USA > Kentucky > Madison County > Glimpses of historic Madison County, Kentucky > Part 29
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Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
There is an increasing movement among rural families and even village dwellers to bury their dead in the Richmond cemetery. That tendency is due to the assurance that their graves will be more re- spected and cared for than has been the graves of rural and some village cemeteries.
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CEMETERIES
THE BEREA CEMETERY
The Berea Cemetery, unlike the one at Richmond later described, has none of the artificial beauty of evergreens, shrubs, and towering monuments, but instead impresses one with its ancient hardwood trees, many of which must have witnessed the early struggles of the nearby college and its founders. The stones that mark the final rest- ing place of most of its dwellers are of the rugged type. Here may be seen the granite boulders which mark the final resting places of John G. Fee, John A. R. Rogers, William Goodell Frost, Dr. J. R. Robertson, Dr. Lee S. Crippen, and many others, who played an active part in the life of the Berea community.
THE RICHMOND CEMETERY
For at least twenty years the senior author has wanted to write a history of the Richmond Cemetery. About five years ago Ru Bee, the McGaughey Studio photographer and he took seventy pictures of beautiful scenes in the cemetery with the expectation of prepar- ing such a volume. At present there is not sufficient information at hand to prepare what a chapter in this volume should contain. A few facts relating to the subject will have to suffice at this writing. Perhaps at a later date this account may be satisfactorily extended.
Until 1848 or some years later a cemetery existed on the knoll north of East Main Street. When the present cemetery was provided the bodies, or at least the stones and markers of this cemetery, were moved (perhaps in the 1850's) to the new cemetery. Some of the stones may be seen at their present location.
In 1848 the General Assembly of Kentucky enacted a law incor- porating the Richmond Cemetery Company. The incorporators were Daniel Breck, John Miller, J. B. Walker, William Holloway, Curtis F. Burnam, J. F. Busby, and Jefferson Gordon. The incor- porators were empowered to purchase any quantity of land in the County not exceeding twelve acres. The land could be used only as burial ground and for ornamental purposes.
The incorporators were empowered to appoint a Board of Trus- tees consisting of seven members, one of whom was to be chairman.
"Said Trustees shall remain in office until their successors are qualified and shall have power to fill any vacancies that may occur in the body." The Trustees shall exercise all powers of the corpora- tion. The seven Trustees shall afterwards be elected by a majority of
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the shareholders, who vote once in every five years. After publica- tion of the notice for four consecutive weeks in the local newspaper election of Trustees may be held. Those elected shall remain in office five years or until their successors qualify. If anything should prevent an election it shall be the duty of the Trustees to call a meet- ing for an election of their successors as soon as convenient.
Four trustees shall constitute a quorum to transact business.
Each person owning a burial lot to the value of $25 shall have one vote but no person or corporate body shall cast more than five votes.
In 1886 the charter was amended to require the election of trus- tees each year and the same were to remain in office one year or until their successors were elected.
The Trustees control the management and care of the grounds and graves, the mode of ornamenting the same, and regulate the mode in which bodies shall be interred.
The proceeds of the sale of lots and all money received by the Trustees shall be used first to reimburse the incorporators for the original cost of the land, and thereafter to ornament and improve the grounds and defray incidental expenses. Lots used for other than burial purposes shall revert to the corporation.
The amended charter of 1886 provides: "(1) That the Trustees of said company shall be elected by a majority of the shareholders, who shall vote on it in any year; and the Trustees so elected shall remain in office for one year; or until their successors are qualified. (2) On the first Tuesday of August next an election shall be held for Trustees of said company, and notice of said election shall be given as required by the charter, and the officers of said election shall be appointed as now required by original charter. (3) This act shall take effect from its passage."
The Richmond Cemetery Company, therefore, is not a closed corporation in which the stockholders, or owners of lots, have no voice in the administration of the cemetery. Every owner of a lot to the value of $25 has a vote or five votes if the value of the lot shown by his certificate of ownership equals $125.
Though the Richmond Cemetery Company was chartered in 1848, it appears that the Board of Trustees was not organized, and the purchased land formally dedicated to burial purposes until 1856. During that year the first grave was prepared to receive the body
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of Mrs. Daniel Breck, the wife of one of the incorporators and a trustee. She was also an aunt of Mary Todd Lincoln.
The existing records state that "William Rodes, Chairman, in- formed the Board, in 1863, that, while the courthouse and the town of Richmond were occupied by the troops of the Confederate States," after the Battle of Richmond, his office in the courthouse was broken into and the records of the cemetery association to August, 1862, "were taken away or destroyed." The cemetery was in the line of the battle and immediately became the burial ground for both Union and Confederate soldiers. Sixty-one Union dead were buried at once in the cemetery and 180 other dead who had been buried on the field of battle were soon removed to the cemetery. Those who presume to know, state that the 241 soldiers were buried at one place on the far east side of the cemetery in the ground be- tween the twelve old irregular in height but similar in shape stones, shown in an illustration.
Recently Mrs. Jack Greenleaf, the daughter of Anthony Rollins Burnam, told the senior author that her father stated that he pur- chased the ground, or lot, for the family burial place where Union soldiers had been buried after the Battle of Richmond. Anthony Rollins Burnam's monument is shown on another page. According to Mrs. Greenleaf, therefore, this Burnam lot (there are other Burnam lots) was for nearly six years the resting place of Union soldiers. In July, 1868, the 241 bodies of Federal soldiers were re- moved to the National Cemetery at Camp Nelson in Jessamine County (see illustration of the division of that cemetery where they were reinterred ).
Since there are those who insist that the Union dead were buried, as stated above, in a large lot on the east side of the old part of the cemetery, there is this explanation that might be offered for two burial grounds for the Federals. The sixty-one soldiers who died near and in the cemetery may have been interred in what became the Burnam lot on the west side of the cemetery. Then after some days or weeks when the soldiers buried near Mt. Zion Church and at other places on the battlefield were removed to the town cemetery, these bodies were reinterred in a large lot on the east side. At any rate, all of the 241 graves had numbers which are given in the records at Camp Nelson, as well as the new numbers that were given the bodies and graves in the Camp Nelson cemetery.
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
It is interesting to know that the Burnam lot where Union soldiers probably were buried for some years is adjacent to a lot of the same size (forty-feet square) where Confederate dead were buried. This lot is designated today simply the "Southern Dead" on a plain stone about eighteen inches high (see illustration). Mr. Burnam was surely much pleased to acquire for a family burial ground the place where Union soldiers had been laid to rest, and whose bodies had returned to dust during the almost six years of their remaining in that place. The Burnams were steadfastly loyal to the Union (see the chapter on The Burnams and Capertons ).
Only thirty to thirty-five of the 241 Union dead buried in the cemetery are given in the records at Camp Nelson. Only the name of one Confederate burial in the Southern lot is known. He a Tennessean, was wounded in the battle and died on Septem- ber 28, 1862. His monument in the burial lot is shown among the illustrations. Some day, perhaps, appropriate memorials will be placed where both Federals and Confederates were buried in the Richmond Cemetery.
"Love and tears for the Blue; Tears and love for the Gray."
Mrs. W. W. Watts became Chairman of the Board of Trustees in 1895, and remained in that capacity until she was laid to rest in the beautiful cemetery that she had helped to develop and ornament for nearly forty years. Her daughter, Miss Emma Watts, succeeded her as Chairman and has endeavored to continue her mother's policies with the aid of the other members of the Board of Trustees.
During the sixty years (1895-1955) that Mrs. Watts and her daughter have led in the administration of the cemetery, Alex Shaw, his son John, and his daughter Miss Anna, have been superin- tendents of the cemetery. They have lived in a comfortable home near the entrance on East Main Street, and have faithfully en- deavored to follow the instructions of the Trustees. In fact, the Shaws have been in the public view always, while the trustees have hardly been recognized.
The superintendent opens and closes the entrances to the ceme- tery mornings and evenings, advises purchasers in the selection of lots, gives counsel in ornamenting graves, supervises the care of the cemetery, directs assistants in the preparation of graves for
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CEMETERIES
burials, and prepares lots for markers and memorial stones or monuments. No burials are permitted on the Sabbath. A special vault (see illustration) has been prepared for bodics which must wait until appropriate time for interment.
There are now sixty-two acres in the cemetery. At the rapid rate of the increase in burials more land will be needed in the near future. The Shaws have buried some 9,500 persons in their sixty years as superintendents, and there is an annual increase in in- terments. There are probably as many people buried in the ceme- tery as there are living in the corporate limits of Richmond. In fact, the cemetery is a county burial ground. Even the dead of other counties are often interred in Richmond.
Mention has already been made of the strong iron fence and gates enclosing the Main Street side of the cemetery-the fence that once enclosed the Madison Courthouse Square. In 1953, an iron fence and gates were placed on the Summit Street side of the cem- etery. The metal fence was removed from the property of the home occupied by Governor James B. McCreary (see the chapter on Notables ) on West Main Street. The old home is now the residence of Mrs. C. B. Brittain, the widow of Rear-Admiral Brittain, whose monument is shown among the illustrations.
The preparation of a Summit Street entrance to the cemetery is greatly appreciated, especially since the traffic on East Main makes ingress and egress very difficult and even hazardous. In reality, the Summit entrance should be kept open from six o'clock A.M. to six P.M. as has been the policy of opening and closing the other entrance. Pedestrian citizens of Richmond who desire to visit the cemetery would appreciate access to their family burial lots from Summit Street.
The author s' home has been adjacent to the Richmond cemetery for twenty-seven years. The entrance to their driveway is about a hundred yards from the Summit Street entrance. For twenty-nine years the senior author has been a very frequent visitor to the ceme- tery. He has stopped to admire memorials and read inscriptions at many graves on numerous occasions. The beautiful cemetery and its magnificent monuments have been a benevolent inspiration to him, more so, perhaps, because he is a historian.
As this writer has visited the memorials to the Estills, the Clays, the Burnams, the Capertons, the Turners, the Bennetts, the Fields,
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
the Chenaults, the Brittains, the McCrearies, the Hangers, the Millers, the Henderson-Tauch memorial, and many other places where prominent persons of the long ago were buried, he has a feel- ing of chaste elation and humble pride that sustains and encourages him to aspire to nobler achievements and a life that would make the world a better place in which to live. But then there is that inevi- table thought the poet certainly had when he penned the lines:
The boast of heraldry, the p omp of power; And all that life or earth ere gave, Await alike the inevitable hour, The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
The foregoing is merely a small part of what the writer would like to publish relating to the Richmond Cemetery. Space and time discourage any further expressions. The accompaning illus- trations express something of his appreciation of his silent neighbors quietly resting so near his earthly abode. If he may close with a thoughtful admonition and fervent prayer it would be this:
So live that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.
East Main Street Entrance to the Richmond Cemetery.
Receiving Vault where deceased may be placed awaiting interment.
Memorial to Capt. James Estill. Ereeted by his grandchildren in 1870.
The Caperton Memorial. W. H. Caperton, James W. Caperton, Mrs. Katherine Phelps Caperton.
Clay Memorial: Green Clay, Cassius Marcellus I, Brutus J. II, Mrs. Lalla R. Clay.
Peter Tribble, 1774-1849 Alex. Tribble, 1819-1888
The Turner Memorial: Squire Turner, 1793-1871; Cyrus Turner, 1819-1849. The Caperton monument in the distance.
HENDERSON
Henderson Memorial: Frank W. Henderson, Margaret Miller Henderson; given by Waldine Tauch, Prof. of sculpturing at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, as an expression of appreciation for aid and encouragement given her by the Hendersons in her youth. At right is memorial to John Miller ( 1808); donor of site of early Richmond, 1798.
Andre Barthe, 1795-1843 (born in France) Stone was moved from the rear of the Presbyterian Church.
Field-Burnam Memorial: Curtis Field, wife Rosanna Hardin; Thompson Burnam, wife Lucinda Field.
Stones from the old Cemetery on East Main. Between them and fence beyond Union soldiers were buried after the Battle of Richmond.
The Section in the Camp Nelson National Cemetery, Jessamine Co., to which Union dead from the Richmond Cemetery were removed.
. SCOTT
Ition & M. D. SCOT X
BORN
TIMPAURY CO. TENN.
Apr0. 1535.
DEED SEPT. 25.1862
+
Jas. R. F. Scott, C.S.A., died Sept. 28, 1862, of wounds in the Battle of Richmond. Lot where Southern dead were buried.
BUBNAM
Anthony Rollins Burnam, 1846-1919. On lot where Union dead are believed to have been buried.
O. W. Walker, the tall monument between two large, holly trees. Edw. E. McCann, the large stone in the right foreground. G. M. Ross, arched stone in the left foreground.
James B. Walker, 1797-1861; in center William N. White; at the right, Cabel Stone, 1783-1861, at the left, a cross at top.
The Shackelford Memorial Judge William R. Shackelford, 1869-1936.
The Bennett Memorial: Waller Bennett, Mary C. Burnam Bennett, Samuel Bennett, Bell Harris Bennett.
Boggs in left foreground. Gott stone the center, Arnold-Hanger at the far right.
A
CHENAULT
Chenault family stone in foreground. Harvey C. and Ann M. Letcher Chenault, figures at left; their sons, William and David, figures at right.
Daniel Breck and wife Jane Todd Breck. She was the first to be interred in the cemetery, left. William Chenault, Sr., 1773-1834, center. Mary J. McClintock, 1827-1908, front. S. P. Walters, tall cross at right.
COATES
Thomas Jackson Coates, 1862-1928, President E.K.S.T.C., 1916-1928.
The Brittain-Baldwin Memorial Rear-Admiral C. B. Brittain, 1867-1920 Thomas L. Baldwin, 1785-1872 Thomas E. Baldwin, 1845-1935
The Toy Memorial John Hubbard Toy, Rose Moberley Toy. "Until the Day breaks and the shadows flee away."
JOHN MILLER
Born in Albemarle Co., Va., 1750; died in Madison Co., Ky., 1808. His wife was Jane Delaney (1751-1844) of Albemarle. Cap- tain in Revolutionary Army and with Washington at Yorktown, Oct. 19, 1781. Came to Kentucky in the autumn of 1784 and built the first house in Richmond on Lot 4, Main Street. One of the first three delegates from Madison Co to the Virginia legis- lature; also one of the first representatives from Madison to the Legislature of Kentucky. Information is from base of the monu- ment. Land for the Courthouse of Madison and lots for Richmond were obtained from him in 1798 (see p. 38).
The Miller monument near the Henderson monument by Waldine Tauch, nine pages before, was erected by' Miller and his wife, Margatet Hicklin Miller, and presented to his children, James B., J. Harrison, Cyrus, Julia, and Fayette, as shown with other information on the monument.
1. Dr. Alex,
Bibliography
MANUSCRIPTS
Manuscripts and printed sources relating to the history of Madison County are numerous. An author of a thorough history of the County would need to consult more material than is given in this bibliography. The list here includes material that the authors hardly used. Nevertheless, the following pages contain what the casual student of the County's past would need to examine. Futher- more, for the first time a printed bibliography of sources of the County's history is offered.
The records of the Madison county and circuit courts are replete with information about the County from 1786 to the present. There are five volumes of Complete Circuit Court Records that pertain only to the settlement of cases in that court early in the nineteenth century over the priority of land ownership. The scores (per- haps hundreds) of depositions by early settlers, like Green Clay, William Cradlebaugh, Aquilla White, Joseph Proctor, James Berry, William Williams, Hale Talbot, William Irvine, Oswald Townsend, and Jesse Hodges (all but Clay and Cradlebaugh) in the case of Grubbs versus Lipscomb, shed much light on early life in Madison. William Irvine, County Court clerk from 1786 until many years later and his successors left valuable accounts of the early history of Madison.
Then there are will books, deed books, marriage records, records of the settlement of estates like the accounts of the settlement of the estate of Cassius M. Clay, who left no will. His father's will in 1828 is most informative.
The four volumes of earliest land records and surveys from 1780 to a later date, left by John Crooke and now in possession of his great-great grandson, Jack Green, (now a County official) are among the most valuable records of the early history of Kentucky.
The town and city records of Richmond and Berea are sources of the history of these cities.
The voluminous church records-those of the Republican Baptist, the Cane Springs Baptist, the Paint Lick Presbyterian, the Methodist Quarterly Conference from 1811 to 1845, copies of which are in
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
possession of the authors-are invaluable for accounts of local his- tory. Other church records exist.
Berea College manuscript records and the like for Central University and Eastern Kentucky State College contribute to the history of higher education in Madison and Kentucky. Central University records are in the custody of the Eastern Kentucky State College, except those of the Board of Trustees of Central, which are in the custody of Centre College. Eastern has a copy, and the original minutes of the Madison Female Institute (1857-1917). Other manuscripts relating to the history of Madison's three col- leges might be mentioned.
The public school records for the county and city schools should be consulted and always preserved. Robert Little's "History of Education in Madison County" a thesis for the M.A. degree at the University of Kentucky, is one of the sources for the chapter on "Education in Madison County."
Perhaps the most valuable sources for Glimpses of Historic Madi- son County are the French Tipton Papers, now in the possession of the authors. Tipton delivered an oration on "Madison County, 1775-1875" when he graduated from Central University in 1875. Though a graduate in law and a newspaper man, he devoted much of his time to visiting historical places in the County and, after 1890 especially, to taking notes in preparation of a history of the County, which his untimely death in 1901 prevented him from finishing. He left seven manuscript volumes ( with an index volume ) of notes, three scrap books, scores of photographs, several hundred letters, and other items pertaining to the history of the County. The authors have drawn much from them. Evidently he consulted the County's records and every other source available.
Another Madisonian, William H. Miller, compiled seven huge volumes of material, largely of geneological quality, relating to eight prominent families of Madison and their collaterals. He did this in preparing a "History and Geneologies of the Families of Miller, Woods, Harris, Wallace, Maupin, Oldham, Kavanaugh and Brown, with Interspersions of Notes of the Families of Dabney, Reid, Mar- tin, Broaddus, Gentry, Jarman, Jameson, Ballard, Mullins, Miebes, Moberly, Covington, Browning, Duncan and Others, published in Lexington, 1907. This large, illustrated book and the seven manu- script volumes are invaluable to the student of the history of Madi- son County.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
William Chenault, a native lawyer, most of whose life was spent in Madison, left some valuable manuscripts pertaining to the Coun- ty. Many of these he prepared in 1884, to exhibit in the Filson Club of Louisville, one of whose ten founders he was. These documents are in the possession of the Boonesborough Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Richmond and the Eastern Kentucky State College at Richmond. Chenault also prepared a manuscript, "The Early History of Madison County," covering the period from 1770 to 1790. He consulted the County's archives in the courthouse and other primary sources. The senior author edited and published this manuscript of some 15,000 words in the Register of the Ken- tucky State Historical Society in 1932, Vol. 30, No. 91, pp. 119-161.
Other unpublished material comprises: Thomas Jackson Coates, by Frances Ross Hicks. A term paper at Murray State Teachers College, Kentucky, 1934; Abstracts of the following families: Cowan, Dean, Walder, Hume, Bartlett, Morland, Spoon, Hart, Arnold, Hockaday, Eliot, Hamilton, Boone, Crews, Barnes, Tate, and others by Mrs. J. B. Noland; "Genealogies" of the following families: Black, Gass, Turley, Boggs, Broaddus, Noland, Martin, Cleveland, by Mrs. J. B. Noland; "Old Homes in Madison County" (some 15,000 words) by the late Mrs. J. W. Caperton. Copy in possession of J. T. Dorris; "Madison County Chronology and Bibliography," by Mary Kate Deatherage ( Master's thesis, 1944) for additional bibliography of all kinds. Her bibliography is not com- plete.
BOOKS
History of Kentucky, by Richard H. Collins. 2 vols, 1874.
Old Cane Springs: A Story of the War between the States in Madi- son County, Kentucky, by J. T. Dorris. 1936, 1937.
A Glimpse at Historic Madison County and Richmond, Kentucky, by J. T. Dorris. 1934.
Three Decades of Progress, Eastern Kentucky State Teachers Col- lege, by J. T. Dorris (ed). 1936, 1937.
Berea College, An Interesting History, by E. H. Fairchild, 1875. Autobiography of John G. Fee. 1891
Central University, Richmond, Kentucky by J. T. Dorris. A reprint from the Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol. 32, No. 99 ( April, 1934)
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
The Life of Cassius Marcellus Clay, Memoirs, Writings, and Speeches, by Cassius Marcellus Clay. 1886.
The Writings of Cassius Marcellus Clay, including Speeches and Addresses, edited by Horace Greely, 1848.
Boonesborough: Its Founding, Pioneer Struggles, etc., by George W. Ranck. 1901.
Birth of Berea, A Story of Providence, by John A. R. Rodgers. 1903. The Boone Narrative, told by Daniel Boone. First published by John Filson in 1784, edited by Willard Rouse Jillson, 1932, 1934. An Autobiography (Berea College), by William Goodell Frost. 1937.
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