History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 85

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 85

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COLONEL R. M. KELLY, EDITOR OF THE COMMERCIAL.

Robert Morrison Kelly was born at Paris, Kentucky, on the 22d day of September, 1836, and was the sixth of eleven children of Thomas and Cordelia Kelly. His father, Thomas Kelly, was the oldest of two sons of William Kelly, a leading merchant of Paris and one of the early settlers of the place, and was himself a mer- chant and manufacturer, and for many years of his later life Cashier of the Branch of the Northern Bank of Kentucky, at Paris. His mother was a daughter of Colonel Robert Mor- row, a leading citizen of Montgomery county.

The subject of our sketch was educated in pri- vate schools at Paris, and prepared for Yale Col- lege in a class under Rev. T. De Lacey Wardlaw, a learned Presbyterian divine, but abandoned the purpose of attending college, and began at an early age to teach a private school in Paris. After two years spent in teaching in Paris and vicinity, he took charge of the academy at Owingsville, where he staid two years, and studied law under Hon. J. Smith Hurt, of that place. Having been admitted to the bar, he opened an office there, but removed to Cynthi- ana, Kentucky, in the summer of 1860, having been offered a local partnership there with Hon. Garrett Davis, his uncle by marriage. The rapid approach of the war soon absorbed every inter- est, and he devoted himself more to studying military tactics than legal science, and was elected first lieutenant and then captain of a local militia company.

Upon the opening of Camp Dick Robinson, the first camp for Union volunteers pitched in the State, he with James M. Givens and Burwell S. Tucker began recruiting a company and pro- ceeded early in August to the camp. He was

U. S. Wilson

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

elected captain, Givens first lieutenant, and Tucker second lieutenant. The company was attached to the Fourth Kentucky infantry, at first styled the Second Kentucky infantry, of which Speed S. Fry, of Danville, was Colonel ; James I. Croxton, of Paris, lieutenant-colonel; and P. B. Hunt, of Lexington, major. He was promoted to major in March, 1862, to lieutenant- colonel in March, 1864, and to colonel in Octo- ber, 1864, and was mustered out and discharged with his regiment September 1, 1865, after more than four years of service, all of it in active duty in the field, and all with his regiment, except a few months spent as inspector of the division to which it was attached, just before the battle of Chickamauga.

After his discharge from the service he re- turned to Paris and opened a law office, and soon after, on the recommendation of the mili- tary board at St. Louis, presided over by General George H. Thomas, was commissioned first lieu- tenant in the regular army, but declined to ac- cept the appointment. In the summer of 1866 he ran on the Union ticket in his county as can- didate for county attorney, and spoke through the county with his opponent. Before the elec- tion he was appointed Collector of Internal Rev- enue for the Seventh district, with office at Lexing- ton. He removed to Lexington September 1, 1866, and remained there until the establishment of the Louisville Daily Commercial in Decem- ber, 1869, when he resigned to take the editor- ship of that paper. His successor, however, did not relieve him till April 6, 1870.

On June 27, 1867, he married Harriet Halley Warfield, of Lexington, daughter of Elisha Nicholas Warfield, of that city. His wife's mother before marriage, Miss Elizabeth Hay Brand, was daughter of William Brand, who married Miss Harriet Halley, daughter of the brilliant Dr. Horace Halley, President of Tran- sylvania University. Colonel Kelly has been with the Louisville Commercial ever since its es- tablishment, and is now its chief editor and gen- eral manager. In 1873 he was appointed United States Pension Agent by President Grant, which position he still retains.

HON. W. S. WILSON, PRESIDENT OF THE COMMERCIAL COMPANY.

The Hon. William Samuel Wilson, Collector of Internal Revenue for the Fifth District of Kentucky, is a native of the old State, descend- ant of two of the oldest pioneer families in this part of the West. The progenitor here on the father's side was strictly Samuel Wilson, who came with his family to the Falls of the Ohio more than a century ago from the site of Pitts burg, but was drowned at the Falls by the over- turning of a skiff, in which he was landing from his flat-boat, then moored in the stream. His son, Samuel Wilson, also subsequently General Wilson, was grandfather of the subject of this sketch. The family pushed into the interior and settled in Nelson county, afterwards removing to Cumberland. The General was murdered in Jackson county, Tennessee, in 1830, while on a surveying expedition, by a settler named Mitch- ell, who was discontented with a line he had run. He was exceedingly popular with all who knew him, and a prodigious excitement was caused by the murder. The residents turned out from far and near upon the swift intelligence of the tragedy, guarded every road, and pursued the assassin vigorously. He was captured, tried, and hanged. The case is a very famous one in the annals of the Dark and Bloody Ground. At the home in Cumberland county was born the father of the subject of this memoir, likewise Samuel (T.) Wilson, in 1824.

The maternal ancestry in Kentucky begins with David Allen, an immigrant from Virginia to Lincoln county in pioneer times, thence remov- ing to Green county, where he closed his earthly career. His oldest son, William B. Allen, is grandfather of Colonel Wilson, and still resides in Greensburg, near which he was born. He is seventy-nine years of age, and had never been sick a day until the latter part of the winter of 1881-82, when he was taken down with dropsical affection. He is the oldest affiliating Free Mason in the State, having been a member of the Order ever since he could become one-now about fifty-eight years; and has not missed a session of the Grand Lodge of the State for forty-six years. His second child, Sally E. Allen, was mother of Colonel Wilson. She was married to Mr. Wil- cox in Greensburg in December, 1845. The stock on both sides is the excellent cross, Scotch-

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

Irish. The Colonel's maternal grandmother was of the famous Helm family, cousin of Gover- nor Helm; and her husband's mother was of the old Kentucky family of Barrets, from whom the very numerous and influential people of the name in Louisville are descended.

Colonel Wilson is the oldest and only sur- viving child of Samuel T. and Sally E. (Allen) Wilson, his younger brother, Hughlett, dying in February, 1868, at the age of seventeen. His natal day was October 2, 1846, and he was horn at Greensburg, to which his father had removed from Cumberland county when a boy. He was trained in the village schools, which were con- sidered uncommonly good, until he was fifteen years old, when he was prepared for the classical schools, and went to Centre College, at Danville, where he was graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1866. His first year, however, was spent at Franklin College, Indiana, at the instance of his father, in order to keep him from enlisting in the Federal army while still very young, as he desired to do, although but fourteen years old when the war broke out. He began the study of law after graduating, at home; but presently came to Louisville and entered the Law Department of the University, where he took a course of lectures, and then entered the office of the Hon. John M. Harlan, now Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Here he completed his preparation, and was admitted to the Jefferson bar. He had previously, after his year's reading and some service at Greensburg in the office of the Circuit Clerk, in the stead of his father, who had resigned after sixteen years' service, received a license to practice from the court at that place. He came to Louisville in 1867 with his father, who still resides here, where he is the General Agent of the Southern Mutual Life In- surance Company, which he has been mainly in- strumental in building up. The mother is also still living here.

Colonel Wilson practiced law for several years in the city alone, and established a good practice for a young man ; but became engaged more or less in other business, and by and by drifted into journalism, in the interests of the Republican party, to which he has been ardently attached ever since his political life began, his father be- fore him having heen an intense Unionist. The young journalist, who had already had more or

less to do with the paper in an amateur way, was placed at once in the responsible and difficult place of Business Manager of the Daily and Weekly Commercial. This was in 1878, and the next spring, his judicious and successful management having approved itself to his asso- ciates, he was made President of the Commercial Publishing Company, and remains in that posi- tion to this time. The Commercial derives special importance from the fact that it is the only Republican daily newspaper in the State, and is the organ of the party in Kentucky. Jan- uary 30, 1881, he was appointed by President Hayes Collector of Internal Revenue, to succeed Colonel James F. Buckner, was confirmed by unanimous vote of the Senate February 16th, and took upon himself the duties of that office March Ist, since which time he has not been in the immediate business management of the Com- mercial. His district (the Fifth of Kentucky) comprises eighteen counties in Central and Northern Kentucky, and the city of Louisville. It contains the largest number of distilleries, with the largest amount of production of "straight whiskeys," of any revenue district in the country. At this writing [March, 1882], there are in this district about twenty-two million gallons of spirits in bond. It is by far the larg. est revenue-producing district in the State, and one of the largest in the United States. For the current year about $6,000,000, it is believed, will be collected. In general two hundred and forty-five subordinate offices, scattered all over the District, are under the direction of Colonel Wilson, making his official position one of great influence. In his hands the office has attained very high rank on the books of the Commis- sioner of Internal Revenue ; as witness the fol- lowing recent letter from that officer:

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE INTERNAL REVENUE, WASHINGTON, February 28th.

William S. Wilson, Esq., Collector Fifth District, Louis- ville, Kentucky :

SIR :- I am in receipt of a very thorough and exhaustive report of the condition of your office made by Revenue Agent Wheeler upon his examination of the 20th inst. Your stamp and cash accounts were found absolutely correct. The gen- eral condition of your office is excellent, and fully entitles you to the highest rank in the scale of merit, namely : No. I, our first-class. Accept my congratulations.

Respectfully, GREEN B. RAUM, Commissioner.

Colonel Wilson was united in marriage, in

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

Russellville, January 15, 1873, to Miss Minnie, only daughter of Dr. Thomas H. Grubbs, one of the leading physicians in Western and Southern Kentucky, who died in 1877, and Martha (Duncan) Grubbs, daughter of Captain Richard C. Duncan, an honored sol- dier and pensioner of 1812, and a wealthy planter in Logan county, who passed away in March, 1881, in his ninety.first year. The paternal grandfather, Thomas H. Grubbs, Sr., died about the same time, in his ninety-sixth year. On both sides she is of old pioneer Kentucky families. Colonel and Mrs. Wilson have one child, Louise, now in her ninth year. Until four years of age this little girl had four grand- parents and four great-grandparents still surviving -- an extremely unique and interesting fact, and promising well for the long life of her mother and herself.

GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

On the 21st of January, 1870, died Kentucky's most famous journalist, wit, and poet, George Denison Prentice, of the Daily Journal. He was a New Englander, born at Preston, Connec- ticut, December 18, 1802; was remarkably pre- cocious in intellect, reading the Bible easily when little more than three years old, and in college reciting the whole of a book of Virgil for a les- son, besides swallowing bodily huge books of philosophy; studied law, but went into journal- ism in Connecticut in 1825, and was associated with the poet Whittier in 1828-30 in the publi- cation of the New England Weekly Review; came to Kentucky during the Presidential can- vass of 1828 to write a campaign life of Mr. Clay, and after a short career in Cincinnati, came to Louisville and started the Journal, which, after many struggles and not a few des- perate personal conflicts of its editor, became a pronounced journalistic success. The remainder of his story may be told in epitome in the words of Dr. Collins's History :

During the thirty-eight years of editorial life in the Journal he perhaps wrote more, and certainly wrote better, than any journalist that ever conducted a daily paper in this State. He made the Journal one of the most renowned papers in the land, and many articles from his pen would have done honor to the highest literary periodical of the day. The Journal under his guidance made and unmade the poets, poetesses, essayists, and journalists who appeared in the West for the third of a century which preceded his death. His humor,

his wit, and his satire were the best friends and the worst enemies that aspirants to fame in his region could have.

In 1835 Mr. Prentice was married to Miss Henriette Ben- ham, daughter of Colonel Joseph Benham, a distinguished member of the Kentucky Bar. They had two sons-William Courtland Prentice, who was killed while bravely leading his company of Confederate soldiers at the battle of Augusta, Kentucky, September 18, 1862, and Clarence J. Prentice, also a Confederate officer, who was killed by the upsetting of his buggy, near Louisville, November, 1873. Mrs. Prentice died in April, 1868, at the family residence in Louisville.

In 1860 he published a book under the title of Prenticeana, made up of his humorous, witty, and satirical paragraphs as they appeared in the Journal. To this style of composition, perhaps more than to anything else, Mr. Prentice owed his fame as a journalist. He was a paragraphist of unparalleled ability.

At the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1861, Mr. Prentice took sides and used his powerful pen against the South, in the conflict which ended so disastrously to that section. And yet, during the war he performed numerous kind and gen- erous acts to individual sufferers on the rebel side, and proved a friend to many in times of need.

The disease of which Mr. Prentice died was pneumonia, the result of violent cold taken in riding in an open carriage, on the coldest day in the year, from Louisville to the resi- dence of his son Clarence, some miles below the city, He struggled with it for a month, retaining his mental faculties to the last. Just before he drew his last breath, he ex- claimed, "I want to go, I want to go." His grave at Cave Hill cemetery is yet without a becoming monument.

A eulogy of singular beauty and power was pronounced by Henry Watterson, editor of the Courier-Journal, by invita- tion of the Legislature of Kentucky. His poems have been collected by his son, with a view to publication in a volume- to which, it is hoped, some of his most marked prose contri- butions will be added. As an author and poet Mr. Prentice had few equals; but he was a journalist of pre-eminent ability and versatility. Always bold, sometimes rash, he was not always prudent. He thought with precision, scope, and power, and what he thought he expressed in language clear, forcible, and beautiful. In writings of a personal cast or character he excelled, in retort and sarcasm was keen, and in ridicule inimitable. His surgicat knife was always sharp and polished, and his dissections thorough. If his subject re- quired, he was minute, even when comprehensive, never superficial, frequently exhaustive, always able.

PERSONAL NOTES.

Hon. Henry Watterson, editor of the Courier- Journal, and the most widely known journalist in the Southern States, was born in Washington City, February 16, 1840. He is son of Harvey Watterson, formerly a member of Congress from Tennessee and editor of the Washington Union, who now writes from that city to the Courier- Journal under the signature of "Old Fogy." Henry's poor eyesight in childhood caused his education to be of a decidedly miscellaneous and desultory character. He early began to write for the public journals, however; and in 1859, when but nineteen years old, he became a regular

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

writer on The States, a Democratic paper in Washington. The next year he added to his labors the important service of editorial manage- ment of the Democratic Review. During the late war Mr. Watterson was connected with Con- federate newspapers, notably the Nashville Re- publican Banner and the Chattanooga Rebel. In 1865 he was married to Miss Rebec- ca, daughter of the Hon. Andrew Ewing. The next year and part of the next he traveled in Europe, and on his return accepted the call of the Journal Company to the management of that paper. Mr. Prentice had grown old, and, while still retaining a connection with the paper, his stock was transferred to Mr. Watterson, who took the helm of the establishment in the spring of 1868. In the fall of the same year, by ar- rangement of Messrs. Watterson and Haldeman, heads of the two papers, respectively, the Courier and Journal were consolidated, as before mentioned. The former has since remained editor-in-chief of the Courier-Journal. His brilliant talents and sparkling epigrammatic style of writing have caused him, as well as the paper under his charge, to become widely renowned.

Colonel Reuben T. Durrett, formerly of the Morning Courier, was born in Henry county, in this State, January 24, 1824, son of William and Elizabeth (Rawlings) Durrett. On his father's side he is of French descent; but both his par- ents were natives of Virginia. He was trained in the common schools of his early home, and in Georgetown College, Scott county, Brown Uni- versity, at Providence, Rhode Island (from which he graduated with honors in 1849), and the Law Department of the Louisville University. He began practice in the city at once, and remained for many years a lawyer here. In 1852 he was a Whig elector on the Presidential ticket, and made an active personal canvass of the Louisville district. The same year he was in- vited by the City Council to pronounce the an- nual Fourth of July oration, which he did with masterly eloquence. Later in the year, Decem- ber 16th, he was married to Miss Elizabeth H., daughter of Caleb Bates, of Cincinnati. Of their four children but one survives, a son grown to manhood. Young Durrett had early manifested a decided penchant for literature, to which he had made inany acceptable contributions, in both prose and poetry. October 1, 1857, he

bought a half-interest in the Daily Courier, and undertook the editorial management of that journal, which he retained for nearly two years, and then resold his share of the property to Mr. Haldeman, and returned to his practice. He has, however, continued to contribute much to the local press, a series of historical articles in the Courier-Journal for parts of 1880-81 attract- ing particular attention and proving of great and permanent value. In 1871, and for a number of years following, he took a very active part in the foundation of the Public Library of Kentucky, now in the hands of the Polytechnic Society. He is President of the Louisville Abstract Asso- ciation, but lives a comparatively retired and studious life at his elegant residence, filled with works of art and taste, on the corner of Chesnut and Brook streets.

Colonel Theodore O'Hara, though belonging to a past generation, remains one of the most famous names in Kentucky journalism. He was the son of Kean O'Hara, an Irish political ref- ugee, and was born in Danville, February II, 1820. He was carefully educated by his father, and at St. Joseph's Academy, Bardstown, became a fine scholar and Professor of Greek in that school. He studied law, but did not like it, and early turned to journalism, becoming editor of the Frankfort Yeoman, the Democratic Rally (a campaign sheet in 1844), the Louisville Sun, and the Mobile Register. For a time he had a clerk. ship at Washington; was Captain and brevet Major in the Mexican war ; began to practice law in Washington, but soon took service with the Tehuantepec railroad company, and was a colo- nel in the Lopez filibustering expedition, in which he was severely wounded, but went out again with Walker to Central America. In the late war he espoused the Southern side, was Captain and Colonel, member of General Albert Sidney Johnston's staff and chief of staff to General Breckinridge; after the war engaged unluckily in cotton ventures, and died on a plantation near Guerrytown, Alabama, on the 6th of June, 1867. In the fall of 1874, by order of the State Legisla- ture, his remains were brought to Frankfort and buried in the Kentucky military lot with fitting ceremonies. Some of O'Hara's poetical pieces are widely celebrated, particularly that written during the war with Mexico, containing the oft- quoted stanza which is inscribed above the en-

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

trance to the National Cemetery at Arlington, Virginia:

On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread ; And Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead.

Hon. John W. Finnell was a native of Clark county, born December 24, 1821, son of N. L. Finnell, a practical printer and Whig journalist, conducting at various times the Lexington Ob- server and Reporter, the Lexington Intelligencer, the Licking Valley Register, at Covington, and other papers. Young Finnell was a graduate of Transylvania University, and was bred to the bar; but, having learned the printer's trade with his father, he easily gravitated into journalism, assisted his father upon his papers, became edi- tor of the Frankfort Commonwealth some time in the '40's, and, after his removal to Louisville in 1870, was for two years managing editor of the Daily Commercial. He had considerable note as a writer of force and originality ; served several terms in the Legislature, was twice Sec- retary of State, and once Adjutant General of Kentucky, and was Register in Bankruptcy for the Sixth District of this State. He was also an able and successful lawyer, practicing with re- pute in Louisville, Carlisle, and Covington, where he has mainly resided since 1852.

George Philip Doern, one of the founders of that influential organ of opinion among the Ger- mans, the Daily Anzeiger, was a native of Nau- heim, in the Duchy of Nassau, born Septem- ber 16, 1829, son of one of Blucher's old sol. diers in the wars against Napoleon. The family came to America in May, 1842, and settled in Louisville. George learned to be a printer in the office of the Beobachter am Ohio, and after journey-work for a year started the Anzeiger in 1849 in company with Otto Schoeffer. He worked hard and with well-directed energy upon this, and in time built up a prosperous and power- ful journal. October 2, 1851, he was married to Miss Barbara, sole daughter of Philip Tomppert, formerly Mayor of the city. He also filled other important positions, as President of the Louisville Building Association, Vice-President of the German Protestant Orphan Asylum, Di- rector of the German Insurance company, etc., etc. For a time he published (in English) the Evening News, one of the predecessors of the

Daily Post. He died in Louisville, November 12, 1878.

William Krippenstapel, editor and manager of the Volksblatt, is son of an old officer of the Russian army, who was much engaged" in" the . wars against the first Napoleon. He_was born in Lauenburg, then in Denmark, December 30, 1826. He was liberally educated, became a printer, a German soldier against Denmark in 1848, traveled through Germany and Hungary ; tried to start a newspaper in his native city, but was not permitted by the Government ; came to America in 1852, worked upon several news- papers, and came to Louisville the next year, where he assisted upon the Anzeiger for several years. In 1862 he formed a connection with Messrs. Schumann and Rapp in publishing the Volksblatt, a daily and weekly German Republi- can paper, with which he has since been steadily connected, except during a brief interval. In 1864 he became sole owner of the paper. Since January, 1866, he has issued a racy literary weekly called The Omnibus. In 1871 he was the candidate of the Republicans for State Auditor.

Hon. William D. Gallagher, poet, essayist, and editor, although not a resident of Louisville at present, and more identified in authorship with Cincinnati than with this city, may yet fitly re- ceive notice here. He was born in Philadelphia in August, 1808, son of an Irish political exile. His widowed mother, with four sons, emigrated to Cincinnati eight years afterward. He became a printer in his early twenties, and while still an apprentice began publishing a little sheet called the Literary Gazette. He was subsequently cor- respondent of Benjamin Drake's Cincinnati Chronicle, the Cincinnati Gazette, and many other papers, and editor of the Xenia (Ohio) Backswoodsman, the Cincinnati Mirror, the Western Literary Journal and Monthly Review, the Ohio State Journal at Columbus, the Hes- perian, the Cincinnati Gazette (1839-50), the Louisville Courier (1853-54) and the Western Farmer's Journal. His magnum opus is a large volunie entitled The Poetical Literature of the West. His longest poem is the Miami Woods, written between 1839 and 1856. His earlier poems were issued in little pamphlets called "Erato" numbers one, two, and three. Many of his shorter pieces have wide celebrity. His prose

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 85

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