Box 1, Folder 5: Diaries 1827-1828

1971] The Journals of Increase Allen Lapham 31

¹⁸Benjamin Silliman [1779-1864] born in North Stratfor, Connecticut, graduated from Yale College in 1796. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1802, as well as being elected professor of chemistry and natural history at Yale, a chair he occupied with distinction until 1853. Dr. Silliman was in large measure responsible for the establishment of the medical school at Yale. He founded the American Journal of Science and Arts in 1818 and continued as editor of this prestigious scientific journal for 27 years.

¹⁹In December 1825, Collins, Chapman & Company were given the contract to construct the canal. Members of this firm were: Samuel B. Collins, Erastus Chapman, Sylvanus Lothrop, William E. Perrine, Oliver Culver, John Drake, Jr., Thomas Benedict and Henry Potter. This company experienced in New York canal building, was to complete its work by November 1827.

²⁰Oliver Phelps was a subcontractor on the Welland Canal prior to 1827 when he won a prize for designing an excavating machine which Lapham describes. Phelps then became the contractor for the "Deep Cut" section of the Welland Canal working with Alfred Barrett. His invention was reportedly the first use of the machinery on a canal and Lapham evidently introduced this device for excavating at the Falls immediately after its conception.

²¹Alexander Fraser Tytler [a747-1813] was born in Edinburgh where he was educated in law and later appointed professor of history. His course notes, first published in 1801 as Elements of General History, were re-issued numerously. Tytler was not only a prolific editor and writer in history, but also in law and the arts.

²²Extensive research has failed to clarify Rhine's position on the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal or his subsequent career.

²³Sir Alexander MacKenzie [1763-1820], Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans; in the years 1789-1793, With a Preliminary Account of the Rise, Progress & Present State of the Fur Trade of that Country . . ., T. Cadell, Jr. and W. Davies, London, 1801. An American edition was published in New York in 1802. MacKenzie began at Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabaska in northeast Alberta, Canada.

²⁴The bard of black cherry (Prunus serotina) and choke cherry (Prunus virginiana) was used in the treatment of fevers as a substitute for Peruvian bark, a crude source of quinine. It was sometimes used in the treatment of jaundice. James Ewell, M.D. in his The Medical Companion, or Family Physician . . ., Washington, 1827, p. 651, stated, "A strong infusion of it in sound cider, is said to be useful in jaundice."

²⁵Nicholas Berthoud, a merchant of Shippingport, was the first superintendent and agent for the original Canal contractors before becoming president of the board of directors of the Louisville and Portland Canal Company (1828). He resigned to become postmaster but continued to operate a warehouse and commission business until he sold out and removed to New York in 1831.

²⁶James Lee's [1715-1795], An Introduction to the Science of Botany, J & R. Townson, London, 1760, was republished until 1810. Some of Linnaeus' works were translated into English by Lee, a nurseryman, and included in his book.

²⁷Mann Butler [1784-1852], a native of Maryland, moved to Lexington, Kentucky in 1806 to practice law. He taught school in Versailles and Maysville before becoming assist= ant editor of the Western Courier (Louisville) and then purchasing the Louisville Correspondent (1815). Two years later, Butler was made principal of the Jefferson Seminary which, after 18 years of frustrating delays, finally opened at 8th and Walnut Streets. He then taught in Frankfort and was elected principal of the grammar school at Transylvania in 1822 but returned to Louisville by 1827 to again teach at the Jefferson Seminary. In 1829, the Louisville public school system requested Mr. Butler to direct its initial operation. Butler published "An Outline of the Origin and Settlement of Louisville in Kentucky," in the 1832 Louisville Directory. His History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, (Wilcox, Dickerman & Co., Louisville, 1834) extensively used George Rogers Clark's papers and was the first adequately researched history of the Commonwealth. Enlarging the scope of his endeavors, Butler moved to St. Louis and prepared a history of the Valley of the Ohio which he had almost completely serialized in The Western Journal and Civilian of St. Louis when he died in a train accident.

²⁸Edward Shippen, cashier of the U.S. Branch Bank was president; Nicholas Berthoud, Isaac Thom, James Hughes, John P. Foote and Coleman Rogers (chairman) were directors for 1827. In 1828, Berthoud became the president and Simeon S. Goodwin, who was also secretary, replaced Thom as a director.

²⁹Major Stephen H. Long [1784-1864] led a party from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains in 1819 and 1820. The scientific expedition arrived in Louisville on 19 May 1819 on the steamer Western Engineer. Dr. Edwin James [1797-1861] botanist and

32 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 45

geologist for the expedition prepared an Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and 20, by order of the Hon. J.C. Calhoun, Sec. of War; under the Command of Maj. S.H. Long, . . . Compiled from the notes of Major Long, Mr. T. Say, & other gentlemen of the party, H.C. Carey and I. Lea, Philadelphia, 2 vols., 1822-23. For James' description of the Falls area see Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland 1905, Vol. 14, pp. 71-76.

³⁰Stephen Hales, D.D., F.R.S. [1677-1761] an inventive genius born in Kent, England, educated at Cambridge, was vicar at Teddington most of his life. He made valuable contributions to the study of the circulation of the blood in animals and the transport of water and solutes in plants. His mechanical means of ventilating confined spaces was first published as A Description of Ventilators. . ., W. Innys, etc., London, 1743. A further study was published as A Treatise on Ventilators. . ., R. Mauby, London, 1758.

³¹Simeon Samson Goodwin [d. 1847] was secretary of the Louisville and Portland Canal Company. He was instrumental in the city of Louisville's incorporation, an active emeber of the Unitarian Church, an insurance underwriter, and port warden.

³²Daniel Drake, M.D. [1785-1852], Natural and Statistical View, or Picture of Cincinnati. . . Looker and Wallace, Cincinnati, 1815, p. [61]. Drake was born in New Jersey but came to Mays Lick, Kentucky with his family as a youngster of 2 1/2 years. Withe barest essentials of common schooling he was apprenticed in medicine to Dr. William Goforth [1766-1817] of Cincinnati and taught medicine there at Transylvania, the Louisville Medical Institute, and Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia.

³³Joseph L. Detiste operated an inn and boarding house in Shippingport and an amusement nearby known as "Elm Tree Garden."

³⁴Silliman to Lapham, 6 December 1827. Lapham MSS., State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Silliman acknowledged receipt of Lapham's information on the canal and the geology of the area.

³⁵"Geological Profile extending from Louisville to the Knobbs" and "Profile of the Louisville & Portland Canal" were published as illustrations for the "Notice of the Louisville and Shippingport Canal and of the Geology of the vicinity," in Benjamin Silliman's American Journal of Science and Arts, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1828), pp. 65-69.

³⁶Lapham to Silliman, 31 December 1827. Copy, Lapham MSS., State Historical Society of Wisconsin and Ohio Historical Society.

³⁷George Gregory, D.D. [1754-1808], A Dictionary of Arts & Sciences, Collins & Co., New York, 3 vols., 1821. Educated at Edinburgh, Gregory settled in London, later Essex. He wrote and edited profusely on religious and philosophical subjects.

³⁸David Thomas was an engineer on the Erie Canal, and later, on the Welland Canal.

³⁹Andrew Jackson [1765-1845], defeated a larger British force at New Orleans on 8 January 1815. Although fought two weeks after the peace treaty, this greatest land victory of the War of 1812 was a source of American pride.

⁴⁰The turnpike running from Louisville to Shippingport crossed the Canal near the present termination of 18th Street at the Canal.

⁴¹The Lapham MSS., State Historical Society of Wisconsin, contains what appears to be a journal section of 20 pages endorsed "List & description of shells in the collection of Increase A. Lapham, 1827, Shippingsport, Ky."

⁴²Thomas Nuttall [1786-1859], The Genera of North American Plants, and a Catalogue of the Species to 1817, D. Hearth, Philadelphia, 2 vols. 1818. A native of England, Nuttall was a printer before coming tot Philadelphia to study botany. After several scientific expeditions, he taught at Harvard but returned to England in 1841.

⁴³William Nicholson [1753-1815] was editor of A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts from 1797 until 1813. He was associated with the East India Company and Josiah Wedgewood's porcelain manufactory, prior to being a mathematics teacher as well as a civil engineer and prolific author in science and history (see fn. 7). He invented an aerometer (hydrometer) for comparing relative densities.

⁴⁴John P. Foote [1783-1865] was a bookseller, editor and publisher of the Literary Gazette, president of the Mechanics' Institute and the Cincinnati Water Company, and also active in many civic and cultural activities in Cincinnati. He was a director of the Louisville and Portland Canal Company in 1827 and 1828.

⁴⁵Charles Alexandre Lesueur [1778-1846] a native of LeHavre, France, was curator of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia from 1816 until he moved to New

1971] The Journals of Increase Allen Lapham 33

Harmony, Indiana in 1826. Although more famous as a painter, he made significant studies of the Great Lakes' fish.

⁴⁶James M. Bucklin was employed as an assistant engineer on the Louisville and Portland Canal for about one year.

⁴⁷Lapham described the contents in his letter to Silliman of 16 February 1828. Copy, Lapham MSS., State Historical Society of Wisconsin and Ohio Historical Society. The copy probably was misdated and should read 28 January 1828.

⁴⁸Dr. Joseph Priestly [1733-1804], a genius of rare but diverse talents, was the discoverer of oxygen and other gases. The candle is made when hydrogen, formed by the reaction of sulfuric acid and zinc, is combusted at the orifice of a glass tube protruding from the closed reaction vessel.

⁴⁹Amelia Lapham was born.

⁵⁰Phoebe Allen, a first cousin, lived in Lockport, New York.

⁵¹A copy of this inventory was filed as evidence in the Louisville and Portland Canal Company vs. William E. Perrine et al., Jefferson Circuit Court, Chancery division suit 2688 (1830).

⁵²Ralph Letton was the proprietor of the Cincinnati Museum, where he presented lectures on ancient and modern history and exhibited a natural history collection.

⁵³Store belonged to Thomas H. Taylor a merchant of Shippingport and later a ship chandler. He and Lapham were personal friends.

⁵⁴Probably Captain Thomas Joyes [1789-1866], soldier in the War of 1812, who was state representative from Jefferson County (1824-1828) later from Louisville (18351837) and mayor of Louisville (1834-1835).

⁵⁵Land, directly south of Portland, belonging to the United States Bank can be seen on E. D. Hobb's 1832 map of Louisville.

⁵⁶The legislature passed the incorporation of Louisville as a city, 13 February 1828.

⁵⁷A new contract was signed with Collins, Chapman & Co., on 4March 1828 to eliminate paying the principal contractors large sums in advance. A copy of this contract was filed as evidence in the Louisville and Portland Canal Company vs. William E. Perrine et al., Jefferson Circuit Court, Chancery division suit 2688 (1830).

⁵⁸Lapham worked as a rodman under Alfred Barrett on the Erie Canal in 1824. Barrett, who was also an architect, came to Louisville at the start of the Canal as superintendent, but left to become principal engineer on the Welland Canal.

⁵⁹Captain Basil Hall [1788-1844] was in the British Navy from 1802-1823. Thereafter, he continued to travel and publish literary and scientific articles which culminated in his Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828, Edinburgh, 3 vols., 1829. This was accompanied by 40 drawings made with the camera lucida. Basil Hall, Travels in North America. . ., reprint edition, Akaemische Druck, u. Verlagsaustalt, Graz, Austria, 1965.

⁶⁰John H. B. Latrobe passed through the Canal in December 1833 and wrote, "This is truly a magnificent work. The locks are of hewn sandstone of a very fine grain, and are four in number. The closeness of the masonry, its neatness, its perfection, cannot be surpassed. The canal extends two miles in length, and is crossed by the bridge, a costly one of stone of three arches, equaling in execution the locks below." John E. Semmes, John H. B. Latrobe and His Times, 1803-1891, The Norman, Remington Co., Baltimore 1917, p. 278. On p. 164 appears a reproduction of Latrobe's painting of the bridge. For an engraving of this bridge designed partially by Lapham, see E. D. Hobb's 1831 map of Louisville.

⁶¹The Louisville Public Advertiser, Vol. 10, No. 987, 22 March 1828, p. [3], col. [4].

⁶²Lapham's March 1828 meteorological table appeared in the Louisville Public Advertiser, Vol. 10, No. 991, 5 April 1828, p. [3], col.[3].

⁶³John Kennedy Graham [1783-1841], a native of Pennsylvania, came to Indiana as a surveyor and laid out New Albany where he continued to live. He was elected a state representative for Clark County in 1816 and 1824, for Floyd County in 1827 and state senator for both in 1825.

⁶⁴David Burr of Jackson County and Robert John of Franklin County were members of the board of Indiana canal commissioners. John resigned in April 1829. Burr, a native of Connecticut, was an Indian trader, inn keeper and postmaster before becoming active with the Wabash and Erie Canal. He later laid out Wabash, Indiana and was its first postmaster. The blank in Lapham's manuscript was probably left for Samuel Hanna [1797-1866] who was also elected a cana commissioner. He was born in Scott County, Kentucky but moved to Fort Wayne were he was active in fur trade, politics, banking and justice.

34 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 45

⁶⁵A mathematics teacher, surveyor and architect, Charles Hutton [1737-1823] published numerous books but Lapham probably was referring to either his Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary, London, or A Course of Mathematics for the Use of Academies as well as Private Tuition, Robert Adrain, ed., S. Campbell & Son, etc. New York, 1822.

⁶⁶Daniel Carrell (or Carroll) was a member of the subcontracting firm of Carney, Sayre & Co.

⁶⁷Seneca Lapham lost his job on the Canal when iron locks were substituted for the wooden ones he was building. Bids were advertised for in the Louisville Public Advertiser, Vol. 10, No. 993, 12 April 1828, p. [3], col. [4] for 4 guard lock gates, 30' x 42' and 8 lift lock gates, 30' x 19' to be constructed of boiler iron 1/4" thick. The total amount of iron required was estimated to be about 125 tons.

⁶⁸Generally called Sand Island, it is adjacent Portland.

THE FILSON CLUB HISTORY QUARTRERLY

VOL. 45 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, APRIL, 1971 NO. 2

CONTENTS

THE CHANGING EMPHASES IN THE WRITING OF SOUTHERN HISTORY . . Thomas D. Clark, Ph.D. 145

GENETICS AND GENEOLOGY . . . Stratton Hammon 158

ASPECTS OF AGRICULTURE IN THE ANTE-BELLUM BLUEGRASS . . . . . . . . R. L. Troutman 163

TROUBLE AT TOLEDO MORT . . .Anna M. Cartlidge 174

AUDUBON IN LOUISVILLE, 1807-1810 Rev. J. David Book 186

THE FALLS OF THE OHIO RIVER AND ITS ENVIRONS: THE JOURNALS OF INCREASE ALLEN LAPHAM FOR 1827-1830 (PART II) Edited by Samuel W. Thomas Ph.D. and Eugene H. Conner, M.D. 199

BOOK REVIEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

NEWS AND COMMENT . . . . . . . . . 235

FILSONIANS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

EDITOR'S PAGE -- WHO OWNS ZOLLICOFFER PARK? . . . Dr. Raymond E. Myers, Guest Editor 239

COMMITTEES FOR 1971 . . . . . . . . .244

Published Quarterly by THE FILSON CLUB Incorporated 118 West Breckinridge Street Louisville, Kentucky 40203 -------------------- Second-class postage paid at Louisville, Kentucky

Press Of The Standard Printing Company, Incorporated Louisville, Kentucky