Lexington in 1826: What’s left? What will be?

I posted an item Thursday that reproduced a brief story from the July 6, 1826, edition of the Kentucky Whig about how Lexington celebrated the 50th anniversary of Independence Day. It mentioned two downtown establishments — Sanders’ Garden and Mr. Connetts — where Lexington residents partied that day.  I have no idea where they were or what they looked like.  After all, there’s not much left of Lexington from 182 years ago.

It’s worth noting, though, that 1826 was the year Morton’s Row was built.  It was the store of William “Lord” Morton, an early Lexington entrepreneur.  Since 1929, the building has been Joe Rosenberg’s jewelry store and pawn shop.  Any day now, it could be a pile of dust. Joe Rosenberg and Dudley Webb have permits to demolish the building to make way for CentrePointe, their $250 million luxury hotel, condo and retail development.

In an unsuccessful attempt to appease critics of the project, Webb proposed incorporating the pediment facade from the main Morton’s Row building into CentrePointe.  No word on whether that proposal still stands, now that a demolition permit has been issued.  Let’s hope the facade is preserved. Once our historical legacy is gone, it’s gone for good.

A demolition permit has been issued for Morton’s Row, built in 1826, to make way for the CentrePointe development. Since 1929, the buildilng has been owned by the Rosenberg family.  Photo/Tom Eblen

Do you have Kentucky’s first newspaper?

As a small crowd looked on, the ceremonial reopening of the Lexington Public Library’s Kentucky Room ended Wednesday with two white- gloved librarians carefully placing in a glass display case a copy of Kentucky’s second-oldest newspaper: the Kentucke Gazette of Aug. 18, 1787.

So where’s a copy of Kentucky’s first newspaper — the Kentucke Gazette of Aug. 11, 1787? That’s a good question.

“I just have to think somebody, somewhere has one in their attic or an old trunk,” said Library director Kathleen Imhoff. “And I hope if somebody ever finds one, they’ll let us know.”

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Lexington was one of the major cities in what was then the West. Several local newspapers sprang up soon after John Bradford began publishing his then-weekly Gazette.

The library has a substantial collection of old Lexington newspapers, including the most complete archives of the Gazette. Except for that first issue.

One story holds that somebody, many years ago, was looking at the library’s copy of the first Gazette, let it get too close to a coal stove and — poof! But that may just be a story, said Jan Marshall, the library’s assistant manager in charge of the reference department.

No other copies of that first issue of the Gazette, which measured about 8 x 10 inches and probably contained four pages, are known to exist.

The Kentucky Room reopened Wednesday after an extensive renovation made necessary by a water leak that  flooded the library on Feb. 21, 2007. Of course, the room containing the library’s most precious books and manuscripts was the most heavily damaged. But quick, tireless work by the library staff enabled everything to be salvaged — even waterlogged books that had to be sent off to Chicago to be freeze-dried.

All it needs now is a copy of Kentucky’s first newspaper.

Jefferson Davis’ life still holds lessons

He was born in a log cabin in Kentucky, grew up to be president and led his nation through a bitter Civil War.

No, not Abraham Lincoln.

The other guy: Jefferson Davis.

The 200th birthday of the only president of the Confederate States of America is Tuesday, and it will pass with little notice.

A few modest ceremonies and a historians’ symposium are planned this month, and there will be a festival next weekend at Davis’ hometown of Fairview in Todd County. That’s where a 351-foot concrete obelisk was built to his memory in the early 1900s by old men of the Lost Cause.

The commemorations are in stark contrast to the two-year national celebration that began in February to mark the bicentennial of Lincoln, who was born eight months later and 125 miles away, near Hodgenville in LaRue County.

Lincoln achieved mythic status after he died a martyr as the Civil War was ending. In the pantheon of American heroes, he’s right up there with George Washington.

Davis, on the other hand, is a man few now want to acknowledge, much less celebrate.

Before the Civil War, few would have predicted their fates.

Lincoln was homely and awkward. He educated himself while working as a frontier store clerk. His military career was modest. He married well by Lexington standards, but the Todds had little influence outside the Bluegrass.

After holding small political jobs, practicing law and serving in the Illinois legislature, Lincoln was elected to a single two-year term in Congress. He won the presidency in 1860 with not quite 40 percent of the vote in a four-way race that included John C. Breckinridge of Lexington. Lincoln was openly mocked, even by some in his own government. His emancipation of slaves was not a popular move.

Davis, on the other hand, was the handsome ideal of Southern manhood. He left Kentucky at an early age, as Lincoln did, but returned as the only Protestant pupil at a good Catholic school in Springfield. He studied at Transylvania, then one of the nation’s best colleges, before leaving Lexington to attend West Point.

He served twice in the military with distinction and married the daughter of his commander, the future President Zachary Taylor. She died of malaria three months after the wedding. He married well a second time, too, securing a comfortable place in Mississippi’s plantation aristocracy. He represented Mississippi in the U.S. House, served as secretary of war and was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Davis opposed secession, but when Mississippi left the union, he resigned his Senate seat and a month later was elected president of the Confederacy.

“In some ways, the elevation of Lincoln over Davis isn’t quite fair,” said Brian Dirck, a history professor at Anderson University in Indiana and author of Lincoln and Davis: Imagining America, 1809-1865.

“Jefferson Davis was a talented man; before 1860, most people would have said he was more talented than Abraham Lincoln,” he said. “There are many people who felt (Davis) would have made a good president of the United States before the war.”

Davis did a remarkable job of holding together a confederacy founded on the principle that states’ rights supersede those of a central government. Throughout the war, he was constantly sparring with state courts and legislatures.

“I doubt anyone else could have done a better job, given the circumstances,” Dirck said.

“But here’s the thing: He lost. And by that I mean not only did he lose the war, he lost the battle for the Confederacy’s legacy, as well. After the war, he told anybody who would listen that the Confederacy was not about defending slavery, but rather the Constitution and states’ rights. He wrote a book to that effect - a really long, tedious book, I might add - and for a while people believed him.”

The Confederacy, of course, was all about slavery; the South’s wealth depended on it. Jefferson Davis led the fight for slavery and ended up as the poster boy for the most evil social institution in American history.

Davis’ view that slavery “was established by decree of Almighty God … it is sanctioned in the Bible” was conventional wisdom in the South of his day, where slavery had existed for 250 years. People used Scripture then to defend slavery the way others would use it later to deny equal rights to women and gay people.

The United States is great because it is a nation of values, and high on that list of values is equal rights. We really believe that stuff about all people being created equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, our entire history has involved struggles to make those words reality. In many ways, we’re still working on it.

I’ve always been fascinated by historic figures such as Jefferson Davis, the man who stood for all of the popular things and is now pitied for it.

And it makes me wonder: When people look back on us a generation or a century or two from now, who will be our Jefferson Davises? Whom will people revere, and whom will they pity?

A reliable ride for 84 years

Cy Hanks made a stop Friday afternoon at The Country Store at Spears in southeast Fayette County. He parked his 1924 Ford Model T truck across the road.

Hanks said the truck was bought new in Nicholasville by two sisters who lived along Brannon Road. They owned it until 1947, using it to haul eggs and produce to market. Hanks bought the truck about 15 years ago to play with.

It looks great and runs well, despite little restoration work. Hanks found an old moonshine still and some stone jugs for the truck bed because he thought it added a nice touch. The truck gets about 24 miles to the gallon.

Belle loses race, but hopes to save rival Delta Queen

Belle of Louisville pilot Mike Fitzgerald, a retired captain of the boat, lines it up for the race’s start. At left in the background is the Belle of Cincinnati. At right, the Delta Queen. Photos/Tom Eblen

LOUISVILLE - When Mike Fitzgerald climbed up to the Belle of Louisville’s pilothouse for his 32nd Great Steamboat Race, he wanted two things - to beat the Delta Queen, and to see her survive to race again.

Fitzgerald knew he had a better chance of getting his first wish than his second.

The Belle had a 22-19 advantage over the Delta Queen in the annual race along the Ohio River, a highlight of Louisville’s Kentucky Derby Festival since 1963.

But after 40 years of exemptions from a federal safety law that prohibits boats with wooden superstructures from carrying passengers overnight, the Delta Queen seemed to have run out of luck.

Congress last week refused to grant another exemption. If Congress doesn’t change its mind by November, when the current exemption expires, the 82-year-old Delta Queen’s days of cruising up and down the Mississippi and Ohio rivers could be over.

“I don’t think there’s anywhere else you can see two national landmarks race and put on a show like this,” said Fitzgerald. “This is a great tradition.”

As it passes the downtown Louisville bridges, the Delta Queen starts gaining on the Belle of Louisville.

With a picture-perfect afternoon and full loads of passengers, the 94-year-old Belle and the Delta Queen lined up Wednesday to race along with the newer Belle of Cincinnati, which isn’t a true steamboat.

Louisville’s wharf has had steamboats since 1811, and six lines once plied the Ohio River from the city. Replaced by newer technology a century ago, they hang on in nostalgia, carrying passengers on pleasure cruises.

The steam calliopes on the Belle of Louisville and Delta Queen were playing while passengers boarded, but were almost drowned out by traffic from the interstate highway beside the wharf. Tractor-trailers, which long ago replaced the trains that had replaced the steamboats, sped by. Some even honked in honor of the floating anachronisms.

The Belle was the last one at the starting line below one of Louisville’s downtown bridges, but the fireman and engineer soon had its high-pressure steam turbines at full power. It rushed ahead of the other two boats. The swoosh, swoosh of the smokestack beat a steady rhythm on the roof, drowning out the partying passengers on the decks below.

Fitzgerald knew the best advantage he had was early speed. The Belle isn’t as powerful as the Delta Queen, but it’s smaller and quicker.

“We want to get a good start,” Fitzgerald said. “We take advantage of whatever we can.”

The Delta Queen, left, and Belle of Cincinnati, speed past the Belle of Louisville in the first leg of the race.

Originally named the Idlewilde, the Belle was built in 1914 to ferry passengers and freight from Memphis. It was renamed the Avalon and ran excursions from Louisville in the mid-1900s. It was headed for the scrap heap in 1962 when Jefferson County bought and restored it.

Fitzgerald grew up not far from the river and began working as a deckhand on the Belle the summer after he graduated from high school. He never left. By his 22nd birthday, Fitzgerald had put in enough time behind the wheel to earn his master’s license. He became captain at age 25 in 1983, becoming the youngest captain on the river, and held the job for 18 years before retiring.

So what does he do in retirement? He works as the boat’s carpenter, and he pilots whenever he can.

As the boats sped past downtown Louisville, Fitzgerald, Captain Mark Doty and the boat’s three other officers in the pilothouse started looking worried. The Delta Queen was steadily gaining on them. Then passing them. Then way out ahead of them.

“She’s doing as well as she can do,” Fitzgerald said out the pilothouse window as the Belle bucked a strong headwind to cruise at perhaps 10 mph. “Unfortunately, that boat’s doing a lot better.”

The Delta Queen was far ahead at the halfway point of the 14-mile race, an island where the boats were to turn around. But when Fitzgerald and Doty looked ahead, they saw a barge taking up their half of the river.

Faced with a perceived safety threat, the Belle’s officers followed an old steamboat racing tradition: They cheated.

“Everything’s fair in steamboat racing,” said retired pilot Charlie Decker, who came along for the ride.

So the Belle turned around, followed by the Belle of Cincinnati. The Delta Queen, far up the river, saw what was happening and made its turn. Suddenly, the tables were turned. But was it legal?

“It’s all up to the judges,” Fitzgerald said with a smile.

“It wasn’t the kind of race I wanted to run,” said Doty, the captain, “but we chose to do the safe thing and turn early.”

The safe thing is at the heart of the Delta Queen’s dilemma. Fans are urging Congress to grant another safety exemption. They’ve set up a Web site - www.savethedeltaqueen.com. And Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, a big steamboat fan, urged everyone to write their congressional representatives on the Delta Queen’s behalf.

The fear of those who oppose an exemption, though, is a tragic fire in the middle of the night in the middle of a river.

When he paid a visit to the pilothouse near the end of the race, Abramson wasn’t too optimistic. “Everybody I talk to says no,” he said. “But I’m still hopeful.”

Abramson said Derby week wouldn’t be the same without the steamboat race. And without the Delta Queen, there isn’t another true steamboat left that’s a fair match for the Belle.

“In 1985, when I ran for mayor, they asked why I was running, and I said so I could get two tickets to the steamboat race,” Abramson said. “It’s a nice piece of tradition.”

With the wind at its back, the Belle of Louisville maintained its lead, steaming back to downtown Louisville perhaps half a mile ahead of the Delta Queen. But would the judges accept that?

“That’s something we’ll have to take a look at,” said Col. Ray Midkiff of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the judge aboard the Belle.

But when all of the judges conferred later, they decided to give the victor’s trophy - a huge set of gold-painted elk antlers - to the Delta Queen.

Everyone seemed satisfied with the verdict. They thought the Delta Queen deserved a break. They just hope Congress will give it a break, too.

Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, left, and visits the Belle’s roof and pilot house toward the end of the race. At right is pilot Mike Fitzgerald.

Above photo: After an early turn, the Belle steams home ahead, followed by the Belle of Cincinnati and the Delta Queen in back.

Historian’s memo as current as today’s headlines

I always think of Thomas D. Clark in the spring.

Perhaps it’s because, soon after I returned to Lexington in the spring of 1998, I asked Kentucky’s historian laureate to speak to the Herald-Leader staff. He stood and lectured for nearly an hour without notes, putting Kentucky’s array of issues, controversies and quirks into the context of history’s great sweep.

It was an impressive performance, especially for a man about to turn 95.

While cleaning out files recently, I found a 15-page autobiographical memo Clark sent so I could introduce him properly that day. Hammered out on his manual typewriter, it was filled with typos and seemed to be missing a page or two. Mostly it was his exposition of Kentucky problems that need to be fixed.

It was classic Clark. He didn’t study history to bask in the glow of a romanticized past. Rather, he saw history as the recipe for who we are and as a guide to the future that could help us learn from the mistakes of the past.

After Clark retired from a long and distinguished teaching career, he became even more active and outspoken. He drove himself around the state, speaking to legislative committees and garden clubs alike — anyone who was willing to listen. And he never pulled punches. Herald-Leader reporter Andy Mead wrote my favorite description of Clark, calling him “a sort of unofficial state grandfather - but not the kind who spoils you.”

Clark didn’t let up until his death on June 28, 2005 — 16 days short of his 102nd birthday.

Perhaps I also think of Clark this time of year because spring is a time of renewal, a time to sort through old things and get serious about the future.

This is an especially good day to read Clark’s observations, as the General Assembly heads home from Frankfort, having left so many of Kentucky’s needs unmet.

Here are some excerpts:

“I thoroughly abhor the political corruption which has so often stained the democratic process in Kentucky’s history. Every vote “bought”, every private driveway paved at public expense, every mean and selfish act of a public school board, failure of the courts and criminal act by a public official has soiled Kentucky’s image and diluted its integrity. One has only to examine the electoral statistics of past elections to see how much Kentuckians lack faith in their governing process.

“There has ever run through Kentucky history the not-so-subtle impact of provincialism. Often this has been a costly thing. Communities have been set against communities, there have been failures in the creation and operation of regional institutions …

“On the broader statewide scale, sectionalism has often generated a shortsightedness which has kept many Kentucky public institutions in a state of mediocrity, or has involved a wasteful use of limited financial and other resources. …

“It is highly frustrating to see Kentuckians fail to live up to the potentials of their land and place. They have at once a passion for the past and too often have revealed a shortsighted indifference to their potentials. Too often they have been slow if not actually resistant to changes, changes which are exerted largely by local native inertia, and, paradoxically, by outside forces which may too often have been of an exploitative nature.

“Never at any moment have Kentuckians been fully alerted to the fact its human population is as much a resource as are the land and its forests and mineral resources, all demanding effective processing. …

“It is painful to see the very bosom of the state desecrated with trash in myriad forms, to see sloven domestic premises, pollution of streams, erosion of the hills and ravenous log and lumber exploiters rob that forest twenty years ahead of profitable harvest time. …

“ … democracy in Kentucky is stained often by weak-kneed political opportunists who failed to discuss intelligently and openly the major issues of the moment, often preferring to make personal and scurrilous attacks on opponents rather than tackling devitalizing problems. Too often the Kentucky gubernatorial administrations and legislators have failed their constituents by not exerting forthright and honest political leadership.

“Every time the General Assembly adjourns without having resolved basic and nagging problems, it leaves behind a body politic suffering a chronic condition of public cynicism.”

To download a PDF copy of Clark’s whole memo — wisdom, typos and all — click here.

Thomas D. Clark at his typewriter, 1998. Above, in front of the governor’s mansion in Frankfort, 2002. Photos/Charles Bertram

King assassination remains mystery 40 years later

The assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years ago today is one of the nation’s enduring tragedies — and mysteries.

As a reporter for The Associated Press and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in the 1980s, I followed the aftermath of that mystery, which was then still unfolding.

The alleged assassin, James Earl Ray, lived in two different Tennessee prisons while I was there, and he was always making news.

I covered his 1981 stabbing at Brushy Mountain Penitentiary and the resulting trial, when authorities hauled him into a Knoxville courtroom under tight security to try to force him to testify. (Ray swore he didn’t see the inmates who stabbed him, but his brother told me otherwise.)

I wrote to Ray in January 1986 requesting an interview for a Journal-Constitution special section marking the first King national holiday. I got a terse response, typed on a small sheet of blue paper and signed. Ray said he had read the many stories I had written about him — and didn’t care much for them.

“I can’t conceive of anything more ludicrous than me denying a long list of accusations, including the MLK homicide, while the prosecutions touts the other side, and all of the records in the case have either been deep-sixed or classified,” he wrote me.

Ray escaped to England after the assassination, was captured two months later and confessed to the crime in 1969. But three days after his confession, he took it back. Ray claimed he was forced to plead guilty by government officials and his lawyer. From then on, he insisted he was a pawn in a complex conspiracy and was framed by a mysterious man he knew only as “Raoul.”

Ray spent years seeking a trial, but despite pleas from Jesse Jackson and other black leaders, he never got one. Many believe Ray, a petty criminal with a 10th-grade education, had neither the motive to kill King nor the intelligence to pull it off alone.

Ray died in prison April 23, 1998, so we may never know.