Day 132

I can't believe we are to the end of October. Anne and I left Hardinsburg this morning and found Horsley Chapel. The Holt windows look lovely in this Methodist Church (not Presbyterian as I thought).

From there we decided to head east. Nothing of great interest seemed to be open in Louisville on a Sunday so we went to the Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill. It was the last day for demonstrations and all the buildings were open. Crunchy leaves underneath as we enjoyed this 3,000 acre community. The buildings are, for the most part, original to the early 1800s. The furniture and accessories are simple and rich in wood and natural materials. It was the perfect end to our trip. Tonight we are in Louisville and Anne goes home in the morning. I will stay one day here at the Filson Library before heading to Henderson on Tuesday.

Day 131

It has been a u-turn day. We went to the post office, made a u-turn to get to the historical society. It was manned by an ancient southerner who spoke slowly and heard even slower (is that an ear u-turn?). However, we did find that the alter rails from Judge Holt's church (built across the road from the mansion and constructed for his mother) were now in the historical society's museum. The rest of the church is in Owensboro, KY. The Mennonites bought it and moved it there. They didn't want the stained glass windows (too much color) so they were stored for several years in a tobacco barn. When the Presbyterians built a new church, here in Hardinsburg, the stained glass windows were installed there. We will try and get a glimpse tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we hit the grocery store for fruit and an ATM. No luck on the ATM and you can only get $25 above your grocery purchase. U-turn to WalMart. I got cash. Anne couldn't remember her pin number. Meanwhile, I had used the restroom and my jeans zipper got jammed in the down position - U-turn back to the motel for new jeans.

Finally, on the road at 11am looking for Edward DeHaven's grave. We have the AAA Kentucky map. We have the Breckinridge County map from the court house with the grave site marked by the archivist. We have the xeroxed map of Hancock County from the public library. We have Fiona. We have Google Maps. We have written directions to the cemetery from the cemetery book. And we still left town going the wrong direction. We get to the correct roads and no cemetery. We look in every possible direction. Read and interpret the instructions 6 different ways. We saw gorgeous, quiet scenery - but no graves. After 2 hours, you guessed it, u-turn for Hardinsburg, grabbing a salad and using the restroom before heading north to find the old Sterrett homestead and graveyard.

We found the correct roads and drove them from one end to the other. Fabulous views of the Ohio river. The perfect sites for any home - no house that fit the description. We ended back in Cloverport and did find the Black cemetery - but no Sterretts or anyone else we knew. U-turn - back on the road looking for the cemetery. Again - no sign of graves at the appropriate spot until we got out to the main road. And there it was. The perfect little cemetery up on a knoll. We whip a u-turn, park and go bounding up the hill ... and it is not our cemetery. U-turn. Finally we headed to Owensboro to see the sights. It is 3pm.

We arrived in Owensboro at 3:45 - just in time for 15 minutes at the art museum and... a bathroom stop. We then head to the public library. No relevant genealogy but a great new library facility and librarians willing to give us private tours and information. Good food for thought on library facilities and innovation. We left just at closing with directions to a local BBQ place. Drove confidently past the street - by several miles - before completing 2 u-turns and arriving at the restaurant at 7pm. Good dinner. 2 u-turns on one-way streets to get out of town, 1 u-turn on the highway when Fiona tried to send us down a back road, and the strangest NPR program ever heard to keep us awake on our way back to Hardinsburg. We are now safely tucked in. Hopefully our journey to Louisville tomorrow will have more straight lines.

Day 130

Short Blog. Busy day. Lots of good luck.

We found:

• 5 wills for various family members


• numerous marriage records


• gravesites for my 4 g grandparents - William Haynes Bowmer and Margaret Sterett Bowmer in Cloverport, KY - (see below)


• The Bowmer House in Cloverport - we think - based on a 1903 photo - with gorgeous views of the slowly moving Ohio River 300 feet from the front door. (see yellow house below)


• The Holt House mentioned yesterday - halfway between Cloverport and Stephensport. The house has been preserved but much restoration needs to be done. It would be a good volunteer fundraising effort. (see large house below)


• Joseph Holt's grave site (see below) along with those of his parents, John W. and Eleanor Stephens Holt

The morning was very cold but the afternoon lovely. The weather made it perfect for an afternoon in the outdoors. Our trek to the Holt house emphasized the absolute quiet of the location except for occasional bird songs (and the train). No children, cars, voices, or disturbing sounds. The Holt house has a large ginkgo tree in the back yard full of green leaves that glimmered as the setting sun shown down. We picked up a number of the leaves which, unfortunately, I think Anne is allergic to. She is sitting in bed with benadryl and gloves on her hands.

Tomorrow - the local historical society, the post office (I have found a house to rent when I get home so am mailing the lease), and then back out to more grave sites.

Day 129

A very full day today. We left Berea before 8am heading west for two sites Anne wanted to see. By 9am we were in Danville and saw Centre College. It is a small liberal arts school begun in 1820 for well-to-do families. Several of our ancestors are graduates - not because they were well to do but because it was one of the few in Kentucky. All the buildings are brick and well maintained on this small campus. No good signage which is annoying. From Danville, we coasted through the rolling hills of Kentucky towards New Hope and New Haven. It is a very Catholic area of the state which plays host to several priories and a monastery of Trappist monks (our destination). Anne had done some reading on Thomas Merton who had lived at the monastery and was curious to see this location. It is peaceful and quiet - reminiscent of my stay in upstate New York. The monastery supports itself through retreats and the making/selling of food products (fudge, cheese and fruitcake).

Finally we headed towards Breckinridge County arriving just before 2pm at the court house in Hardinsburg. Big thrill - we had crossed into the central time zone so gained an hour of research time. The archives ladies were very helpful as we delved into the Holts, Steretts, Bowmers, Stephens and DeHavens. So many lines to trace but we found good information on nearly everyone.

For me, the best information was finding that Judge Joseph Holt's home near Stephensport, KY was actually constructed by his parents - John W and Eleanor Stephens Holt, our 4 g grandparents. The house, recently rescued from ruin, has 3 stories of brick, metal and lumber and was constructed by slave labor in the 1830s. Joseph Holt inherited the house. He was Lincoln's Judge Advocate General and the house became a stop on the Underground Railway before and during the Civil War. Abutting the Holt land was that of Capt. Richard Stephens. His land grant (new sources today say 90,000 acres) extended along the Ohio River from just below Louisville to the Cloverport area. It is Richard's daughter Eleanor who married her neighbor John Holt.

We also found information on the Sterett family including this picture of John, our other 4 g grandfather on the Bowmer side. John purchased and traded land near the Ohio river. In 1822, he was taxed as a joint holder of 4,000 acres with Joseph Allen. In the same year he purchased an additional 9,000 acres. Much of the land was deeded or sold to his children leaving him with approximately 500 acres in Hancock County just over the county line from where I am in Breckinridge County. His home, called Walnut Hill, commanded a panoramic view of the Ohio River. The house stayed in the Sterett family until the 1960s. We hope to find the exact location of the property when we search out John and Sarah DeHaven Holt's graves on Saturday (probably on what was a portion of the old homestead).

Tomorrow- back to the courthouse for wills and marriage bonds. We hope to get to Cloverport to look for Bowmers and various graves.

Day 128

Another great day plus BEAUTIFUL fall weather - warm breezes, blue sky. Who could ask for more?

Anne and I left early for the Lancaster County Courthouse arriving just after 8am. We started searching probate records - wills for various Kennedys and Letchers. To give you an idea of small town courthouses, there are no security checks, no leaving your bags and coats in a locker, you have free access to the vault and just join the employees in using the copying machine. As we began, Gordon from the Property Valuation Department asked who we were researching. We told him Thomas Kennedy. Turns out he is descended from Thomas' sister Margaret - so he is about a 6th cousin. We shared some family stories and research information. We then got talking about the location of the Kennedy mansion and Uncle Tom's cabin. He knew right where they used to be, went to his office and printed out a colored map with directions!! Yahoo!!

Meanwhile, Anne and I were in the vault for 4 hours (they close at noon on Wed.). We ran up and down the rickety library ladder that clung to the ceiling of the vault and had one wheel that didn't quite reach the floor. I grabbed metal boxes (much like ammunition cases) full of wills and estate papers. Most had signatures of Benjamin Letcher - 5 gg who was the county clerk in the 1790s or his son Stephen G. Letcher who was county clerk in the 1820s and 30s. About 11:15 we started on marriage records. Staff showed us the metal staircase complete with creaky door that led from the floor of the vault to the basement. The lights DID work. We found the marriage bond for Thomas Kennedy and Edna Withers - 5 ggrandparents. We staggered out at noon headed for a well deserved lunch.

After lunch we drove down the street and took photos of the Letcher home then proceeded to the Lancaster Cemetery. There we found the graves for General Benjamin Letcher, his wife Margaret Robertson Letcher, and Stephen Giles Letcher. (gravestones are sideways - sorry)

North out of town we followed Gordon's directions to "The Poplars" - Kennedys homestead. The land is rolling and the house would have faced east. Beyond the edge of the plantation was Kennedy's station - the property purchased by Thomas' father John and their first home after leaving the Boonesborough/Stroud Fort area 8 miles east.

I then showed Anne the Paint Lick cemetery and Thomas K's gravesite (see photos from my blog a month ago when I was in Lexington). Anne got the kinks out of her back lying on one of the stone slabs. The end of the day was spent investigating a few places in Burea, a salad dinner, and catching up on practicalities at the hotel. We are off to Hardinsburg and its only hotel (22 rooms - $50/night) tomorrow to look for Holts, Bowmers, Stephens, DeHavens and Haynes in Breckinridge County, KY.

Day 127

Wow, what a day. Anne and I drove to Boonesborough, going to the original fort site on the Kentucky River and then touring the reconstructed fort. We saw the plaque for John Kennedy, one of Daniel Boone's "30 guns" who widened the Wilderness Road for the Transylvania Land Company and opened KY for settlement in 1775. John's father and brothers joined him by 1776, moving their families to the wilderness. We watched wood working, candle making, weaving, and "white" smithing exhibitions. The whitesmith worked with tin, brass, and copper making everyday implements. The metal working process required solder but not a hot forge like blacksmithing.

During the morning we noticed that the wind had picked up and by the time we stopped for lunch it was pouring rain. Only then did we access the weather channel to find out that the worst storm in 70 years had hit Chicago and we were feeling the fringes of that disturbance. I hope Pam, Jay, Lois, and Jan G. are all surviving safely.

After lunch we headed south towards Garrard County and its capital, Lancaster. 45 minutes of windy driving got us to - Paint Lick -what a surprise - exactly where Mom, Liz and I visited a couple of weeks ago and the second home to Thomas Kennedy (after his Stroud's Fort location near Boonesborough). We couldn't see much of the countryside in the rain but enjoyed the back route to Lancaster.

The Lancaster Historical Society was womanned by 80 year old Margaret Simpson. A southern dynamo, she welcomed us in out of the weather and talked nonstop about the Kennedys. Evidently, nearly everyone in Garrard County and many in neighboring Madison County are related to the Kennedys - except her. She showed us a picture painted of Thomas Kennedy's old home (c. 1800- red house) with the slave's cabin out back that belonged to the individual on which Uncle Tom (Harriet Beecher Stowe) was based. The Historical Society also has a piece of wallpaper from the original Kennedy home (demolished in 1930).

From the historical society we moved to the public library. The library has as much material as the historical society or more and we delved into Kennedy surname files. However, the great finds were in the Letcher surname files. We found letters, genealogies written 100 years ago, and much more. Even information on the elusive Robertson family. We also found the home of Nancy Kennedy and James Hughes Letcher. It is quite near the library and is where the young couple lived for 10 years ~1850. Robert P. Letcher had lived there prior to his election as Kentucky's governor in 1840 and must have let Nancy and James live there or purchase it. (white house above)

We are overwhelmed with the amount of data but intend to go back tomorrow for more. We also found that Benjamin Letcher (a general in the War of 1812 and father of James Hughes Letcher) and his wife Margaret (Peggy) Robertson Letcher are buried in Lancasteer. This means a cemetery run in Lancaster and out at Thomas Kennedy's grave in Paint Lick.

We ended our day at a country dinner in Lancaster - $4.95 for Anne's liver and onions. $5.95 for my lasagna. The price also included sides and a salad. Can't beat it.

Day 126

We awoke to rain, low clouds and fog. We left Asheville about 9 and headed up into the mountains. The trees were brilliantly colored despite the rain.

We crossed from NC to Tennessee to Virginia and into Kentucky emerging through the Cumberland Tunnel. The stops up and through the mountains were beautiful but Cumberland Gap was disappointing. We made our way to the Cumberland Gap National Park Visitor's Center where we saw a wonderful movie on Daniel Boone and the movement of the white man into Kentucky. The ranger then sent us up the mountain to see the views that Boone and early pioneers saw. These were much more satisfying, looking out over TN and VA into Kentucky. The forest was quiet with a slight breeze and quietly chattering animals and birds. You could see how ancestors anxious for more space and new adventures would view Kentucky as the ultimate challenge.

Anne and I then headed back down the mountain to take a 1.2 mile walk (uphill, both ways) to the actual Cumberland Gap and Wilderness Trail. With two days of long walks, Anne may be doubting the wisdom of coming on this venture.

Then it was off to Berea, KY. We arrived here by 5:15 and found a nice, inexpensive motel for the next two nights. This evening was spent sorting out all the KY relatives and attaching them to our map. Tomorrow - Boonesborough and the Garrard Co. Historical Society.