In the morning of the next day the neighbors collected for the raising. The first thing to be done was the election of four corner men, whose business it was to notch and place the logs. The rest of the company furnished them with the timbers. In the mean time the boards and puncheons were collecting for the floor and roof, so that by the time the cabin was a few rounds high the sleepers and floor began to be laid. The door was made by sawing or cutting the logs in one side so as to make an opening about three feet wide. This opening was secured by upright pieces of timber about three inches thick, through which holes were bored into the ends of the logs for the purpose of pinning them fast. A similar opening but wider was made at the end for the chimney. This was built of logs, and made large to admit of a back and jams of stone. At the square, two end logs projected a foot or eighteen inches beyond the wall to receive the butting poles, as they were called, against which the ends of the first row of clapboards was supported. The roof was formed by making the end log shorter until a single log formed the comb of the roof; on these logs the clapboards were placed, the ranges of them lapping some distance over those next below them, and kept in their places by logs, placed at proper distances upon them.
“The roof, and sometimes the floor, were finished on the same day of the raising. A third day was commonly spent by a few carpenters in leveling off the floor, making a clapboard door and table. This last was made of a spilt slab, and supported by four round legs set in auger holes. Some three legged stools were made in the same manner. Some pins stuck in the logs at the back of the house supported some clapboards which served for shelves for the table furniture. A single fork, placed with its lower end in a hole in the floor, and the upper end fastened to a joist, served for a bedstead, by placing a pole in the fork with one end through a crack between the logs of the wall. This front pole was crossed by a shorter one within the fork, with its outer end through another crack. From the front pole, through a crack between the logs of the end of the house, the boards were put on, which formed the bottom of the bed. Sometimes other poles, were pinned to the fork a little distance above these, for the purpose of supporting the front and foot of the bed, while the walls were the supports of its back and head. A few pegs around the walls for a display of the coats of the women, and hunting shirts of the men, and two small forks or bucks’ horns to a joist for the rifle and shot pouch, completed the carpenter’s work.
“The cabin being finished, the ceremony of house-warming took place, before the young couple were permitted to move into it. The house-warming was a dance of a whole night’s continuance, made up of the relations of the bride and groom, and their neighbors. On the day following the young couple took possession of their new mansion.”
This mansion, slight, inefficient and hastily erected as it was, must have afforded but poor shelter against the severity of a season which is everywhere referred to as one of the coldest ever known. It is asserted that during the winter of 1779-80, still remembered by some as “The Hard Winter,” the wild animals were “starved and frozen in the forests, while the domestic ones fared no better in the settlements.” The rigors of the season, however, did not prevent the influx of immigration; although several families were compelled to endure its severity on their route through the wilderness from Cumberland Gap, and were even delayed in their march till the opening of the Spring. As soon however as the rivers were freed from ice and the intense cold had yielded to the softer airs of the new season, we hear of the arrival of no less than three hundred family boats at the Falls. The causes which influenced so large an immigration hither were various, not the least among them being the security insured at this fort by the presence of Col. Clark. So entire and perfect had been the success of this gallant officer in every expedition, even against the most fearful odds, that to be under his command had come to be reckoned as holding a place among the Invincibles. Let the circumstances be what they might, it is certain that Louisville with her then population of six hundred souls, was growing to be a place worthy of high consideration, and accordingly we find that in May of this year (1780) the legislature of Virginia passed the following
“Act for establishing the town of Louisville at the Falls of Ohio.”
“Whereas, sundry inhabitants of the county of Kentucky have, at great expense and hazard, settled themselves upon certain lands at the falls of Ohio, said to be the property of John Conally, and have laid off a considerable part thereof into half acre lots for a town, and having settled thereon, have prefered petitions to this general assembly to establish the said town, Be it therefore enacted, That one thousand acres of land, being the forfeited property of said John Conally, adjoining to the lands of John Campbell and —— Taylor, be, and the same is hereby vested in John Todd Jr., Stephen Trigg, George Slaughter, John Floyd, William Pope, George Merriweather, Andrew Hines, James Sullivan and Marshall Brashiers, gentlemen, trustees, to be by them or any four of them laid off into lots of an half acre each, with convenient streets and public lots, which shall be, and the same is hereby established a town by the name of Louisville. And be it further enacted, That after the said lands shall be laid off into lots and streets, the said trustees or any four of them, shall proceed to sell the said lots, or so many of them as they shall judge expedient, at public auction, for the best price that can be had, the time and place of sale being advertised two months, at the court houses of adjacent counties; the purchasers respectively to hold their said lots subject to the condition of building on each a dwelling house, sixteen feet by twenty at least, with a brick or stone chimney, to be finished within two years from the day of sale. And the said trustees or any four of them shall and they are hereby empowered to convey the said lots to the purchasers thereof in fee simple, subject to the condition aforesaid, on payment of the money arising from such sale to the said trustees for the uses hereafter mentioned, that is to say: If the money arising from such sale shall amount to Thirty Dollars per acre, the whole shall be paid by the said trustees into the treasury of this commonwealth, and the overplus, if any, shall be lodged with the court of the county of Jefferson to enable them to defray the expenses of erecting the publick buildings of the said county. Provided, That the owners of lots already drawn shall be entitled to the preference therein, upon paying to the trustees the sum of thirty dollars for such half acre lot, and shall be thereafter subject to the same obligations of settling as other lot holders within the said town. And be it further enacted, That the said trustees or the major part of them shall have power, from time to time, to settle and determine all disputes concerning the bounds of the said lots, to settle such rules and orders for the regular building thereon as to them shall seem best and most convenient. And in case of death or removal from the county of any of the said trustees, the remaining trustees shall supply such vacancies by electing of others from time to time, who shall be vested with the same powers as those already mentioned.—And be it further enacted, That the purchasers of the lots in the said town, so soon as they shall have saved the same according to their respective deeds of conveyance, shall have and enjoy all the rights, privileges and immunities, which the freeholders and inhabitants of other towns in this state, not incorporated by charter, have, hold and enjoy.
“And be it further enacted, That if the purchaser of any lot shall fail to build thereon within the time before limited, the said trustees or a major part of them, may thereupon enter into such lot, and may either sell the same again and apply the money towards repairing the streets, or in any other way for the benefit of the said town, or appropriate such lot to publick uses for the benefit of said town. Provided, That nothing herein contained shall extend to affect or injure the title of lands claimed by John Campbell, gentleman, or those persons whose lots have been laid off on his lands, but their titles be and remain suspended until the said John Campbell shall be released from his captivity.”[1]
The survey of the town under this act, as also the second survey made by Peyton and Sullivan, have been in some unaccountable manner destroyed. It is believed, however, that the spirit of these surveys is preserved in Jared Brooke’s plat, which was adopted in 1812. Previous to this the absence of any official document of this kind produced much annoyance, dispute and litigation, in regard to titles and boundaries. The out courses of this survey, as represented by Dr. McMurtrie, are “from 35 poles above the mouth of Beargrass Creek, on the bank of the Ohio river, S. 83, W. 35 poles to the mouth of the creek, thence N. 87, W. 120 poles, N. 50, W. 110 poles to a heap of stones and a square hole cut in the flat rock, thence (the division line) S. 88, E. 769 to a white oak, poplar and beech, N. 37, W. 390 to the beginning; no variation.” This was divided into six streets, running East and West, and twelve streets crossing these others at right angles. The squares so made were, up to Green Street, divided into lots of a little more than half an acre, and South of that into five, ten and twenty acre lots. In all the earlier proceedings of the legislature in regard to the new town we find constant mention made of public squares and grounds; and in the original plat, a slip of 180 feet South of Green Street, and running from First to Twelfth Streets, was reserved for a public promenade and pleasure ground. It is a matter of great regret that this reservation was not really made. An immense common like this, with the forest trees which were then upon it left standing, would now be an invaluable addition to the town, and would enable us to boast of having the most beautiful city in America. We cannot help but wonder that the early inhabitants of the city should have permitted those in authority to commit this gross outrage upon taste and propriety. Had this slip continued in reserve, how beautiful might it now have become! As taste, aided by wealth, began to have its hold among the citizens, it would have been upon the fronts of this great artery that those beautiful churches, public buildings and dwellings, now scattered over so large a space, would have been erected. Here for a distance of more than a mile would have been placed a continuous range of palace-like structures; and here, under the shade of trees “the growth of quite a century” would the gay, the brave and the fair have sat, walked or rode. What a picture would have been presented here on a midsummer night, or at the close of an autumn day! Groups of merry children disporting around, gaily dressed ladies and dashing beaux, a throng of proud equipages and horsemen, the sound of the infant’s prattle, girlhood’s ringing laugh, the mingling of joyous voices, and above all and beyond all the tall and sombre forms of majestic trees raised in relief against the sky, the green carpeted earth and smiling little flowers, and all this in the very heart of a great city—all forms a picture upon which the fancy loves to dwell, and a picture which might readily have been realized had not that inordinate and purely American worship of Gain blotted it from the canvass almost before the designer had expressed it with his pencil.
Nor was a flagrant want of taste the worst feature in this. The whole of the present site of the city at that early day was intersected with ponds of stagnant water. The second bank had something of a descent towards the interior, and the soil, though alluvious, was of sufficient tenacity to retain the water which fell in rain. The result was that the whole of this valley from Beargrass to Salt river was filled with these ponds; and, as a necessary consequence, miasmata were bred, which produced a great deal of sickness, more especially with strangers. So great indeed was the influence thus induced that acclimation was then considered as necessary here as it now is in New Orleans or on the coast of Africa. Many of the present citizens of Louisville will be surprised to know that this very city, now so celebrated for its healthiness as to make its salubrity an inducement to immigration from all parts of the country, was once known as “the Graveyard of the Ohio.” The city worthies who took upon themselves to sell “the Slip” in lots, had at that time no data to induce them to believe in the future healthfulness of their place and yet they must have perceived the increasing prosperity of the town; hence it became almost criminal in them to put away what then seemed the only barrier to disease, and almost to invite its approaches by allowing the city to be compactly built without room for the pure and wholesome circulation of air, but shutting up, as it were, disease and death within their very walls. As the value of property began to increase, however, these gentlemen, actuated only by a desire for present gain, put aside all these considerations and, having divided the slip into four parts exposed it for sale. It comprised all that part of the city now embraced between the north side of Green and the south side of Grayson Streets, but extended, as before said, up to First Street. It is true that great blame was attached to the trustees for their action in this matter at the time, and some movement was made toward trying to destroy the sale by legal means, this however was never actually resorted to, and possession has long since confirmed the titles to all lots lying within its limits. Thus was lost to the city one of the most valuable, if not the very most valuable of all its possessions. The earliest purchasers of this property were Messrs. Johnson, Croghan, Anderson and Campbell.
As we have already referred to the numerous ponds scattered throughout the city, it may not be improper at this point to recall the site of some of them, if only to show how completely the natural disadvantages of the place have been overcome by the energy of its inhabitants. The first and most important of these was called the “Long Pond.” It commenced at the present corner of Sixth and Market Streets, and inclining a little toward the South-West, extended as far as the old Hope Distillery, on or near Sixteenth Streets. The indentation in the ground, still observable, in the alley which commences at Seventh Street and lies between Market and Jefferson Streets, was the former bed of this pond. In the winter, when it was frozen over, this little lake was the scene of many a merry party. On the moonlight evenings, numbers of ladies and gentlemen were to be seen skimming over its surface, the gentlemen on skates and the ladies in chairs, the backs of which were laid upon the ice and the chairs fastened by ropes to the waists of the skaters. And thus they dashed along at furious speed over the glassy surface; beaux and belles, with loud voices and ringing laugh—and the merriment of the occasion was only increased when some dashing fellow, in his endeavors to surpass in agility and daring all his compeers, fell prostrate to the ice, or broke through it into the water beneath.