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History Shrines in and About Lexington (Compiled by Ernest Helm) Source: The (Lexington, KY) Leader, 02 April 1916 For the guidance of visitors and information of some residents not familiar with the extraordinary historical wealth of Lexington. LEXINGTON IS BUILT upon the dust of an ancient walled city of vast extent. In 1776 hunters discovered catacombs 300x100 feet, fifteen feet below the surface, in which there were numerous mummies. In the stress of the war the entrance was obliterated and its location lost. A very old wall walled with stone, found also by settlers, was not the work of Indians. Stone sepulchers build in pyramid formation and containing skeletons were above the surface. A mound on the east side of Spring street, midway between High and Maxwell, from which have been exhumed pottery, a stone head carved by the Aztecs, and half-burnt wood, is credited with having been a sacrificial altar. A lead mine opened in 1790 showed unmistakable signs of having been worked by aborigines. Extensive ruins of Alleghan circumvallatory works and temples were leveled in building the "Jamestown of the West." ***** PREHISTORIC DEFENSE WORKS and monuments on all sides of Lexington, notably at Russell Cave, testify that this war cradle was the fixed dominion and that a dead Lexington was the metropolis of the mysterious people of relatively advanced civilization eventually dispossessed by the Red Man. Curious earthern vessels and copper utensils, weapons and ornaments were unearthed by pioneers. Skeletons were removed from a stone mound at Russell Cave as late as 1815. Maps and plates of these ante-Indian fortifications together with relics are in the Smithsonian Institute. ***** FORMALLY SURVEYED in April, 1779, Lexington took its name from a camp christened June 5, 1775, by hunters from the fort at Harrodsburg led by Robert Patterson and Simon Kenton. It is the first city of the land whose name memorializes the opening battle of the Revolution. "First Hill," occupied now by the First Baptist church, was the earliest permanent cemetery of Lexington. It fell into disuse after the cholera epidemic of 1833. ***** DUST OF NUMEROUS PIONEERS rests in obliterated graves on the slope east of the Catholic cemetery and between the Lexington Cemetery and railroad yards, their bodies having been buried in McConnell's graveyard. ***** EARLY BLOCKHOUSES raised by Lexington's first defenders (priority in dispute) stood at the southwest corner of Main and Mill streets and southeast corner of High street and Broadway. The former became a unit in the fort. Following the disaster at Blue Licks, the head of an Indian ghoul killed by one of the garrison, was mounted on a pole upon its roof. THE DUST OF MRS. RHODA VAUGHN, daughter of Captain John Holder, first white child born in the wilderness now Kentucky (Boone's Fort, 1776) rests in the old Episcopal cemetery. She spent nearly all her life in Lexington and died here in June, 1863. Her son, Adjutant Edward M. Vaughn, was killed at Buena Vista in 1847. ***** THE FIRST CORN CROP of "the Italy of America" was raised in 1779 on Cheapside by Robert Patterson, John Maxwell, James Masterson, William and Alexander McConnell and James and Joseph Lindsay. ***** BOONE'S STATION, fifteen miles southeast of Lexington, in Fayette County, was established by Daniel Boone in 1779. ***** BRYAN STATION, established by North Carolina Bryans in November, 1779, and scene of some of the most stirring incidents of pioneer days, is five miles out on the road of that name. A memorial wall encircles the spring from which a file of heroic women secured water for the little garrison August 15, 1782, when the fort was besieged by six hundred Indians, under Simon Girty, renegade. ***** FAYETTE, mother of Bluegrass counties and at that time embracing more than one-third of the "District of Kentucky," was formed in November 1780. ***** THE BUILDING AT 326 WEST MAIN STREET occupies part of the site of the original fort, 1780, and later the market house in which the first Kentucky legislature convened, June 4, 1792. ***** IN TROTTER'S WAREHOUSE, southwest corner of Mill and Main streets, Dr. Frederick Ridgeley, who came here in 1780 and was a preceptor of Dr. Benjamin W. Dudley delivered lectures to the early medical students of Transylvania University. ***** COLONEL JOHN TODD, military governor of Illinois, then another county of Virginia, moved to Lexington in 1780 with his bride and joined those in the fort. He commanded the Lexington militia in the battle of the Blue Licks, 1782, and died gallantly fighting at their head. ***** LEXINGTON WAS INCORPORATED as a town by the Virginia Legislature, May 6, 1782, and as a city by the Kentucky legislature in 1832. ***** THE CAMPUS OF STATE UNIVERSITY is part of the estate of John Maxwell, companion of Boone and city builder. His was the first marriage to be celebrated in the fort. ***** JOHN CARTY, distinguished soldier, who lived at the southwest corner of Main and Mill streets as early as 1783, introduced the manufacture of earthenware into Kentucky. A frame house was erected on the lot in 1788, a two-story brick in 1807 and the present building in 1871. ***** TRANSYLVANIA COLLEGE, Third and Broadway, oldest institution of learning west of the Alleghanies, was established in 1783 thru act of the Virginia Legislature of May, 1780, appropriating confiscated Tory lands. George Washington, John Adams and Aaron Burr were contributors to its endowment. President Monroe, General Jackson, Lafayette and Daniel Boone made visits to the university. ***** ON A PARAPET OF THE COURTHOUSE facing the public square is a table bearing the following: "In 1783 Here Stood The First School House In Kentucky." John McKinney, who had begun teaching in the fort in 1780, was its teacher and John Filson, Kentucky's pioneer geographer and historian and biographer of Boone, afterward taught there. ***** THE ORIGINAL HOME OF COLONEL ROBERT PATTERSON, founder of Lexington and one of the founders of Cincinnati, stood at 331 Patterson Street in 1783. ***** ELDER LEWIS CRAIG, who had been imprisoned in Virginia "for preaching contrary to law," in 1783 at South Elkhorn organized a Baptist congregation, the first worshiping assembly in Kentucky. ***** McCONNELL'S STATION, established in 1783 with the ruins of McConnell's hut as a marker, was at the "Jacob Royle" Spring in the valley south of the cemetery and a present-day landmark. ***** THE HOME OF GENERAL JAMES WILKINSON, who opened the pioneer drygoods store here in the spring of 1784, was on the site of the house at 581 West Main street. ***** THE FIRST LEXINGTON CHURCH, Presbyterian, erected in 1784, was at the southeastern corner of Walnut and Short streets. It was called "Mt. Zion." The original Catholic church, erected of logs also, ten years later, was at the northeast corner of Patterson street extended (Baptist Alley) and Main street. ***** THE FIRST TAVERN, opened in 1785 by James Bray, was on Main street near Spring street. Ayres "Cross Keys" was at Spring and Main and the "Indian Queen" at High and Broadway. ***** ELLERSLIE, once palatial home of Levi Todd, first county clerk, still stands opposite Lake Ellerslie on the Richmond road. ***** WHEN BROADWAY "MAIN CROSS STREET" was opened in 1785, the trustees ordered all cow-pens and hog-pens removed and put a ban on fishing from the first bridge, Broadway and Water streets. ***** WATER STREET was a straightaway course in 1787, racing along Main street having just been put under ban by the town trustees. ***** THE HOME OF THE GAZETTE, published by John Bradford as Kentucky's pioneer newspaper August 18, 1787, was at the northwest corner of Main street and Broadway. ***** AT MASTERSON'S STATION, five miles northwest of Lexington, the first Methodist church in Kentucky was built in 1787. ***** IN A HOUSE FACING THE COURT HOUSE on the east, known as Captain Young's house, John Davenport opened a dancing school in 1788. ***** A COMPANY OF LEXINGTONIANS headed by Robert Patterson laid off and settled Cincinnati in December 1788. The land on which that city rises was owned by Colonel Patterson, Matthias Denman and John Filson. ***** THE COURT HOUSE occupies ground on which the first stone court house was raised in 1788. Prior to that time a log building at the northeast corner of Main street and Broadway had served. ***** MASONS established a lodge in Lexington November 17, 1788, their hall being at the northeast corner of Walnut and Short streets. ***** WILLIAM WEST, first artist of the wilderness, came to Lexington from Baltimore to live in 1788. Edward West, who invented the steamboat here in 1793, was a brother. ***** A CABIN at the southwest corner of Short and Dewees streets was the first Methodist church of Lexington, the original congregation having been organized in 1789. ***** STOLL FIELD, State University, was the drill ground of the Lexington Light Infantry, organized in 1789. ***** IN 1789 THE BAPTISTS OF LEXINGTON erected their first church on the ground now occupied by the First Baptist church. ***** JAMES BROWN, U.S. SENATOR AND MINISTER TO FRANCE, who came to Lexington in 1789, had his law office at the northwest corner of Short and Mill streets. ***** THE "SHEAF OF WHEAT," Lexington's second inn, conducted by Robert Megowan, was on Main street between Upper and Limestone streets. The State treasurer had his office in this tavern in 1792. Here in 1790 St. Patrick's Day first was celebrated in the town. Satterwhite's "Eagle" tavern was on the site of 219 West Short street. ***** JOHN POPE, one-armed United States Senator, and rival of Clay, who came to Lexington in 1790, lived at the northeast corner of Short and Mill streets. The house afterwards was occupied by the David A. Sayre bank, established in 1823. Senator Pope built the residence known as the Woolfolk home on Grosvenor avenue. ***** THE BUILDING OF MORE WOODEN CHIMNEYS was prohibited by act of town trustees in 1791 and post and rail fences across Short street were ordered removed. ***** NATHAN BURROWES, who introduced the manufacture of hemp into Kentucky, but became famous as a manufacturer of mustard, settled here in 1792 and Lexington was his home until his death in 1846. ***** AT THE FIRST SESSION of the first Kentucky Legislature in Lexington, 1792, an act was passed establishing the town of Versailles at "Woodford court house." ***** JUDGE WILLIAM MURRAY, attorney general in 1792 and distinguished as an orator and scholar, lived at the northeast corner on Main and Walnut streets. ***** THE SOUTHEASTERN CORNER of Mill and Short streets was the site of the Second Presbyterian church house, erected after the original congregation split on Watt's version of the Psalms of David in 1792. This congregation endures in the First Presbyterian church. The other faction disbanded about 1830. ***** JOHN BRECKINRIDGE, president of the Democratic Society of Lexington in 1793, lived at the south corner of Broadway and New streets. ***** THE MARKET STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, perpetuated today in the Second Presbyterian church, stood on the site of the present edifice, built in 1847, and was dedicated July 30, 1815. ***** THE BONES OF THE REV. JAMES MCCHORD rest beneath the pulpit of the Second Presbyterian church, of which he became the first pastor, July 30, 1815. ***** EARLY IN THE LAST CENTURY James Haggin, a member of the Fayette bar, built a magnificent residence on the site of Hamilton College, his extravagance leading to his undoing. ***** TOMBSTONES TO MATTHEW HARRIS JOUETT, artist, born here in 1783, and Richard H. Menefee, statesman, remain in a little graveyard near the city on the Georgetown road, altho their coffins were moved to Louisville many years ago. Jouett's studio was above 259 West Short street. ***** THE FIRST TOWER CLOCK was installed in the court house in 1816. Its copper face is in the collection of Colonel W.H. Polk, Lexington historian. ***** THE EASTERN KENTUCKY HOSPITAL, founded in 1816 as Fayette hospital, was the first lunatic asylum of the West and second in the United States. ***** THE UNITED STATES BANK opened January 27, 1817, occupied the site of the Y.M.C.A. building. ***** THE BLOCK BETWEEN LIMESTONE AND UPPER STREETS North of Sixth street effaced the Presbyterian cemetery established about 1838. Trees long ago removed were planted at the expense of Dr. Daniel Drake, whose wife was buried there. He became a member of the Medical College faculty in 1817. ***** GENERAL LESLIE COMBS, valorous soldier, lawyer, legislator, State auditor and railroad pioneer, lived at the southeast corner of Main street and the viaduct. He moved from Clark county to Lexington in 1818. ***** KEEN'S TAVERN, one of the forerunners of the Phoenix Hotel, sheltered President Monroe, General Jackson and Governor Isaac Shelby when they visited Lexington together July 3 and 4, 1819. ***** JOHN MAXWELL was buried in 1819 in Maxwell's graveyard on the south side of Bolivar street, which was effaced years ago. Tobacco factories now occupy the ground. ***** THE SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH to be erected in Lexington was completed in October, 1819, and stood on Mill street opposite Gratz Park. ***** THE FAMOUS CONFECTIONERY AND DANCE HALL of M. Giron occupied the building at 125 North Mill street. ***** JOEL T. HART, Clark county stone mason who died a world-celebrated sculptor, became a tombstone cutter at Pruden's Marble Works, corner of Upper and Second streets in 1835. Afterward his studio was in rear of the residence at 172 North Upper street. ***** JUDGE GEORGE ROBERTSON, distinguished as congressman and jurist, who came here in 1835, lived at the southeast corner of High and Mill streets. ***** LAST OF THE IRON STRAP-RAILS used in the pioneer railroad of the West, together with the stone sills into which they were anchored, recently were removed in the construction of L. & N. yards utilities, and the rails are preserved in offices of the railroad. ***** ST. PETER'S CHURCH on Limestone street was dedicated December 3, 1837. ***** IN 1843 THE LAW OFFICE of Thomas F. Marshall, congressman and renowned orator, was at the northeast corner of Short and Market streets. ***** CASSIUS MARCELLUS CLAY'S abolition paper "True American" suppressed by citizens August 18, 1845, was published at 108 North Mill street. ***** WALDEMARDE MENTELLE, banker and Clay's friend, who fled Paris at the opening of the Reign of Terror, lived opposite Ashland on the Richmond road, dying there in 1846. ***** THOMAS E. BOSWELL'S woods became the Lexington Cemetery under charter of 1848. ***** THE HOME of James O. Harrison, jurist and father of the public school system of Lexington (1848) was on the site of the Good Samaritan hospital. ***** TRANSYLVANIA MEDICAL COLLEGE, destroyed by fire while occupied as a hospital by Federal troops, stood at the northwest corner of Broadway and Second streets. ***** SAYRE COLLEGE, Limestone and Second streets, chartered in 1854, was the first institution in Christendom founded for the education of women. ***** THE CORNERSTONE to the Henry Clay monument in the Lexington Cemetery was laid July 4, 1857. ***** ROBERT WICKLIFFE, noted both as lawyer and lawmaker, who died in 1859, lived at the northwest corner of Second and Jefferson streets. ***** THE GENERAL JOHN HUNT MORGAN HOME endures at the northwest corner of Mill and Second streets. ***** MILITARY EXECUTIONS took place at the K.T.H.B.A. track during the war between the States. Morrison Chapel and Medical College were used as hospitals. General Burbridge's headquarters were at Second and Upper streets, while Generals Nelson, Bragg and Kirby Smith used the Phoenix hotel. Federal prisons were at the northwest corner of Short and Limestone streets and on Water street opposite the police station. ***** THE TOMB of Father John H. Beckkers Hollander, who came here in 1864 and was priest when St. Paul's church was completed in 1868, is under the tower. ***** WOODLAND PARK long ago was the property of Mr. Irwin, son-in-law of Henry Clay, and was the site of the Agricultural College when it was established as a branch of Kentucky University in 1865. ***** THE BAPTIST FEMALE SEMINARY, now 343 South Broadway, was established in 1868, taking over the property of the Misses Jackson's School. ***** HOCKER FEMALE SCHOOL (Hamilton College) was established in 1869, with Robert Graham as president. ***** THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE of General Morgan and the cenotaph of John C. Breckinridge, youngest vice-president, are in the shadows of the court house. ***** ROSE VERTNER JEFFREY lived at the southwest corner of Second and Market streets, and there wrote her books of verse and prose and also plays. This was the home of Judge Buckner Thurston at an earlier period. ***** LIEUTENANT HUGH McKEE, killed while leading a charge into a Corean fort June 11, 1871, and son of Colonel W.R. McKee, slain in the battle of Buena Vista, February 22, 1847, is among heroes who sleep in the Lexington Cemetery. ***** THE HOME of James B. Beck, distinguished congressman from the Ashland district who came to Lexington from Scotland at the age of sixteen, was at 209 East High street. ***** IN 1872 GEORGE W. RANCK, historian, wrote of Lexington: "founded in the midst of a great revolution, built up by daring men in the heart of an almost boundless wilderness and nurtured and protected thru years of hardship and Indian warfare, she played the most prominent part in the early and tragic days of the Dark and Bloody Ground…She was the Jamestown of the West, the advance guard of civilization, the center from which went forth the conquerors of a savage empire. During another long and eventful era she was the most political, literary and commercial metropolis of the great 'Northwest.' She was crowded with men who made her famous." ***** ON TOWN BRANCH in 1793 the first steamboat, invention of Edward West, was given a trial, the stream being dammed near Patterson street. ***** LEXINGTON was made the State capitol July 4, 1792 and lost it to Frankfort the year following. ***** BOOKS PRINTED HERE by John Bradford in 1794, his plant then being on an alley just west of the Carty Building, are on shelves of the Lexington Library. ***** THE LEXINGTON POSTOFFICE was established in 1794 in the jail, which was on Main street immediately west of Broadway. Innis B. Brent was the first postmaster. ***** IN THE NORTHEAST QUARTER of Gratz Park is a well dug in June, 1794, by John R. Shaw, to supply water to Translyvania Seminary, erected on this campus the year previous. ***** THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH occupies the site of the German Lutheran church and school erected in 1795, and destroyed by fire in 1815. The obliterated Lutheran graveyard is in the rear on the church. ***** THE LEXINGTON LIBRARY, first in the West, established in 1795, was moved from Transylvania Seminary to the site of the new Leader building, northeast corner of Market and Short streets, then Andrew McCalla's drug store, in 1800. ***** THE BENJAMIN GRATZ HOME, Mill and New Streets, bought by him in 1824, was erected on the site of Lexington's first brick house built by Thomas January in 1795. ***** THE HOME of Colonel Joseph Hamilton Davis, admitted to the bar here in 1795 and afterward distinguished as first western lawyer to appear before the Supreme Court, was opposite the Union Station on Main street. ***** CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL occupies the site of a frame house which was converted into the first Episcopal church here in 1796. The cornerstone of the present edifice was laid March 17, 1847. ***** LEXINGTON'S FIRST THEATRE (1797) a temporary affair, was at the northeast corner of Limestone and Water streets. Ushers Theatre (1816), a more pretentious playhouse, in which Edwin Forrest made his debut as leading man, was at the southwest corner of Vine and Spring streets. ***** MARKET STREET took its name from a market house built on the eastern side of the public square in 1797 and used until 1817. ***** DR. BENJAMIN WINSLOW DUDLEY, world-famous surgeon, who came to Lexington as a boy in 1797, lived and died in the house at the northeast corner of Market and Second streets. This was also the home of Major Thomas Bodley. ***** JUDGE JESSE BLEDSOE, who began the study of law here in 1798, lived at the northeast corner of Walnut and Fourth streets. ***** "BELFAST," historic mansion of David Megowan, at the southwestern corner of Megowan street and the L. & N. cut was demolished in 1915. The building was erected prior to 1800. ***** THE COLONEL THOMAS HART HOME, in which Henry Clay married Lucretia Hart in 1799, is at the southwest corner of Second and Mill streets. In the same house General Morgan was married to Miss Bruce, thereafter making it his home, and John Bradford died there. ***** CAPTAIN JOHN MARRISON, JR., who fell at Dudley's defeat in 1813, bore the distinction of first child to be born here. In 1779, his mother, wife of Major John Morrison, became the first woman occupant of Fort Lexington. ***** GEORGE NICHOLAS, professor of law in Transylvania University in 1799, celebrated before as lawyer and statesman in Virginia, and afterward Kentucky's first attorney general, lived in a house occupying the site of Sayre College. ***** PUBLIC WORKS were introduced here in 1799 when a strip of Main street was paved, and a so-called bridge was constructed across mudholes between the court house and the Main-Mill corner. ***** THE GRAVESTONE OF JOHN POSTLE[TH]WAITE, host to Burr, LaFayette, Grant, Lincoln, Arthur, Santa Anna and many other famous men, remains in the abandoned Episcopal cemetery on East Third Street. ***** "TOWN FORK" fed mill races for a lead factory, paper mill and other industries on Water street near Merino at the beginning of the last century. ***** THE PHOENIX HOTEL is by succession the oldest hostelry in the whole western country, covering ground on which stood Postlethwaite's Tavern built in 1800. ***** THE PIONEER BANK in the State, the Kentucky Insurance Company, 1801, originally was located on Main Street between Mill and Broadway, but later occupied the site of the building at 139 West Main street. ***** JUDGE GEORGE M. BIBB, Kentucky Chief Justice, U.S. Senator and Secretary of the Treasury, lived at the northeast corner of Fourth street and Limestone in 1805. ***** CLAY'S little brick law office in which he had the famous interview with Aaron Burr, stood on the site of the residence at 183 North Mill Street. ***** IN 1805 the town trustees passed an ordinance prohibiting citizens from longer harboring panthers as pets. ***** WILLIAM TAYLOR BARRY, to whose memory a granite monument long stood in the southeastern angle of the court house yard, but was removed and mysteriously lost during the construction of the present court house (completed in 1900), commenced the practice of law here in 1805, following graduation from Transylvania University. As representative and senator he was a power in the legislature and afterwards was congressman, U.S. senator, chief justice of the Court of Appeals, postmaster general and minister to Spain. ***** ASHLAND was bought in 1805 by Henry Clay, who had come to Lexington in November, 1797. There he entertained Daniel Webster, Earl of Derby, General Bertrand, Harriett Martineau, Van Buren and numerous other notable people. Kentucky University bought Ashland in 1866, and twenty years later it was purchased by Major Henry Clay McDowell, whose widow, Mr. Clay's granddaughter occupies it. ***** THE FAYETTE BANK BUILDING occupies the site of the Brent Tavern facing the court house in which the New-Empire plotters held conferences in 1806. ***** THE OFFICE OF THE REPORTER, when founded in 1807 by William W. Worsley and Samuel R. Overton, was near Broadway on the south side of Main street. ***** HARMAN BLENNERHASSETT, cultured Irishman who was arrested here in the summer of 1807 on the charge of complicity in the Burr conspiracy, had his examining trial in the brick court house built the year previous. ***** THE HOUSE at 574 West Main street was the home of Mary Todd when she was married to Abraham Lincoln , November 4, 1842, at Springfield, Illinois. She was born in a house next west of St. Paul's church, on ground now occupied by the parsonage, which was the Robert S. Todd Home in 1820. ***** THE ANCIENT HOME of Farmer Dewees, banker, still stands at 323 East Short street and is one of the best examples surviving of splendor in early home building. ***** WHILE A STUDENT at Transylvania University (1824) Jefferson Davis lived at the southwest corner of Limestone and High Streets, the home at that time of Joseph Ficklin, sixth postmaster. ***** BOTANIC GARDENS of Prof. Samuel Constantine Raffinesque, of Transylvania University, established in 1824, occupied ten acres on main street, embracing the territory now Megowan street. ***** MASONIC HALL, now 409-411 West Main street, was the scene of the grand ball complimentary to General LaFayette when he visited this city May 16, 1825. ***** THE WHIPPING POST, at which minor offenses were atoned for, was in the court house yard a few feet east of the Cheapside-Main corner. ***** GAOLS for the incarceration of slaves stood on the site of the Lexington opera house, North Broadway, and at 203-205 East Main street. Surrounding walls were high, plastered and crowned with iron spikes. ***** THE FRIED-MEAT TAVERN, a noted early hostelry, stood on the site of Christ Church Cathedral parish house. ***** AUGUST BELMONT'S NURSERY FARM on the Georgetown road many years ago was the estate of George Washington Sutton, first Jersey cattle importer and pioneer in applying the European tank method of rotting hemp. ***** THE FIRST CONGREGATION of the Disciples of Christ, an offshoot of the First Baptist Church in 1826, held services on Short street between Upper and Limestone streets. ***** IN 1826-27 MEETINGS of the Kentucky Association, oldest living turf club in America, were held at the Williams' track on what is now the tomb-spiked northern plateau of the Lexington Cemetery. Prior to that time, beginning with 1802, meetings of the Lexington Jockey Club had been held at Ashland. The track now in service was bought in 1826. ***** THE ROAD TO MAYSVILLE, begun here in the fall of 1829, was the pioneer macadam highway in Kentucky. ***** THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE built in the United States, the product of Thomas Harris Barlow, was operated over the line from Lexington to Frankfort, now the L. & N., opened in 1835 as America's second railroad. It was chartered as the "Lexington & Ohio" January 27, 1830, and the corner stone was laid October 24, 1831. The first thru train to Louisville was run in 1851. ***** THE LEXINGTON ORPHAN ASYLUM was established in 1833 to care for children bereft of parents by the epidemic of cholera which carried off five hundred citizens that year. For many years it stood on the site of the present gateway to Hampton Court. Establishment of the first city school (1834), southeast corner of Walnut and Short streets, also was a consequence of the plague. ***** ST. CATHERINE'S ACADEMY was moved to Lexington from Scott county in 1834. ***** THE BROADWAY CHRISTIAN CHURCH, erected in 1891 and destroyed by fire February 27, 1916, stood on the site of the brick edifice dedicated as the First Presbyterian church in the summer of 1808, and conveyed to the Disciples' denomination May, 1870. ***** OLIVER FRAZER, artist, was born in 1808 at the Frazer homestead on the north side of the Georgetown road, just beyond Peach Orchard. ***** RUINS OF THE COTTON MILLS of Lewis Saunders, pioneer Kentucky manufacturer (1808) endure at Saunderville. ***** WINSLOW & STEVENS, sons-in-law of John Maxwell, built the brick court house of 1808 and also the first steam mill of the West (1810), which was situated on South Mill street. In 1818 at Maysville this firm built the steamboat "Olive Branch" for the Ohio-Mississippi trade. ***** THE HOME, OFFICE AND STORE OF DR. ELISHA WARFIELD, professor of surgery at Transylvania University in 1809, occupied the lot now numbered 264 West Main street. He afterwards built "The Meadows." ***** DUFOUR, REFUGEE OF THE SANTO DOMINGO MASSACRE, conducted a dancing school at the residence at the southeast corner of Second and Market streets, which was erected by Dr. Frederick Ridgley, who moved to Lexington in 1780. ***** THE HOME OF JOHN W. HUNT, hemp manufacturer, third postmaster and president of the earliest bank, was on ground where now stands the building at 230 West Main street. ***** JOHN JORDAN, JR., fourth Lexington postmaster, lived in a house on the site of 112 North Upper street. He was a commission merchant, and at Frankfort built a steamboat for the down-river trade. ***** DAVID A. SAYRE, founder of Sayre College and a wealthy banker at the time of his death in 1870; walked barefoot from Maysville to Lexington in 1811 and became a silver-plater's apprentice in the shop called "Old Gunboat" (because 9x40 feet) on the south side of Main street, just east of Broadway. ***** GENERAL JOHN M. McCALLA, reported for distinguished gallantry in the war of 1812, built and lived in the house at 231 North Mill street. Transcribed by pb, March 2000 |