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Maysville

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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a city and the county-seat of Mason county, Kentucky, U.S.A., on the Ohio river, 60 m. by rail S.E. of Cincinnati. Pop. (1890) 535 8; (1900) 6423 (1155 negroes); (1910) 6141. It is served by the Louisville & Nashville, and the Chesapeake & Ohio railways, and by steamboats on the Ohio river. Among its principal buildings are the Mason county public library (1878), the Federal building and Masonic and Odd Fellows' temples. The city lies between the river and a range of hills; at the back of the hills is a fine farming country, of which tobacco of excellent quality is a leading product. There is a large plant of the American Tobacco Company at Maysville, and among the city's manufactures are pulleys, ploughs, whisky, flour, lumber, furniture, carriages, cigars, foundry and machine-shop products, bricks and cotton goods. The city is a distributing point for coal and other products brought to it by Ohio river boats. Formerly it was one of the principal hemp markets of the country. The place early became a landing point for immigrants to Kentucky, and in 1784 a double log cabin and a blockhouse were erected here. It was then called Limestone, from the creek which flows into the Ohio here, but several years later the present name was adopted in honour of John May, who with Simon Kenton laid out the town in 1787, and who in 1790 was killed by the Indians. Maysville was incorporated as a town in 1787, was chartered as a city in 1833, and became the county-seat in 1848.

In 1830, when the question of "internal improvements" by the National government was an important political issue, Congress passed a bill directing the government to aid in building a turnpike road from Maysville to Lexington. President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill on the ground that the proposed improvement was a local rather than a national one; but one-half the capital was then furnished privately, the other half was furnished through several state appropriations, and the road was completed in 1835 and marked the beginning of a system of turnpike roads built with state aid.