founded, George Rogers Clarke being a resident of Harrodsburg, Ky.,
during the years 1776 and 1777. The incidents connected with the
settlement he established at the Falls are memorable in the annals
of the West. The British leaders were seeking to strike an effectual
blow at all the American frontier fortresses, and with this end in
view were enlisting the sympathies and co-operation of the Indian
tribes. Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and similar British stations
were well fortified, and plans were speedily forming for a descent on
the unprepared and unsuspecting pioneers in the Ohio Valley. Clark
instinctively discerned this scheme and secretly but courageously
determined to thwart it. He accordingly went to Williamsburg, Va.,
in November, 1777. The news of Burgoyne’s surrender had inspired the
Virginia authorities with patriotic enthusiasm, and Governor Henry
sanctioned Clark’s proposal to raise a sufficient force to proceed
against the British in the Northwest. Orders were issued and Clark was
put in command of the expedition. Six thousand dollars in colonial
currency were voted him, and with the rank of Colonel he set out for
Pittsburg. After much discouragement he secured three companies of
volunteers and a number of adventurers and continued his journey down
the river to the Falls. The fort that he built on his arrival furnished
a nucleus around which the village subsequently sprang up.
Thirteen families remained at the Falls while Clark and his men went
on against Kaskaskia. The campaign was a brilliant success. One post
after another fell into the hands of the fearless Kentuckians, and
the whole of the Northwest Territory was opened to emigration. It is
said that when Clark and his followers appeared before the astonished
garrisons during these operations, the red-coats almost imagined a
force had dropped from the skies, so inaccessible had they deemed
their strongholds to be, and so suddenly had their conquerors come upon
them. It was not strange, therefore, that the eloquent John Randolph of
Roanoke spoke of Clark in after years as the “American Hannibal, who,
by the reduction of those military posts in the wilderness, obtained
the Lakes for the northern boundary of our Union at the peace in 1783.”
If the visitor desires to see the location of the first settlement at
the Falls let him stand upon the Fourteenth Street Bridge and look down
the river. To the right is the main current of the Ohio as it plunges
roaring over the Falls, and to the left is the island on which Colonel
Clark and his men built a fort when they arrived in the spring of
1778. This was called “Corn Island,” from the fact that a crop of corn
was planted by the risky pioneers around the fortress, and carefully
cultivated, notwithstanding they were hourly exposed to Indian attacks.
Either in the autumn of 1778 or the spring of 1779 (history is not
certain which), the garrison on Corn Island went ashore and laid the
foundation of the future city of Louisville. Huts, blockhouses and
stockades were erected, and the Indians saw that the intruders had
come to stay. During the year 1779, Colonel Clark directed his energies
against the British post Vincennes, and easily captured it.
[Illustration: BLOCKHOUSE AND LOG CABINS ON CORN ISLAND, 1778.
FIRST SETTLEMENT OF LOUISVILLE, KY.
_From an old print in the possession of Col. R. T. Durrett, Louisville,
Ky._]
In May, 1780, the Virginia Legislature passed an “Act for Establishing
the Town of Louisville at the Falls of Ohio.” The population of the
place had increased to six hundred; but the increase of strength
rendered the pioneers careless, and as a consequence the Indians on
several occasions surprised and captured parties beyond the protection
of the fort and escaped with them across the river, or into the
wilderness to the south, almost before an alarm could be given. Colonel
Clark, in order to ward off the attacks of the red men, constructed
a unique sort of gunboat supplied with four-pound cannon. It was the
first actual vessel of war ever seen on the Ohio, and though some
chroniclers are disposed to make light of its actual utility as a means
of defence, it kept the insidious savages from crossing the river in
its vicinity.
This period in the history of Kentucky (1780-1800) was admirably
portrayed by the facile pen of Washington Irving after his literary
tour of the West in 1834, when he visited Louisville and took notes
for future sketches. An eccentric though shrewd character of the
day, William P. Duval, whose career as a pioneer lawyer, and whose
adventures as an Indian commissioner under Monroe gave him fame
scarcely second to that of George Rogers Clark, inspired those two
narratives in _Crayon Papers_, called “The Early Experiences of Ralph
Ringwood,” and “The Conspiracy of Neamathla.” Mr. Irving’s humor is at
its best in the first of these and his picture of primitive people is
unsurpassed. James K. Paulding likewise wrote of Governor Duval in a
novel called _Nimrod Wildfire_.
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK ON THE INDIANA SHORE,
OPPOSITE LOUISVILLE.
FROM AN OLD PRINT IN THE POSSESSION OF COL. R. T. DURRETT, LOUISVILLE,
KY.]
With the old-style method of travel by keel-boat and barges
(1780-1810), going down the river was easy enough, but ascending stream
was indeed difficult. A mile an hour was the maximum rate of progress,
and if the wind and tide chanced to be unfavorable, many days were lost
in waiting. Then, again, the craft was likely to strike a snag or run
aground, and the strength and patience of the crew would be completely
exhausted ere another start could be effected. Sometimes the men became
so exasperated that they would leave the boat or barge _en masse_ and
return afoot whence they had started. It required three and often four
months to come up to Louisville from New Orleans. Nor was this all.
Bands of desperadoes infested the forest on either shore, and would
hold up a boat or barge,--prototypes of the notorious train robbers of
later days. The records of river navigation are filled with thrilling
incidents and studies of unique character.
But notwithstanding these difficulties European tourists ventured
into the wilds in search of novelty or on business speculations. One
of these came to the Falls city as early as 1806, and afterwards, in
writing his impressions of the place, said: “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.”
Robert Fulton and Daniel French went into the steamboat-building
business at Pittsburg, after the trip of the _Orleans_ in 1811; and
a few years later better facilities were afforded for travel on the
Ohio. The Eastern visitor to Louisville should by all means come from
Cincinnati, or even Pittsburg, by boat in order to study the historic
scenes and associations of the “Rhine of America.” Distinct epochs in
American literature have arisen from the inspiration and suggestion
given by this celebrated stream and life along its course to the
various writers who travelled its waters.
First and foremost among these was John J. Audubon who came in 1809,
previous to the opening of navigation by steamboat. Reports of the
happy wilds of Kentucky had reached him in his Pennsylvania home
subsequent to his return from Paris, where he had been sojourning as
an art student. His passion for ornithology drove him to the West, and
the hour he left Pittsburg marked the beginning of a new era in his
wonderful career as a naturalist. The Ohio charmed him, and, locating
at Louisville, he collected specimens of every bird that could be
found in forest or field. In 1810, Alexander Wilson, the distinguished
Scotch-American ornithologist, traversed the Ohio and Mississippi
valleys on a mission similar to Audubon’s. Stopping for a season at the
Falls city he chanced to become acquainted with Audubon, and in the
course of conversation the two exchanged ideas and were astonished to
discover that they were pursuing the same line of work. This meeting
was memorable, for it awakened Audubon to a full realization of his
genius and helped Wilson unspeakably. Indeed, so far-reaching were its
results that in order to appreciate them one has first to familiarize
himself with some of the subtlest tendencies and movements of the
nineteenth century.
[Illustration: THE CITY HALL.]
When steamboat navigation began on the Ohio (1812-16) the rush of
emigration commenced anew. Thirty-nine English families sent Henry
Bradshaw Fearon over in 1816 to make a careful study of places and
people in the Ohio Valley. He was an intelligent, practical observer,
and his descriptions of the inhabitants and social conditions of
Louisville are strikingly suggestive of Dickens. There is a vein
of sarcasm in his observations, due to the fact that he has little
sympathy with the commercial ambition that seemed to possess the people
to the exclusion of higher pursuits. Every one seemed self-absorbed
and bent on money-making; even the best hotels were conducted on the
crowding policy. The people had unparalleled appetites, according to
Mr. Fearon, for his description of a tavern meal in Louisville is
similar to Dickens’s report of the fast-eating Americans he met while
among us.
The tide of emigration from England swelled enormously in the decades
succeeding 1820-40, and swindlers reaped so rich a harvest by selling
imaginary land bargains in imaginary towns of the Ohio Valley that
an investigation became necessary. A leading purpose with Charles
Dickens in coming to America on his first tour in 1842 was to examine
into and expose these frauds, which he did with fearless sarcasm and
irresistible irony. The whole plot of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ hinges on
real-estate speculations at Cairo, Ill., at the mouth of the Ohio,
the original of the city of “Eden,” which Scadder, the real-estate
agent, so eulogistically described to Martin that the credulous young
Englishman forthwith invested all his funds in the hope of reaping
an ample fortune by the day he set foot in the place. Pittsburg,
Cincinnati and Louisville are realistically, and in some respects
ridiculously, portrayed in chapters xxi.-xxiii., and if the reader will
compare these with Dickens’s _American Notes_, the actual scenes and
experiences that suggested the story may be found.
As an offset to the severity of this inimitable satire, the reader
should peruse the article “English Writers on America” in Washington
Irving’s _Sketch Book_, which was called forth by exaggerated stories
propagated by the pens of early British travellers in this country
after their return home. Dickens came to Louisville in 1842, and when
he had gone up to his room at the Galt House, Major Throckmorton,
the proprietor, who was as high-spirited as he was polite, appeared
at the novelist’s door and said, “Sir, I am proud to extend you the
hospitality of the house; and shall be delighted to serve you to the
best of my ability.” “Boz,” in spite of his alertness, was not aware of
the vast difference there is between the social standing of an American
hotel proprietor and that of an English innkeeper. Glancing at the
Major he replied, “All right, sir; all right; if I want anything I’ll
ring for you.” Throckmorton’s eyes flashed with anger as he exclaimed,
“What do you mean by such impudence to me? You don’t know whom you are
talking to; I’ll throw you out of the window.” The Major was a powerful
man and would doubtless have made good his threat had not Dickens
speedily apologized for his mistake.
Among the Englishmen induced to emigrate to Kentucky by Mr. Fearon’s
book in 1818, was George Keats, brother of the poet, John Keats. The
circumstances of his coming and his career after arriving form one of
the interesting chapters in the early history of the State.
[Illustration: ON THE TOBACCO BREAKS.]
George returned to England in the autumn of 1819, leaving his wife in
Louisville. Securing the remainder of the family estate which fell
to him, he invested in the lumber trade at the Falls city and made a
fortune. His mills were located on First Street, between Washington
Street and the river, and in 1835 he built an elegant residence on what
is now Walnut Street, between Third and Fourth. The square on which
this mansion still stands was then the aristocratic section of the
city, and while the house was in course of construction people would
stroll along and speak admiringly of it as “The Englishman’s Palace.”
With the exception of the roof, which was altered, and the present
portico, which was added by a subsequent purchaser, the residence
is in no wise changed since George Keats occupied it. Lavish was
the hospitality dispensed by the poet’s brother, and he will always
rank among the noblest citizens Louisville has ever had. Though the
happiness of helping John was not, as he had hoped, permitted him, his
house became the center of a circle of warm admirers of the author of
_Endymion_, and for a long time the culture of the city and State found
in him a leader both liberal and inspiring. James Freeman Clarke was
for seven or eight years pastor of the Unitarian Church in Louisville,
and George Keats was a member of his congregation. The two became
intimate friends, and Mr. Clarke afterward wrote entertainingly of him.
He served in the city council and aided in the establishment of the
Louisville school system.
The correspondence between George and John includes some of the poet’s
finest letters. These descended to one of George’s daughters. About the
year 1873 her son, John Gilmer Speed, the well-known writer, now of New
York, chanced to be looking over these priceless papers and noticed
that they had not been published in Lord Houghton’s life of Keats. He
accordingly collected them, and from one of the volumes we select a few
brief sentences pertinent to the purpose of the present sketch.
One letter from John tells George to take financial reverses as coolly
as possible, considering he had done his best. Another, declining an
invitation to come to Kentucky, says, “You will perceive that it is
quite out of my interest to come to America. What could I do there?
How could I employ myself, out of the reach of libraries?” And thus
he counsels George: “Be careful of those Americans. I could almost
advise you to come, whenever you have the sum of five hundred pounds,
to England. Those Americans will, I am afraid, still fleece you.” In
a letter to George’s wife in January, 1820, he speaks of his wish to
cross the sea with his brother: “I could almost promise you that if
I had the means I would accompany George back to America, and pay
you a visit of a few months.” Had he made the trip and beheld with
his own eyes the loveliness of the Ohio Valley, and met the kindly
people of Kentucky, he would not have been so inclined to disparage
Louisville society: “I was surprised to hear of the state of society
at Louisville: it seems you are just as ridiculous there as we are
here--threepenny parties, halfpenny dances. The best thing I have heard
of is your shooting, for it seems you follow the gun.”
[Illustration: THE KEATS HOUSE (THE ELKS BUILDING).]
A terrible tragedy occurred at the Keats mansion, back in the forties,
about which there is a pathetic tradition. Isabella, the beautiful
young daughter of George Keats, according to tradition, killed herself
in a fit of despondency at the unhappy termination of a love-affair. A
circumstance said to have taken place in 1890 seemed to substantiate
the tradition. An elderly, refined-looking and quiet stranger appeared
repeatedly at the Keats house and requested to be left alone in the
library, where the girl was shot. At first he offered no explanation of
his unusual request, but when finally leaving he said to the lady who
had admitted him, “I parted from her in there, and have returned from
California to visit the scene once more.” The rumor was soon circulated
that the mysterious stranger was the lover whose unfaithfulness had
robbed the unhappy girl of the desire to live.
The descendants of George Keats still living in Louisville deny the
pathetic story throughout. They affirm that the girl was heartwhole
and free from any morbid tendencies. Their version of the tragedy is
substantially as follows: Isabella’s brother Clarence had been out
hunting in the vicinity of the city, and, returning home, carelessly
left his gun on a sofa in the darkened library. Isabella shortly
afterward went into the room to lie down, and, not seeing the loaded
weapon, struck the trigger in such a way with her foot that the
contents were discharged, mortally wounding her.
[Illustration: THE COURT-HOUSE.]
Edward Eggleston’s inimitable Hoosier Tales portray the next period
in the history of the Ohio Valley (1840-60), immortalizing those
pedagogues of the Ichabod Crane type who came swarming from New England
when the tide of emigration first set westward. Mr. Eggleston spent
his childhood on the river between Cincinnati and Louisville, and his
pictures of primitive social life in Kentucky and southern Indiana
are in the style of Irving’s sketch already mentioned. Zachary Taylor
went to school, not far from the Falls fort, to one of these Yankee
teachers, a native of Connecticut by the name of Ayers, who was a
sagacious fellow, able to watch the Indians and urchins simultaneously.
The South and West owe these wandering educators a debt of gratitude
that can hardly be overestimated.
It was from the Falls city that Aaron Burr planned to make his
treasonable descent upon the South in November, 1805, and there is
still current in the State much interesting tradition concerning him.
The court-house in Louisville contains the noble statue of Henry Clay
by Joel T. Hart. At the Polytechnic Society on Fourth Avenue are Hart’s
other pieces of statuary; and on Third Avenue, at the residence of
Mrs. Elizabeth Menefee, are many of those superb portraits painted
by Matthew H. Jouett, Gilbert Stuart’s favorite pupil, and a master
American artist. His genius and that of Hart developed beyond the
confines of classic civilization, and though subsequently aided and
directed by the best instruction of conventional schools retained an
individuality and conformity to nature all their own.
Just across the court-house square, and within a stone’s throw of the
imposing figure of the sage of Ashland is the site of the old Pope
residence where Worden Pope and his sons entertained James Monroe and
Andrew Jackson during their tour through the South in 1819. The Popes
held a high position of political influence in the State, and at a
conference called on this occasion the name of Andrew Jackson was first
proposed to the Southern people as Monroe’s successor.
The home of Zachary Taylor, five miles from the city, is well worth
visiting. Near it is the house in which Jefferson Davis was married to
his first wife, the daughter of General Taylor.
On August 6, 1855, occurred the terrible political riot precipitated by
the Know-nothings. A mob with a cannon at their head went murdering and
burning through the streets of Louisville. The day is known in history
as “Bloody Monday.”
Louisville was decidedly Union in its sympathies during the Civil
War, though many of its inhabitants inclined to support the Southern
cause. George D. Prentice, though just and kindly to the South, was
always loyal to the national government, and his paper, the _Journal_,
was notably influential on that side. The Falls city as a recruiting
station at the beginning of the struggle between the States was fully
as important in the West as was Washington in the East. It was the
basis of numerous military movements that turned the tide of fortune
against the Confederates, and in this city some of the most eminent
Federal commanders were at different times located.
[Illustration: A SCENE AT THE WHARF.]
At the home of Col. Reuben T. Durrett on East Chestnut Street are
relics innumerable, and the scholarly host, who knows every fact
of the city’s history, is ever ready to show them to the visitor.
Louisville is not only a lively commercial center, but is also the
home of culture and art. The brain and beauty of which she boasts can
be found throughout the Blue Grass region, and the hospitality she
dispenses is characteristic of the whole commonwealth. Mary Anderson
de Navarro first won fame in this city, her girlhood home, and has
never ceased to love it. Henry Watterson and his able young lieutenant,
Harrison Robertson, still keep the _Courier-Journal_ to the front;
and James Lane Allen, though not a native nor a resident of the Falls
city, portrays the traits of her people upon his inimitable pages when
he writes of all Kentuckians. Madison Cawein, the Keats of America,
is here; and Charles J. O’Malley, who voices the sentiment of every
Kentuckian when he sings:
“My own Kentucky, sweet is fame,
And other suns sink down in flame;
And other skies bend over blue;
And other lands have hearts as true;
And other mornings break as clear;
And God keeps love-watch everywhere--
But O, my mother, on thy breast
Alone my head may find full rest,--
My heart to thy heart as of yore,--
Asleep within thy arms once more,
O my Kentucky!”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
LITTLE ROCK
“THE CITY OF ROSES”
BY GEORGE B. ROSE
There are spots marked out by nature for the sites of cities, where
they must spring up as soon as civilization is established and remain
as long as it endures. Such a spot is Little Rock.
The southeastern half of Arkansas is low and flat, composed chiefly
of alluvial plains; the northwestern half rugged and broken, rising
toward the western border into the mountains, some three thousand feet
in elevation, which gradually drop away toward the east till they
disappear altogether. At the point, almost the exact center of the
State, where the last foothills form the south bank of the principal
river, it was inevitable that a city should be built and that that
city should become the State’s capital. Indeed, so manifest was the
destiny of the position that it was made the seat of government before
it had become a town, and when it was far beyond the limits of actual
settlement.
Nor would it be easy to find a more desirable spot not beside the sea.
The foundation is a rock bluff of slight elevation, but sufficient
to lift the city above the danger of overflow. On this there rests a
bed of gravelly clay, covered with a thin vegetable mould, and rising
to the south and west in a succession of gently swelling eminences,
presenting innumerable building sites of the most attractive character,
and draining in every direction; equally free from steep acclivities
and unwholesome flatness, and clothed by nature with a magnificent
forest of wide-spreading oaks and lofty pines. Far out into the river
there projects a rocky peninsula, against whose adamantine sides the
stream has dashed its ineffectual fury for countless ages; and this, in
contrast to the bold precipice upon the other bank, which was called
the Big Rock, gave to the place its name.
This promontory is now used as the abutment of one of the three bridges
that span the river, and its beauty has been destroyed; but in the old
days, when it was clothed with trees and ferns clinging to its rocky
sides and reflected in the waters below, it was a charming sight, and
must have been hailed with joy by the early travelers after their weary
journey from the distant sea through the monotony of the low-lying
wilderness.
[Illustration: THE “LITTLE ROCK,” TO WHICH THE CITY OWES ITS NAME.]
The original inhabitants of the region were the Quapaw or Arkansas
Indians, a race much superior to the surrounding savages, and who
dwelt not in scattered wigwams but in walled villages, and seem always
to have lived in amity with the whites. Father Pierre François de
Charlevoix, an early French missionary, says of them, “The Arkansas
are reckoned to be the tallest and best-shaped of all the savages on
this continent,” and he speaks at length of their kindness to the
French, and their fidelity to their engagements. So Du Pratz, an early
_voyageur_, says: “I am so prepossessed in favor of this country that I
persuade myself that the beauty of the climate has a great influence on
the character of the inhabitants, who are at the same time very gentle
and very brave.”
[Illustration: LITTLE ROCK LEVEE.]