THE FILSON CLUB HISTORY QUARTERLY

Vol. 27 LOUISVILLE, , JANUARy, 1953 No. 1

GOODIN'S FORT •1780) IN NELSON COUNTY, KENTUCKY

BY EVELYN CRADY ADAMS

PART ONE: STORY OF THE FORT

Verdant meadows, rippling streams, and forested hills in the far western reaches of the Colony of greeted Samuel Goodin and his family and warmed their hearts as they disembarked from • their flatboats at the Falls of the (Louisville, Kentucky) in April, 1779.1 The unpleasant memories of the severe winter just passed in Fayette County, ,2 grew dim in enchantment of the vernal scene and there was the comforting assurance that the long- sought goal of homesteads would soon be happily realized. Within a short time the family's land entries totaled nearly four thousand acres." On portions of these tracts and of others, homes were built and offspring nurtured. Over the years descendants have held immutable the pioneering spirit and perpetuated it with a new sense of responsibility in worth-while fields of human endeavor. After lingering briefly at the Falls, Samuel Goodin proceeded about fifty miles to the south to the section lying along Pottenger's Creek. When the good points of the vast wilderness bad been carefully weighed, he retraced his route some six miles and selected the site for his fort on the north bank of the of , midway between the future towns of Nelsonville and New Haven in Nelson County, Kentucky.4 Prospects pleased. The advantages of the remote site were at once obvious to the woodsmen-settlers. To' them, accustomed to living in isolation, the absence of close neighbors did not matter. Besides, they were assured by the rising tide of westerly migration that their loneliness would be of short duration. The Rolling Fork, a humble stream withal, had much to offer. In addition to its rich bordering bottom lands, it guaranteed a life-sustaining water supply, abounded in fish, and for several months annually it was navigable by flatboats. 3 4 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27

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LOCATION MAP OF GOODIN'S FORT Courtesy of Mrs. Robinson S. Brown, St.

1. Goodin's Fort 11 Boston 2 Bardstown 12 Nelsonville--Iron Furnace 3 Old Kentucky Home 13 New Haven 4 Hodgenville 14 Atkinson Hill's home 5 Lincoln's Birthplace 15 Edlintown neighborhood 6 Elizabethtown 16 Rolling Fork Baptist Church 7 --r-Gold Vault 17 Lyons 8 Louisville 18 Pottenger's Station (1781) 9 Churchill Downs 19 Cox's Station (1780) 10 Shepherdsville-- 20 Trappist Moaastery old salt works 1953] Goodin's Fo• 5

During the summer and autumn it was fordable. Goodin's Ford was well known in pioneer days. Beeler's Ford and nearby Atherton's Ford superseded it, and these two fords yielded sometime back to the modern sturdy bridge that now spans the stream. A network of communicating roads, beaten out over the centuries by animals, awaited the coming of white settlers. Along the river's north bank ran the ancient north-south buffalo trace, and a con- venient well-traveled footpath led to another old trace that ran south- easterly. Filson, in a vivid description of these traces, observed in 1784 that buffalo herds had made "prodigious roads.., as if leading to some populous city.''5 The chosen Fort site measured up equally well in meeting the more immediate demands of shelter, food, raiment, and defense. Bounti- ful nature was kind. Virgin timber stood ready to be converted into snug cabin homes. There were fowl, fish, and fruitful vine. Newly planted cereal crops so quickly matured in the hitherto untilled soil that the harvests of 1780 were noted as exceptionally fine. John Houston and Captain Samuel Pottenger described with quaint precision the productivity of the same type of rich land that extended south along Pottenger's Creek. Houston, testifying in a land case, said that the "land at the mouth of the creek, is pretty rich and good," and Captain Pottenger described the cane as "rank and plentiful . . . generally as high as a man's head, and a great many as high as a man's head on horseback.''c In this erstwhile favorite hunting ground of many Indian tribes, the buffalo was quickly sighted in the canebrake, the wild turkey in the thicket, and the deer beside the water's edge. Squirrels were plentiful and the triangular tracks of scurrying rabbits dotted the blankets of snow. Evelyn Handy, Jr., 9-year-old eighth generation descendant of Samuel Goodin, is confident that he brought a bear trap with him from Pennsylvania, and it is most likely that bear meat was added to the already diverse menu. Groves of sugar maples supplied sweetening in general and syrup in particular to make griddle cakes more enticing, and sassafras bushes gave forth the makings of fragrant lacquer-red tea. The profusion of luscious blackberries, ripening on the briar about the Fourth of July, filled deep Dutch-oven summer cobblers and firkins of jam and jelly to cheer the chill of winter days. As soon as Jack Frost spread abroad his lavish glistening crystals in late autumn, rich meated nuts were garnered from pecan, walnut, hickory, and chestnut trees. Persimmons then no longer pungent were spread on roof tops tO increase their sugar content for the Yuletide holidays. The Filson Club Histot7 Quarterly [Vol. 27

Buffalo and deer preceded the domesticated sheep in providing material for clothing, and flax harvests soon kept hackles and looms busy turning out linen. Ranking high on the list of nature's offerings was an abundance of salt, and there were also deposits of iron ore. In this wonderful land the terrain was inviting, but the times were inconstant. Fortuitously, Samuel Goodin was destined to enjoy the peace that prevailed in 1780, as if it were a honeymoon, giving him opportunity to build his fort and plant crops unmolested. But by the time the trees began to bud in the spring of 1781 ominous clouds had gathered. The threat of open Indian resistance to the infringe- ment of white settlement along the border7 was so grave that all forts were ordered stockaded. Not one militiaman could be spared from local defense in response to Governor Thomas Jefferson's appeal for recruits to strengthen the Continental Army.s Historians have de- clared that no part of Kentucky was then free from danger. The Goodins loyally and promptly assumed their full responsibility. In fact, Samuel, his son Isaac, and his son-in-law Atkinson Hill had already shouldered the musket in Captain William Harrod's Company in 1780. Later Isaac and Samuel, Jr., served under General George Rogers Clark; and Samuel, Jr., also served under Colonel Benjamin Logan? Goodin's Fort was duly stockaded. It occupied a strategic position as a link in the cluster of early stations encircling future Bar&town, and throughout the perilous years it offered a haven to those settlers scattered over the twelve unprotected miles lying between it and the early forts to the west that became Elizabethtown and Hodgenville.a° A stockade was ordinarily built of split timbers 12 to 15 feet in length that were firmly implanted upright and side by side in a deep trench to form a solid wail between cabins. Arduous labor was expended in its construction by those of prudent foresight and with determina- tion to conquer the wilderness. As an additional measure of security scouts ever on the alert roamed the countryside and sent out alarms when danger was imminent, warning every person in field or unpro- tected cabin to flee to the nearest thick-walled retreat. The Indian scout, Peter Kennedy, was one of the heroes of Goodin's Fort. His Virginia parents lived three miles north, of the Fort and young Kennedy knew the terrain intimately for miles around in every direction. In 1781 when he was escaping from one of his brief periods of captivity he, fleet of foot, outran his pursuers for thirty miles and reached Goodin's Fort in safety. Unmindful of fatigue he straight- way directed a posse from the Fort against the retreating enemies with such skill that not one was left to return to his tribe? 1 1953] Goodin's Fort 7

Life in Goodin's Fort was outwardly of a simple pattern, but in essence and in the ebb and flow of the grim struggle for survival the current ran deep. The Fort, housing many souls, was among the larger ones in the area. Samuel Goodin's family at first consisted of himself, aged about 50; his three sons, Isaac aged 24, Thomas aged 20, and Samuel, Jr., aged 15; his two daughters, Elizabeth aged 18, with her husband, Atkinson Hill, aged 25, and Rebecca aged 9. In 1782 when Samuel Goodin married Elizabeth Van Meter, widow of Abraham Van Meter, she brought with her to the Fort her four small Van Meter daughters. Catherine Van Meter was 12, Letitia 10, Sarah 9, and Elizabeth, Jr., 2 years of age. Abraham Goodin, son of Samuel and Elizabeth Van Meter Goodin, was born in 1783. By 1797 all the daughters and all the sons, except bachelor Thomas and young Abraham, had married; and it may be readily assumed that the in-laws and at least a few of the earliest arrivals of the twenty-nine Goodin grandchildren, as well as the uncounted Van Meter grandchildren, also resided in the Fort at times. General Braddock, the only slave mentioned as living in the Fort, had been appraised March 8, 1782, at 100 pounds in the estate of his late master, Abraham Van Meter;m and on March 19, 1797, he was "emancipated, set free and forever exonerated from slavery.''1• General Braddock was highly respected. With a total of nine Indian sc•ilps to his credit in the perilous years, he was cited for bravery,a4 On April 9, 1797, three weeks after he was freed, he married Becky Swank. They lived in Hardin County and acquired property in a small way. Among neighbors who lived at Goodin's Fort at intervals were Indian scout, Peter Kennedy, Abnego Carter, a Mr. Hamilton, and Aaron Atherton, Sr.x• Aaron Atherton, Sr., and his family lived in the Fort in 1780, but it is not known how many of his ten children were born at that time. Aaron's son Peter Atherton (1771-1844),who was a lad of nine when he lived in the Fort, grew up to be a man of prominence. His 16-room house still stands near Athertonville. Peter's son John S. Atherton (1804-1840) was the progenitor of the Atherton families who lived in the Fort neighborhood, and Peter's son John M. Atherton (1841-1932), of Athertonville and Louisville, was one of the wealthiest and most renowned of Kentucky's citizens. Peter Lee Atherton, only child of John M. Atherton, lived in Louisville. The largest known group to be protected within the stockade of Goodin's Fort at one time was made up of the women and children of the twenty-five or more Catholic families who migrated from Mary- The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27 land in 1785. Their stay continued until the men of the party went on toward Pottenger's Creek and built cabins for their settlement,le Goodin's Fort was the logical refuge for the adjacent families of David Crady, Richard Edlin, Christopher Beeler, Samuel Miller, Anthony Chambers, and Daniel, Samuel, and Stephen Vittitow, all of whom were of the early pioneer period. It is quite likely that Zachariah Maraman, a contemporary of the foregoing and a neighbor and close friend of Atkinson Hill on the River, escorted his family to Goodin's Fort during times of danger. The neighborly spirit of Samuel Goodin spread abroad and unquestionably made secure the life of many another. Judging from the Goodin generosity in offering shelter and protec- tion, the Fort was adequately equipped. Earnest pioneers customarily transported with them a minimum of household furnishings, a few head of livestock, the largest supply possible of tools and agricultural implements, and a number of firearms. We know that the equipment Samuel Goodin brought from Pennsylvania, whatever it might have been, was supplemented and perhaps duplicated by the personal property of Abraham Van Meter17 whose widow, Elizabeth, Samuel married in 1782. Farming implements listed in the Van Meter prop- erty included plowshares, scythes, hoes, spades, pitchforks, harrow teeth, maddocks, and grubbing irons. Among carpenter's tools were drawing knives, hammers, axes, augurs, hinges, chisels, and saws. For use in the home there were lamps, bedticks, curtains, coverlids, a flax hackle, a spinning wheel, and twenty-six spools of yarn. For the kitchen there were iron pots, skillets, griddles, potracks, a spit, a teakettle, and dishes of pewter. Listed among miscellaneous items were a side saddle, chains, singletrees, a handmill, iron wedges, batches of iron old and new, pruning knives, a gouge, a grindstone, and steelyards. And there were two rifles and a tomahawk, the latter of which may have been one of the two bought by Atkinson Hill at Samuel Goodin's sale in 1808.is The livestock in the Van Meter estate included eleven head of cattle, one bull, and three horses. Before stake and ridered fences crisscrossed the land, domestic animals enjoyed free range and various means of control were used to prevent them from wandering too far. A bell, strapped around the neck of cattle, oxen, and horses, tinkled in rhythmical unison with their step or with their nudging head as they grazed, and thus kept them within hearing distance. These animals were sometimes tethered to a tree with a rope, and horses were hobbled, that is, a restraining rope about a yard long was tied around and between the two forelegs a few inches above the hoof to 1953] Goodin's Fort 9 impede movement at any degree of rapidity. Identification marks cut into the ear of hogs were properly registered at court sessions. Samuel Goodin's hogmark was entered in the Nelson County Court Minutes, December 11, 1787, as a crop and underbite in the left ear and a slit in the right. There were happy days at Goodin's Fort along with the busy and trying ones. Even the tasks involved in providing a roof, nourishment, and clothing were often pleasant, if strenuous. The commonly shared undertakings of raising the cabin, harvesting the crop, and the spin- ning and weaving that went into the fashioning of homespun gar- ments enriched life. New and close friendships were formed as neighbor worked with neighbor. Cupid was not idle at Goodin's Fort where romance, mayhap under the harvest moon, culminated in some ten weddings. The festivities attending some of these nuptials may have been enhanced by the music of Leonard Johnson's popular son Clemmy who brought his fiddle out from Maryland,19 and also by the melodious strains emanating from the fife of David Crady, recent fifer in the Maryland Line for four years during the Revolution.2° Many another wedding celebration among the settlers who arrived in great numbers throughout the 1780's brightened lonely lives. The Goodin community grew. Cabins sprang up along the roads that began to be opened in 1784. The popular road from Goodin's Fort to the salt works (Shepherdsville) was built in 1785. Over this route the Goodins, Captain Samuel Pottenger, and other neighbors traveled companionably on their regular trips for salt supplies. The Edlin Hill road, that led from the Fort and the Burnt Lick Ford neighborhoods over Muldraugh Hill to Hodgenville, was built in 1793 and is still a well maintained and picturesque thoroughfare.21 In 1788 the Rolling Fork Baptist Church was organized near the Fort and many Goodin descendants are buried in its present cemetery.2u Peace was at last emerging. Indian resistance had abated in the late 1780's and by 1795 had practically ended. Collins notes that depredations and massacres of small parties of white men were fre- quent until the spring of 1790.23 On March 27 of that year Sevems Valley Baptist Church recorded "Mett and dismissed as afrad," and accounts of sporadic Indian attacks on a small scale continued to appear in the press until 1794. For a decade and a half there had been tragic incidents, some at a distance, others dangerously near Goodin's Fort, but the Fort itself fortunately escaped harm. Samuel Goodin occupied his Fort until the period of danger passed. The issuance of a land patent to the Fort site to Benedict Swope in 1799 implies that Samuel Goodin failed to gain a clear title.24 In 10 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27

the turn of events, as if righting a wrong, the tract was later pur- chased and resided upon until recent years by Goodin descendants. When Samuel Goodin abandoned the Fort he moved across the Rolling Fork to one of his plantations in present LaRue County. He apparently retained more than half of his original land entries which approximated two thousand acres. On his plantation in the Edlintown vicinity he died in 1807. He left no will. His son Samuel served as the administrator and his personal property was appraised January 2, 1808, at a trifle over 150 pounds.2• John W. Muir, banker of Bards- town, Kentucky, owns the following receipt: Recvd of Samuel Goodin Jr., Adm. to the estate of Sam'l Goodin decest three dollars .for mak- ing his father's coffin rec'd by me this 2 day of Jany 1808 (s) Sharpe Spencer Atkinson Hill witness. An even dozen years rolled by before the site of Goodin's Fort was transferred by political subdivision from Virginia to the Common- wealth of Kentucky. Kentucky's development during the intervening one hundred and sixty years has contrived to place the old site in one of the State's most historic sections. Ten miles to the east stands My Old Kentucky Home built near Bardstown by John Rowan and now a State shrine. About the same distance to the west is Lincoln Memorial Hall, marking the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, south of Hodgen- ville. The revered Rolling Fork Baptist Church is within a mile. Nelson Furnace blasted iron ore in the 1830's only three miles distant, and the remains of some of the coke pits could be seen until recent years within a short distance of the old Fort site.2° The Trappist Monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky, is five miles to the south. The United States Government's fabulous vault of gold at Fort Knox to the northwest, and Churchill Downs in Louisville to the north, where the Kentucky Derby is run annually, are less than forty miles away. Nestled in this unique setting the site of Goodin's Fort is today only a fertile band of meadow land, lying placid in the flow of history and free from visible reminders of the pioneer drama enacted upon it. The story of a single stockaded fort which in comparison with modern methods of defense could be regarded as little more than a fragile unit of habitation, may appear deceptively simple. But war- fare has been transformed. The founders of pioneer forted areas, however minute, were heroes many of whom were unsung. The forts were milestones in western expansion. They formed a vital portion of the steadily growing nucleus of strength needed to meet crises and exigencies and to buttress the unfolding of a new nation. 1953] Goodin's Fort 11

PART Tx.VO: GOODIN GENEALOGY The ancestry of Samuel Goodin (1733 ?-1807), founder of Goodin's Fort, is unknown. He may have been the grandson of Thomas Gooding (1650?-17307),27 Quaker minister from Cardiganshire, Wales, who was received into a Quaker Church in Chester County, Pennsylvania, December 28, 1708. The children of Thomas Gooding and his wife Elizabeth Gooding (1652-1739) were John, Thomas, Elizabeth, Mary, and Sarah, all of whom were likewise Quaker minis- ters. Thomas Gooding, Jr. (1694:4-16-1775), the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Gooding, married on March 13, 1729, Ann, the daughter of Richard Jones, in Goshen, Pennsylvania, and their seven children are listed as: John who married in 1759; Thomas who mar- ried Mary Hall and whose will probated in Fayette County names a son Samuel; Richard (1735- ) who married in 1757; Jane who died in 1813; Isaac (1741-1827); Elizabeth who died young; and Sarah. Samuel Goodin of Kentucky does not appear in this list but the approximate year of his birth in 1733, his marriage in 1754 and his death in 1807 would place him among the early children. The frequent use of the name Thomas in Samuel's line could be significant; the piety, austerity, and forthrightness of the pioneer Kentucky Goodins and their apparent opposition to slavery could reflect a Quaker background; and finally, Samuel's spelling of his name as Goodin and not as Goodwin could be accounted for. The six children of Samuel Goodin were Isaac, Elizabeth Goodin Hill, Thomas, Samuel, Jr., Rebecca Goodin Watson, and, by his mar- riage to Elizabeth Van Meter,2s Abraham Goodin.

1. Lieutenant Isaac Goodin (1755-1838), son of Samuel Goodin, declared in his pension claim No. $2240, filed on March 28, 1833, when he was 78 years old, that when he was drafted in the Penn- sylvania Line "on a day not very remote from the Declaration of American Independence" he was living within ten miles of Browns- ville then called Redstone Old Fort. In addition to his service in Pennsylvania where he received his commission, he served in 1780 in Jefferson County, Kentucky, and in later expeditions against the Indians. Isaac Goodin married Sarah Edlin March 2, 1790, in Nelson County. Josiah Dodge, Baptist minister, performed the ceremony. Sarah Edlin was the daughter of neighbor Richard Edlin whose great grand- father, Richard Edlin, came from England to Maryland in 1664. The Edlin family date from the 14th century at Nantes, France, and were 12 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27

Huguenots. Although Isaac Goodin's early land entries in Kentucky totaled 884 acres and he bought additional tracts, he owned at his death in 1838 only 142 acres and his personal property was appraised at about $240.29 The nine children of Isaac and Sarah Edlin Goodin were: John; James who married Mary Pairpoint; Samuel who married Susan Edlin; Thomas who married Polly Edlin; Margaret who married Abraham Skeeters; Kiziah who married Jacob Duree; Rebecca who married Peter Duree; Isaac, Jr., who married Rachel Harris; and Polly who married Christopher Bush, Jr. The elder Christopher Bush (1730-1813) was an able, sturdy pioneer in his own right, but the fact that his daughter Sarah Bush became Abraham Lincoln's stepmother has given the Bush family a permanent bracket in American history. When Sarah Bush married Thomas Lincoln December 2, 1819, he had two children and she, the widow of Daniel Johnston, jailer, had three. One of the surviv- ing Lincoln stories is of Sarah taking young Abe with her on shopping trips to Elizabethtown, since he was the oldest of all the children and could help carry the bundles. The willingness of the young lad to be of help so impressed the merchants that they always gave him cakes of maple sugar.3° Another daughter of Christopher Bush, Han- nah Bush, married Ichabod Radley, a New Englander and the first school teacher in Hardin County.al Had Christopher Bush lived he could have been proud of the recognition achieved by at least six of the eight children of his son Christopher, Jr., and Polly Goodin Bush. Their son Martin was one of the best surveyors in Kentucky. Their sons Robert, Squire, and Willard P. D. were successful attorneys. The Honorable Willard P. D. Bush served many terms in the State Legislature and was the editor of fourteen volumes of the decisions of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, known as The Bush Reports. Daughter Sarah Elizabeth Bush married John Irwin and their son James was a prominent lawyer in Elizabethtown. Mary Ellen, another daughter of Polly and Christopher Bush, Jr., married Colonel Martin Hardin Cofer, a man of distinction. Colonel Corer bore the name of his maternal grand- father, Martin Hardin for whom Hardin County was named. In his brilliant career Colonel Cofer was Judge of Hardin County, editor of The Elizabethtown Democrat, author of "A Supplemental Digest of Decisions of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky 1853-1867," Judge of the Circuit Court, and Chief Justice of the State Court of Appeals, the post that he held at the time of his death in Frankfort in 1881. His military service was equally brilliant. A Colonel in the Con- 1953] Goodin's Fort 13 federate Army, he enlisted many volunteers and worked for Ken- tucky's secession. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.

2. Elizabeth Goodin (1760:8-21-1829), daughter of Samuel Goodin, married Atkinson Hill (1755:6-11-1824). Atkinson Hill came to Kenutcky in 1779. In 1780 he served under Captain William Harrod at the Falls of the Ohio. His land entries including his homestead on the Beech Fork River soon exceeded a thousand acres. For a time he resided at Rogers. Station near his Beech Fork plantation, but in 1782 irked by a controversy over religious questions he moved out and built a cabin home across the Rolling Fork from Goodin's Fort.a2 During these trying years Elizabeth had the pleasure of living near her kindred, and the family also enjoyed the protection of the Fort. When peace came the Hills settled permanently on their Beech Fork plantation in Nelson County, three miles east of Goodin's Fort. All the other children of Samuel Goodin lived in Hardin and LaRue counties. Atkinson Hill, distinguished Nelson County pioneer and a man of purpose, engaged wholeheartedly in the development of his com- munity. He held various elective offices and was Judge of Nelson County when Kentucky gained statehood. He was one of the three public-spirited citizens who established the first public school in Nelson County. In the performance of his diverse court duties, Judge Hill came to know and admire the young attorney John Rowan. It is claimed that Judge Hill financed Rowan in his early struggle and made possible his extraordinary career. At any rate the two were closely associated. Judge Rowan's son Atkinson Hill Rowan, who died of cholera in 1832, is buried in the Rowan plot at Old Kentucky Home. Among joint business enterprises the Hill-Rowan Mill on the Hill estate flourished. A trading partnership was known as The Atkinson Hill Company. Judge Hill's magnificent home built of native stone and the red brick Rowan mansion, Old Kentucky Home, were built from identical • floor plans. The spacious stone residence on the Beech Fork reflected Judge Hill's affluence. In it there were the acceptable furnishings of the times such as Windsor chairs, falling leaf tables, sugar chests, looking glasses, book cases, candle stands, and so on. In the library were Johnson's and Bayless" dictionaries, Hardin's Reports, Geog- raphies, Buchan's Family Medicine, books in Latin, a Dictionary of the Holy Bible, and other volumes. John W. Muir, banker of Bards- town, owns Judge Hill's Dictionary of the Bible, which was compilod 14 The Filson Club Histo•7 Quarterly [Vol. 27 by John Brown, Minister of the Gospel at Haddington. It is the second American edition published in two volumes in 1807 by the Ecclesiastical and Literary Press of Zadock Cramer, Pittsburgh. On the front fly leaf is written "Atkinson Hill's book, April 15, 1808," and on the back flyleaf is inscribed the name of Elizabeth Hill, Atkin- son's wife. Siaves and plantations were bequeathed to members of the family in Judge Hill's will, recorded in Nelson County June 28, 1824. To his widow as a part of her large dowry he left the riding carriage and span of horses. His personal property was estimated at some $10,000.3a Shortly before the end of Judge Hill's sixty-nine full years he suffered a paralytic stroke. His attending physicians were Dr. William Owsley, graduate of Transylvania Medical College,84 and Dr. Ben- jamin W. Dudley, nationally known surgeon and professor at Tran- sylvania. Judge Hill was affiliated with the Cedar Creek Baptist Church, and among his dose friends were the Baptist ministers Joshua Morris and Isaac Taylor. A white marble shaft marks the graves of Judge Hill and his wife Elizabeth, in an enclosure of green plantings a few rods from where the stone homestead burned in the 1880's. Other members of the family are buried in the little ceme- tery. The nine children of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill were Rebecca, Elizabeth, Sally, Nancy, William, Eleanor, Margaret, Eliza, and Mary; and there were more than fifty grandchildren.

(1) Rebecca Hill, daughter of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill, was born about 1779 and died about 1820. On August 2, 1796, she was married to Wilford Lee by the Baptist clergyman, Joshua Carman. Judge Hill discharged a twofold legal obligation by penning upon his consent for the marriage of Rebecca, a minor, the following postscript: Please send back word by the said Wilford Lee if court will be held Tuesday as I do not want to come in if court is not held. Wilford Lee was a poor young man when he married Rebecca Hill but when he died on January 24, 1849, in his 76th year, he was one of the wealthiest citizens of Bullitt County. He held county elective offices from time to time and was a member of .the State Legislature in 1818 and 1819. In the 1839 tax list, the last of the early ones to be preserved, he owned thirty slaves and 3,500 acres of land with a total property evaluation of $40,000. At that time eight of his children had married and to each he had given "property" consisting of plantations, slaves, and money. He requested in his will that his property be divided equally among his surviving children.• The final distribution of his holdings was deferred by litigation for ten 1953] Goodin's Fort 15 or more years. When Rebecca Hill Lee died, Wilford Lee married her sister Margaret Hill. An account of their children will appear later in this history. The nine children of Rebecca Hill and Wilford Lee were: John Lee, Jr., who married Elizabeth, the daughter of Leonard and Caty Wilhite Trou•nan;•6 Atkinson Hill Lee who married Susan Wilcox- son; Sarah Lee who married John Swank, the son of Jacob and Eliza- beth Van Meter Swank, and settled in ; Eleanor Lee who married Benjamin Hamed; Betsy Lee who married George French; Mary Lee who married James W. White; Matilda Ann Lee who mar- ried first William W. Simmons, and secondly James William Sim- mons; Charles Lee who married Letitia Simmons; and the ninth child Eliza Lee who married Henry I. Craycroft. Eleanor Lee (6-15-1800:1-7-1872), daughter of Rebecca Hill and Wilford Lee, married on April 30, 1825, Benjamin Harned (3-23-1793: 3-9-1864), son of William and Miriam Comstock Harned.87 They lived in an elegant 10-room brick home on a large plantation at Boston, Kentucky. Their headstones stand in the family plot nearby. Five of their eleven children died between the ages of four and twenty years. Captain Wilford Lee Harned, eldest son of Eleanor and Benjamin Harned, who lost his life in the Confederate Army, married Mary the daughter of John and Mary Hill Troutman. Their six children were Ben, Elisha, Leonard, Margaret, Sallie, and Lee Harned. Miriam Hamed (1828-1863), daughter of Eleanor and Benjamin Harned, married Mosby Johnson August 16, 1847. They went to Mississippi County, Missouri, where Miriam died leaving two daughters Mattie and SaIlie. Mattie Johnson married Frank Lovelace, and their children were Mayme, Herbert, Lou, Mattie, and Pearl. Herbert Lovelace married Ida Raymond and their daughter Eleanor married Dr. David Cox, prominent surgeon of Louisville. A son Raymond Lovelace is a business executive. Pearl Lovelace married Quinn Harned, official of the Federal Chemical Company of Louisville. Sallie Johnson, daughter of Miriam and Mosley Johnson, was a brilliant educator, and is fondly remembered by the author as her teacher at the Nelsonville District school. George Harned (1829-1900), son of Eleanor and Benjamin Harned, married Marcia Ann Pash and settled in Missouri. A daughter, Huldah Blanford Harned, married Walter Williams, Dean of the School of Journalism, in the University of Missouri at Columbia. 16 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27

Atkinson Lee Hamed (12-16-1840:8-15-1915), son of Eleanor and Benjamin Harned, married (1) Katherine, the daughter of Franklin and Malvina Quinn Troutman, and (2) Emma Troutman, Katherine's sister. The second marriage took place September 2, 1875.ss A.L. Harned was severely wounded in the Confederate Army. He lived in the Benjamin Harned homestead built in 1842 at Boston, where he prospered. He operated a flour mill, was a bank official, and was a member of the State Legislature. His seven children were: Tone who married Cal Cook; Eleanor who married Walter Langsford; Mary Ack who married Wood Crady, brother of the author; Marcia who married William Daugherty; Sallie Frank who married Albert J. Barnes; Marion Pope who married Willie T. Hamed and lives on a ranch in New Mexico; and Emma May who married Louis A. Benoist and lives in Natchez, Mississippi. Ella Priscilla Hamed, daughter of Eleanor and Benjamin Harned, married Anthony Vernon Goodin, son of Albert Gallatin Goodin, whose lineage will appear later in this history. Benjamin Harned, Jr., son of Eleanor and Benjamin Harned, mar- ried Emma Hamilton and lived on a farm west of Boston. Their children were: George who married Amy Gardner; Thomas Harned; Lee Hamed who married Ruth Shawler; Benjamin S. Harned who married Bettie Harned, and whose daughter Willie T. married Pope Harned; Mary who married Marion Pearce, and whose daughter Lottye married Henry McClasky, executive officer of The Courier- Journal; and Sweet Harned who married William Crawford. Matilda Ann Lee, daughter of Rebecca Hill and Wilford Lee, married (1) William W. Simmons, son of Jesse and Rachel Welles Simmons, October 21, 1834, and (2) James William Simmons, son of Thomas and Julia Simmons. Wilford Lee willed to Matilda Ann all the property he had given her at the time of her first marriage in addition to her share of his estate when he died. Laura Simmons, daughter of Matilda Ann and James William Simmons, married Henry J. Lyons. Their son William Lee Lyons married Belle Clay, daughter of Mary Katherine Rogers and Samuel Clay, Jr., of the prominent Clay family of Kentucky.•° The four children of William Lee Lyons and Belle Clay Lyons were: Samuel Clay Lyons; Laura Lyons who married Owsley Brown; Mary Rogers Lyons who married Robinson S. Brown; and William Lee Lyons, Jr. The two daughters were educated abroad. Mrs. Robinson S. Brown, a lady of unusual charm, insists that her most memorable experience was a flight in 1912 from Belgium to Holland in a balloon owned by friends of her hostess. The Lyons and Brown families are prominent in the industrial and social life of Louisville. 1953] Goodin's Fort 17

Charles Lee (1815-1871), son of Rebecca Hill and Wilford Lee, married on February 7, 1841, Letitia Simmons, the daughter of Sedg- wick Simmons. Charles Lee was a farmer in Bullitt County. In 1851-53 he was a member of the State Legislature. He died in 1871 and is buried in the Cedar Grove cemetery. Among his children were John, Charles, and Malvina. Malvina Lee married Henry Hamilton and their son Lee Hamilton, late attorney of Louisville, married Hendy Johnson, the daughter of Annie Cox Kouwenbergh and Congressman Ben Johnson of Bardstown.4°

(2) Elizabeth Hill, daughter of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill, married John Lee (17837-1835) March 30, 1803. James Rogers, Baptist minister officiated. Both Elizabeth and John were minors. Atkinson Hill gave consent for Elizabeth's marriage and John's mother, Elizabeth Lee Ice, and his stepfather, Jesse Ice, gave consent for his marriage. In John Lee's will recorded in Bullitt County, September 21, 1835,4x he names his wife Elizabeth and their eight children who were Wilford, Rebecca, William T., Sarah, James B., Miles, Eliza, and Atkinson Hill Lee. Miles Everett Lee (1880- ) of Shelbyville, Kentucky, is the great-grandson of John and Elizabeth Hill Lee. His father Silas Lee was the son of Miles Lee and Sarah Cundiff, and his mother Almeda Lee was the daughter of Atkinson Hill Lee and Susan Morgan. Mr. Lee was educated at Centre College, taught school in Hardin County, and was a member of the State Legislature 1915-17. He married Ethel K. Purcell and their children are Carl Purcell Lee and Almeda Catherine Lee.a2

(3) William Hill (1786?- ) only son of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill married Lucy Abel, daughter of William Abel, August 13, 1813. William Hill was a surveyor.

(4) Nancy Hill (3-24-1788:10-12-1873), daughter of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill, married Lewis Quigley July 7, 1806. Nancy and her daughters Eleanor and Elizabeth are buried in the Hill family plot. These two daughters were the second and third wives of John Troutman an account of whom will appear later in this history. Nancy's daughters Mary, wife of Jacob Swank, Jr., and Lou, wife of William Goodin, the son of Garrard Goodin, settled in Mis- souri. Nancy's daughter Margaret Quigley married John Johnson, St., December 20, 1834. Margaret's daughter Cassandra Johnson mar- ried Riley Barnes and their children were Margaret, Albert Johnson, 18 The Filson Club History Quarlerly [Vol. 27

Minnie, John, and Lula Belle. The family occupied a handsome home near Boston. Margaret's daughter, Nancy Johnson, married James Cook and their children were Cal, Mary, Jean, Kate, Margaret, Nellie, Murray, James, Victor, Ed, and Cassie. The Cook family was well- to-do. Margaret's son, John Johnson, Jr., married Catherine Harned and their children were Pearl, Ruby, and William H. Johnson. The John Johnson homestead, built about 1870 on the Beech Fork near Boston, is one of the most elegant homes in Nelson County.

(5) Sally, the daughter of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill, married Elisha Johnson ( -1834),4• February 22, 1810, and lived in Hardin County. Their daughter Eleanor C. Johnson was the second wife of George Washington Strickler, son of Conrad and Christina J. Strickler.•4 Eleanor and George W. Strickler's son, Dr. Frank Pierce Strickler I, married Anna Long Jones, and their son, Dr. Frank Pierce Strickler II, is one of the most prominent surgeons of Louisville. Dr. Frank Pierce Strickler II married Eleanor Allen Carter, and their children are Allen Rogers Carter Strickler and Frank Pierce Strickler III.

(6) Eleanor Hill (1-5-1793:9-29-1866), daughter of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill, married on June 28, 1812, Dorsey Beeler, Sr., (7-14-1785:4-8-1845), son of Christopher Beeler, a soldier of the Revolution.4• Eleanor and Dorsey Beeler lived on a large farm in LaRue County, across the Rolling Fork from Goodin's Fort site. Both of them and nine of their children are buried in the cemetery of the Rolling Fork Baptist Church. There were ten children in Eleanor and Dorsey Beeler's family.4" Atkinson Hill Beeler (1813-1872) married on December 5, 1837, Fine•a Miller (1817-1853), daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Cox- Simpson Miller,47 and their daughter Mary Ann (1838-1912) was the second wife of Milton Atherton.4s Elizabeth Hill Beeler (1816-1854) married W. James Tichenor. Mary A. Beeler (1818-1885) married A. D. Geohagan. Rebecca Beeler (1819-1873) died unmarried. Wil- liam H. Beeler (1-10-1821:9-15-1886) married Mollie Sweets, a Cox descendant, and their children were Courtland, William, and Carrie Sweets Beeler. John S. Beeler (1824-1900) was unmarried. Eleanor Beeler (1826-1881) married Absalom Brock Johnson (1826-1869) on October 26, 1848, and their children were Nathaniel, Cora, Laura, Lena, Oliver Hazard Perry, Hays, and Logan. They lived in the handsome brick homestead on Johnson's Pond built in 1828 by Absalom's father, William Johnson IV.4° Margaret Beeler (1830- 1861) was the first wife of Milton Atherton. Sallie Beeler 1953] Goodin's Fort 19

(1832?- ) married B. F. Atherton (1830-1877), and their chil- dren were Everett, Carl, and DUdley. Dorsey Beeler, Jr., the tenth child of Eleanor Hill and Dorsey Beeler, Sr., married Victoria ...... and moved to Missouri.

(7) Margaret Hill, daughter of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill, became Wilford Lee's second wife. The marriage ceremony was performed July 14, 1821, by Isaac Taylor, Baptist minister. Two sons, William H. and Henry C. Lee died in early years. A third son, Colonel Philip Lighffoot Lee (10-22-1832:7-12-1875) married on June 23, 1866, Belle Bridgeford ( -1903), daughter of James Bridgeford, wealthy manufacturer of Louisville.s° Their children were Anabel, William, Philip, and Margaret who married Heywood Cochran. Archibald P. Cochran, son of Margaret and Heywood Cochran, is president of the Cochran Foil Company, a Louisville in- dustrialist of note, and is socially prominent. The Bridgeford mansion at Fourth and Broadway, Louisville, was one of the most magnificent in Kentucky. It is known as the Henrie Barret Monffort Home. Colonel Philip Lee enjoyed a long and brilliant career. He was a dis- tinguished officer in the Confederate Army and an eminent jurist. He was a member of the Kentucky State Legislature 1853-55 and was Commonwealth's attorney of the 9th Judicial District at the time of his death.51

(8) Eliza Hill, daughter of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill, married Benjamin Beeler (1796?-1870), son of Christopher Beeler, April 13, 1819. Benjamin Beeler, in his will in 1870, named three sons by his marriage to Eliza Hill: B. H., Atkinson J., and Charles Beeler; and four children by his second marriage to Susan R. Miller, July 6, 1843: William, Sarah, Benjamin, and Ira.52 Atkinson J. Beeler (1820-1891), son of Eliza Hill and Benjamin Beeler, married first Margaret Ann Ross, September 21, 1840; and secondly, Nannie Ross by whom there were no children. The ten children by the first marriage were: Joseph; Clay; James; Ben R. who married Dr. Alexander Muir's daughter Bob; Sallie who married Albert Coyle; Aura who married Warren Miller; Emma (1852-1873) who married O. H. P. Johnson, and whose only heir, a grandson, Dr. Willard Johnson, graduate of Harvard University, died in Buffalo, New York; Lovell who married Finetta Atherton; Mary'Eliza who married Jacob Stiles and whose granddaughter Sudie and her husband Beaven Crady bought the Atkinson Beeler farm; and Robert Beeler who married Magdaline Cromwell. Robert Beeler's son, R. Lee Beeler, is the Judge of Nelson County. Another son, J. Argyle Beeler, 20 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27

is the vice-president of the Louisville Title Insurance Company. A daughter, Estelle, resides in Boston, Massachusetts, and another daugh- ter, Mrs. Elizabeth Pierle, resides in Louisville. Atkinson J. Beeler served as moderator of the Rolling Fork Baptist Church for 14 years, and his son Lovell as clerk for 40 years.

(9) Mary Hill (1802-1830), daughter of Elizabeth Goodin and Atkinson Hill, married July 8, 1820, John Troutman (1800-1872), son of Leonard and Caty Wilhite Troutman.53 John Troutman bought the Hill estate, engaged in the timber industry and shipping, and acquired wealth. Four times married he was the father of 17 chil- dren, 16 of whom were Hill-Goodin descendants. All the children were born in the Hill homestead and 15 of them reached maturity. They were educated by a resident tutor and in various schools and many of them grew up to occupy elegant homes of their own. The children of Mary Hill and John Troutman were: Elizabeth, the first wife of John Harned; Catherine who married John Geohagan; Leonard who married Kate Nichols; and Mary (1830-1899) who married first Captain Wilford Lee Harned, and secondly Colmore Shawler. Mary and Wilford Lee Harned's children were: Ben, Elisha, Leonard, Margaret, Sallie, and Lee. Mary and Colmore Shawler's children were: Ruth who married Lee Hamed; William who married Mattie Crawford; and Beulah who married Frank Sympson, attorney of Bardstown. John Troutman married Eleanor Quigley, daughter of Nancy Hill Quigley, October 29, 1832, and their children were: George; Colum- bus Craig who married Cora Miller; Margaret who married Beverly Mann; John B.; and Anna who married John Nichols. John Troutman married Elizabeth Quigley, daughter of Nancy Hill Quigley, December 7, 1842, and their children were: Clarence; Philip who was killed in the Confederate Army; Charles; Ruth who married Horace English; and Belle who married Dr. Samuel Wise. John Troutman's fourth wife was Mrs. Anna Montgomery and their child was Hunly Troutman.

3. Thomas Goodin (17627-1834), son of Samuel Goodin, was the beloved bachelor of the family. He was about seventeen when his father brought him to Kentucky. In his will probated in Hardin County, December 19, 1834, he named among others as his heirs, his brother Isaac, his brother Samuel, Jr., and the latter's four sons, Gerrard, Thomas, John, and Albert. •4 He requested in his will that 1953] Goodin's Fort 21 his slave Ambrose, whom he had bought for $210 in 1807 at the age of 9,55 "be set free from bondage." The estate consisted of livestock, personal property, and a sum of money. Thomas Goodin was closely associated with the family of his brother Samuel and spent his last years with Samuel's son Thomas in the Youngers Creek neighborhood.

4. Samuel Goodin, Jr. (1764:9-20-1816), son of Samuel Goodin, married on March 28, 1793, Margaret Garrard (1774:8-13-1822), daughter of Susan Van Meter and the Reverend John Garrard. Samuel, Jr., was 15 years old when he came to Kentucky. In 1-/87 he served under Colonel Benjamin Logan and may have rendered other military service. His land holdings began in 1794 with a meager 59 acres. At his death in 1816, he was a man of wealth and owned a fertile plantation of a thousand acres on Youngers Creek in Hardin County; and the appraisal of his personal property, including a number of slaves, exceeded $2,000P ° There were eight children in Samuel and Margaret Goodin's•7 family. (1) Garrard married Lettice Swank, July 26, 1818, and settled in Missouri. (2) Mehitabel married on October 14, 1816, Isaac Cham- bers, grandson of Anthony Chambers who was a pioneer neighbor of the elder Samuel Goodin at Goodin's Fort.58 (3) Mary Ann or Nancy (1799-1823) married on October 2, 1820, Samuel Leeman and settled in Missouri. (4) Thomas (1801- ) whose home was on Youngers Creek married first Susannah Thomas, daughter of Hetty Garrard and Hardin Thomas, July 23, 1822, and secondly Elizabeth Layman, March 9, 1870. His children were William, Thomas, and Isaac. (5) John (1803-1851) married Kitty Ann Swank October 23, 1828, and settled in Missouri. (6) William and (7) Malvina died when young. (8) Albert Gallatin Goodin (1812-1877) married first Fannie Vernon, July 31, 1832, and secondly Mary Elizabeth Perry Crane.

(1) Garrard Goodin (5-25-1795:3-9-1840), eldest son of Samuel Goodin, Jr., married on July 26, 1818, Lettice Swank, daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth Van Meter Swank. Jacob Swank was the son of John and Rosannah SwankP° Elizabeth Van Meter Swank was the daughter of Abraham Van Meter and Elizabeth Klein Van Meter, and the stepdaughter of Samuel Goodin, the elder. Garrard's and Lettice's wedding was a brilliant social event. After residing in Ken- tucky for eighteen years the family joined Lettice's parents in their trek to Mississippi County, Missouri, in 1836. Accompanying them were their six children; four of whom, William, Jacob, Elizabeth, and 22 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27

Louisa, married Goodin descendants, Nathaniel remained a bachelor, and Oliver married Ruth Fowlkes. The second son, Jacob Goodin who married Elizabeth, the daughter of John and Sallie Lee Swank, was at one time presiding judge of Mississippi County.

(5) John Goodin (3-9-1803:9-16-1851) the fifth child of Samuel Goodin, Jr., married on October 23, 1828, Kitty Ann Swank, sister of Garrard Goodin's wife Lettice Swank. Likewise their wedding was a social event, and in 1836 they too joined Kitty Ann's father and settled in Missouri. John Goodin died at the age of 48 and was survived by his widow and six sons. Four of the sons, Jacob, Samuel, John, and William, died before reaching maturity. The eldest son, Franklin (1829-1892), married first Sarah Ann Harned, daughter of Benjamin and Eleanor Lee Hamed, and secondly Jennie Haw. Albert Vernon Goodin (1839- ) youngest son of John Goodin married Susan Moore. While Albert V. Goodin was serving in the Con- federate Army he took his mother and her slaves to the home of a kinsman in Texas for protection. There were four children in Albert V. Goodin's family. Mary Jane married Dr. R. H. T. Mann. The late Albert V. Goodin, Jr., married Fannie Cox. Ella married John Deal. And Myrtle married Dr. David E. Smith of Bonne Terre, Missouri. Charming, auburn-haired Myrtle Goodin Smith has ren- dered invaluable help in the preparation of this Goodin history. Her lovely daughter, Mary Ann Smith, is a young college student and her two sons are in the field of medicine.

(8) Albert Gallatin Goodin (1-30-1812:8-16-1877), youngest child of Samuel Goodin, Jr., was named for Albert Gallatin of Fayette County, Pennsylvania. This loyal gesture welded forever Samuel •Junior's sentimental bond with the surroundings of his early youth. Albert Gallatin was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1761 and migrated to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in the 1780's, where, like a meteor, he quickly rose to fame. His lifelong achievements are epitomized in the legend inscribed on his imposing bronze statue •:hat stands at the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance of the United States Treasury in Washington, D. C. The legend reads: Albert Gallatin 1761-1849 Secretary of the Treasury, genius of finance, Senator and Representa- tive. Commissioner for the Treaty of Ghent, Minister to France and Great Britain and steadfast champion of democracy. On July 31, 1832, Albert Gallatin Goodin married Fannie Vernon ( :10-24-1844), daughter of Anthony and Fanny Quinn Vernon, wealthy residents of the Youngers Creek section.6° Albert G. Goodin's second marriage was to Mary Elizabeth Perry Crane (1827•1905). daughter of David and Diana Weakley Perry and 1953] Goodin's Fort 23 the young and childless widow of the late William S. Crane whom she had married March 18, 1845. Albert G. Goodin prospered. His land holdings lay in Hardin and LaRue counties and his 11-room brick home, built originally with seven stairways and seven exits but now remodeled, is a landmark. This commodious home was enjoyed by fifteen Goodin children, six by the first marriage and nine by the second. Of the six children of Albert G. and Fanny Vernon Goodin, Thomas N. died at the age of 16, Samuel H. at 26, and Lusana in infancy. The second child, Margaret, born in 1835, married Thomas Hamilton September 9, 1856, and lived near Elizabethtown. Their children were Mary, Emma, Hance, Albert, and Fanny. The third child Anthony Vernon Goodin, born August 25, 1837, married Ella Priscilla Hamed (1844-1871), daughter of Benjamin and Eleanor Lee Harned, May 1, 1866. Their lovely daughter Fannie Eleanor Goodin (1869-1919)" married William S. Purcell, merchant at Boston, and their three children were Ella May, Nancy, and Goodin Purcell. Anthony V. Goodin's second wife was Mrs. Attie Miller Maxey, sister of Franklin Miller, banker and financier of Louisville. Albert G. and Fannie Goodin's youngest child Lucinda (1843-1909) married her cousin William H. Goodin, son of Thomas Goodin, and their three daugh- ters Alberta, Augusta, and Lenora were unmarried. Of the nine children of Albert G. and Mary Elizabeth Crane Goodin, Thomas N. died at 19; Sarah Elizabeth at 17; Mary Jane died a few months after her marriage to George Moore, May 25, 1876; William F. died at 23; and Louanna died in infancy. Colonel James Albert Goodin (1861-1950), the seventh child, was graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point and was unmarried. He died in Atlanta and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Martha Letitia, the fifth child of Albert G. and Mary Elizabeth Goodin, married H. D. Brownfield and lived on the ancestral Brown- field farm near Buffalo. Their older daughter Mary Allie Brownfield Handley, wife of District Judge L. B. Handley, is credited with accomplishing more than any other single individual toward the erection of Lincoln Memorial Hall near Hodgenville. Their son, Dr. Haynes Watts Brownfield, married Ina Lee and became prominent in the field of medicine in Missouri. Their younger daughter, Nellie Vay Brownfield, was a member of the faculty of mathematics at the University of Chicago. She married Robert G. Smith of Des Moines, . Alice Lee Goodin, eighth child of Albert G. and Mary Elizabeth Goodin, married J. R. Kimball and lived in Atlanta. Their children were Paul, Kathleen, Henry, and Martha Clo. 24 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27

John Weakley Goodin (3-1-1866: ), the ninth and youngest child of Albert G. and Mary Elizabeth Goodin, married December 30, 1891, Ella Welsh Brownfield (9-22-1872: ), daughter of Daniel M. and Amelia Brownfield of LaRue County. Their five children are: Elizabeth Myrtle who married Byron S. Henderson; Albert Brown- field Goodin,"1 graduate of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, who married Myrtle Eleanor Holub and resides in Los Angeles; Annette Amelia who married Samuel Lewis; Ella May who married Frank Hagan; and Mary John who married W. T. Matthis. For twenty-five years John W. Goodin lived on the ancestral estate, and in 1904 he built a large modern home about a mile from the Goodin homestead. In 1905 he organized and became the first president of the LaRue County Fair Association which he conducted for many years with success. The three-day Fair, usually in September, was an outstanding event that attracted visitors from a wide area. From 1915 to 1928 Mr. Goodin was engaged in the manufacture of limestone products. He then retired but continued as a director of the First-Hardin National Bank and the vice-president of the First Federal Savings and Loan Company. The family resides in an elegant home in Elizabethtown where the author pleasantly visited. Mrs. Goodin and her daughters kindly and generously supplied important bits of history of the Goodins.

5. Rebecca Goodin (1770?-1792?), daughter of the elder Samuel Goodin, was married to William Watson in Nelson County, August 12, 1790, by the Baptist clergyman, Josiah Dodge. Her father gave consent for the marriage and her brother Samuel served as bondsman. The will of one William Watson was probated in Jefferson County February 1, 1791."2 Rebecca's record is obscure. She may have died soon after her marriage.

6. Abraham Goodin (1783-1806), son of the elder Samuel Goodin and Elizabeth Klein Van Meter Goodin, married Elizabeth Potmesser, daughter of Peter Potmesser, February 4, 1804, in Hardin County. Jacob Rogers, Baptist clergyman, officiated. Abraham died intestate. His personal property was appraised at 116 pounds and his widow Elizabeth served as administratrix.63 Judging from the buyers at the sale he lived in the Edlintown neighborhood near his father. An only child, Abraham Goodin, Jr., survived. Samuel Hay- craft filed a report of money received in May and June, 1820, by him as guardian of "Abraham Goodin, grandson of Samuel Goodin, Sen., Dec'd."e4 1953] Goodin's Fort 25

Author's Note. My ancestor, David Crady (17627-1840) settled two miles from Goodin's Fort in the 1780's and married Polly Edlin whose sister Sarah Edlin married Lieutenant Isaac Goodin, and whose brother James Edlin married Sarah Van Meter. I was born and reared three miles from the old Fort site and despite world-wide travel that countryside remains to me an idyllic setting of unsurpassed beauty and charm. REFERENCES

James Hughes, Kentucky Court Reports, pp. 183, 184, 185, 186. * Isaac Goodin stated in his Pension Claim $2240 that in 1776 be resided within ten miles of Brownsville, Penn.; Nelson County Court Minute Book A, entry July 10, 1787, refers to power of attorney given to Samuel Goodin from Richard Morton of Fayette County, Penn.; Samuel Goodin, Jr., named a son for Albert Gallatin, world renowned citizen of Fayette County, Penn. * Willard R. Jillson, ed., Kentucky Land Grants, The Filson Club Publications: No. 33, pp. 56, 181; Old Kentucky Deeds and Entries, The Filson Club Publications: No. 34, pp. 211,221. 'Nelson County Deed Book 6, 580; 12, 316; 32, 380. Nelson County Court Minute Book 1824, p. 306. William O. Chambers (1869- ), of Louisville, recalls that in his boyhood, a strip of land on the north bank of the Rolling Fork a mile or so sduth of the Rolling Fork Baptist Church was referred to as the old Fort field. *Will,aM R. Jillson, ed., Filson's Kentucke, The Filson Club Publications: No. 35, p. 32. "James Hughes, A Report o[ the Causes determined by the late Supreme Court, [or the District oJ Kentucky, and by The Court o[ Appeals, in which The Titles to Land were in Dispute, p. 183. The history of the Pottenger family, founders of Pottenger's Station in 1781, has been written by Mr. Forrest Pottinger of Lake Worth, Florida, and will soon be published. Mr. Potfinger, a historian of note, has kindly aided the author in the prepara- tion of this manuscript, and asked me to spell the name with an "e" for early references. ' Evelyn C. Adams, American Indian Education. * Calendar oJ Virginia State Papers, II, 47, 313. *Lewis Collins, History o Kentucky, I, 12; The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 22, 1. ,0 Otis M. Mather, "Explorers and Early Settlers South of Muldraugh Hill," The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 22, 21 ff. tt Collins, op. tit., p. 312; The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 2, 68. n Jefferson County Court Minute Book A, 16. ** Hardin County Deed Book A, 33. *' Collins, op. tit., p. 311. "Hughes, op. tit., p. 190. tG Ben. J. Webb, The Centenary o[ Catholicity in Kemucky, p. 27 ft. ** Jefferson County Court Minute Book A, 16. ,s Hardin County Will Book A, 283. i* Webb, op. cir., p. 27. •' Evelyn C. Adams, David Crady, Kentucky Pioneer. •Nelson County Court Minute Book I, 9; Collins, op. cit., p. 308. *•Evelyn C. Adams, "Rolling Fork Baptist Church 1788-1948," The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 46, 459-483. t* CoIllns, op. eit., p. 308; Kentucky Gazette (Lexington), February 6, 1790. Nelson County Deed Book 6, 580. 26 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27

t* Hardin County Will Book A, 281. Evelyn C. Adams, "Nelson Furnace, A Vanished Industry," Louisville and Nash- ville Railroad Magazine, 24, No. 4, 11 ft. iT John Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope, History o[ Chester County Pennsylvania (1881), p. 570 ft. n Van Meter Family. Among Goodin-Van Meter intermarriages were those of Samuel Goodin, Sr., Samuel Goodin, Jr., and the latter's sons Garrard, Thomas, and John Goodin. Jacob Van Meter was born in Somerset or Salem County, N. J., in March 1723, married Letitia Strode (1725-1799) in Frederick County, Va., in 1741, and in 1769 moved to Mud- dy Creek, Greene County, Penn. (then Vs.) near the Fayette County line. On March 23, 1779, the Yohogania County Court of Va. granted approval for Jacob Van Meter, Abraham Ven Meter, and others, as recommended by the Court of Monongahela County, to pass unmolested 1o the Falls of the Ohio. The Van Meters may have come down the Ohio with Samuel Goodin. Jacob Van Meter settled in Severns Valley, two miles from Eliza- bethtown and prospered for two decades. Chiseled on his headstone is the epitaph, "Here lize the body of Jacob Vanmater died in the 75 yare of his age November the 16 1798. His will was probated in Hardin County Will Book A, 80. Abraham Van Meter, the second of Jacob's twelve children was born June 13, 1744, and died in Jefferson County, Ky., in 1781/82. It is said that he was slain by Indians near present Cave Hill Cemetery. His estate included 800 acres of land and personal property appraised at 256 pounds. Surviving him were his widow, Elizabeth Klein Van Meter, and four daughters, Catherine, Letty, Sarah, and Elizabeth who were named in Jacob Van Meter's will. Widow Elizabeth married Samuel Goodin who "as stepfather" gave his consent to Letty's marriage to Thompson Ashby and Sarah's marriage to James Edlin. Daughter Catherine married Bladen Ashby, and her family, with Letty's, moved to Indiana. The youngest daughter EIizabeth married Jacob Swank and went to Missouri in 1836. Jacob Van Meter's daughter Susan married the Reverend John Garrard who had been a minister of Goshen Baptist Church in Greene County, Penn., where Jacob Van Meter and many of his children were charter members. John Garrard with William Taylor and Joseph Barnett organized Severns Valley Baptist Church, June 18, 1781, the oldest Baptist church in Kentucky. It is now located in Ellzabethtown. John Garrard was the church's first minister. In the spring of 1782 he mysteriously disappeared and was thought to have fallen a victim to Indians. John Garrard's daughter Margaret married Samuel Goodin, Jr. Another daughter, Hetty, married Hardin Thomas, and Hetty's daughter Susannah married Thomas, son of Samuel Goodin, Jr. The Reverend John Garrard is thought to have been a kinsman of Governor Garrard of Kentucky. t* Hardin County Will Book K, 157-58. •' Collins, op. cir., p. 310. !1 Ibid., p. 308. =Two depositions flied in Nelson County in suit of Hills vs. HHl• March 21, 1826, had • been sworn to by Atkinson Hill, December16, 1822; and June 25, 1823, in suit of Purcell vs. Atherton, in Hardin County Court. e•Nelson County Will Book E, 155, 242-257; F, 118-120. **W. H. Perrin, Kentucky: A History of the State (1886), p. 979. t•Bailitt County Will Book D, 142 ft. "* Evelyn C. Adams, "The Troutman Families of Kentucky," The Filson Club History Quarterly, 24, No. 3, 199-229. " Arthur U Keith, "The Harned Family of Kentucky," The Register of the Ken- tucky Historical Society, 29, No. 87, 131 if; No. 88, 303 ft. u Adams, "The Troutman Families of Kentucky," supra. "*Zachary F. Smith and Mary Rogers Clay, The Clay Family, The Filson Club Publications No. 14, 1899. *°Evelyn C. Adams, "The Coxes of Cox's Creek, Kentucky," The Filson Club His- tory Quarterly, 22, 75-103. *t Bullitt County Will Book C, 400. a Charles Kerr, History of Kentucky, V, 366 "* Hardin County Will Book D, 238. * 1953] Goodin's Fort 27

** Kerr, op. *'it., HI, 343. °Beder Family. Christopher Beeler (17557-183-) served in the American Revolution in Fayette County, Penn., in 1782 (Franklin Ellis, History of Fayette Co., Penn., p. 92), and on December 11, 1787, he was recommended as a fit person for Captain of the militia in Nelson County. (See entry of that date in Nelson County Court Minute Book.) He and his children owned land and lived in both Nelson and Hardin (LaRue) counties. His children were John BeeJer (1782 ?-1849) who married Elizabeth Weaver (1785-1826), March 31, 1806; Dorsey Beeler (1785-1845) who married Eleanor Hill (1793-1866), June 28, 1812; William Beeler (1788-1861) who married Anna Price (1789-186I), April 3, 1800; Mary Beeler who married James Hancock, April 24, 1807; Richard Beeler; Margaret who married William Bard, June 16, 1814; Ben Beeler (1796-1870) who n•arried Eliza Hill, April 13, 1819; Sarah who married John P. Edringt&n, June 29, 1816; and James Beeler. His children were well-to-do and owned many slaves. Many of the descendants were musically gifted. William and Anna Price Beeler's daughter Rachel married Urban Heavenhill, and their daughter Mary married James Crady; William Beelers daughter Magdaline married Christopher Warren Miller, whose daughter Mary married Carpenter Miller and whose daughter SaEie married Richard Curtis Cromwell. "LaRue County Will Book 1, 27; LaRue County Court, suit of Dorsey Beeler Heirs concerning distribution of property, May 1866. "• Adams, "The Coxes of Cox's Creek, Kentucky," supra. **Atherton Family. W. H. Perrin, op. tit., 1887, p. 781. Aaron Atherton who lived in Goodin's Fort in 1780 was born about 1745 and died in 1819 in Hamilton County, Ohio, where his will is probated. He came to Kentucky about 1779 from Maryland where in 1778 he, with John, Joshua, and Benjamin Atherton and William Lee, served in the Maryland Militia under Captain Daniel Cresap in Colonel Lemuel Barret's Battalion in Washington County. (Md. Revolutionary War Militia Lists, photostat copies com- piled by The Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America, p. 225. Copy in the Md. Historical Society, Baltimore.) Aaron Atherton's land entries in Kentucky soon totaled 2,500 acres. His wife is said to have been Nanc¢ ...... and his ten children, named in his will, were: Aaron; Peter: John R.; Robert; Phoebe who married 3-23-1797 Samuel Lee, son of William Lee; Eunice born 4-8-1782, probably at Bamett's Station, who married Abraham Lee born in Maryland, 1778, the son of William Lee; Rebecca who married John Shaw, September 26, 1788; Jerusha; Nancy who married Stout White- head, Jan. 27, 1801; and Benjamin Atherton. Aaron's son Peter Atherton (1771-1844), •vho prospered in LaRue County, married (1) Elizabeth Whitehead, Dec. 24, 1799. 'Their son John S. Atherton (1804-1840) married, Dec. 11, 1824, Maria Beeler (1808- 1876), daughter of well-to-do John Beeler who owned the site of Goodin's Fort and resided there. John S. Atherton's children were James B. IMilton W., B. F., Elizabeth, and John Peter Atherton. A large white marble monument stands in the fami y pot in the Rolling Fork Baptist Church Cemetery. The second wife of Aaron's son, Peter Atherton, was Elizabeth Mayfield, descendant of Alexander McDougal, famous pioneer Baptist minister. Peter and Elizabeth Atherton were married August 11, 1837, and their son John McDougal Atberton (1841-1932) married, Oct. 24, 1861, Maria Butler Farnam, daughter of Jonathan E. Farnam, professor at Georgetown College. John M. Atherton's only child, Peter Lee Atherton, resided on the magnificent estate "Arden" in Louisville. Mrs. Peter Lee Atherton has kindly shared her Atherton family records with the author. m Johnson Family. Absalom Johnson was born in Baltimore County, Md., Aug. 21, 1757, and served there in the Revolution in 1778. (Pension S15484.) His daughter Elizabeth married, April 7, 1815, William Johnson IV, her cousin, the fourth of this name in lineal descent, and in 1828 they built the handsome brick home that until recently stood near Johnson's Pond. The children of EIizabeth and William Johnson IV were: Absalom Brock; William the 5th, the father of Congressman Ben Johnson; Franklin; Nathaniel; Laura Ann (1829-1893) who married the •listinguished jurist Green Hays; and Cora who married Win. D. Vertrees of Elizabethtown. The author's mother Corn Johnson B•wn Crady was named for Cora Johnson Vertrees. Absalom Brock Johnson, son of William Johnson IV, married, Oct. 16, 1848, Eleanor Beeler, daughter of Dorsey and Eleanor Hill Beeler and lived in the old homestead. Of their ten children three died in infancy; Nathaniel was unmarried; Corn married Charles L. Rosenham; Laura and Lena married and lived in Birmingham, Ala., and Denver, Colo., respectively; the three remain- ing sons, O. H. P., Hays, and Logan, lived on the original land at Johnson's Pond. Hays Johnson married Eva Bukey and their children were Eva Lena, Charles, and William. 28 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 27

Logan Johnson married Ella the daughter of Carpenter S. Miller, and their children were Hugh, L an, Oliver, Logan, and Corinne. Mr. Hays' and Mr. Logan's children were the author's childhood playmates and schoolmates. We children often gathered at the old homestead to play and especially to ride the old gray mule, Jake. With four or five of us mounted on his back, facing either forward or backward Old Jake would contemplatively amble to the destination of his choice, and careful of our welfare he never exceeded a slow waIk. • Jefferson County WiIl Book 25, 426; Biographical Encyclopedia o[ Kentucky, 1878, p. 547; Ohio Falls Cities, I, 533; The Courier-Ioumal Magazine, March 11, 1951, cover page and pp. 20-23. 6t Ed Porter Thompson, History o the Orphan Brigade, p. 399 ft. Biographical Encyclo- pedia o/Kentucky, 1878, p. 266; Louisville Past and Present, 1875, p. 296, 298 ft.; The Commercial (Louisville), July 13 and July 14, 1875. •Nelson County Will Book 15, pp. 60, 158. r• Adams, "The Troutman Families of Kentucky," supra. r• Hardin County Will Book D, 235. i• Hardin County Deed Book C, 387. r* Hardin County Will Book C, 5, 9, 17, 20, 82, 397 ft. '0 Hardin County Will Book E, 170. *aChambers Family. Anthony Chambers (1730?-1801) and his wife Magdaline (17357- 1795), contemporaries and neighbors of Samuel Goodin the elder, are buried in the old cemetery a quarter of a mile from the Fort site. There is a story that the first burial in this cemetery was that of a white child scalped by Indians. No Goodin names appear on the old headstones. Anthony Chambers' children were Rachel, Polly, Jacob, James, and Ahimaaz. Son Ahimaaz Chambers (1769-1838) married, Feb. 20, 1792, Hannah Marshall (1773-1830) daughter of John and Deborah Marshall and their children were: Isaac who married Mehitabel Good/n; Anthony; John; Magdaline; James; Ellen who married William Miller, Aug. 30, 1826; Mary; and Eliza. John Chambers (1799-1848), third of the above children, married Louisiana Miller (1810-1865), July 16, 1829, and their children were: Jane; Anthony; Mary E. who married Thomas W. Gaslin; Ahimaaz (1836- 1923) who married Jane Heavenhill and whose children were William O. and Clara B. Chambers; Minerva; James B. who married Bumette Sweets, and their only son, Will Chambers, married Mrs. Florence Spalding, James B. Chambers married secondly Jennie Goodwin and their children were John Frank, Roy, Mason, and Emmet; Isaac Chambers married Elizabeth Maraman, June 4, 1867, and lived at Nelson Furnace. When Isaac Chambers died, the author's father bought his home. •Swank Family. John and Rosannah Summit Swank were prosperous Hardin County pioneers. John Swank's estate included slaves and more than 2,500 acres of land. (Hardin County Will Book A, 3, 57.) He was slain in 1794 by Indians as he and Rosannah were en route horseback from Elizabethtown to Bardstown. Both horses were killed and Rosannah escaped on foot to the home of friends on the Rolling Fork. She was a stout woman and her new linsey dress impeded her walking so she took it off and carried it on her arm; but she had the rare presence of mind to save all the precious pins, which she stuck in a neat row across the bosom of her frock. In 1836 nil of John Swank s children, except Elizabeth who married William Edlln, moved to Missouri and did well. His son Jacob, who married Elizabeth Van Meter, built a large brick home near Charleston, Mo., that is today a landmark. w Vernon Family. The Vernons were Quakers. Thomas Vernon came to Chester Co., Penn., in 1682 from Stanthorne Co., England. In 1683 he with others fenced the burial grounds of the Quaker Meeting house at Chester, Penn. Randall Vernon came from Sandyway, England, and in 1687 helped to build the Quaker Meeting house at Chester. Robert Vernon came from Stoke Cheshire England. Many Vernons appeared on Chester County Tax Lists until 1774. • (Futhey and Cope, History o/ Chester County, Penn., p. 754; Win. Shaler Johnson, Historical Sketch o/ Chester on Delaware, p. 175; Penn. Archives, 3rd series, Vol. 12, "Chester County Tax Lists.") **AIbert Brownfield Goodin of Los Angeles, who has gathered excellent data on the Goodin family, has been generous in giving aid to the author. a Jefferson County Will Book 1, 26. u Hardin County Will Book A, 243, 244, 317. Hardin County Will Book C, 416.