The opening of a new century found Louisville with a population of 800
souls, with power to elect her own Trustees, with a revenue arising from
her own taxes, and in the enjoyment of all the social and political
privileges which were possessed by any of the towns within the Western
country. Early in the next year the Legislature of the State, after
granting power to the Trustees of Louisville to make deeds and conveyances
of the town lots and providing abundantly for the levying and collecting
of taxes, proceeded to exempt the citizens from working on roads out of
the town, except the road leading from Louisville to the lower landing,
and ordered the appointment of a street Surveyor whose duty it should be
from time to time to call upon the inhabitants of the town "to meet
together on a certain day at a certain place for the purpose of working
upon the streets." And every person failing to obey such call was liable
to a fine of six shillings for every such failure. The same Act also set
aside the sum of twenty-five pounds (being part of the annual tax) to be
appropriated toward the building of a market house on the public ground in
said town, under the superintendence of the board of Trustees; and as if
still further to show its confidence in the capacity of the town to manage
its own growing interests, it also placed the harbor at the mouth of
Beargrass entirely under the direction of the Trustees.
Reference to the old books of the town show the prices of half acre lots
on the principal streets at this time to have ranged from seven to
fourteen hundred dollars.
The original plan and survey of the town having been lost or destroyed,
and property being rapidly increasing in value, the Legislature found it
necessary during the second year of the new century to order a new survey
and plat to be made out. It also changed the term of office of the
Trustees from one to two years, and gave them the power to fill vacancies
in their body by an election among themselves. It also repealed an act
which, although it had been the subject of repeated legislation, had
proved a dead letter. This was the act in reference to the forfeiture of
lots for want of improvements, which has been before quoted. The
Legislature of this year, seeing the futility of further action in regard
to this matter very properly ordered the act to be altogether repealed in
all the towns under their jurisdiction, and ordered the Trustees of the
several towns to make deeds to all purchasers of lots who could produce
them receipts for the purchase money of their several properties.
The next year brought with it a new act of assembly ordering a repeal of
the act of 1800 in relation to the building of a Market house on the
public grounds in Louisville. The reason of this repeal consisted in the
fact that public grounds were nowhere to be found, these valuable adjuncts
to the town having been already disposed of by the sagacious governors of
the place. Their unwise and illegal action in this matter has heretofore
occupied the attention of the reader. Their "worshipful wisdoms" thinking
only of to-day and careless of a future, were guilty of frequent
excessions of their duty, which are still felt and still regretted. A
striking instance of this is exemplified in the single fact that a half
acre lot on Main street, near Fourth, was disposed of by their order at
public auction for a horse valued at twenty dollars. This, however, may
cease to be thought so flagrant a breach of trust when it is compared with
another sale which occurred at or about the same time, whereto neither of
the parties occupied an official capacity and wherein the article sold,
though not generally classed as real estate, is supposed to possess great
value to the owner. A worthy citizen of Louisville about this period was
in the habit of entertaining a great deal of company; and among others
there came to his hospitable roof one who professed to be a Methodist
preacher, but who proved to be a wolf in sheep's clothing; for, after
enjoying all the comforts his host's kindness could afford him for several
weeks, he started off one fine summer's morning, taking with him, probably
through mistake or inadvertence, his _friend's wife_! The host missing
this article of domestic furniture upon his return home, and suspecting
whither it might have gone, put boot in stirrup and dashed off in pursuit.
He soon overtook the soi-disant Reverend Gentleman and demanded his
property. His right to take his own was not denied, but his Reverend
friend proposed that as he fancied the subject matter of dispute, if his
worthy host would withdraw his claim and leave him in peaceable
possession, he would give him right, title and interest to and in the mare
on which he rode. To this, after some slight hesitation, the husband
consented, on condition that the bridle and saddle of the mare were added
to his friend's offer. This trifling difference was readily yielded by the
opposite party, and for many years after this good old man was seen pacing
through the streets, mounted upon his mare, the two ambling along far more
quietly than he and his former partner had ever done.
Returning, however to the requisitions of the act, we find that, repealing
so much of the ordinance as related to the location of the market house,
it enjoins upon the Trustees "to fix upon some proper place, such as shall
seem most convenient to the inhabitants of the town, and there to erect a
suitable market house."
It was also during this year that the first of a series of smaller towns,
attracted by the growing position of Louisville and hoping soon to rival
it, began to spring up. Jeffersonville, situated nearly opposite
Louisville, on a high bank of the Ohio, and in the State of Indiana, was
laid out in November of this year. Its progress until recently has not
been rapid, but it has gradually gained ground until within the last seven
or eight years, during which it has come to be a very useful and valuable
suburb to the city. More will be said of its history in a proper place.
Within the next year we come to the earliest organization of the town of
Shippingport. This place, now so utterly decayed, once promised not only
to rival but to surpass Louisville. The site occupied by it belonged to
Campbell's division of the two thousand acres mentioned in the earlier
pages of this history, and was by him sold during this year to a Mr.
Berthoud. Upon coming into the possession of this latter gentleman it was
surveyed, a plan of the town drawn and the lots advertised for sale. Its
progress however was not rapid until 1806, when the Messrs. Terascons
purchased the greater part of the lots embraced in the survey, and to
their enterprizing endeavors did the town owe its rise. Its present
importance is so trifling compared with its past greatness, and the
probabilities of its future eminence among towns are so small that we
shall probably not have occasion again to refer to it; and as its brief
history belongs rather to this than to a later era it will be as well to
close this account of it in the words of one who wrote when it was at the
apex of its fame.
"This _important_ place," says Dr. McMurtrie in his sketches of Louisville
published in 1819; "is situated two miles below Louisville, immediately at
the foot of the rapids, and is built upon the beautiful plain or bottom
which commences at the mouth of Beargrass creek, through which, under the
brow of the second bank, the contemplated canal will in all probability be
cut."[10] The town originally consisted of forty-five acres, but it has
since received considerable additions. The lots are 75 by 144 feet, the
average price of which at present (1819) is from forty to fifty dollars
per foot, according to the advantages of its situation. The streets are
all laid out at right angles, those that run parallel to the river, or
nearly so, are eight in number and vary from 30 to 90 feet in width. These
are all intersected by twelve feet allies, running parallel to them, and
by fifteen cross streets at right angles, each sixty feet wide.
The population of Shippingport may be estimated at 600 souls, including
strangers. Some taste is already perceptible in the construction of their
houses, many of which are neatly built and ornamented with galleries, in
which, of a Sunday, are displayed all the beauty of the place. It is, in
fact, the _Bois de Boulogne_ of Louisville, it being the resort of all
classes on high days and holydays.
"At these times, it exhibits a spectacle at once novel and interesting.
The number of steamboats in the port, each bearing one or two flags, the
throng of horses, carriages, and gigs, and the contented appearance of a
crowd of pedestrians, all arrayed in their "Sunday's best" produce an
effect it would be impossible to describe."
The reason of the sudden decay of this once flourishing place is found in
the fact that its utility as a point of embarkation and debarkation for
goods, ceased with the building of the Canal. Previous to this time it had
been, during three parts of the year, the head of the navigation of the
lower Ohio. Even as early as this, however, the necessity for overcoming
the impediment to navigation occasioned by the falls was recognized and
acted upon; and in the year 1804, a Canal Company was chartered; but
nothing was done beyond surveys until long after this time. The subject of
the Canal, however, was one of absorbing interest with the citizens of
Louisville from this time forward, and various plans were proposed,
adopted, rejected and discussed, until the incorporation of the present
Canal Company in 1825. The movement toward removing the obstruction in the
river in any form had its opponents, who urged that the sole commercial
advantage to be possessed by the city consisted in the necessity for
numerous commission and forwarding houses to receive and reship the vast
quantities of merchandise which were to pass up and down this great
artery. Among the many plans suggested for overcoming the break in the
navigation of the river, one of the earliest and most strongly urged was
one which has yet its warm and earnest adherents,--this is the
construction of a Canal on the Indiana shore,--a plan which the citizens
of Louisville have long since ceased to look upon except with aversion,
but which the residents in a sister city are still urging with a violence
which proves, contemptuously as they may speak of Louisville, that their
fears of her as a rival city are strong enough to induce them to wish to
cripple, if not to destroy her. Former surveys have all long since proved
the Kentucky shore to be best suited to the purposes of a Canal, and the
inadequacy of the present construction to the growing trade of the river
does not seem to demonstrate the necessity for still further obstructing
its course, even during high water, by an additional ditch on the other
bank.
Another of the plans suggested at this time, proposed the blasting of a
channel which would unite all the water into one stream at low stages. The
bed of the river was also surveyed to ascertain the expediency of making a
slack water navigation by means of one or more dams or locks. All of these
and various others were however merged in the construction of the present
Canal, which will be noticed at the appropriate period of this history.
With the next year comes another enactment of Assembly with the following
amusing preamble:--"Whereas it is represented to the present General
Assembly that a number of persons residing in the town of Louisville, are
in the habit of raising, and are now possessed of large _numbers of
Swine_, to the great injury of the citizens generally; and that there are
a number of ponds of water in said town, which are nuisances, and
injurious to the health of the city and the prosperity of the town: Be it
therefore enacted--That the present Trustees of the said town, and their
successors, or a majority of them, shall have full power and authority to
remove the same &c." The latter of these nuisances has disappeared under
the efforts of the "said successors," but even the distinguished Mr.
Dickens will bear us witness that the law against the former remains to
this day a dead letter.
Another of the provisions of this same act invests the Trustees with power
to levy a sum not exceeding eight hundred dollars for the purpose of
repairing the streets, and in consideration thereof exempts those citizens
from working on the streets, who shall pay an equivalent of 75 cents in
money. It also gives the Trustees power to make regulations and by-laws
for the proper preservation of order, to appoint a tax collector &c., and
extends the privilege of voting for Trustees to the residents of the ten
and twenty acre lots, thereby increasing the purlieus of the town to the
present site of Chestnut street.
In speaking of the navigation and commerce of this period, Dr. McMurtrie
tells us that in 1806 "six keel boats and two barges; the one of thirty
tons, belonging to Reed, of Cincinnati; the other of forty, owned by
Instone, of Frankfort; sufficed for the carrying trade of Louisville and
Shippingport." The rapid and almost magical increase of trade in less than
fifty years after this will at once suggest itself to every reader.
Mr. T. Cumming, the first European traveler who passed through Louisville,
of whose record we have any knowledge, thus states his impressions of the
town during this year. He says:--"I had thought Cincinnati one of the most
beautiful towns I had seen in America, but Louisville, which is almost as
large, equals it in beauty, and in the opinion of many exceeds it. It was
considered as unhealthy, which impeded its progress until three or four
years ago, when, probably in consequence of the country being more opened,
bilious complaints ceased to be so frequent, and it is now considered by
the inhabitants as healthy as any town on the river. There is a Market
House, where is a good market every Wednesday and Saturday. Great retail
business is done here, and much produce shipped to New Orleans."
In the year 1807, we get the first mention of a newspaper published in
Louisville. We are not able however to give any account of its origin,
ownership or history. It is known only from an enactment of Assembly
requiring certain laws to be published in its columns. It was called the
"Farmer's Library." Similar mention is also made during the next year of a
paper called "The Louisville Gazette." Whether it succeeded the "Farmer's
Library," as the acts of Assembly would seem to show, or was cotemporary
with it is not known; a bare mention of its name is all that is left to
posterity. In America, the presence of the newspaper is ever the mark of
peace, and quiet, and comfort. What to those of other nations is the
luxury of affluent ease is to the American the earliest of necessities.
The moment the rifle is laid aside, the newspaper is taken up. It is
incident upon his every conquest, whether of man or of nature. The click
of his rifle is succeeded by that of his types, and the roar of his cannon
has hardly ceased till we hear the roll of his press.
Ten years having now elapsed since a statistical table of the town has
been examined it may not be uninteresting to furnish another list of the
taxable property within its limits. It will be recollected that the entire
list of 1797 amounted to L31 15s 6d. Let us now turn to the list for the
present year as shown by the assessor's books, and mark the rapid increase
of these ten years.
$74,000 value of lots at 10 per cent $740 00
113 White Tythes at 50c 56 50
82 Black " over 16 years, at 25c 20 50
83 " " under 16 " at 12-1/2c 10 38
11 Retail Stores at $5 55 00
3 Tavern Licenses at $2 6 0
30 Carriage Wheels at 12-1/2c per wheel 3 75
2 Billiard Tables at $2 50 5 00
131 Horses at 12-1/2 16 37
-------
Total $913 50
Without pausing to remark further on this comparative statement, we pass
on to the next event worthy of a place in this brief chronicle. This was
the erection of a Theater in Louisville, which occurred early in 1808. We
have no means of ascertaining who were the original projectors of this
enterprise, but we have the authority of Dr. McMurtrie for stating that
until 1818, it was "but little better than a barn." At that time,
however, it fell into the hands of the celebrated Mr. Drake, under whose
auspices was established the golden era of the Drama in the West. Not only
did this gentleman please the taste and gratify the judgment of his
audience, but he absolutely created a high standard of taste and judgment
among them, the effects of which are still perceptible here. It is chiefly
to the education received under his management that the critical talent of
our Theatrical audiences of to-day, so well known and so generally
acknowledged by the profession, is owing. Many whose names are now
prominent in histrionic art took the initiatory steps in their career
under Mr. Drake's regime here. This Theater stood upon the North side of
Jefferson street, between Third and Fourth, and was destroyed by fire in
1843. For a long time previous to its destruction, however, it had ceased
to be the resort of any but the most profligate members of society. Even
before the destruction of the City Theater, Mr. Coleman undertook the
erection of a new dramatic temple at the South-east corner of Green and
Fourth streets, but from some cause did not proceed further than the
erection of the outer walls. This unfinished building was afterwards
purchased by Mr. Bates of Cincinnati, and was by him opened for the first
time early in the year 1846, since when it has been regularly opened
during a part of every year, and performances creditable alike to the
judgement of its manager, and the taste of its audiences have been
regularly given.