From the Courier and Journal September 7, 1930
Changes in business since 1850 recalled in visit at Mt. Washington,
where years ago , the tan yard, grist mill, rifle factory and
blacksmith shops did a thriving business.
by George Swann.
"Step on a dog's tail in Louisville, and he barks in Philadelphia",
as the old negro's way of illustrating, in 1850 , the newly invented
telegraph.
Changes since 1850 would tax even the afforementioned colored
man's wit to describe. Prominent among those changes is that of
the business of small towns. Let me illustrate.
Eighteen miles out of Louisville, on the Bardstown Road stands
the old, picturesque town of Mount Washington. While spending
a day and a night of my vacation there, I decided to find out
what business was carried on in early days, and what sort of business
shift has taken place in eighty years.
Hunting up one of the town's oldest citizens, Mr. J. Smith Harris,
I plied him with questions. All except one of his eighty years
have been spent in Mt. Washington. He is a vigorous chap, and
so full of fun that he kept interspersing our conversation with
witticisms like the one heading this article.
Foremost among the industries of this town fourscore years ago was a tan yard run by one Godfrey Wolfe. He supplied the town and surrounding community with leather for shoes and harness, he probably grew tired of life, after building up a good business, and according to report, went to an attic and cut his throat.
At this time and for many years the Mt. Washington Academy was
in full flourish. It was the pride of the town and gave the name
"Athensof this section" to Mt. Washington. I was shown
an advertisement of the Academy in 1848. Board, room, light and
fire were advertised in the best homes at $1 to $1.50 a week,
and tuition was $10 for the year. Promise was made to improve
the pupils in "morals, habits and manners".
Prof. Lucian Brown, at the same time, ran a school for girls.
His school burned before the War Between the States.
Each day, each way, the stagecoach from Louisville to Nashville
stopped. Our bus system now running through the town is not altogether
unlike a stagecoach.
Squire Fiddler's rifle factory was prominent among the town's
industries. He obtained the crude, unfinished barrels elsewhere,
but here they were bored and made into serviceable weapons so
much in demand then.
L. N. Parrish and Payton Burdette each ran a coffin shop. When
a citizen died, some friend of the family took a corpse's length
and bredth with a string, or pole or cornstalk, gave it to one
of the afforementioned men, and the coffin was made. The dead
were hauled to the graveyard, usually in the wagon of some friend.
There were no undertakers.
There was no drug store. Five doctors watched the community's
health. Each rolled his own pills. According to the good humored
Mr. Harris, my informer, one of these physicians was called upon
one day for some pills. The patient sttod by while the pills were
being made. Water being scarce, the doctor spat into the mixture
to give it proper consistency. Wide-eyed, the patient asked, "Doctor,
is that for me?' Being assured that they were being concocted
for him, he objected to the liquid solution. "If you don't
take them, you can die and go to Hades," replied the independent
son of Esculapius.
Mr. Charles Hall and Mr. Wright each ran a hotel or tavern, with
a saloon in each. Billy Fox ran a boot and shoe shop and his one
legged Negro helper was fiddler for the community dances.
Addison Parrish, Isaac Parrish and Sam Davison each ran flourishing
tailor shops, while John Myers and Charles webb each ran a saddle
and harness shop; a business very useful to those times. John
Myers recently died in the Masonic Home.
Probably the most interesting place was the Old Buck Mill. In
addition togrinding flour and meal, the mill had a wool carding
machine and a wood-turning lathe. Here they made the old poster
beds. No doubt many of the antique beds being sold now were made
here. I was shown a chest of drawers made at this old plant.
Linton Snapp, Billy Smith, Joe Huff, Bill Hall, and George Abell
each ran a grocery and dry goods store. One Mr. Stuckey ran a
hat manufacturing establishment.
Two blacksmith shops did a land office business. A man who wanted
a wagon, for instance, would place his order one year to get the
wagon the next year; paying about $80 for the same. Plows and
all farm tools and even a few buggies were made.
"Not a piano factory ,too!", I gasped. "Even so,"
chimed Messrs. McGee and Harris, bankers of the town, with whom
I talked after leaving the elder Mr. Harris. "Freeman Ramsey
ran a piano factory at which he made the old, square topped instruments.
Some of these are scattered through the community now. "
The original name of Mt. Washington was "The Crossroads"
. It later became "Mt. Vernon". When a Post office was
applied for, it was found that another Mt. Vernon was in the state,
so it is easy to surmise why the postal authorities finally called
it Mt. Washington. It was Mt. Washington in 1848 when the old
Academy advertised.
Today there is hardly a vestige of manufacuring in the place.
Probably the nearest to such is a combination grist and saw mill.
I ate pie, ice cream, bread, etc. that were made in Louisville.
Before railroads and other forms of transportation made it practical
to ship machinery, etc., a community had to be its own producer
of such things, and it will, no doubt, be news to some of the
younger generation that piano factories, furniture, rifle factories,
hat factories, etc. ever existed in these quaint towns along our
highways. Some of those who are paying from one to many thousands
of dollars a year to keep a child in college may even envy those
good old days when one could find tables loaded to the sideboards
for$1.25 per week, with tuition for ten months, $10.
About the only unchanged things about the town are its churches.
there are three and have always been three; namely Methodist,
Baptist, and Catholic. Of course, these churches have been rebuilt,
and some of them could be an ornament to the best section of a
city.
Richard Pratt, an enterprising citizen, was hauling freight from
Louisville to Nashville, but living in Mt. Washington. He used
four horses and a wagon. It took one month to make the trip, and
he received $60 for the same. I gleaned this latter bit of information
from Pratt's grandson, the Rev. W. R. Briscoe, a retired Baptist
minister, who was graduated from the seminary here in 1884.