USA > Kentucky > Hardin County > Elizabethtown > A history of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and its surroundings > Part 3
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had escaped, but was told to do himself no harm, as they were all there.
Then the jailer, whose character has been often abused, proved him- self to be a pretty clever fellow. My readers will please pardon this digression.
I think that the first jailer in that new prison was the Rev. Benjamin Ogden, a Methodist preacher. He was a chairmaker and a good work- man in wood. He was the first Methodist preacher I ever saw. He came to Elizabethtown in 1803 or 1804, and his first effort was to raise a school. He came to my father's house on school business, and I well remember that I was terribly frightened when I heard that I was to go to his school, but on better acquaintance I learned to reverence and love him. He was a good man and a fair preacher. The next jailer was Frederick Tull, who died in the jail with the old cholera plague in 1814. Then followed Daniel Johnson, John Haywood and Enoch Lucky, who I believe was the last jailer in the stone house. Some years after the present brick jail was erected. It was undertaken and built by James Perceful. Richard May was the architect, and John Redman, black- smith, framed the iron grates. I recollect that I was one of the commis- sioners to superintend the building, and after the wall was up a crack was discovered in the brickwork, and Perceful had to suffer a reduc- tion of nearly a thousand dollars. But after standing some twenty years, in settling of the house, the crack closed up, and by the interces- sion of myself and the other commissioners the County Court made an allowance of five hundred dollars to Perceful and it was paid.
CHAPTER VI
On the 18th day of April, 1804, the building of the present brick Court House was let to James Perceful, and it was completed and re- ceived on the 22nd day of December, 1806. James Crutcher, Ben Helm, Robert Huston, Samuel Haycraft and John W. Holt, Esq., super- intended the work. It was then considered to be a fine house, and the country flocked in to see it. Its fame spread far and wide-so much so that Butler County years afterward adopted the plan throughout in building their court house.
It still stands now in 1869, after having undergone many altera- tions and repairs, and is now decidedly the poorest and most uncom-
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fortable court house in the State, considering the wealth and population of the county. But its old weather-beaten and rusty walls are entitled to some veneration on account of its past history of sixty-three years.
That house has been the theatre of some of the loftiest forensic displays. Its walls have reverberated the eloquence of the Hons. Wil- liam McClung, John Rowan, Benjamin Hardin, John J. Crittenden, John Pope, Felix Grundy, Charles A. Wickliffe, John L. Helm, Thomas Chilton, Charles G. Wintersmith, Benjamin Tobin, Benjamin Chapeze and John Hays, of the old practitioners, all of whom except two are in their graves, and a host of other lawyers of more recent date, of whom it is my purpose to notice in proper time if my life is spared and health permits.
Eminent ministers of nearly all denominations have preached in it. A vast amount of eloquent breath has been blown in it by candidates for State and county offices. The clerk's offices were kept in it for several years. Schools have been taught in it. Public exhibitions and Indian dances in it were frequent. Many men have left it with the doom of death or penitentiary weighing upon them.
Our national jubilees were celebrated in it, parties and balls have been held in it, and the youth of our country, male and female, have tripped the light fantastic toe, and during the late civil war it was repeatedly occupied by armed soldiers.
So far I have been confined to the operations of the County Court, the erection of public buildings and other matters connected therewith, and thus ran ahead of the history.
I now will turn my attention to the Quarter Session and Circuit Courts held in Elizabethtown and in the woods before it was a town. Here endeth the first lesson on courts.
BACK TO THE WOODS AGAIN-QUARTER SESSION COURT
On the 26th day of February, 1793, the first Quarter Session Court (being the first court held in the county ) was held in the house of Isaac Hynes in Severn's Valley.
A commission was produced appointing Phillip Phillips, Joseph Barnett and Thomas Helm, Justices of the Court of Quarter Sessions, who being sworn took their seats ; and in the same commission Patrick Brown, John Vertrees, John Paul, William Hardin and Alexander
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Barnett, gentlemen, were appointed Justices of the Hardin county court.
FIRST CLERK
Isaac Morrison was appointed clerk pro tempore.
FIRST SHERIFF
Isaac Hynes, Esq., produced a commission as sheriff of Hardin county, gave bond and qualified.
John Vertrees, Esq., was qualified as Justice of the Peace.
FIRST ATTORNEY
James Dohertie, gentleman, admitted to the bar as attorney at law and sworn, and the court adjourned.
This being the first term of court in Hardin county, a word or two about the Judges or Justices of the court may not be amiss. All three of them were Calvinistic Baptists. Hon. Judge Thomas Helm, the progenitor of all the Helms in the country, was from Virginia, and there ranked among the first families-and so held his rank here-was a gentleman in affluent circumstances, and lived and died where his fort was erected on the farm now owned by Mrs. Lucinda B. Helm, the estimable widow of the late Governor John L. Helm.
Hon. Judge Phillip Phillips was also a gentleman of large estate- lived on Nolin about ten miles from the Valley-was a man of much influence and figured for several years in Church and State to a con- siderable extent. Afterwards removed to Tennessee, where he died, leaving a large estate in lands and goods and chattles.
Hon. Judge Joseph Barnett was a Baptist preacher-lived near Hartford, and traveled upwards of seventy-five miles to sit in court. He possessed a large landed estate, and as before stated, was one of the preachers who constituted Severn's Valley Baptist Church, on the 17th day of June, 1781.
James Dohertie, Esq., who was first sworn attorney, came to the Valley a little in advance of the court, arriving at my father's on foot, without money and a perfect stranger. In order to make himself wel- come to board and lodging assisted in making sugar, carrying water, heavy wood into the furnace and making himself generally useful. No person dreamed that he was a lawyer, and it produced no little astonish-
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ment when at the first court he pulled out his law license and was sworn in.
I have heard old pleople speak of Doherite as a prodigy in law knowl- edge, and a Boanerges in debates. But where he came from or where he went to, no mortal man now living can tell-it all happened before I was born. But gentlemen lawyers remember that James Dohertie was at the head of the bar in Hardin county before Elizabethtown had an existence.
APRIL TERM, 1793
Present Judges Phillip Phillips and Thomas Helm.
FIRST SUIT TRIED
Samuel and Christopher Bush against John Handley-attachment. A jury found a verdict for nine pounds and five shillings and costs. A little explanation may be necessary to show why an attachment was taken out against John Handley.
He had by some means got into a difficulty at Bardstown with John Gilpin, which ended in his killing Gilpin, and such was the dread and horror of killing a man in those days, that he fled until men had time to cool-the Bushes and others thought Handley never would return. He afterwards gave himself up, was tried and acquitted. He afterwards laid off the town of Vienna at the falls of Green River and lived many years, possessed of a handsome estate, and having occupied a high position in society, died at a good old age. One of his sons, George Handley, Esq., now of Larue county, was for years clerk of Davies county, and although an excellent clerk, voluntarily resigned the office and became a quiet gentleman farmer near the town of Hodgenville. Eight suits were disposed of at this term.
THIRD TERM, JUNE 25TH, 1793
A grand jury was impaneled and sworn, but such quiet and good order prevailed in the county that they had nothing to present-were discharged.
Banner Friend produced a commission and qualified as surveyor of Hardin county. John Paul, Robert Baird, Ben Helm and David Phillips, gentlemen, were sworn and admitted as deputy surveyors. Robert Hodgen, gentleman, sworn as Justice of the Peace.
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It appears that the Quarter Session Court and County Court had or at least practiced concurrent jurisdiction. Deeds were acknowledged before each court, and each clerk recorded deeds until the establish- ment of the Circuit Court, then the County Court did all that business ; sheriffs, surveyors, &c., were qualified in each court and so were justice of the peace.
Robert Hodgen, who was qualified at this term as a justice of the peace was from Virginia. He was an honorable high-toned gentleman of the good old school ; was the soul of hospitality, and was well patron- ized in that line-was an active enterprising business man, and figured largely during life in the interest of the county and in the Baptist Church, of which he was counted a pillar. Two of his sons were preachers of the Gospel. His oldest son, Isaac Hodgen, was one of the best and most eloquent preachers of Kentucky. He was a man of large stature, and according to my notion was one of the finest looking men in the State.
His fine commanding presence, the great compass of his voice, which although music itself, was so powerful as to be distinctly heard a great distance ; which, joined with his eloquence and logical reasoning and persuasive style, made him almost irresistible, insomuch that his labors were sought for at great distances. He was the founder of a church in Nashville, Tennessee, and afterwards sent as a delegate to the trien- nial convention of Baptists in the city of Philadelphia.
He died in Green county in the full vigor of life, and was supposed to have been poisoned.
Robert Hodgen died in 1809 or 1810 and left a large family. Of some of his descendants I may hereafter have occasion to speak in con- nection with the interests of Elizabethtown.
CHAPTER VII
SEPTEMBER TERM, 1793
Present-Phillip Phillips, Joseph Barnett and Thomas Helm, Jus- tices. .
William McClung and Sephen Ormsby, Esqs., were sworn and admitted to the bar as attorneys.
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William McClung, Esq., was appointed Commonwealth's Attorney for this court.
Commonwealth's Attorneys were not then commissioned by the Governor-each county appointed their own prosecuting attorney- and were paid out of the county levy.
Stephen Ormsby was a native of Ireland, raised in Louisville, and was afterward Judge of the Hardin Circuit Court.
The first presentment of the Grand Jury was against Isaac Hynes, the Sheriff, for swearing.
TEMPORARY JAIL
The court made this order :
"Ordered that Isaac Hynes' still-house be appointed a temporary jail."
Isaac Hynes, gentleman, sheriff enters his protest against the suffi- ciency of the jail appointed by the court.
Isaac knew all about his own still-house and thought that it was sufficient so long as a prisoner was kept under the influence of his still-worm, but that under sober second thought, the prisoner could find egress at the door, or the window, or clab-bord roof, and therefore protested.
A new grand jury was impaneled who, seeming to get the hang of things, presented three different persons for retailing spiritous liquors without license-one was against the high sheriff, but the presentment against the sheriff was quashed on the ground that he was a regular distiller.
The grand jury thus showing a laudable purpose to suppress vice and maintain the dignity of the law, were adjourned over to second day.
SECOND DAY
The grand jury again assembled and retired to the woods (as they had no room), and after due deliberation returned a batch of present- ments for almost every conceivable minor offence, such as swearing, getting drunk, fighting and last, though not least, against two unmarried women for having children without the necessary appendage of a husband.
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1415140
The court did not think that being a distiller authorized a man to swear as well as sell liquor and therefore ordered Isaac to add five shillings to the public funds.
DECEMBER TERM, 1794
James Nourse sworn as attorney at law.
FEBRUARY TERM, 1795-CLERK PRO TEM HASTENED
Isaac Morrison having been appointed as clerk pro tempore from February term 1793, was ordered to produce a certificate of qualifica- tion by the next term or walk the plank.
The court took cognizance of the fact, that its terms had been held in the house of Isaac Hynes for two years past, to his great inconve- nience, and allowed him ten pounds and directed the county to pay him.
APRIL TERM, 1795-A NEW CLERK PRO TEMPORE
Isaac Morrison, the clerk pro tem., not producing a certificate of qualification the court appointed David May clerk pro tem. Court sat three days.
JUNE TERM, 1795
Present-Thomas Helm and John Carnahan, Judges.
Richard Dickerson sworn as attorney at law.
Quite a batch of presentments at this term for profane swearing, getting drunk, fighting ; also, against a man and woman for living to- gether without the sanction of a priest.
Also, a presentment against Ben. Parker for threatening the life of Christopher Bush, also for being a general disturber of the peace. Bush was then and for many years a constable, and being a man of determination, was a great interruption to such men as Parker. Litiga- tion having increased the court sat for four days.
SEPTEMBER TERM
Hon. Felix Grundy admitted as attorney at law.
From the presentments at this term it appears that swearing pro- fanely and getting drunk had greatly increased-wolves were numerous in the county and whole flocks of sheep were destroyed.
The grand jury in a presentment petitioned the Legislature to de- clare wolves outlaws, and fix a price on their scalps.
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DECEMBER TERM, 1795
Allen Milton Wakefield, Esq., was admitted as attorney at law. I know but little of his history ; he was one of the first Judges appointed under the Circuit Court system in 1803.
FEBRUARY TERM, 1796
Present-Judges Thomas Helm, John Carnahan and John Ver- trees.
Captain Vertrees on that day produced his commission as Quarter Session Justice.
Hon. John Pope sworn as attorney at law.
FIRST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE COUNTRY
Jacob, a negro slave, the property of John Crow, killed his master on the 30th day of December, 1795. They were both cutting on the same fallen tree-the negro at the butt end, the master high up. Crow thinking that Jacob was not working with a will, came to inspect Jacob's cut, reproved him for sloth and turned away to resume his chopping ; as soon as his back was turned Jacob dealt him a blow in the head with his axe, which killed him outright. Jacob drew his dead master to the side of an old log and covered him with leaves.
He then fled to Vienna at the falls of Green River. As soon as the murder was discovered, Phillip Taylor pursued and took Jacob. When arrested he said to Taylor, "I killed Crow, but you prove it." The prisoner was conveyed in a canoe to the mouth of Rough Creek, and up Rough Creek to Hartford, and from thence was brought under guard to Elizabethtown in the Valley.
On the second day of March, 1796, by consent of the prisoner, he was tried by a called court, composed of Judges Thomas Helm and John Vertrees. On arrangement Jacob pleaded guilty, and he was sentenced to be hung by the neck until he was dead, dead, dead, and the Lord is invoked to have mercy on him, and the sheriff, Samuel Haycraft, was ordered to carry the sentence into execution on the second day of April, 1796, between the hours of twelve and two o'clock.
The court not agreeing on the value of the negro, a jury was impaneled who fixed his value at eighty pounds.
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As murder at that day was of rare occurrence and this perhaps the first in the county, it produced quite a sensation, and particularly so, as John Crow was a man of some note and highly esteemed.
The prisoner was confined in the old poplar log jail and there being no jailor, the sheriff with a guard was charged with the custody of Jacob. A few days before the execution, the sheriff being absent, the duty of feeding the prisoner devolved on my mother. On opening the door to hand in his dinner, the prisoner made a desperate dash, upset the old lady and ran for life. The Hon. George Helm, the father of Gov. Helm, being in sight, and being then a stout young man, pursued the prisoner about four hundred yards, crossing Valley creek and ascending a hill, caught and brought him back. He was then kept safely until the day fixed for his execution, the 2nd day of April, 1796.
As is usual to this day, on such occasions, the execution was wit- nessed by a vast crowd.
The sheriff having a distaste for the hangman's office (by consent of Jacob) procured the services of a black man to tie the noose and drive the cart from under.
The writer was less than a year old, and I suppose was not there but for years afterwards he heard the matter spoken of as an era in time, "The time Jacob was hung."
APRIL TERM, 1796
Present-Thomas Helm, John Carnahan and John Vertrees.
I will here note that quarter session courts had the same jurisdiction that circuit courts now have, and that the presiding officers were really Judges, and entitled to that honorable appellation, but like Judges of the United States Court were styled Justices.
At this term Henry Power Brodnax and David Donan, Esqs., were sworn and admitted as attorneys.
I have no recollection of Donan; Brodnax afterwards became a Circuit Judge ; he lived and died a bachelor, was scrupulously neat, wore short breeches with white stockings, knee and shoe buckles of silver and kept everything in print ; was polite and attentive to the fair sex, and was urgent in his advice to them not to suffer a wrinkle in their stock- ings. On the bench he was a terror to evil doers-very strict in this discipline of the court. He was in the habit of breaking in a new sheriff
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and for a few terms ruled over him as with a rod of iron ; but as soon as he imagined that the sheriff had fallen into traces, he began to treat him as a gentleman. In the latter part of his life he professed religion and united with the Cumberland Presbyterian church, and was remark- able as a very zealous member of that zealous body of Christians. He then commenced wearing long pants and became a little more careless in his dress. Although he had a farm near Russellville, he boarded at a hotel in that city many years. He had a servant man named Brandy, who was major domo, and was a great favorite of the Judge's and attended to the dairy, which furnished better butter than was to be found anywhere else.
I visited his room at the Edwards Hotel in 1817. It was fitted up to his own notion, and had whole shelves of the finest cordials, manu- factured by himself with the assistance of his man Brandy. These delicacies were more for his friends than for his own use, as he was quite a temperance man. He was a remarkable man, of the strictest integrity, somewhat eccentric, and when off the bench, of social and genial habits.
After 1818 I lost sight of him, living one hundred miles apart.
CHAPTER VIII
ATTORNEYS' FEES MADE SAFE-APRIL TERM, 1796
It was ruled by the Court that if a person presented by the grand jury should confess himself guilty of the foul deed and pay the fine, it should not hinder the attorney from pocketing his fee.
PUBLICATION VS. NON-RESIDENCE-HICKMAN VS. TOBIN
Order of publication in the Kentucky Gazette, and also to be pub- lished at the door of Captain John Vertrees, a place of public worship immediately after divine service.
This is the first notice of a place of public worship I can find of an official character in the county.
A friend has suggested that anybody would know I was a Baptist after reading my second number. By way of explanation I here state that the Baptists were the pioneers of the Valley, and that no other orthodox denomination had a representation on these waters for many years after. Subsequently other denominations of good Christians
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came and organized churches that were prosperous and did much good in the cause of religion. And of those churches I propose to make honorable mention at the proper dates.
HIGH-BLOODED FEES AT THE TERM, APRIL, 1796
Alexander Barnett, Justice of the Peace, was fined £5 and the costs for charging Christopher Jackson high-blooded fees for official services.
PERMANENT CLERK
David May, who had been acting as clerk pro tem., produced a cer- tificate of his qualifications, was permanently appointed clerk and gave bond. His son, Samuel May, was sworn in as deputy. The term of the court was continued five days.
ISAAC HYNES
Previous to this time and from the beginning of the county, frequent mention has been made of the name of Isaac Hynes. The courts had been held in his house for more than two years. He was sheriff, and had a still house, which on one occasion was made a tem- porary jail, and against the sufficiency of which Isaac protested for reasons stated in my seventh chapter.
He was in the habit of swearing, almost equal to Uncle Toby's army in Flanders, and of which the grand juries frequently made honorable mention, and by way of a change in his amusements now and then took a chunk of a fight. When I knew him he was a square-built man of middle age with a sprinkle of gray hairs-was considered rather beforehand in the world, always had money and was looked upon as quite a character in his day, had many friends and a few enemies. But how, when or where he wound up this deponent, not knowing, saith not, and I suppose there is not a white man living who could tell.
There is one man in this town older than myself. His name is Charles Slaughter, a colored man, aged ninety-three years. I asked him what became of Isaac Hynes and he does not know. But as Charles Slaughter is a deserving man, sixty-seven years a member of the church, I expect to take notice of him in due time.
SEPTEMBER TERM, 1796
At this time the population had increased-the rich soil abundantly repaid the husbandman for his toil and plenty filled the land, and, true
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to the character of Old Virginia, the mother State, the inhabitants set no bounds to their hospitality. About this time my father erected a new house with a basement and two high stories upon it, with a stone chimney, which took more than one hundred wagon loads to build it. It was considered then rather aristocratic. The large yellow poplar timbers of which it was erected are sound to this day-1869.
The court at this term directed Robert Hodgen to issue a summons against Robert Jackson, presented by the grand jury as coming under the vagrant law, and deal with him as the law directs. The law directed such gentry upon conviction to be sold for twelve months to the high- est bidder, and from my knowledge of the Squire charged with this service, I have no doubt that Jackson was cried off at public sale. But as such plenty abounded, a few attempted to get a living by vagabond- izing.
But to return to the new house. I do not remember the year, but it was when I was about ten years old, that remarkable day called cold Friday, rolled up in the calendar, no person before or since experienced such a day-clear as a bell and cold as Canada; the air was filled with glistening, sparkling flakes of frost ; cows froze to death. On that day my younger brother, Roads Vanmeter and myself were set to beat a mess of hominy in the basement, being the cooking department, with a fireplace nearly seven feet wide, with a large fire in it. Neither of us being overly fond of work, we scrupulously divided the work with an iron wedge inserted in a pestle. One hundred licks each in turn was administered to the corn in the mortar, occasionally pouring in hot water to excelerate the work, but the water almost instantly froze and the wedge sent back the sound chow, chow, chow, the whole being a frozen mass. At night we had no impression upon the corn and the work was adjourned over.
The next day we cut out the frozen corn, put it in a pot over a hot fire and gave it two honest hours' boiling, then put it in the mortar and finished the work; this completed, the trio formed themselves into a drum-head courtmartial to try the inventor of hominy beating, and the sentence was unanimous that the inventor ought to be hung. Neither of us ate of that hominy.
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Perhaps this recital may appear trival, but it has hung upon my memory for sixty-four years, and I thought I might as well record it as a matter of history and let it cease to be a matter of tradition.
AT THIS SAME TERM, SEPTEMBER, 1789
From the records at this term it appears that some Spanish prisoners had been on hand and a considerable expense was incurred in guarding, handcuffing and taking them to Logan jail, but all the witnesses are dead. I am not able to state the cause of the arrest.
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