Louisville.--Canal of Louisville--its Commerce.--Surrounding
Country.--Sketch of the State of Kentucky and its Inhabitants, &c.
The road from the landing-place to Louisville, leads through one of the
finest and richest alluvial bottoms on the banks of the Ohio. They are
here about seventy feet above the level of the water, and sufficiently
high to protect the town from inundation, but there being no outlets for
stagnant waters and ponds, epidemic diseases are frequent. A lottery is
now established for the purpose of raising the necessary funds for
draining these nuisances. Louisville extends in an oblong square about a
mile down the river, and may be considered as the natural key to the
Upper and Lower Ohio, and the most important staple for trade on this
river, not excepting the city of Cincinnati. The commodities coming
during the summer and autumn from southern states are landed here.
Travellers who arrive by water, whether from the north or south, engage
steam boats at this place either for New Orleans or for Cincinnati.
These advantages made the inhabitants less desirous of having a canal,
notwithstanding the solicitations of the states watered by the Ohio. The
Congress has, at last, interposed; the canal is now contemplated.
Probably this undertaking, in which not only the Upper states of the
river Ohio, but the Union at large, are very much interested, is already
commenced. By means of this canal, steam vessels will be enabled to
avoid the falls, and to proceed to the upper Ohio at every season of the
year. It is to be two miles and a half long; to open at the mouth of
Beargrasscreek and to terminate at Shippingport. The highest ground is
twenty-seven feet; upon an average twenty feet; and it is of a clayey
substance, bottomed upon a rock. The expences are estimated at about
200,000 dollars, a trifle compared with the object to be accomplished.
Louisville, the seat of justice for Jefferson county, in Kentucky, in
38° 8' north latitude, is about half the size of Cincinnati, and lies
105 miles below that city, by the Kentucky road through Newcastle, and
125 miles by the Kentucky and Indiana road. It is 1500 miles northeast
of New Orleans. The town is laid out on a grand scale, the streets
running parallel with the river, and intersected by others at right
angles. The main street, about three quarters of a mile long, is
elegant; most of the houses are three stories high; those of the other
streets are of course inferior in size. The number of dwelling houses
amounts to 700, inhabited by 4,500 souls, exclusive of travellers
and boatmen. Louisville has no remarkable public buildings; the
court-house and the Presbyterian church are the best. Besides these,
the Episcopalians, Catholics, and Unitarians have their meeting houses.
There are now three banks, including a branch bank of the United States,
an insurance company, and four newspaper printing offices. A quay is now
constructing which will greatly contribute to the security of the middle
part of the town, opposite to the falls. The manufactories of
Louisville are important; and the distilleries and rope walks on a large
scale. Besides these there are soap, candle, cotton, glass, paper, and
engine manufactories, all on the same principle, with grist and saw
mills. The commerce of Louisville is still more important. Of the
hundred steam boats plying on the Mississippi and Ohio, fifty at least
are engaged during six months in the year in the trade with Louisville.
They descend to New Orleans in six days, returning in double the time.
Though the town is but half as large as Cincinnati, the credit of the
merchants is more substantial, and the inhabitants are in general more
wealthy. Luxury is carried to a higher pitch than in any other town on
this side of the Alleghany mountains. Here is the only billiard-table[A]
to be met with between Philadelphia and St. Louis. The owner has to pay
a tax of 563 dollars--an enormous sum.
[A] Of course this billiard table is not mentioned as a matter of
importance, but merely to give a characteristic idea of the state of
society in these parts.
Notwithstanding the circulating library, the reading-room, and several
houses where good society is to be met with, Louisville is not a
pleasant town to reside in, owing to the character of the majority of
its inhabitants, the Kentuckians. Louisville has an academy, but sends
its youth to the college of Bairdstown, thirty miles to the southwest,
where lectures are given by some French priests. Below Louisville, are
the two villages of Shippingport and Portland; the former is two miles
from the town, with 150 inhabitants, the latter at the distance of three
miles, with fifty inhabitants, mostly boatmen and keepers of grog shops,
for the lowest classes of people. The environs of Louisville are well
cultivated, Portland and Shippingport excepted, the inhabitants of which
are said to extend their notions of common property too far. Behind
Louisville the country is delightful; the houses and plantations vying
with each other in point of elegance and cultivation. The woods have
greatly disappeared, and for the distance of twenty miles, the roads are
lined in every direction with plantations. This town holds the rank of
the second order in Kentucky, a country which, in latter times, has
obtained a renown of somewhat ambiguous nature. It extends to the
south, from the river Ohio, to the state of Tennessee, having for its
eastern boundary the state of Virginia; and to the west, the river
Mississippi, which separates it from the state of Missouri. It extends
from 36° 30' to 39° 10' north latitude, and from 4° 78' to 12° 20' west
longitude. It embraces an area of 40,000 square miles. Though under a
southern degree of latitude, it enjoys a moderate temperature, which is
also less variable than in the more eastern states. The two great rivers
of the Mississippi and the Ohio, forming the boundary of this state,
secure to it no inconsiderable trade.
The productions of this beautiful country might, if properly cultivated,
become inexhaustible sources of wealth and prosperity to its inhabitants;
tobacco is a staple article, excelling in quality even that of Virginia,
if properly managed: cotton thrives well in the southern parts of the
state. Corn yields from forty to ninety bushels; wheat from thirty to
sixty; melons, sweet potatoes, peaches, apples, plumbs, &c., attain
a superior degree of perfection. One of the principal articles of
trade is hemp, the culture of which has been brought to a high state of
improvement; it constitutes one of the chief articles of export to New
Orleans. Kentucky has not such extensive plains as Ohio, but is equally
fertile, and less exposed to bilious and ague fevers. The stratum, which
is generally limestone, is a sure sign of inexhaustible fertility. Hills
alternating with valleys form landscapes, which though consisting of
native forests, are in the highest degree picturesque. There are parts
about Lexington and its environs, which nothing can exceed in beauty of
scenery. Even Louisville, with its three islands, the majestic Ohio, and
the surrounding little towns, possesses charms seldom rivalled in any
country. Kentucky is, without the least exaggeration, one of the finest
districts on the face of the earth. The climate is equal to that of the
south of France; fruits of every kind arrive at the highest perfection;
and it would be difficult to quit this country, did not the character of
the inhabitants lessen one's regret at leaving it. But notwithstanding
these natural advantages, the population has not increased either in
wealth or numbers, in proportion to the more recent state of Ohio. The
inhabitants consist chiefly of emigrants from Virginia, and North and
South Carolina, and of descendants from back-wood settlers--a proud,
fierce, and overbearing set of people. They established themselves under
a state of continual warfare with the Indians, who took their revenge by
communicating to their vanquishers their cruel and implacable spirit.
This, indeed, is their principal feature. A Kentuckian will wait three
or four weeks in the woods, for the moment of satiating his revenge; and
he seldom or never forgives. The men are of an athletic form, and there
may be found amongst them many models of truly masculine beauty. The
number of inhabitants is now 57,000, including 15,000 slaves. Planters
are among the most respectable class, and form the mass of the
population. Lawyers are next, or equal to them in rank, no less than the
merchants and manufacturers. Physicians and ministers are a degree
lower; and last of all, are those mechanics and farmers not possessed of
slaves. These are not treated better than the slaves themselves. The
constitution inclines towards federalism, landed property being
required to qualify a man for a public station. Ministers, of whatever
form of worship, are wholly excluded from public offices. Kentucky is
not a country that could be recommended to new settlers; slavery;
insecure titles to land: the division of the courts of justice into two
parts, furiously opposed to each other; an executive, whose present
chief is a disgrace to his station, and whose son would be hung in
chains, had he been in Great Britain; the worst paper-currency, &c., are
serious warnings to every lover of peace and tranquillity. We abstain
from farther particulars, as our purpose is to give a characteristic
description of the Union, which would assuredly not gain by a faithful
representation of the state of things in this country, during the last
ten years. The Desha family, the emetic scene, the proceedings of the
legislature, and of the courts of justice, Sharp's death, &c., are facts
which belong rather to the history of the tomahawk savages, than to that
of a civilised state. Passions must work with double power and effect,
where wealth, and arbitrary sway over a herd of slaves, and a warfare of
thirty years with savages, have sown the seeds of the most lawless
arrogance, and an untameable spirit of revenge.
The literary institutions, the Transylvanian university of Lexington,
and the college of Bairdstown, have hitherto exercised very little
influence over these fierce people. But a still worse feature observable
in them, is an utter disregard of religious principles. Ohio has its
sects, thereby evincing an interest in the performance of the highest of
human duties. The Kentuckian rails at these, and at every form of
worship; certainly a trait doubly afflicting and deplorable in a rising
state.