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.

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.