USA > Kentucky > Hardin County > Elizabethtown > A history of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and its surroundings > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16
Shortly after he formed a partnership in the mercantile business with Major Ben Helm. Green soon received an appointment as surveyor of public lands in Missouri, and while in Missouri he was commissioned a general in the militia.
The General sold out in 1817 and went to Washington City, and soon became a favorite of General Jackson, President of the United States, and it was generally believed that he was the confidential adviser of the President and thus in an indirect manner exercised an influence in the Government. He was afterward elected to Congress and shared a good deal of Government patronage. During his residence at Washington, he visited London, and on his own hook, had an interview with a portion of the British Cabinet and suggested many items of interna- tional policy, but whether they were adopted by the Government I never learned. He is now at an advanced age if living. I have not heard of him for two years past.
142
DANIEL WAIDE
was a resident of Elizabethtown about the same time that General Duff Green resided here. He kept a tavern at the same old stand where the Lion was the sign. He commenced in a log house ; after some time he put up the center part of the brick building which now constitutes the Eagle House. He married one of the daughters of the late Alex- ander McDougal and saying that is sufficient proof that the table was first rate. He died about the year -, and it was then considered a great loss to the town.
After his death Samuel Martin, Esq., purchased the house, and kept a hotel in good style. Martin was a natural quiz, and would try his hand upon any guest at his house even if he was the President. He is a Justice of the Peace. At the time a man was confined in jail for stealing-an acquaintance of the prisoner came to visit him and got up into the window opposite the prisoner's room, and as it afterward appeared, had implements for the prisoner to saw himself out. The jailer being absent, his wife requested the man to go away-he refused - she sent for Squire Martin-he came and took the man by the neck and pulled him down and led him to his office. He could not make out an offense for merely sitting in the window, but decided that he was a man of bad behavior in not obeying the lady, required him to give security for his good behavior, and failing to give it, he committed him to jail with the thief, but forgot to search him; so the next night the prisoner and his friend both walked out of the jail and were never retaken. Martin afterward became Sheriff by seniority under the old Constitution.
John Shackleford at one time kept the same house in good style, and afterward removed to Palmyra, in Missouri, where he kept a good hotel until his death.
· Philemon Bibb also kept the Eagle House in first-rate style. Bibb and his energetic lady seemed to be natural hotel keepers. At West Point he held forth for a season and then removed to Louisville and kept the old Exchange on Sixth street for years, and no house in Louisville, for a time, surpassed it for a fine table. In those days Bibb was a very polite, obliging landlord.
I43
LLOYD HARRIS
also kept a hotel in this town and kept it well-was an active, energetic man. He was a moving man-lived in Hodgenville for a time and afterward removed to Louisville, where he kept at least half a dozen hotels and boarding houses, and lives there now. I cannot tell what he will go at next, for although he is growing in years and heads a large family, he will not and cannot be idle.
In my next I expect to resume a history of school teachers.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
ROBERT HEWITT,
a teacher, came to Elizabethtown in 1834. He was induced to come to this place by the late John Morris, who remained his fast friend for life. Mr. Hewitt was born in Bedford county, Vir- ginia, on the Ist day of July, 1803, and came to Kentucky soon after his majority. His first teaching was at Hodgenville, LaRue county. As soon as he removed to Elizabethtown he took charge of the Hardin Academy and continued in charge of it until his death, February 13, 1850, and during that period of sixteen years he turned out more good scholars than any teacher before or after him. He was a ripe scholar and, according to the custom of that day, was compelled to use the rod liberally, as he had under his tuition a considerable number of hard cases, and none but a man of his determination could have governed them. He was remarkable for his modesty and unobtrusiveness-so much so that among strangers he would have passed for half his worth. But with those who knew him he was held in high esteem for his moral worth and integrity.
He was a man of clear intellect and judgment, and with intimate friends fluent in conversation and thoroughly posted on all subjects interesting to sensible men. He was of such retiring habits that he rarely sought company outside of his books, but company sought him for the purpose of enjoying the rich treat his conversation offered. He married a daughter of the late Rev. Lewis Chastain, a Methodist preacher of considerable note, who hailed from the Old Dominion, Vir- ginia, the mother of States.
144
-
His clear judgment was so relied upon that on the occasion of a debate between the Revs. Fisher and Clark he was selected to preside as one of the moderators. He never held or sought any political office. He raised and educated several sons, and at his death left an excellent, amiable and intelligent widow, who still resides (1870) in Elizabeth- town.
THE HEWITT SONS
Lafayette Hewitt, the eldest son, at the age of 18, after the death of his father, was placed by the trustees at the head of the Hardin Academy, which position he occupied with great credit for two years, when he established an independent school, which he taught until 1857. His health then became so delicate that he could not bear the confine- ment and went South. In 1859 he received from General Joseph Holt, postmaster general, an appointment in that department, and was as- · signed the superintendence of the Dead Letter Office, and resigned that position on President Lincoln's coming into power. And the war breaking out, he espoused the cause of the Confederacy and went to Richmond to engage in the war. The postmaster general of the Con- federate States, learning his whereabouts, immediately telegraphed him , to come on to Montgomery to aid in getting the postoffice department in working order. Accordingly he went and received the necessary ap- pointment and went to work in earnest. When the department got into successful operation he resigned his position in order to take part in the arduous duties of the field.
On the first day of December, 1861, he received the appointment of adjutant general. A full detail of his military services is given in the "History of the First Kentucky Brigade," by Ed. Poter Thompson. That history shows that labors may be performed by a man of slender frame and feeble health when combined with a strong will and de- termined purpose, sustained by a brave heart.
At the end of the war he returned to Elizabethtown, May 18, 1865. He was offered the position of principal of the Elizabethtown Female Academy, of which he took charge in September, and was thus engaged for five months. He then commenced the practice of law in the courts of Hardin.
145
Shortly after Governor Stevenson came into office, in October, 1867, he was appointed quartermaster general of the State of Kentucky, which position he still holds.
The duties devolving upon the Captain were onerous and highly responsible, involving the settlement of four millions of dollars between the Commonwealth and the General Government, and he has acquitted himself in a manner highly satisfactory.
VIRGIL HEWITT,
familiarly called Day Hewitt, was another son of Robert Hewitt. He also was a well-educated young man, of singularly modest habits, and was withal so quiet and easy in his deportment that no one would have suspected him of wishing to engage in the toils and dangers of war. But his sympathies were decidedly with the Confederacy, and although of delicate and slender frame, he buckled on his armor and went out as quietly as if he were going into a company of ladies.
He did not go shouting and singing as some of the soldiers in the war of 1811 did. For some of them sang a song not quite up to dog- gerel-it hardly amounted to PUP EREL. It ran thus :
"Come all ye brave Kentuckians, I'd have you for to know, That for to fight the enémee I'm going for to go.
And if you're freezin' for a fight, Come go along with me, We'll show them for a thing or two In front the enemee.
If you ask where we are goin', I'll tell you what it means-
We're goin' on a big flatboat Way down to New Orleans.
And there we'll meet proud red coats, All heeled with golden spurs,
Though they belch big guns and bombs We'll thrash the Britishers."
146
Not so with Day. He went off decently, but he had fight in him. During the first year of the war he served with Gen. Ben Hardin Helm, and was attached to Company H in the Sixth Regiment. September 18, 1862, he was elected second lieutenant; January 12, 1863, he was promoted to first lieutenant, and October, 1863, he was made adjutant of the Sixth Regiment.
He fought at Murfreesboro, Jackson, Chickamauga, Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca and Dallas. He was wounded at Dallas, but recovered in time to take part in the battle at Intrenchment Creek, at which place he was so severely wounded as to be disabled from further service during the war. At the return of peace he came home, determined to be peaceable, and was elected county clerk of Hardin county for four years, having served in a clerk's office before the war. He made so good an officer that he has just been elected for a second term of four years.
HANNIBAL HEWITT,
the second son, was also a well educated man and partook much of the modesty of the family, and was a popular young man. He was post- master at one time and occasionally taught school. He has been out of my sight more than the other boys, and I am not prepared to speak fully of him.
FOX HEWITT,
the fourth and youngest son, was also educated in the school of his father and his brother, Fayette Hewitt.
After Fayette went to Washington, Fox followed him. About the Ist of December, 1860, he was appointed clerk in the Treasury Depart- ment, which office he resigned in March, 1861, when President Lincoln came into office. He then went to Richmond, Virginia, and was ap- pointed clerk in the Treasury Department of the Confederacy ; this was in November, 1861.
In May, 1863, he joined the 25th Virginia battalion, and until the close of the war was in service with this battalion on the fortifications of Richmond. After the war he returned home and has acted assistant clerk of the Hardin County Court ever since that office was held by Virgil, his brother.
147
Thus ends a very imperfect sketch of the family of that excellent man, the late Robert Hewitt, who was one of the bright ornaments of Elizabethtown.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THOMAS JOHNSON, ESQ.,
was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, and came to Elizabethtown about the year 1824. He commenced the practice of law, and finding it not sufficiently remunerative, got the appointment of principal of the Hardin Academy, which position he held for several years. He was an ardent man in temperament, kind and social in his intercourse, as quick as powder to resent an insult, pure in morals, but subject to low spirits. He related to me an instance of his moody habits.
One evening in winter he was walking out to relieve ennui and a heavy spirit, warmly clad, but as miserable as he could be-that is, completely in the BLUES. He met a negro on the road, barefooted and miserably clad. The negro was singing a corn song, as gay as a lark. Johnson said he was tempted to knock the negro over for pure envy, and he philosophized upon the matter. If that negro, barefooted and nearly naked, was happy, why should he, well clad and in a profitable business, indulge in such moody reflections? It cured him for that time. Johnson married a very estimable lady and removed to Texas, where he occupied a prominent position for years. Whether living or dead I cannot tell, as I lost sight of him.
REV. ROBERT L. THURMAN
was also a teacher in Elizabethtown. He was born November 19, 1815, at a point half way between Springfield and Lebanon. In the year 1819 or 1820 his father, the Rev. David Thurman, removed to Hardin county and settled at Nolynn, now LaRue county. R. L. Thurman was brought up to hard farm work-that is, while he was a boy-going to school in the winter season. He received his early education under the late Robert Hewitt, first in the country, and then followed Mr. Hewitt to Elizabethtown and was under his tuition five or six years. He then went to Georgetown College in the spring of 1839 and continued there three and a half years, and graduated in June, 1842, with the highest honors of that excellent institution.
148
At the age of seventeen he professed religion and united with the Baptist Church at Nolynn.
On the 25th day of July, 1843, he was ordained to the ministry, and was pastor of Severn's Valley Church, located at Elizabethtown. The Presbytery was composed of Elders Colmore Lovelace, Thomas J. Fisher, A. D. Sears and A. W. LaRue. He continued as the faithful pastor of that church for six years, and on the day after his ordination he baptized two candidates, rather a rare occurrence. During his min- istry the church had a very pleasant revival. He was assisted by Dr. Gardner, then a young preacher and now located in Russellville as pro- fessor of theology at Bethel College. The last three and a half years of his pastorate he had charge of the Elizabethtown Female Seminary. For some time he had the Rev. Samuel Williams, pastor of the Pres- byterian Church, as his partner, and after Mr. Thurman resigned the same school was continued by Mr. Williams for about nine months.
Mr. Thurman was married in October, 1845, to a daughter of Mr. Freeman, near Frankfort, and is now (1870) a grandfather. He removed to Louisville, and with Elders A. W. LaRue, Thomas J. Fisher and John L. Waller, the latter as senior editor, in 1852 took charge of the Western Recorder.
In 1851 he was appointed agent for Georgetown College and con- tinued in that employment for four years. He then was appointed State agent for the Board of Foreign Missions and has been in that service ever since.
He is a man of untiring energy and has performed Herculean labors and done much in building up Georgetown College and in sustaining the Foreign Mission enterprises. He resided in Franklin county many years and then removed to Bardstown, where he now resides. His whole course so far has been without a blemish, and he may emphatically be termed a Christian gentleman of the first water.
Many other teachers of less note have taught in Elizabethtown.
REV. J. W. HEAGEN,
a Presbyterian preacher, was and is now a teacher.
Mr. Heagen was born in Gettysburg, Virginia. He received his education in Western Pennsylvania, and removed with his wife in 1858 to Daviess county, from thence to Breckinridge county, from
149
thence to Bullitt county, and in 1867 he removed to Elizabethtown and took charge of the Female Seminary, which afterward became a mixed school under the title of Hambleton College.
He has proved to be an excellent and successful teacher, a strict dis- ciplinarian, and advances his pupils rapidly. He is a man of great decision, and but very few cases of disorder have occurred in his college. He has in one or two years had as high as 120 pupils and has averaged 100 or more annually. His success has determined him to be a perma- nent citizen, and as an evidence of that he purchased ground and erected a large and handsome house in town, capable of accommodating many boarders.
REV. SAMUEL WILLIAMS
I have run a little ahead of my history and will drop back to the Rev. Samuel Williams, a Presbyterian preacher, who also was a teacher for a limited period. He was born in Lincoln county, Kentucky, and was principally educated at Center College, Danville, Kentucky, where he graduated.
He removed to Elizabethtown and became pastor of the Presby- terian Church in 1845, and retained that position until 1846, when he resigned.
He was the partner of Rev. R. L. Thurman, in charge of the Female Academy, and after the resignation of Mr. Thurman he continued the school alone for nine months and was considered an excellent teacher. During the most of the time of his pastorate he held services in his church every Sabbath, and finding his salary inadequate to a comforta- ble support, he bought a farm adjoining Elizabethtown and became rather a model farmer and had a taste for the cultivation of fruits.
During the war it was a trying time on churches and church services, yet he kept up the services regularly except for a short time, when the churches were all taken by the military and soldiers quartered in them, and the sound of a church bell was not heard for some months. It was a gloomy time for Christians. During the time of the occupation of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist churches, by the special request of the wife of the writer, a prayer meeting was appointed and held in the writer's house on every Thursday night by Mr. Williams and the Rev. Dr. W. W. Lambuth, a very worthy Methodist preacher, for some months. Their punctuality in attending and their devotions at these
150
prayer meetings were highly appreciated and have ever been held in kind remembrance by the family.
Very few men have passed through twenty-five years of active duties and trying circumstances with a more blameless life and Christian-like deportment.
CHAPTER XL
DOCTORS
As for the disciples of Æsculapius not one of them trod the soil of this town or neighborhood from the year 1780 until about 1800. It may be asked how sick folks got along in the twenty years or more. In the first place men who lived a great deal in the open air, and got their meat from the forests and glens, tender venison, the juicy bear, the substantial buffalo, the delicate turkey, pheasant, partridge, squirrel, and in place of pork, the fat possum, and these all taken in the hunt, with the rifle and hunting dogs, and all this food sweetened by toil made men healthy and they rarely got sick. In these days if a man took a cold the remedy was to drink down a half pint or pint of bear's oil- the quantity depended upon the capacity of a man's stomach, then lay down before a log fire in the woods, wrapped up in his blanket and if it snowed three or four inches deep on him in the night it was all the better, and when he awoke in the morning and shook the snow off of his blanket as the lion would the dew drops from his mane, the man was well of his cold, and fully prepared to take up his rifle and renew the hunt. If a man was taken sick in his fort or cabin the women were the doctors. Then the Elecampaign and Comfrey and Ditny tea were the sovereign remedies successfully used, and occasionally the comb of a hornet's nest was scorched before the fire and a tea was made of it, and drank without scruple, and the patient was covered up in a blanket or buffalo rug, which produced a copious sweat and worked wonders. If the hornet's nest was not to be had, sage tea was used. But a good sweat was an indispensable thing. In case of measles, which did not hurt much in those days, all the patient had to do was to keep out of the wet, unless the case was more severe than usual. Then sheep-nannie tea was prescribed; about a quart of that condiment swallowed down at night was certain to effect a cure. In case of the
151
bloody flux, very uncommon in those days, a sovereign remedy was used, and is to this day the best of all. It was a simple remedy and always successful, and for the benefit of the present generation I will record it in my history.
RECIPE
Take about two pounds of the inner bark of the white oak tree, taken off near the root on the north side, the bark there being the thickest and strongest ; put the bark in an iron vessel with a gallon of water, boil it down to a quart, then take out the bark and add a quart of new milk and a lump of sugar about the size of a duck egg, boil that down to a quart ; when cooled a little it is fit for use.
DOSE
Half a common teacupful, and every two hours after two large tablespoonsful, and continued until the pains in the rectum or lower bowel cease, then hold on. But if after that the pains should return, commence again with the same treatment. But the first course generally produces the desired effect. Then let nature do her perfect work, and in a day or two the bleeding ulcers in the rectum would slough off and all pass off in the natural way, and the patient is well. Don't want to cleanse the bowels by putting calomel down the throat, for if you do unlock the liver and let down bile upon the bleeding ulcers then you might as well speak for your coffin. This course, in a practice of seventy years, always cured the disease if taken in time.
It is true some of the old ladies were a little tinctured with a super- stitious notion that the bark had to be peeled upward and the water dipped upstream. But in the fullness of time that notion has been exploded. However, to do so did no harm.
One of the earliest physicians who settled in our town was Dr. Ebenezer E. Goodletter, who exercised the healing art several years in this town, and then left for parts unknown to the writer.
Then came Dr. Thomas Essex from England ; he settled in Elizabeth- town about the year 1809. He purchased property and was a resident for some years, and had a remarkably genteel family, and was doing a fine business until Dr. William Sulcer, a big fat Dutchman, came in the neighborhood and proclaimed himself to be the Dutch doctor, skilled in the Indian practice. He was a very illiterate man, but had a good
152
share of common sense by nature, and he took like wildfire and swept everything in the way of practice before him, and made the natives believe that these college bred doctors were regular man killers. Dr. Essex's practice, of course, went down and he removed, if I remem- ber right, to Tennessee.
It is an adage that "Every dog has his day," and it so happened that Sulcer had his day.
About the year 1811 Doctor Daniel B. Potter, a regular graduate, came to Elizabethtown. On his arrival he soon heard of Sulcer's fame, and he lost no time in making the acquaintance of Dr. Sulcer, and man- aged to get in partnership with him. They rode and practiced together. Potter flattered Sulcer and gained his good will and confidence, and Sulcer puffed Doctor Potter as a none-such and the only college-bred doctor that was worth a snap in all the land.
Those were the days of company musters and whenever a militia company was mustered in town Potter would get one or two large buckets of sweetened whisky and have the captain to parade his men before his shop, and let the whole company swig to their heart's con- tent. This practice in addition to Sulcer's puffing and blowing about Dr. Potter soon established Potter as the King-cure-all of all the pains, aches and diseases with which the human family was prone to be afflicted. Then practice was immense, and men and women came to the conclusion that it was necessary to get sick, in order to avail them- selves of his superior skill in the healing art. When firmly established he proposed a dissolution of the partnership. The consequence was that Sulcer went down like a falling star and suddenly faded away, and Dr. Potter kept the ground. Sulcer left in a short time after for a more congenial clime.
Potter soon after married Miss Hackley, a lady of surpassing beauty, and was rapidly acquiring wealth, for he was in reality well skilled in his profession, but in 1814 he fell a victim to an epidemic called the "cold plague." The writer sat up with him the night of his death, and helped to lay him out, and his death was justly considered a real loss to the community. His death left an opening which was filled by Dr. Richard A. Taylor, who enjoyed a fine practice for several years. He married a Miss Sally McGee, a very amiable lady, and after some years removed to Green county, and is now represented as a man of
153
considerable wealth and a deserving citizen. About the time of his removal Doctors John Churchill and Christopher L. Jones, commenced the practice in partnership. Dr. Churchill was a polished gentleman, and married a Miss Percefull, who lived but a short time after her marriage. He removed to Greensburg and married a Miss Akin. Some years after his health failed and he died.
Dr. Jones removed to Harrodsburg and married a Miss Lucy May. She was a daughter of David May, a man of high respectability, and once the clerk of the Hardin Quarter Session Court.
Dr. William S. Young then commenced the practice in this town. He was a native of Nelson county, Kentucky, studied medicine with Dr. Bemiss, of Bloomfield, and was a partner of his preceptor for several years. He settled in Elizabethtown in 1814, and stood deserv- edly high in his profession. He was a very modest, worthy gentleman, and the late Ben Tobin, Esq., once remarked of Dr. W. S. Young, that he was the most immaculate man he ever knew. He acquired a con- siderable estate, was elected to Congress in 1824, and was re-elected in 1826, and died much regretted in 1827.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.