TURN YOUR RADIO ON

 Ada Vella Rose is not a recognizable name to anyone at Hodgenville Methodist today. Mention Miss Ada Funk, however, and you’re sure to start a conversation, recollecting memories of our last “old time” radio show in these parts. Weekday mornings in the early 1970s, travelers would have passed a rather unpretentious insurance office at the corner of Water Street & Lincoln Blvd. & perhaps puzzled over the sign in the window reading “On The Air.” If they were a local to the county, they knew exactly what this meant, and already had their radio tuned to WIEL to hear Miss Ada Funk’s broadcast of “Homespun News,” the weekday recap of all the important social happenings, illnesses and deaths in the County. Every day her office became, for a short time, a miniature radio station where Ada Vella telephoned in her beloved show, the sign in the window a reminder to all that insurance business would commence only after the radio show ended. 

 Ada Rose was born “across the river” in Clark County, Ind. Nov. 20, 1886. She would marry Clifton Bradford Funk of Brooks in Bullitt County on June 14, 1911, he having come from a prominent old family there. Clifton was best remembered for constructing the “C. D. Polley” garage on Lincoln Blvd. & Water Street for his Plymouth-Desoto-Chevy dealership prior to the 2nd World War. Miss Ada’s impact reached much farther than her few minutes “on the air” each day. Ada joined the local Methodist church family by certificate in November of 1920 by Reverend Henry, becoming not only Treasurer for the church but one of its first female Trustees. She was best remembered for her devotion in the classroom on Sunday mornings where her Sunday School class made an impact upon many generations. In 1973, Miss Ada was tragically struck by a passing car while getting the mail in front of her home (now lovingly maintained by John & Rooney Gray), passing away 14 months later in August of 1974, never having regained consciousness.

Her legacy was continued by Wilma Doyle Atherton who stepped in to assure the "Homespun News" was delivered to anticipating radio listeners, and today the tradition continues with the re-establishment of radio in Hodgenville by Cale Tharp and ABE93.7 where local news remains an important component of the station's entertainment mix.

LaRue Literacy and The Stierle Family of Hodgenville

 by Gary Dean Gardner, Independent Scholar 

Born Nona Blandfield on 14th November 1887 near Leitchfield, Kentucky to Methodist parents Sarah Jane Hart and James Harvey Blandford, members of Summit United Methodist Church, Hodgenville’s Nona Stierle is best known perhaps as our county’s first librarian.  An outreach of the Ladies’ Lincoln League, our first LaRue County Public Library had its austere beginnings in the back room of Mrs. Stierle’s bakery in downtown Hodgenville.  Long a member and active supporter of the group, Mrs. Stierle and the League became challenged to improve this community service by a scathing article making fun of the women’s meager lending library behind the bakery counter.  The New York writer expouned upon the widespread ignorance of our local children and the need for true public library, humiliating the Ladies and the entire county.  The embarrassment brought by this negative national attention spearheaded the move to raise money and establish a proper library. 

No longer the part-time librarian, Nona Stierle nonetheless was a fervent supporter of the cause, and worked diligently to see the dream of a respectable library come to fruition.  Their accomplishment was heralded in the local paper, “Hodgenville. Ky., Feb. 12. 1935 — A long- fostered project of the Ladies' Lincoln League was due to materialize here tonight with the dedication of the new $11,500 Lincoln Memorial Library. A program, in which leading citizens of Larue County planned to take part, was arranged under the direction of Mrs. D. B. Munford. president of the league. Entertainment on the program includes singing by a double quartet consisting of Mesdames C. B. Funk. LaRue, Clara Walther, Nona Stierle. Dr. Shacklette. Ollie Lyons, J. R. Wil-son and Edward Elliott, and a solo whistling number by Mrs. Hugh Fulkerson.”

 Prior to coming to Hodgenville, Nona Blandford had married George H. Stierle (3 JAN 1879- 7 JUNE 1921) in Grayson County. George was a baker by profession and had established a shop in Leitchfield where the family resided in 1910.  For reasons unknown, but perhaps due in part to the early death of their young son, the couple, along with their daughter Sarah and Nona’s mother came to Hodgenville in 1912 to operate a bakery here.  The couple had 6 children, they being Anna Mae (1912-1993), George Jr. (1910-1911), Helen (1914-1987), Martha (1917-1966), Winona (1919-2002), & Sarah (1908-1974), all of whom, but for baby George, were reared in the Methodist Church family at Hodgenville.  

Of all the children, the best remembered and loved was surely “Miss Sarah”, their eldest child.  Never married, “Miss Sarah” was the surrogate mother to hundreds of LaRue County children during her memorable career as an elementary school teacher.  She clothed & fed countless needy children out of her own pocket in a time long before any community outreach programs were fathomed. She and her entire family rests in Red Hill Cemetery.

Hodgenville Elementary Principal Edwin Harvey with "Miss Sarah" Stierle

George Stierle’s life was cut short prematurely, but as mentioned his widow Nona continued to run his bakery which she expanded to incorporate our fledgling County Library.  George, the son of Rudolph Theodore Stierle Sr. and Marie Magdalena, was in reality named Heinrich George, having been born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany and emigrating from there with his parents, four brothers & two sisters on the S. S. Trave, arriving in New York at 26 April 1889. The family made its way to Louisville by 1910, where Theodore worked as a cabinetmaker making church furniture.  It might be surmised that George was trained in Germany as a baker.  Surely Lutheran by birth, it seems rationale that he would make the conversion to Methodism. He was a proud member of B. R. Young Lodge #132 of Hodgenville.

George & Nona's graves at Hodgenville's Red Hill Cemetery

Southern Food Furniture; The Sugar Chest

An Exploration of the Culture & Myth 

Behind the South's Most Celebrated Antique

by Gary Dean Gardner, Independent Scholar

Kentucky Sugar Chest from Bob & Norma Noe Collection, Speed Museum Louisville KY

From the earliest Colonial period, Southern social activity has been linked to the preparation and sharing of food, with the climax of any important Southern occasion being based upon the enjoyment of good food and good company.  Having such an emphasis on food in our lives, it comes as little surprise that our ancestors crafted special furniture just for the presentation and/or preservation of food.

 

Few forms in American furniture are truly unique.  Even the Democratic stability of the young United States as was manifested in wood during the Federal period is based heavily upon the classicism in French styles of the late 18th century.  The French in turn had borrowed from the Greeks and Romans long before.  Americans of the early 19th century as a whole seemed to be struggling so in creating an identity that there was little originality in furniture function and form.  In the American South, however, we find a long established agrarian culture with multi-generational webs of common ancestry that, while far from homogeneous, encouraged a comparable social structure within the majority of the 13 states which formed the region.  This cultural basis bound these states together, allowing an early individualized sense of expression to develop in the decorative arts which directly influenced unique furniture adaptations.  Function, not fashion alone, began to demand form, and as the planter culture started to set itself apart from its northern neighbors, a distinct separation can be noted in furniture production north to south. 

Sugar Cones or Loafs came in varying sizes & required nippers or a sugar hatchet to cut for use.

 
Dismissing fictionalized “Gone with the Wind” accounts of plantation life, we know that the planter class worked hard to tame their acres and cultivate their rich, overgrown lands as pioneers transformed themselves into landed gentry, modeling their American identities on the English system of class they initially wished to replicate.  These early generations had little time for pretension (I), yet they demanded festive interaction and revelry with their peers, in social opposition to the Puritans of New England.  Their homes were large, to accommodate big families both black and white, but just as the “plantation” houses were designed to be used, so their furnishings had to meet the same demands.  With the exception of the coastal cities, imported and custom-made furniture (from England or the northeast) was a luxury during the colonial period and early 19th century prior to the establishment of large scale furniture factories in Philadelphia and later Cincinnati, which shipped heavily downriver with improvements in the steamboat and navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. While beauty may have been desired by Southerners to imitate that of nature so abundant all around them, use was of most importance to the colonial Southern planter.  In this light we can better understand the unique regional furniture forms that developed, inclusive of the slab or hunt board and biscuit rock, incorporating both utility and design.  Cabinetry had to be strong for endurance, meeting the multiple needs of the plantation family, and yet reflecting some sense of the owner’s position and expanding wealth.  
 

Sugar Comes to Dixie 

"Cutting the Sugar-Cane" Ladies' Society for Promoting the Early Education of Negro Children, London, ca. 1833-37

The uniquely “Southern” furniture forms that emerged certainly met these criteria.  Examples tended to develop in pockets, with close “cousins” throughout various sectors and along established inland trade routes.  This is quite true of the sugar chest.  For the novice, the sugar chest was specifically designed to store sugar in bulk.  Unlike a meal chest, which might have been delegated to the meat house or kitchen and thus removed from the primary residence altogether, sugar was so valuable to the plantation household that it was kept under lock and key in the dining room.  The high cost of sugar resulted from the fact that semi-tropical Louisiana was virtually the sole annual source for sugar and its distribution in the U.S. prior to the War Between the States, thanks in part to the Jesuit priests who had brought the sugar cane to that state in 1751.  The first sugar mill was established later that same decade by Claude-Joseph Dubreuil de Villars.  Creole planter/scientist Jean Etienne de Bore developed the process to granulate sugar around 1794, attaining success with a $12,000 sugar crop in 1795.  By 1796, there were 10 sugar refineries in Louisiana.  Shipped in hogsheads of about 1000 pounds each, of which only 5000 such barrels were produced in 1802ii, supply was greatly outweighed by demand.  It wasn’t until the advent of improved production methods and the increased importation of slaves into Louisiana, as well as efficient commercial steamboats and the charting and clearing of navigable inland waterways, that sugar could make its way to the upper South at a more reasonable cost.  Ironically, it was a free man of color, New Orleans native scientist and engineer Norbert Rillieux, who developed more efficient techniques in evaporating sugar cane juice by a vacuum pan method for the refining of sugar, and thus aided America’s most slave dependent industry. 

ca. 1885 African-American children cutting sugar cane on a Louisiana Plantation image courtesy Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library

 

Earliest American Origins

  
It is not surprising that a region which still prefers sugar in it vegetables would inspire a furniture form specifically for the storage of that sweet commodity.  Perhaps because it is so symbolic of the Southern antebellum home, there has arisen controversy over the true origins of the sugar chest.  Early attributions were to both Kentucky and Tennessee, alone and in combination, but further research would indicate an origin in Virginia and the Carolinas.  It has been hypothesized that the sugar chest emerged as a metamorphosis of the cellaret or bottle case on stand just as sugar production came to the forefront in Louisiana about 1805.  That might be so if referencing only this “classic” sugar chest form we most commonly think of, but this isn’t quite true for the chest altogether, for the earliest types of sugar chests documented seem to have been crafted just inland from coastal Virginia and North Carolina (iii) ca. 1750, with references to their use in Virginia dating back to at least that period (iv).  In essence, the sugar chest did emerge about the same time sugar came to Louisiana, just much earlier than scholars had once assumed.  Sadly, very few sugar chests have retained their full and accurate provenance to such an early period in these two states.  Estate inventories, however, prove the continued use of the form for many generations well into the 19th century, primarily in Virginia.
 
The Virginia Prototype
 
By the middle of the 18th century, the term “sugar chest” seems to have become part of the established vernacular in Virginia, so it must be assumed that settlers pouring into Kentucky and Tennessee by the 1790svi were already well aware of the wordage (vii) thus the continuation of the term’s use in estate settlement documents of the first years of the 19th century.  These “alpha” prototypes of the 18th century followed closely the construction of blanket chests, though generally of a greater capacity and height.  They were little more than enlarged blanket boxes with a divided interior to store white and brown sugar & molasses and perhaps coffee, with their sole decorative value derived from their beautifully grained walnut lumber (viii) from the old growth forests of Virginia. The best boasted simple but elegantly carved cabriole legs, then in vogue, but not with the elegant addition of ball and claw carvings. 
 
These very earliest of sugar chests thus far discovered (ix), rather surprisingly, display no real vestigial links to the equally famed Southern cellaret as might be expected.  Though the cellaret seems to pre-date the sugar chest in its use in the South by a few decades, it was actually the pattern for the next, and most prolific, generation of the sugar chest that would appear with the dawn of the 19th century.  It takes no stretch of the imagination to see that the cabinetmakers of the day would have made simple improvisational adaptations upon the cellaret, then becoming increasingly popular throughout Virginia in the Hepplewhite style (x).  This makes sense, for by the close of the 18th century, in that period of advancing Louisiana production, sugar was becoming more of a luxury commodity, just as wealth was increasing in the upper South.  As such, those earliest utilitarian forms of sugar storage were being replaced by the classical, sophisticated lines borrowed from the Hepplewhite cellaret complete with inlay ornamentation worthy of display in the owner’s finest rooms (xi).  It was a natural progression to take the general layout of the divided interior meant for the storage of wine bottles and exaggerate it to establish a pattern for the form that would thence forth be utilized for sugar storage until the War Between the States throughout Kentucky and Tennessee, and forever afterwards symbolize that mythic era of antebellum culture for the region as a whole.  
 
Sugar Chests here, there, everywhere?
 

One would be hard pressed to conclude that the Deep South was void of sugar chests, but since the need was never prevalent, the surviving examples fail to be abundant, at least not to an extent they can be easily identified and studied.  Several Mississippi sugar chests are known to have Kentucky and Tennessee origins.  Examples continue to surface in Alabama (xii), but sound provenance is seldom available to show these were actually made in that state and not simply transported there with the large scale migration to the “Black Belt” region from throughout Tennessee.  To date, little reference to sugar chests has been documented from the northern most limits of Georgia (xiii) or South Carolina (xiv), but surely some variation was utilized in the inland plantations (xv).  While ships could provide sugar to the coastal cities at a cost far reduced from that paid in the Southern “Upcountry,” some form of the sugar chest must have been crafted at some point in the large-scale plantations of the state where they still required the bulk storage of sweets.  A very crude sugar table consisting of a safe-like cupboard base with a round table top may solve that puzzle, as a few such examples of this form have surfaced with ties to the Palmetto State.  A similar table-like sugar safe has been documented to southern Louisiana.  In their simplicity, these Coastal sugar tables of the early 19th century were a throw-back to the very first basic sugar chests that applied function before form. 

 

 
Going back to the basic question of attribution of origin and the misconception that all sugar chests are from Kentucky or Tennessee, one must understand the economics of the sugar trade to understand why the chest was so important in these two states in comparison to the rest of the South.  With the advent of trade by the steamboats, improved roads, & the beginnings of rail travel, all combined with increased efficiency and output in Louisiana’s sugar industry, costs for the commodity dropped (xvi) throughout most of the South by the 2nd quarter of the nineteenth century (xvii), then marking a rise again as the 1850s progressed.  Commission, or venture, merchants like Jackson, Riddle, & Co. of Philadelphia (xviii) contracted with both Louisiana and Mississippi sugar plantations and northern iron manufacturers during the 1830s to swap commodities for goods, and ship both to the remote settlements of the inland South.  It was only in this still isolated interior of the region, in Kentucky, Tennessee, and the western portions of Virginia and N. Carolina (and perhaps north Alabama) that a need for the sugar chest did linger.  While costs for sugar still necessitated the use of the chest throughout the 1820s, by the 1840s its use in Kentucky and Tennessee was more due to tradition than to need, but ingrained enough in the local society it was still considered an important household asset (xix).  Because the sugar chest became outdated along the coast so early on with decreased sugar costs, and lingered in the back country for so many decades, we tend to think today that it was a Kentucky or Tennessee innovation.  It did, however, reach its peak popularity in those two states due mainly to its extended lifespan there.  This may have partially been due as well to a spike in sugar costs, which reached an antebellum record in 1858 (xx).  A survey of central Kentucky and Middle Tennessee estate inventories would verify the continued use of the sugar chest into the 1860s, likely due to that sharp rise in prices that would have affected this region of the upper South more than any other.
 
Besides migrating south, sugar chests were also carried north by 19th century farmers who retained the pioneer spirit of their ancestors and kept moving in search of cheaper land and better opportunities.  Some Kentuckians and Tennesseans never moved, but speculated on lands in the Midwest and set up homes there, sometimes relocating agents or overseers.  Either way, furniture from the upper South made its way early on to states like Ohio, Illinois or Indiana, causing many fine sugar chests to lose their true regional identities forever (xxi).
 
 
Alternative Forms
 

As already indicated, the sugar chest was not limited to one design.  While most all were constructed around a single bin or series of such bins, the presentation took many unique characteristics.  The most common and best known is the divided box set upon a frame, the earliest of which transitioned from the blanket chest, followed by a more sophisticated variance of the cellaret, both forms being carried westward from Virginia and the Carolinas into Kentucky and Tennessee where both styles would persist.  The Federal slant front desk, so popular throughout the Shenandoah Valley, would be redesigned in Kentucky’s inner Bluegrass as a sugar desk by the time of the next war with England (xxii).  Such a form served multiple uses, as it could function as a working desk, while beneath the writing surface was located the bin for storage of sugar.  Drawers below allowed for the keeping of sugar nippers, spices, and perhaps even linens for the dining room.  This extra storage was especially possible in the lesser seen sugar bureau and sugar press.  These oddities mimicked larger pieces of furniture by adding extra storage capacity and utility to the basic sugar chest.  Less formal were the sugar tables, which provided a work surface in the kitchen with storage capability for sugar.  A close relation, but more refined, was the sugar chest modeled after the better known Southern hunt board.  These had a combination of drawers and bins with false drawer fronts, accessed by lifting a hinged section of the top board.  These may also have served as mixing tables for drinks.  Another scarce form of sugar chest is the smallest of practical sizes.  While true miniatures and children’s toy sizes (likely cabinet makers’ samples) are known, the least studied are the portable sugar boxes.  More plentiful in East Tennessee, these are found as well in Central Kentucky.  Just as the cellaret came in a modified traveling size, the sugar chest was also shrunk down to a portable box, compact enough to be kept on the sideboard to lock away cut sugar within easy access of the dining table.  As sugar came in large cones, it was convenient to cut the sugar ahead of time and lock away the coin silver sugar bowl in addition to the cones themselves (xxiii). 

Sugar Bureau, Likely Fayette County, Kentucky from the Bob & Norma Noe Collection, Speed Museum Louisville KY

 

Whatever the style or state of origin, the sugar chest is a distinctly American and uniquely Southern form that today symbolizes for many an entire culture swept away by a war that shapes our nation to this day.  Our current fascination with the sugar chest and similar regional relics was best explained by one of the South’s most beloved advocates many decades ago.  To quote Kentucky historian Dr. Thomas D. Clark as he wrote for the 1947 Kentucky issue of “The Magazine Antiques,” “In this worship of the traditional, relics and mementoes have been preserved, but few families have been vitally concerned with keeping an important manuscript record of the past.  Things, rather than records,… have always been marks of distinction….Thus a complex mixture of environmental and sectional influences have shaped the lives and culture of the Kentucky people.  They have preserved the main frontier characteristic of individualism, and their provincial natures have enabled them to cling steadfastly to the old ways in many of their customs.  In the popular mind the old days were the best.  It is impossible for the modern individual to recapture the full spirit of those earlier days so that it may be intermingled with a modern and even more complex society, but it is possible to cling tenaciously to the symbols of the earlier period.  History has been important to Kentuckians.  Few places in the country have given more time to the study of local history, or made it the basis for a greater local pride. The individual Kentuckian has concerned himself not too much with the full social and contemporary implications of history, but rather with its sweet and nostalgic overtones.  To him its mixtures of tradition and obscurity have been sources of personal dignity.”

 i Wealth and leisure came early to the coastal South, primarily to Charleston and Tidewater Virginia.  The author defers all respect to his Fitzhugh, Randolph, Bland and Byrd ancestors who were the exceptions to the rule for most Southern society. 

ii One of the best works on agrarian economy in antebellum Louisiana, courtesy of the Louisiana State Museum, “A Medley of Cultures.”  

iii At least one sugar chest, in desk form and in a vernacular Chippendale styling, is known to the author.  This walnut sugar desk of ca. 178-90 retains a long provenance to the Bluegrass of Kentucky back to the 1820s, but from a family who had migrated from the Carolinas.  Its holly inlay use and yellow pine secondary wood indicate that this was a prized possession brought with the family through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky from North Carolina. Such an example reinforces the conjecture that not only styles, but examples of cabinets which would later be copied, were carried westward into the far reaches of the “Back Country” South.

 iv Likely one of the first period references to the term “sugar chest” is found in the ledgers of the “Partridge Store” which served planters in the Hanover and Louisa County, Virginia area throughout the 2nd quarter of the 18th century.  Their surviving ledgers for 1756, in the account for William Hendrick (son of William Sr. of Amelia County who died ca. 1739) of that year, show among his 28 purchases that year ten hoes, 12 plates, a woman’s cloak, a fan, a sugar chest and lock, and a set of teaware. 

v York County, Virginia May 16th, 1763, the inventory of estate of Samuel Tompkins includes a “sugar chest”.  Colonial Williamsburg files 

vi CWFL film M-1060.2 James Anderson Accounts, 1778-1799, Ledger c, p. 11 references the work of the Williamsburg, Virginia blacksmith in “mending sugar chest” for his neighbor Dr. Barraud. 

vii Estate inventories from prior to1800 are scant anyway, but the use of the term “sugar chest” seems to occur on a regular basis in Kentucky and Tennessee sometime prior to 1810.  Anne S. McPherson, in her article An Abode of Sweetness, the Sugar Chest and Sugar Box, cites an early reference to the use in the January 1805 inventory of Thomas Bedford, Rutherford County, TN Wills & Inventories, Book 2, page 2. 

viii This early Virginia form would linger primarily in south central Kentucky well into the 1840s, while the inner Bluegrass Region as well as Middle Tennessee would transition to a form based upon the cellaret. ix Sandra Crowther collection, Lynchburg Va.- lower Tidewater origin in the Queen Anne style ca. 1750-60                                                                                                                                               

x Paul H. Burroughs in his classic 1931 reference Southern Antiques, references a cellaret of North Carolina origin which he dates to ca. 1690-1700, as well as Queen Anne versions from both North and South Carolina from the 1720’s on. 

xi Inlaid sugar chests are virtually unknown outside of Tennessee and Kentucky, with considerable scarcity even from Tennessee.  The lack of such sophisticated ornamentation cannot, however, be the sole determination of status or wealth of the original owners.  Some of the finest plantation homes of Middle Tennessee, as surveyed in Williamson County, boasted very simple sugar chests in their dining rooms.  Reference Rick Warwick’s Williamson County: More Than a Good Place to Live, 2005. 

xii There has been documented a Chippendale variety from ca. 1780 sitting low to the ground with fine ogee feet which surfaced in Alabama with a Tennessee provenance though, as with many early Tennessee antiques, it likely was brought into the state from North Carolina. 

xiii The historic “Bobo House” in Union County, South Carolina displays a sugar chest, but it retains a provenance of having been brought by the family to SC at the turn of the 18th century from Baltimore. xiv Will Book- Oglethorpe County, Georgia July 24th, 1868, “I, Mary Ann Black, being of sound and disposing mind and memory do make, publish and declare this to be my last Will and Testament hereby revoking all other wills by me before made.  Item 1st I give and bequest unto Charles Filmore Sanders son of William J. Sanders my bed that I now sleep on and the furniture with it and one small chest known as my sugar chest, and one small round trunk.” 

xv An Upson County, GA sugar chest of poplar & yellow pine from ca. 1840-60 resided in the collection of William & Florence Griffin.  See Neat Pieces- the Plain Style Furniture of 19th Century Georgia, #81. 

xvi See California Digital Library “Sugar and Origins of Modern Philippine Society” for an interesting overview of “global” sugar economies as they impacted one small agrarian island nation 

xvii Parrelling the dropping cost of sugar, the sugar chest in the estate inventories of the mid-19th century reflect a serious devaluation.  Period auction prices referenced include the following:  Bullitt Co. Ky Will Book D- Richard Brashear estate March 17th 1851, “A sugar chest was sold to “Old Lady”/Widow Sarah for .75 cents”; Garrard Co. Ky Order Book P. pgs 436-37 Emanual Higginbotham estate, to “Martha Baugh 1 sugar chest and little wheel $1.90”; Barren Co. Ky Inventory Book 6:355 John King estate Dec. 2nd, 1851, to “Thomas king, sugar chest $4.60”; Washington Co. Ky Will Book J-601 J T Jarboe estate December 4th 1856,  to “Mahala Jarboe one sugar chest $1.00” 

xviii For details on the trade practices of this firm, references their records in the following collections:  Southard Papers, Princeton Library, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, and “Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations” in the Southern Historical Collection, University of NC-Chapel Hill 

xix Reference Scott County, Ky mortgage book pates 17-18, and indenture between James Moore and William Moore conveying in exchange for previously mortgaged debt by the Branch Bank of Kentucky a tract of “100 acres on Lane’s run and …the following Negro slaves to wit:  Nancy, Jane, Tom, Lucinda, George, Harvey, John, Henry, also twelve head of horses, one cart & yoke of oxen, six head of cattle, sixteen head of stock hogs, six head of sheep, twenty barrels of corn, three beds, bedstands, and furniture, two bureaus, one sugar chest, and one clock & about 12 acres of hemp unbroken.” 2/25/1843 xx Louisiana State Museum, “A Medley of Cultures”, Hickman-Bryan Papers, the University of Missouri, Louisiana History Timeline, Louisiana Educational Television, John Gurley Papers, Louisiana State University (after the war, prices plunged to .25 cents a pound- Charles T. Daggs letter 2/11/1866) xxi Clark County, Ohio Will Book- will of John Winn (of Springfield) to his wife Hosea Ballou Winn “ my carriage and harness, all my farming utensils, my brass clock, my silver plate, the whole of my household of kitchen furniture, including my secretary, bookcase of books, desk, beer can, sugar chest, beds of furniture”  Per “A Lineage & Brief History of the Rawlings Family” Urbana Ohio 1931, “John Winn was a Virginian by birth, and that he emigrated to Fleming County, Kentucky about the year 1796.  This account says that “He came to Kentucky from Virginia in an ox cart with no property save a Negro boy and his cattle.”  When he came to Ohio, a free state, he freed all his slaves and gave his name as security for their good behaviour.”  Purnell short was born 9/29/1779 in Scott County, Kentucky.  He migrated to Greene County Illinois by ox team in the fall of 1833 and settled south of Carrollton, Illinois, dying 2/14/1851.  From the Greene Co., Ill. Record Book C-346, “For a consideration of $37.00 on March 15, 1832, Purnell Short apparently took a chattel mortgage from James Self on one waton and gears, one bay mare and sorrel mare with one eye, one sorrel horse, two beds and bedding, a table and candlestand, one sugar chest, a cupboard and other household goods for 35 acres of land valued at $67.62.”                                                                                                                xxii Scott County, KY Will Books A-B, John Stites Estate February 24th, 1812 references the sale of his “sugar desk” to R. M. Gano for $5.75. 

xxiii Author’s collection- a walnut sugar box on four turned legs, Fayette County, Ky. origin measuring not quite 17" in height.

Kentucky Prison Chairs; A Brief Summary History

A Brief Examination of the Beginnings of Kentucky's Correctional Industries

by Gary Dean Gardner, Independent Scholar

(A PROLOGUE- Since I wrote this piece back in mid-2017, I believe Mel Hankla has since included some additional data on the matter in his book on Kentucky material culture released this spring of 2020 that includes a cameo look at Kentucky's penitentiary-made chairs.  I'm glad that additional attention is being given to this early Kentucky industry.)

Kentucky State Reformatory

Sadly, there is little reference material published on any of the varied state penitentiary crafts to further our current research into regional Kentucky decorative arts & material culture.  Many objects were manufactured by prisoners throughout the South during the 19th century, from fine leather work in Virginia to the noted fancy chairs of the Kentucky State Penitentiary.  The Kentucky state furniture industry, as overseen by the Commonwealth prison system, was actually quite early, and they made more than just porch rockers and court house arm chairs.  Annual reports from the prison system indicate the inmates in Kentucky did leather work, too, just as was done in Virginia, as well as rope and bag manufacture (yes, prisoners had access to hemp!) blacksmithing, and saddle & harness making.  In fact, those reports give the best insight into the workings of this unorthodox craft industry in the Bluegrass.

We sometimes see a date of 1826 in attributing an origin to the chair-making at the Kentucky State Penitentiary, and certainly that aspect of the prison industries was thriving by then, but, the chair making industry there is actually much older.  John S. Hunter was one of the first “keepers” of the Penitentiary, serving in that capacity from 1798 until 1815.  In his report to the State Legislature for 1805 we find recorded that, “At a called meeting in the latter part of August (1805), one of the guards was ordered to be discharged for intemperance, and the agent ordered to employ Thomas Elliott to superintend the chair making business."

Later such reports to the Commonwealth provide us more detail about the chair manufacture business.    A joint committee report from 13th January 1817 states, "The convicts appear to be well clothed, and properly employed in different branches of mechanical occupations, which evi(de)nces the skill, judgment, and good management of the keeper.”  This report goes on to enumerate the specific assignments to the varied “factories” of the prison, including, “engaged in the nail manufactory- 18 men, blacksmith's business- 6 men, chair making- 8 men, shoemaking- 9 men, stone cutting- 11 men."
 
An inventory prematurely taken in 1819 entitled “Raw materials on hand in the Kentucky Penitentiary 18th January, 1820” lists 600 fee of chair plank valued at $18.00, along with Sundry unfinished chairs, paints, etc. belonging to chair department with a worth of $559.25.  The 1st October 1819 inventory of finished chairs shows the success of the chair making venture over the course of those prior 15+ years.  It recorded these completed products ready for sale:  2 chairs   3.00 1 chair   1.25 363 chairs   726.00 1 settee  16.00 2 settees  24.00 1 settee  15.00 1 cribb [sic}  5.00 1 cribb [sic]  4.50 1 rocking chair  4.50 6 rocking chairs  24.00 3 rocking chairs  10.50 3 chairs   6.75 8 chairs   12.00 1 chair   3.50 2 rocking chairs  5.00 4 small chairs  6.00

The total inventory was appraised at $3,205.37, with the most expensive chairs costing $3.50 each, rockers priced at up to $4.50, and “settees” or Windsor style benches being the highest priced seating available at $16.00.  

Future “keepers” continued the established tradition of making chairs.  In the 1825 Journal of the Kentucky House of Representatives we find the report of Joel Scott, "Keeper of the Penitentiary," in which he records the value of "Articles manufactured" at a whopping $13,575.83! Scott declared to the Legislature that, "I still continue the chair making, shoe making, coopering, wagon making, etc. and have made various other improvements." By 1827 the prison was making goods on contract for the Kentucky State Senate chamber and, while not delineated, this order must have included chairs.
Vocational training was a primary interest by the middle of the 1800s.  Sneed’s history of the penitentiary industries relates that, “During the five years ending as above (31 Dec 1859), 580 prisoners were received, who were unacquainted with any mechanical business.  Of this number there were taught to weave, 163; cane seating, 137; shoemaking, 163; chair-making, 21; varnishing, 8; boot crimping, 3; segar-making, 4; broom-making, 2; blacksmithing, 1; and burnishing, 4; 75 were employed at various kinds of labor pertaining to the operations of the institution.”

Later 19th century “keepers” found it more profitable to bring in private industry to oversee the prison labor force.  A state report from 1893 explains, “For a number of years prior to April 1st, 1893, the labor of the convicts was leased to the Mason & Foard Company, and the company fed and clothed them.  At that time this contract with the State expired, and since then the State has been supporting them.  No. 14 shows what has been bought for their support by the Warden from April 1st, 1893, to November 30th, 1893.
 

Your Honorable Board has, within the last two months, bought and put into the Penitentiary a plant of machinery for manufacturing chairs.  Some of the machinery is now at work, and chairs are being turned out.   Under a contract with Norman & Hubbard, the State is to deliver to them $18,000 worth per month, which will be about one thousand chairs per day.  I have every reason to believe that the factory will be turning out the above number by the 20th of the month.  This will give employment to over onehalf the convicts, and will certainly be profitable to the State. A table marked “Chair Plant and Material” show the cost of the plant and material up to December 1st… 

There are now on hand eleven hundred and one convicts, and only eight hundred and eighty cells, none of which was intended for more than one to occupy.  I am compelled, therefore, to sleep a number of them in one of the shop-rooms.  The cell-house now being constructed will have four hundred and eight cells.  By the time it is completed, should the rate of increase continue, there will be enough convicts inside the walls to fill it.  All of which I respectfully submit. 

 Yours obediently, HENRY GEORGE, Warden. 

CHAIR PLANT AND MATERIAL 

Chair Plant and Material Purchased to December 1, 1893.
CHAIR PLANT- $19,622.11
LUMBER- $18,811.02 
MATERIAL- $1,248.58
CANING- $7,821.78
FINISHING- $2,228.50
UPHOLSTERY- $652.65
PACKING- $35.78 

Total purchased to December 1st- $49,880.42
Salaries Superintendent and Foremen- $630.17
Total outlay- $50,510.59

The early 20th century found Kentucky’s prison system still perpetuating the making of what by then must have been long-appreciated quality in chairs.  In 1901, $25,000 was appropriated by the Legislature for a new chair making factory at the Penitentiary.  By 1910, the Kentucky State Penitentiary chair factory was operating as a contracted subsidiary company, providing labor & product for both "Kentucky Furniture Company" and "New England Chair Company.”  These enterprises were working 350 men a day for between $.35 cents and $.75 cents. 

While Kentucky Penitentiary fancy chairs, with their unique bent arms, are known to collectors, virtually nothing has been printed about their history and importance in the annals of Kentucky antiques.  Hopefully future scholarship will fill in some vital gaps about these beloved chairs.

See Sneed, Wm. C., A Report on the History and Mode of Management of the Kentucky Penitentiary, Frankfort, KY 1860.
Swango, G. B., Report of the Register of the Kentucky Land Office October 10, 1893.
Journal of the House of Representative of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Kendall & Russells, Frankfort, 1819

The Face of Lincoln by a Kentuckian's Hands

Exploring a Forgotten Artisan of the Bluegrass and a Rare Surviving Lincoln Portrait

by Gary Dean Gardner, Independent Scholar

When the distinctions between art and pop culture become blurred in a "symbiotic fusion" of iconographic imagery, it is easy to become desensitized.   Artistic representations that have been duplicated “en masse” for long periods of time, even generations, become a part of society’s collective consciousness. This is especially true of the faces of political power through the ages, those whose images become symbolic of whole eras and movements in history. Such is the case of the classic profile of Lincoln.

By the time of the War Between the States, northern industrialism was dawning with mass production its offspring. Political campaigns of the day became among the first to reap the benefits of inexpensively produced images intended to brand a face and name on the minds of the people. The goal was a success. Abraham Lincoln became the most widely photographed president at that time, with his image spread across the country and the world through cheap studio photographs, tokens, buttons and badges.

Perhaps the most prolific version distributed of Lincoln's face was the bust in profile, cast in relief in a variety of medium. Popular especially after Lincoln’s assassination, these “sculptures for the masses” are copied to this day as affordable historical souvenirs. That being the case, and considering the eclipsing fame of name-recognized 19th century celebrity artists, it is no surprise that our collective “art memory” has lapsed regarding the naive, perhaps untrained, Kentucky sculptor who first imagined what devolved into this icon of classical kitsch.

3.5" h x 2" w bronze relief profile (6" diameter wooden mounting)

signed in ink on reverse William Thomas Bausmith and dated 1863

William Thomas Bausmith never set out to design a tourist trinket. The native of Maryland was a trained, versatile mechanic turned artistic sculptor. He modeled his famous Lincoln profile at the height of the war in 1863, long before mourners would begin clamoring for a keepsake of the "martyred" president after his death at the hands of another Marylander, John Wilkes Booth, just two years later.

22" relief bronze by Franklin Simmons 1865

There is striking similarity between Bausmith's small, simple rendering and the better remembered, even famed "from life" profile accomplished by renowned Maine sculptor Franklin Simmons (1839-1913) on contract for William H. Miller and Sons Foundry of Providence, Rhode Island in 1865.  And to be fair, the 22" diameter disc-form bronze plaque by Simmons, which was displayed alongside a collection of such bronze profiles of other Union generals and dignitaries  throughout many northern cities in the days after Lincoln's assasination, likely was the true proto-type for many copies and variants of this very likeness.  It is just fortunate that the surviving casting by Bausmith so carefully recorded the year it was created to help substantiate it pre-dates the Miller and Sons commission and that he didn't simply copy the later Simmons version. The question remains as to whether Bausmith could have possibly created his Lincoln profile from life as Simmons had done, or if he merely utilized the plethora of photographs and engravings so commonly available during Lincoln's presidency.

  

Little is recorded of the early life of Bausmith in the bustling industrial port city of Baltimore. He was born there on the 15th June 1840 to Phillip and Amelia Bausmith. Phillip (b. ca. 1807) was a native of Alsace-Lorraine who had immigrated to Maryland in the 1820s and continued his "old world" trade of tailor. Phillip married Amelia Huffman in 1838 in the Zion Lutheran Church and they became the parents at least 3 sons. (i) 

Of those three boys virtually nothing is known of the early years of William Thomas, our subject. No documentation has yet surfaced regarding William’s artistic inclination or training, but in his teens William was likely apprenticed by his father into the foundry trade in which he certainly excelled. By his early 20’s Bausmith was in business for himself, taking a relation for a partner in the firm of “Bausmith & Bauer.” He had married Naomi Ann Gilbert in Baltimore.  They would become the parents of six surviving children.

A unit of the Maryland First Light Artillery U.S.

In the 1864 city directory for Baltimore the partnership of "Bausmith & Bauer" was listed as brass founders on Uhler’s Alley between Charles and Hanover. Shortly thereafter, on March 23rd, 1864, William T. Bausmith enlisted as a private in Co. D. of the Maryland 1st Light Artillery (U.S.). He served until the end of the war, mustering out on June 24th, 1865. (ii) It was sometime just prior to his documented military service that Bausmith modeled his classic rendering of sitting President Abraham Lincoln. His hand-inked notation on the reverse of the mounting of his own existing model indicates that he created this original casting in 1863.

As we can conclude that Bausmith was residing in Baltimore until at least late in the war, it is interesting to speculate what prompted the design of his bronze profile of Lincoln. The most logical conclusion, correlating with his own notated date, is that Bausmith made his preliminary designs around November 18th -19th of 1863, when Lincoln would have been passing through Baltimore on the way to the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg. Many Marylanders were in attendance, in fact, so it is highly plausible that he saw Lincoln first-hand either at the Baltimore station or at the dedication itself. (Interestingly, Rigby’s Battery “A” of the Maryland 1st Light Artillery fought with the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg. (iii) Perhaps the devastating losses there prompted his later service with his fellow Baltimoreans.) 

Maryland Institute where Lincoln Spoke

But for this single trip, there is no record of Lincoln having been anywhere else near the city that year. (iv) Lincoln did, however, visit Baltimore the following year, but that was on the 18th April 1864 following Bausmith’s enlistment. On that visit Lincoln delivered his “Freedom Speech” at a fair to benefit Union troops at the Maryland Institute College of Art. (v) This brings up the question of whether Bausmith might have been a student or member of the Institute prior to the War. Since his unit was primarily left in the city for the defenses of Baltimore, Thomas Bausmith could very likely have attended Lincoln’s address, especially were he a student there. Though this is a speculative theory, it would help explain just how and why someone finding their vocation in operation of a brass foundry could evolve into such a clearly talented sculptor. The documented visits of Lincoln also provide ample opportunity for Bausmith’s life model of the President. 

Institute Interior 1864 where Lincoln Presided over opening ceremonies

 of the event for soldier relief

The years immediately following the War found Bausmith residing in Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, where he expressed his continued mechanical ingenuity if not his artistic endeavors. (vi) The exact date of his removal from Maryland to Kentucky is unknown, but it was after 1875. (vii) He was certainly living in the Commonwealth of Kentucky by 1877 when his son, Frank Leon Bausmith, was born (viii) in Ludlow (Kenton County) Kentucky. 

View of Ludlow, KY ca. 1908

Mr. Bausmith was still residing in Ludlow, Kentucky in 1883, as he filed a patent in that year for a compound to strengthen sand to more cleanly remove castings. (ix) This would likely indicate a return to his involvement in the sculptural arts with cross-over application to industrial applications as in Bausmith’ s early days in Baltimore. His address would change over the next two decades, for we find him in nearby Bellevue in 1897. Here again we find some proof of his occupational transformation, for he is listed in the city directory as a “molder” at 35 Ward Avenue. (x) It would seem by this perioed he earned his living more closely to his calling as sculptor, likely in one of the firms like Verdin’s of Cincinnati. 

There is no record of Bausmith’s retirement from the bronze casting industry in southern Ohio, but we know he remained a Kentucky resident, and in his later years, like many Union veterans, became active in the G.A.R., serving in 1904 as Commander of the Department of Kentucky, Grand Army of the Republic. (xi)

So, was William Thomas Bausmith a mere Maryland mechanic, or a forgotten Kentucky artist?  I would contend the evidence proves both. Sadly, we have no body of work, only a single existing bronze to document Bausmith's talents.

(I) Phillip and Amelia Huffman Bausmith were the parents of William Thomas, Charles, and Phillip Jr., but may also have been the parents of Frederick.  As records indicate William and Frederick Bausmith were the same age & served in the same unit of the Md. Artillery, they may have been twins or at least 1st cousins. 

(ii) “Maryland Volunteers; War of 1861-1865” 

(iii) The Civil War Archive- Union Regimental Histories (Maryland) 

(iv) Monthly/Daily events of Lincoln’s life as recorded by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency via the “The Lincoln Log” 

(v) MICA History; 1826-Present 

(vi) Files of the United State Patent Office #112886 from March 21, 1871- Bausmith files a patent for an improved window sash mechanism. 

(vii) Bausmith’s son William Penn was born in Baltimore County, Maryland 11/20/1872. W. P. Bausmith moved later to Northern Kentucky as well and worked early in the 20th century as an architect. A daughter, Ozella Amelia Bausmith, died in the city of Baltimore on 2.24.1875. 

(viii) 5/8/1877 

(ix) U. S. Patent Office files #270625 

(x) Bellevue 1897 City Directory; A-D, Williams & Co. Publishers (Brother Frank was listed in the same household as a clerk.) 

(xi) Archives of the Kentucky G.A.R.- list of commanders

With Sword In Hand; LaRue County's "Paul Revere"

An Examination of an Important Early Pioneer Family During Kentucky's Settlement Period

by Gary Dean Gardner, Independent Scholar

It has not been determined whether William Phillips had this home erected, or if he acquired it upon his arrival in LaRue County in 1823.

Special thanks go out to Chris D. Phillips for so generously sharing his extensive genealogical data on the extended Phillips family, and to Mary Ellen Moore for dropping all else to seek out names for me in Nelson County's archives.

Of one thing most scholars are certain.  The Phillips family was an extensive clan and an extensively tangled one, sending varied related pioneer men to Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee of a single hardy stock and courageous nature, all willing to risk the harshness of uncivilized wilderness to satiate a lust for adventure and a common desire to thrive and prosper.  Some succeeded, others failed, but none succumbed to weakness or cowardice in the process.  This is especially true of the Phillips men of LaRue County at the juncture of the Barrens and the Bluegrass of central Kentucky.  Their primary origins in Wales is most assured, though their ancestral bloodlines in that country will likely never be clarified. 

Most members of the Phillips family either already had considerable wealth, or they gained it after arriving in Kentucky.  Even in 18^th century Kentucky (aka Virginia) of this early settlement period, the primary basis of wealth came in the form of land and slaves.  A fascinating account within The Weekly Maysville Eagle edition on the 22^nd of March 1876 preserves & retells the arrival of one related branch of the greater Phillips family to the early riverport on the Ohio then known as Limestone.  The story centers on the family of William Phillips (1710-1774, s/o George Phillips), a slightly older kinsman (likely a 1^st or 2^nd cousin) to the Phillips brothers who found their way to Jefferson (later Nelson, then Hardin, & finally LaRue) County, who settled in early Mason County.  Per this account, which I include primarily because of the intriguing savage recollection of African-Americans as Phillips family chattel wealth in the earliest of pioneer settings in Kentucky, we are told that, 

“William Phillips emigrated from Wales to Philadelphia during the last century, and there married a Miss Penn, a relative of William Penn.  Subsequently he removed to Virginia, and there raised a large family.  His son Moses married, in Virginia, …The Moses Phillips first named; in February 1789 sent a negro man with William Routt to Kentucky for the purpose of raising grain for his family, with whom he followed in the Fall of that year, landing at the mouth of Limestone, and proceeding to Lee’s Station.  During the stay of the family at this station, Moses, Thomas and John Phillips, the brothers above named, in company with a negro woman and boy, went to a corn field a short distance from the station to gather some grain, after doing which they started on a race for the gap, which John was the first to reach, climbing on top of the fence.  An Indian who had watched the party darted from an ambush and felled John to the ground with a blow from his war-club.  The other ran back into the cornfield, where they were soon found and captured by the Indians.  In spite of the entreaties of the negro woman, Moses and Thomas Phillips were killed and scalped.  John in the meantime recovered sufficiently to craw into the Station, which the Indians discovering retreated, crossing the Ohio near the Pelham place, taking with them the negro woman and boy.  The former lived with the Indians several years, until she was purchased from them by a trader and brought back to Kentucky, where she was reclaimed by John Phillips.  The negro boy stayed with the Indians ten years, when making his escape, he brought back with him a rifle, tomahawk and knife, which were soon taken from him by his white masters, much to his discontent… Our correspondent is evidently mistaken as to the date of the arrival of the Phillips family.  William Rout and his family came to Mason County in Feb. 1785, and we know that Edmond Phillips came with him.  The incident spoken of as to the killing of Moses Phillips took place in 1787, from the best information we can obtain.  There were three negroes taken, Bob, Sarah and Isaac.  After crossing the river, the Indians found they were pursued and Bob not moving to suit them was tomahawked in Logan’s gap, and the stump with the marks of the tomahawk is yet probably to be seen.”

The article goes on to delineate the progeny of this branch of the Welsh Phillips family in northern Kentucky.

The other William Phillips whose line interests us most had ancestral ties to Wales as well, but was most likely a native of either Pennsylvania or Maryland.  He was one of the four sons of James Phillips of Cecil County, Maryland.    William's brothers, per their father's 3rd of April 1773 will, were John, David, and Philip who were all mentioned along with a sister, Mary Phillips.  At least two of these four brothers, Lt. Colonel David Phillips and Captain Philip Phillips (ca.1730/50-1797), became forever affiliated with the fabled  “Welsh Tract” of Pennsylvania & Delaware by receipt of bequests from their father before the young men relocated to far southwest Pennsylvania in lands once claimed by Virginia.  Sharing a similar migratory route, both brothers would record the final chapters of their stories near Nashville in Davidson County, TN about 1797. 

Will of James Phillips of Cecil County, MD naming his children including Hodgenville founder & fort builder Philip Phillips

Confirmation of ties to the "Welsh Tract" aka the "Welsh Barony" are important not only in connecting James Phillips to Wales, but in the placing of his sons in context with the early Baptist church and this unique historical location prior to their moves south.  Delaware's printed state guidebook from the Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) gives mention to the church established by those first Welsh immigrants that surely included James Phillips & his children.

"Right on this road to WELSH TRACT BAPTIST CHURCH, erected in 1746 as successor to the first Baptist church in Delaware, a log structure built in 1706.  The congregation now belonging to the Primitive Baptist group, was organized in Wales in 1701.  That year the members emigrated to America and in 1703 bought from William Penn a tract of 30,000 acres that has since been called Welsh Tract, about one-fourth of it lying in Cecil County, Md.  The elevation of Iron Hill is said to have attracted them, and to this part of New Castle County the name Pencader Hundred was given; pencader is supposed to have meant "highest place" in the Welsh tongue.  The present building is simple in line, one story in height, with a hipped roof, and is built of brick laid in Flemish-bond.  The bricks are said to have been imported from England, unloaded in New Castle, and in panniers on muleback.  The date is on a stone set into the top of the front wall.  The present white[painted, brown-trimmed pews are of the 19th century.  the oldest communion service consists of tow pewter plates and two pewter cups and saucers in used about 1830.    

The yard is enclosed by a whitewashed stone wall built at various times from 1827 on and is shaded by huge old oaks growing just outside.  A grassy lawn slopping down to the Christina Creek attracts picnickers on summer days.  Across the road are whitewashed carriage sheds and the ancient little whitewashed  stone house of the caretaker.

Some of the early 18th-century grave stones are rough-hewn from brown stone, and show the marks of the chipping tools. Celtic words are crudely lettered on them.  A soldier of Oliver Cromwell's "Ironsides" regiment is supposed to be buried here.  Visitors are told that the mother of Jefferson Davis is also buried here--an untrue but sturdy legend based apparently on a gravestone inscribed  "Hannah Davis, died 1854, aged 71 years."  Jefferson Davis's mother was Jane Cook Davis.  However, his great-grandparents John and Anne Davis (or Davies), lived in this vicinity." -Delaware: A Guide to the First State, 1938, pg. 459.

Welsh Tract Baptist Church, Newark, Delaware ca. 1746

Reacting to religious intolerance in England, sixteen Baptists from the counties of Pembroke and Carmarthen in South Wales formed a church and in June 1701 left for American resettlement in Pennsylvania.  Due to certain religious practices that differed from the established Baptists already there, the group soon took possession pf and relocated to lands acquired from William Penn which constituted the 2nd "Welsh Tract" consisting of 30,000 acres centered in New Castle County, Delaware and lapping about 1/4 of the grant into Cecil County, Maryland (an earlier "Tract" was granted and its boundaries established by 1687, from when came many new residents to the new "Welsh Tract").  There they were joined by additional Welsh settlers, among whom are recorded between 1709 and 1720 the arrival of Lewis Phillips and John Phillips. 

Thomas Holme Map of Pennsylvania from 1687 denoting the "Welsh Tract"

James' familial connections to either Lewis or John Phillips are uncertain, though it seems likely he was directly tied to one or both men as he acquires "Welsh Tract" property which he later deeds to his sons.  Along with his brothers, William as well received "Welsh" lands from James according to a Cecil County deed of 15th May 1778 when he and wife, Sarah, sell 108 acres which James Phillips had acquired back in 1754.   This tract fell in the Delaware portion of the "Tract" where the original Welsh pioneers had established their "Welsh Tract" Baptist Church.

This sale of land by William Phillips brings us much pertinent data, including reference to his marriage, his profession, and confirmation not only of his brothers' names from James Phillips' will, but of Philip Phillips' removal to Yohagania County, Virginia as his personal history has previously alleged .  Cecil County records state,

“15 May 1778 William Philips of Cecil County and State of Maryland, weaver and Sarah his wife of the one part and Jeremiah Taylor of the County and state afs'd, Farmer of the other part ... that for and in consideration of the sum of 560 pounds common money to them in had paid have given granted bargained & sold to the said Jeremiah Taylor a Certain tract or parcel of Land situate in the aforesaid county and state bounded by a corner of Thomas Thomas's Land... containing 108 acres and three quarters of Land be it the same more or less it being part of a tract of land made over by William Davis and David Evans unto a certain David Williams as appears by their deed dated 6 Aug 1736 recorded in New Castle County Lib m p. 147 and by the widow and children of the said David Williams Conveyed unto a certain Richard Williams as appears by a deed dated 17 Feb 1745 filed in New Castle and by the said Richard Williams and Rebecca his wife made over and recorded unto a certain James Phillips as appears by their deed dated 1754, and by the said James Philips and Rebecca his wife conveyed to the said William Philips as appears by deed bearing date 29 Mar 1774 Recorded B v. 2 p. 345, (signed) William Philips and Sarah (her mark) Philips. Wits: Jos. Gilpin and Ann Hollingsworth. Returned to Cecil County Maryland Court 15 May 1778 (Sarah released her dower right) 

immediately following: 28 Aug 1778 Wm. Phillips informed one of the justices of the peace of the Commonwealth of Virginia that he hath lost the deed of convenyance of a certain tract of Land in New Castle County and State of Delawar (sic) by the s'd Philips title to the Land by a misinformation that David Philips should lay claim to said Land it being a tract that s'd Wm. Philips hath sold to a certain Jeremiah Taylor of Cecil County . This is to Certify that the s'd David Philips, brother to s'd Wm. Philips hath before me acknowledged that he neither did nor 

doth lay any property nor claim to the Said land and farther I the said David Philips have for the acknowledgment of the above set my hand and seal (signed) David Philips before Oliver Miller

- Came the above mentioned David Philips before me the s'd Justice and did solemnly swear that he was a witness to a Deed for the above mentioned land unto s'd William Philips from James Philips and Rebecca his wife and that s'd David was present and the same was recorded at New Castle within six months of the same. (signed) Oliver Miller 

immediately following: Then came Philip Philips before me the and the commonwealth justices of the peace in the state aforesaid and did solomnly swear the within mentioned Oliver Miller to be and to act as a magistrate in Late August Court held in Youghanganea [Yohogania sic] County and Coloney State of Virginia and heart the said David Phillips make the within acknowledgement before the said Justice and the he the said Philip Phillips was a witness to the within mentioned deed - sworn before me Tobias Rudolph, justice of Cecil County, Maryland.”

(Cecil County, Maryland Deed Book 14, pg. 279 )

The now defunct Yohogania County, the territory of Western Pennsylvania claimed by Virginia from 1777 until 1780

Records of the now-extinct Virginia county of Yohogania (now primarily Washington County, Pennsylvania) indicate Philip Phillip’s residency there at least as early as 1776 when he served in the capacity of a constable whose duties he fulfilled until August of 1778.  He and brother John, along with an unspecified relation Thomas Phillips, had arrived at the Falls of the Ohio by 1779, and Philip had moved on south some 50 miles to the Nolynn to begin construction of a timber fortification by the fall of 1780 named for Phillips in which the first families of that area between Bardstown and Elizabethtown took up residence.  Apparently coming as well from Yohogania County were the families of Hinch, Ashcraft, Cessna, Friend, and Kirkpatrick by 1781, to be followed closely by the LaRue, Hodgen, & Walters families between the autumns of 1784 and 1785.  The Friend family, more specifically from “Friend’s Cove” in Pennsylvania, was perpetuated in a multitude of bloodlines by the marriage of 5 daughters to these aforementioned pioneer families.  Nancy Friend wed Jedediah Ashcraft, Eleanor married Joseph Kirkpatrick, Mary chose Jonathan Cessna, Elizabeth married William Hinch, while Susannah Friend became the wife of Philip Phillips himself, surveyor, land speculator, and founder of the settlement.

Only a single Kentucky Historical Society highway marker commemorates the long-abandoned site of Phillips' Fort and its accompanying pioneer cemetery.  It has been alleged that well-meaning but untrained amateur archaeologists removed the surviving displaced  grave stones without permission of the property owner.  If so, there whereabouts are now unaccounted for.

Philip took on much more than the role of protector of his stockade’s inhabitants.  He was as well active in the Virginia militia.  1780 offered a period of relative peace & stability which was short-lived, but afforded Phillips the opportunity to construct his fort and conduct its first occupants to its safety.  The upper regions of what was then Jefferson County, however, soon fell prey again to Indian attacks in 1781.  Phillips was compelled to leave the fort to defend other stations then at risk.  Veteran Jacob Hubbs, in his pension deposition decades later, explained the campaign across the Ohio River.  He states, “In 1782 General George Rogers Clark planned an Expedition against the Shawnee Indians and I volunteered in a Company Commanded by Capt. Andrew Hynes (of which Philip Phillips was Lieutenant and William Hinch Ensign) in the Regiment Commanded by Colo. John Floyd – the whole of the Troops Commanded by General Clark. the Tour was for Two months. We Rendezvoused at the falls of the Ohio River and marched against the Indian Towns [Piqua, Standing Stone, and others] on the Miami River where we destroyed several of the Towns [10 Nov 1782] and then returned home & were discharged.”

Despite long absences for the men and the general hardships of life so remote from civilization, existence in the rustic fort feigned a degree of normalcy.  It required all the fundamentals of life, inclusive of love, marriage, birth, and death, along with spiritual needs and the daily cravings of the stomach to be dealt with at all cost.  Historian Evelyn Crady Adams, in her exceptional paper on Fort Phillips on the Nolynn, offered a detailed examination of domestic adaptation there.  She transcribed from Jefferson County Minute Book “A” from March 1781- September 1782 and explained that,

 “The furnishings of early forts consisted mainly of essential household goods, agricultural and building implements of a simple nature, and the conventional flint lock rifle.  These were brought on the long journey from the east.  Somewhat typical in diversity and functional value are the chattels of Mary Cessna who lived in Phillips’ Fort.  Jonathan Cessna, Mary’s husband, was slain by Indians.  Listed in the inventory of his personal property in August, 1782, were three pewter dishes, eight pewter plates, four pewter basins, spoons, etc., a frying pan, pots and pot hooks, two beds and bedding, books, a spinning wheel, a hackle, farming utensils, five axes, lumber, one rifle gun and a side saddle.  The livestock consisted of one mare, three cows and one ewe.  If his list were multiplied by the number of other householders residing in Phillips’ Fort, the total furnishings could be deemed adequate to meet immediate simple demands.”

Population in the fortress waxed & waned as the Indian threat intensified or relaxed, and as additional settlers were drawn to the inner regions of the Rolling Fork & Salt River Valleys.  While no Census was enumerated, surviving records indicate a mixed residency of perhaps 30-40 individuals at any given time, made up on occasion of more children than adults, and including an unspecified number of enslaved African-Americans.  Among them we know the names of Mark and Anthony (Nourse), chattel of James Nourse, but many within the confines of Phillips’ Fort were known to have owned slaves, including Philip and Susannah Phillips.  In addition, their own household in the stockade was filled out with some 9 children, all but the first two born in their father’s fort.  Their first two children, sons John & James, were believed born in what today is Hardin County on “Neely’s Branch” of the Middle Creek of Nolynn River, east of Elizabethtown and about 5 miles from present-day Hodgenville (James Neely, whose son James Jr. would be the future son-in-law of Phillips, is credited with aiding in the construction of Phillips’ Fort, and a slightly earlier “station” on a branch of Middle Creek still bears his name).  The remaining children, though, were born to Philip & Susannah after their inhabitation of the fort.  Those children included Elizabeth “Betsey” b. ca. 1780/81, Eleanor “Nelly” b. 10 Feb 1782, Mary “Polly” b. 1783, Joseph b. 1784, David b. 1790, Nancy A. b. 1793, and finally William born 1794.

The last known photograph of the Phillips' Fort Cemetery.  Descendants in the 1920s bemoaned the condition of their ancestors' graves, but did nothing to rectify the problem and preserve the site.

It remains difficult to ascertain if the elder William Phillips, brother to Philip, actually left Cecil County Maryland at all, and if he did whether he went first to Kentucky along the Nolin or directly on to Nashville like his brother later did.  William Sr.'s 1778 sale of his lands in the "Welsh Tract" would apparently precipitate such a venture, and would coincide with the removal of Philip to Jefferson County in what is now Kentucky.  The common use within the family of this particular given name gives rise to confusion in ascertaining his exact movements & settlement.

Perhaps a key to determining William Phillips' movements is Elizabethtown, Kentucky founder Colonel Andrew Hynes (28 Feb. 1750- Sept. 1800).  Hynes apparently has a long, multi-generational tie to the Phillips family.   Nelson County was established 1st January, 1785, and among its first "Gentlemen Justices" appointed that following 24th May were Andrew Hynes & Philip Phillips, Phillips having served under Hynes three years prior in General Clark's military maneuvers against the Shawnee north of the Ohio River.  Hynes and Philip Phillips would venture together in land speculation, as documented in Nelson County Will Book "A" p. 598, referencing the purchase by John Coombes of 350 acres from the two men (see also 28 Jan 1818 Nelson Co. KY Loose Papers; "Deposition of Edward Coombes" verifying this tract being jointly held by Hynes & Phillips).  As well, Philip Phillips and Andrew Hynes, along with Capt. Thomas Helm and Samuel Haycraft, Sr., all established their "stations" nearly simultaneously, confirming a solid pioneer bond amongst all these men.

So, clearly Hynes had a long standing military, economic, and social relationship with one Phillips brother, but what about with the other?  Some clarity here is found by facing the easy & erroneous assumption that ALL William Phillips' in early Nelson County records reference the man who settled on Hardin's Creek in present day Washington County, Kentucky, with his brothers Benjamin, John, & Thomas.  It may be mere coincidence that these Phillips brothers, of undocumented parentage, arrive at the Falls of the Ohio in 1779.  It is likely they knew Philip Phillips, and perhaps William, and it's plausible their militia service overlapped.  It is even feasible that all these men were distantly related through a common Welsh lineage, but there is just no direct connection to be found but for a surname.

Within Nelson County's "Land Depositions" Book 1800-1817 lies an intriguing clue to William, brother of Philip Phillips.  Here is referenced yet another William Phillips who is clearly NOT the same man as the William of Hardin's Creek in Washington County.  On page 204 is found "The Deposition of William Phillips taken on behalf of John E. King which reads:  

"to be read as evidence in a suit in Chancery now depending in the Bards Town District Court wherein said King is Complainant, and Thomas Collins is Defendant.  The said Phillips being first sword Deposeth and sayeth that some time in June in the year 1779 he in company with Andrew Hines [sic], (Levi/Levin?) Todd, Jessey [sic] Rude, James Williams, Ruben Camp [sic] and some others started from the Falls of the Ohio in order to explore the country and make improvements and traveled till we came to Bullitt's Lick and from thence we proceeded across Salt River and made an improvement on the north side of the Long Lick Creek, where John Essery formerly lived and then proceeded across the Long Lick Creek to a walnut Flatt and there made an improvement which the field now occupied by William Shain would include, and thinks it probible [sic] to be the place sworn to the surveyor by John Essery, and thence proceeded and made several other improvements and then returned to the Falls of Ohio and there cast lots for the improvements and the improvement on the north side of Long Lick Creek where John Essery formerly lived, fell to Lev. Todd, and the improvement on the south side of said creek in the walnut Flatt fell to Jessey Rude and further saith not."

It should be noted that William Phillips in his 4th Sept. 1802 deposition (taken in Shepherdsville, Bullitt County) never mentions as comrades the Washington County brothers who seem to have all served in the militia together.  He clearly however, and firstly, names Colonel Andrew Hynes, and goes on to list Reuben Kemp (1754-1834) who eventually settled in Hardin County, Kentucky about 1795 and remained their through 1816 (Hardin County Tax Lists), and Jesse Rude  (1750-1791?) who settles in Nelson County.  The affiliation with Hynes and the dates recorded would logically indicate this could be William Phillips the brother of Philip.  Further documentation is required to verify Williams permanent removal from Maryland.

Interesting, and perhaps to a degree ironic, is the continued Hynes association with the removal of Andrew Hynes, Jr. to Middle Tennessee.  Here in the Tennessee State Militia Hynes Jr. would serve as the next line commanding officer to Phillips Jr.  

William Phillips' sons William Jr. & Philip appear to have timed their arrival in Davidson County with that of their uncle, Philip Phillips, in 1795, a short two years before the pioneer LaRue County settler died.  Per family tradition the young men arrived in Nashville that year to reside with their aunt & uncle who had themselves recently resettled from Hardin (now LaRue) County, Kentucky.  William Jr. was by oral tradition born in Wales in 1773.  We now know that to be false, as William Jr. would have been born either in Maryland, Delaware, or more likely southern Pennsylvania near to the current West Virginia border.  Regardless, he was settled near to Nashville in Davidson County prior to 1797, the approximate year he married Nancy Henderson, d/o William Henderson.  And, despite “legend and lore” regarding William’s youth, the young man was most certainly beyond his teens when he made the acquaintance of his uncle’s neighbor, Andrew Jackson, though not by many years.  Depending upon the date of birth one affirms, William Phillips was around 20 when he arrived in Davidson County and, while apparently youthful in appearance and most certainly athletic, would have been much “longer in the tooth” than ever given credit for by the time oral histories had taken on mythic proportions in the early 20^th century.  

Often there is no real need to "chew the cud" of prior historians, as a clearer point was already made by them.  As such, I shall offer below  for my readers the narrative of "Billy Phillips as given by early 20th century Jackson biographer Augustus Buell.

 "Congress declared war against Great Britain by join resolution passed about five o’clock P.M., Friday, June 12, 1812.  President Madison was at the Capitol and signed the joint resolution within a minute after it was laid before him in its final enrolled form.  Less than an hour thereafter a dozen “express-couriers” were en route for every end of the Union with the tidings.  In these days the words “express-courier” may need exact definition.  In 1812 those words described a small, but extremely important and highly select force of young men, about twelve in number, directly under control of the President- to whom they reported in squads representing about one-fourth of their total number every day.  If there was nothing for them to do, they had an easy job.  Their pay was good for that time and their “commutation of allowances,” while waiting orders in Washington, enabled them to live at the best hotels or boarding-houses.  Most of them turned an honest penny occasionally by jockey-riding in the races on the old tract at Bladensburg.  When they did have anything to do, they had to do it at once and with all their might.

One of the “Government express-riders” was a young man named William Phillips.  He was a Tennessean, whom Senator Campbell, of that State, had brought to Washington in the capacity of clerk or secretary.  In his boyhood William Phillips- or “Billy,” as they called him in and about Nashville- had been one of Jackson’s own jockey-riders on the old “Clover Bottom track.”  When he was not more than sixteen years old, Billy Phillips had enjoyed the honor of riding the invincible old Truxton himself, in a heat race, for the biggest purse ever heard of west of the mountains; with General Jackson on one side of the stakes.

Now he was destined to ride a race against time, which, in the long run, was to determine the fate of General Jackson in history.

Before sundown, June 12, 1812, Billy Phillips, government express-courier- or, in popular parlance, President’s express rider- crossed the Potomac at Washington, bound for Richmond, Hillsboro, Salisbury, Morganton, Jonesboro, Knoxville, Nashville, Natchez and New Orleans, to carry the news that another fight with England was on; and, this time, a fight to the everlasting finish.

Similar messengers were sent north, northwest and south at the same time.  Those sent north went toward New England, where the new war was not popular, and for that reason they were not required to ride fast.  But Billy Phillips, the hard-riding jockey-boy of Andrew Jackson and Tennessee, was to spread the glad news among people whose bones ached for a fight with England, and his instructions were simply to go as fast and get there as soon as horse-flesh could carry or human flesh could endure to ride.

A copy of a quaint old letter is before us.  It was written at Lexington, North Carolina (now the county-seat of Davidson County), dated June 15, 1812, and signed by the Rev. Dr. T. Rayner, a Baptist clergyman and father of Judge Kenneth Rayner, famous in the history of North Carolina and the country at large.  It was directed to “Mr. T. L. Branch, Esquire, Charlotte.”  The historical part of it is as follows:

… I have to inform you that just now the President’s express-rider, Bill Phillips, has tore through this little place without stopping.  He come and went in a cloud of dust, his horse’s tail and his own long hair streaming alike in the wind as they flew by.

But as he past the tavern stand where some were gathered, he swung his leather wallet by its straps above his head and shouted- “Here’s The Stuff!  Wake Up!  War!  WAR WITH ENGLAND!! WAR!!”

Then he disappeared in a cloud of dust down the Salisbury Road like a streak of Greased Lightnin’!

He left no other news.  But this, taken with what has been doing in Washington for some time and Bill’s well-known character as a cruel rider, is news enough.  He must get relay at Salisbury and from there we will hear more particulars.

I do not wait for such but send this to you by the hands of young Mr. Stokes, who will come to you much quicker than the regular post-rider from this place.

It is a Righteous War, only too long put off, and we must all gird up our loins to fight out the good fight and give England the lesson her pride and fury have long needed.  As you know I was in the last war a soldier when she begrudgingly and for that she could not help it, signed our Independence.  But she never forgave us.  Now, we must thrash her again and this time I hope to last forever, because I do not like war and hope some way may be found to make her hold the peace.  I hope us old men now who were at the Cowpens and Guilford and the Springs [meaning Eutaw Springs] thirty-odd years ago, may not be brought into this new war, for there is plenty younger.  But we must give precept if no example now and it would not be a bid idea to have some good descriptions of King’s Mountain and other places like it made in our pulpits and school-houses!  [The Rev. Dr. Rayner was clearly of the Church militant.]

I shall come down to Charlotte in a few days.  By that time we will hear more particular news.  Bur for the present let us hope there will be no Tories in this war as in the last one.  If such should be and show themselves in this part of our State, I engage that their story will be short and sad.  Trusting that the Lord may guide us all in the path of patriotism for our own country and forgiveness to our enemies I am, etc.

The gentleman to whom this letter was written was the same Mr. Branch who, in 1775 and thereabouts, taught the “Oldfield school” at Waxhaw’s, in which eight-year-old Andrew Jackson was a pupil.  Mr. Branch was now (1812) a lawyer and also a pillar of the church.  The Reverend Doctor Rayner seems to have had no misgivings as to the outcome of the “new war,” and he seems to have been equally free from doubt as to what would happen to “Tories in his part of the State” if “such should be and show themselves.”

This ride of William Phillips was a marvel.  He left Washington at nightfall, June 12^th.  In the afternoon of June 15^th, as Dr. Rayner tells us, he “tore through” Lexington, NC, “like a streak of Greased Lightnin’.”  Just before dark, June 21^st, he “tore into” Nashville at the same “greased lightning” gait.  This was, by the roads he traversed, 860 miles in nine days, or an average of ninety-five miles every twenty-four hours.  Now, a first-rate rider who as not the fear of a S. P. C. A. before his eyes and no mercy on horse-flesh, may ride ninety-five miles in one twenty-four hours, with suitable relays of good horses.  But to hold that pace for nine days in succession, by daylight and in the dark alike, through a thinly settles country and over mountains some of the way, is flatly incredible now and forbids attempt at explanation.  But Phillips di it, as the date of Governor Blount’s receipt to him for the dispatches he delivered shows beyond question:  “Received etc., certain letters from the President and the Secretary of War, by the hands of William Phillips, U. S. Courier, Nashville, June 21, 1812, 7 o’clock P.M.

“[Signed] W. Blount, Gov’r.”

But this was not all.  Phillips’s home was at- or very near- Nashville.  He stayed with his folks the night of June 21^st.  Early the next morning he was off and away again for Natchez and New Orleans, nearly six hundred miles more!

For some reason Phillips did not ride so fast between Nashville and New Orleans as between Washington and Nashville.  Maybe he was tired.  Possibly his horses were not so good or the relays were father apart.  Or we may reasonably suspect that, having given the great news to Governor Blount and General Jackson, there was no particular need foo the Rev. Dr. Rayner’s “Greased Lightnin’” the rest of the way; because the defence [sic] of that part of the country devolved upon Jackson, Blount and Tennessee, so that information to those who were to be defended might be carried more at leisure.

At any rate, William Phillips took one more day between Nashville and New Orleans than between Washington and Nashville.  That is, leaving the national Capital at sundown, June 12^th, he was in Nashville at seven P.M., June 21^st.  Then, leaving Nashville early in the morning of June 22d, he arrived at New Orleans and tool Governor Claiborne’s receipt for his dispatches under date of July 2, 1812, eight o’clock P.M.

In this connection there is another fact worthy of record.  Knoxville was the capital of Tennessee in 1812.  The straight road- the old Emigrant Trail- from Jonesboro to Nashville did not strike Knoxville but ran to the northward of it.  Phillips expected to find Governor Blount at Knoxville and took that route.  But when he arrived there he found that the Governor had gone to Nashville the day before.  The whole of this detention amounted to five or six hours; not much under normal conditions of horseback travel, but a good deal when a man is riding ninety-fie miles a day for nine days in succession.

We have given al this space to the “Ride of Bill Phillips” from Washington to New Orleans because there was another “ride” in our national history and poetry, much shorter though none the less sacred to patriotism.  Paul Revere rode from Boston to Concord Bridge in 1775.  It was an American ride.  Bill Phillips rode from Washington to New Orleans in 1812; also an American ride.  The ride of Paul Revere has been- as it should be- made immortal.  But no one knows anything about the ride of Bill Phillips.

The whole matter narrows itself to this:  New England writes the histories of her heroic sons. Tennessee lets the histories of her sons- equally heroic- be forgotten; unless some man, with the blood of Puritan New England or of New York in his veins, writes it for her.  For this, Tennessee, glorious in all else, should be ashamed.

Phillips seems to have viewed this exploit as the apogee of greatness as a “President’s express-rider.”  When he came back to Nashville, at easy pace from New Orleans, he forwarded his resignation to the President and received in due time an appointment as Ensign in the Army.  He joined Colonel John Coffee’s regiment of Tennessee Mounted Riflemen and served with it through the war.  The modern visitor to Nashville, if provided with introductions to the best society, may meet some very agreeable gentlemen and some exceedingly beautiful women in whose veins his good old blood flows.

William Phillips reached Nashville with the news of “War!  War with England!! War!!!” the night of June 21^st.  The next day- or in a few days- Major-General Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation to his division of militia."  

(Buell, Augustus C., History of Andrew Jackson, Vol. I., 1904, pp. 247-253.)

 And among the first of the Tennesseans to answer Jackson's call was our own William Phillips.  In the archives of General Coffee the following letter from him is found:

 Fayetteville, October 3, 1814

I have been detained here several days longer than I expected when I left you, have mustered into service about two thousand men here besides several companies that is to follow after and four companies from East Tennessee, when all is together I shall have about twenty six hundred men in my Brigade.  We have had a second Regiment organized, in which was elected Thomas Williamson Col., Cap. George Elliott Lieut. Col, Capt. George Smith 2^nd Lieut. Col., William Mitchell and William Phillips Majors. (Sioussat, St. George L., Editor, Tennessee Historical Magazine, Vol. II, 1916, p. 285.)

Application for William Phillips' military headstone
Family legend inspired the reference to a Welsh birth

Despite his governmental travels and military service through the War of 1812, William & Nancy reared a sizeable family of 8 boys, remaining in the Nashville area for some years. William apparently had received some of his Uncle Philip Phillip’s surveying skills, perhaps being trained by the older relation at some point.  On the 15^th of May 1815, after returning home from New Orleans and, just perhaps, making plans for local defenses should hostilities with Britain not truly be over, William created a map of the city of Nashville which today is a treasure of the Tennessee State Library and Archives.  Clearly civic-minded and influential in Nashville society, Phillips would remain in Tennessee only 8 more years.   In 1823 William Phillips reversed the migration route of his old Uncle Philip Phillips, leaving Davidson County and Tennessee to return his family to Hardin County, Kentucky in that portion that would eventually break off to form LaRue County twenty years later in 1843.  There on the road from Hodgenville to Sonora they erected a fine brick plantation house in a simple Federal style along with all the necessary outbuildings and slave quarters.  Above the mantlepiece in the formal parlor he hung the British sword he’d captured a decade before at the Battle of Lake Borgne in the swamps of Louisiana outside New Orleans in service to his mentor, riding instructor, and General, Andrew Jackson.

The map of Nashville drawn by William Phillips in 1815, courtesy the Tennessee Historical Society

William & Nancy were accompanied back to Kentucky by at least some of their Tennessee-born sons, two of which married their Neely cousins and brought them back home to the Bluegrass as well.  Philip & Susannah Friend Phillips’ daughter, Eleanor, born in then Jefferson County (now LaRue) in her father’s fortifications on the Nolynn River the 10^th Feb. 1782, had married Major James Neely 27^th April 1797 in Davidson County, about the same time William and Nancy were wed.  To that couple were born 7 sons, including a namesake Philip Phillips Neely, and 5 daughters.   William Phillips’ sons, the great nephews of Philip Phillips, that went with their parents to Kentucky included William Henderson Phillips who married Martha “Patsy” Cann of present-day Hart County, Kentucky,  Isaac Cullen Phillips who was married 15 July 1823 to Elizabeth Tinker, d/o Dr. Ralph Tinker,   John B. Phillips who married his 2^nd cousin Mary H. Neely, d/o Major James Neely and Eleanor Phillips,   Philip Purdy Phillips (again, a namesake of the old explorer), and Madison Phillips who also married his 2^nd cousin, Miss Elizabeth Neely, sister to his sister-in-law and again d/o Major James Neely and Eleanor Phillips.   (Interestingly, and further tying all these families of the old fort together, Major Neely’s brother, William Neely had married Mary Friend, part of the larger Friend family that migrated with Philip Phillips to Nelson/Hardin/LaRue County, Kentucky)  Isaac, John, & Madison all eventually left Kentucky for Arkansas between 1846 & 1849.  

Phillips' grave in Arkansas

William shows up in the United States Census for Hardin County, Kentucky in 1830 as a wealthy man, the master of 18 enslaved men, women & children.  No longer in their prime of life, the 1850 Federal Census enumerated Philip and Nancy in the household of their adult son, Philip Purdy Phillips, clearly a namesake for William’s uncle who had initiated settlement of the region with the establishment of his stockade back in 1780.  Like his Uncle Philip, William was enumerated by the Census taker as having been born in Pennsylvania, most likely his correct place of birth though both were credited within the family as being natives of Wales in southwestern Great Britain.  Nancy Jane Henderson Phillips tragically succumbed to the Cholera epidemic that raged through central Kentucky in 1852, expiring the 8^th of September.  She was hurriedly buried in the nearby Coombs-Williams family cemetery close to Eagle Mills.  After Nancy’s death, William went to visit his sons in Dallas County, Arkansas, intending to come home to LaRue County, but ultimately dying there in November of 1860.  He was buried in the Methodist burial ground there at Hunter’s Chapel Cemetery near Tulip, Arkansas where he was eventually joined again in death by many of his descendants.  His memory has been preserved by his grandchildren, his LaRue County house, and his cherished reminder of the Battle of New Orleans.

The Coombs-Williams Cemetery in LaRue County where Nancy Phillips is buried, photo courtesy Linda Ireland

Thanks for your time in reading.  I welcome your questions on this subject.  

CITATION OF ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

Will of Philip Phillips, probated Davidson County, TN 27 Nov. 1797

Andrew Hynes Papers, Historic New Orleans Collection, MSS 185

The Terrible and the Brave:  The Battles for New Orleans, 1814-1815, The Historic New Orleans Collection, 17^th May 2005 to 8^th January 2006, p. 17.   Case 6-C; Sword of Lt. John Leavach, 21^st Regiment of Foot (Royal North British Fusiliers)

Cooke, Captain John Henry, Narrative of Events in the South of France and of the Attack on New Orleans in 1814 & 1815, T. & W. Boone, London, 1835.

United States Department of the Interior, National Register of Historic Places #90001979 William Phillips House LU-36.

Tennessee Historical Society; Tennessee State Library & Archives, Misc. Files T-100, ID# 36400, MAP:  The City of Nashville (1815), (Storage location IX-A-2v, B.10, M-15 ½) (Dimensions 25 x 20 cm).

Rootsweb, the Eleanor Nelly Phillips genealogy ID: I12940

15^th Oct 1832 Pension Application of Jacob Hubbs S16421 Bullitt County, KY

Adams, Evelyn Crady, “PHILLIPS' FORT (1780), NOLIN STATION, EARLIEST SETTLEMENT IN LARUE COUNTY, KENTUCKY”, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 58, No. 4 (October,1960), pp. 308-321.

Nelson Co. KY (VA) Court Minutes 29 July 1785 Nourse to Phillips

Severns Valley Baptist Minutes 25 June 1796 Susannah Phillips already residing in Tennessee, membership moved to “Cumberland” association

Bowles, Mrs. Thomas H., “The Phillips Family of Dallas County”, The Arkansas Family Historian, Vol. VIII, No. 3 (July-Sept. 1970), pp. 75-85.

Scharf, J. Thomas, History of Delaware 1609-1888, Vol. I., Richards & Co., Philadelphia, 1888.

Papers of the Historical society of Delaware, XLII, "Records of the Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting, Pencader Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware, 1701-1828, In Two Parts- Part I", The Historical Society of Delaware, Wilmington, 1904.

Hibbs, Dixie, Bardstown: Hospitality, History, and Bourbon, Arcading Pub. 2002, p. 10.