COUNTY COURT HOUSES--GRASS ROOTS OF HISTORY

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO NELSON COUNTY, KENTUCKY

BY FRANCES FAIRLEIGH Hopkinsville, Kentucky

A paper read before The Filson Club, November 7, 1955

To most people a County Court House is a strange building. They visit it once or twice in a lifetime for a marriage license; once a year to pay their taxes; or once in two years for a driver's license. But to lawyers, surveyors, genealogists, and historians, a county court house is a fascinating--if dirty--place. I was surprised to find that a county court house, such as we have in the United States, is an American Institution. There were county courts meeting every four weeks in England from the time of Alfred the Great to Henry the Second. Then they fell into disuse. But they were not Courts of Record. In 1846 an act was passed in England re-establishing county courts, with the view of making justice cheaper and more accessible• But they were not courts of record, per se. 1 In the United States we have county court houses, with Courts of Justice and records of court• These are concomitant with the estab- lishment of a county. County court houses are our fundamental safeguard against tyranny. As an eminent jurist once said, "All of us know that liberty does not survive of its own accord. It must be renewed with each generation • . . Americans in every generation must guard their priceless heritage of freedom, created and established by our Colonial forefathers, and largely purchased by their blood and sacrifices.''2 How much easier it is for us to preserve our priceless heritage of freedom when we have a Temple of Justice just a short distance from our hearth, containing records to guide and guard our footsteps• It is on the subject of these Court House Records--the Grass Roots of History--that I wish to speak this evening, with special reference to Nelson County, Kentucky. Throughout French history until the Revolution, court records were closely guarded, inaccessible to any save the highest officials or favorites. of the king. Following the French Revolution--for the first time-- the public was given access to court documents• The dossiers of the lettres des cachets were most illuminating--and pathetic. These hidden chronicles gave rise to the fascinating mystery of the "Man in the Iron Mask," and were open to French scholars only after the fall 141 142 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 30 of the Bastille. A secret such as le masque de fer would not have been possible in free America with its open records. Voltaire could never have used this evasive character as a symbol of monarchical tyranny if the public had had access to the French Archives, as I found out the first time that I went to Paris to delve into that famous mystery. But Miss Polly Warren, of the University of Kentucky Libraries, and I encountered no such red tape when we decided to microfilm the county records of Nelson County, Kentucky. The County Court Clerk, the late Charles Roby, welcomed us, put every facility at our disposal, and showed a keen interest in every historical find. Mr. John Muir, of Bardstown, graciously assisted us with his inexhaustive knowledge of Bardstown and Nelson County history. Mrs. Robert Dudley Taylor of Winchester, president of The Na- tional Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Common- wealth of Kentucky, had appointed me the chairman of the Society's Historical Activities Committee, with a limited budget at my disposal. Mrs. Taylor recognized the value of my dream of microfilming the records in county court houses, to make them easily available to the general public, and she encouraged and sustained our committee in all its work. So I had the dream. I had the budget. I knew which court house 1 wished to microfilm. But I didn't know how to go about it. Upon the advice of Miss Mabel C. Weaks, the famous archivist of The Filson Club, whose calendaring of the Draper Papers is an outstanding achievement of historical source material, and upon the advice of Mrs. Dorothy T. Cullen, curator, and Judge Richard H. Hill, secretary of The Filson Club, I wrote to Doctor Lawrence Thompson, director of Libraries at the University of Kentucky. Because the University is a public institution and has an outstanding department of microfilming, Doctor Thompson was delighted to co-operate with the Historic Activities Committee, and loaned us Miss Polly Warren and her mobile camera. We have paid the expenses, and the master film has become the property of the University of Kentucky. Copies of the film will be furnished to libraries in the state at cost. By May, 1955, we had filmed seven-tenths of a mile of records. We had made 72,000 exposures. I have illustrated this amount by stating that if one started at the Memorial Auditorium at Kentucky and Fourth streets in Louisville, and unrolled the film along the Fourth Street sidewalk, it would stretch to St. Paul's Episcopal Church at Fourth and Magnolia. Since October of this year Miss Warren has filmed 500 feet more. A list of available records will be published eventually in The Filson Club History Quarterly. Some of the Nelson County records are: 1956] County Court Houses 143

(1) Marriage Bonds--1785-1845. (2) Indices of deeds, grantor and grantee--1785-1875. (3) Will Books A, B, C, D, and Parts 1 and 3 of E (Part 2 is gone). Also an unnumbered will book which precedes A--June 1784 to February 1790--found by Miss Warren in another old book. (4) Chancery Court Cases, 1785-1815. (5) Order Books of the Nelson County Court to 1859. (6) Order Books of the Court of Quarter Sessions. I selected Nelson County as the first county for microfilming for several reasons. It was the fourth county to be organized in the Virginia County of Kentucky (1784). Therefore it contained invalu- able pioneer history. The three earlier counties, Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln, seemed to have other organizations interested in preserv- ing their records. Nelson seemed to need a champion. Fortunately Nelson County has not suffered a fire or flood, and many of these records have not been touched for 160 years--or more. Opening these packages of canned history is a thrill that only a certain peculiar type of person can experience. The enthusiasm shown by my co-workers, Mrs. Robinson S. Brown, St., Mrs. Charles Ewell Craik, Jr., and Mrs. David Fairleigh, was that of a winner on a long shot at the Derby. l am still excited at the memory of it. Can you imagine the emotion one feels when a bundle is untied and a sheepskin parchment unfolds, showing a patent to land given and signed by Henry Lee, governor of Virginia, "Light Horse Harry" Lee, father of Robert E. Lee? Or the drama I felt when I found a promissory note signed by George Rogers Clark ? I took the Clark note downstairs and showed it to Mr. Roby. He was duly impressed. Then he said plaintively, "Is it genuine?....I'm not good at forgery," I replied. I'm not certain he believed me, for the next morning Mr. Jack Muir came to the court house armed with a facsimile of George Rogers Clark's signature. Mr. Muir pronounced our find genuine. For some strange reason from that time onward we received respectful attention from the powers-that-be in Nelson County. George Rogers Clark had opened the door. After Mr. Muir's visit that morning we received calls from Judge R. Lee Beeler, County Judge, and Mr. W. H. Fulton, County Attorney. They looked long and earnestly at the signature on the note; at a letter written by George Mason's son, George; and at our collection of warrants and patents signed by some of the early governors of Virginia and Kentucky. 144 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 30

I thought of the stories that lie behind these little scraps of paper in the court houses. I had just been reading a biography of George Rogers Clark. And looking at the documents we had found, that promissory note of George Rogers Clark brought back a flood of memories, stories of his tragic life. It made me realize that each record in a court house is not a dull statistic, not a cold fact or figure, but a record of a human life, a chronicle of joy or sorrow, of ambition achieved or of failure suffered. During the Revolution George Rogers Clark had been the con- queror, for the infant United States, of all the territory from the Alle.gheny Mountains to the Mississippi River. In spite of his patriotic services, the stripling government had unjustly and cruelly failed to give him financial aid, which forced him to impoverish himself in financing his campaign, the campaign which kept open the back door, by way of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, for supplies for Washington and the Continental Army. The promissory note of George Rogers Clark, which we found, had been given to one Dorsey Pentecost of £ 116 17/6 "in lawful current money of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.''3 It was dated 21st of March, 1793. Dorsey Pentecost had been an influential person in Yohogania County, Virginia. And the records show that on the first day of the sitting of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Yohogania County, Virginia, December 23, 1776, "Dorsey Pentecost Esquire was unanimously chosen and appointed their Clerk.''4 My favorite finds in the Nelson Coufity records are two items from Yohogania County, Virginia. ! was intrigued by Yohogania County. Where was it? What was it? Now don't look for Yohogania County on a road map because it doesn't exist. It did exist, however, for four years--from 1776 to 1780. That is, it was in existence if you were not a Pennsylvanian. If you were, you called it Westmoreland County. It was disputed territory between Virginia and Pennsylvania, the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, comprising the present Pennsylvania counties of Washington, Greene, Allegheny, and Fayette. Many Kentucky ances- tors came from there when it ceased to exist. Virginia claimed that part of Pennsylvania under her Royal Charter. She established a Court of Quarter Sessions at a little settlement first known by the redolent name of "Catfish Camp." It was called Augusta Town in 1776, and has since been re-christened Washington.• Also Virginia, on February 21, 1775, established a Court at Fort Dunmore, today called Pittsburgh.6 But Pennsylvania was not idle in the face of Virginia's claims. For, in 1773, two years before the Virginia Court at Fort Dunmore 1956] County Court Houses 145 was organized, Pennsylvania had created Westmoreland County, which embraced the same territory. Notwithstanding, a large amount of business was transacted in the Virginia court, "and it would appear that a large majority of the inhabitants of the Monongahela Valley submitted their persons and property to the laws and courts of Virginia. ''T Land troubles were prevalent in the area. Some settlers had bought warrants from the governor of Virginia. Some had bought their land from the Pennsylvania authority. It was just too bad that it was the same land. Both parties felt that their claims were legitimate, so they often resorted to fisticuffs. But on March 1, 1780, a final settlement between Virginia and Pennsylvania was achieved at the Baltimore Conference, and the boundary line was established,s It was an exten- sion of the former "Mason and Dixon Line." The men who held Pennsylvania warrants became the legal owners of the land in ques- tion. The Virginia claimants protested violently, and many early Kentucky pioneers were indicted for "riot, disorder and illegal entry." One of the two Yohogania County items found in Nelson County, which intrigued me, was the will of Joseph Cox, written "the 31st day of March, 1780," while he was a resident of Yohogania County. It was proved at a Court held for Nelson County (Virginia) the 12th of June, 1787.9 My other find illustrated the existence of Yohogania County more clearly than Joseph Cox's will. It is a warrant for 288 acres of land in Yohogania County, Virginia, issued by Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia, to Benjamin Johnston, on the 29th of June, 1782. l° An interesting side light is the fact that Patrick Henry issued the warrant two years after Virginia had accepted the decision giving that territory to Pennsylvania. Another interesting item found in the Nelson County Court House was a certificate written by Bishop Flaget: I, Benedict Joseph Flaget R C Bishop of Bar&town testify that the Revd James B. Elliott is a regularly ordained priest of the Roman Catholic Church Given under my hand this 11th May 1829. [Seal] Benedict Joseph Flaget Bishop at Bardstown 11 Once again I was reminded of the human interest stories that lie behind these little scraps of paper. Connected with Bishop Flaget are many links to the French Revolution, French nobility, and French royalty. Bishop Flaget was the first Catholic bishop west of the Allegheny Mountains. Not only was he a great missionary and priest, but he 146 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 30 holds a unique place in stories of French royalty in Bardstown. Before he became Bishop of Bardstown in 1810, Father Flaget was a priest in Cuba. In the spring of 1798 Louis Philippe went to Cuba on his return trip to France from the United States, and there received from the bishop money collected for him from loyal French royalists. Bardstown is full of unexplained facts connected with the French throne. I found in the County Clerk's office one little item which may be a coincidence, or may be significant. During Louis Philippe's hiding from the revolutionary parties in France, he spent several years in northern European countries. While there he used the alias, Mr. Corby,. C-O-R-B-Y. In the Nelson County records I found a deed from John Grundy to Jacob Corby for lot #127 in Bardstown. m Could Jacob Corby have been Louis Philippe ? The deed was recorded 22 July, 1801. In 1801 Louis Philippe was living in Twickenham, England, and his residences from then to the end of his life are thoroughly authenticated. Deeds, however, have a habit of delayed recording. So this deed might have some bearing on the mysterious two years that he spent in the New World. Or it might have followed the pattern of other French royalists who bought foreign property as an asylum from persecution. Or it might have been destined as a basis of intrigue for or against the "Lost Dauphin." Louis Philippe, later citizen king of France, had been a controversial figure with all shades of French political parties. During his exile days he made a visit to the United States, the purpose of which is still obscure. It was done with the consent of the Directory, or at the instigation of Napoleon. Louis Philippe, traveling as a Dane on a Danish passport, had landed in Philadelphia in October, 1796, and awaited the advent of his two brothers, the Duc de Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais. They arrived in February, 1797, just released from four years in the damp prison of Fort St. Jean, at Marseilles. They were weak and ill from their prison term, and both had contracted tuberculosis, from which they died within ten years. .Notwithstanding their weakened condition, Louis Philippe immedi- ately set out from Philadelphia for a western journey on horseback of a couple of thousand miles. This was hardship for sturdy folk, accustomed to frontier life. It must have been torture to the French princes. Could Louis Philippe's inexplicable journey to Kentucky have had anything to do with Audubon ? Audubon is a favorite candidate for the identity of the Lost Dauphin. Those years in the late 1790s are lost years in Audubon's biography. Was he in Bardstown in May, 1790? Was he one of the scholars taught by the mysterious Father 1956] County Court Houses 147 de Rohan in Bar&town that'year? It is an interesting speculation, and no documents have been discovered to disprove it. It is not a new thought that Louis Philippe was searching for the Lost Dauphin. It has been suggested many times by scholars. An American woman, Jane Parker, wrote an article for Century Magazine in 1901, about Louis Philippe's western trip. 13 She had written to the Orleans family in France and received notes transcribed from Louis Philippe's own diary telling about his trip as far as Bardstown, Kentucky. There authentic data ends. The Orleans family did not release the contents of the other two volumes. Young E. Allison, who wrote The Curious Legend o[ Louis Philippe in Ken- tucky, says that Louis Philippe remained in Bardstown for two days. 14 Mrs. Parker made the same statement. But it was only a guess, for there is absolutely no authority for the statement. He might have stayed there two months, and I am inclined to think that he did. Mrs. Parker says, "The Duke's own record, yet unpublished, closes at Bardstown. If there was a continuation of it, it was not known to the members of his family, who kindly sent the writer an abstract of the portions of general interest upon which much of the foregoing narrative has been drawn." The rest of his journey Mrs. Parker reconstructs from secondary sources. I was interested in Mrs. Parker's statement that, "Early in 1797 when Washington was asked by the exiled Orleans princes, his guests at Mount Vernon, to map out for them the best itinerary that they could follow in their proposed journey through the United States--the best route for gaining a correct idea of the resources, scenery, Political, social, industrial conditions of the country.., he drew in red ink, on a pocket map of Louis Philippe d'Orleans, a line beginning at Mount Vernon, reaching northward to Harper's Ferry, extending diagonally across Virginia along the mountain ranges to Abingdon, crossing the eastern part of Tennessee. ".. then across the Cumberland Mountains to Nashville, northward to Louisville . . . [etc.]. The trip could be made only on good horses, and would demand great physical endur- ance."15 Mrs. Parker seems to find nothing unusual in such an illogical journey. Nashville was the westernmost point in their trip. At Nash- ville the princes turned northward to Bardstown. The princes reached Bardstown, and there the diary ends. She then guesses at a stay of two days in Bardstown. Why does Louis Philippe's diary end at Bardstown ? What could primitive Kentucky hold of interest to French princes ? The whole trip, in view of the physical condition of his brothers, and the frontier hardships of the journey, is incongruous. 148 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 30

On May 10th the party had stopped in Nashville, and, Mrs. Parker writes, "learning that it would be well nigh impossible to get good liquor on the road between Nashville and Louisville, a tin canteen was filled with the best of whiskey and strapped to the neck of the prince of the Bourbons. ''1• This bit of information should give great satis- faction to certain Kentucky citizens, for to this day Kentucky liquor is called Bourbon whiskey. From Mrs. Parker's account it appears that Louis Philippe was made ill by the Tennessee whiskey and had to remain in Bardstown until he recovered, or so he said. In this connection Mrs. Parker adds an interesting touch: "A traveling show was performing in the place, the first that had ever visited the town. The inn and the sick guest were deserted by the landlady. Nothing could keep her or any of her family from attending the show.''17 There are conflicting opinions as to where, in 1797, Louis Philippe and the princes stayed while at Bardstown; whether at a stone tavern on Lot #61 at Second and Flaget streets, which no longer exists; or at a stone tavern on Lot #89 on the "Publick Square," which is the present Talbott Tavern. This controversy raises or suggests many interesting questions relat- ing to Bardstown and Nelson County. In an attempt to resolve the conflict of opinions as to where the princes stayed while at Bardstown, I have studied the early Tavern licenses and the Court Order Books of Nelson County. The study developed some very interesting facts. Most of the original licenses are in existence and have been micro- filmed. The missing ones can be found in the Order Book. There were not many taverns operating in Bardstown the last decade of the 18th century. There probably were some six or eight private houses which took out licenses. This was principally to sell liquor or to keep a guest or two overnight. We might call them the equivalent of the modern tourist homes, if these sold drinks. Tourist travel was good, for a land boom had sprung up around Bardstown as early as 1774. That we learned from the depositions we microfilmed. There were many land-hungry qocators and surveyors in that vicinity. In 1775 David Bard (or Baird) had built his "Cedar Cabbin" on his 1,000 acre pre-emption, which included Bardstown. is In 1"/76 Proctor Ballard, Gabriel Cox, Isaac Morrison, Benjamin Grayson, and Walter Beale settled on land which later became Bardstown, no doubt taking out "Village Rights.''19 Proctor Ballard had one of the earliest homes, on Lot #"/8. We learn this from the establishment by deed of the "new publick square," 1956] County Court Houses 149 which included the "old town square in the South street" and began "at a stake 7 poles back of Proctor Ballard's dwelling house. ''20 This deed was dated 30 September, 1785. This was approximately the location of the present Court House. We learn from this deed and deeds describing "Prison Bounds" that the first houses in Bardstown were built around the present square.2x From the evidence I think that it is not unreasonable to conclude that in 1779 there were log cabin taverns on Lot #61 and Lot #89 (the location of the present Talbott Tavern). The 1779 date for the genesis of Talbott Tavern is too late. It was probably nearer 1775, in a primitive sort of way. In those days every man's cabin was of necessity a "tavern"; and if the owner took out a license to protect himself from unwanted, im- provident, uninvited, and peripatetic guests, he can scarcely be blamed. And apparently there were many "guests." We learn from the depositions of Hancock Lee, made in 1785 and 1789 in land fraud cases involving George Mason of Gunston Hall (and Bill of Rights Fame) and President James Madison, that Richard Henderson of the Transylvania Company was at Bardstown in 1779, and that Hancock Lee talked to him. •2 Lee also deposed that Colonel Henderson had sent two surveyors to the Green River country before 1779 to do some preliminary surveying on the Transylvania Company grants. The Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky, by Benjamin J. Webb, gives us many clues about the early settlement of Nelson County, drawn from Catholic archives. He says "Very many surveys were begun and finished in Kentucky in the year 1774, and from that time emigration to the state set in steadily.''23 And speaking of the "Catholic League" of Maryland citizens who were colonizing Kentucky systemati- cally, Mr. Webb notes "Nominally, the end of their journey was Bardstown, and there they ordinarily remained until they made selec- tion of lands for permanent residence. TM The entire party of twenty- five Catholic families who emigrated to Pottinger's Creek in 1787 stayed in Bardstown one year before they moved to their farms,z5 We know that one log tavern was doing a "land office business" (literally) in 1785, because there is a tavern license for Israel Dodge for that date. 26 In an Equity suit to be mentioned later, it is disclosed that Dodge in 1788 was building a stone house on the same lot with his two-story log house Tavern.27 The stone house was sold in 1814 to Nathaniel Wickliffe and the deed mentions this log house,us A two-story log house in 1785 was a large house. There were two other Tavern licenses in existence in 1785 besides that of Israel Dodge. One was for Elizabeth Grundy and the other 150 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 30 for James Wynn.29 I have found evidence that James Wynn lived at several locations, so I believe that Elizabeth Grundy ran the log cabin tavern on Lot #89 in 1785, for the Owings family. The Owings family of Baltimore were developers and proprietors of pioneer towns in frontier districts. In addition to Bardstown the family were also interested in the Monongehela Valley. It was their policy to lease the tavern in the town being developed, retaining the operation of the grist mill, blacksmith shop, and general store,z° At Bardstown they surely would have placed the tavern at the favored location on the "Publick Square." Lot #89 in Bardstown was on the Public Square and is the site of the present Talbott Tavern, as previously noted. In 1785 it probably was a log house. The proprietors of Bardstown owned Lot #89 for many years-- until it was sold in 1812 to William Rose Hynes by Colonel Thomas Dye Owings, who obtained possession of it when his father died in 1810.31 And the early tavern on this lot in all probability would have been the "Cedar Cabbin" of David Bard. At any rate, I believe the log cabin tavern on Lot #89 in 1785 was owned by the Owings family and run by Elizabeth Grundy. By 1788 the previous tourist business must have been great enough to justify the building of a larger, more commodious and convenient stone tavern. It had outgrown its log walls. At any rate the log taverns on Lot #61 and Lot #89 were replaced or enlarged by stone houses. And this took place about 1788. Among the Nelson County Chancery Court cases we find an Equity suit of Coffman vs. Philipps which throws some light on the question when the stone taverns were built,z2 We learn that a certain Captain John Cope was a contractor who built the stone house on Lot #6l between 1786 and 1788. This was when Israel Dodge had his tavern in 1785. The record shows that the specifications and bill of material for the stone house on Lot #61 are almost identical with details of construction and the dimensions of the stone Coffee Shop of the present Talbott Tavern, which is on Lot #89. It is very obvious that the same architect or contractor planned both stone structures. We also learn from the Order Book for Nelson County that John Cope had been awarded the contract to build the Stone Court House/3 On page 447 we read: "Ordered that a plan proposed for a Court House for this county, together with the terms of payment and signed by John Cope, be awarded." John Cope was evidently doing a good business in stone houses in Bardstown. Further support of the 1788 date of the stone taverns and verifica- tion of the building boom in Bardstown at this time is found in an 1956] County Court Houses 151 article in Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. XIX, pp. 221-238, entitled "From D•'. Saugrain's Note Book, 1788." In the spring of 1788, Antoine Francois Saugrain de Vigni made a voyage down the Ohio River from Pittsburg to The Falls. He returned from Louisville overland to Maysville and was at Bardstown May 12 and 13, 1788. In his notes he wrote: "The town of Bar&town is not very large; there are, however, two or three stone houses and a courthouse now building, which will be handsome and large and must cost very dear. I judge from this that the people of the place love lawsuits. TM (Anyone who delves into the second-story room of the present Court House would agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Saugrain about the people loving lawsuits.) From the court house Dr. Saugrain could easily have seen the two stone houses being built by Captain Cope. The stone house tavern on Lot #89 was directly across the street on the "Publick Square" itself.3• The stone house tavern (of the lawsuit) on Lot #61, at the corner of Second and Flaget streets, was also clearly visible in 1788, when few houses intervened. (It is possible that the stone part of Dr. Burr Harrison's house on Lot #91, on the south side of the Square was the third house of which Dr. Saugrain wrote.) It is not known how long before 1788 there had been log taverns in Bardstown. Mr. and Mrs. Stilwell, the present owners and proprietors of Talbott Tavern, assert and support a very old claim that the stone part of that tavern dates from 1779. Dr. Willard R. Jillson, like Mr. Muir and Mr. Mattingly Spalding, takes a very dim view of the Talbott Tavern claims of a genesis in 1779, but has said that he would "go along" with the date of 1788 for the stone part of the building. I personally think there was a log tavern on Lot #89 before 1779. This brings us back to the controversy over where Louis Philippe stayed when he was at Bar&town in 1797. A general study of the situation seems to indicate that in 1797 there were only two hostelries of any importance in Bar&town. These were the two stone houses above mentioned. One was on Lot #61 and the other on Lot #89. Mr. Mattingly Spalding of Bardstown favors the theory that the princes stayed •t the Stone House Tavern on Lot #61. The Talbott Tavern, on Lot #89, claims they stayed there. From Mrs. Parker's account we learn that on May 17, 1797, the princes had stayed at the plantation of Mr. Hodgins in Hodgen'sville. Then, on the 18th, "they crossed Salt River at Pitts Fork with difficulty, and night found them at the inn of Captain Bean at Bar&town, then a settlement of about 150 houses and great expectations.''•6 152 The Filson Club History Quarterl7 [Vol. 30

Note that Mrs. Parker, who had extracts from Louis Philippe's diary, records that Louis Philippe and the princes stayed at "the inn of Captain Bean." The "inn of Captain Bean" could not have been the Stone House Tavern on Lot #-61, for at that time this tavern was run by General Joseph Lewis. I have a photostat that says "Joseph Lewis hath obtained a License to keep a Tavern at the Stone House in Bardstown, the 11th day of July 1797. ''•v There are other docu- ments to prove that he ran it in 1796 also. The tavern licenses and the Court Order books, in my opinion, prove that the princes did not stay at the Stone House Tavern on Lot #61. With the Stone House Tavern on Lot #61 out of the picture, there seems to be only one logical place for Louis Philippe to have stayed, the Tavern on Lot #89. This seems logical because it was owned by the Owings family, who, with the Bard (or Baird) family, were proprietors of Bardstown.3s Also, the legend exists with the Owings family that they knew the French princes in Baltimore. What more natural, then, than for the princes to stay at the Tavern in Bardstown owned by their friends and acquaintances ? The records we found show that the first time the property, which is now known as Talbott Tavern, was sold was February 27, 1812. Colonel Thomas Dye Owings, the son of the proprietor, John Cochey Owings, deceased, sold it to William Rose Hynes,3° who apparently was running it at the time. It has been known as the Hynes House intermittently ever since. After Colonel Owings sold his interest in Bardstown in 1812, he turned his attention to his new town of Owingsville in Bath County. There he managed the Iron Works himself, but leased the hotel to proprietors. J. Winston Coleman, Jr., in his The Springs of Kentucky, says "Shortly after the War of 1812, Colonel Thomas Dye Owings, a wealthy citizen and iron manufacturer of Owingsville, acquired the Springs property and for the next fifteen or twenty years leased it to various proprietors.''4° And this brings me to one more point worth considering before we leave the matter of Louis Philippe and his stay at Talbott Tavern. Young E. Allison, in his fascinating, if prejudiced, account of Louis Philippe and Bardstown, considers the legend of Owingsville---that Louis Philippe was in Owingsville. He tells about a letter which he says is shown by the Owings family. The letter is a copy of one purporting to be from Louis Philippe thanking Mrs. Owings for her hospitality. Mr. Allison also says that Colonel Thomas Dye Owings met the French princes in Baltimore and invited them to visit him in Kentucky.4 x This historically illogical story is told in Owingsville where the 1956] County Court Houses 153 date of Louis Philippe's visit is given as 1814-1815. At that time Louis Philippe was in Europe. The letter is supposed to have been written to Colonel Thomas Dye Owings' wife, Maria Nicholas, daughter of Colonel George Nicholas. They were married in 1804, seven years after Louis Philippe's trip to America. The letter reads: "Madam: You have given me so many reasons to respect and esteem you during my residence in your family that I should be sorry to leave Kentucky in the anticipation of losing my place in the memory of a lady, whose good opinion I am ambitious not only to deserve but to preserve. "Permit me, therefore, Madam, respectfully to solicit you to do me the pleasure and the honor to accept the volume accompanying, which I presume to think worthy of your acceptance, not only on account of the motives which lead me to tender it, which are those of the most sincere and respectful esteem, that make me desire and hope that it may serve to do me the honor of retaining for me a place in your recollection."•2 I have another explanation for the incident. Could not this letter have been written to some female member of the Owings family who was then "in residence," perhaps Mrs. John Cockey Owings, the mother of Colonel Thomas Dye Owings, at their "tavern" on Lot #89 in Bardstown ? By 1797 the tavern, now known as the Talbott Tavern, had been greatly enlarged. The big brick building which was later joined to the stone part has the appearance of being built to house the family of the proprietor. And the tavern is associated with the French emigres, no matter what their rank, by the mysterious murals on the walls of one of the rooms, murals symbolic of the French Revolution. They are so symbolic that it would have taken the knowledge of a student of history, and an analytical one, to visualize them. And note that Louis Philippe taught history at the College of Reichnau in Switzerland under the alias of Monsieur Chabaud.43 If the word "Kentucky" is deleted from the letter to "Madam," one could, say that the stay of Louis Philippe in Baltimore at the "Indian Queen" was the basis of the story. He records in his diary that he had a "delightful time" there. Mr. Allison Says: "Colonel Thomas Dye Owings met one who called himself Duke of Orleans in Baltimore; they became intimate friends at once and the prince was invited to come west with Colonel Owings and pay a long visit. TM Colonel Owings was a young blade of 21 when the prince was in Baltimore. He had a magnetic personality, and was an outstanding promoter. He could have met the young princes who were 19, 21, 154 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 30 and 24, in Baltimore, and his mother could have shown them some famed southern hospitality. The Owings belonged to the aristocracy of the Eastern shore. The letter could have been written to Mrs. Owings, his mother, in Baltimore. It would have been natural for the Colonel to have invited the princes to stay at their tavern in Bards- town on their western visit. He had just begun to interest himself in his father's western ventures, and the Colonel was not one to miss a trick. The explanation that the letter was written to the Colonel's mother would take care of the inconsistencies of the Owingsville story of the princes's stay. There is another mysterious character connected with Bar&town and French royalty whose records appear in the Nelson County Court House. This is Father de Rohan, the second priest to serve the community. He came in 1787 while the twenty-five Catholic families from Maryland were staying a year in Bar&town. Father Whelan had come over the mountains with them. But Father Whelan did not get along with his congregation, and left in a couple of years. Father de Rohan remained in the frontier community until he died in 1832.45 The very name of the priest, de Rohan, conjures up dreams of that French princely and priestly family. Young E. Allison suggests that Father de gohan's career might have become absorbed in the legend of Louis Philippe in Bar&town. He says "somebody must have scented a secret in the very ambiguity that enveloped him then, as it does now. Some gossip of the de Rohan name and lineage must have circulated then as it does still. For if he were of the de Rohan family, rich in the cardinalcy, he was of royal blood--a prince. In those days, when emigres from the unleashed peasant power in France were hiding from sight everywhere, any supposed connection with the royal house, however remote, might properly account for the silence, the consideration, the care.''4° Mr. Allison continues: "Father de Rohan came to America about the time when the Cardinal Prince Louis Rene Edouard de Rohan, a royal libertine of the church in France, was the central figure in the throne-shaking scandal of Marie Antionette, and the famous diamond necklace." From The Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky we learn the key to the tragedy of Father de Rohan. Mr. Webb says, "Historical verity required at the hand of the writer this explanatory sentence. Father de Rohan belonged to an unfortunate class of priests.., whose appetites for stimulants lead them to excesses in their use . . . he was his own greatest enemy.''47 Father de Rohan came to America in 1786 bearing to Bishop 1956] County Court Houses 155

Carroll of Baltimore "letters testimonial from the Archbishop of Dublin, certifying that the said Mr. Rohan was duly promoted and ordained to the priesthood. ''48 Father de Rohan started from,Baltimore to administer to the Catholics in Norfolk, Virginia. Instead, he joined a band of emigrants from North Carolina and journeyed with them to Kentucky. He was the second priest to come to Kentucky, arriving three months after Father Whelan.4° I had often wondered why there was such a large settlement of Catholics in Nelson County. ! found the answer in the deeds in the Nelson County records and in Sister Mary Ramona Mattingly's book, The Catholic Church on the Kentucky Frontier (1785-1812). She writes, "In the year 1785 a league of sixty families was formed in Maryland--all Catholics, and mostly residents of St. Mary's County, each one of whom was pledged to emigrate to Kentucky within a specified time. Their purpose was to settle together as well for mutual protection against the Indians, as with the view of securing to themselves with the least possible delay the advantages of a pastorate and a church. They were not all to emigrate at once . . . of sixty families subscribing to the compact, twenty-five left Maryland in the early spring of 1785.''•° The Catholic Church on the Kentucky Frontier (1785-1812) is the most meticulous, yet comprehensive book that I have read on the subject. Speaking of the Maryland League of Catholics, the author quotes from Father Stephen Badin's (an early missionary in Kentucky) account written in 1821: "Some twenty poor Catholic families, descendants of the English Colonists, came to settle there [Kentucky] in 1785, because they could secure good land for almost nothing.''•x Father Whelan came to Kentucky with another group of the League in 1787, and left in 1790. Father de Rohan followed six months later. After Father Whelan left Father de Rohan was the only priest in charge of the one hundred Catholic families scattered along Rolling Fork, Cartwright Creek, Hardin's, Cox's, and Pottinger's creeks.5• Sister Mary Ramona Mattingly says: "There he visited the sick, said Mass and administered the sacraments of baptism and matrimony • . . Two years after his arrival the first Catholic church in Kentucky was built under his direction, on the farm of Basil Hayden. Henry Norris hewed the logs of which it was made. The roof was clap- board and a slab of roughly hewn wood served as an altar, but rude as it was, the structure was definitely set apart for divine worship... the deed to the property.., is dated May 11, 1798 . . , The site of 156 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 30 the first church is not far from the present Holy Cross Church.''53 The church was built in 1792. Father de Rohan, alone, served these one hundred scattered Catholic families. He alone went on horseback in snow, in rain, and in summer heat for five years. If Father de Rohan used too many stimulants, who can blame him? But "It was the cause too of his subsequent forfeiture of his priestly faculties. TM Eventually Father de Rohan became a teacher. "In 1797, Father Badin wrote [to Bishop Carroll]: 'Mr. Rohan keeps no more school on Salt River," but, he added, 'his abilities are much thought of there.' Later Father de Rohan taught in Bar&town for a period but in March 1798, he came to live with Father Badin and taught school in a separate cabin."• This was at St. Thomas's. Did Father de Rohan rebel at the mortifying measure which took away his priestly faculties? If so Mr. Webb does not believe it, for he writes: "there are to be found points upon which the eyes of Catholics of the present day may look with complacency. He preached no false doctrine. He taught the children the rudiments of their faith . . . Very many of the earliest born in Kentucky of our fore- fathers, had of him all the knowledge they ever acquired of letters. As late as the year 1822, he was teaching school, near the town of New Hope . . . where he was pitied as only are the children of mis- fortune... He bought him a little farm at the foot of the rocky peak that lifts its head high over the surrounding country, not far away from Holy Cross Church, and now.., the peak is known by no other title than Rohan's Knob."'50 We learn "from Dr. Spalding's 'Sketches': 'Father de Rohan passed the last years of his life at the Theological Seminary of St. Thomas, where he died piously about the year 1832.' ,,57 The "little farm" of which Mr. Webb speaks contained 510 acres. Not so little. One wonders where he found the money with which to buy it. A priest without charge accumulates no capital. A poor school teacher in a frontier country doesn't save enough money to become a large landholder. Did Father de Rohan receive an inheritance from France ? Father de Rohan's will was probated in Bardstown, on July 9, 1832.5s From it we wonder about his psychology. Was he a contrite sinner ? Or was he a prankster priest? Essential points in his will are baffling. "I will and bequeath unto Right Reverend Benedict J. Flaget, Catho- lic Bishop of Bardstown and his lawful Catholic successors my planta- tion in Washington County... by the name of . . . Rohan's Knob . . . which amounts to 510 acres..." And he adds a codicil: 1956] County Court Houses 157

"Therefore the chief motive and integral part of the above Will and Testament is this, that Right Reverend Bishop Flaget for himself and his successors Bishops of Bar&town, promise and oblige himself and his priests to say seven hundred masses to the virtue of the afore- said testator, Reverend William de Rohan, and within the space of three years from the date of his death." Father de Rohan is said to have died at St. Thomas's. If so, where is he buried? No one knows. No stone marks a grave at St. Thomas's, or in Holy Cross cemeteries. Why not? Surely, a priest who left the church a farm of 510 acres was due a headstone. Was he buried out- side the pale? Or did some French de Rohan claim his body, and bury him in a princely mausoleum ? We can only shed a tear for the priest who was loved, but unsung. He must have had his revenge for his own infirmities when he wrote that will, with tongue in cheek, and a hope for tolerance, perhaps, in Paradise. In County Court Houses history can be verified---or debunked. Here we have records of joy or heartbreak; opulence or poverty. Here mystery remains hidden or revealed. As we read these records'our imagination is awakened; our dreams are incarnated; we reconstruct the past; we are transported; and the lives of our ancestors are redeemed from oblivion, and dwell in us again. County Court Houses are the Citadels of Freedom. Here the poor and needy look for understanding or relief. Here the public is pro- tected when criminals are brought to justice. Here the falsely accused may rely upon American fair play for acquittal. Here property rights are safeguarded. Here our births, deaths, marriages, and inheritances are recorded, as generations come and go. The County Court House is the abode of Justice. It is the shrine of Liberty. It is one of the finest expressions of Americanism-- because it is the beating heart of each community. It is the vital symbol for which the United States of America stands.

FOOTNOTES t Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition. "County Courts." JBiennial Year Book, 1953, The Colonial Society of Pennsylvania. p. 33. Address of Frank W. Melvin, Governor. •Nelson County Record. Now framed and kept in County Clerk's office. •Minute Book o/ the Virginia Court Held /or Yobogania County. Edited by Boyd Crumrine, Washington, Pa. VoL IV, p. 79. Reprinted from Annals of Carnegie Museum, Vol. II, pp. 71-140, 1903. Copy of Reprint at The Filson Club. * Ibld. Vol..VII, p. 205. •Ibid. 158 The Filson Club History OOuarterly [Vol. 30

* Ibid., p. 206. •Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 72. •Will of Joseph Cox. Nelson County Clerk's office. Loose papers. ,0 The warrant was part of a Chancery suit in the Nelson County Court. ,1 Nelson County Clerk's of•ce. Loose papers. **Nelson County, D. B. 5, p. 716. *•Centur• Mal•azine, Vol. 40, New Series. p. 746. (Voh 62, Old Series). "Louis Philippe It{The-United States," by Jane Marsh Parker. •° The Curious Legend o[ Louis Philippe in Kentucky, by Young E. Allison, p. 6. Jane Marsh Parker, op. cir., p. 746. ,s Ibid., p. 746. 1• Ibid., p. 746. UThe Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol. 21, p. 162; quoting Certificate Book o the Virginia Lend Commission, 1779-1780. '•TheNelson County Record, 1896. Newspaper article. No authority given. *'Nelson County D. B. 1, p. 15. '1 Nelson County D. B. 4, p. 925; Order Book No. 1 (1785), p. 204, Prison Bounds. Nelson County Chancery Court cases: Wilson vs. Mason; IVilson vs. Madison. *' The Centenary o[ Catholicity in Kentucky, by Hon. Ben. J. Webb, 1884, p. 18. ** Ibid., p. 69. *" Ibid., p. 68. *' Nelson County Tavern Licenses for 1785. *' Nelson County Chancery suit, Kol•man vs. Phillips. •Nelson County D. B. 15, p. 345. Nelson County Tavern Licenses, 1785. NMaryland Historical Magazine, VI (1911) p. 352. **Nelson County W. B. 4, p. 369; Will of John Cockey Owings. Proved in Baltimore County, Maryland, Feb. 17, 1810, W. B. 8, Folio 500. Produced in Court in Nelson County, May 12, 1845. ** Nelson County Chancery Court, Koffman vs. Philippe. **Nelson County Order Book 3, p. 438. D. B. 2, p. 139. "From Dr. Saugrain's Note Book, 1788." Proceedings o/ the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. XIX (1908), p. 230. *•Nelson County Court Order Book No. 1, p. 204. Prison Bounds. *• Jane Marsh Parker, op. tit., p. 746. ,a Nelson County Tavern Licenses, 1797. **Nelson County D. B. 9, p. 481--Lot •89, Thomas Dye Owings to William Rose Hynes, Feb. 27, 1812. *• Ibid. *'The Springs o[ Kentucky, J. Winston Coleman, Jr., p. 17. • Young E. Allison, op. cir., p. 12. °'"Louis Philippe in Owingsville," Kentucky Magazine (1916-1917-1918), letter to Mrs. Owings, quoted. o Jane Marsh Parker, op. cit., p. 746. •°Young E. Allison, op. cir., p. 11. *' Ben. J. Webb, op. tit., pp. 156, 158. Young E. Allison, op. tit., p. 10 ft. "Ben. J. Webb, op. tit., p. 158. •*The Catholic Church on the Kentucky Frontier (1785.1812), Sister Mary Ramona Mattingly, p. 459. o Father Badin's letters to Bishop Carroll, Record XIX (1908). "• Sister Mary Ramona Mattingly, op. cir., p. 8. •* Ibid. t* Ben. J. Webb, op. tit., p. 26. •* Sister Mary Ramona Mattingly, op. cit., pp. 41, 42. •Ben. J. Webb, op. cir., pp. 158, 159. •'Sister Mary Ramona Mattingly, op. cir., p. 43. **Ben. J. Webb, op. cir., p. 159. Ibid., p 158. • Nelson County W. B. '*G" (Renumbered Book •1), p. 123 (not p. 37 as indexed).