Louisville, Kentucky

“ LIVING to-day in Louisville, Kentucky, is an elderly gentleman, with a white mustache and a droll eye, slightly deaf and soft-spoken, who some day will be just such a subject for gossip as are Goldsmith, Charles Lamb and Eugene Field. ”

“ Louisville, a city of Jefferson county, Kentucky, on a plain elevated about seventy feet above the level of the Ohio, opposite to the rapids or falls, is a handsome town, and the largest in the state. Eight broad and straight streets run parallel with the river, and command a pleasant view of the opposite shore. They are paved with blocks of limestone; the houses are built chiefly of brick. This is the most commercial city of the west, commanding the trade of a great extent of country. Manufactures are yet in their infancy. ”

“ Louisville is the chief town of Jefferson county, in Kentucky, and at present it is estimated to contain about 12,000 inhabitants, including slaves and free people of colour. The store-keepers here are more wealthy than those of Cincinnati, and their manners less disagreeable. The inhabitants of the latter town being mostly from the New England states, have in their dealings and manners that dry shrewdness which is the true Yankee characteristic. ”

“ Louisville is the largest city in Kentucky; the country about is very rich, and every thing vegetable springs up with a luxuriance which is surprising. It is situated at the falls of the Ohio, which are only navigable during the freshets; there is no river in America which has such a rise and fall as the Ohio, sometimes rising to sixty feet in the spring ”

“ In the year 1810, Louisville contained only thirteen hundred and fifty-seven inhabitants; it exceeds beyond a doubt its present estimate of five thousand, and will still increase. It is the seat of justice for Jefferson county, Kentucky, contains a prison, court-house, and the other essential buildings, besides a theatre, three banks, of which one is a branch of the United States Bank, a market, several places of worship, and three printing-offices. Louisville lies in 38° 18’ north latitude, and 5° 42’ west longitude from Washington. ”

“ CHAPTER II.
1780—During the same year in which the town was established Kentucky received many valuable additions to its inhabitants; among these several persons of wealth or of talent came from the Atlantic States to settle among the “wild countries of the West,” and they were accompanied by many others without either of these requisites, ready at once to seek any and every means of existence. Col. George Slaughter accompanied by 150 State troops descended to the falls and took up his quarters there during this year. ”

“ Louisville contains twenty-five exclusively wholesale Dry Goods houses, whose sales are made only to dealers and whose market reaches from Northern Louisiana to Northern Kentucky and embraces a large part of the States of Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Illinois, Mississippi and Arkansas. ”

“ At 5 P.M. we got to Louisville, a city of about 30,000 or 40,000 inhabitants, on the Kentucky side. This city is a great depot for slaves, whence they are shipped for the New Orleans market. By this means it has acquired a detestable notoriety.
"A trader was about to start from Louisville, Kentucky," says the Anti-Slavery Record, "with one hundred slaves for New Orleans. Among them were two women, with infants at the breast. Knowing that these infants would depreciate the value of the mothers, the trader sold them for one dollar each. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Harrodstown was changed, new cabins and new faces met me at every turn, and Tom, more disgruntled than ever, had gone a-hunting with Mr. Boone far into the wilderness.
I went back to Louisville to take up once more the struggle for practice, and I do not intend to charge so much as a page with what may be called the even tenor of my life. I was not a man to get into trouble on my own account. Louisville grew amazingly; white frame houses were built, and even brick ones. And ere Kentucky became a State, in 1792, I had gone as delegate to more than one of the Danville Conventions. ”

“ So taking the bundle I slipped away. I was again homeless on the streets of another great city, looking for work.
CHAPTER XXVI
Louisville and the South “Kindness is wisdom. There is none in life but needs it and may learn.”
Shortly after my arrival in Louisville, Kentucky, true to the promise I made myself in Cleveland, I sent the Navigation Company the cash due them for my passage. I felt exceedingly happy that it could not be said of me that I had stolen my journey.
In Louisville, as in every other city of the Union I have visited, I found it very hard work to get employment. ”

“ In 1796 the first paper-mill was built in Kentucky. It was situated near Georgetown, and is said to have been a very productive investment. It is here alluded to as a promising mark of social progress.
With the next year, 1797, we get the first clearly established estimate of the town of Louisville. In the records of the Trustees, the first list of taxes occurs. These were assessed on the 3d day of July, “on all who reside within the limits of the half-acre lots,” and one Dr. Hall, was appointed to fill the double office of assessor and collector. ”

“ In Kentucky the land lies in knolls and soft sloping hills. The trees stand apart, forming forest openings. The herbage is rich, and the soil, though not fertile like the prairies of Illinois, or the river bottoms of the Mississippi and its tributaries, is good, steadfast, wholesome farming ground. It is a fine country for a resident gentleman farmer, and in its outward aspect reminds me more of England in its rural aspects, than any other State which I visited. Round Louisville there are beautiful sites for houses, of which advantage in some instances has been taken. ”

“ In the fall of the same year, after Clark had captured the British posts that had served as the fountain head for the Indian incursions, the settlers felt more secure and removed from the island to the mainland. In 1780 the legislature of Virginia passed an act to establish the town of Louisville at the Falls of the Ohio, naming it in honor of Louis XVI of France, whose troops were at that time aiding the Americans in their fight for liberty. ”

“ In the Civil War a hundred battles were fought within the State and New Orleans was captured, which left ruin behind; but since 1880 prosperity has returned, property is increasing fast, and finances are healthy.
Louisville (205) , on the left bank of the Ohio River, the largest city in Kentucky, is well built and regular, with a Roman Catholic cathedral, many colleges and charitable institutions; it is the largest tobacco market in the world, has pork packing, distilling, tanning, and many other industries. ”

“ New Orleans being in possession of a foreign nation. In 1799, therefore, Congress passed an act by which Louisville was declared to be a port of entry, and a collector was established at this point.
The history of Louisville has thus been brought up to a period when it occupied a deservedly prominent position among western towns. Nature had fitted it to take the first rank, and its rapid improvement demonstrated its power and capacity to assume that position. Thirty years before the time of which we are now writing, the compass of the white man for the first time broke the soil of Kentucky ”

“ The Market Houses of Louisville, five in number and all located upon Market Street, are profusely supplied with every production of this latitude. Markets are held every day, and prices are much lower than in Eastern cities. The Kentucky beef and pork which is everywhere so celebrated, is here found in its true perfection. ”

“ He was a staunch and enthusiastic Unionist, owing to which his house was sought by the Kentucky loyalists and shunned by the rebel sympathizers. Louisville could boast of a good deal of commercial activity in ordinary times, but its business was then at a standstill from the stoppage of trade between North and South, and the almost entire cessation of steamboating on the Ohio. Many of the business men and the majority of the young men of the place had gone South to join their fate to that of the Confederacy. ”

“ In this world one is prone to give importance to, or detract from, an event in such measure as it concerns himself alone, and, therefore, Paul and I may well be excused for holding high in our memory this conflict which meant everything to those people who on Corn Island awaited our movements before they should begin to build [Pg 139] that settlement which has since become known as Louisville. ”

“ In rearranging the structural divisions of the Commonwealth, in accordance with state law, the area became a part of the City of Louisville, just as it remained a part of the County of Jefferson and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. A state may conform its municipal structures to its own plan, so long as the state does not interfere with the exercise of jurisdiction within the federal area by the United States. ”

“ Central Park occupies the space of two city squares in the old fashionable residence districts. Through the efforts of a Recreation League organized in 1901 a few playgrounds are set apart for children. Louisville is a noted racing centre and has some fine tracks; the Kentucky Derby is held here annually in May.
The United States government has a marine hospital, and a life-saving station at the rapids of the river. The state has a school for the blind, in connexion with which is the American Printing House for the Blind. There are state hospitals and many other charitable institutions. ”

“ After leaving Louisville the shores become more cultivated upon each side than they have been. Extensive cornfields, in Indiana, show they are as great ‘corn-crackers’ as their neighbors. The houses are better built, and always of brick or limestone, as pine is scarce upon the Ohio. The Kentucky river empties into the Ohio, about sixty miles above Louisville; it is a beautiful stream coming down from the Cumberland mountain, running through high limestone cliffs, and a rich country, containing salt, coal, and iron, in abundance. ”

“ It would appear from all the evidence at hand that while Kentucky furnished many slaves for the southern market there was no general internal slave trade, as a commercial enterprise. There were in Louisville, however, a few heartless business men who took advantage of the decreasing value of slave labor in Kentucky and the rising prices of slaves in the far South. In this respect, Kentucky became a field of supply for the slave markets of the lower South. ”

“ Where is it?"
"Here, sir," replied Fred, handing him the letter. Mr. Spear hastily tore it open and read:
Danville, Ky., July 21, 7:00 P. M.
To the Union Men of Louisville:
I have just received news of the defeat of our forces at Bull Run. Even if Washington falls, we must not despair. Kentucky must be held for the Union. Thank God, I have organized enough troops to hold Central Kentucky against any force the disorganized rebels can bring against us. Our great danger is your city. Hold Louisville, if her streets run red with blood. Do not let the loyal officials be driven from power. ”

“ The richness of the surrounding country in agricultural produce, timber, coal and iron, and its transport facilities have made Louisville a large commercial and manufacturing centre. The leaf-tobacco market is the largest in the world, most of the leaf-tobacco produced in Kentucky, which in 1900 was 34.9% of the entire crop of the United States, being handled in Louisville ”

“ It is a handsome city, built on ground sloping up from the Mississippi, about twenty miles distant from the mouths of the two mighty streams of the Missouri and Illinois, while the Mississippi itself has there already pursued a course of nearly seventeen hundred miles. It is a very busy place, and vessels of every description crowd its quays. Proceeding up the Ohio, I landed at Louisville, the chief town in Kentucky. Everyone has heard what Kentucky riflemen can do with their weapons. ”

“ Even commercial Louisville must find its peculiar distinction in the number of its sumptuous private residences. It is wellnigh a rule that in Kentucky the value of the house is out of proportion to the value of the estate.
But if the towns regard themselves as the provincial fortresses of good society, they do not look down upon the home life of the country. Between country and town in Kentucky exists a relation unique and well to be studied: such a part of the population of the town owning or managing estates in the country ”

“ Copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
[25] (George) Douglass Sherley, born at Louisville, Kentucky, June 27, 1857; educated at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, and University of Virginia; joined staff of the old Louisville Commercial; made lecture tour with James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet; now resides near Lexington, Kentucky. Author of: The Inner Sisterhood (Louisville, 1884) ; The Valley of Unrest (New York, 1884) ; Love Perpetuated (Louisville, 1884) ; The Story of a Picture (Louisville, 1884) . Mr. ”

“ The summer of 1775 also witnessed the establishment of many other stations, including that of Louisville, on the Ohio, which soon became a kind of rendezvous for hunters, and a harbor of refuge for emigrants seeking a suitable site for the building of their new homes in the wilderness. Gradually the forests of oak, maple, walnut, etc., of Ohio, the now well-cultivated agricultural districts of Kentucky, and the less fertile cretaceous regions of Tennessee, became dotted with the homes of settlers, each of which in time sent forth new pioneers yet further to the westward. ”