USA > Kentucky > Madison County > Glimpses of historic Madison County, Kentucky > Part 6
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Until recent years the handsome brick residence built on his 15,000 acre plantation stood as an example of past elegance. Harriet Beecher Stowe is said to have visited in the village of Paint Lick and perhaps was familiar with the Kennedy plantation, where she found the originals for her characters, Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, Little Eva, and Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin. One of the rather difficult Kennedy slaves, who ran away after the death of Mr. Kennedy, made his escape to Canada and later returned to Massachusetts, where he lived at the home of Mrs. Stowe's brother- in-law. Here, through his tall tales of plantation life, he made a place for himself as George Harris in Mrs. Stowe's novel.
Mr. Kennedy was a man of strong parts and since his death in 1836 may tales of more or less truth have grown up about the dramatic incidents of his life. One of these is that an angel in flowing robes appeared before the family and warned them that if they erected a monument to mark his grave it would be destroyed in an unusual manner. Three different stones were erected over his grave in the Paint Lick cemetery and each in turn was struck and shattered by lightning.
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MADISON COUNTY
ESTILLS AND IRVINES
Capt. James Estill was born in 1750 in Virginia and came to Boonesborough in 1775. In 1779 he and his brother Samuel built Estill's Fort on their 1440 acre claim 500 yards south-east of what later became known as Estill's Station on the Kentucky Central railroad. Two years later, Samuel built new Estill's Station nearby and these two forts were a center of population and activity as long as the Indians invaded the land. Captain James was killed at the Battle of Little Mountain in 1782, leaving a young wife and five children.
Col. Samuel Estill was born in Virginia in 1755. He fought under Col. Lewis at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 then came to Boonesborough the following year. After the Indians were driven from this region he moved to Milford where he operated a hotel for some time before returning to his extensive holdings on Little Muddy Creek. He served as a member of the Lower House of the Kentucky Legislature and was Judge of the Quarterly Ses- sion of the court.
Col. Estill weighed 412 pounds when he was baptized in 1828. The leaders of his legs had been so drawn for eleven years that he was unable to walk, so it was necessary for four men to carry him into the water in a big armed chair. Mrs. Paul Burnam has his chair. By tipping the chair backwards he was immersed.
He died in 1837 at the home of his daughter Annie Day, one of his nine children, in Tennessee. His portrait, painted by Chester Harding about 1830, hangs in the art gallery of the Madison County Courtroom.
William Irvine was born in Virginia in 1763 and came to Boonesborough at an early date. He received three gun shot wounds in the Battle of Little Mountain in 1782 and was carried forty miles back to Bryan 's Station on the back of Joseph Proctor. He was the first clerk of Madison County, which office he held till about 1812 when he was succeeded by David Irvine, who served as county clerk until about 1850. Irvine was a delegate to the constitu- tional conventions at Danville in 1787 and 1788. Also, he was a delegate to the Virginia Convention that ratified the Constitution of the United States. He was in the state senate in 1792 and was presidential elector in 1805, 1813 and 1817. He died in 1819.
Christopher Irvine, a brother of William Irvine, was born in
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
Virginia and came to Boonesborough in an early day. He was a deputy surveyor under James Thompson, the first surveyor of Lincoln County in 1781. He and Green Clay were the principal deputy surveyors for what is now Madison County. Christopher entered land on Tates Creek and with his brother William built a fort there. He had large holdings on Irvine's Lick near the present site of Richmond.
Christopher was present at the organization of Madison County and was a member of its first court. In August 1785 he was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention at Danville.
He married Lydia Callaway and to them were born three sons and three daughters. He was killed by the Indians in Ohio in 1786 at the age of thirty-five.
The Irvines are memorialized by the name of the county seat of Estill County and locally by the name of a street and by the Irvine-McDowell Memorial on Lancaster Avenue, an estate of twelve or fifteen acres which was left to the Kentucky State Medical Association by Mrs. William Irvine, in memory of her grandfather, Dr. Ephraim McDowell, the ovariotomist. For several years the beautiful old home was used as a traehoma hospital. After the property ceased to be needed as a hospital it was transferred to the city as a recreational center.
FIRSTS IN KENTUCKY
Many events which happened and many things which were done for the first time in Kentucky, occurred in what is now Madison County. The following list includes much of interest that pertains to the early history of Kentucky:
The first road was Boone's Trace, or the Wilderness Road, through Madison County, March-April, 1775.
The first marked grave in Kentucky was that of Haneock Taylor, who died in 1774 of wounds by the Indians. (See map.)
The first battle between whites and Indians was near the site of Richmond, March 25, 1775.
The first commissioned officer killed by the Indians was Captain William Twetty, died March 28, 1775, at Twetty's Fort.
The first fort was Twetty's Fort, erected March 26, 1775, about five miles south of Richmond, and named for Captain William Twetty. (See map.)
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MADISON COUNTY
The first official report from Kentucky of a battle with Indians was by Daniel Boone to Richard Henderson, April 1, 1775.
The first real fortification was Boone's Fort at Boonesborough, completed in June, 1775. The greater fort at Boonesborough, be- gun in 1775, was not finished until the winter of 1776-1777.
The first store was that of Henderson & Co., at Boonesborough, April, 1775.
The first lottery was at Boonesborough, Sunday, April 22, 1775, in disposing of town lots.
The first land office was opened at Boonesborough in December, 1775.
The first formal recording of town sites was at Boonesborough, in 1775.
The first orchards planted were by Nathaniel Hart, "of some 500 apple scions" and by John Boyle, in 1775.
The first settlement in Kentucky to receive women was Boones- borough, September 8, 1775. Harrodsburg also received women the same day. Colonel William Whitney and Captain George Clark may have brought their wives into Kentucky a little earlier in 1775.
The first constitutional assembly in Kentucky met at Boones- borough, May 23-27, 1775, and enacted nine laws and made a constitution.
The first attempt at constitutional government west of the Allegheny Mountains was made at Boonesborough, May 27, 1775.
The first Anglo-American government west of the Allegheny Mountains was organized at Boonesborough, May 23-27, 1775. The Watauga Association organized in 1772, was hardly west of the Mountains.
The first recorded sermon was by Rev. John Lythe, Episcopal minister under the "Great Elm" at Boonesborough, May 28, 1775.
The first women captured by the Indians were Elizabeth and Fanny Callaway and Jemima Boone at Boonesborough, July 14, 1776.
The first romance and marriage was that of Samuel Henderson and Elizabeth Callaway, August 7, 1776, Squire Boone officiating.
The first child born of parents married in Kentucky was Fanny Henderson, May 29, 1777, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Henderson.
The first representative appointed to the Continental Congress
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
was James Hogg ( October, 1775) to represent Transylvania Colony, whose seat of government was Boonesborough. He was not ad- mitted.
The first town chartered was Boonesborough, October, 1779.
The first ferry franchise was given to Richard Callaway, across the Kentucky River at Boonesborough, October, 1779.
The first large partnership (written) to grow a crop of corn was made by Nathaniel Hart and seventeen other men at Boones- borough, April 15, 1779. Other similar, but verbal, partnerships had been made in previous years.
The first considerable shipment of corn (300 bushels) was from Boonesborough by water to Nashborough (Nashville) in the Cumberland Settlement (now Tennessee), early in 1780.
The first slave freed in Kentucky was Monk, by his master, near Boonesborough, in 1782 or 1783.
The first gun-powder made in Kentucky was made in Madison County by Monk, Captain Estill's slave. (Unless Daniel Boone made powder earlier in Kentucky.)
Richmond had the first telephone system in Kentucky outside of Louisville. Copies of the town's first two telephone directories are in the College Memorial Museum. Fewer than 100 names ap- pear in each. Mrs. R. E. Turley still has number 38, which ap- pears in the first directories. There are more than 4,000 names in the 1955 directory.
CHAPTER IV Transportation
WATER, BRIDGES, AND ROADS
T THE FIRST AVENUE of transportation in Madison county was by its navigable streams, especially the Kentucky River, which consti- tutes sixty-five miles of the county's boundary. In the earliest years of the settlements the river was their only means of transporta- tion of tobacco and other supplies to the outside world. As early as 1780 pirogues of corn were shipped by water from Boones- borough to Nashville on the Cumberland. In 1795 there were advertisements of boats available to run from the forks of the Kentucky to Frankfort. In 1801 the Kentucky River Company was organized for improving navigation and $10,000 worth of stock was sold to the various counties. The object was to remove all obstructions and improve navigation. Tolls were charged, but after nine years of losses the concern ceased to function. In 1826 a movement was started to build locks and dams, which ultimately covered the river up to its three forks. This movement was accelerated at the beginning of the twentieth century and today there are fourteen locks in the Kentucky River, three of which (9, 10, 11) are on the stream as it passes Madison County (see map). Aside from the streams the well worn buffalo trace following the highland and the Indian war path, which must be watched with care awaited the white man's travel.
Kentucky inherited a Virginia law, which provided for the open- ing and keeping in repair of roads by every man over sixteen years of age working there on so many days each year under the supervision of a surveyor, or paying a fine of $1.25 per day for refusal. The mill dams on the streams were to be wide enough for roads and the material for such were to be provided by a county levy. In 1801 a law was enacted requiring that roads be not less than thirty feet in width.
Before 1800 there was little traffic by land other than by pack horse and saddle and the so called roads were nothing more than paths. The first roads were the buffalo traces following the highest ridges and the Indian war path which the white man traveled
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
only with the greatest caution. When the roads were widened and the two and four wheeled vehicles appeared upon them, the packsaddle men with their caravans objected very strenuously and sometimes forced their wagons from the road.
A law was enacted in 1793 to improve a road from Milford, the county seat, to Hazelpatch in Rockcastle county. The state provided the funds and the road was opened in 1797. This con- nected up with the Wilderness Road, a state project, which was opened up in 1796. The following year Joseph Crockett was authorized by the State Legislature to purchase a site for a toll gate, the first in Kentucky, on the state road just beyond the junction with the road to Milford. The turnpike was rented to the highest bidder, Robert Craig, who became the first toll gate keeper in Kentucky. Tolls were fixed by the Legislature and the keeper's profit was the difference between the expense of keeping the road in repair and the amount of toll collected. In 1798 the County Court authorized the opening of a road from Richmond, the new county seat, to the state road.
In these early roads the trees were cut and the stumps simply rounded off so the vehicles could pass over them, but with the coming of the rainy season and winter most of them were im- passable unless they were corduroyed, that is logs were cut and laid across them at right angles. Such construction did keep the vehicles above the mud, but they were rough riding.
Turnpikes were slow in coming to all of Kentucky. In 1852 there was only one in Madison County. During the thirties the Legislature purchased pike stock to the amount of $2,539,473 in twenty-eight pikes in the state and the Lexington-Richmond pike was one of them. The state paid $75,383 toward its construction. Up to 1867 this pike paid to the state $64,455 or an annual dividend of 3.10%, which was equaled by only three other roads.
During the fifties and sixties many private toll road companies received charters and constructed gravel toll roads connecting practically all points of interest in the county. Toll gates and houses were erected every five miles on these roads and tolls were collected according to the conveyance and the distance traveled thereon. The Legislature fixed the prices as follows: persons other than post riders, expresses, women and children under ten- 12.5 cents; horses-12.5 cents; two wheeled carriages-50 cents;
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four wheeled carriages-$1.00; meat cattle going east-4.5 cents per hundred pounds. Sheep and hogs were cheaper; and wide tired vehicles were cheaper.
There were many streams to be crossed. Water mills were numerous and at an early date mill dams, for which material was provided by the county, became roadsacross the smaller streams; but when it came to the larger streams and rivers ferries were necessary. Col. Richard Callaway received a charter from Virginia to operate the first ferry in what is now Kentucky at Boonesborough in 1779. Clay's ferry on the Richmond-Lexington road came in 1799. In fact, during the 1780's and '90's practically all the streams in the county were provided with ferries where they were needed. Tolls on the ferries were as follows: man-5 cents; man and horse-10 cents; phaeton or buggy-25 cents; a buggy and two horses-30 cents.
Later bridges replaced most of the ferries. The first bridge at Clay's ferry opened to traffic in April, 1870. This bridge and all rights were sold for $4,750 just before the model T Ford came on the highway. Later with the high toll and multiple increase in traffic, the bridge was sold to the state in 1946 for $200,000, and within less than two years it paid for itself and became a free bridge. A fine modern memorial bridge of reinforced concrete was erected from bluff to bluff thus eliminating the long hard climb in 1946 and it also bears the name, Clay's Ferry Bridge.
Returning to the toll pikes it should be stated that the people liked to use them, but resented the paying of toll. The feeling began developing in the '80's and by the middle '90's according to Coleman's Stage Coach Days in Kentucky a lawless group known as toll gate raiders took matters in their own hands, destroyed many toll houses and gates, and threatened the lives of the gate keepers if they continued to collect tolls. The matter was settled by the various counties purchasing stockholders' interests at a very reduced rate and by 1900 practically all the pikes were free.
At least two separate stage lines were operating between Rich- mond and Lexington before 1840 at which time Thomas H. Irvine added Richmond to his many stage lines out of Lexington. In 1842 or '43 he underbid William Elder of another stage line by $30 for carrying the United States mail between the two towns and he continued to carry it until the coming of the Central Kentucky
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
railroad which put him out of business in 1889.
This same stage coach company operated a four horse coach on to Berea and over Big Hill to London. This line was discontinued during the Civil War.
Time made by the stage depended largely upon the condition of the roads. Where the roads were not improved the stage lines often ceased to function during the winter months. In the first place it was a very uncomfortable and dangerous means of travel. There was bitter rivalry between the drivers and often reckless racing ensued. It was nothing unusual for the coach to overturn and its occupants to be seriously wounded. Law suits often fol- lowed. The roads were narrow and the driver often seemed to expect all other traffic to give him the right of way. Others were often forced over embankments or their vehicles were torn asunder by the force of the coach and themselves seriously injured.
An extra team of horses was kept at the foot of the Clay's Ferry hill to help pull the coach up that long difficult drive. Often the men in the coach had to dismount and lend a hand in order to make the grade. The coming of the railroad in the '80's put the stage coach out of business in Madison County.
RAILROADS
The Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company began develop- ing in the fifties and soon after the close of the Civil War, the people of this county began seeking some means of bringing a rail- road into their system of transportation. Finally after long discus- sions a representative committee of eighteen citizens presented on April 1, 1867 a "petition requesting that the court of Madison County cause a poll to be opened at the various districts or pre- cincts of said county on the 20th day of April 1867 to take the sense of the voters of Madison County on the propriety of sub- scribing for and in behalf of said county, stock in the Branch Railroad from Stanford to Richmond, to the amount of $350,000, it being a proposed branch of the Louisville and Nashville Rail- road."
On the same date the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Com- pany through its president, James Guthrie, presented a like peti- tion to the fiscal court. The stock to said road was to be sub-
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scribed under the following conditions: "That the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company shall locate and construct said branch railroad from a point at or near Stanford to Richmond, Kentucky upon the payment of $750,000 cash, which is contemplated to be furnished by the counties of Madison, Garrard, and Lincoln or other parties and that said counties furnish free of charge the right of way as provided by charter of said company including all necessary land for depots and stations." After the branch road is completed and in full operation "The Louisville and Nash- ville Railroad Company is to issue stock for the amount of cash paid by the said county of Madison and to other subscribers if any. Such stock [is] to be entitled as other stock in the . . . .. company to all dividends declared after six months from the completion of said branch railroad." The poll was taken and the proposition carried by 89 votes.
The road was to be open for business within eighteen months from the time of breaking ground if the money were furnished as fast as required for the work. If the proposition carried, the bonds were to be issued in sums of $1,000 each payable to a New York firm in twenty years with interest at the rate of six per cent and that a tax should be levied upon the property of the citizens of the county to pay said interest. The court had the right to sell the stock in the county and thus redeem the bonds. If this were not done, the dividends on the issued stock should be applied to the payment of interest on the same. If the dividends should not be sufficient to meet interest, a special tax would be levied to meet the deficit, but if the dividends should exceed the interest the surplus would be set aside as a sinking fund, which might either be loaned or distributed among the tax payers pro rata.
On March 2, 1869, the full $350,000 was paid to the road for which the county was given shares or stock in the company to the amount of $490,000 or forty per cent in excess of the bonds voted. It should be stated that the county voted $20,000 in bonds with which to pay for the right of way and stations within the county. In all, the county issued bonds to the amount of $443,000.
Some of the moneyed men of the county, especially Squire Turner and Daniel Breck, opposed the county's part in the con-
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
struction of the road, declaring it had been done illegally. This created a feeling of distrust on the part of many citizens and resulted in a very limited sale of bonds within the county. No funds were on hand when the first call came for money by the railroad company. So, rather than sacrifice the stock, the com- missioners of the Sinking Fund, S. P. Walters and W. J. Walker, met the first call for $35,000 by borrowing the amount and giving their own personal papers as security.
By order of the Court dated June 23, 1869, a tax of fifteen cents on each $100 worth of property was levied for the creation of a sinking fund to be used in case the dividends from the stocks proved insufficient to meet the payment of interest on the bonds. By May 16, 1870, the sheriff, Saul Biggerstaff, had collected and paid to the treasurer of the Commission $11,541.98 and in the course of the past year the dividends from stock had brought in $34,300, an aggregate from the two sources of $80,459.68 in the sinking fund. Out of this, twenty-five bonds were retired at a cost of $20,732.50.
A large share of the bonds were sold in Louisville and neces- sitated the presence of an agent in that city. These bonds netted a little better than 79 cents to the dollar. They were twenty year bonds bearing only six per cent interest payable annually while the Garrard county bonds were payable in ten years with interest semi-annually and were on the market at 75 cents to the dollar. Therefore, they were a better investment than the Madison County bonds and the sale of the latter suffered from the competition.
On June 20, 1870, the local sinking fund commission was auth- orized to sell Louisville and Nashville stock to the amount of not more than 200 shares and to apply the proceeds on the re- tirement of its county bonds. The commission had estimated that by selling all its railroad shares all bonds could be retired and still have several thousands in cash on hand. In August they sold 1,606 shares for $125,125 and a year later realized $231,000 from 3,000 shares. These sales placed Madison County in good financial stand- ing again and for her efforts she enjoyed the benefits of the Stan- ford-Richmond branch of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad until it no longer was profitable and ceased to operate about 1930.
On June 25, 1881 Madison County voted by a majority of 800 or 900 votes to take $200,000 stock in the Central Kentucky
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TRANSPORTATION
railroad which was being proposed from Paris through Winchester and Richmond on South. By 1883 the road was well under con- struction. In May of that year 1,000 men or laborers were engaged in construction between Winchester and Richmond, a large part of whom were convicts from the penitentiary at Frankfort. They were used on day and night shifts in construction of tunnels and approaches. There was one guarded camp for these convicts on the bluff overlooking Otter Creek and Boonesborough while the other was out only two miles north of Richmond.
After dickering for six years the Richmond-Irvine Three Forks railroad work finally began in the spring of 1883, Madison County having voted $250,000 towards its construction. It entered the county at Valley View and extended on through Richmond to Irvine.
The Kentucky Central operates today as the Louisville and Nashville, while the Three Forks was a less fortunate business venture and ceased to operate during the depression of the early 1930's. As in the case of the road from Stanford, the track was removed; therefore, the one surviving railroad in the county today is suffering from the competition of motor vehicles which came with the improvement of highways.
During the past year a 200 foot right of way has been surveyed and purchased for the construction of a four lane highway from Richmond to Clay's Ferry. Surveys have been made to continue this highway on to Lexington. Such improved highways encourage motor traffic and discourage railway transportation.
CHAPTER V Cities and Villages
RICHMOND
THE HILL on which down town Richmond stands today was
T chosen as the site for the Madison County court house in 1798. John Crooke surveyed the land (his compass used in the survey is in Eastern Museum) with Main Street running east and west along the north side of the court yard and extending east to the stream at the foot of the hill. A street was surveyed on either side of Main and these were to be called North and South streets. Their names were later changed to Irvine and Water streets, respectively. Two springs were reserved on the south side of Main Street near the branch. The first house built in Richmond was by John Miller on the site of the present filling station at the corner of Main and B streets.
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