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After managing most of three years in northeast Pennsylvania where their son Willie was born, JOHN and MARY had decided to move somewhere else, reasonably anticipating a warmer climate more suitable for MARY's impaired health. In 1853, the 27-year-old father and 22-year-old mother, who were expecting another baby in the fall of the year, chose to relocate on the upper fringe of America's "Cotton Belt." Traveling southwesterly from mountainous coal country and venturing over waters, around hills, through plains, they headed down toward the Kentucky side of the mighty Ohio River just across from the Hoosier enclave of Indiana. Their new home situated the TAYLORS in a small cozy coal-mining town near timbered bluffs on the very edge of the Bluegrass State. Hawesville, KY, was not yet a quarter century old, founded in 1829 on a site sloping down to the northwestward rush of the Ohio River. The village was originally platted into 82 relatively level parcels referred to as "in lots," intended mainly for business places, with ten larger "out lots" later added farther up the hill for residences. The location on the southwest bank of the majestic stream conveniently accessed one of America's great waterways and provided a sweeping northeasterly view of the wooded Indiana border where the neighboring village of Cannelton ensued just beyond the flow of the Ohio. The depth of early-day Hawesville's main section was only two city blocks, with both rows being bisected by alleyways. Water Street coursed alongside the riverfront, becoming the first view of travelers disembarking from steamers and ferries. A block southwest of Water, Main Street overlaid the road passing through town, with the principal avenue resting on a slightly elevated level where the Hancock county courthouse was positioned at the corner of Main Cross Street. Wood Street awaited just beyond Main, forming the far boundary of the "in lots." Clay, Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe Streets, running parallel with Main Cross, all sprang perpendicular to the southwest from Water Street. The oblique Madison Street singularly pointed westward from its origin on Wood, starting between the tail ends of Main Cross and the adjacent Jefferson Street, and ascending diagonally through the "out lots." From the northwest, Lead Creek snaked toward the hamlet and made an abrupt left turn into the Ohio River short of reaching the north edge of town. The smaller Spring Creek trickled into the Ohio at the other end of the village. About four miles of rail extended just outside Hawesville from the Ohio River southwest across Happy Hollow to the main deposit of local coal at the bend of Caney Creek. The short section of track was the only railroad in an 85-mile-wide area ranging between Evansville, IN, on the west side and Elizabethtown, KY, to the east. Coming to Hawesville after three years together in Pennsylvania, the TAYLOR family had moved from one coal-producing area to a different one; however, the strip operations around Hawesville were somewhat less perilous than the deeper mines in Pennsylvania. The Western Coal Region of America extended through northwest Kentucky, southwest Indiana, and covered southern Illinois. The segment located south of the Ohio River was known as Kentucky's Western Coal Field region and covered 30% of the state's area. In 1853, a population of a million souls was scattered throughout five major regions comprising the 40,400 square miles of the Kentucky commonwealth. Hawesville's coal mines were owned by G. R. Ghiselin, esq., until C. H. Trabue purchased the company on Thursday, April 1, 1852. Following Trabue's mortal demise sometime before the autumn of 1853, administrators of the Trabue estate decided to expand the mining project. After working almost five years in Pennsylvania, JOHN was evidently attracted to Hawesville by the proposed growth for the Trabue coal-mining effort, knowing that a coal mine would require the services of a smith. At Hawesville, he established himself in the blacksmith trade and sometimes worked in a nearby coal mine. With William C. Trabue administering the estate of the late C. H. Trabue, the company wanted to continue supplying coal to the Eclipse, James Robb, Lexington, Aleck Scott, Indiana, Illinois, Fashion, General Pike, Colonel Dickerson, and other steam-powered riverboats which had always bought fuel from the Hawesville mines. But further, the company management desired increased sales to the river cities all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Trabue contracted coal deliveries down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, focusing on Memphis, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, while advertising for more employees. Each week, Trabue would be needing between 20 and 40 able-bodied men to transport coal downriver; and a worker shipping all the way to New Orleans could earn a maximum of $40 for the greater distance. With an additional $20,000 invested during about a year's time, Trabue administrators were building a larger mining operation to accommodate their proposed wider marketing base. But the Hawesville area also yielded other natural products. The immense river nearby supplied freshwater fish, such as crappie, bass, perch, and catfish. Deer, rabbit, squirrel, quail, and other wild game abounded in open fields and around the oak, tulip poplar, hickory, beech, buckeye, maple, pine, cedar, and hemlock trees. The surrounding fertile countryside provided a little cotton and a lot of corn along with bountiful fields of burley tobacco, but hemp was still the major agricultural crop. Kentucky winters were milder than Pennsylvania's, suggesting perhaps a more healthful environment. However, Hancock county was in a region where folks were plagued in previous years by an epidemic of "consumption," or tuberculosis. Another affliction, called "ague," made an excessively frequent appearance in the South. Most folks were probably unaware that this life-threatening malady was relayed by mosquitoes thriving near watery areas. |
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