The opening of a new century found Louisville with a population of 800 souls, with power to elect her own Trustees, with a revenue arising from her own taxes, and in the enjoyment of all the social and political privileges which were possessed by any of the towns within the Western country. Early in the next year the Legislature of the State, after granting power to the Trustees of Louisville to make deeds and conveyances of the town lots and providing abundantly for the levying and collecting of taxes, proceeded to exempt the citizens from working on roads out of the town, except the road leading from Louisville to the lower landing, and ordered the appointment of a street Surveyor whose duty it should be from time to time to call upon the inhabitants of the town “to meet together on a certain day at a certain place for the purpose of working upon the streets.” And every person failing to obey such call was liable to a fine of six shillings for every such failure. The same Act also set aside the sum of twenty-five pounds (being part of the annual tax) to be appropriated toward the building of a market house on the public ground in said town, under the superintendence of the board of Trustees; and as if still further to show its confidence in the capacity of the town to manage its own growing interests, it also placed the harbor at the mouth of Beargrass entirely under the direction of the Trustees.Reference to the old books of the town show the prices of half acre lots on the principal streets at this time to have ranged from seven to fourteen hundred dollars.

The original plan and survey of the town having been lost or destroyed, and property being rapidly increasing in value, the Legislature found it necessary during the second year of the new century to order a new survey and plat to be made out. It also changed the term of office of the Trustees from one to two years, and gave them the power to fill vacancies in their body by an election among themselves. It also repealed an act which, although it had been the subject of repeated legislation, had proved a dead letter. This was the act in reference to the forfeiture of lots for want of improvements, which has been before quoted. The Legislature of this year, seeing the futility of further action in regard to this matter very properly ordered the act to be altogether repealed in all the towns under their jurisdiction, and ordered the Trustees of the several towns to make deeds to all purchasers of lots who could produce them receipts for the purchase money of their several properties.

The next year brought with it a new act of assembly ordering a repeal of the act of 1800 in relation to the building of a Market house on the public grounds in Louisville. The reason of this repeal consisted in the fact that public grounds were nowhere to be found, these valuable adjuncts to the town having been already disposed of by the sagacious governors of the place. Their unwise and illegal action in this matter has heretofore occupied the attention of the reader. Their “worshipful wisdoms” thinking only of to-day and careless of a future, were guilty of frequent excessions of their duty, which are still felt and still regretted. A striking instance of this is exemplified in the single fact that a half acre lot on Main street, near Fourth, was disposed of by their order at public auction for a horse valued at twenty dollars. This, however, may cease to be thought so flagrant a breach of trust when it is compared with another sale which occurred at or about the same time, whereto neither of the parties occupied an official capacity and wherein the article sold, though not generally classed as real estate, is supposed to possess great value to the owner. A worthy citizen of Louisville about this period was in the habit of entertaining a great deal of company; and among others there came to his hospitable roof one who professed to be a Methodist preacher, but who proved to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing; for, after enjoying all the comforts his host’s kindness could afford him for several weeks, he started off one fine summer’s morning, taking with him, probably through mistake or inadvertence, his friend’s wife! The host missing this article of domestic furniture upon his return home, and suspecting whither it might have gone, put boot in stirrup and dashed off in pursuit. He soon overtook the soi-disant Reverend Gentleman and demanded his property. His right to take his own was not denied, but his Reverend friend proposed that as he fancied the subject matter of dispute, if his worthy host would withdraw his claim and leave him in peaceable possession, he would give him right, title and interest to and in the mare on which he rode. To this, after some slight hesitation, the husband consented, on condition that the bridle and saddle of the mare were added to his friend’s offer. This trifling difference was readily yielded by the opposite party, and for many years after this good old man was seen pacing through the streets, mounted upon his mare, the two ambling along far more quietly than he and his former partner had ever done.

Returning, however to the requisitions of the act, we find that, repealing so much of the ordinance as related to the location of the market house, it enjoins upon the Trustees “to fix upon some proper place, such as shall seem most convenient to the inhabitants of the town, and there to erect a suitable market house.”

It was also during this year that the first of a series of smaller towns, attracted by the growing position of Louisville and hoping soon to rival it, began to spring up. Jeffersonville, situated nearly opposite Louisville, on a high bank of the Ohio, and in the State of Indiana, was laid out in November of this year. Its progress until recently has not been rapid, but it has gradually gained ground until within the last seven or eight years, during which it has come to be a very useful and valuable suburb to the city. More will be said of its history in a proper place.

Within the next year we come to the earliest organization of the town of Shippingport. This place, now so utterly decayed, once promised not only to rival but to surpass Louisville. The site occupied by it belonged to Campbell’s division of the two thousand acres mentioned in the earlier pages of this history, and was by him sold during this year to a Mr. Berthoud. Upon coming into the possession of this latter gentleman it was surveyed, a plan of the town drawn and the lots advertised for sale. Its progress however was not rapid until 1806, when the Messrs. Terascons purchased the greater part of the lots embraced in the survey, and to their enterprizing endeavors did the town owe its rise. Its present importance is so trifling compared with its past greatness, and the probabilities of its future eminence among towns are so small that we shall probably not have occasion again to refer to it; and as its brief history belongs rather to this than to a later era it will be as well to close this account of it in the words of one who wrote when it was at the apex of its fame.

“This important place,” says Dr. McMurtrie in his sketches of Louisville published in 1819; “is situated two miles below Louisville, immediately at the foot of the rapids, and is built upon the beautiful plain or bottom which commences at the mouth of Beargrass creek, through which, under the brow of the second bank, the contemplated canal will in all probability be cut.”[10] The town originally consisted of forty-five acres, but it has since received considerable additions. The lots are 75 by 144 feet, the average price of which at present (1819) is from forty to fifty dollars per foot, according to the advantages of its situation. The streets are all laid out at right angles, those that run parallel to the river, or nearly so, are eight in number and vary from 30 to 90 feet in width. These are all intersected by twelve feet allies, running parallel to them, and by fifteen cross streets at right angles, each sixty feet wide.

The population of Shippingport may be estimated at 600 souls, including strangers. Some taste is already perceptible in the construction of their houses, many of which are neatly built and ornamented with galleries, in which, of a Sunday, are displayed all the beauty of the place. It is, in fact, the Bois de Boulogne of Louisville, it being the resort of all classes on high days and holydays.

“At these times, it exhibits a spectacle at once novel and interesting. The number of steamboats in the port, each bearing one or two flags, the throng of horses, carriages, and gigs, and the contented appearance of a crowd of pedestrians, all arrayed in their “Sunday’s best” produce an effect it would be impossible to describe.”

The reason of the sudden decay of this once flourishing place is found in the fact that its utility as a point of embarkation and debarkation for goods, ceased with the building of the Canal. Previous to this time it had been, during three parts of the year, the head of the navigation of the lower Ohio. Even as early as this, however, the necessity for overcoming the impediment to navigation occasioned by the falls was recognized and acted upon; and in the year 1804, a Canal Company was chartered; but nothing was done beyond surveys until long after this time. The subject of the Canal, however, was one of absorbing interest with the citizens of Louisville from this time forward, and various plans were proposed, adopted, rejected and discussed, until the incorporation of the present Canal Company in 1825. The movement toward removing the obstruction in the river in any form had its opponents, who urged that the sole commercial advantage to be possessed by the city consisted in the necessity for numerous commission and forwarding houses to receive and reship the vast quantities of merchandise which were to pass up and down this great artery. Among the many plans suggested for overcoming the break in the navigation of the river, one of the earliest and most strongly urged was one which has yet its warm and earnest adherents,—this is the construction of a Canal on the Indiana shore,—a plan which the citizens of Louisville have long since ceased to look upon except with aversion, but which the residents in a sister city are still urging with a violence which proves, contemptuously as they may speak of Louisville, that their fears of her as a rival city are strong enough to induce them to wish to cripple, if not to destroy her. Former surveys have all long since proved the Kentucky shore to be best suited to the purposes of a Canal, and the inadequacy of the present construction to the growing trade of the river does not seem to demonstrate the necessity for still further obstructing its course, even during high water, by an additional ditch on the other bank.

Another of the plans suggested at this time, proposed the blasting of a channel which would unite all the water into one stream at low stages. The bed of the river was also surveyed to ascertain the expediency of making a slack water navigation by means of one or more dams or locks. All of these and various others were however merged in the construction of the present Canal, which will be noticed at the appropriate period of this history.

With the next year comes another enactment of Assembly with the following amusing preamble:—“Whereas it is represented to the present General Assembly that a number of persons residing in the town of Louisville, are in the habit of raising, and are now possessed of large numbers of Swine, to the great injury of the citizens generally; and that there are a number of ponds of water in said town, which are nuisances, and injurious to the health of the city and the prosperity of the town: Be it therefore enacted—That the present Trustees of the said town, and their successors, or a majority of them, shall have full power and authority to remove the same &c.” The latter of these nuisances has disappeared under the efforts of the “said successors,” but even the distinguished Mr. Dickens will bear us witness that the law against the former remains to this day a dead letter.

Another of the provisions of this same act invests the Trustees with power to levy a sum not exceeding eight hundred dollars for the purpose of repairing the streets, and in consideration thereof exempts those citizens from working on the streets, who shall pay an equivalent of 75 cents in money. It also gives the Trustees power to make regulations and by-laws for the proper preservation of order, to appoint a tax collector &c., and extends the privilege of voting for Trustees to the residents of the ten and twenty acre lots, thereby increasing the purlieus of the town to the present site of Chestnut street.

In speaking of the navigation and commerce of this period, Dr. McMurtrie tells us that in 1806 “six keel boats and two barges; the one of thirty tons, belonging to Reed, of Cincinnati; the other of forty, owned by Instone, of Frankfort; sufficed for the carrying trade of Louisville and Shippingport.” The rapid and almost magical increase of trade in less than fifty years after this will at once suggest itself to every reader.

Mr. T. Cumming, the first European traveler who passed through Louisville, of whose record we have any knowledge, thus states his impressions of the town during this year. He says:—“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. It was considered as unhealthy, which impeded its progress until three or four years ago, when, probably in consequence of the country being more opened, bilious complaints ceased to be so frequent, and it is now considered by the inhabitants as healthy as any town on the river. There is a Market House, where is a good market every Wednesday and Saturday. Great retail business is done here, and much produce shipped to New Orleans.”

In the year 1807, we get the first mention of a newspaper published in Louisville. We are not able however to give any account of its origin, ownership or history. It is known only from an enactment of Assembly requiring certain laws to be published in its columns. It was called the “Farmer’s Library.” Similar mention is also made during the next year of a paper called “The Louisville Gazette.” Whether it succeeded the “Farmer’s Library,” as the acts of Assembly would seem to show, or was cotemporary with it is not known; a bare mention of its name is all that is left to posterity. In America, the presence of the newspaper is ever the mark of peace, and quiet, and comfort. What to those of other nations is the luxury of affluent ease is to the American the earliest of necessities. The moment the rifle is laid aside, the newspaper is taken up. It is incident upon his every conquest, whether of man or of nature. The click of his rifle is succeeded by that of his types, and the roar of his cannon has hardly ceased till we hear the roll of his press.

Ten years having now elapsed since a statistical table of the town has been examined it may not be uninteresting to furnish another list of the taxable property within its limits. It will be recollected that the entire list of 1797 amounted to £31 15s 6d. Let us now turn to the list for the present year as shown by the assessor’s books, and mark the rapid increase of these ten years.

Without pausing to remark further on this comparative statement, we pass on to the next event worthy of a place in this brief chronicle. This was the erection of a Theater in Louisville, which occurred early in 1808. We have no means of ascertaining who were the original projectors of this enterprise, but we have the authority of Dr. McMurtrie for stating that until 1818, it was “but little better than a barn.” At that time, however, it fell into the hands of the celebrated Mr. Drake, under whose auspices was established the golden era of the Drama in the West. Not only did this gentleman please the taste and gratify the judgment of his audience, but he absolutely created a high standard of taste and judgment among them, the effects of which are still perceptible here. It is chiefly to the education received under his management that the critical talent of our Theatrical audiences of to-day, so well known and so generally acknowledged by the profession, is owing. Many whose names are now prominent in histrionic art took the initiatory steps in their career under Mr. Drake’s regime here. This Theater stood upon the North side of Jefferson street, between Third and Fourth, and was destroyed by fire in 1843. For a long time previous to its destruction, however, it had ceased to be the resort of any but the most profligate members of society. Even before the destruction of the City Theater, Mr. Coleman undertook the erection of a new dramatic temple at the South-east corner of Green and Fourth streets, but from some cause did not proceed further than the erection of the outer walls. This unfinished building was afterwards purchased by Mr. Bates of Cincinnati, and was by him opened for the first time early in the year 1846, since when it has been regularly opened during a part of every year, and performances creditable alike to the judgement of its manager, and the taste of its audiences have been regularly given.