Ben Casseday

“ Business is pursued quietly and without ostentation; no efforts are made by any to convince others of their successes; no factitious means are employed to display the results of labor, no hurry or restlessness or confusion attends even the largest and most prosperous houses. Trade is pursued as a means of gain, but is not allowed to blind its votaries to every other pursuit of life: business closes with the close of the day, and is forgotten in other things, until it is revived on the morrow. ”

“ This useful establishment is one of those minor factories which are indispensible to a great city. Necessary of small extent as compared with many other branches of manufacture, it is yet an important and useful concern. Mr. Hunter is the foreman of his own factory, and is a thorough and accomplished workman. It is at his shop that those elegant cuttings on tinted and white glass, which adorn the windows of our southern steamboats, and add so much to their magnificence, are done. In this department of his business he is without a rival in the city and, it is believed, in the West. ”

“ The streets south of Jefferson are all entirely occupied with dwelling houses. No business is done on any of them except an occasional family grocery or drug store. The fashionable shops are fitted up in a style of unexampled magnificence and contain the most beautiful products of human ingenuity. No city in the Union is better supplied with or finds more ready sale for the finest class of articles of every description than Louisville. ”

“ Louis will ultimately bring to our doors the products of the Pacific Coast and the treasures of the modern El Dorado. Add to all these advantages the unavoidable effects of these railroads, in bringing to light all the possible wealth of the countries through which they pass, and then say if anything but the most criminal neglect of the advantages which Nature has given her, can prevent Louisville from arriving at the most prominent rank among Western cities. Does the capitalist desire an investment? ”

“ Prompt and efficient in their business relations, tasteful and artistic in the execution of the work entrusted to them, they are enabled to command a large amount of patronage, not only in Louisville, but all over the West and South. The new map of Kentucky lately issued from their press, is of itself a sufficient guarantee for the character of the work executed at this establishment. This map is the best ever published, and its authenticity is in no whit inferior to its mere artistic excellence. It is steadily growing into public favor, and is deservedly appreciated wherever it is known. ”

“ Does the emigrant desire a home? Where can he better find it than near a city thus situated, one where the whole of his little fortune is not required to buy him a shelter from the winds and the rain, one that is yet unfilled with eager [Pg 255] competitors in the struggle for wealth, one where the products of his industry are needed and will be eagerly taken from his hands at their fair value, one where he can have not only a field for his own struggle with the world, but a place and a circle of friends possessing all those attributes which make a home happy? ”

“ Another glaring defect of a certain part of society is found in a desire for notoriety, even if purchased at the expense of good taste. This feeling is one hardly deserving the name of ambition, for ambition has ever a laudable object in view, while this purposes to itself no more than merely having one’s name coupled with some eccentric freak, or being pitied as the victim of outre tastes in dress or manner. ”

“ While pursued, it is pursued with all the avidity that is consistent with the dignity of manhood; but it is never allowed to obtrude where it does not belong, nor is it permitted to make any forget that there are other duties than those of the merchant, and other pleasures than that of adding dollar to dollar. Yet it is believed that there is no city in the Union where the aggregate amount of sales in any one department of business, divided by the number of houses engaged in that business, will show so large a result. ”

“ It discourages gaming, drunkenness and sensuality; its prevailing tone is virtuous and moral; and, while people are hedged in by few conventionalities, yet a character for respectability is imperatively demanded from all who knock at its portals for admission. No society could be more agreeable to the stranger than that of Louisville. Its unbounded hospitality, and generous, confiding frankness are characteristics which are to him a screen against any minor defects.
It is not to be argued from anything which has been previously said that this city can boast of no prominent intellectual men. ”

“ Perhaps the worst feature of society is its lack of a proper reverence for the intellectual, its tendency to frivolity. The amusements most prized by all classes are of a frivolous character. The song, the play or the dance, are valued far above the lecture or the conversation. The pleasures of the intellect are considered dull and tame, when compared with those which excite but for a moment, and are then forgotten. That the power of the intellectual man is acknowledged is true, but the acknowledgment is not practical, it is merely theoretical. ”

“ It is somewhat remarkable that this population has depended and still depends so entirely upon commerce as a means of gain. No other city perhaps in the world has so large a commercial business in proportion to its population. This is probably accounted for in the fact that the increase of commerce has been so rapid and the difficulty of overdoing the business so apparently impossible that every temptation has been offered to the capitalist to prefer this mode of investment. ”

“ The country is beginning already to possess much unemployed capital seeking for investment; while many, having already procured the means of living well, are seeking for homes more congenial to their tastes than the places where they have lived but for pecuniary profit. To both of these, the history of individual cities is an invaluable aid in helping the one to discover a means of advantageously employing his surplus money, and in aiding the other to find a home possessing those social advantages which will render him comfortable and happy. ”

“ It is idle for western and southern buyers any longer to indulge the foolish opinion, that better, more durable, or more elegant carriages can be bought in the eastern markets, than can be had at home. Such an opinion was held until recently in regard to fine furniture, but that has disappeared under the earnest endeavor of Louisville manufacturers, and it is time for western purchasers to learn to depend on their own workmen for supplies of every sort. ”

“ When it is remembered, as has been said by another writer upon the same subject, that we have “no need to encroach on arms of the sea as at Boston or New York, or to raze hills in the rear as at Pittsburg and Cincinnati, or to make embankments and to reclaim swamps as at New [Pg 252] Orleans,” but on the contrary, that we possess a location where building lots equally good, both as to site and material, may be had at one mile and at ten miles distant from the center of the city, the mystery of our cheap lots begins to be evolved. ”

“ The success of their publishing house is by the practical talent and fine taste of the proprietors, already placed beyond a contingency of failure, and only needs the necessary lapse of time to become complete. As is well known, Louisville numbers a great many accomplished musicians and musical amateurs among her population. There is perhaps no other American city of equal size where this art is so much cultivated and so high in favor with the whole people. Music publishing, the necessary consequence of this state of affairs, becomes therefore an important branch of business. ”

“ Louisville greatly lacks that class of inhabitants, so useful to a city, who are content to attain wealth by careful and laborious means, who can commence with the basket of apples and gradually work up to the proud proprietorship of extensive ware-houses or factories. There is everywhere prevalent among those who should seek to rise gradually, a desire to place themselves at once in a rank with the largest dealers. ”

“ And in an age when every energy of the whole brotherhood of man is directed to the future, and when mere utilitarianism has taken the place of romance, or of deeds of high renown, it is a matter of [Pg 14] more than ordinary interest and value to all, to note the practical advancement, and so to calculate upon the basis of the past, the probable results of the future of those cities in the New World, which seem to present advantages, either social or pecuniary, to that large class of foreigners and others, who are constantly seeking for homes or means of occupation among us. ”

“ To those who know how properly to estimate the value of educational privileges, the training of their children is an all-important consideration; and, as nothing can supply the want of parental care, it is not uncommon for families to seek as a residence those places which at once possess great facilities for instruction, and are free from the dangers of ill-health. Louisville has both these advantages, and hence this city owes to these facts much of her best population. ”

“ Those branches of manufacture or of trade in which they excel find encouragement just so far as they are part and parcel of the manufactures or commerce of Louisville; and they would find no market for such wares, and no sale for such manufactures, did they depend only on their own resources of trade. It is the immediate contiguity of the large city which is their stimulus to exertion, and their means of preservation or of prosperity. They cannot but be considered as identical in interest with their elder sister. ”

“ Duffield was the first to establish and make permanent the business of ham curing, as a separate and distinct branch of the provision trade, which he did by persevering in making fine hams for years without profit—and he has thus became the Pioneer in giving character to our western hams, which now stand unequalled in the markets of the United States. It is to this perseverance that we are indebted for all the fine hams, by whomsoever cured, that now fill our markets. ”

“ It is no part of the design of this volume to eulogize Louisville beyond its deserts. The greatest care has been taken to prevent any tendency to exaggeration in all the statistical parts of the work, and the object constantly had in view has been to present both to citizens and strangers an authentic and reliable statement of all that is useful or interesting in the past and present history of the city. ”

“ It has been the lot of the gentleman who is at the head of it, and who is distinguished alike as a poet and a politician, as a wit and a sage, to wield an influence such as few men in any station have ever exercised; an influence which is not only political but also literary and social, and which has been exerted alike at the birth of a true poet and at the death of a false patriot or a foolish politician.
By the census of the next year—1827—we find the population of Louisville to have reached 7063, showing an increase of nearly double since 1821. ”

“ Such is the character of the inhabitants of this place in general, ‘ma ogni medaglio ha il suo reverso.’ There is a circle, small ’tis true, but within whose magic round abounds every pleasure that wealth, regulated by taste, or urbanity can bestow. There the ‘red heel’ of Versailles may imagine himself in the emporium of fashion, and whilst leading beauty through the mazes of the dance, forget that he is in the wilds of America. ”

“ The Louisville and Lexington Railroad had opened so many new sources of wealth and developed such advantages before unthought of, that the policy of stretching out iron arms to embrace in their circle all possible resources was no longer doubted. Acting upon this feeling, the people of Louisville united with those of Jeffersonville in building a road from that point to Columbus, and with those of New Albany in uniting that growing city with Salem. ”

“ But it is to the emigrant foreigner that local history is of the greatest benefit. Leaving a country with whose resources, social, moral, and political, he is intimately acquainted for one of which he knows almost nothing, such works, carefully and authentically written, are to him what the guide-books of the Old World are to the wonder-seeking traveler ”

“ The wealth and importance of cities depends less upon the great than upon the small dealers and manufacturers; these latter are content with doing each a small and careful business which may gradually rise to be of vast extent, and which will thus really improve and profit the city more than the mighty efforts of the large dealer. In Louisville, however, none are contented to do a little business. ”

“ Few firms have as rapidly grown into the favor and confidence of the community as the one referred to above. They possess an enviable reputation throughout the South and West, both as elegant manufacturers, and as prompt and efficient men of business. Neither Beebe of New York, nor Rousto of Paris, are better known or more prized as hatters by the residents in the valley of the Mississippi. This is proven in the fact that their sales at wholesale reach the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, while their retail trade adds to this the sum of fifty thousand dollars more. ”

“ Factories for supplying the necessities of the household were established, schools were opened, the products of the soil were carefully attended to, and abundant crops were collected; several fields of wheat were gathered near Louisville, and the whole country changed its character from that of a series of military outposts to the more peaceful and more attractive one of a newly settled, but rich and fruitful territory, where industry met its reward, and where every one could live who was not too proud or too indolent to work. ”

“ The better class of this population are rapidly rising in public estimation, and while they are becoming in a measure identified with the native citizens, and so Americanized, the influence of their philosophic habits of mind, of their thoughtfulness, and of their love of the beautiful in nature and in art, is gradually incorporating itself into the social life of the city, and so adding to each some of the advantages possessed by the other. ”

“ This leader was followed by a band of equally singular character; long men on short horses, little boys on enormous bony Rozinantes, picked up from off the commons; men enclosed in hogsheads, with only head, feet and arms visible; men encased even to helmet and visor in wicker-work armour, and a thousand other knights of fanciful costume, and all marching with heroic step to the martial clangor of tin pans, the braying of milkhorns, the shrill sound of whistles, the piping of cat-calls, and the ceaseless din of penny-trumpets and cornstalk fiddles. ”

“ The brilliant success of any one department of trade in a city has usually led to precisely similar results as are alluded to here. Of this Cincinnati furnishes a notable example. Her earliest success was effected by means of her manufactures, and persons seeking investment for their capital naturally gave it the direction which had already proved productive. Louisville, on the contrary, owing to her peculiar location, found her earliest and most promising evidences of [Pg 243] prosperity in commerce, and consequently all the capital seeking employment was naturally drawn into this channel. ”

“ The proprietors are themselves constantly employed in the details of their work, and the result of their knowledge, attention and experience is plainly observable in the work which proceeds from their establishment. They possess the entire confidence of the community, and, for the short time they have been employed in their business, have been in every way very successful workmen. Although the greater part of their sales are made in and around the city, they yet send their carriages over a large part of the southern and south-western States. ”

“ Several white men, impelled either by a love of the licentiousness and freedom from restraint of the savage life or by fear of punishment for their crimes, had united themselves with the Indians and constantly urged them against the Whites. The most celebrated of these were Girty and McKee, who had risen to a commanding rank among the red men, and their knowledge of the settlements enabled them to direct their new friends in all their expeditions. ”

“ After reaching Louisville, Quirey soon established his reputation for strength in a way that none dared gainsay it. One Peter Smith, who had long held undisputed sway as the most expert fighter and the strongest man in Louisville, and who was withal what is more pertinently than politely called a bully, the terror of his whole neighborhood, having heard that a very large and strong man had arrived from Pennsylvania, determined, as he said, “either to whip Quirey, or if Quirey proved too much for him to leave the country.” ”