Washington, Kentucky
Encyclopedia
Washington is a village near the Ohio River
in Mason County
in the U.S. state
of Kentucky
. It is one of the earliest settlements in Kentucky and also one of the earliest American settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. It played a significant role in the lead-up to the Civil War, producing two civil war generals (one Union and one Confederate) and an escaped slave whose legal case established Canada as a safe haven for escaping slaves. It also provided the site where Harriet Beecher Stowe witnessed a slave auction. It has since been annexed by Maysville, Kentucky
, and is sometimes now referred to as Old Washington.
. The land on which it was laid out was purchased by Fox and Wood from Simon Kenton
, the original explorer and settler of the area who at that time lived close by. The town was founded as Washington, Virginia since in 1786 Kentucky did not yet exist as a separate state. It is believed that Washington is the first settlement named for George Washington.
Many of the original settlers were revolutionary war veterans and 17 such veterans are known to be buried in Washington. The 1790 Census listed 462 residents, including 21 slaves and was the second largest town in the future state of Kentucky. Only Lexington was larger. One of the early settlers was Captain Thomas Marshall, a revolutionary war soldier and brother of John Marshall
, who later became Chief Justice. Captain Marshall's father and mother later joined him in Washington and they all lived and eventually died at the Marshall Home, which is still standing on Green Street.
The first post office west of the Appalachian Mountains was established in Washington in 1789. This post office initially served the whole Northwest Territory including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The third postmaster was William Murphy, who built a large house which is still standing (the Murphy-Lashbrooke-Wood-Moose House) on Old Main Street. The original post office was in the front yard but was torn down in 1948.
Thornton Blackburn
was a slave of William Murphy and lived in his house between 1815 and 1824. He later moved to Hardinsburg, Kentucky and then Louisville, from which he escaped with his wife to Detroit. In Detroit, he was arrested as a fugitive slave but after a riot he and his wife escaped to Canada, across the Detroit River. While Canada did not accept slavery, it did return criminals to the US. His owners tried to get him back from Canada by arguing in a Canadian court that he was a criminal for having escaped and participated in the Detroit Riot. However, they lost this case which also established the precedent that it would be very difficult to show that escaped slaves charged as criminals in the US had done sufficiently serious crimes for them to be returned to the US as slaves. Thus Thornton's case confirmed that escaped slaves were free and safe once they got to Canada and that it was a safe terminus for the underground railroad. Also this was the first piece of refugee law ever established on Canadian soil and is foundational to Canadian extradition law today. After confirming his freedom in Canada, Thornton moved to Toronto, where he set up the first horse-drawn taxi service and was moderately affluent. Even today the Toronto City Public Transport uses the colors, yellow and red, that Thornton established for his taxi service.
Washington achieved national attention in 1830 when on May 27 President Andrew Jackson
vetoed a bill passed by Congress which would have allowed the Federal Government to purchase stock in the Maysville-Washington-Lexington Turnpike Road Company. (This is the so-called Maysville Road Veto
.) This road would have connected Lexington with Washington and the Ohio River at Maysville and would have been part of the national Cumberland Road System. However, President Jackson saw it purely as an intrastate road benefiting the state of his rival, Henry Clay, and vetoed it.
In 1833, Washington had a visitor who would become famous, Harriet Beecher, who after her marriage was known as Harriet Beecher Stowe
. At the time of her visit, she was still Harriet Beecher and teaching at the Western Female Institute in Cincinnati. She came to Washington to visit a student, Elizabeth Key, and saw a slave auction in front of the old courthouse in Washington. This auction and her other experiences with slavery led her to write Uncle Tom's Cabin
, which has a number of references to Washington. The character of Topsy
in Uncle Tom's Cabin is thought to be modeled on a woman who lived in Washington, initially as a slave and then as a free person, Jane Anderson. The Key House where Harriet Beecher Stowe stayed is on Main Street in Washington and now contains a museum named the Harriet Beecher Stowe Slavery to Freedom Museum.
In 1803, Albert Sidney Johnston
was born in Washington, probably its most famous native. His father, Dr. John Johnston, was a physician and a native of Salisbury, Conn while his mother was from the Washington area. Johnston was educated at West Point. He served in the US Army 1826–1834 and then resigned and went first to Kentucky and then Texas. He served in the Army of the Republic of Texas from 1836 to 1840, rising to be senior brigadier general in command of the Army of Texas in 1837 and then Secretary of War for Texas in 1838. He later returned to the US Army serving in the Mexican–American war and the Utah War before taking command of the US Army Department of the Pacific in California. In 1861 he resigned from the US Army to join the Confederacy and was appointed commander of the Western Department. He died at the Battle of Shiloh
on April 6, 1862. His house in Washington is largely unchanged from when he lived there and is now a museum.
Following largely in the footsteps of General Johnston was General William "Bull" Nelson. His father, Dr. Thomas Nelson, was also a doctor in Washington; he lived in the same house in Washington that Johnston had lived in and attended the same church (Washington Presbyterian). Nelson also went to West Point but when the war broke out he sided with the Union. He was on the opposite side at the Battle of Shiloh when Johnston was killed and was himself killed in a duel with a fellow Union Officer later in 1862.
Charles William Forman
(1821–1894), the founder of Forman Christian College University in Lahore, Pakistan (now known as FCCU), was also a native of Washington. He went to Princeton Theological School and then was sent in 1847 by the Washington Presbyterian Church and the Ebenezer Presbytery to be a missionary in India. He ended up in the Punjab where he established the first English-speaking school which developed into one of Pakistan's leading universities. Among its graduates are two Presidents of Pakistan (Farooq Ahmed Leghari and Pervez Musharraf
) and one prime minister of Pakistan (Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
) and one of India (Inder Kumar Gujral
). He also had 10 children by two wives, of whom five were missionaries to India. The ruins of the old Forman Houme are still visible on a golf course in Washington. The Washington Presbyterian Church, which sponsored Charles Forman, still exists although the current building dates from 1871.
Other noteworthy people who lived in Washington during the first half of the 1800s include Lorrin Andrews
, who taught school in Washington, married a local girl, Mary Wilson, and went on to found what became the University of Hawaii. Also, Zachary Taylor
was briefly a military recruiter in Washington before going on to his successful military career and becoming the 12th President of the United States.
The importance of Washington began to diminish in the l840s as Maysville, which was on the Ohio River, replaced it as the largest town and in 1848 replaced it as the county seat of Mason County. The town has grown little since the 1840s. Much of the old part of Washington remains as it did in the late 18th century and early 19th century, with many log cabins remaining. There are five museums including the Albert Sidney Johnson/Bull Nelson House, the Marshall Key House where Harriet Beecher Stowe stayed when she saw the slave auction and a 1787 log cabin called Mefford's Fort. Washington has a historic district
listed on the National Register of Historic Places
. It is also now a suburb of Maysville.
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
in Mason County
Mason County, Kentucky
Mason County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2000, the population was 16,800. Its county seat is Maysville. The county is named for George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention, known as the "Father of the Bill of Rights"...
in the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
. It is one of the earliest settlements in Kentucky and also one of the earliest American settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. It played a significant role in the lead-up to the Civil War, producing two civil war generals (one Union and one Confederate) and an escaped slave whose legal case established Canada as a safe haven for escaping slaves. It also provided the site where Harriet Beecher Stowe witnessed a slave auction. It has since been annexed by Maysville, Kentucky
Maysville, Kentucky
Maysville is a city in and the county seat of Mason County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 8,993 at the 2000 census, making it the fiftieth largest city in Kentucky by population. Maysville is on the Ohio River, northeast of Lexington. It is the principal city of the Maysville...
, and is sometimes now referred to as Old Washington.
History
Washington was founded in 1786 by Arthur Fox, a Revolutionary War soldier from Virginia, and William Wood, a Baptist preacher, also from Virginia. The first trustees included Daniel BooneDaniel Boone
Daniel Boone was an American pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman whose frontier exploits mad']'e him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of...
. The land on which it was laid out was purchased by Fox and Wood from Simon Kenton
Simon Kenton
Simon Kenton was a famous United States frontiersman and friend of Daniel Boone, Simon Girty, Spencer Records and Isaac Shelby.-Family and early life:Simon Kenton was alive even before Ohio was a state...
, the original explorer and settler of the area who at that time lived close by. The town was founded as Washington, Virginia since in 1786 Kentucky did not yet exist as a separate state. It is believed that Washington is the first settlement named for George Washington.
Many of the original settlers were revolutionary war veterans and 17 such veterans are known to be buried in Washington. The 1790 Census listed 462 residents, including 21 slaves and was the second largest town in the future state of Kentucky. Only Lexington was larger. One of the early settlers was Captain Thomas Marshall, a revolutionary war soldier and brother of John Marshall
John Marshall
John Marshall was the Chief Justice of the United States whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches...
, who later became Chief Justice. Captain Marshall's father and mother later joined him in Washington and they all lived and eventually died at the Marshall Home, which is still standing on Green Street.
The first post office west of the Appalachian Mountains was established in Washington in 1789. This post office initially served the whole Northwest Territory including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The third postmaster was William Murphy, who built a large house which is still standing (the Murphy-Lashbrooke-Wood-Moose House) on Old Main Street. The original post office was in the front yard but was torn down in 1948.
Thornton Blackburn
Thornton Blackburn
Thornton Blackburn and his wife Lucie were escaped slaves from Louisville, Kentucky. They had been settled in Detroit, Michigan, for two years when, in 1833, Kentucky slave hunters located, re-captured, and arrested the couple...
was a slave of William Murphy and lived in his house between 1815 and 1824. He later moved to Hardinsburg, Kentucky and then Louisville, from which he escaped with his wife to Detroit. In Detroit, he was arrested as a fugitive slave but after a riot he and his wife escaped to Canada, across the Detroit River. While Canada did not accept slavery, it did return criminals to the US. His owners tried to get him back from Canada by arguing in a Canadian court that he was a criminal for having escaped and participated in the Detroit Riot. However, they lost this case which also established the precedent that it would be very difficult to show that escaped slaves charged as criminals in the US had done sufficiently serious crimes for them to be returned to the US as slaves. Thus Thornton's case confirmed that escaped slaves were free and safe once they got to Canada and that it was a safe terminus for the underground railroad. Also this was the first piece of refugee law ever established on Canadian soil and is foundational to Canadian extradition law today. After confirming his freedom in Canada, Thornton moved to Toronto, where he set up the first horse-drawn taxi service and was moderately affluent. Even today the Toronto City Public Transport uses the colors, yellow and red, that Thornton established for his taxi service.
Washington achieved national attention in 1830 when on May 27 President Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
vetoed a bill passed by Congress which would have allowed the Federal Government to purchase stock in the Maysville-Washington-Lexington Turnpike Road Company. (This is the so-called Maysville Road Veto
Maysville Road veto
The Maysville Road veto occurred on May 27, 1830, when President Andrew Jackson vetoed a bill which would allow the Federal government to purchase stock in the Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington Turnpike Road Company, which had been organized to construct a road linking Lexington and the...
.) This road would have connected Lexington with Washington and the Ohio River at Maysville and would have been part of the national Cumberland Road System. However, President Jackson saw it purely as an intrastate road benefiting the state of his rival, Henry Clay, and vetoed it.
In 1833, Washington had a visitor who would become famous, Harriet Beecher, who after her marriage was known as Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
. At the time of her visit, she was still Harriet Beecher and teaching at the Western Female Institute in Cincinnati. She came to Washington to visit a student, Elizabeth Key, and saw a slave auction in front of the old courthouse in Washington. This auction and her other experiences with slavery led her to write Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
, which has a number of references to Washington. The character of Topsy
Topsy
Topsy may refer to:* Topsy, Oklahoma* Topsy and Eva , a film based on Uncle Tom's Cabin* Topsy , a circus animal* Topsy and Tim, a children's book series* Mitsubishi Ki-57, an aircraft* A character in the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin...
in Uncle Tom's Cabin is thought to be modeled on a woman who lived in Washington, initially as a slave and then as a free person, Jane Anderson. The Key House where Harriet Beecher Stowe stayed is on Main Street in Washington and now contains a museum named the Harriet Beecher Stowe Slavery to Freedom Museum.
In 1803, Albert Sidney Johnston
Albert Sidney Johnston
Albert Sidney Johnston served as a general in three different armies: the Texas Army, the United States Army, and the Confederate States Army...
was born in Washington, probably its most famous native. His father, Dr. John Johnston, was a physician and a native of Salisbury, Conn while his mother was from the Washington area. Johnston was educated at West Point. He served in the US Army 1826–1834 and then resigned and went first to Kentucky and then Texas. He served in the Army of the Republic of Texas from 1836 to 1840, rising to be senior brigadier general in command of the Army of Texas in 1837 and then Secretary of War for Texas in 1838. He later returned to the US Army serving in the Mexican–American war and the Utah War before taking command of the US Army Department of the Pacific in California. In 1861 he resigned from the US Army to join the Confederacy and was appointed commander of the Western Department. He died at the Battle of Shiloh
Shiloh
Shiloh, Shilo, or Silo may refer to:In religion:*Shiloh , a city in the Ephraim hill-country said to contain the Ark of the Covenant*Shiloh , a figure of contested meaning mentioned in the Hebrew Bible...
on April 6, 1862. His house in Washington is largely unchanged from when he lived there and is now a museum.
Following largely in the footsteps of General Johnston was General William "Bull" Nelson. His father, Dr. Thomas Nelson, was also a doctor in Washington; he lived in the same house in Washington that Johnston had lived in and attended the same church (Washington Presbyterian). Nelson also went to West Point but when the war broke out he sided with the Union. He was on the opposite side at the Battle of Shiloh when Johnston was killed and was himself killed in a duel with a fellow Union Officer later in 1862.
Charles William Forman
Charles William Forman
Charles William Forman was the founder of Forman Christian College, a private university in Lahore, Pakistan.-Early life:Charles William Forman was born on March 3, 1821 in Washington, Kentucky, United States. After entering the family business manufacturing hemp, he was converted at a revival...
(1821–1894), the founder of Forman Christian College University in Lahore, Pakistan (now known as FCCU), was also a native of Washington. He went to Princeton Theological School and then was sent in 1847 by the Washington Presbyterian Church and the Ebenezer Presbytery to be a missionary in India. He ended up in the Punjab where he established the first English-speaking school which developed into one of Pakistan's leading universities. Among its graduates are two Presidents of Pakistan (Farooq Ahmed Leghari and Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
) and one prime minister of Pakistan (Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain is a politician from Pakistan who was the Prime Minister of that country from June 30, 2004 until August 28 2004...
) and one of India (Inder Kumar Gujral
Inder Kumar Gujral
Inder Kumar Gujral served as the 12th Prime Minister of India. Gujral was the first PM to govern exclusively from the Rajya Sabha; , only he and Manmohan Singh have done so.-Early life:...
). He also had 10 children by two wives, of whom five were missionaries to India. The ruins of the old Forman Houme are still visible on a golf course in Washington. The Washington Presbyterian Church, which sponsored Charles Forman, still exists although the current building dates from 1871.
Other noteworthy people who lived in Washington during the first half of the 1800s include Lorrin Andrews
Lorrin Andrews
Lorrin Andrews was an early American missionary to Hawaii and judge. He opened the first post-secondary school for Hawaiians called Lahainaluna Seminary, prepared a Hawaiian dictionary and several works on the literature and antiquities of the Hawaiians. His students published the first newspaper,...
, who taught school in Washington, married a local girl, Mary Wilson, and went on to found what became the University of Hawaii. Also, Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...
was briefly a military recruiter in Washington before going on to his successful military career and becoming the 12th President of the United States.
The importance of Washington began to diminish in the l840s as Maysville, which was on the Ohio River, replaced it as the largest town and in 1848 replaced it as the county seat of Mason County. The town has grown little since the 1840s. Much of the old part of Washington remains as it did in the late 18th century and early 19th century, with many log cabins remaining. There are five museums including the Albert Sidney Johnson/Bull Nelson House, the Marshall Key House where Harriet Beecher Stowe stayed when she saw the slave auction and a 1787 log cabin called Mefford's Fort. Washington has a historic district
Historic district (United States)
In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...
listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. It is also now a suburb of Maysville.
Notable people
- Albert Sidney JohnstonAlbert Sidney JohnstonAlbert Sidney Johnston served as a general in three different armies: the Texas Army, the United States Army, and the Confederate States Army...
, ( 1803–1862) Commander of the Army of the Republic of Texas, Secretary of War for Texas, Commander of the Western Department for the Confederacy. Died at the battle of Shiloh - Thornton BlackburnThornton BlackburnThornton Blackburn and his wife Lucie were escaped slaves from Louisville, Kentucky. They had been settled in Detroit, Michigan, for two years when, in 1833, Kentucky slave hunters located, re-captured, and arrested the couple...
, ( 1812–1890) Escaped slave whose case confirmed Canada as a safe haven for escaping slaves - Charles William FormanCharles William FormanCharles William Forman was the founder of Forman Christian College, a private university in Lahore, Pakistan.-Early life:Charles William Forman was born on March 3, 1821 in Washington, Kentucky, United States. After entering the family business manufacturing hemp, he was converted at a revival...
(1821–1894) Missionary and founder of Forman Christian College University(FCCU) in Lahore Pakistan - William "Bull" Nelson (1824-1862), Union Civil War General
- Harriet Beecher StoweHarriet Beecher StoweHarriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
( 1811–1896) Abolitionist and Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin - Marshall Key, Kentucky Statesman and Politician
- David Horace CliftDavid Horace CliftDavid Horace Clift was a noted American librarian and former chief executive of the American Library Association from 1951 to 1972.He was named by the ALA as one of the 100 Most Important [Library] Leaders of the 20th Century.-Biography:...
, 1907-1972 notable librarianLibrarianA librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...
and Chief Executive of the American Library AssociationAmerican Library AssociationThe American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
,
External links
- http://www.washingtonky.com
- http://www.cityofmaysville.com
- Old Washington from the U.S. Geographic Names Information SystemGeographic Names Information SystemThe Geographic Names Information System is a database that contains name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features located throughout the United States of America and its territories. It is a type of gazetteer...