The History of Louisville, from the Earliest Settlement till the Year 1852

by Ben Casseday

In May of this year, still 1780, the Legislature of Virginia, on account of the difficulties attending the proper administration of justice, and for other similar causes occasioned by the sparseness of the settlements in so large an extent of territory, passed an act dividing the county of Kentucky into three counties. Of these, the first was thus defined: “All that part of the South side of the Kentucky river which lies West and North of a line beginning at the mouth of Benson’s Big Creek and running up the same and its main fork to the head, thence South to the nearest waters of Hammond’s Creek, and down the same to its junction with the town fork of Salt river, thence South to Green river and down the same to its junction with the Ohio;” and was ordered to be known by the name of Jefferson. The other two counties were called Fayette and Lincoln.

Beside this there were few occurrences worthy of note during the year, which bear directly upon the subject of this history. Col. Clark had not only made his successful expedition against Pickway, but had built Fort Jefferson, five miles below the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and in the territory of the Chickasaws, thus adding that tribe to the already numerous foes of his adopted State. It was however soon evacuated and this evacuation accepted and acted upon by both parties as a tacit treaty of peace.

Early in the next year—1781—Col. Clark received his commission as Brigadier General. He now began to feel the necessity for some new display of activity in defending the frontier and accordingly he built a sort of row-galley upon which he placed some four-pound cannon. This galley was kept plying between the Falls and the mouth of Licking, and is by some believed to have been of very great service in keeping off the attacks of the Indians; while others are of opinion that it was entirely valueless. Be that as it may; the galley was abandoned by the General before the close of the year. The Indians are said never to have attacked it and but seldom to have crossed that part of the river in which it moved. Various as are the opinions in regard to the utility of Clark’s barge, the fact of its having been so soon abandoned by the very projectors of the enterprise certainly does not speak much in its favor.

Another of the most important features of this year, perhaps indeed the very most important, was one which will now produce a smile. At that time, however, it was a subject of serious congratulation to the inhabitants of the new country. This was no less than the large immigration of young unmarried women into this region, abounding in young unmarried men. One of the historians of the time, in chronicling this event, remarks, with all the soberness and propriety due to the most solemn subject, that “the necessary consequence of this large influx of girls was the rapid and wonderful increase of population.” Whether this increase was produced by purely natural means or by foreign immigration is left by him in the profoundest doubt. Perhaps that worthy individual known as “The Oldest Inhabitant” could elucidate this point.

The only other circumstance worthy of notice during the year, was the building at the falls of a new fort. History gives us no information either as to the name or location of this position of defense. Its very name and history is swallowed up in that of Fort Nelson which must have been built very soon after, if it was not commenced at the same time as this nameless fort.

Fort Nelson was built in 1782 by the regular troops, assisted by all the militia of the State. It was situated between Sixth and Eighth Streets on the North side of Main, immediately upon the “second bank” of the river. Its name was derived, as some say from Capt. Nelson, an influential citizen of Louisville in that day, but more probably was named in honor of the third republican governor of Virginia. It contained about an acre of ground and was surrounded by a ditch eight feet wide and ten feet deep, intersected in the middle by a sharp row of pickets. This ditch was surmounted by a breast work of log pens filled with the earth obtained from the ditch, with pickets ten feet high planted on the top of the breast work. Next to the river, pickets were deemed sufficient, aided by the long slope of the bank. There was artillery likewise in the fort. Col. Slaughter had brought with him several very small cannon, and Gen. Clark had placed here a double fortified six-pounder, which he had captured at Vincennes. This last piece played no inconsiderable part both in the previous and subsequent expeditions of this General. The present site of Seventh Street passed directly through the gate of the fort opposite the head quarters of Gen. Clark. The pickets and various other parts of this fort have been from time to time, since 1830, dug up in excavating cellars at the place formerly occupied by the post. Many of the pickets thus excavated have been made into walking canes and are valued as memorials of the past.

This year was perhaps one of the most disastrous and dreadful in the annals of Kentucky. Although the settlements at the Falls were comparatively free from danger of attack, yet the older stations were suffering all the horrors of a bloody war. Several white men, impelled either by a love of the licentiousness and freedom from restraint of the savage life or by fear of punishment for their crimes, had united themselves with the Indians and constantly urged them against the Whites. The most celebrated of these were Girty and McKee, who had risen to a commanding rank among the red men, and their knowledge of the settlements enabled them to direct their new friends in all their expeditions. Previous to the great battle in which these renegadoes figured so largely, was the defeat and death of Captain Estill on Hinckston’s Fork of Licking and also a bloody fight at or near Hoy’s station. The great battle of the year however was at Blue Licks, and it was here that these renegadoes, whose names deserve and will receive perpetual execration, were successful. The result of this battle is well known to all readers of western history. Its effect upon the inhabitants of the new State was disheartening in the extreme. Gen. Clark, who was still at the Falls, seeing the necessity for rousing the people from their despondence and desirous of punishing the foe, proposed to a council of officers an expedition against the Indian towns on Miami and Scioto. And accordingly nearly one thousand men made rendezvous at the mouth of Licking and started for the towns. The Indians discovered their approach too soon for anything like a decisive battle, and they found only deserted towns and straggling Indians on their march. The result of this invasion however convinced both sides of the superiority of the Whites, and restored the drooping spirits in the settlements. After this expedition the country remained quiet during the year, nor did any considerable party of Indians ever again invade the State.

In the winter of this year commenced the first of anything like intercourse between this part of the Ohio and New Orleans. Messrs. Tardiveau and Honore, the latter of whom resided in this city until within a few years, made the earliest trip from Brownsville to that port, and subsequently continued to make regular trips from Louisville to the French and Spanish ports on the Mississippi. Even previous to this, Col. Richard Taylor and his brother Hancock Taylor, had descended from Pittsburg to the mouth of the Yazoo; and Messrs. Gibson and Linn, in 1776, had made a trip from Pittsburg to New Orleans with a view to procuring military stores for the troops stationed at the former place. These gentlemen succeeded in their expedition, having obtained 156 kegs of powder, which arrived at the Falls in 1777, was carried around them by hand, and finally delivered at Pittsburg.

These early attempts at navigation were soon succeeded by the constant and regular trips of the Barges. Perhaps the most stirring and exciting scenes of western adventure were connected with the voyages of these peculiar craft. The bargemen were a distinct class of people whose fearlessness of character, recklessness of habits and laxity of morals rendered them a marked people. Their history will hereafter form the groundwork of many a heroic romance or epic poem. In the earlier stages of this sort of navigation, their trips were dangerous, not only on account of the Indians whose hunting-grounds bounded their track on either side, but also because the shores of both rivers were infested with organized banditti, who sought every occasion to rob and murder the owners of these boats. Beside all this the Spanish Government had forbidden the navigation of the lower Mississippi by the Americans, and thus, hedged in every way by danger, it became these boatmen to cultivate all the hardihood and wiliness of the Pioneer, while it led them also into the possession of that recklessness and independent freedom of manner, which even after the causes that produced it had ceased, still clung to and formed an integral part of the character of the Western Bargeman. It is a matter of no little surprise that something like an authentic history of these wonderful men has never been written. Certainly it is desirable to preserve such a history, and no book could have been undertaken which would be likely to produce more both of pleasure and profit to the writer and none which would meet with a larger circle of delighted readers. The traditions on the subject are, even at this recent period, so vague and contradictory that it would be difficult to procure anything like reliable or authentic data in regard to them. No story in which the bargemen figure is too improbable to be narrated, nor can one determine what particular person is the hero of an incident which is in turn laid at the door of each distinguished member of the whole fraternity. Some of these incidents however will serve so well to give an idea of the peculiar characteristics of the bargemen, and possess so much merit in themselves, that they cannot be omitted here. Previous to referring to any of these anecdotes, however, it may be interesting to introduce the following excellent description of the manner of navigating the Ohio and Mississippi prior to the introduction of steamboats. It is from the pen of Audubon, the celebrated ornithologist, whose death has been recently announced and has caused a feeling of deep regret in all who know how to admire that union of simple goodness of character with greatness of mind and untiring energy of study, which he, perhaps more than any other American, possessed.

“The keelboats and barges were employed,” says this extract, “in conveying produce of different kinds, such as lead, flour, pork and other articles. These returned laden with sugar, coffee and dry goods, suited for the markets of Genevieve and St. Louis on the upper Mississippi or branched off and ascended the Ohio to the foot of the falls at Louisville. A keelboat was generally manned by ten hands, principally Canadian French, and a patroon or master. These boats seldom carried more than from twenty to thirty tons. The barges had frequently forty or fifty men, with a patroon, and carried fifty or sixty tons. Both these kind of vessels were provided with a mast, a square sail, and coils of cordage known by the name of cordelles. Each boat or barge carried its own provisions. We shall suppose one of these boats under way, and, having passed Natchez, entering upon what were called the difficulties of their ascent. Wherever a point projected so as to render the course or bend below it of some magnitude, there was an eddy, the returning current of which was sometimes as strong as that of the middle of the great stream. The bargemen, therefore, rowed up pretty close under the bank, and had merely to keep watch in the bow lest the boat should run against a planter or sawyer. But the boat has reached the point, and there the current is to all appearance of double strength and right against it. The men, who have rested a few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay hold of their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom possible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. The boat is crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, however, too strong for the rowers, and when the other side of the river has been reached, it has drifted perhaps a quarter of a mile. The men are by this time exhausted, and, as we shall suppose it to be 12 o’clock, fasten the boat to a tree on the shore. A small glass of whiskey is given to each, when they cook and eat their dinner, and after resting from their fatigue for an hour, re-commence their labors. The boat is again seen slowly advancing against the stream. It has reached the lower end of a sandbar, along the edge of which it is propelled by means of long poles, if the bottom be hard. Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the prow to assist, in concert with the steersman, in managing the boat and keeping its head right against the current. The rest place themselves on the land side of the footway of the vessel, put one end of their poles on the ground and the other against their shoulders and push with all their might. As each of the men reaches the stern, he crosses to the other side, runs along it and comes again to the landward side of the bow, when he re-commences operations. The barge in the mean time is ascending at a rate not exceeding one mile in the hour.