Historical Marker of the Week: Lincoln Homestead State Park

by Josh



Lincoln Homestead State Park
Kentucky Historical Marker 2297

Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the parents of future president Abraham Lincoln, were married near here on June 12, 1806. Shortly after their wedding, the couple moved to Elizabethtown, where their daughter, Sarah, was born. The family eventually lived near Hodgenville, where Abraham Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809.

Nancy died of milk sickness in 1818, when Abraham was 9 years old. His father, a farmer and carpenter, died in Ill. in 1851. Mordecai Lincoln, Abraham’s uncle, lived a half-mile south of here. Mordecai also moved to Ill., and, Lincoln wrote, “I often saw Uncle Mordecai.” Lincoln Homestead State Park was established 1936.

This is not the birthplace of Lincoln! If you go to this park do not ask if Lincoln was born here unless you love eye rolls. He was born in Hodgenville, KY located in Larue County.

So why is this a state park then? Because Lincoln was so famous they even gave things remotely related to him a park. His parents were married near here and his uncle who died when Lincoln was just in his early twenties lived close by for a while. If the presidents were The Beatles, Lincoln would be John, Paul, George, and Ringo.


Not even with a top hat.

I mean how many parks did James Buchanan get? One. His Parents? Zip. Suck on that Harding.


Oops, looks like you already did.

I had the opportunity to explore Lincoln Homestead Park with two Haltermons, Becky and Laurie, and a soon to be Haltermon, Alex Morris. (I am assuming he is taking Laurie's name just to be more googleable.)


The one and only Alex Morris Haltermon

We wore top hats.


Warning: Do not stare directly into the eyes.

We looked at stuff.




And what great monument could we possibly build to begin to show our gratitude to the woman who birthed our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln?


You gave us Lincoln, we give you rocks.

We stood on things.


Yeah, I conquered it.

There were cabins.


This is a replica of the cabin that Lincoln's father,Thomas lived until he was 25.

We crossed a bridge!


Just what the internet needs, more pictures of Becky.

Birthplace or not, a fun trip was had by all. Look for a future post with the exciting story behind milk sickness. Stay tuned!

Historical Marker of the Week: Grant County

by Josh



Grant County
Kentucky Historical Marker 0942

Formed from Pendleton County in 1820. Named for two brothers who came from N.C., 1779, established Grant's Station, Fayette County. John developed salt works on the Licking River. Samuel was killed by Indians in Indiana in 1794. William Arnold donated courthouse site. Williamstown named for him, a Capt. in Revolution and Lieut. in Maumee Indian Campaign of 1790.

-Was the 67th county formed in Kentucky.
-Major cities and towns includes Corinth, Crittenden, Dry Ridge and the county seat, Williamstown.
-It's population is around 25,000.
-It's landmass is 260 square miles.

Kentucky has 120 counties, all of which have a historical marker describing how they were formed and named. Out of those, I have only spent a significant amount of time in about six counties. Grant is one of those.

Grant County was home to the big grocery and department stores that were closest to where I grew up. Most of what passed through or was worn on my body from the time I was 16 came from Grant County.

They had a Wal-Mart, IGA, Save-A-Lot, and eventually, an outlet mall. Grant County to me was like a New Jersey kid's New York. That place close by that has a lot of stuff.

When I was a kid, Wal-Mart was a rarity and Grant County somehow had one. I remember walking through it's big blue and white facade and being tortured by clothes shopping before being allowed to peruse the all-important comics and toys. I can still name many of the toys, comics, and video games I purchased within those walls.


This is not one of the comics I bought there but it should have been.


Now for a more official history.


The Grant County courthouse located in Williamstown.

Grant County was formed on April 1, 1820 from parts of Pendelton County and seems to have one of three possible reasons for its name. The three possible reasons also happen to be brothers, brothers who also just happen to have a very famous Uncle, Daniel Boone.

1. The youngest brother, Squire (probably named after Squire Boone) lived in Campbell county and served in the State Senate from 1801 till 1806.

2. The middle brother, Samuel, was a surveyor and was killed by Indians.

3. The oldest brother, Colonel John Grant, was from North Carolina and in 1779, established Grant's station. However, hostility from Indians drove the entire original party away when the station was attacked and burned down in 1780. Colonel Grant left but returned in 1784 to rebuild it.

My money is that the county was indirectly named after Colonel John Grant and was probably more named after the fort which bore his name. However Grant's Lick is directly named after him, as this is where he established himself after selling his land at Grant's Station in the 1790's.


There should be more videos like this online and less of...everything else.

And that concludes the origin of Grant County. Now I would like to begin a feature that I plan to continue on every county's historical marker I feature.

My five interesting factoids about Grant County

5. Survivor: The Australian Outback contestant Rodger Bingham lives in Crittenden. This is close to where my parents lived so I remember hearing a lot about "Kentucky Joe," as he was nicknamed. He would eat at the Subway and watch the new episode whenever it debuted. He's a very nice guy who even has an overpass named after him. Also he was on my crazy little public access talk show once.


Yes, feel sorry for him.

4. The Old Church on the Dry Ridge


Squire Boone preached here.

3. The Grant County News was against the Nineteenth Amendment. I am sure many newspapers of the day were but I still find their statement about it funny. From the Grant County News January 6, 1922.

2. World's Smallest Mother record holder, Stacey Herald, lives in Dry Ridge, KY.


The world's smallest picture for the World's Smallest Mother

1. Famous country singer Skeeter Davis was born in Dry Ridge. She will certainly get her own blog entry but for now, here is a video of her performing "The End of The World."


"The End of the World" for the end of the blog. Boy, I am clever.

The Better Half of the Final Four

by Callie

Well, wouldn't you know it - of those 7 local teams, 3 made it to Final Four. And! 2 are from here in Kentucky - so congratulations to the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville basketball teams!

And as soon as the UK/Baylor game ended on Sunday afternoon, the Facebook posts were about nothing but the impending game between the University and Kentucky and the University of Louisville - on Saturday at 6:00pm!

The first, most proud, and most unifying of these posts was:



But it wasn't long before all of these started (these are two of my favorites):





So, it appears as if most of my Facebook friends are a bit biased.

The annual regular season game between these two teams is aptly named "The Battle of the Bluegrass" and it dates back to their first meeting in 1913. It wasn't until the 1980's that they started playing one another each year, though. (I don't understand the divisions and conferences and stuff like that so I'm not going to pretend I do.) Of 43 games, UK has won 29 of them leaving only 14 for the poor Cards. Of all of these games, only 4 of them have been NCAA tournament games (and they each have 2 W's in that category). Saturday will be the very first time these two teams have ever met in the Final Four! I think this counts as Kentucky history, don't you?

So, although it might be silly for a girl that has gone to nearly every school BUT either of these, I'm ridiculously excited to watch it all go down. And, again, I'd sure like UK to win. I think it has something to do with their name...

Unusually Kentucky

by Josh

As far as I can remember I have always had at least slight interest in Kentucky history. Something though that really deepened my affection was the blog





I loved this site. Daily I would obsessively check it for updates. It is one of the very few blogs that I have read every entry.

Not only was it a place with many a story about the old Bluegrass state but one that focused on the weird. Being a Kentuckian and having been a child with several "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" books, it was almost as if this blog was written for me. They covered topics from "Underwater Cemeteries" to "Naked Civil War Battle" to "Abraham Lincoln, Spiritualist?," and everything in-between.

It was written by Jeffrey Scott Holland a Kentucky artist who probably deserves his own blog entry some day.













Holland, seen here karate chopping a photographer.

He also wrote the Kentucky entry in the Weird series of books.























Unfortunately he took a hiatus from Unusual Kentucky in July of last year but he has a hundreds of great posts archived to peruse. I encourage you to check it out.


*Bonus Round*
He uh at least slightly angered the Creation Museum as Ken Ham himself addressed Holland in his blog entry called Weird "Journalism." Really Mr.Ham? You should be ashamed of yourself. The best blog title you could come up with was Weird "Journalism?" Come on! I mean just look at my genius blog title. Ashamed...


*Second Bonus Round*
"Jeffery Scott Helliond"
"Big Bang Weary"
"The Ark: Bigger on the Inside"
"I HAVE a dinosaur you can ride"
Uh, I think I lost focus somewhere. Feel free to comment with better blog titles decrying Jeffery Scott Holland for his Weird Kentucky book!

A Delinquent Blogger Talks March Madness

-by Callie

Up here in Northern Kentucky, we cannot escape the March Madness excitement. After all, 7 or the Sweet 16 NCAA basketball teams are from right around here. (Ohio: OSU, OU, UC, and Xavier. Kentucky: UK and UL. Indiana: IU.) Eventually they’ll all eliminate one another but, for the time being, people all over the area are having conflicting feelings. And, unfortunately, I’m one of them – over one game in particular.

On Friday night at 9:45 in Atlanta, GA, the #4 seed Indiana University (27-8) takes on the #1 seed University of Kentucky (34-2).

Now, I’m not a basketball maniac, but I have many fond childhood memories of watching UK basketball in the 1990’s when they were led by Rick Pitino. Our teachers would even let us watch the UK tournament games during class time if we promised to be quiet and do our work at the same time. While they’ve made it to the tournament for all but one year since 1992, they haven’t won since 1998.

And Indiana University… Well, that’s my school. I am an officially enrolled graduate student at Indiana University, although I’m living in Kentucky. Growing up in KY, I always hated IU out of principle and laughed at jokes about how stupid those Hoosiers are. I couldn’t predict that a life in Rabbit Hash would one day lead me to pursue a PhD in Folklore and that the only place in the US to do that is IU.

Up until becoming a student there, I have no recollection of how well the basketball team performed. All I remember is that they had an angry coach named Bobby Knight who was eventually fired. And didn’t he throw chairs?



Yep!

I also remember that during my first year at IU, the basketball coach was fired because of recruitment violations. It was quite a shame since they were doing pretty well that year. They have struggled since so I lost interest while I was living up there (unless I happened to find myself standing next to one of the players on the campus busses, admiring both his height and his fancy noise cancelling headphones). Anyway, it appears that they’ve picked up the pace and are making their first Sweet 16 appearance since 2002.

IU basketball really piqued my interest, however, on December 10 when, thanks to my new smartphone, I was obsessively checking Facebook while out to dinner with Becky and her sister. On that night, I noticed a disturbance: my Kentucky friends were sad and my Indiana friends were happy, but all of them appeared to be rioting.

And here's why:



Incidentally, this was the same night that my Ohio friends were discussing the knock-down, drag-out Crosstown Shootout between two other Sweet 16 teams, UC and Xavier:



Anyway, while fans all over Kentucky were reacting like this:



I love this meme.

The Hoosiers were creating "rap" videos:



This game was UK's only loss all season (until that small matter of the SEC tournament game that they lost on March 11) and, because of that, Kentucky has been a pretty happy, blue-colored place to live.

So, here I am on my porch in Kentucky looking across the Ohio River at Indiana...



(with my dogs) in my camouflage UK hat and IU hoodie questioning my allegiance to both.

And after much pondering, it is now painfully aware to me that wherever I go and whatever school I attend or end up teaching for, I will always be a Kentucky girl - and with that comes the inevitable blue blood that happens to pulse through my veins every March.

So, sorry future alma mater and Go Big Blue! (Will this affect my grade...?)

A Page from the Kentucky Phrasebook:

by Becky




I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky.
- Abraham Lincoln

Historical Marker of the Week: Great River Tragedy

by Josh


Great River Tragedy
Kentucky Historical Marker 0720

At midnight of Dec. 4, 1868 two cabined passenger steamers plying between Louisville and Cincinnati collided two miles above Warsaw. The America rammed deeply into the United States. Barrelled coal oil on deck of latter caught fire enveloping both boats in flames, spreading over surface of river. 162 lives, $350,000 property lost in terrible Ohio River holocaust.

There is no historical marker that I have seen more in my life than this one. I remember passing it every morning on my way to my elementary school. It is only one of three markers in Gallatin county and also, as far as I know, the biggest thing to ever occur in Kentucky's smallest county (98.81 square miles).


Tidbit: This is the longest continually in use courthouse in all of Kentucky.

So, here's the story. On the night of Dec. 4, 1868, a steamboat named America collided with its sister ship, the United States. They were on the Ohio River, between the banks of Indiana and two miles to the north of Warsaw, Kentucky, the seat of Gallatin County.

The United States burst into flames that spread to the America. Both ships are said to have been destroyed in less than five minutes. To help the destruction, each ship was essentially a powder keg with cargo such as brooms, cotton, whiskey and bacon. (Is it too soon to say this was probably the most delicious smelling riverboat disaster ever?)

The closest home to the wreck was a half mile away on the Indiana side. Mr. Rahl, who owned the home, tried to help those stranded as much as he could. Fortunately, another boat made its way to the collision a couple of hours later and ferried the survivors to Warsaw were the citizens there took it upon themselves to help as much as possible.

The most famous passenger was Ole Bull (a very interesting fellow). Ole Bull was a famous Norwegian violinist and composer. Before he escaped the America, he made sure he had his violin and only then swam to shore. Reading a few of the crazy tidbits about him I would not be surprised if he was playing the violin while floating on his back to shore.



Although the historical marker seems to indicate that 162 people died from the boats, other sources I have checked seem to show around 80 actually perished. I am not sure if the Historical Society has information I cannot find or perhaps there was a typo and it represents the total number of passengers on the ships.

If this were a book I was reading and not a real event, I would be upset at the obvious symbolism of a boat named the America crashing into a boat named the United States near Kentucky, a state caught in the middle between the The South and The North in a post-Civil War country.

Being that it is real, all I can say is "wow."

See? History is always more surprising than anything you can imagine.

A postcard of the United States, obviously pre-collision.