Christmas Festivities Reported, 1875

Holiday happenings in Garrettsburg, Pleasant Grove, Bennettstown, and Montgomery

On January 15, 1875, the Kentucky New Era of Hopkinsville, KY, published a "Garrettsburg Letter" on its front page. The letter was written by a correspondent from Garrettsburg who signed himself simply as "P." It was dated 136 years ago, today -- January 9, 1875. The following is an excerpt:

The Christmas Holidays in our city passed off tolerably pleasant and without any serious accidents which is to be wondered at considering the amount of spirits floating around loose and the number of pugnacious young gentlemen upon their muscle.

The quality and not the quantity of our whisky is to blame, for you take a drink of it upon the first dawning of Christmas day, and the effects thereof depart not, until the close of the day upon which the dying year tells its last tale. This must be so, for I saw a young man on Thursday evening who told me he had not tasted a drop of the "Creetar" since Friday morning, and lo! he was then three sheets in the wind. One more drink of the same sort, taken straight, will carry him to harvest time.

But Christmas is gone and "Our Boys" have quit their frolicsome ways, washed the dirt from their faces, bathed their swollen eyes, and with healing plaster sticking all over their battered noses, have gone to work in earnest swearing they "will never get drunk any more." Until next Christmas.

Source: January 15, 1875, Kentucky New Era, page 1.

Garrettsburg was a hamlet in southern Christian County, about halfway between present-day Oak Grove and Lafayette.

I wonder if the whiskey at Garrettsburg was bought by the bottle or made by the jug. In plainer words, was it legal whiskey or was it locally-produced moonshine? The Federal government imposed a national excise tax on whiskey in 1862, but small-scale Kentucky distillers widely ignored it.



The Kentucky New Era's front page also includes a "Pleasant Grove Letter" from correspondent "Hiram". He described a wild Christmas celebration in that community.

Christmas came along about the 25th of December, bringing with it the usual supply of fire crackers, egg-nog &c, and went -- well, we were not in a condition much of the time to tell exactly how it did go. We know this much, that the night air was made hideous by the neighing of studs, peals of laughter, and the endless pop, pop of guns. All Pondriverans know how to shoot a gun accurately. In fact, the man who lives 'mid these hills and does not own a yellow dog and a gun is hardly respectable.

Source: January 15, 1875, Kentucky New Era, page 1.

Based on Hiram's comment about "Pondriverans", I looked for Pleasant Grove along the various forks of the Pond River of northern Christian and adjacent counties, but I wasn't able to locate it. I did find a Pleasant Grove Road in Christian County southwest of Crofton, but it's a significant distance from there to any fork of the Pond River. I may be seeking a clue where none exists -- perhaps when Hiram wrote about the "endless pop, pop of guns", it reminded him that Pond River folk were good shots, so he wrote that too.



Bennettstown was a small village, just a few miles northeast of present-day Lafayette in Christian County, KY. If holiday festivities in that community were rowdy, it was not reported by correspondent "Tacitus" who wrote the "Bennettstown Letter".

Christmas has come and gone with about its usual festivities. We had a great many parties, which were attended by the many beaux and belles of our city and vicinity, and if you have any doubts Mr. Editor, of the asserition in my last letter, "that we could beat the world for pretty girls," just by way of variety drop in some time when you are in our section at Capt. Cooper's or Squire McKenzie's or any where else around (we mean upon business) and see if we are not correct.

Source: January 15, 1875, Kentucky New Era, page 2.

Montgomery was located in Trigg County, just west of the present-day intersection of Highway 68/80 and Interstate 24. Correspondent "Jim Jay" described an orderly Christmas celebration in his "Montgomery Items".

We of this little town ushered in the Christmas holidays on Christmas eve by a nice Christmas tree... [unreadable]... with all kinds of fruit in the dry goods and notion line; on which occasion your humble correspondent was remembered by a liberal supply of gifts. In connection therewith we had a concert which is something new in this village. All were pleased, feeling that Montgomery can do what she undertakes and that well. We propose to get up a "Thespian society" and "Minstrel performance" to give monthly entertainments.

Source: January 15, 1875, Kentucky New Era, page 2.

A regularly-performing theater group sounds like a great way to keep the guys busy, out of trouble, and away from the whisky and guns!

Moonshine still at the McCreary County Museum
in Stearns, Kentucky.

I have taken the liberty of breaking a long single paragraph in the "Garrettsburg Letter" into three shorter paragraphs.

Photo credits: Moonshine still by Brian Stansberry (Own work). CC-BY-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
19th-century whisky bottle by National Park Service.

Little River of Christian County, KY

A story of branches and forks

If you're not at all interested in the path of Little River through Christian and Trigg Counties in Kentucky, you should skip this post and make better use of your time elsewhere. If you would like to know a little more about the origins and course of Little River, then please read on.

More About Boats on Little River

After doing some intensive research both on the internet and in my own collection of books, I have some things to add to what I wrote earlier this week about boats on Little River in Christian County, Kentucky.

First of all, I found out that the Little River clipping I quoted in my previous post had a few words left out of it. The 1811 act that declared Little River a navigable stream of Christian County, KY, actually said that it could not be obstructed from its mouth to "the mouth of sinking fork of said river." The Sinking Fork comes into Little River a few miles southeast of Cadiz (about 15 miles west of Hopkinsville).

Also, I came to realize that in 1811, Trigg County had not yet been created. It was still part of Christian County. So, what the legislature was calling Christian County in 1811 is not the same as what we call Christian County, today.

An 1815 act of the Kentucky legislature established Steel's Mill as the terminus of the portion of Little River that was reserved for navigation. I haven't been able to learn the location of Steel's Mill, but I think it might have been somewhere near the confluence of the Sinking Fork and Little River. Smaller boats could still have been used above that point; however, the river could be obstructed by foot bridges, mill dams, and the like. (I read about one family who drowned while crossing Little River in a flatboat. Their boat was carried over a mill dam.)

One fellow, a Mr. Samuel Alexander who moved into the Newstead or Julien area of Christian County (south of Gracey) in 1808, shipped farm goods regularly by flatboat, presumably taking the Little River to the Cumberland. William Henry Perrin's 1884 History of Christian County, Kentucky says that Alexander "made frequent trips to New Orleans with flat-boat loads of tobacco and other produce. On one occasion, he extended his trip as far as Santa Fe, New Mexico, taking out goods on pack-mules, which he bartered for mules and mustang ponies."

Cadiz (about 20 miles west of Hopkinsville on a rough and muddy stagecoach road that started as an Indian trail) was a river-shipping center until the railroad came to Hopkinsville. Perrin wrote in the 1884 History of Trigg County, Kentucky that: "[Little River] is the crookedest stream perhaps in the world, and flows to every point of the compass sometimes within the distance of a mile. At one time it was considered a navigable stream, and small boats came up as far as Cadiz. Efforts have been made to obtain an appropriation from the National Government for its improvement, but the fact of its location south of Mason and Dixon's line has so far defeated the laudable undertaking."

Perrin also wrote, "Mr. Robert Baker had a rudely constructed warehouse [in or near Cadiz] which he kept for storing tobacco, and himself and brother and Silas Alexander usually shipped the entire lot in flat-boats up to about 1837 to 1841, their principal market being New Orleans. About this time the tobacco business attracted the attention of gentlemen possessed of means, better credit and a more comprehensive business capacity. and the old shipping system was compelled to give way to the buyers and professional tobacconists."

According to Gail King's entry about flatboats in the Kentucky Encyclopedia, they were sometimes as small as 12 feet wide and 20 feet long. Other sources mention flatboats 10 feet in width in use on smaller streams. When Little River's waters were high, I believe the stream's width and depth would have been more than adequate for small flatboats, even above the Sinking Fork confluence.

An 1891 report on Christian County by the Kentucky Dept of Agriculture noted, "Excellent water-power for mills, or other manufacturing purposes, is afforded by Little river, West Fork, Pond river and other streams. None, however, are navigable for steamboats. If cleaned out, some of them might be available for rafts and flat-boats."

I don't know how many early settlers tried to sail flatboats or other watercraft down the narrower, shallower  stretches of Little River and other Christian County streams. However, those pioneers who settled near the rivers saw them as a means of transportation in a wilderness without roads. If they didn't go downriver themselves with their goods, they commissioned or sold to someone who was making a river trip. That's how interstate commerce operated in Kentucky at that time.

Many flatboats ended up in New Orleans, but it was also common to stop along the shore to sell to Southern plantations along the way. The residents of the Deep South were happy to buy Kentucky goods like sorghum, potatoes, corn, whiskey, flour, pork, and of course, tobacco. Even the flatboat was sold at the end of the journey; the lumber brought a good price in New Orleans. The return trip to Kentucky was often made overland, over the Natchez Trace, or sometimes the rivermen returned to Kentucky by steamboat. (Steamboats were running the Mississippi before 1820.)

The importance of the rivers to the early settlers of Christian County is demonstrated by the tax records of 1800. Each taxpayer's record includes the name of the stream on which he lives.

In this drawing, a large flatboat occupies the foreground. 

It's riding the river current, headed downstream. Its crew 

is steering it away from sandbars and other obstructions.

In the background, men are poling a keelboat upstream.

Respite from Rain

Wet spring weather

From the shelter of the carport, looking south across our lawn.

(Check out this nearly identical photo, from a rainy day in Nov. 2007.)

I can barely distinguish one rainy day of this month from another; the days of wetness have merged into one big puddle. However, I think today was our third day in a row without significant rainfall. It's been nice to see some sunshine.

The photo above was taken on a day that I do remember -- last Friday, when several severe thunderstorms passed through our area. We had a long day of many weather warnings, but we suffered no tornadoes or notable wind damage. Rainfall of over three inches was reported in some parts of the county for the day.

Dennis got home late on Friday afternoon from the elementary school where he works. We had a tornado watch at the time the students should have been going home. The buses weren't allowed to go to the schools until the weather cleared up a little.

Cadiz --pronounced "Kay-deez" -- is a small town about 20 miles west of Hopkinsville. One of the girls at work told me about the high water there, following a downpour late on Friday night. Her boyfriend has a law enforcement job in Cadiz. Around midnight, he sent her a text message: the rescue squad was trying to get some cattle out of the river, and they had their vehicles stuck in a muddy pasture. "Only in Cadiz," he noted wryly.

The farmers are hoping for a spell of dryer weather so they can plant crops and mow hay. Today, I saw someone unloading flats of tobacco plants from a truck. I guess he's going to "mud them in", as I have done with tomato plants in the garden some years.

Ah, yes, the garden. I haven't been in my garden at all yet. Well, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are looking a little rainy, so maybe Sunday afternoon.

Let me be clear. I'm reporting, not complaining about, the amount of rain we've had in the past few months. This part of Kentucky gets the majority of its annual rainfall in the winter and spring. We had a dry spring in 2007, and it was the precursor of a long summer of horrible, desperate drought. I'd much rather have a wet spring than a dry one.

A long low shaft of evening sunshine illuminates

the Bradford Square Mall in Hopkinsville, KY

after several days of rain last week.

Tobacco Growing Heritage

Tobacco cultivation learned at an early age

This Library of Congress photo is dated August 21, 1916. Here is the photo's caption:

5-year old Jack and 13-year old Bitsey are regular workers on their father's farm. Worming and suckering now. Bitsey goes to Wallonia School in Div. 1, Trigg Co. "He worms and he suckers. Quite a worker but he aint old enough to go to school yet." The mother said this about Jack. Father, B.F. Mitchell, Route 1, owns farm. Location: Trigg County--Gracey, Kentucky / Lewis W. Hine.

Gracey, Kentucky, is near the Christian County and Trigg County border. This photo is one of a group of related Trigg County photos. Photographer Lewis Hine was on an assignment to document child agricultural laborers for the National Child Labor.

I hope that when this little fellow was old enough to go to school, the teacher let him play at the sand table sometimes.