On the 3d of March in this year Mr. Nicholas Clarke associated with him, in the publication of the Western Courier, Messrs. S. H. Bullen and A. G. Merriweather. After this period the name of the paper was changed to The Emporium and Commercial Advertiser, and it was issued semi-weekly instead of weekly. This connection, however, was not of long duration, for in February ’22, Messrs. Clarke & Merriweather left the establishment, transferring their interest to Mr. Bullen and Mr. F. E. Goddard. The paper finally came into the hands of this latter gentleman alone, and its publication was stopped while under his management. Mr. Goddard will be remembered by most of the citizens of Louisville. He was the preceptor of a great many of the younger men now here, and was universally beloved and respected. His genial humor, his extraordinary scholarship and his fine qualities of heart made him the admiration of his friends, while his faithful discharge of all his duties and his firm and unwaving efforts to improve the minds and morals of his numerous pupils, cause them to respect his memory, and call forth alike their gratitude and their veneration. No man has ever occupied Mr. Goddard’s position who enjoyed more universally or more meritedly the regard of his fellow citizens.
In May, still of this year, a branch bank of the Commonwealth was located here. From an article in the Emporium it would seem that this bank was established without one dollar of specie capital and hence its notes were sold at very large rates of discount. The paper of this bank and that of the Bank of Kentucky formed almost the only currency at the time, and as merchants, in order to pay their calls abroad, were obliged to buy specie or Eastern funds at a great advance, they naturally enough refused these bills at par value. This seems to have been a grievous trouble to the management of the bank at Frankfort, and it was suggested by them that the Legislature should remove the branch established here to “some other situation where love of country, love of truth and love of general prosperity might overcome the combinations of the weak and wicked.” This removal, however, was not effected.
It was also during this year that a night watch was established, who were paid by a subscription of the citizens and not from the treasury of the town. B. Morgan, C. Sly and M. Woolston were the first persons elected to this office.
1822—The first event of the next year was the authorization by the Trustees of the issue of town notes, varying in denomination from twelve and a half cents to one dollar, the aggregate value of all of which was not to exceed four thousand dollars. These notes, however, did not meet with the usual fate of the shinplaster currency, for in about a year afterward we find an order of the Trustees for counting and destroying them, leaving the impression either that they were not put into circulation or were redeemed and so withdrawn from a market already glutted with such trash.
It was during the year 1822 that the town was visited by a dreadful epidemic. Dr. John P. Harrison, late of Cincinnati and formerly of this city, a physician of distinguished ability, has published a minute and highly valuable account of this epidemic in the Philadelphia Medical Journal, Vol. 8. The disease was a highly aggravated bilious fever, so terrible as to deserve the dreaded name of yellow fever. The mortality was very great and the alarm existing on account of it throughout the whole interior of the neighboring States was of the most exciting character. The season was an unhealthy one throughout the West, but the scourge fell most heavily upon Louisville, probably on account of the miasma from her many ponds. The scourge here, as Dr. Drake says in his valuable history of the diseases of the Valley of North America, amounted almost to depopulation. The Trustees were by it awakened from their lethargy. A Board of Health, consisting of Drs. Gait, Smith, Harrison, Wilson and Tompkins, were appointed to examine into the causes of disease and report the same to the Trustees, together with the mode or practicability of removing the same. This first Board of Health was appointed too late. Had they been ordered to examine into this matter years before, much might have been effected, but the time for such action was now passed, and this fearful malady, now inevitable, became the most terrible blow ever given to the prosperity of the rising town. The news spread far and wide, and the neighboring towns, instead of seeking to publish only the truth, assisted largely in circulating garbled intelligence and extravagant reports of a fact which tended to their advantage by destroying the fair fame of their rival. Emigrants from abroad as well as from this and neighboring States, for years afterward, dreaded even to pass through the town, and of those who had already determined to locate here, many were dissuaded from their purpose by the assertion that it was but rushing upon death to make the attempt. This occurred, too, just at a period when the resources of the town, beginning to develop themselves, were attracting the attention of capitalists. It was this alone which gave a temporary semblance of superiority to the neighboring towns, and, for a time, retarded the usual prosperity of this. Had the feeling of alarm ceased with the disease, it would have been less of a blow, but for years after it was referred to as a warning against emigration hither.
The next two years present nothing of interest to the reader, save the building in the winter of 1824-5 of an Episcopalian Church on Second Street, between Green and Walnut, the present Christ’s Church, the first rector of which was the Rev. Mr. Shaw.
On the 8th of May, in the year 1825, Lafayette visited Louisville. His reception here, as everywhere else, was enthusiastic in the extreme. The Trustees of the city paid into the hands of John Rowan, the chairman of the committee of arrangements for the reception, a considerable sum of money, to be expended in such manner as the committee might direct for this purpose. The resolution authorizing this expenditure was passed with a single dissenting voice, that of Richard Hall. The meeting of Lafayette with some of the old officers of the revolution, particularly that with Col. Anderson, is said to have been extremely affecting. The whole city turned out to receive this distinguished patriot; processions were formed, arches erected, bevies of young girls strewed his pathway with flowers and the whole town was a scene of festivity and rejoicing. Whether the dissenting Mr. Richard Hall was with those who were thus showing their sense of gratitude to him who had left home, country and friends, and faced the thundering cannon’s mouth to aid them in their hour of direst peril, history does not tell us.
The Legislature of these years made very considerable additions to the power of the Trustees; allowing them to borrow money on the credit of the town, to purchase and hold real estate for erecting market-houses, wharfs, &c., to levy a tax on exchange brokers, to tax hacks, drays, &c., to appoint harbor and wharf masters, and make rules governing the lading and unlading of vessels, to collect wharfage fees, to appoint inspectors of flour, &c. The first use made of this new power was the purchase of ground for a wharf. Rowan owned a slip of ground lying north of Water Street, commencing at Second and terminating at Seventh Street. A similar slip, lying between Seventh and Eighth streets, was already the property of the city. This slip the city agreed to add to Rowan’s, and also to pave the whole as a wharf, using the stone in Rowan’s quarry, situated on the premises, and for the wharf so constructed they agreed to give to Rowan and to his heirs forever, in semi-annual payments, one-half the receipts of this wharf. They also agreed that, if at any time Gray’s wharf, lying east of Second Street, should be bought, both parties might unite in the purchase and Rowan should receive as before one half the profits of the entire wharf. This contract; made with but a single dissenting voice on the part of the Trustees, that of Jeremiah Diller, must have been the result of either a very low state of finances or of very injudicious precipitation. Rowan’s heirs, it is understood, now get but one fourth of the wharfage, but even this would have been a sum better gained to the city than lost by a want of proper judgment or foresight.
On the 12th of January, in this year, the Louisville & Portland Canal Company was incorporated by an act of the Legislature, with a capital of $600,000, in shares of $100 each, with perpetual succession. 3665 of these shares were in the hands of about 70 individuals, residing in different States, and the remaining 2335 shares belonged to the government of the United States. In December contracts were entered into to complete the work of the canal within two years for about $375,000, and the work was actually commenced in March 1826. Many unforeseen difficulties retarded it until the close of the year 1828. At this time the contractors failed, new contracts were made at advanced prices, and the canal was finally opened for navigation, December 5th, 1830. When completed, it cost about $750,000. It is about two miles in length and is intended to overcome a fall of twenty-four feet, occasioned by an irregular ledge of lime-stone rock, through which the entire bed of the canal is excavated, a part to the depth of 12 feet, overlaid with earth. There is one guard and three lift locks combined, all of which have their foundation on the rock. One bridge of stone 240 feet long, with an elevation of 68 feet to the top of the parapet wall, and three arches, the centre one of which is semi-elliptical, with a transverse diameter of 66, and a semi-conjugate diameter of 22 feet. The two arches are segments of 40 feet span. The guard lock is 190 feet long in the clear, with semi-circular heads of 26 feet in diameter, 50 feet wide and 42 feet high, and contains 21,775 perches of mason work. The solid contents of this lock are equal to 15 common locks, such as are built on the Ohio and New York canals. The lift locks are of the same width with the guard lock, 20 feet high and 183 feet long in the clear, and contain 12,300 perches of mason work. The entire length of the walls from the head of the guard lock to the end of the outlet lock is 921 feet. In addition to the amount of mason work above, there are three culverts to drain off the water from the adjacent lands, the mason work of which, when added to the locks and bridge, gives the whole amount of mason work 41,989 perches, equal to about 30 common canal locks. The cross section of the canal is 200 feet at top of banks, 50 feet at bottom and 42 feet high, having a capacity equal to that of 25 common canals; and if we keep in view the unequal quantity of mason work, compared to the length of the canal, the great difficulties of excavating earth and rock from so great a depth and width, together with the contingencies attending its construction from the fluctuations of the Ohio river, it may not be considered as extravagant in drawing the comparison between the work in this, and in that of 70 or 75 miles of common canaling.
In the upper sections of the canal, the alluvial earth to the average depth of 20 feet being removed, trunks of trees were found, more or less decayed, and so imbedded as to indicate a powerful current towards the present shore, some of which were cedar, which is not now found in this region. Several fire-places of a rude construction, with partially burnt wood, were discovered near the rock, as well as the bones of a variety of small animals, and several human skeletons; rude implements formed of bone and stone were also frequently seen, as also several well wrought specimens of hematite of iron, in the shape of plummets or sinkers displaying a knowledge in the arts far in advance of the present race of Indians.