Muhlenberg County KyArchives History - Books .....XVI The Story Of The Stack 1913
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ky/kyfiles.html
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com March 21, 2007, 1:33 am

Book Title: A History Of Muhlenberg County

XVI 
THE STORY OF THE STACK

THE ruins of the old Buckner Furnace, known as "The Stack," form one of the most
desolate, yet interesting landmarks in the county. As far as I am aware,
nothing, save one paragraph in the First Kentucky Geological Survey, has ever
been written on the history of this once flourishing place. The deed books in
the county clerk's office record the dates of land transfers, but reveal none of
the romances and tragedies that make up the Story of The Stack. Members of the
younger generation-many, at least, of those with whom I have come in
contact-simply know the remains of the Buckner Furnace as "The Stack," the "Old
Furnace," or the "Pennsylvania Furnace," and that General Simon Bolivar Buckner
had been in some way connected with the old iron works. Collins in his 1847
edition refers to it as the "Henry Clay Iron Works." So the old people were the
only ones from whom I could gather any information, and they frequently
disagreed on very important points. The Stack, I find, was erected in 1S37 and
was operated only a few-years. The few men and women now living who saw the
place when it was running were all too young to remember their visits; some of
them, nevertheless, are well versed in the traditions of the old Furnace.

   One young man, who might have learned something of the history of The Stack
from his grandparents, unaware of his ignorance regarding local and national
history, "informed" me that The Stack was built by General Buckner during the
Mexican War, and a few years later, when the American Revolution broke out,
General Buckner furnished Washington and Andrew Jackson with guns and swords
with which to whip the French and British; that if General Buckner had not been
prepared to supply the iron from The Stack for the making of American cannon,
and if saltpeter had not been discovered in Mammoth Cave about this time,
England would have won the fight and helped Jeff Davis defeat the North! All of
which, if not history, is at least interesting.

   The land on which The Stack stands was for a long time owned by a company of
capitalists, and is therefore frequently referred to as "the Company land."
However, the same young man insists that this title originated from the fact
that many of the people living on this tract of land in olden times had "a heap
of company."

   Another rural philologist, pointing out a piece of pig iron made at The Stack
three quarters of a century ago, "informed" me that his grandfather said that
this pig iron is so called because on "hog-killing" days General Buckner heated
these chunks of iron and then threw them into barrels of water in order to bring
the water to a temperature sufficient to scald the skin of the hogs, preparatory
to scraping off the hair. This process of heating water for cleaning hogs is as
old as the hills, the only difference being that ordinary rocks are almost
invariably used instead of pig iron.

   It seems that about the year 1833 one William Miller, of Massachusetts,
claimed to have received a revelation (written on some hen eggs he found in a
hollow stump) to the effect that the destruction of the world would take place
in 1843. He preached this doctrine throughout the United States, and had a few
followers in Muhlenberg County. When, in 1842, the Furnace was abandoned,
Miller's converts declared Buckner closed down his iron works because he did not
want to be running a hot furnace on Judgment Day. Those who did not know why
operations were discontinued immediately drew the conclusion that Buckner had
become a Millerite. The absurd story thus started is still heard in a few of the
local traditions.

   Such confusion of the details of national history of which there is a written
record, and the telling of such ridiculous tales as these I have just cited. are
to be expected, and they serve to show that many statements regarding old
places, like many reports regarding current events, are not only false but often
absurd, and that "investigation brings out the truth."

   At any rate, the discovery of the extensive deposits of surface iron ore in
southern Muhlenberg County prompted Aylotte H. Buckner (the father of General
Buckner) and Cadwalader Churchill to organize a company for the purpose of
working this ore. In 1837 they erected a furnace near the junction of Pond Creek
and Salt Lick Creek, five miles south of Greenville, and before the close of the
following year the iron works were put in operation. The Stack was built at the
foot of a hill, and a level gangway was placed from the top of the hill to the
top of the furnace, where there was a charging platform over the opening through
which the ore was fed. The Stack was a double wall of local sandstone, hooped
with six iron bands, the whole forming one massive tower about eighty feet high,
forty feet wide at the base, and twenty-five feet across at the top. [1]

   Alfred Johnson, Garland Craig, and Thomas Welborn, Muhlenberg's best
stone-masons, with the help of others, did the stone work. They must have been
masters of their craft, for in spite of the fact that some of the iron bands
were removed about the year 1875 and that twenty years later two vandals
dynamited it for the purpose of taking the heavy iron bars used to support the
four arches, the walls stood for seventy years. It was the irreparable damage
done by the two old-iron gatherers that, on January 14, 1907, caused the final
collapse of the old landmark, which is now nothing more than a heap of dressed
rock.

   The Stack and its wooden gangway were by no means the only structures erected
by Buckner and Churchill. They also put up a substantial two-story log house of
ten rooms, used as a residence, office, and store by the Buckners. It is said
that three yoke of oxen were required to transfer Buckner's private library from
Hart County to this place. The Buckner house was the largest structure of its
kind in the county. It was about one hundred and fifty feet long, constructed of
hewed logs, had good glass windows, and floors of sawed lumber. There were three
large chimneys and a dozen open fire-places. The building contained a spacious
dining room, used by some of the white employes. In an adjoining room, known as
"the store." goods were kept for the convenience of the people connected with
the Furnace and for the purpose of exchanging merchandise with farmers for
produce. Opposite the south end of the log house, and built in the hillside, was
the stone milk-house, through which there constantly ran a stream of spring water.

   Not far from The Stack stood a grist mill, to which corn was brought by the
farmers, who gave one sixth of their meal for the grinding. This mill, used
later as a tobacco barn by Ben Mitchell and others, was burned to the ground
about 1870, with a large crop of Yellow Pryor in it. Many of the white miners
and wood-choppers and the forty slaves occupied log cabins north of The Stack,
but all traces of their quarters have now disappeared. In fact the large pile of
rock that now marks the site of the Furnace, a few pieces of slag, the ruins of
the milk-house, two half-buried corn burrs, two half-filled wells, and a few
small mounds where chimneys once stood- all more or less hidden in a jungle of
bushes or second-growth timber-are the only evidences of the great work that
flourished around The Stack a few years before and after 1840.

   As already stated, the discovery of iron ore in Muhlenberg County prompted
Buckner and Churchill to organize a company to develop this mineral.
Investigation revealed the fact that there was not only sufficient surface ore
to justify the building of a furnace, but that there also existed enough good
ore below the surface to supply them for a century or more. The furnace they
built was in operation about four years, during which time various processes
were experimented with. Besides making a great quantity of pig iron they also
manufactured a number of iron utensils, among them kettles without legs or
"ears," ovens, shovels, tongs, and andirons or dog-irons, some of which can
still be found in the county.

   The pair of dog-irons of which a picture is here given were made at the
Buckner Furnace about the year 1840. Notwithstanding the fact that they were
used during cold weather for seventy years, they are for all practical purposes
as good now as the day they were cast. The part which supports the log of wood
is in one solid piece, about fifteen inches long by four inches high and an
half-inch thick. The base is kept in an upright position by a winglike pedestal
which spreads out in front. The upright, which keeps the forestick from rolling
off on the hearth, is twelve inches high and is a representation of the head of
some animal of uncertain identity. It resembles somewhat the head of a camel on
the neck of a goose.

   Many pairs of dog-irons of this type were made at The Stack, but tradition
does not tell who designed them. The designer, if we apply the F. C. Morse
theory, evidently was not a "Campbellite"; for Morse, in a book on "Furniture of
the Olden Times," says that immediately after the Revolution andirons known as
"Hessians," in which the upright was the figure of a Hessian soldier, were very
popular, and that "the figures of the hated allies of the British thus received
the treatment with flame and ashes that Americans considered the originals to
merit, to say nothing of worse indignities cast upon them by the circle of
tobacco-using patriots."

   The dwellers in the Buckner colony lived on the best the country then
afforded. They not only used the produce and meal furnished by the neighboring
farmers, but also supplied themselves with game, fish, and forest fruits. In
those days fish were plentiful in Fond Creek. [2] Deer were so numerous and so
destructive to crops that many farmers were obliged to guard their cornfields to
keep the deer from trampling down the growing plants. Raising beans was almost
an impossibility, for the deer loved sprouting beans better than some of us like
venison. Turkeys were in abundance, and wild pigeons were more plentiful than
sparrows are now. 'Coon and 'possum hunting was on the program nearly every
night in the fall.

   A story is told of a certain Scotchman who, shortly after arriving from his
native land, procured a position at the Furnace and one day shot some turkey
buzzards while wandering around in Pond Creek bottom, mistaking them for a bird
he had eaten in Scotland. "With these he prepared a surprise dinner for his
friends. All enjoyed the meal very much until the "Scotch fowl" was indulged in.
Many commented on the peculiar flavor of the meat, but, fearing they might
offend their host by declining to eat abundantly of his much-prized dish, they
partook freely. They begged to know more about this peculiar "Scotch fowl."
After some persuasion he proudly told them where and how he had captured this
most palatable of birds. The guests threw up their hands in horror. They not
only refused to continue the meal, but even declined to keep what they had
already accepted!

   Much of the salt used by the Furnace people was procured from Deer Lick or
Salt Wells, or Salt Lick Creek, about one mile above The Stack, where common
salt was made by the evaporating process from the waters of a small spring. It
was a well-known lick even before the days of the Buckners, and for many years
supplied the immediate neighborhood with this essential. About the year 1855, so
runs the story, some men, thinking a stronger solution of salt could be found
here, dug three wells near the lick. But the water from the wells proved to he
no stronger than that coming from the spring. This was a disappointment to the
investigators. Salt water was then boiled and evaporated for a number of days,
and the salt thus obtained thrown back into the wells; a Greenville capitalist
was then invited to inspect the new "gold mine." He made a hasty inspection and
analysis of the water, bought the farm, and some time later learned that there
is such a thing as "salting" a salt well.

   The Furnace folks spent some of their leisure time on the hill west of The
Stack, on the old Indian burying-grounds. Some of the picnic parties that spend
a day around or near the ruins of The Stack climb this hill and view what is now
left of the seven mounds that once stood there. It is a joke among some of the
neighborhood boys to tell the newcomer that if he wishes to know why these
Indians were killed he need but stand on any of the mounds and solemnly cry out,
"Lo, poor Indian, for what did the white man kill you?" Not hearing a response,
the newcomer is urged to ask the question again. He finally discovers that
"Nothing" is the answer.

   Louis Greenway was one of the many interesting characters around the Furnace.
He made a wager he could lead a certain blind horse over the trestle to the top
of The Stack and then safely back him off again, "with ten drinks in him."
Tradition does not say whether "in him" had reference to the man or to the
horse. At any rate, it was successfully done.

   Shoemaker was the name of the official shoemaker. He exchanged shoes for
untanned cowhides. His dealings with his patrons were anything but satisfactory
to them, so one day they all joined in and gave him a "cowhide." He has not been
heard from since. It was rumored that he 'joined Lonz Pennington, the outlaw,
who was maneuvering in this part of the State at that time. The only thing
Shoemaker left behind was a large trough, made from the trunk of an oak tree,
and prepared by himself to be used as his coffin. After his departure his
intended coffin was used as a feeding trough in a pig-pen.

   Many of the men and women connected with The Stack attended church very
regularly. Some went to Greenville, while others worshiped with the members of
the then newly organized Friendship congregation. Friendship Baptist Church, two
miles northwest of The Stack, was then and still is located in what is very
appropriately called the Friendship Neighborhood. This congregation was
organized in the old Hickory Withe Schoolhouse a few years before The Stack was
built. In 1837 its members put up a log house on land donated by Charles
Metzker. The third (the present) building was erected in 1893. The
burying-ground adjoining was started in 1883, and is now one of the best-kept
country graveyards in the county. In it are buried a number of men and women who
in their youth saw the Buckner Furnace in operation. One of Friendship's
best-known preachers was the Reverend William Dodd Pannell, who was born in Todd
County in 1824. came to Friendship about 1855, and died on his farm, near the
church, in 1877. He was the father of James P., Thomas B., and Frank B. Pannell.

   There is a variety of stories told regarding the negro Isaac, who was hanged
Friday, July 6, 1838, for attempting to kill Buckner. Some say Buckner had
treated him shamefully by starving him and refusing to let him wear shoes, but
such statements can not possibly be founded on facts, for Buckner was a tall and
portly man, with the reputation of having a heart as kind as he was large. At
any rate it was rumored among the slaves that Churchill was willing to abandon
the Furnace, and would have done so had Buckner agreed to it. Isaac belonged to
the Churchills, who then lived in Elizabethtown, and being dissatisfied with his
surroundings came to the conclusion that if he killed Buckner then Churchill
would desert the Furnace and he would be allowed to return to his master's home.
Supported by this simple logic, the negro proceeded to carry out his plan. He
approached Buckner with an ax, and without a word of warning began striking him
in the face. Buckner was rescued by some men who happened on the scene, but not
until he had fallen unconscious to the ground with two long gashes in his face,
the scars of which never disappeared. In the confusion that followed the negro
made his escape, and had fled to a point on the Russellville road, a little
north of what is now Dunmor, when he was discovered by the Grabel boys, who
found the exhausted slave sleeping alongside a log. Not knowing of his bloody
deed they were about to release him, when Robert Jackson appeared and recognized
him as the negro who had tried to assassinate Buckner. He was sent to
Greenville, tried by the court, and sentenced to death. While confined in jail
he was frequently visited by Mrs. Churchill, who read religious books to him and
also helped him in his prayers.

   On the morning of the hanging Isaac was taken from his cell, put on a wagon,
where his coffin served as a seat, and was thus driven to the edge of the woods,
about half a mile south of Greenville. He was hanged between two poplar trees,
and the same wagon and coffin on which he rode to his execution were used as the
platform and trap of his gallows. He stood erect on his coffin with a suspended
rope around his neck. The horses pulled the wagon forward, Isaac fell, and a few
minutes later was prepared for burial. Upon presentation of a certificate of
death, signed by the sheriff, Churchill received the sum of one thousand dollars
from the State as compensation for his executed slave. [3]

   According to some tellers of the story, the negro was not killed by the
hanging, but showed signs of life after he was placed in his coffin; whereupon
his head was chopped off with the same ax he had used on Buckner, and placed on
the end of a hickory pole at the side of the Russellville road, where it
remained exposed to the public for a number of days. This statement is not true.
However, a circumstance of that nature took place some years later, when a negro
by the name of Gray was lynched in Greenville in 1870. Shortly following his
trouble with Isaac, Buckner had another narrow escape. A well was being dug
north of The Stack. After reaching a depth of about twenty-five feet one of the
charges of powder placed in the bottom did not explode, although a reasonable
time was allowed for that purpose. Suspecting carelessness on the part of the
man who did the work, Buckner directed one of the negroes to let him down in the
box attached to the windlass. He had descended only a short distance when the
fuse began to sizz. Buckner immediately commanded the slave to pull him up, but
the negro became excited, lost his grip on the winch, and ran away. By the time
Buckner had dropped half-way down the well the explosion took place, throwing
him and the box up through the opening, landing him some ten feet from the rim.

   The negro, having been punished for deserting his post, planned revenge. One
of his duties was to dump the iron ore from the platform down into the furnace.
One day while Buckner was inspecting that part of the works the negro sprang
upon him, intending to throw him into the burning oven. Suspecting the slave,
Buckner was on his guard. After a short struggle the negro discovered stronger
resistance than he had anticipated. Having nothing but death and revenge on his
mind, he decided to jump into the furnace, pull Buckner down with him, and thus
cause both to perish together. He clutched at his master's arm, but instead
caught hold of a loose shirt-sleeve. As he made the fatal leap Buckner's sleeve
was torn, and the negro, with his hands clutching a bit of rag, fell into the
fiery furnace alone. One version of this incident goes on to say that
immediately after the negro fell into the furnace a long white flame gushed out
of the top and the sky above was filled with black smoke, and that next day a
black heart-shaped cinder was found in the ashes.

   The local trade on dog-irons and other domestic utensils made at the Furnace
was far more extensive than was anticipated, but in the meantime the operating
expenses grew greater, month after month, while the net receipts from the sale
of pig iron increased comparatively little. However, Buckner and Churchill did
not give up hope of success. In 1840 they mortgaged the works and their
forty-five hundred acres of land to the Bank of Kentucky and various
individuals. It is a well-known fact that about this time Eastern mines became
better equipped, and being located in more accessible sections were able to
place their material on the market at a lower figure than Buckner and Churchill
could. The Stack's long road to Green River led to its financial grave. The
hauling of the pig iron to Kincheloe's Bluff or South Carrollton, a distance of
eighteen miles, over new and rough roads, involved an enormous expense that
could in no way be reduced. So the Furnace was abandoned in 1842. Many families
connected with it returned to their native towns, while others bought farms and
remained in the county. No man in southern Muhlenberg did more to assist Buckner
and Churchill while they were in the county, and none did more to encourage
those who remained, than Esquire John Jenkins. [4]

   From page 139 of the First Kentucky Geological Survey, compiled by David Dale
Owen and published in 1855, I quote:

   The discontinuance of the operations of the Buckner furnace was not due to
any deficiency or defect in the ores, but for want of capital, and from the bad
condition of the stack, which was entirely too large a diameter for the blast. .
. . The gray limestone used as a flux was obtained one mile south of the
furnace. . . . Both the analysis of the ore, the thickness of the ore beds, and
proximity of all the necessary materials, with an ample supply of forest timber,
all indicate a favorable position for iron works: especially if by the
construction of a railroad through Muhlenberg County to the Ohio River a more
direct line of communication to a market were established.

   Simon Bolivar Buckner was a young man in those days. He was born in Hart
County April 1, 1823. In the spring of 1839, after finishing a course of studies
at a private school in Hopkinsville, he was given a position as clerk at his
father's furnace. Here he worked for about two years, during which time he made
many trips to Greenville, then a town of about three hundred people. It was in
this way that he met Charles Fox Wing, who took a fatherly interest in him. In
fact the two kept up a correspondence for twenty years, until the time of
Captain Wing's death, which, as stated in the chapter on the Civil War, took
place the day before General Buckner passed through Greenville with his army.

   In June, 1840, Charles McLean, son of Judge Alney McLean, returned from West
Point because of his dislike for military discipline and his longing to be at
home with his brother Alney, jr. These twin brothers were bachelors and
inseparable companions all their life long. Charles died in Greenville in May,
1895, at the age of seventy-six, and was followed ten years later by Alney, jr.
Upon Charles McLean's return from West Point, Simon Bolivar Buckner, then
employed at The Stack, was appointed a cadet to succeed him at the military
school. He was graduated from the Academy on July 1, 1844, and, as is well
known, was immediately assigned to the army. A daguerreotype, made in 1846,
represents him as brevet captain, aged twenty-three; another picture, also here
reproduced, is a copy of a portrait made sixty years later.

   Although General Buckner lived in the county only two years, Muhlenberg has
since that time regarded him more or less as a son, and the General looks upon
Muhlenberg as the place where his destiny was shaped. This feeling he not only
expressed in public when, in 1861, he marched through the county with his army,
but again showed in 1887, when he visited Greenville as a candidate for
Governor, to which office he was elected; and again in 1896, when as a candidate
for Vice-President on the National Democratic Gold Standard ticket he stopped in
town for a short time.

   Colonel Aylette Hartswell Buckner, the father of General Buckner, was a son
of Philips Buckner. He was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, in 1792, and came
to Kentucky in 1803 with his parents, who settled in Hart County. A. H. Buckner
was in his twenty-first year when, in 1813, he enlisted in Colonel James
Simrall's regiment. He was present during the siege of Fort Meigs and also took
part in the battle of the Thames. Like his friend Charles Fox Wing, he was
always greatly interested in the soldiers of the War of 1812. In his day he was
one of the best-known men in the State. About the year 1832 he built the Henry
Clay furnace in Hart County, and about five years later left Hart County for
Muhlenberg, where he erected the Buckner Furnace, or The Stack. As early as 1832
he prophesied that within a hundred years every county in the State would be
reached by lines of railroad and that people then would travel in iron cars and
sleep in beds at night while traveling, and that iron would in many things take
the place of wood. During his four years' stay in Muhlenberg he did much toward
the advancement of the county's interests. In 1842, when The Stack was
abandoned, he moved to his plantation at Beech land, near Camden, Arkansas,
where he died in 1852.

   When the Buckners came to Muhlenberg they brought with them the cradle in
which their son Simon Bolivar and their older children had been rocked as
babies. When they left the county Mrs. Buckner presented the old cradle to her
friend Mrs. John Adair Allison, who handed it down to her daughter, Mrs. W.
Britton Davis, in whose family it has since remained. It is thirty-nine inches
long, sixteen inches wide and about fifteen inches deep. It seems to be of
yellow poplar, put together with wrought iron or "shop" nails, and is typical of
the cradles of the olden days. The rockers are off, and a stool that went with
it has been lost.

   A few years after the Buckner Furnace had been abandoned and the Buckners had
vacated the large house, it was occupied by Alexander Hendrie, known as "Scotch
Henry," who was then looking after the interests of R. S. C. A. Alexander. On a
piece of land he cleared north of The Stack, about 1853, and on which he raised
several crops of corn, the original ridges can still be easily traced in spite
of the heavy second growth of timber now scattered over them. For a short time
"Scotch Henry" was associated with J. Jack Robertson in the milling business.
Their grist and saw mill was located on Pond Creek, on what is known to-day as
the Welborn farm or the Jack Robertson old place. The well-known "Jack Ford" in
this immediate neighborhood, now used by Carter's Creek Church as a baptizing
place, derives its name from the fact that in olden times the farmers forded the
creek there on their way to Jack's Mill. This mill was in operation until 1864,
although Alexander Hendrie had withdrawn about ten years before. [5]

   The Buckner house was next occupied by Joseph Turner. He was followed by
Alfred Johnson, the famed stone-mason and chimney builder. At the age of eighty
"Uncle Alf," or "Old Honesty" as he was called, was baptized in "Jack Ford." In
his later days, although he had grown old in years he remained young in spirit.
A peculiar thing about him was that up to the time of his death (1896, aged
eighty-five) his mustache remained black, although the hair on his head had been
white for a quarter of a century. [6]

   Among those who occupied the famous old Buckner house after Alfred Johnson
were James P. Drake, Isaac, Joe, and Ben Mitchell, James Dune, Eli Skipworth,
Ferney and Hutson Driskell, Plunket Parnham, William Warren, and J. F. Driskell.
Stanford Lee was the last man to make this noted house his home. He left about
1875, after which the deserted place soon began to collapse. The last of the old
logs and chimney rocks were removed in 1890, and since that time nothing but a
few broken stones have marked this historic spot. In 1880 Tom B. Johnson built a
substantial log house on the Furnace land near The Stack, for the erection of
which he procured much material from the abandoned Buckner house. There it
stands to-day. "The Stack House," as it is called, is by no means as large as
the original or of the same design. Although put up many years after the days of
the early settler, it is a good type of the log house built in olden times.

   The ground on which The Stack was built was part of a six-hundred-acre survey
patented by James Weir, sr., and sold to Buckner and Churchill, who at the same
time purchased all the land in the neighborhood, making a total of forty-five
hundred acres. After they disposed of this tract it passed through several hands
and in 1851 was bought by R. S. C. A. Alexander, who shortly after procured
about twelve thousand acres on Green River near Paradise. In 1854, as is told in
another chapter, Alexander opened up the Airdrie mines. In 1865 General Buell
leased the mineral rights to all the Alexander lands for forty years, including
the Buckner Furnace tract. However, the mineral on the Buckner land was not
developed, for General Buell devoted his time to the Airdrie mines and furnace
on Green River, which had been abandoned ten years before. In 1890 all the
Alexander lands in Muhlenberg County were deeded to Alexander's sister, Mrs.
Lucy A. Waller, who in 1893 sold the Buckner Furnace tract, then about three
thousand acres, to Koerner Brothers, of Indiana, who cut staves off it for a few
years. It was while connected with this company that Alvin L. Taylor and a
number of others came from Indiana and settled in the county. [7] The land has
since changed owners a number of times, and is now the property of the Rothert
family, of which I am a member. Although the place is reduced somewhat in size,
the original six-hundred-acre survey on a portion of which the ruins of The
Stack stand is still a part of what for three quarters of a century has been
known as the Buckner tract or Furnace land, this history of which it has given
me pleasure to write.


ENDNOTES


   [1] The first iron furnace in Kentucky was the Bourbon Furnace, built in Bath
County in 1791. Iron ore was not discovered in Western Kentucky until about a
quarter of a century later. A few years previous to 1837 iron ore had been found
in Trigg, Lyon, Hart, and Livingston counties and near Mud River, and was being
worked at a number of furnaces when Buckner and Churchill began The Stack. It
was at Eddyville, Lyon County, that William Kelly, in 1851, discovered the
so-called Bessemer process, which entirely revolutionized the steel industry.


   [2] Pond Creek is the longest creek within the bounds of Muhlenberg County.
It rises in the Friendship Neighborhood, near the church, and flows into Green
River near Paradise.


   [3] This was the first of the legal hangings that have taken place in the
county, and is referred to in the chapter on "Slavery Days." The second, as
there stated, took place in 1850, and the third in 1853. The fourth and last was
the hanging of Alexander Harrison on August 9, 1906. All were negroes, and all
but Isaac were convicted of criminal assault.


   [4] Squire John Jenkins was one of twelve children of pioneer Amos Jenkins,
who is now represented in the county by many descendants. Pioneer Amos Jenkins
was born in 1784 and came to Muhlenberg in 1810, where he died in 1839. His
wife, Grace Dearing, was born in 1788 and died near Olive Grove Church in 1883.
They were the parents of (1) Mrs. Elizabeth (Henry) Bivins, (2) John, (3) Henry,
(4) Robert, (5) Mrs. Parky (Joseph) Gates, (6) Mrs. Sally (Henry) Gates, (7)
Lemuel Harvey, (8) Mrs. Julia (Jonathan) Shutt, (9) Mrs. Jane (Frank) Gray, (10)
Thomas, (11) Alney McLean, and (12) Miss Mahala Jenkins.

   John Jenkins, better known as Squire Jenkins, was born July 7, 1807, and died
May 11, 1885. He was one of the best-known and most progressive men in the
southern part of the county, where he owned large tracts of land. He was
frequently called the Lord of the Long Creek Country. Among his ten children is
Amos M. Jenkins, who was born December 22, 1832.


   [5] James Jackson Robertson was born in South Carolina in 1802 and died at
his home on Pond Creek July 31, 1871. About the year 1810 he came to Muhlenberg
with his father, pioneer Robert Robertson, who died near Carter's Creek Church
in 1843. Robert Robertson was the father of (1) John, who married Charlotte
Wright; (2) Thomas, who married Elizabeth Craig; (3) James Jackson, who married
Susanna W. Campbell; (4) Mrs. Rachael (T. P.) Morton; and (5) Mrs. Jane (Eli)
Jackson. James Jackson Robertson was the father of seven children, among whom
are Thomas C. Robertson, Mrs. Nancy A. (Thomas M.) Finley, and Mary Lura
Robertson, whose first husband was W. G. Claggett.

   John Robertson's wife, Charlotte, was a daughter of pioneers John and
Elizabeth Grigsby Wright, who came to Muhlenberg about 1808, where they died in
1864. Although John Wright left no son to perpetuate his name, he nevertheless
is a forefather of more people in southern Muhlenberg than any other pioneer.
All of his six daughters, except Lucy, became mothers of large families. (1)
Charlotte, as just stated, married John Robertson; (2) Winnie married Alfred
Johnson; (3) Lourana married John Jenkins; (4) Elizabeth married Isaac Bodine;
(5) Jane, whose first husband was Moses Smith and her second Peter Smith; (6)
Lucy married Lewis McCown.



Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

A HISTORY OF MUHLENBERG COUNTY
BY

OTTO A. ROTHERT
Member of The Filson Club. Kentucky State Historical Society, American
Historical Association, International Society of Archaeologists, etc.

JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY
INCORPORATED LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
1913


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ky/muhlenberg/history/1913/ahistory/xvistory216gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/kyfiles/