History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. II, Part 92

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 680

USA > Ohio > History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. II > Part 92

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

63*

498

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

leading stars of the country. He also supported Mrs. Rachel Macaulay on her tour West.

E. W. Bruner, M. D., was born in Lawrence county, Indiana, October 12, 1841, and located in Clark county in 1869. Dr. Bruner has prac- ticed medicine for fifteen years. He has made the lungs a specialty. Dr. Bruner was a soldier in the Eighty-first Indiana volunteers, and was engaged in quite a number of battles. His father, J. Bruner, M. D., has practiced in this county twenty-seven years. His father is seventy- one years of age.

G. F. Deming was born in Manhattan county, New York, November 25, 1841; located in Clark county in 1869. Mr. Deming was con- nected with the fire department at the United *States Goverment depot up to the time he took charge of the fire department of the city of Jeffersonville. Mr. Deming served five years in the late war. He was a brave color bearer of the Twentieth regiment New York volunteers, or New York State military; engaged in fifteen battles, always at his post of duty, leading his gallant reg- iment on to victory. He was also connected with the volunteer fire company at Kingston, Ulster county, New York. Mr. Deming is making a good chief of the fire department of Jefferson- ville. He is always at his post of duty.

B. F. Burlingame was born in Oneida county, New York, June 5, 1833, located at Jefferson- ville in 1869. Mr. Burlingame was up to his death general superintendent of the Ohio Falls Car works. He was a man that was loved by all who knew him ; generous to all, ready to ex- tend a helping hand to the poor. Mr. Burlin- game from boyhood had been a great advocate of temperance, always working in its cause. He was a member of high standing in his lodge of Masons, also in his lodge of Knights of Pythias. Mr. Burlingame was a brave soldier in the late war. He shot the rebel General Garrett, being the first rebel general killed during the war. He was at once promoted to first lieutenant of his company. In politics he was a Republican. He was a true lover of his country.

CHAPTER XXXII. .

NOTICES OF JEFFERSONVILLE-CLARKSVILLE.

Some of the most graphic and otherwise val- uable observations of a town, at various stages of its growth, may be had through the eyes of intel- ligent travelers and compilers of gazetteers, who have made contemporaneous notes of the place under survey of the historian. Jeffersonville has not lacked for this sort of attention; and for this closing chapter concerning the city we select a number from the many pleasant paragraphs that have been given it in the books. The first is that of Mr. Josiah Espy, whose travels hereaway in 1805, after long repose in manuscript, were handsomely published a few years ago by Robert Clarke & Company, of Cincinnati, in the volume of Miscellanies comprised in the Ohio Valley Historical Series. Said Mr. Espy only this :

30th September, I rode into Jeffersonville, a flourishing village at the head of the rapids opposite Louisville. Here it is proposed to take out the water of the river for the con- templaled canal.

Thomas Ashe, the lying and swindling English traveler of 1806, made a brief visit here in Sep- tember of that year, and noted the following in his book:

Previously to leaving Louisville, I crossed the river and visited the town of Jeffersonville, which is also seated about two miles above the Falls. It is yet very small, but the in- habitants appear determined to add to its character and opu- lence, being now employed in forming a canal, by which nav- igators may avoid all dangers and proceed down the river at all seasons of the year. I surveyed the line of the canal, and think it much more practicable than that marked off on the opposite shore. I entertain no doubt of the commerce of the river being adequate to the support of both undertakings, and that the proprietors will be hereafter amply remunerated.

Mr. Christian Schultz, Jr., was the next "chiel amang 'em takin' notes." He was here in 1808, and in his Tour on an Inland Voyage he records the following :

Immediately opposite Louisville, in the Indiana Territory, is situated the flourishing little town of Jeffersonville, consist- ing at present of forty houses ; it bids fair to become a place of considerable importance. Al the foot of the Falls, and in the same Territory, is another village, of the name of Clarks ville, consisting of four or five houses only, and situated a little above the mouth of Silver creek, a small stream which there empties into the Ohio.

The following is from Mr. John Melish's book of Travels Through the United States of Amer- ica in 1811:

Jefferson [sic] is situated on the opposite side of the river, a little above Louisville, and is the capital of Clark county, in the Indiana Territory. It was laid out in 1802, and now

499

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

contains about two hundred inhabitants, among whom are some useful mechanics. The United States have a land office at this place, but the principal objects of my inquiry being more to the eastward, I did not visit it. There is a good landing at Jeffersonville, and as the best passage is through what is called the Indian shute, it is probable that this place will materially interfere with the trade of Louisville, unless it be prevented by a plan to be hereafter noticed, in which case, each side will have its own share of the valuable commerce of this river, which, as it is yearly increasing, can- not fail to convert both sides of the Ohio here into great set- tlements.

Mr. Palmer's note in 1817 is as follows:

Jeffersonville stands on the banks of the Ohio, nearly op- posite Louisville, and a little above the Falls. It contains about one hundred and thirty houses, brick, frame, and hewn logs. The bank of the river is high, which affords a fine view of Louisville, the Falls, and the opposite hills. Just below the town is a fine eddy for boats. A post-office and a land office, for the sale of United States lands, are estab- lished, and it promises to become a place of wealth, elegance, and extensive business. The most eligible boat channel is on the Indiana side of the Ohio.

The following notice is made of the village on this side the Falls in Cutler's Topographical Description of the State of Ohio, Indiana Terri- tory, and Louisiana, published at Boston in 1812:

On the Indiana side of the Ohio there are only some scat- tering settlements, excepting Jeffersonville and Clarksville, two small villages at the rapids, one hundred and fifty miles below the Great Miami. Jeffersonville is situated in the bend of the river, on a high bank just above the rapids, where pilots are taken off for conducting vessels over tbem. It is a post town, but contains only a small number of inhabitants, and probably will never be a thriving place [!]. Clarksville is another small village immediately below the rapids and op- posite the elbow at Shippingport. In time it may become a place of considerable business [! ! ].

This Mr. Cutler, "a late officer in the United States army," was a very intelligent gentleman, and wrote a readable and useful book; but he obviously had not the gift of prophecy.

The year 1819 abounded in notices of the ris- ing town. Among others, Morse's American Uni- versal Geography of this year uttered the safe prophesy : " If the canal is completed, Jeffer- sonville will be a place of considerable import- ance."

The following notice of the village, as it then was, appears in Dr. McMurtrie's Sketches of Louisville, published that year :

Jeffersonville is seated on a high bank of the Ohio, nearly opposite Louisville, from which it affords a charming pros- pect, and immediately above the Falls. The town was laid out in 1802, and has increased considerably since that period, but it does not seem to progress in the same ratio at present. It contains a market-house (which is never attended, the in- babitants procuring their beef, etc., fiom Louisville), a land- office, court-house, and a private bank, named the Exchange

Bank of Indiana, J. Bigelow, president. About a mile from this town are several valuable springs, mineralized by sulphur and iron, where a large and commodious building has lately been erected by the proprietor, for the reception of those who seek relief either from physical indisposition, their own thoughts, or the disagreeable atmosphere of cities during the summer season. In a word, he is preparing it for a fash- ionable watering place, to which there is nothing objection- alle but its proximity to Louisville; its being so near requires neither equipage nor the expense of a journey to arrive there, things absolutely required to render every place of the kind perfectly a la mode. It is, however, one of the most power- ful natural chalybeate waters I have ever seen or tasted, and will no doubt prove very serviceable in many complaints, particularly in that debility attended with profusely cold sweats, which are constantly experienced by the convalescent victim of a bilious fever, so common to the inhabitants of this neighborhood.

Jeffersonville contains about five hundred souls, and should a canal be cut there, in despite of the many natural obstacles that are opposed to it, its population must inevita- bly have a rapid increase.

Mr. E. Dana's Geographical Sketches on the Western Country, published at Cincinnati the same year, gives some of the commonplace in- formation concerning this place, but adds these remarks :

The non-residence of the proprietors (of whom many are minors) of town lots of the adjacent country, has hitherto much checked the prosperity of this delightful spot. Of the buildings, which are not very numerous, some are designed and executed in a neat and elegant style, particularly the mansion which was the residence of the late Governor Posey. A land-office, a post-office, and a printing-office, are estab- lished in the town.

The canal around the Falls on this side was now actively under way, under the charter granted the "Jeffersonville Ohio Canal com- pany," in January, 1818. Mr. Dana says the excavation, begun in May, 1819, "continues to be prosecuted with spirit and the fairest prospects of success." The perpendic- ular height of the whole extent of the Falls be- ing about twenty-three feet, the canal is expected to furnish excellent mill-seats and water-power sufficient to drive machinery for very extensive manufacturing establishments.

Mr. James Flint, a Scotchman, who was here during several months of 1819-20, wrote to his friends abroad of this place :

Jeffersonville contains about 65 houses, 13 stores (shops), and 2 taverns, the land-office for a large district of Indiana, and a printing-office that publishes a weekly newspaper, and where the American copy of the most celebrated of all re- views is sold. A steamboat is on the stocks, measuring 180 feet long and 40 broad, estimated to carry 700 tons.

May 19, 1819, he writes:

The steamboat Western Engineer, and a number of keel- boats descended the Falls to-day, with a considerable body

500

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

of troops, accompanied by a mineralogist, a botanist, a geographer, and a painter. Their object is to explore the Missouri country and to form a garrison at the mouth of the Yellowstone river, about 1,800 miles up the Missouri river.

I shall conclude this with mentioning two singular occur- rences-the passage of a steamboat from Pittsburg to Louis- ville, 700 miles, in fifty hours, and the marriage of a girl in this place at the age of eleven years and three months.

He was here during the reception of Presi- dent Monroe, and wrote thus of the occasion:

On the 26th [June] the President arrived. A tall pole with the striped flag was displayed on the bank of the river, a salute was fired, and a large body of citizens waited his coming on shore. To be introduced to the President was a wish al- most universal, and he was subjected toa laborious shaking of hands with the multitude. A public dinner was given. This, too, was an object of ambition. Grocers left their goods and mechanics their work-shops to be present at the gratifying re- past. The First Magistrate appears to be about sixty years of age. His deportment is dignified, and at the same time affable. His countenance is placid and cheerful. His chariot is not of iron, nor is he attended by horse-guards or drawn swords. His protection is the affection of a free and a repre sented people.

In 1820 Jeffersonville was remarked in Gille- land's Geography of the States and Territories west and south of the Alleghany mountains, appended to the Ohio and Mississippi Pilot, published at Pittsburg, as " the largest town in the State, and from the advantages of its situa- tion will probably continue to be so."

This place was by no means neglected, in- deed, by the early geographers and compilers of gazetteers. In Mr. William Darby's edition of Brooker's Universal Gazetteer for 1823, appears · the following notice :

JEFFERSONVILLE, post town, Clark county, Indiana, a the head of the rapids, and nearly opposite Louisville, Ken- tucky. As at Louisville, pilots reside, who skilfully convey boats through the rapids. Where necessary, carts or wagons can be also procured to transport goods by land. A good road extends from Jeffersonville to New Albany. This town contains about six hundred inhabitants.

Worcester's Geographical Dictionary of the same year notes Jeffersonville as "a flourishing town," containing about 130 houses.

In 1828, Mr. Timothy Flint's Condensed Ge- ography and History of the Western States, vol- ume II., gave the place this interesting paragraph :

Jeffersonville is situated just above the Falls of the Ohio. The town of Louisville on the opposite shore, and the beautiful and rich country beyond, together with the broad and rapid river, pouring whitening sheets and cascades from shore to shore, the display of steamboats, added to the high banks, the neat village, and the noble woods on the north bank, unite to render the scenery of this village uncommonly rich and diversified. It is a considerable and handsome village, with some houses that have a show of

magnificence. It has a land-office, a post-office, a printing- office, and some of the public buildings. It was contem- plated to canal the Falls on this side of the river, and a com- pany with a large capital was incorporated by the Legislature. In 1819 the work was commenced, but has not been prose- cuted with the success that was hoped. The completion of the canal on the opposite side will probably merge this proj- ect, by rendering it useless. One of the principal chutes of the river in low water, is near this shore; and experienced pilots, appointed by the State, are always in readiness to con- duct boats over the Falls. Clarksville is a small village just below this place.

The State Gazetteer for 1833 has the following notice :

JEFFERSONVILLE, a town on the Ohio river, in Clark county. It is a beautiful situation, on a high bank above the highest water-mark, and extends from the head of the Falls up the river, so as to include a deep eddy, where boats of the largest size can approach, at all stages of the water, within cable-length of the shore. From this town there is a delightful view of Louisville and of the landing at the mouth of Beargrass. It also affords the most advantageous land- ing for boats descending the river and intending to pass the Falls through the Indian chute. It is laid out on a large and liberal plan, and must, from its local advantages, become a place of great commercial importance. The State prison is located at this place; and there are in its immediate vicinity two steam mills, a ship-yard, an iron foundry; and in the town there are six mercantile stores, three taverns, and a steam grist- and saw-mill, and numerous mechanics of all trades. Its present population amounts to about six hundred or seven hundred inhabitants, three of whom are physicians.

In Dr. Drake's celebrated treatise on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, published in 1850, the following notice is taken of Jeffersonville and its sanitary condi- tions :

It stands about a mile above the Falls of the Ohio, on a terrace, the south or river side of which is forty feet above low water, and about four hundred and twenty above the sea. This terrace, like most others along the Ohio, declines from near the river and is liable to inundations, so that in high floods the town becomes insulated. Both above and below it there are small streams entering the Obio, which are the channels by which these overflows are effected. To the north and northeast, near the town, there are ponds skirted with marsh, one of which has lately been drained. The surface, like that of the plain on which Louisville stands, on the op- posite side of the river, is argillaceous, and retains the water which rains or flows upon it. It will be observed that all the insalubrious surface lies to the summer leeward offthe town, but the flats and stagnant waters near the mouth of Bear- grass creek, on the opposite side of the Ohio, are directly to the windward of this town, with only the river intervening. Jeffersonville is also to the leeward of the Falls, and exposed therefore to any insalubrious gases which may be liberated by the agitation of the waters. Two miles north of the town a water-shed, between the Ohio river and Silver creek, com- mences and runs to Charlestown, thirteen miles north. At its commencement this terrace is sixty feet above the level of the" town, and its rise afterward is about ten feet per mile. Doc tor Stewart, to whom I am indebted for several of the facts

501

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

in this article, informs me that autumnal intermittents and remittents are decidedly prevalent in Jeffersonville and its vicinity.

The penitentiary in the State of Indiana stands in the western part of Jeffersonville. Dr. Collum, its physician, in- forms me that the convicts are every year invaded by autumnal fever, but in a degree rather less than the inhabit- ants of the town.

Charles Mackay, the English poet, traveled through this region in January, 1858, on his way to St. Louis, and made some memoranda of the visit here in his book of travels, entitled Life and Liberty in America. He seems to have been in particularly ill humor just at that time. He re- marks:

After no less than four accidents to our train on the Ohio & Mississippi railway, happily involving no other evil conse- quences than the smashing of the company's engine and two or three cars, the sacrifice of many valuable hours, and the loss of an amount of patience difficult to estimate, though once possessed by all the passengers, myself included, we arrived at the miserable village, though called a city, of Jef- fersonville, in Indiana, nearly opposite to Louisville, in Ken- tucky, on the river Ohio. The train was due at an early hour of the afternoon, but did not reach Jeffersonville until half- past nine in the evening, long before which time the steam ferry-boat had ceased to ply, and the captain of which re- fused to re-light the fires of his engines to carry the passen- gers across. We saw the lights of the large city gleaming temptingly across the stream, but, there beim o means of conveyance, we were all reluctantly compelled to hetake our- selves to the best inn at Jeffersonville-and bad, very bad, was the best. We had had nothing to eat or to drink all day, in consequence of the accident to our train having be- fallen us in an out-of-the-way place and in the very heart of the wilderness; and such of us as were not teetotalers looked forward to a comfortable supper and glass of wine or toddy, after our fatigue and disappointments. But, on asking for supper and wine at the hotel, we were told by mine host that we were in a temperance State, and that nothing in the way of drink would be served except milk, tea, coffee, and lemon- ade. A thoughtful friend at Cincinnati had given us on starting a bottle of Bourbon whiskey twenty years old; and we told mine host that, if he would provide us with glasses, hot water, sugar, and a corkscrew, we should enjoy his meat, find our own drink, and set Fate at defiance.

CLARKSVILLE.

In the appropriation made by the State of Vir- ginia in 1783, when it had jurisdiction of the Indiana country, of one hundred and forty-nine thousand acres of land to the officers and sol- diers of General Clark's army who had aided in the reduction of the British posts at Vincennes and in the Illinois region, it was provided that one thousand acres should be laid off into lots, with convenient streets and public grounds. This proposed town was fitly denominated, in the Act of Assembly making the grant, as Clarksville, from the eminent hero of the ex-

pedition of 1778-89. A tract nearly opposite and a little below the site of Louisville was ac- cordingly selected, reaching from near the head of the Falls to a point not far from the mouth of Silver creek, including the spot adjoining an eddy and also a landing below the rapids. The lower part of this site has superior beauty of position, but was subject, as it still is, to fre- quent inundation, while the upper part was thought to be free from overflow at all times.

The boundaries of Clarksville were as fol- lows:

Beginning on the bank of the Ohio at a small white thorn, white oak, and hickory, a little below the mouth of Silver creek, running thence north, crossing Silver creek twice, one hundred and seventy poles to a sweet gum, beech, and sugar tree ; thence east crossing said creek again three hundred and twenty-six poles to three beeches ; thence south forty de grees east eighty-six poles to a beech and sugar tree ; thence east one hundred and seventy-six poles to a large sweet gum, sugar tree, and dogwood, on the bank of Mill creek ; thence south crossing said creek one hundred and eighty poles to a sugar and two white ash trees ; thence east one hundred and fifty-eight poles to three beeches ; thence south crossing Pond creek two hundred and eighty poles to the Ohio, at two white ash and two hickory trees ; thence down the Ohio with its meanders to the beginning.

About the year 1786 settlement began here- the first of white men in the present State of In- diana next after that made long before at Vin- cennes. Only a few adventurers, however, were upon the ground; and they were so much ex- posed to the attacks of the savages that little progress was made. The Indiana Gazetteer of 1833 says:

Other settlements were formed, and rival villages sprang up in different places and drew the attention of emigrants, _ while Clarksville was left in the background. The plan of the town does not extend up the river far enough to include a harbour and landing-place for boats, above the Falls; any advantage, therefore, which might be calculated to accrue from the river trade is, at least in part, intercluded by Jeffer- sonville. But, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which this town has labored, it possesses commercial facilities which must, at some period, perhaps not very distant, raise it to im- portance. It contains, at this time, a population of about two hundred, and increasing.

The prophecy of fifty years ago has never been realized. The rise of other towns about the Falls soon completely overshadowed the hopeful vil . lage of.Clark. He himself abandoned it after the sad accident to him in 1814, and spent the brief remainder of his years with his sister, Mrs. Wil- liam Croghan, above Louisville. His Clarks- ville home was a double log-cabin, where he re- sided alone (having never been married) with his

502

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

servant and, it is said, one of his old drummers of the campaign into the Illinois country. This house, with nearly all others of the old Clarks- ville, has totally disappeared. The place is now a mere country neighborhood, memorable only as a traditional site and by association with one of the greatest of Revolutionary heroes.

It will be interesting, however, to note the ob- servations of travelers to the Falls in the better days of Clarksville. Almost every one who was here and wrote a book of his travels, had some- thing to say about it. The English scientist, Francis Baily, who saw it in 1797, remarks it as "a little village, consisting of about twenty houses," and as characterized by "the almost perpetual presence of an immense cataract of Cater."

Mr. Josiah Espy, who was here in 1805, found Clarksville or Clarksburgh, as he calls it-already in its decadence. He says in his journal:

At the lower end of the falls is the deserted village of Clarksburgh, in which General Clark himself resides. I had the pleasure of seeing this celebrated warrior at his lonely cottage seated on Clark's Point. This point is situated at the upper end of the village and opposite the lower rapid, commanding a full and delightful view of the falls, particu- larly the zigzag channel which is only navigated at low water. The general has not taken much pains to improve this com- manding and beautiful spot, having only raised a small cabin; but it is capable of being made one of the handsomest seats in the world.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. II, Part 92

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co. Number of Pages: 680

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 680