An article in a recent paper told of a town being sold for $3,500. That village sale that might interest some of the older readers and be historical news for the young.
In 1838 my grandfather, Robert S. Haviland, built a woolen factory at Havilandsville, where he and Alfred Warner of Fayette County comprised company that by their intrepid enterprise and perseverance did much for the people of that portion of Harrison County, and a flourishing community existed. They created and developed a splendid business in the manufacture of woolen and cotton goods, giving employment to many men, women and children. The wool was bought, carded, spun and woven into jeans, linsey and flannel. The cotton used was brought from the South in the raw state. They also did an extensive pork packing business, butchering from 1,000 to 2,000 hogs a season and rendering the lard in immense iron kettles hung in stone buttresses.
This merchandise was hauled to Foster’s Landing, or when Licking River had sufficient water, to a landing near the factory, and loaded on flatboat, then taker to New Orleans; making stops at Cincinnati, Cairo and Memphis. These cargoes were valued from $10,000 to $20,000. When unloaded at New Orleans the flatboat was reloaded with the desired amount of baled cotton and towed back to the landing.
Mr. Warner, desiring to go further West (Missouri) sold his half interest in Havilandsville and the at business, to my grandfather, May 8, 1843, for $18,000. I have the deed properties, with receipts for payments attached. Grandfather then added tobacco industry to his business and prepared same for New York markets. The following extract from in his letter to grandmother, written in New York, June 8, 1843, where he and my father had gone to arrange with firms to handle the tobacco, gives a dull article idea of the preparation in the long ago: “Tobacco is but a dull article here: bow I shall make out with it I cannot tell. I hope you have told John to make the balance of the keg tobacco into 6 twist, as it is the most salable kind put up in kegs. We must, hereafter, make all the tobacco we put up into kegs, in this way.”
Havilandsville then consisted of the factory, two stores, blacksmith shop, post office, several nice residences, and log houses used for employees of the different forms of business and slaves. Where are now the busy personages of that day, the buzzing wheels-the smiths’ forge? Gone to the great beyond and fallen to decay. Only a few residences, the creek and spring with its mint surroundings remain. Thus, in time passeth all things.
-Sidney R. Haviland in Cynthiana Democrat.
The Franklin Favorite (Franklin, Kentucky) · 26 Nov 1931, Thu · Page 4