Part 23

The tide of emigration from England swelled enormously in the decades succeeding 1820-40, and swindlers reaped so rich a harvest by selling imaginary land bargains in imaginary towns of the Ohio Valley that an investigation became necessary. A leading purpose with Charles Dickens in coming to America on his first tour in 1842 was to examine into and expose these frauds, which he did with fearless sarcasm and irresistible irony. The whole plot of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ hinges on real-estate speculations at Cairo, Ill., at the mouth of the Ohio, the original of the city of “Eden,” which Scadder, the real-estate agent, so eulogistically described to Martin that the credulous young Englishman forthwith invested all his funds in the hope of reaping an ample fortune by the day he set foot in the place. Pittsburg, Cincinnati and Louisville are realistically, and in some respects ridiculously, portrayed in chapters xxi.-xxiii., and if the reader will compare these with Dickens’s _American Notes_, the actual scenes and experiences that suggested the story may be found.

As an offset to the severity of this inimitable satire, the reader should peruse the article “English Writers on America” in Washington Irving’s _Sketch Book_, which was called forth by exaggerated stories propagated by the pens of early British travellers in this country after their return home. Dickens came to Louisville in 1842, and when he had gone up to his room at the Galt House, Major Throckmorton, the proprietor, who was as high-spirited as he was polite, appeared at the novelist’s door and said, “Sir, I am proud to extend you the hospitality of the house; and shall be delighted to serve you to the best of my ability.” “Boz,” in spite of his alertness, was not aware of the vast difference there is between the social standing of an American hotel proprietor and that of an English innkeeper. Glancing at the Major he replied, “All right, sir; all right; if I want anything I’ll ring for you.” Throckmorton’s eyes flashed with anger as he exclaimed, “What do you mean by such impudence to me? You don’t know whom you are talking to; I’ll throw you out of the window.” The Major was a powerful man and would doubtless have made good his threat had not Dickens speedily apologized for his mistake.

Among the Englishmen induced to emigrate to Kentucky by Mr. Fearon’s book in 1818, was George Keats, brother of the poet, John Keats. The circumstances of his coming and his career after arriving form one of the interesting chapters in the early history of the State.

[Illustration: ON THE TOBACCO BREAKS.]

George returned to England in the autumn of 1819, leaving his wife in Louisville. Securing the remainder of the family estate which fell to him, he invested in the lumber trade at the Falls city and made a fortune. His mills were located on First Street, between Washington Street and the river, and in 1835 he built an elegant residence on what is now Walnut Street, between Third and Fourth. The square on which this mansion still stands was then the aristocratic section of the city, and while the house was in course of construction people would stroll along and speak admiringly of it as “The Englishman’s Palace.” With the exception of the roof, which was altered, and the present portico, which was added by a subsequent purchaser, the residence is in no wise changed since George Keats occupied it. Lavish was the hospitality dispensed by the poet’s brother, and he will always rank among the noblest citizens Louisville has ever had. Though the happiness of helping John was not, as he had hoped, permitted him, his house became the center of a circle of warm admirers of the author of _Endymion_, and for a long time the culture of the city and State found in him a leader both liberal and inspiring. James Freeman Clarke was for seven or eight years pastor of the Unitarian Church in Louisville, and George Keats was a member of his congregation. The two became intimate friends, and Mr. Clarke afterward wrote entertainingly of him. He served in the city council and aided in the establishment of the Louisville school system.

The correspondence between George and John includes some of the poet’s finest letters. These descended to one of George’s daughters. About the year 1873 her son, John Gilmer Speed, the well-known writer, now of New York, chanced to be looking over these priceless papers and noticed that they had not been published in Lord Houghton’s life of Keats. He accordingly collected them, and from one of the volumes we select a few brief sentences pertinent to the purpose of the present sketch.

One letter from John tells George to take financial reverses as coolly as possible, considering he had done his best. Another, declining an invitation to come to Kentucky, says, “You will perceive that it is quite out of my interest to come to America. What could I do there? How could I employ myself, out of the reach of libraries?” And thus he counsels George: “Be careful of those Americans. I could almost advise you to come, whenever you have the sum of five hundred pounds, to England. Those Americans will, I am afraid, still fleece you.” In a letter to George’s wife in January, 1820, he speaks of his wish to cross the sea with his brother: “I could almost promise you that if I had the means I would accompany George back to America, and pay you a visit of a few months.” Had he made the trip and beheld with his own eyes the loveliness of the Ohio Valley, and met the kindly people of Kentucky, he would not have been so inclined to disparage Louisville society: “I was surprised to hear of the state of society at Louisville: it seems you are just as ridiculous there as we are here--threepenny parties, halfpenny dances. The best thing I have heard of is your shooting, for it seems you follow the gun.”

[Illustration: THE KEATS HOUSE (THE ELKS BUILDING).]

A terrible tragedy occurred at the Keats mansion, back in the forties, about which there is a pathetic tradition. Isabella, the beautiful young daughter of George Keats, according to tradition, killed herself in a fit of despondency at the unhappy termination of a love-affair. A circumstance said to have taken place in 1890 seemed to substantiate the tradition. An elderly, refined-looking and quiet stranger appeared repeatedly at the Keats house and requested to be left alone in the library, where the girl was shot. At first he offered no explanation of his unusual request, but when finally leaving he said to the lady who had admitted him, “I parted from her in there, and have returned from California to visit the scene once more.” The rumor was soon circulated that the mysterious stranger was the lover whose unfaithfulness had robbed the unhappy girl of the desire to live.

The descendants of George Keats still living in Louisville deny the pathetic story throughout. They affirm that the girl was heartwhole and free from any morbid tendencies. Their version of the tragedy is substantially as follows: Isabella’s brother Clarence had been out hunting in the vicinity of the city, and, returning home, carelessly left his gun on a sofa in the darkened library. Isabella shortly afterward went into the room to lie down, and, not seeing the loaded weapon, struck the trigger in such a way with her foot that the contents were discharged, mortally wounding her.

[Illustration: THE COURT-HOUSE.]

Edward Eggleston’s inimitable Hoosier Tales portray the next period in the history of the Ohio Valley (1840-60), immortalizing those pedagogues of the Ichabod Crane type who came swarming from New England when the tide of emigration first set westward. Mr. Eggleston spent his childhood on the river between Cincinnati and Louisville, and his pictures of primitive social life in Kentucky and southern Indiana are in the style of Irving’s sketch already mentioned. Zachary Taylor went to school, not far from the Falls fort, to one of these Yankee teachers, a native of Connecticut by the name of Ayers, who was a sagacious fellow, able to watch the Indians and urchins simultaneously. The South and West owe these wandering educators a debt of gratitude that can hardly be overestimated.

It was from the Falls city that Aaron Burr planned to make his treasonable descent upon the South in November, 1805, and there is still current in the State much interesting tradition concerning him. The court-house in Louisville contains the noble statue of Henry Clay by Joel T. Hart. At the Polytechnic Society on Fourth Avenue are Hart’s other pieces of statuary; and on Third Avenue, at the residence of Mrs. Elizabeth Menefee, are many of those superb portraits painted by Matthew H. Jouett, Gilbert Stuart’s favorite pupil, and a master American artist. His genius and that of Hart developed beyond the confines of classic civilization, and though subsequently aided and directed by the best instruction of conventional schools retained an individuality and conformity to nature all their own.

Just across the court-house square, and within a stone’s throw of the imposing figure of the sage of Ashland is the site of the old Pope residence where Worden Pope and his sons entertained James Monroe and Andrew Jackson during their tour through the South in 1819. The Popes held a high position of political influence in the State, and at a conference called on this occasion the name of Andrew Jackson was first proposed to the Southern people as Monroe’s successor.

The home of Zachary Taylor, five miles from the city, is well worth visiting. Near it is the house in which Jefferson Davis was married to his first wife, the daughter of General Taylor.

On August 6, 1855, occurred the terrible political riot precipitated by the Know-nothings. A mob with a cannon at their head went murdering and burning through the streets of Louisville. The day is known in history as “Bloody Monday.”

Louisville was decidedly Union in its sympathies during the Civil War, though many of its inhabitants inclined to support the Southern cause. George D. Prentice, though just and kindly to the South, was always loyal to the national government, and his paper, the _Journal_, was notably influential on that side. The Falls city as a recruiting station at the beginning of the struggle between the States was fully as important in the West as was Washington in the East. It was the basis of numerous military movements that turned the tide of fortune against the Confederates, and in this city some of the most eminent Federal commanders were at different times located.

[Illustration: A SCENE AT THE WHARF.]

At the home of Col. Reuben T. Durrett on East Chestnut Street are relics innumerable, and the scholarly host, who knows every fact of the city’s history, is ever ready to show them to the visitor. Louisville is not only a lively commercial center, but is also the home of culture and art. The brain and beauty of which she boasts can be found throughout the Blue Grass region, and the hospitality she dispenses is characteristic of the whole commonwealth. Mary Anderson de Navarro first won fame in this city, her girlhood home, and has never ceased to love it. Henry Watterson and his able young lieutenant, Harrison Robertson, still keep the _Courier-Journal_ to the front; and James Lane Allen, though not a native nor a resident of the Falls city, portrays the traits of her people upon his inimitable pages when he writes of all Kentuckians. Madison Cawein, the Keats of America, is here; and Charles J. O’Malley, who voices the sentiment of every Kentuckian when he sings:

“My own Kentucky, sweet is fame, And other suns sink down in flame; And other skies bend over blue; And other lands have hearts as true; And other mornings break as clear; And God keeps love-watch everywhere-- But O, my mother, on thy breast Alone my head may find full rest,-- My heart to thy heart as of yore,-- Asleep within thy arms once more, O my Kentucky!”

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

LITTLE ROCK

“THE CITY OF ROSES”

BY GEORGE B. ROSE

There are spots marked out by nature for the sites of cities, where they must spring up as soon as civilization is established and remain as long as it endures. Such a spot is Little Rock.

The southeastern half of Arkansas is low and flat, composed chiefly of alluvial plains; the northwestern half rugged and broken, rising toward the western border into the mountains, some three thousand feet in elevation, which gradually drop away toward the east till they disappear altogether. At the point, almost the exact center of the State, where the last foothills form the south bank of the principal river, it was inevitable that a city should be built and that that city should become the State’s capital. Indeed, so manifest was the destiny of the position that it was made the seat of government before it had become a town, and when it was far beyond the limits of actual settlement.

Nor would it be easy to find a more desirable spot not beside the sea. The foundation is a rock bluff of slight elevation, but sufficient to lift the city above the danger of overflow. On this there rests a bed of gravelly clay, covered with a thin vegetable mould, and rising to the south and west in a succession of gently swelling eminences, presenting innumerable building sites of the most attractive character, and draining in every direction; equally free from steep acclivities and unwholesome flatness, and clothed by nature with a magnificent forest of wide-spreading oaks and lofty pines. Far out into the river there projects a rocky peninsula, against whose adamantine sides the stream has dashed its ineffectual fury for countless ages; and this, in contrast to the bold precipice upon the other bank, which was called the Big Rock, gave to the place its name.

This promontory is now used as the abutment of one of the three bridges that span the river, and its beauty has been destroyed; but in the old days, when it was clothed with trees and ferns clinging to its rocky sides and reflected in the waters below, it was a charming sight, and must have been hailed with joy by the early travelers after their weary journey from the distant sea through the monotony of the low-lying wilderness.

[Illustration: THE “LITTLE ROCK,” TO WHICH THE CITY OWES ITS NAME.]

The original inhabitants of the region were the Quapaw or Arkansas Indians, a race much superior to the surrounding savages, and who dwelt not in scattered wigwams but in walled villages, and seem always to have lived in amity with the whites. Father Pierre François de Charlevoix, an early French missionary, says of them, “The Arkansas are reckoned to be the tallest and best-shaped of all the savages on this continent,” and he speaks at length of their kindness to the French, and their fidelity to their engagements. So Du Pratz, an early _voyageur_, says: “I am so prepossessed in favor of this country that I persuade myself that the beauty of the climate has a great influence on the character of the inhabitants, who are at the same time very gentle and very brave.”

[Illustration: LITTLE ROCK LEVEE.]

In the days when Little Rock was a part of the favorite hunting-ground of the Quapaws it must have been a lovely spot. Then the tall trees grew untouched upon its rolling hills, and its numerous little streams, now converted into sewers, flowed murmuring beneath overhanging ferns to mingle with the river.

When it was first visited by white men no one knows. During 1541 and 1542 De Soto marched back and forth through the region, seeking for gold with a Spaniard’s hunger; but the accounts of his wanderings are uncertain and confused, and the blood of the unhappy natives which once marked out his pathway has long since mingled with the dust.

Then for almost two hundred years the solitude of the wilderness remained unbroken. At rare intervals the French _voyageurs_ went up and down the Mississippi, establishing forts and trading-posts; but the great river so engrossed their attention that they left its tributaries unexplored. At length, in 1722, a French officer, Bernard de la Harpe, ascended the Arkansas, and on April 9th reached the picturesque heights of Big Rock, where the army post is now located. Standing upon the brink of its lofty precipice he watched the river winding far away in the distance between the mountains of the West, and dreamed of the mighty empire that France should build up where lay the untrodden beauty of the woods. The whole site of Little Rock was spread out beneath him, clothed in verdure, and he mentions the slate bluffs which it presents to the stream.

Then again the curtain is drawn over the scene. Doubtless from time to time French _voyageurs_ ascended the river to barter with the Indians for their furs, but they left no mark. In 1803, the country passed to the United States as a part of the Louisiana purchase, and the hardy Anglo-Saxon pioneer began to penetrate the wilderness, his Bible in one hand and in the other his long, death-dealing rifle. As early as 1814 three or four squatters were dwelling at Little Rock or in its vicinity, subsisting chiefly by the chase; and even then the importance of the site was so conspicuous that strong men dwelling in St. Louis and other places began to struggle for possession of the title with a pertinacity rarely equalled.

At this period it escaped a great danger. An effort was made to christen it Arkopolis, and deeds were executed with that designation; but better counsels prevailed, and it retained its old name, “The Little Rock,” the article then being an inseparable portion of the title.

[Illustration: NEW STATE HOUSE.]

It was still a mere spot in the forest marked by a few log huts when, on October 24, 1820, it was made the capital of the territory. On the 4th of July of that year the Rev. Cephas Washburn had preached the first sermon ever heard there, and in the rude cabin there were gathered to listen to him only fourteen men,--no women,--probably all the inhabitants of the place. Yet no one doubted that they were standing upon the site of a future city, or questioned the wisdom of the Legislature when it established the capital in the remote wilderness, far from the Mississippi in whose neighborhood the scanty population of the territory was chiefly gathered.

The town grew slowly. It was far from the centers of population, and the means of travel were slight and precarious. It was made a post office town on April 10, 1820, but the inhabitants in 1830 numbered only four hundred and fifty, and it was not incorporated until Nov. 7, 1831.

[Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE.]

In 1860, the population was only about five thousand. Between 1833 and 1846 the State House was built, a handsome edifice for the time and place; but generally the buildings were constructed of wood, not infrequently of logs, and were wholly unpretentious. Yet it is probable that there has never been in the city so much ability, certainly never so many striking personalities, as in those early days. It was a time when the nation was in its lusty youth, when the spirit of adventure and the love of independence were strong in the breasts of men. It was an age of great orators, when men felt strongly and expressed themselves in words that burned. It was an age when the romantic movement in literature was at its best, and when the sad smallness of the realistic school had not cast its blight on every lofty enthusiasm. It was a time of buoyancy, of expansion,--when the love of change and adventure, the weariness of the conventionalities of civilized life, the attractions of a future of unknown possibilities, were drawing many of the ablest and most ambitious of the nation’s youth to the distant West. Their hopes were often chimerical; but of their abilities and their energy there can be no doubt. They sought the West, conscious of their strength, burning with ambition, each dreaming that he would be the master-spirit of the new empire that was springing from the wilderness. When they found that instead of being unquestioned leaders among ignorant frontiersmen they were pitted against foemen worthy of their steel, and equally determined to rule the destinies of the infant commonwealth, the rivalries were fierce, the animosities bitter, the struggle intense. Politics ran high, and conflicting ambitions led to a degree of personal virulence in writing and in speech surpassing anything that we have to-day. When these young men first met, fire flashed as when flint and steel are struck together, and in the territorial days their quarrels were too often solved by the duel. After the admission of the State in 1836 affairs became more tranquil. The strong men gradually learned to dwell together in peace; but their rivalries, though less bloody, were not less strenuous.

[Illustration: THE HOUSE WHERE THE ARKANSAS LEGISLATURE WAS HELD IN 1835.]

[Illustration: ALBERT PIKE.]

All parts of the country contributed their quota. From Massachusetts there came perhaps the two ablest men, Chester Ashley and Albert Pike, men who would have been remarkable in any age or place. Connecticut sent Samuel H. Hempstead; Virginia, Henry W. Conway and Solon Borland; Kentucky, the State’s most accomplished orators, Robert Crittenden and Frederick W. Trapnall, besides William and Ebenezer Cummins and George C. Watkins; North Carolina, Archibald Yell; Tennessee, Absalom Fowler and Ambrose H. Sevier; and there were many others from various sections worthy to enter the same arena.

[Illustration: ROBERT CRITTENDEN.]

And not at home alone were the great abilities of these men acknowledged. Arkansas’ first two senators were Ashley and Sevier, and the former was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, while the latter was the chairman of its Committee on Foreign Relations, the only time when the chairmanship of both those great committees has been lodged in the hands of a single State,--and that a State whose population consisted of a few frontiersmen almost lost in the primeval forest.

[Illustration: THE OLD FOWLER MANSION.

NOW THE RESIDENCE OF JOHN M. GRACIE.]

And when the Mexican War was over and the time came to reap the fruits of victory, it was Mr. Sevier who, together with Mr. Justice Clifford, negotiated the treaty of peace.

[Illustration: THE CRITTENDEN RESIDENCE.

THE FIRST BRICK HOUSE BUILT IN LITTLE ROCK. NOW THE HOME OF GOVERNOR JAMES P. EAGLE.]

The leaders of the infant commonwealth were all lawyers. In the early days of the Republic the position of lawyers was much more commanding than it is at present. Their social influence has waned before the aristocracy of wealth; and their political power has largely passed to the “boss” and the machine, whose authority rests on a more material basis than eloquence and reason. And never was there a city so dominated by its bar as Little Rock in the olden times. Everything circled around the great lawyers. Even the wealth of the community was mostly in their hands. The houses of the citizens were generally of wood, and usually stood upon the street; but scattered about there arose the stately mansions of the leaders of the bar,--of Ashley, Pike, Trapnall, Fowler, Crittenden, Hempstead and others, encircled by extensive grounds and shaded by patriarchal trees, dominating the surrounding dwellings almost like feudal châteaux. In these mansions were concentrated the social and intellectual life of the community, and its history was the story of their daily struggles for pre-eminence.

[Illustration: THE OLD PIKE MANSION.

NOW THE RESIDENCE OF COLONEL JOHN G. FLETCHER.]