Messrs. Mann Butler, William C. Galt, Brooke Hill, Hezekiah Hawley, and William Tompkins, as the "President and Directors of the Louisville Library Company." Colonel Dur- rett gives the following account of this pioneer effort :

*Again we follow, and by necessity, for the most part, the lucid paragraphs of Colonel Durrett. He is the only one, so far as we are aware, who has treated the subject con- secutively and at length.

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

This library was a joint stock association, with the right to issue as many shares as its directors might think necessary aud of any denomination they might wish. They had the authority to assess the shareholders for the benefit of the library to any sum per annum not exceeding one-fifth of the value of the shares of any one holder. In 1819, when Dr. McMurtrie published his history of Louisville, this library was located in the second story of the south wing of the old court-house, then standing in the place of the present city hall. Among its books were valuable histories collected by Mann Butler, and works on scientific subjects obtained by Dr. McMurtrie. The whole number of volumes was about five hundred, and the young library may then be said to have been in its prime, It never materially increased afterward, and when the malignant fever of 1822 almost depopulated the city, the library, as well as the people, seems to have taken the seeds of death into its system. The files of the first newspapers published in our city perished, and so did the early works upon the history of our city, State, and country. Only a few of its volumes have come down to our times, and these are of but little value in the collections in which they are now found. The most valuable books perished, and the unimportant ones which survived, reached our times in such a mutilated condition as to be of little consideration except as relics of the past. There is a name connected with its or- ganization, however, that should not pass from our memory as did its books from our use. This was Mr. Mann Butler, the first named among those who appear in the act of incor- poration. It was he who inaugurated the gathering together of this first collection of books in our city, and if he had had as much money as he had love for books, he would have placed the library upon such a lasting foundation that it would have stood to our times.

THE SECOND LIBRARY.

This was attempted nearly twenty years after the first effort, in 1835, by Messrs. Marcus Story, Ezekiel Breeden, James S. Speed, William In- man, and J. Thompson, who formed the nucleus of a body chartered as the "Mechanics' Institute of the City of Louisville." It was given, among other powers, authority to establish a circulating library ; but the measures taken to that end did not succeed, and the library never became more that a hopeful project.

AN HISTORICAL LIBRARY.

In 1838 Chancellor Bibb, Judge Pirtle, Mr. George D. Prentice, Humphrey Marshall, Sr., one of the historians of the State, and other prominent citizens of Louisville, formed the Kentucky Historical society, and procured a charter for it. Like many other associations of its day, the institution was short-lived, but a moderate collection of books was made, and they were not kept together. Occasionally a straggling volume that belonged to it can be found in the library of the Polytechnic society and elsewhere. Colonel Durrett gives the fol- lowing account of its best stroke of business :

The Kentucky Historical Society was not of long duration, but it served as a connecting link between the first libraries in our city and those which succeeded, and thus reserved for posterity some valuable relics of the past. It took into its charge the letter written by General George Rogers Clark to his friend, the Hon. George Mason, of Gunston Hall, Vir- ginia, and saved it from the destruction which deprived pos- terity of the journal of Captain Thomas Bullitt, and other important records of our early times. This letter is dated Falls of the Ohio, November 19, 1779, and gives an account of the capture of the British posts of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes in 1778, which did more to save our fore- fathers from the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savages than any other acts during the Indian wars upon our border. That this manuscript might not perish as others had done it was sent to Robert Clarke, of Cincinnati, who published it in a book of one hundred and nineteen pages in 1869, and thus placed it bevond the probability of loss to the world. If the Kentucky Historical Society had done nothing but preserve this manuscript, but its existence would not have been in vain ; but it did more, and preserved a number of valuable books, which now appear in other libraries, and which can no longer be purchased.

THE FRANKLIN LYCEUM.

Messrs. James B. Redd, Daniel Lyon, James H. Owen, John L. Hemming, Levi White, James Minter, John B. Bland, Abram Smith, and Dr. Bayless were the founders of the Louisville Franklin Lyceum, in 1840. It had also legisla- tive authority to add a circulating library to its means of culture, and did secure some of the debris of the older collections, but not in suf- ficient number, or with sufficient additions from other sources, to make it a permanent or very useful thing.

THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY.

Only two years after the Lyceum was institut- ed came in the Mercantile Library Association, with Messrs. Simon S. Bucklin, Benjamin J. Adams, John N. Johnson, Edward Parmele, A. A. Gordon, James Lees, J. W. Brannon, Henry L. Cobb, Jacob Owen, B. P. Bakewell, and B. F. Tevis as incorporators. They were gentle- men of energy and character, many of them still in the flush of youth, and took hold of the work with such well-directed force that a subscription of $6,000 was soon made by the merchants of the city as a pecuniary foundation ; and within a single year, without drawing upon the older col- lections, it had acquired three thousand volumes, including seven hundred from the private library of Fortunatus Cosby, purchased as a nucleus. A catalogue was published in 1841, of which Colonel Durrett furnishes the following analysis :

Under the head of "Antiquities and Fine Arts " the cata- logue showed thirty works; commerce and commercial law,

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

38; geography, 16; biography, 222; voyages and travels, 166; general history, 128; local and particular history, 314; Amer- ican biography, 115; works on America in general, 47; Amer- ican States and colonies, 67; jurisprudence and politics, 275; classics and translations, 8; rhetoric and belles lettres, 271; fiction, 256; poetry and the drama, 219; mechanics and the useful arts, 39; natural philosophy and mathematics, 32; natural history, 88; medicine, 12; moral and intellectual philosophy, 62; religion, 77; logic, 1; philology, 19; educa- tion, 13; political economy and statistics, 33; periodical litera- ture, 299; miscellanea, 73; miscellaneous dictionaries, 34; bibliography, 16; addenda, 17; and a number of periodicals and newspapers-in all about three thousand volumes.

Mr. Bucklin, who was President of the Asso- ciation from its beginning to the time of his re- moval from the city, wrote from Providence, Rhode Island, in November, 1880, to the Cour- ier-Journal, that "the works on American his- tory, consisting of nearly one thousand volumes, surpassed in variety and value by no public library in the country, and only equaled by one collection of this city, entitled it to protection." In books of reference, he adds, in works of science and literature, this collection was ex- ceptionally rich.

After some years of prosperous and useful life, including lecture courses during the winter months, the Association weakened for lack of in- terest and pecuinary support ; and it was ulti- mately found desirable to interest the Chamber of Commerce in its maintenance, by securing to that body the reversion of the library, when the society should be no longer able to sustain it. This, how- ever, did not suffice to save it ; and the fine collec- tion was long since dissipated and dispersed, no one knows where, with the exception of a scatter- ing volume or broken set here and there.

THE PEOPLE'S LIBRARY.

Messrs. Littleton Cook, John Goodman, and Edward Fulton alone became the incorporators, in 1865, of the "People's Library Company." Their charter was liberal, and the institution started off hopefully; but the library never be- came the "People's " nor anybody's else; for the project was presently merged in another, by which its name and identity were wholly lost.

THE LOUISVILLE LIBRARY.

The beginnings of an institution of this title, which is borne by the successor whose useful collection and pleasant rooms are among the most admirable features of the city's life, were made in 1847, when legislative permission was obtained for changing the moribund Mercantile

Library Association to " the President, Direc- tors, and Company of the Louisville Library." The new corporation was authorized to carry a capital stock of $25,000, in one thousand shares of $25 each. Colonel Durrett thus continues the story :

Thomas Anderson, William B. Belknap, Isaac Everett, and Grandison Spratt, were authorized to get the stock sub- scribed. Their effort was only partially successful, and it was not long before the books began to be a burden to the stockholders. Toward the close of the year 1849 Chapman Coleman and James Trabue, as a committee on the part of the library, sought a committee on the part of the city for a conference about what should be done with the library. The conference led to the asking of the city the right to erect a library building on the northeast corner of the court-house lot, fronting thirty feet on Fifth street, by a depth of sixty feet. This was refused by the City Council ; but another committee of conference led to the agreement of July 1, 1850, by which the library was conveyed to the city of Louis- ville on condition that it should be kept in the old court- house, on the corner of Sixth and Jefferson, or in some other suitable house to be supplied by the city, and kept open to shareholders, subscribers, and visitors on payment of reason- able assessments. The city first appointed as its directors Dr. Theodore S. Bell, Rev. John H. Heywood, Professor Noble Butler, and Thomas H. Shreve, and the next year W. D. Gallagher in place of Mr. Shreve. It paid the liabilities of the Library Company according to agreement, and sup- piled the running expenses beyond what came in for assess- ments upon those who used the library ; but it was soon evident that the city was weary of the undertaking. In 1853 the city transferred to the library all the stock to which it was entitled in the Louisville and Frankfort Railroad for payment of taxes, and went on growing more and more weary of the burden.

In 1868 a "Louisville Library Association" was formed from the wreck of the "People's Library Company" before mentioned, which had been organized three years before. In the same year when the change of name was authorized, still another change was demanded of that body, and the "Louisville Library Association " be- came the "Library Association of Louisville," with Professor J. Lawrence Smith, R. M. Cun- ningham, George W. Caruth, C. G. Davison, J. Guthrie Coke, J. R. Buchanan, E. D. Cook, L. Bamberger, P. B. Scott, Samuel Russell, Boyd Winchester, H. V. Sanders, and Joseph Knowles named as incorporators. They also received a liberal charter, with $50,000 worth of property exempted from taxation ; but nothing, says the Colonel, was ever done for the establishment of a permanent library commensurate with the breadth of the charter. It was reserved for a somewhat later day to make the final effort for the establishment of a worthy Louisville Library.

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

The readers of this volunie are indebted to Professor James S. Pirtle, Secretary of the As- sociation, for the following sketch of its history :

The most successful of the private library societies has been the Louisville Library associa- tion, which was organized on the 8th day of April, 1871. The plan upon which it was started was the contribution by each member of $30, or twenty volumes of books acceptable to the direc- tors. Two hundred and seventeen members united in the foundation of the library, and ten of them designated by a general meeting signed the articles of incorporation pursuant to the stat- ute regulating the forming of voluntary associa- tions, viz: John H. Heywood, Alexander G. Booth, J. M. Wright, L. N. Dembitz, Russell Houston, J. Lawrence Smith, W. B. Caldwell, I. M. St. John, W. H. Walker, and John H. Wood. The library was opened in the second story of the building at the northwest corner of Third and Walnut streets, and remained there until January, 1876, when it was removed to the rooms on the second story of the building at the southeast corner of Fifth and Walnut streets --- its present location. The first president. was Alexander G. Booth, who held the office until his death on the 29th of October, 1876. He was succeeded by Alexander P. Humphrey, who remained in office until January 10, 1880, when William R. Belknap, who is now president, was elected. The Library association owed its suc- cess in the beginning to the activity of its direc- tory and the enthusiastic support of many of the members; it was especially fortunate in its presi- dent, who devoted himself to its interests. The present directory is composed of the follow- ing members: W. R. Belknap, president; J. W. Holland, O. A. Wehle, A. V. Gude, U. Snead, John H. Ward, J. M. Wright; treasurer, Robert Cochran; James S. Pirtle, secretary. The first librarian was E. G. Booth, succeeded by Miss F. A. Cooper in February, 1874. In February, 1881, the present librarian, Mrs. Jennie F. At- wood, was elected; her assistant is Isaac Krieg- shaber.

The number of books at the end of 1881 was 8, 136; the visitors for the year were 15,035, and the books withdrawn 10,783. The collection is very good in modern books of science, biography, history, travels, drama, and fiction, and comprises also many other valuable and some rare old

books. A good list of periodicals is kept on the tables for the use of members and subscribers.

In 1876 an endowment fund of $ro,ooo was subscribed by the members and others, which, in large part in the hands of trustees, James S. Pirtle, Rozel Weissenger, and John H. Ward, is yielding an income devoted to the running ex- penses of the association.

The members pay $6 annual dues. Sub- scribers $1 per quarter, or $3 per annum. There were January 1, 1882, ninety-seven active mem- bers, fourteen life members who pay no dues, and one hundred and seventy-three subscribers, and during the year 1881 there were five hundred subscribers.

Y. M. C. A. LIBRARY.

When the Young Men's Christian Association of Louisville was formed, in 1867, such books as were remaining of the older and extinct libraries were given into its care and keeping. Many volumes had been lost or destroyed during the war, but still enough were left to form a respecta- ble nucleus for a library. The association added about six hundred books, and by the time the Public Library of Kentucky was founded, near four thousand volumes had been collected, which were transferred to the latter. The asso- ciation has since formed a smaller collection for reading by its members and others invited to the privileges of its rooms.

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY OF KENTUCKY.

At the opening of 1871, no library in Louis- ville was open to the general public except that of the Young Men's Christian Association. Moved by this lamentable fact, a number of gentlemen met at the office of Colonel Durrett, and agreed to set about the formation of a genuinely public and worthy library for the city. 'The Legislature was memorialized, and in due time passed "An act to incorporate the Public Library of Kentucky," dated March 16, 1871, whereby ex-Governor Thomas E. Bramlette, Henry M. Watterson, Mike W. Closkey, Ben- jamin Casseday, George P. Doern, Walter N. Haldeman, H. M. McCarty, J. S. Cain, and R. T. Durrett, their successors and assigns, were con- stituted a corporation under that title. Its capital stock was fixed at $100,000, in shares of $10 each. Section 7 of the charter permitted, among other things, the corporation "to give, not

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

to exceed five in number, public literary, musical, or dramatic entertainments, at which they may distribute, by lot, to patrons of the entertain- ments a portion of the proceeds arising from the sale of tickets of admission ; but no person is ever to be made to pay for the use and enjoy- ment of the books, pamphlets, periodicals, or papers of the institution, and the library of the same is to be forever free to the gratuitous use and enjoyment of every citizen of the State of Kentucky, and of all good citizens in every State in the Union who shall conform to the rules and regulations that may, from time to time, be made and adopted by the trustees for the care, preservation, and safety of the books and property of the corporation. The library, more- over, is to be kept open to the use and enjoy- ment of the public every day in the year, and during such hours at night as may be deemed proper for general use and enjoyment."

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 82

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