Chapter M of the Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky

Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky in partnership with NKY.com Introduction | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z | Index

M

The Enquirer/Cara Owsley

MAIN STRASSE GERMAN VILLAGE. Main Strasse, which occupies the center of Covington’s old West End or West Side neighborhood, is a German-themed tourism district... (cont’d on pg. 576)

The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky Contents Introduction, Foreword, Acknowledgments and Guide for Readers Chapters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z Index, Bibliography, Illustration Credits

Edited by Paul A. Tenkotte and James C. Claypool THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Republished for the World Wide Web by NKY.com and Enquirer Media

A Project of the Thomas D. Clark Foundation, Inc. Mark A. Neikirk, President Sherry Jelsma, Vice President

Dave Adkisson, Treasurer Melanie J. Kilpatrick, Secretary

Thomas R. Brumley, Immediate Past President Michael J. Hammons, Past President

Dave Adkisson, Frankfort Jane Beshear, Frankfort Thomas R. Brumley, Lexington John S. Carroll, Lexington Sara W. Combs, Stanton

Board of Directors Michael J. Hammons, Park Hills Sherry Jelsma, Shelbyville Martha C. Johnson, Melbourne Mark A. Neikirk, Highland Heights Alice Stevens Sparks, Crescent Springs

Robert Ted Steinbock, Louisville Mrya Leigh Tobin, New York City James M. Wiseman, Erlanger

Editorial Staff Editors in Chief: Paul A. Tenkotte and James C. Claypool Associate Editors: David Hatter, John Schlipp, David E. Schroeder, Robert Stevie, Michael R. Sweeney, John W. Thieret (deceased), Thomas S. Ward, Jack Wessling Topical Editors: Agriculture: Lynn David & James Wallace; Art: Rebecca Bilbo; Biography: Michael R. Sweeney; Business & Commerce: John Boh; Counties & Towns: David E. Schroeder; Ethnology: Theodore H. H. Harris; Government, Law, & Politics: John Schlipp; Literature: Danny Miller (Deceased); Medicine: Dennis B. Worthen; Military: James A. Ramage; Music, Media, & Entertainment: John Schlipp; Religion: Thomas S. Ward & Alex Hyrcza; Sports & Recreation: James C. Claypool; Transportation Joseph F. Gastright (Deceased); Women: Karen Mcdaniel.

Maps: Jeff Levy at the Gyula Pauer Center for Cartography & GIS, University of Kentucky.

Copyright © 2009 by The University Press of Kentucky, 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, KY 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com.

Print editions: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Encyclopedia of northern Kentucky / edited by Paul A. Tenkotte and James C. Claypool. p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8131-2565-7 (hardcover : acid-free paper) ISBN 978-0-8131-2585-5 (limited leather edition) 1. Kentucky, Northern— Encyclopedias. 2. Kentucky— Encyclopedias. I. Tenkotte, Paul A. II. Claypool, James C. F451.E55 2009 976.9'3003—dc22 2009027969

MACHINE TOOLS. The steamboat traffic on the inland rivers of the United States, starting in 1811, accelerated the movement of farm commodities and the development of towns and cities and eventually inspired a strong machine-tool industry.

In 1826 Cincinnati had six iron foundries and two steam-engine builders. By 1850 Cincinnati was the second-largest city west of the Allegheny Mountains, and was also prominent in the output of manufactured goods. By 1817 at least one Cincinnati firm was using “lathes and a boring mill”; by 1851 a Cincinnati company was building its own “planing machines.” After the Civil War, new enterprises sprang up that specialized in machine tools.

Cincinnati’s strong steamboat industry prompted related businesses in Northern Kentucky. In 1852 A. B. Latta, a Ludlow inventor who owned the Buckeye Works, introduced in Cincinnati what was described as “the first practical steam fire engine.” Late in the 19th century, the Houston, Stanwood & Gamble Company began manufacturing steam engines and boilers in Covington.

That company sold engines for mills in Central America and for heating and use in commercial laundries in the United States. Electrification was, at the time, rapidly replacing steam, but in 1915 the Houston, Stanwood & Gamble Company received a $200,000 war order for lathes to be used to produce steam engines.

By 1900 Cincinnati’s commercial successes in the machine tool industry were spilling into Northern Kentucky. Newport listed in its 1900 city business directory, under the category of machinists, Henry F. Buecker (see Buecker Iron Works), Frank Osburg, and William Roettinger and Son. Covington in the same year listed the Anthe Machine Works, the H. J. Averbeck Company, and the Sebastian Lathe Company. The 1926–1927 Covington business directory included the Anthe Machine Works, the Averbeck Machine Company, the Avey Drilling Machine Company, the Precision Truing Machine and Tool Company, the Willard Machine Tool Company, and other shops.

The Avey Drilling Company enjoyed a national reputation, as did other similar companies in Northern Kentucky. The Avey firm started as the Cincinnati Pulley Machine Company and then was moved to Covington in 1910. In 1913, after a devastating fire, the firm chose to stay and build a new plant in Covington on Third St. between Scott St. and Madison Ave. In 1919 the business was renamed the Avey Drilling Machine Company. It prospered during World War II and grew to 157 employees by 1956. Its machine tools were sold worldwide to corporations such as Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, International Business Machines, Pratt and Whitney, and Westinghouse. In 1957 the

Avey Drilling Machine Company became a division of the Motch and Merryweather Company of Cleveland, Ohio, a firm that claimed to be the largest distributor of machine tools in the world. The Avey Drilling Machine Company made special transfer and indexing machines and drilling, reaming, and tapping tools. In 1965 it built a large addition at its plant in Covington. In 1966 it participated in a federal job training program for the operating of lathes, cutter-grinders, jig borers, milling machines, and radial drills. In 1975 word came that the company might close. After the City of Covington proposed issuing industrial revenue bonds to save jobs, the Cross Company from Fraser, Mich., a large builder of automated tools, purchased the Covington-based firm. In 1976 the Cross Company oversaw a strike at its plant in Covington. In 1981 Cross employed 81 workers and was specializing in metal cutting tools. By 1982 layoffs had reduced the number of employees to 20; the business was closed in 1983 and the plant was demolished in 1985.

Another major toolmaker in Covington suffered the same fate as the Avey Drilling and Machine Company in the decade of the 1980s. The Averbeck Machine Company and the Averbeck residence and shop buildings, plus all the buildings in the block just east of the John Roebling Bridge, were demolished in 1988. However, the Precision Truing Tool and Manufacturing Company, General Machinery, still operates at 13 E. 16th St., Covington. Also, at 407 Madison Ave., the fourth generation of the Anthe family now oversees the Anthe Machine Works, which has specialized for years in woodworking tools, cutters, router bits, carving cutters, and cutter-shapers. The tools are customized for the furniture manufacturers that are prominent among the company’s 500 customers in the United States and Canada. Many small machine shops and factories also continue to operate today in Northern Kentucky.

Friedberg, Mary. “Toolmaker on Cutting Edge,” KP, April 23, 1996, 8K. Reis, Jim. “Avey Symbolized Industrial Base,” KP, November 14, 1994, 4K. ———. “Street Has Seen River of Change. Second Street Evolves as Center of Commerce,” KP, June 1, 1992, 4K. Wing, George A. “The History of the Cincinnati Machine-Tool Industry,” PhD diss. Indiana Univ., 1964.

John Boh

MACK, DAVID (b. October 7, 1972, Cincinnati, Ohio). Internationally acclaimed artist, writer, and comic book illustrator David Mack is the son of Wilson Grant and Ida May Mack. His father was an accomplished musician who played several instruments, and his mother taught first grade.

While growing up with modest resources, David and his brother Steven entertained themselves by making artworks and toys from recycled school supplies their mother brought home. David graduated from Ludlow High School in 1990 and from Northern Kentucky University at Highland Heights in 1995 with a BFA. He is the creator, au-

thor, and artist of the Kabuki Graphic Novels, the writer and artist of Daredevil from Marvel Comics, and the author and artist of the children’s book The Shy Creatures. Mack’s work has been nominated for six Eisner Awards, five International Eagle Awards, and both the Harvey and Kirby awards in the category of best new talent, and he has received many other national and international awards and nominations as well. Mack’s writings, some of which are autobiographical, show influences ranging from the early ancient Greek phi losophers to modern-day novelist-philosopher Kurt Vonnegut. Mack’s art is equally diverse. He is partial to using metaphors and symbolism in his publications, and the art Mack conveys thereby can range from mature portraiture and delicate line drawing to doodles and Picasso-like futuristic renderings. Consistently, his aim is to provoke thought through his writings and art. Mack has become one of the recognized spokesmen of the new generation of graphic and pop-culture artists, and he has a worldwide following. When not in Japan, where his Kabuki works are revered, or traveling to some other far-away place, he can be found living and working in the modest two-story frame home in Bromley that was once owned by his mother.

Mack, David. Interview by James C. Claypool, February 9, 2007, Bromley, Ky. Samples, Karen. “Artist Living in Quiet Fame,” KE, August 2, 1998, C1–C1B.

James C. Claypool

MACK, EDGAR L. (b. August 8, 1930, Pleasureville, Ky.; d. April 21, 1991, Brentwood, Tenn.).

Civil rights activist and religious leader Edgar Leroy Mack was the son of Edgar W. and Sarah L. Johnson Mack. He attended the Lincoln Institute at Shelbyville, Ky., and in 1953 graduated from Wilberforce College in Ohio. In 1955 he received an MA in divinity from Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio. Later he received an MA in social work from Ohio State University in Columbus. For most of his adult life, Mack was a leader in the NAACP and the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.). In 1963 he served as president of the Frankfort NAACP and as the leadership-training director for the Kentucky NAACP youth councils and college chapters. In 1964 he was made pastor at the St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Newport and was elected as the executive secretary of the Northern Kentucky NAACP. Mack was blessed with excellent organizational skills, which he used frequently in civil rights activities throughout the state. He served as cochairman of the Northern Kentucky organizing committee for the March 5, 1964, Freedom March on Frankfort, which featured Martin Luther King Jr. Mack was instrumental in taking 300 people from Northern Kentucky to that important civil rights event. In April 1968, soon after King was killed, Mack planned numerous memorial ser vices around Northern Kentucky and was active in quelling violent responses. In 1973 Mack was named chairman of the United Negro College Fund Advisory Committee in Cincinnati. He moved to Lexington, where he became pastor of the Quinn Chapel

574 MACK, LONNIE A.M.E. Church and a professor of social work at the University of Kentucky. Mack was named general secretary of the A.M.E. Church in 1980 and moved to the Nashville, Tenn., area. In that position he developed interdenominational relationships that created enduring church partnerships.

In 1988 he authored the book Our Beginning: The African Methodist Episcopal Church. Mack held his office within the A.M.E. Church until his death in 1991. He was buried at the Lexington Cemetery in Lexington.

African Methodist Episcopal Church. www.ame -church.com (accessed January 17, 2007).

“Funeral Obituary,” read at the Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church, Lexington, Ky., April 27, 1991.

“Mack Head of College Fund Unit,” CP, May 2, 1973, 29.

Papers of the NAACP. Microform version available at Univ. of Virginia Library, www.lib.virginia.edu (accessed January 14, 2007).

Reis, Jim. “King Marched in Frankfort in 1964,” KP, January 20, 2003, 4K.

Jim Embry

MACK, LONNIE (b. near Harrison, Ind., 1941).

Lonnie Mack became a road house blues-rock legend and rock music’s first true guitar hero. His connection with Northern Kentucky is that during the late 1950s and 1960s, he played at many of the local music venues, including Ben Kraft’s Guys ’n Dolls Club (today the Cold Spring Roadhouse) along U.S. 27 in Campbell Co. His 1963 instrumental version of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis” placed near the top of the charts. Mack continues to perform and even occasionally returns to play in Northern Kentucky. His style has influenced other musicians, such as Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In recent years there has been a resurgent interest in the career of Lonnie Mack, a performer who got his start in Northern Kentucky.

“King Records Legends Win Lifetime Cammys,” CE, February 10, 2002, E1.

“Mule Train: He’s Been a Rock ’n’ Roll Star, a Cult Hero, and an Influence on Some of the World’s Greatest.”

Cincinnati Magazine, October 1, 2000, 74.

“20 Years after Hittin Big Time . . . Pickin in the Clubs,” CE, January 8, 1983, C3.

MACKOY, WILLIAM H. (b. November 20, 1839, Covington, Ky. ; d. September 14, 1923, Covington, Ky.). Noted attorney and Covington city councilman William H. Mackoy was the son of John and Elizabeth G. Hardia Mackoy. William was educated in local schools and in 1865 began his legal education. He married Margaret Chambers Brent of Paris, Ky., in 1868, and they had four children, but only two lived to maturity. Mackoy was a founding member of the Cincinnati, Kenton Co., and Kentucky bar associations. He became a law partner with his son Harry in the Cincinnati firm of Mackoy and Mackoy. William served on the Covington City Council from 1883 to 1889. As a member of its law committee, he drafted the amendment that authorized construction of the Covington Reservoir in the District of the High-

lands (now Fort Thomas). William Mackoy retired in 1920 after 55 years as an attorney and moved to Lexington. However, after a short stay there, he returned to Covington to live with his son Harry.

William Mackoy died in 1923 and was buried in the Highland Cemetery in Fort Mitchell.

“William H. Mackoy Is Dead,” KP, September 14, 1923, 1.

MADISON AVE. Named after the fourth Kentucky governor, George Madison, who served in that office barely more than one month in 1817, Madison Ave. in Covington stretches from the Ohio River south to Latonia. Madison Pk., Ky. Rt. 17, continues the roadway to Pendleton Co. City officials once thought that Main St., on the western side of Covington, would live up to its name, but the city’s commercial district shifted eastward instead. Residential development toward the Licking River once led some officials to promote Scott Blvd. (today Scott St.) as Covington’s main thoroughfare. But the opening of the Covington and Lexington Railroad just west of Madison in 1854 relocated the commercial heart of Covington to Sixth, Pike, and Seventh Sts. at Madison Ave. In the late 1850s, the railroad built a round house at 13th St. and Madison Ave.; this, along with other developments, made Madison Ave. Covington’s fashionable main thoroughfare.

Selecting sites near Madison Ave. at the Ohio River, entrepreneurs started the Covington Cotton factory (1828), the Covington Rolling Mill, numerous tobacco processing firms, the Hemingray Glass Company (relocated from Cincinnati in 1852), and later the Walsh Distillery (1872) and an ice manufacturing company. In 1856 Amos Shinkle and others dedicated the landmark Odd Fellows Hall (see Independent Order of Odd Fellows). St. Elizabeth Hospital (see St. Elizabeth Medical Center) once occupied the former Western Baptist Theological Institute building on 11th St. near Madison Ave. Beginning about 1903, at 17th St., the famous Stewart Iron Works manufactured fences, jail equipment, iron furniture, and even trucks (1913–1928) for nationwide customers. The opening of the Latonia Racecourse for thoroughbred horse racing in 1883, and electric streetcar ser vice to it by 1892, further advanced the prominence of Madison Ave. The intersection of Madison Ave. and Sixth St. once was Northern Kentucky’s commercial banking center, and banks still occupy two of the corners. L. B. Wilson’s WCKY, a pioneer radio station that was later moved to Cincinnati, occupied an upper floor of the First National Bank building (see First National Bank and Trust Company of Covington). The Covington police station remains on the old streetcar barn site at 20th St. and Madison Ave. The imposing Holmes High School (formerly Covington High School) campus stands at 25th St. off Madison Ave. Madison Ave. intersects with busy east-west traffic arteries; however, many of the well-known and busy stores and businesses that once sat on Madison Ave. have closed. In recent years, the commercial district has been restored and redeveloped

as an arts and wedding district (see Covington, Downtown).

The Covington Odd Fellows Hall has been rebuilt to remain a distinctive landmark. City Hall now occupies the old Coppin’s Department Store building. The Madison Theater building (see Movie Theaters) has reopened as a performance hall in the 700 block of Madison Ave. Landwehr Hardware still does business in the 800 block of Madison Ave. Since the 1870s, Motch Jewelers has served customers at Pike St. and Madison Ave., and that firm owns the landmark Covington antique street clock. In 1987 the Stewart Iron Works resumed manufacturing fences and lawn furniture at its old site, at 17th St. and Madison Ave. Gastright, Joseph F. Gentleman Farmers to City Folks: A Study of Wallace Woods, Covington, Kentucky. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Historical Society, 1980.

Reis, Jim. “Madison Pike Named for Cousin of President,” KP, November 27, 2000, 4K. Smith, Allen Webb. Beginning at “the Point,” a Documented History of Northern Kentucky and Environs, the Town of Covington in Par ticular, 1751–1834. Park Hills, Ky.: Self-published, 1977.

John Boh

MADISON AVE. BAPTIST CHURCH. Located on the northeast corner of Madison Ave. and Robbins St. in Covington, the Madison Ave. Baptist Church was formed in 1857 by members of the First Baptist Church, Covington. Its organizational meeting was held on the property of the former Western Baptist Theological Institute (WBTI) in Covington, and its original name was John’s Baptist Church. Two ministers assisted the young congregation: Asa Drury, pastor of Dry Creek Baptist Church (see Lakeside Park) and a former professor at WBTI, and James A. Kirtley, a member of a family long associated with the Bullittsburg Baptist Church. The new church’s first pastor was Rev. Samuel Smith, who stayed until November 1859. In 1860–1861, the church fell prey to R. L. Jeff rey, who claimed to be a duly-trained minister from England. When his credentials were proven false, the congregation lost respect and lacked a full-time pastor for about six years. Despite a decline in membership from 57 in 1861 to 36 in 1867, the members persevered, purchased a lot on Russell St. in Covington in November 1866, renamed the congregation the Russell St. Baptist Church, and held ser vices temporarily at the Welch Mission on Lynn St. in Covington. Rethinking their decision, they purchased a lot at Madison Ave. and Robbins St. in June 1869, where they dedicated a new building on January 9, 1870, then becoming the Madison St. Baptist Church. A series of full-time pastors stayed for short periods of time, indicating that the congregation was still young and unable to offer a competitive salary. By 1877 the church had 196 members, but its membership rose and fell as other Baptist churches were formed in the city. In November 1884 the congregation changed its name to reflect the city’s renaming of Madison St. to Madison Ave.; the church was now Madison Ave. Baptist Church. In 1911 the congre-

MADISON AVE. CHRISTIAN CHURCH

gation decided to demolish their old building at Madison and Robbins and build a new one. The new, and present, church was dedicated on June 15, 1913.

Dr. Henry Dodson Allen served as pastor for nearly two decades, from 1919 until 1938. Under his direction, architect and church member Charles L. Hildreth designed a balcony for the church in 1921, as well as a three-story Sunday school addition to the rear of the church in 1925. In 1924, about 40 members of the congregation were granted letters to organize the Fort Mitchell Baptist Church. During the flood of 1937, the church cared for 336 refugees. In 1938 Rev. Frank H. Malone became pastor and led the congregation through the latter part of the Great Depression and all of World War II. The church provided entertainment and gifts for soldiers and collected clothes and funds for European refugees.

In 1941 a new pipe organ was installed. In 1947 Rev. Malone left to pastor another church, and Dr. Paul B. Clark served as interim pastor (1947–1948) until the appointment of Rev. P. Ennis Taylor in 1948. Taylor believed that the church was a “sleeping giant,” since Covington had attracted many rural migrants during and after World War II (see Appalachians). With the assistance of seminary students, he took censuses of the neighborhood and visited its people. The highly mobile population did not produce as many members as he had hoped, but instead, revivals at the church brought in new members. By 1958 the congregation reached its highest membership, 1,165. A new educational building, designed by architect Bill Batson, was dedicated on May 5, 1968. In 1969 the church became the headquarters for a new inner-city ministry, in cooperation with both the state and home mission boards. Rev. Taylor retired in 1972. Suburban development gradually took its toll on membership, which declined to 675 by 1982. In 1997 the church celebrated its 140th anniversary.

“Dedication Set: New Covington Church Addition Costs $21,000,” KP, October 23, 1925, 1.

Taylor, P. Ennis. In the Mainstream of God’s Purpose: A History of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, Covington, Kentucky. Covington, Ky.: Madison Ave. Baptist Church, 1977.

Paul A. Tenkotte

MADISON AVE. CHRISTIAN CHURCH. On November 13, 1913, the Madison Ave. Christian Church dedicated its new facility “to the service and worship of Almighty God.” The new church was the result of a merger of the Fourth St. Christian Church and the Central Christian Church in Covington. The Fourth St. Christian Church began when approximately 60 members of the Fift h St. Christian Church (currently Covington’s First Christian Church) left to organize a new congregation in 1874. After meeting for six months in Cooper’s Hall at Sixth St. and Madison Ave. in Covington, the group purchased from the Presbyterian Church a building at 115 E. Fourth St. This was their home until 1913. The Central Christian Church started as a result of a “tent meeting” in the fall of 1909 at 18th and Greenup Sts. The church

met first in a private home and later in a building near 18th and Greenup Sts.; in 1910 the Central Christian Church purchased a lot at 18th St. and Scott Blvd. and began raising money for a building.

In the meantime, the Fourth St. Christian Church had been considering the need for a more adequate church building in a better location as the residential area of Covington began to move south from the Ohio River. After plans fell through on a chosen lot in 1911, discussions with the Central Christian Church led to a vote to consolidate the two churches. The Central church sold its lot for $1,980; the Fourth St. church sold its property to the Knights of Pythias for $6,000; and a lot at 1530 Madison Ave. was purchased for $7,500, a gift to the church by Florence Kennedy. Articles of incorporation were fi led on April 13, 1912, for “the Madison Avenue Christian Church”; ground was broken for the new building on August 1; and the cornerstone was laid on November 9, 1912, by deputy grand master Orie S. Ware. The last ser vices were held at the Fourth St. and the Central churches on July 27, 1913, and the new united congregation met for the first time in its Fellowship Hall on August 10, 1913. Rev. Joseph W. Hagin, who had served as minister of the Fourth St. church since 1904, and under whose leadership the new church was built, was called unanimously to be the first minister. The united congregation totaled about 400 members, the majority originally drawn from the Fourth St. church.

The church building, in the Neoclassical Revival style, was designed by local architects C. C. and E. A. Weber (see Weber Brothers). The total cost of the building and its lot was $55,941. The formal dedication of the building took place on November 30, 1913, with Rev. F. M. Rains of Cincinnati as the principal speaker. In addition to the large dome, the four large stained-glass windows are impressive features of the facility. The Hanks Memorial window, of Belgian Tiffany glass and depicting the theme “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” and the window “Christ Blessing the Children” were installed in 1913. The Fant-Pearce window, depicting sunrise on Easter morning, was installed in 1930, and the “Come Unto Me” window was added in 1951. Other than the window additions, the sanctuary remained virtually unchanged until 2006, when a large staging area was constructed. The original organ, which had been moved from the Fourth St. church, was replaced in 1926 with the Moller pipe organ that is still in use today. The church building has become a Covington landmark.

The Madison Ave. Christian Church continued to grow and flourish during the 1920s and 1930s. Brother Hagin moved to another church in 1927, and Rev. Kenneth Bowen was called to be the second minister in the same year. Despite a railroad strike in the late 1920s that affected many in the church, and the stock market crash of 1929, an educational wing was added to the rear of the church and was dedicated on April 20, 1930. The sacrifice that many members made to accomplish this construction during the Great Depression remains one of the more vivid memories of those

575

years. In 1945 Bowen left to assume the presidency of the College of the Bible (Lexington Theological Seminary), indicating the prestige that had been attained by both the church and its minister.

Rev. Barton A. Johnson became the third minister in 1945, bringing with him his dynamic wife, Vivian. For the next 20 years, they led a vibrant church, an important church in the life of the community. Many community leaders were among the members at that time. Henry Mann became part of the church in the 1940s, served as the chairman of the church board in 1965, and served the community of Lakeside Park as councilman and mayor in the 1970s and 1980s. The Madison Ave. Christian Church probably reached the height of its attendance and membership around 1960. In the subsequent years, as many members moved to the suburbs, attendance began a slow decline. However, the church resisted the temptation to move, hoping to stay and serve the inner city, with varied success.

In 1965 Barton and Vivian Johnson retired.

Over the next 25 years, Rev. Lawrence Crane, Rev. Robert Anderson, Dr. Philip Miller, and Rev. Peter Moon served the church. While much smaller, the congregation continued to include quite a few active civic leaders. One of them was Claudia Branham, unofficial church historian and church leader, who served on numerous community boards, such as the Week Day School of Religion board. In 1990 Rev. J. Michael Delaney became the eighth minister of Madison Ave. Christian Church. His 11 years of ministry marked a period of transition in the life of the church. Attendance hovered around 100 during those years, but the complexion of the church changed drastically, from the remnants of a once mighty but aging congregation in 1990 to a church with a small core of younger leaders in 2001. A 1997 long-range plan pointed the church in a new direction of evangelism and community ser vice, including the implementation of an inclusion program. In 2002 an architect’s report recommended a $1.2 million renovation to the building. Shortly thereafter, the “car parts” building (and former Robert Hall men’s clothing store) adjacent to the church on the north was purchased and demolished. A new garden parking area, a new entrance, and Fellowship Hall renovation were completed in 2006, with dedication planned for 2007—the first major physical changes in the church since 1930. These actions reaffirmed the commitment of Madison Ave. Christian Church to stay at its location in Covington and to serve the community. The Monday evening community dinners and the successful inclusion ministry are two examples of that commitment.

Rev. Chinna Simon was called in 2004 to be the ninth minister.

Branham, Claudia. “History of the Madison Avenue Christian Church,” Madison Avenue Christian Church, Covington, Ky. Printed in the church bulletin of December 13, 1953.

Golden Anniversary Booklet of the Madison Avenue Christian Church. Covington, Ky.: Madison Avenue Christian Church, 1963.

“Madison Avenue Christian,” KP, January 13, 2005, 4K.

576 MAES, CAMILLUS PAUL Madison Avenue Christian Church, vertical fi le, Kenton Co. Public Library, Covington, Ky. Manker, Donn. “A Journey through Time at Madison Avenue Christian Church, 1913–1999,” 1999, Madison Avenue Christian Church, Covington, Ky.

Donn Manker and Linda Maus

MAES, CAMILLUS PAUL (b. March 13, 1846, Courtrai, West Flanders, Belgium; d. May 11, 1915, Covington, Ky.). Camillus Paul Maes, the Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Covington (see Roman Catholics) from 1885 until 1915, was the son of John Baptist and Justine Ghyoot Maes. Camillus Maes enrolled at St. Amandus College in 1859, at the age of 13. Two years later, after the death of his father, he took a job as a clerk in a civil engineer’s office while also studying with a Courtrai architect. His mother died in June 1862, and he moved to the home of his uncle John Ghyoot. In autumn 1862 Maes resumed his studies at St. Amandus College, graduating in 1863. Interested in the priesthood, he enrolled at a seminary in Roulers for his philosophical (minor seminary) training in autumn 1863 and advanced to his theological studies (major seminary) at Bruges in 1865. In 1867 Bishop Peter P. LeFevre of the Diocese of Detroit, Mich., traveled throughout Europe looking for priests for his growing but understaffed diocese.

Maes volunteered, and in the same year he was sent to the American College of Louvain (Belgium) for completion of his studies. In 1868 he was ordained a priest, and in 1869 he immigrated to the United States, reaching Detroit in May. Maes served as a pastor of churches in Mount Clemens and Monroe, Mich. In 1880 he published a scholarly book entitled The Life of Rev. Nerinckx, about a pioneer priest of Kentucky. In the same year, Maes was appointed chancellor of the Diocese of Detroit; it was probably at that time when he became familiar with Leon Coquard (1860–1923), the architect of St. Anne’s Church in Detroit. In 1884, with the death of Bishop Augustus Maria Toebbe of the Diocese of Covington, the pope appointed Maes as bishop of Covington.

Camillus Paul Maes was officially consecrated bishop of Covington on January 25, 1885, in the old St. Mary’s Cathedral on E. Eighth St. in Covington. His episcopacy lasted 30 years, until his death in 1915. During it, Maes oversaw construction of Covington’s Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption. His abiding interest in architecture dated from his earlier studies. With the generous support of the Walsh family (see Walsh Distillery) and Peter O’Shaughnessy, Maes broke ground for his new cathedral at 12th and Madison Ave. in 1894 and engaged Leon Coquard as architect. Opened in 1901, but still incomplete, the cathedral awaited finishing touches that were to be made after further donations from the Walsh family. Maes then commissioned architect David Davis (1865–1932) to complete the edifice’s west facade, which was dedicated in 1910.

Maes also assumed a national prominence in the Catholic Church. He was a strong advocate of Americanism, that is, the movement that hoped to make the Catholic Church more adaptable to

American cultural standards. In this regard he stood among an enlightened and educated group of Catholic clergy that included James Cardinal Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore, Md.; John Ireland, archbishop of St. Paul, Minn.; John Keane, bishop of Richmond, Va.; Kentucky native John L. Spalding, bishop of Peoria, Ill.; and Denis O’Connell. rector of the North American College in Rome, Italy, and later rector of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. With Gibbons, Keane, and others, Maes was one of the pioneers and longtime trustees of the Catholic University of America. He also served as president of the Board of Directors of the American College of Louvain.

Bishop Maes maintained a strong interest in Appalachia (see Appalachians), then a part of the Diocese of Covington, creating churches and schools throughout that region. He was also an advocate of education for African Americans and established, in 1887, a Catholic school in Lexington for blacks. Maes oversaw the building of many churches and schools throughout the diocese, which then extended over 57 counties, and introduced the Sisters of Divine Providence to Kentucky. Bishop Maes was buried at St. Mary Cemetery in Fort Mitchell.

Maes, Camillus P. The Life of Rev. Charles Nerinckx.

Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1880.

Ryan, Paul E. History of the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky. Covington, Ky.: Diocese of Covington, 1954.

Sisters of Divine Providence, Newport, Kentucky.

Character Sketches of the Rt. Rev. C. P. Maes, D.D. Baltimore: John Murphy, 1917.

Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Paul A. Tenkotte

MAIN STRASSE GERMAN VILLAGE. Main Strasse, which occupies the center of Covington’s old West End or West Side neighborhood, is a German-themed tourism district that opened in 1979. It has attracted large crowds and new businesses that constitute an economic boon, but its relationship with residents has not always been serene.

Main Strasse was the first addition to the original town of Covington. It extends roughly west to Willow Run Creek and from the Ohio River south to the former Covington-Lexington Turnpike, now Pike St. The German village project is bounded on the east by elevated Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad tracks and on the west by I-75, which was built over the old Willow Run Creek.

The Main Strasse Village is German, but its neighborhood once had an Irish flavor. From 1935 to 1953, Kern Aylward, a former singing and dancing professional, operated a popu lar Irish saloon at 530 Main St. Aylward was a friend of nationally known songwriter Haven Gillespie, a native of Covington and one of Aylward’s good customers.

Aylward’s saloon was for many years the gathering place for the Irish, and many Irish jigs were danced there to Irish songs.

Residents of the neighborhood attended nearby churches, including St. Patrick Catholic Church (1872–1967), Main Street Methodist Church, Grace Reformed Church (see Grace United Church of Christ), and St. Aloysius Catholic Church. In 1985 a fire destroyed St. Aloysius, and the Main Street Methodist Church closed recently.

The organizers of Main Strasse began in the late 1970s planning a village that would feature cuisine, music, dancing, architecture, and various crafts associated with German culture. Originally, the developers planned and implemented the project with an antique-mall motif. It had few restaurant businesses and only limited night life. In 1975 the city designated the Sixth St. and Main St. blocks for renewal and in 1977 received funds for the project from the administration of Kentucky governor Julian Carroll (1974 and 1975–1979). Main Strasse developers then purchased 19 land parcels for a new parking lot between Fifth and Sixth Sts. on Bakewell St. They also financed sewer improvements and had utility wires buried underground on the streets slated to be used for the project. The street improvements have continued in the area.

Today smooth, rectangular sidewalk paving blocks mark the intersections on grass medians flanking the trees that line Sixth St. A grand opening of the $7 million Main Strasse occurred on September 8 and 9, 1979, in conjunction with the German village’s first annual Oktoberfest. In May 1980 the Main Strasse Festivals Association inaugurated its annual Maifest. The Goose Girl Fountain at Sixth and Main Sts., inspired by a fairy tale written by the Brothers Grimm and designed by noted sculptor Eleftherios Karkadoulias, was dedicated in October 1980 and became the village’s centerpiece . At the same intersection, a Kentucky state historic highway marker commemorates Margaret Garner and her family’s desperate, failed attempt to escape slavery. In Goebel Park, on the west side of the village, improvements included new shelter houses and the emblematic Carroll Chimes Bell Tower, featuring mechanical musical fairytale figures that revolve and a 43-bell carillon for timekeeping.

By 1981 Main Strasse’s Oktoberfest attracted 150,000 people, and by 1985 the American Bus Association listed it among the top 100 events in North America. In 1983 a large portion of the area, bounded essentially by the C&O Railroad and by Sixth, Philadelphia, Dalton, Pike, and Robbins Sts., was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the West Side–Main Strasse Historic District.

The Oktoberfest and the Maifest, as well as a Christmas festival, drew large crowds, so the village had busy shops served by tour buses during the day—but little daytime restaurant activity and hardly any nightlife. As the lack of restaurants and evening entertainment continued, by 1990 the number of tour buses arriving at the village had decreased. New flourishing restaurants and bars were added and have helped to compensate for the slowdown of visitors, but some of these new businesses have increased property blight rather than neighborhood prosperity. For example, one adver-

MAJOR, THOMAS SMITH

tisement announced a “pub crawl” visiting some 20 bars and restaurants. Many shop owners and residents in and around the village loudly refused to tolerate the noise, trash, nudity, public urination, and parking problems such events created, even though they were for the sake of enhancing prosperity. Reform efforts for the village soon followed: the Main Strasse Association development committee was formed, and a study by marketing experts at Northern Kentucky University was commissioned. The city and the association improved signage and lighting on Sixth St. City planners then considered a housing rehabilitation program for the area’s residents. The new association also asked the city to slow down the rapid proliferation of bars and restaurants in the village through Board of Adjustment rulings and by holding stringent public hearings before allowing any more such businesses to open.

In 1998 a crowd of between 25,000 and 30,000 people came to the village association’s third annual Mardi Gras. There were Friday and Saturday night festivities featuring parades, street performers, clowns, jugglers, fortunetellers, contests, Cajun food, and two entertainment tents measuring 20,000 square feet each. In 2000 the Mardi Gras crowd reached 50,000 and produced a lot of negative publicity. The rowdy crowd destroyed residential property and shocked residents with displays of seminudity that they associated with Bourbon Street in New Orleans during that city’s Mardi Gras celebration. The outcry gained the attention of city officials, who immediately took corrective action.

To draw more traffic to Main Strasse businesses, in 2005 city officials proposed periodically closing some of the village’s streets. Customers would then be able to walk with open containers of alcoholic beverages, free from vehicular traffic. At a public hearing concerning this proposal, 100 opponents showed up to voice their fears that the village was trying to imitate the laxity allowed on New Orleans’s Bourbon Street. They further argued that losing parking spaces could be counterproductive, violence and vandalism could get worse, and residential side streets and alleys could be overburdened. Proponents of the plan countered that the drunkenness and parking-problem concerns raised by these critics were exaggerated and could be managed. One city official tried to mediate by saying that the proposal could generate restrained activities like the existing monthly “gallery hops” at the village, during which visitors might enjoy having a glass of beer or wine. However, the implementation of an open-container policy at events in the village has thus far been deferred.

The Convention and Visitors Center ser vice building, once located in the village next to Goebel Park on Philadelphia St., has been relocated to RiverCenter in Covington (see Covington, Downtown). As to growth in the village, after extensive remodeling, the historic Park Hotel at Sixth and Philadelphia Sts. has been reopened as a law firm’s office. Historic Kentucky State highway markers line Goebel Park to commemorate noteworthy Covington natives and former residents and help draw visitors to the village. The Main Strasse Ger-

man Village continues to be one of the main gateways to Covington as vehicles pass by or through the village after exiting I-75 at Fift h St. A medievaltheme boutique called Ottoman Imports and other specialty shops complement the popu lar Dee Felice and Chez Nora’s Jazz bar-restaurants in the village. Besides its evening food ser vices and entertainment, Chez Nora’s offers a popu lar lunch and Sunday brunch menu that attracts people of all ages, keeping the restaurant busy day and night.

There remains an ebb and flow of businesses and scheduled activities as Covington’s Main Strasse German Village continues establishing an identity.

Beasley, Dave. “Festival Helps Put Covington on Map,” KE, September 8, 1985, B1.

Boh, John H., and Howard W. Boehmker. Westside Covington. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Historical Society, 1980.

Cullen, Kevin. “Irish Tradition Not Forgotten in German Main Strasse,” KE, March 13, 1983, B1.

Franzese, Kim. “Mardi Gras Crowd Swells to 50,000—Main Strasse Hosted Event,” KE, March 6, 2000, B1.

Kreimer, Peggy. “Main Strasse: Looking toward the Next Decade,” KP, September 6, 1997, 1K. Neikirk, Mark. “ ‘Goose Girl’ on Its Way to Covington,” KP, October 8, 1980, 1K. Reis, Jim. “From Pipe Dream to City Landmark,” KP, July 18, 1994, 4K. ———. “Remembering Main Street,” KP, August 2, 1999, 4K. Pressley, Darrell S. “Main Strasse’s Oktoberfest Has Something for Everyone,” KE, September 8, 1996, B1A. Van Benschoten, Amanda. “Cold Beer, Heated Debate, Open Containers Split Main Strasse,” SC, June 26, 2005, B1.

Wiegand, Rolf. “A Little Bit of Germany Right Here,” KE, September 9, 1979, 1.

John Boh

MAIN ST. UNITED METHODIST CHURCH. The Main St. United Methodist Church, founded in 1857–1858 as a member church of the Kentucky Conference, was one of the principal congregations serving the West Side of Covington). Its first building was of frame construction and stood on Main St.; the first pastor was Rev. S. S. Belville. The Main St. Methodist Episcopal Church, as it was then called, remained in support of the Union during the Civil War. By the late 1860s the church’s Social Union, which sponsored oyster suppers and other events, flourished, as did its Sunday school.

In 1888 the congregation purchased a lot on the northeast corner of Eighth and Main Sts. Construction of a brick church began in April 1888, and it was dedicated on November 4, 1888. Of the total cost of $17,500, Amos Shinkle, a member of Union Methodist Episcopal Church (see First United Methodist Church) donated $7,500.

Women were instrumental in the church, promoting the cause of temperance in the late 1870s and carry ing out the work of the congregation’s Ladies’ Aid Society. In 1892 the church sponsored a threeweek revival featuring the traveling evangelist Adelaide Sherman, and 150 people were converted. In 1903 Rev. James Marcus Newton became pastor.

He oversaw a three-month canvassing of neighborhood homes, conducted with the help of

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women from the Elizabeth Gamble Deaconess Home in Cincinnati. As a result, the congregation increased in membership. In 1904 Jonathan David Hearne, a member of Union Methodist Episcopal Church, donated a house at 832 Willard St. for a parsonage.

With members moving to the suburbs, the church declined in numbers during the latter half of the 20th century. In the 1950s, the church spire, in need of repair, was removed. In 1968, following the national merger of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church, the congregation became known as Main St. United Methodist Church. In 2004 it closed; the building was sold at auction and is now a shop in the Main Strasse German Village.

Newton, James Marcus. A Brief History of the Main Street Methodist Episcopal Church with Incidents of the Kentucky Conference. Cincinnati: George P. Houston, 1905.

Paul A. Tenkotte

MAJOR, THOMAS SMITH (b. July 13, 1844, Paris, Ky.; d. August 22, 1911, Frankfort, Ky.).

Thomas Major was the son of Dr. Frank W. and Ann F. Smith Major. In May 1847 Thomas’s 24-year-old mother died, and by 1850 his father had moved to Covington, where the elder Major practiced medicine. It is likely that Thomas and his younger brother George remained in Paris, Ky., with their maternal grandparents until their father remarried in the 1850s. Thomas attended public schools in Covington and also studied for one year at Mother of God School, where he learned German. He was a student at Transylvania University in Lexington and in September 1862 enlisted in Lexington as a private in Company C of Col. John Hunt Morgan’s 2nd Regiment Kentucky Cavalry (Confederate), known as Morgan’s Raiders. During Morgan’s Great Ohio Raid of 1863, Major was shot in the arm, captured by Union troops, and eventually sent as a prisoner of war to Camp Douglas in Chicago. He and other prisoners escaped by digging a tunnel, and Major fled to Canada and subsequently to Cincinnati. There he was nursed back to health by two wealthy Catholic converts, Sarah Worthington King Peter and Henrietta Scott Cleveland. Near the end of the Civil War, Thomas Major escaped over the Rio Grande to Mexico and then set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia.

At war’s end, he returned to the United States and studied medicine for awhile. At some point, he converted to Catholicism (see Roman Catholics).

He decided to become a Catholic priest, the only known member of Morgan’s Raiders to do so. Major studied at Mount St. Mary Seminary of the West in Cincinnati and also at St. Joseph College (now Spring Hill) in Mobile, Ala. Bishop Augustus Toebbe of Covington (bishop 1870–1884) ordained Thomas Major a priest in November 1875. Major served the Catholic Diocese of Covington at St. Edward Church in Cynthiana and at St. Paul Church in Lexington. Thereafter, he served in the dioceses of San Antonio, Tex., and Peoria, Ill., before returning to the Diocese of

578 MANLEY, CALEB, HOUSE Covington in 1892 as pastor of St. Joseph Church in Winchester. He spent his final years, from 1895 until 1911, as pastor of Good Shepherd Church in Frankfort. Major lectured throughout the nation on the topic of his conversion, using the title “From the Army to the Altar.” The prototype of author Irvin S. Cobb’s Judge Priest stories, he was also a friend of Rev. Abram Ryan, the “poet-priest of the Confederacy.” Major died in Frankfort, and his funeral mass was held at Good Shepherd Church. He was buried in the Frankfort Cemetery.

Agnes Willson Major Collection, Kentucky Historical Society, Frankfort, Ky. “Father Major Will Be Laid to Rest Friday,” Frankfort News-Journal, August 23, 1911, 1.

Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Paul A. Tenkotte

MANLEY, CALEB, HOUSE. See Caleb Manley House.

MANN, DAVID S. (b. September 25, 1939, Cincinnati, Ohio). David Scott Mann is the son of Henry M. and Faye Mann. His father is a developer and a banker and has served as mayor of Lakeside Park, Ky. David grew up in Park Hills, where he attended Dixie Heights High School, graduating in 1957. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University at Cambridge, Mass., in 1961 and then served for four years as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Mann completed a law degree at Harvard University in 1968. He became a wellrespected tax lawyer in the Greater Cincinnati area; he served on the Cincinnati City Council from 1972 through 1992 and as mayor of Cincinnati from 1980 to 1982 and again in 1991. He was elected to the 103rd U.S. Congress for the years 1993–1995 from the First District of Ohio but failed in his subsequent reelection bid. He is generally described politically as a liberal Democrat.

David Mann is an example of a Northern Kentuckian who crossed over the Ohio River to Cincinnati and successfully broke into politics there, just as Erlanger resident Roxanne Qualls did later and Theodore M. Berry had done before. Mann currently practices law with his son in their Cincinnati law firm, Mann and Mann LLC. “Kentucky Native Masters Cincinnati Politics,” KP, November 9, 1981, 2K. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. “David Mann.” http://bioguide.congress.gov/ biosearch/biosearch.asp (accessed June 25, 2007).

MANNING, JOSEPH (b. September 13, 1928, Chicago, Ill.; d. June 19, 2001, Plantation, Fla.). A longtime Pendleton Co. resident, artist Joseph Manning was the fourth of seven sons of Italian immigrants, Joseph Nathan and Lena Gilio Manning. He was raised in Forest Park, Ill., and began three years of evening studies at the Art Institute of Chicago at age 13. After high school he entered a two-year program at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts; later he studied for a year at the Ray Vogue

School of Chicago. Nonetheless, Manning claimed to be a “self taught artist.” He spent 18 years in Villa Park, Ill., engaged in a commercial art career.

While at the height of his fame as a noted commercial artist, he turned full-time to the fine arts.

At age 38 Manning moved to Knoxville, Ky. He lived on a 72-acre farm that provided the setting for many of his landscape paintings, then in 1979 moved to Plantation, Fla. On the advice of his heart doctor and long-time friend, Erin Vasquez, he spent time in Italy studying the painting techniques of the masters. Manning painted in an ultrarealistic style, using mediums such as watercolors and egg tempera; the latter was a popu lar medium centuries ago in his Italian ancestral homeland. His work has been exhibited in select and important art shows around the United States, and he has won many first-place prizes and other awards. Manning was awarded signature memberships in prestigious societies of art such as the National Water Color Society and the International Watercolor Society.

His works have appeared in many art publications. The uncanny detail and emotions he put into his paintings, such as Until Death Do Us Part, a portrait of his late wife’s 26-year battle with cancer, have been described as spirit-tingling by Paul Russell, the director at the Colangelo Gallery in Plantation, Fla. One of Manning’s last works, his selfportrait titled Coping with Cancer, received the High Winds Award as well as a Society Signature Membership at the American Watercolor Society’s 133rd International Exhibition. The accuracy in his paintings was startling. His works have often been exhibited with a magnifying glass provided nearby. Manning sold more than 100 paintings in art shows alone; at one Chicago show, he once sold 21 works in one hour.

Manning was a very colorful but down-toearth person. He loved to talk, to cook, to farm, and to build things. He joked all the time and never seemed to allow himself to be in a bad mood. He loved life, believing there was always something to learn and experience. With his art, he has left a legacy that few can match. Suffering from cancer, Manning died in 2001 and was cremated.

Florida Death Certificate No. 79518, for the year 2001.

Mildred Belew

MANSION HILL HISTORIC DISTRICT. Newport’s Mansion Hill Historic District derives its name from the mansion of Gen. James Taylor Jr., founder of Newport, which stands today along E. Third St. Beginning in the 1860s, James Taylor III, son of James Taylor Jr., began to plat this increasingly valuable acreage into a series of subdivisions. Sales accelerated after 1889, when E. Third St. was extended eastward from Washington Ave. and Overton St. was brought north to intersect with Third St. The neighborhood’s convenient location, flood-resistant elevation, and, perhaps, the cachet of the nearby Taylor Mansion, drew large numbers of middle- and upper-class buyers.

Mansion Hill’s growth coincided with the apogee of Newport’s development. From about 1875 to

1920, hundreds of narrow, two- to three-story dwellings, mostly brick, were built in the neighborhood, beginning at its western edge and slowly moving east. Popu lar housing styles of the late 1800s and early 1900s included the Italianate, the Queen Anne, and the Colonial Revival. After 1910 occasional Craftsman and bungalow-style residences appeared as well. Local builders could choose from a wide variety of local suppliers, including planing mills, brick and stone yards, and even art-tile and stained-glass studios. The result was a visually rich cityscape with considerable variety and individuality.

Mansion Hill became a favorite of wealthy business owners, merchants, and professionals during the late 1800s. Among them were county attorney Johathan S. Ducker (236 E. Fourth St.), Judge John T. Hodge (Nelson Pl.), lumber dealer Frank Voss (500 Monroe Ave.), and brewer George Wiedemann (401 Park Ave.) (see Wiedemann Brewing Company). Samuel Bigstaff, real estate developer and trustee of the Taylor estate, resided at 337 Washington Ave. Businessmen from Cincinnati made their homes there as well, including boiler manufacturer Thomas McIlvaine (301 Overton St.), music dealer Charles Willis (525 E. Fourth St.), and grocer Henry Willenborg (306 Overton St.). In the late 1880s, the Taylor family’s descendants briefly considered tearing down the family mansion and extending Overton St. north to Second St. Instead, they chose to remodel the house, which originally faced the river, and reorient it toward the new homes being built around it.

In the early 1880s, the Dueber Watch Case Company built a factory complex (now partly demolished) at Sixth and Washington Sts. While much larger than surrounding houses, the multistory factory buildings were visually compatible with their neighbors. In 1902 the Sisters of Divine Providence founded the Academy Notre Dame of Providence (see Our Lady of Providence Academy), a Catholic girls’ school, at E. Sixth St. and Linden Ave. The firm of Samuel Hannaford and Sons designed the stately BeauxArts Classical building.

After the first generation of property owners moved on, Mansion Hill residences began to be converted to multifamily use. This process was joined by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the housing shortages of the 1940s. Following World War II, many of the older families joined the middle-class suburban migration. Investors purchased the aging buildings and rented them to low-income families, many of whom had poured into Greater Cincinnati during the war years.

Maintenance suffered, and the neighborhood began a slow decline.

In 1971 I-471 began to be built through Campbell Co. To make way for the road, the Kentucky Highway Department demolished more than 100 buildings on the eastern border of Mansion Hill, including many of its best-kept dwellings. The Highway Department also made plans for on- and off-ramps along Fourth and Fift h Sts., bisecting the neighborhood. Some residents feared that these ramps would tie into a proposed Covington-

MARKLAND DAM

Newport crosstown expressway (never built) linking I-471 with I-75. This new uncertainty about the neighborhood’s future led to even more disinvestment.

At the same time, however, a younger generation of homebuyers began to rediscover the innercity neighborhoods that their parents and grandparents had abandoned. These young people bought rundown but sturdy old houses at bargain prices and began renovating them, in many cases converting them back to single-family use. In 1979 new and old residents joined together to form the Mansion Hill Neighborhood Association. They published a newsletter, held successful house tours to raise funds and awareness, and worked hard for better city policies and ser vices. As a result, the neighborhood, which had been zoned for multifamily use, was “downzoned” to an innovative oneand-two-family urban zone that recognized mixed land uses. In 1980 the neighborhood was listed in the National Register of Historic Places, becoming Northern Kentucky’s second historic district.

The galvanizing issue of the neighborhood, however, was I-471. After the Fourth and Fift h St. proposals were finally scrapped, a northbound offramp was built at Third St. This roadway emptied traffic into the neighborhood, putting residents at risk of speeding cars and creating an environment more suitable to a commercial strip rather than a residential neighborhood. Because the road was considered to be temporary, no environmental impact statement was prepared. The Mansion Hill District’s residents hired engineers to draw buildable alternate plans that would have removed the traffic from the neighborhood, but these were rejected by the state.

In 1983 the Mansion Hill Neighborhood Association took the unprecedented step of suing the Kentucky Highway Department, contending that the traffic coming off the interstate had a negative impact on the neighborhood. Two years later the case was settled out of court. The state agreed to place concrete barriers at E. Third St. and Park Ave. to funnel traffic north along Park Ave. to Ky. Rt. 8.

Although most of the neighborhood benefited from a dramatic drop in traffic, not all residents were pleased. Some residents of lower Park Ave. and Second St. were angered about taking the burden of the traffic, and some residents of other neighborhoods resented being forced to travel north on Park Ave. During the early 1980s, Newport was actively seeking new sources of revenue to fi ll city coffers.

Therefore, they seized on a proposal by National Redevelopment Inc. to build a high-rise office building on a rundown trailer park at the north end of the Mansion Hill Historic District and secured a federal Urban Development Action Grant for the project. The proposal split the neighborhood. Many were angered at losing their river views, which would be blocked by the new structure; by the demolition of historic buildings on lower Washington Ave.; and by the juxtaposition of a tall modern building within a low-scale Victorian neighborhood. Still others saw development of the site as inevitable and did not oppose the

project. Since federal funds were used, the project was subject to federal historic preservation review.

To help prevent similar threats to Newport’s historic neighborhoods in the future, the Kentucky Heritage Council required the City of Newport to enact a historic preservation ordinance to create a higher level of protection for its historic neighborhoods. After several delays, the high-rise Riverfront Place was occupied in 1990.

Luxury apartment living came to the Mansion Hill area in the mid-1980s, when the shuttered Our Lady of Providence Academy was converted to upscale housing using federal historic preservation tax incentives. Likewise, the Martha Saunders Mansion at 337 Washington Ave., built for a Taylor descendant, was converted from a multifamily tenement to condominiums.

In 1989 the adjacent Mansion Hill Historic District and Gateway neighborhoods became part of the locally designated East Row Historic District, which included 1,070 buildings. This historic overlay zone sought to preserve the historic character by regulating exterior alterations, demolition, and new construction. The two neighborhood associations merged in the 1990s to become the East Row Historic Foundation. In 2006 the East Row district was expanded to take in several additional blocks. Property values escalated rapidly as more and more homes were renovated, the neighborhood’s revitalization gained national coverage, and homebuyers appreciated the allure of living in a cohesive, well-preserved historic community.

“Economic Sprouts Appear,” KP, December 31, 1987, 1K. Key, Stephen. “New I-471 Ramps Plan Tied to Development,” KP, September 4, 1980, 3K. “Mansion Hill Group Files Appeal of I-471 Ramp Case,” KP, September 11, 1985, 5K. Purvis, Thomas L., ed. Newport, Kentucky: A Bicentennial History. Newport, Ky.: Otto Zimmerman, 1996.

Remlinger, Connie. “Mansion Hill, Newport, State to Try for Ramp Compromise,” KP, October 24, 1985, 14K. ———. “Newport, Mansion Hill Resolving I-471 Ramps Dispute,” KP, November 5, 1985, 2K. ———. “Newport High-Rise Revived,” KP, April 12, 1986, 1K. Stevenson, Larry, and Nick Rechtin. “Mansion Hill Historic District,” National Register nomination, 1979. Available at Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, Ky. Stricharchuk, Gregory. “City That Provided the Sin in Cincinnati Is Being Cleaned Up,” Wall Street Journal, November 26, 1985, 1.

Workum, Bertram A., and Mark Neikirk. “Mansion Hill Suit Rests on Single Issue,” KP, November 29, 1984, 1K.

Margaret Warminski

MAPLEWOOD CHILDREN’S HOME. The Maplewood Children’s Home in Boone Co., now under the direction of the Children’s Home of Northern Kentucky, has a 158-year history of change and ser vice. Established September 14, 1847, when the Boone Co. Court provided 20 acres of land to build a home for the indigent and infirm, the home served as the county’s poorhouse until

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1969. Upon completion in 1969 of the Woodspoint Nursing Home in Florence, the remaining 13 residents were transferred to the new facility.

Boone Co. judge Bruce Ferguson, recognizing a need for temporary shelter of dependent children and juvenile offenders, moved quickly to take advantage of the home’s potential. He named the home Maplewood, after the beautiful maple trees on the grounds. He issued an order opening the home for its new use, and on January 20, 1970, Maplewood received its first juvenile resident. By the end of the month, 10 children were residing at Maplewood. Soon after, several individuals, local churches, and civic organizations launched a campaign to restore and redecorate the old home to make it more cheerful for its new occupants.

In time, there was need for labor and financial support to sustain the operation of Maplewood. A 13-member advisory committee was assembled and instituted a guild to promote Maplewood and raise unrestricted funds. By 1984 the committee concluded that the century-old building had a limited life span. On August 4, 1986, ground was broken for a new building. Finished by October, the new facility housed 12 boys and 12 girls. Soon thereafter, the Commonwealth of Kentucky licensed Maplewood to house 29 children.

From 1986 to 2004, more than 4,000 children in need of acceptance, nurturing, and love passed through the doors of Maplewood; however, by the beginning of 2004, it was apparent that Kentucky’s need for temporary shelters had declined, while the need for residential treatment ser vices had increased.

In late spring 2004, the Boone Co. Fiscal Court agreed to lease Maplewood to the Children’s Home of Northern Kentucky in Kenton Co., a multiser vice agency providing care to children and families and accredited by the Council on Accreditation. The Children’s Home has a noted residential treatment program for up to 36 abused and neglected boys, ages 7 through 17. It welcomed the opportunity to expand its ser vices into Boone Co. In 2009 the program closed when the county failed to renew its lease. In its place, a Head Start program began.

Children’s Home of Northern Kentucky. www.chnk .org.

Warner, Jennifer S. Boone County: From Mastodons to the Millennium. Burlington, Ky.: Boone Co. Bicentennial Book Committee, 1998.

Susan Claypool Kettles

MARKLAND DAM. Before the construction of dams in the 20th century, the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky occasionally became as shallow as two or three feet in depth. When that happened, river traffic became impossible, causing shortages of food and other supplies in communities along the river. For many years citizens tried to interest state and federal officials in finding a solution to the problem.

In the early 20th century, a system of 46 locks and dams was built along the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, Pa., to Cairo, Ill. The dams created a minimum pool stage of nine feet. By the 1950s it became apparent that new locks and dams were

580 MARKS, JOE E. needed to create an even deeper pool, which would accommodate larger boats. A series of 19 new high-lift dams was proposed to replace the 46 that were in place. One of the new dams was Markland, which was built three and a half miles downriver from Warsaw in Gallatin Co., at a cost of $63.1 million. The name was taken from the nearby city of Markland, Ind., where the Markland family once lived. Construction began in 1956 and was completed in 1963. Markland Dam replaced five of the low-level dams. It is 1,395 feet long and has 12 gates, each 110 feet wide and 42 feet high. There are two locks on the Kentucky side, one 110 by 600 feet and the other 110 by 1,200 feet; the dam’s locks are capable of raising or lowering a vessel 35 feet. A hydroelectric power plant operates on the Indiana side. The pool created by the Markland Dam extends 95 miles upstream to Meldahl Dam above Cincinnati, near Foster in Bracken Co. There are three navigable streams that enter the pool, the Big Miami, the Little Miami, and the Licking rivers. A bridge was built over the dam in 1978 to connect U.S. 42 in Kentucky with Rt. 156 in Indiana. Although the new dams have not solved all river problems, such as ice jams and runaway barges, they have greatly improved riverboat traffic and have provided additional recreational opportunities.

“Markland Dam Creates River Boom,” KTS, January 21, 1957, 4A. Reis, Jim. “Controlling the Ohio Flow,” KP, February 24, 2003, 4K. “River System Varies as Power Source,” KE, August 12, 2001, 4B.

Jack Wessling

MARKS, JOE E. (b. June 15, 1891, New York City; d. June 14, 1973, New York City). Born on the side streets of New York City, Joe Marks had a showbusiness career of more than fift y years. His lifestyle was so urban that he was 13 before he ever saw a live cow. This small-in-stature man became a star of vaudev ille and appeared on the Broadway stage, in some 20 movies, and in early television as a comedian and a character actor. He also became known as a playwright.

Marks’s credits began in the 1920s and continued into the 1970s. On the stage, he played Pappy Yokum in Li’l Abner (1957). For television he was Smee in Peter Pan (1960). He appeared on the Colgate Comedy Hour (1951), and in 1952 he had his own show on WLW-television in Cincinnati playing Mr. Wumpy on The Play Club. Afterward, he performed on the Kraft Television Theatre (1953– 1954) and, in 1963, in a popu lar TV show, Car 54, Where Are You? As late as 1967, he was part of the cast of Illya Darling back on Broadway.

For many years Marks called Covington his home. In 1920 he married Mae McCollough, a Scotch-Irish dancer from Frankfort, Ky. The pair traveled the country performing as Joe Marks & Company with Mae Leonard. In 1931 they purchased from D. Collins Lee a 12-room Park Hills home at 843 Arlington Rd. Mae retired in 1935, but they owned that house as late as 1951 and lived in it while visiting relatives in Northern Kentucky.

These visits gave them a convenient respite as they

traveled across the country. Marks appeared with the likes of Nanette Fabray, Mary Martin, Jean Arthur, and Boris Karloff. He died in 1973 in New York City.

Smith, Jean Edward. John Marshall: Definer of a Nation. New York: Henry Holt, 1996.

“Actor and Playwright Visits His Home Here,” KP, September 26, 1940, 3.

“Purchase 12-Room Home Here,” KP, November 9, 1931, 2.

Taylor, Carol. “Broadway’s Pappy Yokum Calls Covington His Home,” CP, January 11, 1957, 13.

MARSHALL, THORNTON F. (b. July 4, 1819,

MARSHALL, THOMAS (b. April 2, 1730, Westmoreland Co., Va.; d. June 22, 1802, Mason Co., Ky.). Although not formally educated, Thomas Marshall was an intelligent man who found employment through his childhood friend George Washington as one of Lord Thomas Fairfax’s Virginia surveyors and land agents. Throughout his years in Virginia, Marshall served as sheriff, tax collector, magistrate, and representative to the House of Burgesses for Fauquier Co. In 1754 he married Mary Randolph Keith, and they had 15 children. Their oldest son was John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Thomas Marshall was well known for his bravery. As an officer in the 3rd Virginia Regiment during the Revolutionary War, he was given credit for halting the advance of British general Charles Cornwallis’s troops at the Battle of Brandywine and preventing the capture of General Washington’s army. Thomas Jefferson, governor of Virginia, sent Marshall to survey Fayette Co. in the eastern portion of the Kentucky Territory in 1780. He made the 500-mile trip, accompanied by his nephew Humphrey Marshall, in only three weeks. Thomas Marshall then brought his own family to settle in Kentucky in the early 1780s. They arrived at Limestone (presentday Maysville) after coming down the Ohio River on a flatboat. Marshall’s position as chief surveyor of Virginia’s Fayette Co. allowed him to lay claim to valuable lands, since he could claim half of the lands he surveyed as payment for expenses. Marshall established homes in present-day Mason and Woodford counties. President Washington (1789– 1797) appointed Marshall the federal tax collector for Kentucky after ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and Marshall held the post until 1797. Marshall’s friendship with Washington continued throughout their lives. At his plantation at Mount Vernon, Va., Washington planted seeds of native Kentucky grass and nuts sent to him by Marshall in the 1780s. Several of these seeds were also sent to the Marquis de Lafayette, a French general and hero of the Revolutionary War in America, for planting at Versailles in France. Marshall died in 1802 and was buried at the Marshall family farm in Washington in Mason Co. Biographical Cyclopedia of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Chicago: John M. Gresham, 1896.

Collins, Richard H. History of Kentucky. Vol. 1.

Covington, Ky.: Collins, 1882.

Jackson, Donald, and Dorothy Towhig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington, July 1786–December 1789. Vol. 5. Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1979.

Andrea Watkins

Augusta, Ky.; d. March 25, 1901, Augusta, Ky.). Descended from early Bracken Co. settlers and a family involved in the law and public ser vice, Thornton Marshall played a pivotal role in determining Kentucky’s position during the Civil War. He was the son of Martin and Matilda B. Taliaferro Marshall.

After attending Augusta College and Centre College, he began to study law with his father in 1830. He established deep roots in Augusta, marrying Ann Eliza Mackie in 1841 and opening his own law practice there in 1842. The following year, he was appointed Bracken Co. attorney, and after a new state constitution was adopted in 1851, he was elected to the same office, serving for a total of 16 years. He ran for state senator on the Democratic ticket in 1851, and his election put him in the Kentucky legislature that decided Kentucky’s official stance during the Civil War. After refusing to honor the request of President Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) for four regiments of Kentucky troops to fight the Confederates, Governor Beriah Magoffi n (1859–1862) called a special session of the legislature in May 1861, hoping for a secession vote. Instead, the legislature proposed that Kentucky remain strictly neural in the conflict. State senator Thornton Marshall is credited with casting the deciding vote. On May 20, 1861, Magoffi n officially proclaimed the neutrality of Kentucky.

The house where Marshall lived in the 1840s, on historic Riverside Dr. in Augusta, still stands, though buildings on both sides were among the 30 houses torched in 1862 when the 350-man Morgan’s Raiders attacked the city, defended by 100 Home Guards under the command of Col. William Bradford (see Augusta Civil War Raid).

Marshall was an elector-at-large for the state in the national election of 1865, when Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey cast their Electoral College votes for George B. McClellan for president. Marshall died in his home in Augusta in 1901, at age 82 and was buried next to his wife in the Augusta Hillside Cemetery in Augusta. Marshall was honored as one of the oldest and most prominent retired lawyers in Northern Kentucky. In his will, he left to the City of Augusta a sizable grant to build a waterworks and an electric light plant. The Marshall family had come to Kentucky from Virginia and was related to a number of famous Americans, including John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, and Secretary of State George Catlett Marshall, originator of the Marshall Plan for Europe’s economic recovery after World War II. “Hon. T. F. Marshall,” Daily Public Ledger, March 27, 1901, 4.

“Hon. Thornton F. Marshall,” Maysville Bulletin, March 28, 1901, 3.

Marsh, Betsa. “Augusta B&B Is One Room with a River View,” KE, March 5, 2006, F1.

MARYDALE Perrin, William Henry, J. H. Battle, and G. C. Kniffi n.

Kentucky: A History of the State. Louisville, Ky.: F. A. Battey, 1888.

“Thornton F. Marshall Dead,” LCJ, March 26, 1901, A8.

Rebecca Mitchell Turney

MARSHALL, WILLIAM LOUIS, GENERAL (b. June 11, 1846, Washington, Ky.; d. July 2, 1920, Washington, D.C.). Military engineer William L. Marshall, one of the many famous Marshall family members of Mason Co., was the son of Col. Charles A. and Phoebe A. Paxton Marshall. His great-uncle was U.S. Supreme Court justice John Marshall.

William Marshall attended Kenyon College grammar school and college in Gambier, Ohio, before the Civil War and then spent one year fighting for the Union Army’s Kentucky 10th Cavalry. Ill health forced him to resign in 1863, but he recovered and received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. In 1868 he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers.

During his long military career, he discovered the Marshall Pass across the Rocky Mountains and constructed the Ambrose Channel within New York Harbor at New York City. He was involved in several major engineering projects, including the Hennepin Canal in Illinois, part of the Illinois Waterway that connected Chicago to the Mississippi River. He served as chief of engineers from 1908 until 1910, when he retired. He later became a consulting engineer to the U.S. Reclamation Ser vice.

He died in an army hospital in the nation’s capital and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Martin’s best season was 1997; that year he carded 10 top-10 finishes. In 1997–1998 he served two years on the PGA Tour’s Players Advisory Council.

He earned $1.7 million during his 11-year professional golfing career. A degenerative back injury forced Martin to retire in spring 2000. In 2001 he began a second career as a teaching pro in Northern Kentucky. Martin has lived in Florence and Edgewood and now resides in Union. He married his wife, Gaylynn, in 1988, and they have two children.

Dorman, Larry. “For Singh, It’s Par for the Course until the Very End,” NYT, May 22, 1995, C5.

Rosaforte, Tim. “Singing a New Tune.” Sports Illustrated, May 29, 1995, G18.

Neil Schmidt

MARTIN, WILLIAM HENRY, JR. (b. January 19, 1895, Lexington, Ky.; d. February 10, 1952, Dayton, Ohio). Businessman William Henry Martin Jr. was the only child of William Henry and Alice M. Martin, who brought him to Covington at age six. William Jr. attended Lincoln- Grant School and graduated from William Grant High School in 1913 and from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1917. In 1918 he joined the U.S. Army and served during World War I. Upon his discharge, Martin went to Lexington, where he worked for a tailor named George Washington. Some time later, Martin moved back to Covington and by 1927 had opened his first dry-cleaning and tailor business at Athey Ave. and Craig St. That same year he married Alice Arnold, a schoolteacher in Lexington. In 1928 he moved his business to 508 Scott St. In 1932 Martin opened a second dry-cleaning business at

“Fift y Years Ago, July 8, 1920,” Maysville Ledger Independent, July 8, 1970, 4A. Malone, Dumas. Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 6. New York: Scribner’s, 1933.

MARTIN, DOUGLAS (b. December 8, 1966, Bluffton, Ohio). Doug Martin, who in 1984 ranked as the nation’s top youth golfer, is the son of Lynn Martin and his wife, Karen. While at Van Buren (Ohio) High School, from which he graduated in 1985, Martin ranked number one nationally in the Junior Amateurs, for golfers under 18. He became a three-time All-American in golf at the University of Oklahoma at Norman. He finished as national runner-up as a senior in 1989, when he led the Sooners to the NCAA team championship. Martin left school after his senior season, reaching the semifinals of the 1989 U.S. Amateur golf tournament and then representing the United States internationally in the Walker Cup. He moved to Northern Kentucky in fall 1989, the year he debuted professionally. He spent his first season on the PGA Tour in 1992, won the South Texas Open while playing on the Nike Tour in 1993, and then, in 1994, returned to the PGA Tour for seven more seasons. His best PGA tournament finish was as runner-up in the 1995 Buick Classic, when future world number one golfer Vijah Singh bested him in a five-hole playoff, the longest playoff round on the PGA Tour in six years.

William Martin (left) and Rev. Edgar Mack, 1973.

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1015 Greenup St., near the corner of Clinton Ct. and Scott St. In the late 1930s, Martin closed the Greenup location to concentrate on the business at 508 Scott St., which he moved in 1948 from 508 Scott to 522 Scott.

Martin was a member of the First Baptist Church and was actively involved in church affairs, the American Legion, the Utopian club, and the African-American Businessmen’s Association. He was a charter member and the first commander of Charles L. Henderson American Legion Post No. 166.

Martin died at Veterans’ Hospital, Dayton, Ohio, on February 10, 1952, and was buried in Mary E. Smith Cemetery, Elsmere. His wife kept the business open until 1957. Martin’s son William III “Bill” was the longtime executive director of the Northern Kentucky Community Center.

Harris, Ted. “Reader Recollection,” KP, March 2, 1992, 4K. “Journey’s End,” KE, February 12, 1952, 23.

Martin, Alice Arnold. Interview by Theodore Harris, January 15, 1992, Covington, Ky. Martin, William Henry, III. Interview by Theodore Harris, January 14, 1992, Covington, Ky.

Theodore H. H. Harris

MARYDALE. In 1946 the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington purchased the 350-acre Williamsdale property on Donaldson Hwy. in Erlanger. The former horse farm was acquired with the intention of making it a permanent location for a Christian camp. A few years earlier, Rev. Anthony Deye had initiated a camping program for underprivileged children. Having a diocesanowned property would mean that African American children would not have to be excluded because of the strictures of segregation enforced locally at public campgrounds. Bishop William T. Mulloy changed the name of the property to Marydale and appointed Deye as the first director of the camp.

A large horse barn was cleaned and converted into a lodge with a kitchen. Tents were erected for the first campers in summer 1947. Boys and girls from the various parishes of the diocese spent a week camping under the guidance of diocesan seminarians and female students of Villa Madonna College (now Thomas More College) in Covington, who served as counselors. Mulloy and Deye resisted pressure from some parents to schedule separate camping weeks for black and white children. As the popularity of Camp Marydale grew during the next two decades, log cabins were constructed for the campers; over the years, several large lodges were built, including the Timbers and Saga lodges. A swimming pool was built in 1968 to supplement water-related activities at the lake that had been dug as an expansion of the creek flowing through the property. Campers enjoyed riding horses, canoeing, archery, and many other sports.

After each camping season, a reunion was held for all of those who had attended camps that summer.

In the early 1950s, a lay retreat group appealed to Mulloy to begin a retreat program on the property.

The group chose the name “the Men of Marydale

582 MARY INGLES HIGHWAY Retreat League” in 1952, and they took responsibility, with assistance from the Knights of Columbus, for raising funds to renovate the horse barn into the first retreat house. When the size of the barn proved inadequate, a hill overlooking the lake was chosen as a site for a new diocesan retreat house. The architectural firm of Betz and Bankemper (see Carl C. Bankemper) designed the onestory brick ranch-style structure, which opened at Marydale in 1957. Rev. Carl Tillman, the first director, died that same year of a brain tumor. Rev. Thomas Middendorf succeeded him and served as director through the retreat center’s early years. A new south wing with 14 rooms was added to the facility in 1965.

For many years, Marydale remained a rural oasis of natural beauty in the midst of the urban and commercial development all around it. I-71 and I-75 ran along the eastern boundary of the property, and the often-expanded Cincinnati/ Northern Kentucky International Airport was only a few miles to the west. Pressure for greater access in the expanding commercial areas led to requests by the State of Kentucky to buy a portion of the Marydale property on which to build a connector from Donaldson Hwy. to Houston Rd. in order to help alleviate traffic problems. Bishop William A. Hughes sold just over seven acres for a road. Most of the camping facilities were thus cut off from the retreat house, and as a result the camping program was discontinued in 1988. The diocese hired the PHH Fantus Corporation to form a plan for utilizing the property cut off from the retreat house by the new road. The diocese then entertained proposals from many entities desiring to buy land at Marydale. Some property north of Donaldson Rd. was used to build the new St. Henry District High School, which opened in 1998. In 1996 Citicorp (see Citigroup) purchased 81.3 acres on the east side of the new Houston Rd., thereby greatly reducing the size of Marydale. In 2006 the Diocese of Covington sold another 226 acres to fund a court-approved settlement of sexual-abuse claims against diocesan clergy. The retreat house was part of the property sold. The diocese plans to renovate the recently closed Catholic Center (formerly the Seminary of St. Pius X) as a new center for the retreat program that will utilize the remaining 40 acres.

“Bishop Finalizes Property Deal with State,” Messenger, February 24, 1991, 3.

“Citicorp Buys 81 Acres of Camp Marydale Property,” Messenger, June 21, 1996, 1.

Deye, Anthony, “Marydale Memoir,” 1954, 13.09, Camp Marydale, Archives of the Covington Diocese, Covington, Ky. “Diocesan Retreat House Opens: Bishop Explains Marydale Plan,” Messenger, August 31, 1952, 1A. “Diocese Sells 226 Acres of Marydale/Catholic Center Property to Fund Class Action Settlement,” Messenger, March 3, 2006, 3.

Marydale: Center of Christian Renewal, 25th Anniversary Booklet, 1972. Archives of the Diocese of Covington, Erlanger, Ky. “Marydale Launches Men’s Retreat Program: New Building Combines Rural Site, Modern Comforts,” Messenger, September 15, 1957, 12A.

“No Color Line at Camp,” Messenger, August 24, 1947, 4.

“Statement Released Concerning Marydale,” Messenger, July 31, 1988, 3.

Thomas S. Ward

MARY INGLES HIGHWAY. The Mary Ingles (Inglis) Highway, also known as Ky. Rt. 8, was named in honor of the white woman who was reportedly the first to set foot in Kentucky. In 1755 Shawnee Indians captured Mary Draper Ingles and her two sons at Draper’s Meadow, Va. (modern Blacksburg, Va.). She was brought to Big Bone Springs (see Big Bone Lick State Resort Park) in Boone Co., Ky. Ingles eventually escaped without her children and followed the southern shore of the Ohio River eastward, ultimately returning home in part by the modern-day pathway of the Mary Ingles Highway.

The original intention of this road was to connect Northern Kentucky with Ashland, Ky., and to make Maysville more easily accessible. In 1925 Kentucky state senator Charles B. Truesdell of Fort Thomas introduced legislation to designate the proposed route as Ky. Rt. 8. At the same time, Mrs. James G. Johnson of Dayton, Ky., suggested that the highway be named for courageous pioneer Mary Ingles. Thus began the formation of the Mary Ingles Highway Association. On March 13, 1925, a meeting was held at the Eagles Hall in Bellevue to discuss the proposed highway. Governor William J. Fields (1923–1927), Truesdell, and State Representative A. J. Jolly were present, along with city officials from towns that would connect with the planned thoroughfare. It was decided that the road would be built using county, state, and federal funds; but in actuality it was the state that ultimately allocated the funds for the road.

Not much progress occurred during the latter half of the 1920s. After several attempts by Northern Kentucky officials to press for completion of the road, state highway commissioner J. Lyter Donaldson, from Carrollton, gave assurance to a frustrated Campbell Co. Fiscal Court that construction would begin in the “current year” (1935).

Construction of the 24-foot wide road, wide enough for three cars to travel side by side, was to begin in Dayton and extend through the eastern section of the county. Contracts were let to Francisco Construction of Cincinnati for a 3.5-mile section from California, Ky., to the Pendleton Co. line for the sum of $31,870 and to Pryor and Johnson Construction of Mayfield for the 4.6 miles from Dayton to Brent for $78,000, not including the cost of the underpass beneath the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad tracks at Coal Haven.

Until the $250,000 underpass was completed in about 1937, that section of the road could not be used; and the roadbed east of the underpass had to be cleared and cut out of the steep hillside along an old bridle path above the railroad to connect with River Rd., which was part of the old Twelve-Mile Turnpike. Later, other sections of construction were proposed and built incrementally. The other bottleneck in construction was the new bridge over Twelve Mile Creek just east of Oneonta. De-

lays, miscommunications, studies, and more studies, with public meetings following endless other meetings, marked the history of the road. Changing administrations in Frankfort did not help matters. Outside of Campbell Co., few legislators were interested in the project.

In Bracken Co., Brooksville civic leaders such as county attorney Patrick Flannery understood the importance of the proposed highway to his city. He and his group knew that although the road would not pass through Brooksville proper, it would greatly ease the process of bringing goods and ser vices to their town. As recently as 1931, Brooksville had lost the Brooksville and Ohio Railroad connection with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad at Wellsburg. Bracken Co. leaders attended the many intercounty meetings— eventually about 200 of them—that were held regarding the highway. Their association supporting the road was known as the Mary Inglis Trail Boosters.

During World War II, the Mary Ingles Highway Association discontinued its activities. After interest in the highway returned, in 1947, a mass meeting was held in Frankfort at the office of the state highway commissioner. More than 500 persons attended, and the Mary Ingles Highway Association was resurrected. The same old prewar off-and-on process continued into the 1950s. As late as 1955, during a highway inspection trip led

by Martha P. Comer, editor of the Maysville Independent, Comer’s car, full of media people, became stranded in the mud on Dover Hill west of Maysville and was unable to continue to a scheduled dinner at the Riverdale Hotel in Ross, celebrating the road’s “completion.” Campbell Co. Judge Fred M. Warren warned at that gala that even though the Mary Ingles Highway Association was a nonpolitical organization, “a good share of Republican votes could be captured” if the road was not properly finished as soon as possible.

The road was less complete to the east. The original thought of continuing to Ashland seems to have died early. There was simply not enough political interest in the project east of Maysville for a Campbell Co.–inspired idea. Towns such as Ashland and South Shore in Lewis Co. already had high-quality federally built highways. Even Augusta in Bracken Co. had its easy Augusta Ferry connection with U.S. 52.

In many respects, the road never was properly completed. At least three sections have vexed highway department personnel. The part west of Bromley in Kenton Co. hugs an ever-slipping hillside, bubbling up asphalt as quickly as it can be laid; the same is true of the section from Coal Haven east to Brent in Campbell Co., and the portion between Twelve Mile Creek and Ky. Rt. 1996, in eastern Campbell Co. Each of these areas has cost several lives over the years, as cars have literally bounced off the road surface.

The road passes through Boone, Kenton, Campbell, Pendleton, Bracken, and Mason counties. It has always been a favorite route for families taking Sunday afternoon drives. However, its importance as a regional transportation artery has

MASON CO.

diminished with the opening of the more inland, more direct, and somewhat safer modern AA Highway.

“Cry Raised for Work on Inglis Highway; Court Action Is Urged,” KP, January 27, 1938, 1.

“Heroic Mary Ingles Honored by Women of Kentucky,” KP, March 25, 1925, 1.

“Highway Is Discussed,” KP, November 24, 1929, 16.

“Inglis Highway Plans Outlined,” KP, July 30, 1937, 1.

“Inglis Highway Work Is Begun,” KP, July 31, 1935, 1.

“Mary Ingles Group Meets,” KTS, January 5, 1957, 4A. “Mary Inglis Meeting,” Bracken Chronicle, July 4, 1935, 3.

“Mary Inglis Road First, Group Hears,” KP, March 7, 1935, 2.

“State Orders Survey of Incomplete Road,” KTS, February 17, 1955, 1A. “Top Officials to Tour Mary Ingles Highway,” KTS, February 9, 1955, 2A. “Work on Inglis Highway to Be Started This Year,” KP, February 6, 1935, 1.

Robin Caraway

MARY QUEEN OF HEAVEN CATHOLIC CHURCH. The Mary Queen of Heaven Church’s parish is bounded by the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, I-75 (see Expressways), and the Boone-Kenton county line.

The church is near Marydale, the Passionist convent, and the new St. Henry District High School.

The congregation of the parish first worshipped in the chapel of the Passionist nuns and served 73 families in 1955. In 1956–1957 the congregation built a church, a school, and a convent building on former Marydale property. A series of celebrations marked the church’s beginning: in September 1957 the first mass was celebrated in the new church; and in October 1957 the church auditorium, four classrooms, the cafeteria, and the convent were blessed by the bishop. In 1961, with 150 families now being served, the parish purchased a nearby residence for a rectory. In January 1964, with 197 families, the bishop approved two more classrooms. The diocese approved the addition of four more classrooms in 1967. During the late 1980s, the parish doubled the size of the school’s parking lot; erected a six-foot-tall, brightly illuminated message sign; and built athletic facilities. In 1990 the convent was converted for use in the preschool and kindergarten programs.

The parish began a Community Ser vice outreach in 2002 and in 2004 established a chapter of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Other ministries include Respect for Life, Family Life, Adult Education, and a Youth Group for high school students.

In 1998 the parish broke ground for a library and a multipurpose gymnasium, dedicated October 10, 1999, in honor of Father John J. McGuire, the parish’s second pastor (1986–2000). Soon, work began on another phase of capital improvements. A capital campaign chaired by Jerry Cook achieved pledges of $1.1 million, and Dennis Behle chaired the Building Oversight Committee. Improvements, dedicated on November 14, 2004, by Bishop Roger Foys and Pastor Richard Worth, included a new gathering-place addition, a renovated church interior, Stations of the Cross (acquired

from St. Walburg Monastery [see Sisters of St. Benedict]), a banner and a wooden statue of Mary in the nave, and other improvements. The Mary Queen of Heaven parish served 622 families in 2002.

“Erlanger Parish Celebrates Jubilee,” Messenger, September 28, 1980, 2.

“Mary Queen of Heaven,” Messenger, November, 19, 2004, supplement.

“Mary Queen of Heaven Addition,” Messenger, April 8, 1990, 7.

“New Buildings Evidence Growth of Mary, Queen of Heaven Parish,” Messenger, October 20, 1957, 12A. “Parish Holds Ground-Breaking Ceremonies for New School,” Messenger, November 25, 1956, 3A.

John Boh

MASON. Mason, in southern Grant Co., situated along U.S. 25 (Dixie Highway), was for many years known as Gouge or Gouges, for James Gouge and his brother, who operated a tavern there around the beginning of the 19th century. The community’s first post office was named Gouge in 1858. The town’s name was changed in 1878 to Mason, for the contractor who completed the construction of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad through the area.

The first church organized at Mason was the Lystra Church of Christ, established in 1841. Now it occupies its third church building. The Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church South, the second church in Mason, closed in 1952. The Mason Baptist Church, organized by 1883, remains active.

Three county school districts were merged in 1918 to form the Mason Consolidated School, the first in Grant Co., which offered 12 grades; the first high school class graduated in 1921 (see Mason High School).

Bruce’s General Store is operated by the third generation of Bruces at the store’s original location.

The Mason post office is next door, where Jewel Bruce is postmistress.

Conrad, John B., ed. History of Grant County. Williamstown, Ky.: Grant Co. Historical Society, 1992.

Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1984.

John B. Conrad

MASON, GEORGE (b. December 11, 1725, Fairfax Co., Va.; d. October 7, 1792, Lorton, Fairfax Co., Va.). George Mason, after whom Mason Co. was named, was born in 1725. He was a Virginia planter and became a jurist and state legislator in his home state. In 1752 he was named treasurer of the Ohio Company, a Virginia land company that sponsored exploration of Kentucky and claimed lands there. He continued to serve in that position until his death in 1792, which effectively ended the land company’s claims in Kentucky. Mason was instrumental in gaining the support from Virginia that George Rogers Clark needed to defeat the British and their American Indian allies during the Revolutionary War; Clark’s series of military victories helped consolidate the colonists’ hold on the Ohio River Valley.

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Mason, one of the key leaders and political thinkers of the American Revolution, also wrote the Virginia Bill of Rights, which clearly influenced Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence as well as the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In many cases the same language that Mason penned in the Virginia Bill of Rights can be found in those two later documents.

As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, Mason was influential in the deliberations but opposed the final draft of the Constitution, partially because it did not contain a bill of rights. His insistence on the need for a bill of rights ultimately influenced its inclusion as part of the U.S. Constitution in 1791. Mason’s place among the founding fathers was negatively affected by his opposition to the final passage of the U.S. Constitution; nevertheless, Virginia honored this early American statesmen in 1788 by assigning his name to one of the nine counties the Virginia legislature established in Kentucky, before Kentucky became a state in 1792. Mason Co. was carved out of Bourbon Co. George Mason died in Virginia at his plantation at age 66 and was buried at his plantation, Gunston Hall, in Lorton, Fairfax Co., Va. George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public institution of higher learning, also bears his name.

Miller, Helen Hill. George Mason: Gentleman Revolutionary. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1975.

———. George Mason of Gunston Hall. Lorton, Va.: Board of Regents, 1958.

John Klee

MASON CO. Mason Co., established by the Virginia legislature in 1788, was the eighth county formed in what became the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The county was named for George Mason, whose Virginia Bill of Rights was an inspiration for the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. At that time, Mason Co.’s western boundary stretched from the source of the Licking River to its mouth, and its eastern border ran from the Virginia border north along the Big Sandy River to the Ohio River and back to the mouth of the Licking River. Today, the county covers 241 square miles and is bounded by Lewis, Fleming, Bracken, and Robertson counties and the Ohio River. The original county seat, Washington, Ky., was the first town in the United States named for President George Washington (1789–1797). After an intercity struggle, the county seat was moved to Maysville in 1848.

The land that became Mason Co. was part of a seabed millions of years ago, and as a result fossils can be found today in every cut along the county’s highways and in the excavations being done by a major local lime operation (see Geology). The limestone that formed from the ancient sea provided rich soil, later worked by American Indians. Prehistoric foundations and artifacts that have been uncovered reveal a sophisticated community at Fox Field in southern Mason Co. Mounds and other evidence of prehistoric life are common. Prehistoric animals and later bison beat down a trail from the Ohio River to Central

MASON CO.

The Mason Co. Courthouse, Maysville, built in 1845, and the First Presbyterian Church, built in 1852. Pictured in ca. 1917.

Kentucky through the salt lick at what is now Blue Licks, and it was this road that led the first white settlers to the area (see Buffalo Traces). There were no permanent American Indian settlements in Mason Co. contemporary with white settlement. However, in the last half of the eighteenth century, the county was frequently traversed by Indian groups, particularly the Shawnee tribe, and reports of their famed leader Tecumseh in the area are numerous.

One of the first white explorers of the region was Christopher Gist, who came in 1751. In 1755 Mary Ingles traveled through the county as she escaped the Shawnees. Simon Kenton made repeated visits to the place where Limestone Creek emptied into the Ohio River, and in 1784 he built a station nearby, where he had found rich cane lands.

The settlement of Limestone that developed there was a first stop for many people who were on their way to settle in the West, since the Ohio River was the preferred path for that journey after 1780, especially for those headed into Kentucky.

Arthur Fox and William Wood, on 400 acres that they bought from Kenton, developed the town of Washington, and it became the center of commerce, education, law, and politics in early Mason Co. In 1790 Washington was the second-largest town in what became the new state of Kentucky.

Lewis Craig, who had led his traveling Baptist church congregation out of persecution in Virginia to Mason Co., built the courthouse in Washington in 1794. In the same period, he built an extant Greek Revival–style brick church building for his congregation in Minerva, in the northern part of the county. The three-mile trail or trace between Limestone and Washington became, in the early 1800s, the first macadamized road in Kentucky. In 1809 future president Zachary Taylor (1849–1850) was a military recruiter in Washington. Thomas Marshall moved to Washington in 1788 and served as the first Mason Co. Court clerk. His par-

ents also moved to the community and were buried there. Another son of theirs, John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for 30 years, visited when he could. In 1823 Alexander Campbell, a founder of the Disciples of Christ, debated a Presbyterian minister, Rev. W. L. McCalla, at the Washington Baptist Church. Harriet Beecher, who visited from Cincinnati with her student Elizabeth Key (see Marshall Key), a Washington resident, may have witnessed slave auctions that were held just a few doors down from the Key house on the grounds of the Mason Co. courthouse. In 1803, in a house across an alley from that courthouse, Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston was born. Later Gen. William “Bull” Nelson of the Union Army lived in the same house.

About 10 miles south of Washington along the buffalo trace, another settlement, Mayslick, was established in 1787. One inhabitant of Mayslick was Daniel Drake, who lived there in his youth and later returned to the town to serve as a physician for a year. Dr. Drake was a founder of what became the University of Cincinnati Hospital and its medical college. His book Pioneer Life in Kentucky, 1785–1800, published in 1870 after his death, drew on his experiences as a child in Mayslick.

As the 19th century progressed, Limestone, renamed Maysville, gradually became more prominent than Washington. The conflicts with American Indians in Mason Co. ended, making life in Maysville more attractive than it had been.

Maysville was a commercial hub and continued to be a stop for settlers, who now were moving south into Central Kentucky, north on what later became a link (Zane’s Trace) to the National Road, and west on the Ohio River to Cincinnati, Louisville, and beyond. Even Daniel Boone lived on the riverfront in Maysville in the late 1780s. The advent of steamboats in the 1820s and the resultant economic effects led to increased population and

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trade, and by 1830 Maysville’s population of 2,000 was more than double that of Washington. In 1833 Maysville became an incorporated city, and in 1848 the Kentucky legislature approved moving the county seat there from Washington.

Mason Co.’s importance in the state was often on display in the early 19th century. The Marquis de Lafayette made it a stop on his grand tour of America in 1825. Henry Clay was a frequent visitor as he traveled to and from Washington, D.C. In 1825 and 1827, the community held public dinners for Clay, the latter one drawing 2,500 participants.

Zachary Taylor, Daniel Webster, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and others made Maysville a stop on their travels. In 1830 Mason Co. was the center of a national debate over the role of the national government in funding improvements within a state: the Maysville Road Bill, which called for building an improved road between Maysville and Lexington, Ky., was passed by the U.S. Congress but vetoed by President Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) in 1830. Mason Co. also became a destination for immigrants of Irish and German descent, beginning in the 1840s, and their increasing numbers led to the establishment of three Roman Catholic churches in the county.

Slavery was an important institution in Mason Co.; on the eve of the Civil War, the county had more than 4,000 slaves in a total population of 18,000. Slave auctions and slave pens were part of life in the county. There were no Civil War battles in the county, but Confederate raids occurred in Maysville, Sardis, and along the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike. The Union formed a recruiting camp, Camp Nelson, near Maysville. Freedmen faced many difficulties after the war, including the threat of arrest if they were unemployed or vagrant. The African American population declined steadily after the Civil War to a little more than 1,000 at the turn of the 20th century, while the county’s total population remained about the same as in 1850.

Maysville, Washington, and Mayslick, as well as Mason Co.’s other small communities, depended on agriculture for their prosperity. In the 19th century the main crops were tobacco and hemp. However, farming was diversified with wheat, corn, garden crops, and livestock, particularly pigs.

Well into the 20th century, hog-killing and making sorghum from cane were common events.

Communities throughout Mason Co. in the 19th century had their own churches, mills, professionals, schools, and stores. Many had high schools that served through the mid-20th century.

The town of Dover was established on the Ohio River in 1836, and by the 1840s it had one of the largest tobacco markets in the country: 3 million pounds a year were bought there. The Mason Co. City of Germantown, largely settled by Germans, since 1854 has hosted an agricultural fair that draws participants from several counties annually.

Alexander Doniphan, a Germantown native, moved to Missouri and won important victories in the Mexican War as a brigadier general.

Sardis, incorporated in 1850, is in the general area where Joseph Desha, governor of Kentucky

586 MASON CO. COURT HOUSES from 1824 to 1828, had his home and plantation.

Sardis was also the location of a raid by Confederate general John Hunt Morgan. Minerva, incorporated in 1844, was the site of Lewis Craig’s traveling Baptist church. He was buried nearby. Minerva also was the home of Justice Stanley Reed, solicitorgeneral in the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt (1933–1945) and an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1938 to 1957. Minerva College served the community from 1856 until 1909 and counted among its graduates Herman Donovan, who became the president of the University of Kentucky at Lexington. In Mayslick the first consolidated grade and high school south of the Ohio River that provided transportation for its students was organized in 1909. Other communities of note in the county are Lewisburg and Orangeburg.

Mason Co.’s growth after the Civil War did not match its early development. Railroads were the new engine of growth in the United States, and Mason Co. did not complete its rail connections to Lexington and Cincinnati until late in the 19th century. Significant floods in the 1880s and 1890s also negatively affected the towns along the river.

The county clung to its agrarian, small-town identity while the rest of the nation moved toward urbanization and industrialization. As the 19th century closed, some industry came to the county. The Ohio Valley Pulley Works (see Browning Manufacturing/Ohio Valley Pulley Works) began in 1886 and has remained in operation for more than a century in different incarnations. Mule-drawn streetcars began making runs in 1896 in Maysville.

The Farmers and Tuckahoe tobacco warehouses were established in 1909 and 1910. These were auction warehouses, the second and third ones in the state, and established Mason Co. as the secondlargest loose-leaf tobacco auction market in the world for most of the 20th century. Important names in state and national history continued to be linked to the county. Charles Young, born and educated in the Mayslick area, became only the third African American to graduate from West Point Military Academy in New York in 1889. Two Maysville residents, Augustus Willson and William Cox, served as Kentucky governor and lieutenant governor, respectively, from 1907 until 1911.

Alice Lloyd of Maysville lobbied the Kentucky legislature on the issues of prohibition, women’s suff rage, and protection of tobacco farmers against the tobacco trust.

The 1920s were a time of severe hardship for farmers. For Mason Co. this period initiated a continuing downturn in numbers of farms, tenants, and African American farmers. In the 1930s the tobacco program established following the Agricultural Adjustment Act stabilized prices for that important commodity. Until the 1980s, tobacco was the linchpin of the county’s economy, from farming to the various enterprises that served tobacco farmers to the warehouses and tobacco processing. Parker Tobacco Company, which processed tobacco for later sale, was the largest employer in Mason Co. for some years during the 1970s and 1980s. But farming declined in the last two decades of the 20th century with the falling

fortunes of tobacco. Remaining farm operations concentrated on beef cattle, dairy, forage crops, and various attempts to diversify.

The flood of 1937 was devastating for Maysville, Dover, and residents along the Ohio River. River and rail traffic declined in the post–World War II period and major roads bypassed the city. In the 1950s, Mason Co. took great pride in native daughter Rosemary Clooney, who honored her hometown by premiering the movie The Stars Are Singing in Maysville in 1953. The smaller communities lost their schools to consolidation in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and the decline in farming hastened the towns’ decline in population and importance. Meanwhile, as roads were improved and new roads built, Maysville became a regional center for education, employment, medical care, and shopping. The hills that had restricted travel to the river town were finally breached. The change began with the building of the Maysville Community and Technical College in 1969 in Washington. Retail establishments followed, and after the AA Highway was built in 1983, the hospital (see Meadowview Regional Medical Center) and the retail hub of the city moved to the “top of the hill.” New industry also located there. Along the Ohio River, where Mason Co.’s second incorporated town, Charlestown, was planned in 1787 but never developed, East Kentucky Power built an electric generating facility in 1977 (see Power Plants). That plant has continually expanded and provided stable employment for residents. It also attracted a neighboring business, Inland Container, which uses the steam generated by the power plant to recycle cardboard. The need for coal by that plant and by nearby electric producers helped rejuvenate the rail line from Lexington, which had been abandoned but now transports coal from Eastern Kentucky to Mason Co. River traffic, especially barges and pleasure boats, has increased since the 1970s. The communities throughout the county, which at one point seemed distant from the county seat, are now less than fifteen minutes away from most of the county’s entertainment, health care, and retail sites. Maysville expanded its borders greatly, even annexing its old county-seat rival, Washington, in 1990. In the 1980s, Mexicans were brought into the county to work in the tobacco fields. Many stayed, moved their families, and have become permanent residents. Mennonites, who moved into the area after 1995, brought their language and customs, so that German is the primary language of around 300 Mason Co. residents and horses and buggies have become familiar sights on county roads.

Mason Co. celebrates its historical role with numerous festivals, several museums, and several restored buildings in Washington open to the public.

Its diversified economy and role as a regional hub have created a county with excellent homes, low unemployment, and a tax base that supports impressive schools, parks, and cultural institutions.

Calvert, Jean, and John Klee. Maysville, Kentucky: From Past to Present in Pictures. Maysville: Mason Co. Museum, 1983.

Clift, G. Glenn, History of Maysville and Mason County. Lexington, Ky.: Transylvania, 1956.

Collins, Richard H. History of Kentucky. Vol. 1. Covington, Ky.: Collins, 1882.

John Klee

MASON CO. COURTHOUSES. Mason Co.’s first courthouse was at Washington, which served as the county seat from 1794 until 1848. An imposing two-story Federal structure built by the pastor Lewis Craig, it was the site of court proceedings, slave auctions, court days, and public meetings concerning religion and slavery. After the move of the county seat to Maysville, it served as a school and the town hall. The structure burned in 1909.

In 1848 the Mason Co. seat moved to Maysville.

The court house there was a Greek Revival building, constructed in 1845 as the Maysville City Hall. At the time of its construction, plans were already being made to move the county seat from Washington to Maysville. In 1844 a building committee, consisting of Richard Collins, A. M. January, H. McCullough, and F. T. Hord, had been appointed to supervise construction. Ignatius and Stanislaus Mitchell provided and laid the brick for the building, at three dollars per 1,000 bricks.

Lenin Purnell and Christopher Russell are believed to have been the carpenters who created the cherry staircases that spiral up three floors. Other woodwork around the doors and windows and in the main courtroom is also original. The old court house in Maysville faces Th ird St. running south to north toward the Ohio River and has four imposing Doric columns. In 1957 the street on the side of the court house was renamed Stanley Reed Ct. to honor the U.S. Supreme Court justice from Mason Co., and an explanatory plaque was attached to the court house. The courtroom in the building looks today the same as over a century ago, with a raised seating area facing the judge’s bench and spittoons available for the lawyers and the jury; it is still used on special occasions. The county-judge executive offices are on the first floor of the court house.

In 2000 Mason Co. opened a new courthouse on the south side of Third St. It, like the 1845 courthouse, has Doric columns; a cupola and other features are also reminiscent of the Greek Revival style.

Calvert, Jean, and John Klee. Maysville, Kentucky: From Past to Present in Pictures. Maysville, Ky.: Mason Co. Museum, 1983.

John Klee

MASON CO. HIGH SCHOOL. Mason Co. High School, the only public high school in Mason Co., opened in fall 1960. It is located at the “top of the hill” on U.S. 68 in the city of Maysville, approximately midway between the Ohio River and Washington, Ky. The 25-acre site for the school, formerly the Chenault farm, was purchased for $27,500. Ground was broken for the new high school in July 1959, and classes began on September 6, 1960.

Mason Co. High School consolidated the high schools at May’s Lick, Minerva, and Orangeburg,

MASON CO. PUBLIC SCHOOLS

schools that had been established as other high schools in Mason Co. were closed. In 1936 the Sardis High School was closed, and its students were transferred to the high schools at Washington and May’s Lick. In 1942 the Washington High School closed, and its students enrolled at the May’s Lick High School. In 1934 the students who had attended the 9th and 10th grades at the Rectorville School were consolidated into the Orangeburg High School. During the 1940s the Lewisburg High School was closed, and its students entered the high schools at May’s Lick and Orangeburg. In 1929 African American students enrolled in the 9th and 10th grades at the May’s Lick “Negro” School were sent to the segregated John G. Fee Industrial High School in Maysville. In 1956 the John G. Fee High School was incorporated into Maysville High School, part of the separate Maysville Independent School District. Thirty-five years later, in 1991, Maysville High was consolidated into Mason Co. High School.

The consolidation of the county’s three high schools into one school in 1960 provided several new opportunities for the Mason Co. school district: economies of scale could be achieved by operating a single high school, it would allow for expanded offerings, and it would permit replacement of aging facilities. Furthermore, the space freed up in the remaining schools could be used for kindergarten and other programs. The consolidation of the county’s high schools also constituted the final step of integration for the schools in the county.

Mason Co. High School began classes in fall 1960 with few extracurricular activities by today’s standards. Girls could cheer, but there were no sports programs for them. Although the school’s music program did not include a band, it was announced that Coralie Runyon would become the coordinator of music. Her contributions included forming and directing renowned choirs at the school that performed on several overseas tours.

Elza Whalen Jr., the first principal, helped the school get off to a successful start. Almost immediately a rivalry, particularly in sports, developed with Maysville High School and to a lesser extent with the schools of the surrounding counties. Blue and white were selected as the Mason Co. High School colors, with Royals as the teams’ nickname and a crown as the school’s symbol.

Mason Co. High School has established a benchmark of excellence over the years in academics and extracurricular activities. In the 1970s a large gymnasium was built to seat 6,000. It is the largest indoor space in the county and has served as the site for concerts, various celebrations, and athletic competitions for both the school and the community. In 1981, when the Mason Co. High School’s boys’ basketball team reached the state fi nals and played a team from another Northern Kentucky school, Simon Kenton High School, 17,500 fans were in attendance at Rupp Arena in Lexington. It was one of the largest crowds ever to see a high school basketball game. In 2003 and 2008 the Mason Co. High School’s boys’ basketball team won the state championship; it was state runner-up in 2004. Opportunities for stu-

dents have expanded greatly since the high school opened. Beginning in the 1970s, women’s sports teams were added, and the school now has a band, academic teams, and a wide variety of specialinterest clubs and organizations. Moreover, Mason Co. High School teacher salaries and student test scores are higher than those in neighboring counties.

Several graduates of Mason Co. High School have established distinguished careers around the country. Heather French Henry, a 1992 graduate, was crowned Kentucky’s first Miss America in 2000, has become a recognized leader in fighting for veterans’ rights nationwide, and married the former lieutenant governor of Kentucky, Steve Henry. Chris Lofton, a 2004 graduate, was Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball and continued his playing career at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Mason Co. High School’s enrollment today is approximately 800.

American Association of University Women (Maysville Branch). From Cabin to College: A History of the Schools of Mason County. Maysville, Ky.: G. F. McClanahan, 1976.

“In Mason County—$1.4 Million Gym Opens,” KE, January 14, 1965, 2.

“Mason-Co. Inaugurates Football Program,” KP, September 21, 1977, 1K.

John Klee

MASON CO. PUBLIC LIBRARY. As early as 1839, a group of local citizens obtained from the Kentucky legislature a charter for the Maysville Lyceum, which was to provide a city library, a public reading room, and a society for literary discussions and debate. This ambitious project was never realized, but in 1870 an unknown Englishman living in the country left a small amount of money for founding a public library. The money was held until 1876, when James Wormald, a local hat and umbrella merchant, donated $2,000 and the Culbertson home on Sutton St. in Maysville to establish a local library. Wormald’s other contributions inspired by his generosity were used to create the Maysville and Mason Co. Historical and Scientific Association. The Mason Co. Public Library was then chartered by the Kentucky legislature on March 1, 1878, and its five trustees were chosen by Wormald. It was open by 1879.

The first librarian was William D. Hixon (1828–1908), a former genealogist, historian, newspaper editor, and teacher, who served for 30 years.

After his death, Miss Mary Eliza “Mame” Richeson succeeded him, continuing as head librarian until her death in 1935.

In 1910 the library received the final settlement from Wormald’s estate, and the trustees purchased the structure next door, which the Bank of Maysville had occupied since the early 1830s. In 1952 the Mason Co. Public Library moved into a new building. It was built, behind the original library building, as a memorial to the late John M. Hunt by his wife. The Hunt Building later became the Mason Co. Museum, which was razed in 2005.

In June 1971 the Mason Co. Library District was established as a separate taxing district. The library

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moved once again, to its present location at 218 E. Third St. in Maysville, a facility dedicated on September 10, 1995. A children’s wing was added to the library and dedicated on May 4, 2003. A bookmobile provides ser vice to rural areas and schools.

“It’s Not about Books,” KP, June 19, 1990, 4K. “Location Dispute Kills Library Grant,” KP, June 9, 1990, 9K. “New Librarian Named for Mason County,” KE, April 22, 1980, A4.

Evelyn G. Cropper

MASON CO. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Public schools in Mason Co. date back to at least July 1835, when the City of Maysville established a free endowed school to serve students between the ages of 6 and 14. This was the start of the system that became the Maysville Independent School District. It developed elementary schools, including the First District School, the Fift h St. School, the Woodleigh School, the Sixth Ward School, and the Center District School. An elementary school and the John G. Fee Industrial High School for African American students were also a part of this system. In 1972 the elementary students were consolidated into the expanded Woodleigh School, renamed the Earle Jones Elementary School. The junior high was placed inside the former Fee school. Maysville High School was downtown at the corner of Limestone and Second Sts. in a building built in 1908. The Maysville system was consolidated into the Mason Co. system in 1991.

Public schools in Mason Co. were originally situated in geographic districts that allowed children to walk or use horses to get to school. At first, the district schools were either one- or two-room units. Each local district had its own trustees, who employed the teachers and established the curriculum. Most of Mason Co.’s larger towns had seminaries, academies, or colleges, most of them private. Some of these developed into area schools, including high schools, and were later brought into the county public school system.

Public schools were created in the 1830s in every Kentucky county during the administration of Governor James Clark (1836–1839). Mason Co.’s school system developed at that time and continued to consolidate and take over locally controlled schools well into the early 20th century. A report from the Maysville Bulletin in March 1882 gave a count of 46 white school districts and 12 black school districts in Mason Co. There were 5,000 white children and 1,000 black children enrolled, but the total attendance recorded at the schools was less than half that number. Most of the schools had five-month terms, although a few met for only three months. There were 5 log schoolhouses operating in the county in 1882, 20 private schools, and 5 academies or high schools.

Over the next three decades, most of the private schools in Mason Co. closed or were consolidated into the county system, and a system of high schools was established. One of the significant steps forward for the schools in the county was the consolidation of schools and the institution of a tax for schools in May’s Lick. As a result, in 1911 the first

588 MASON CO. STATIONS consolidated school with publicly funded transportation in Kentucky and in the South, May’s Lick High School, was established there. The high school remained in operation until 1960. The community of Minerva in Mason Co. had a long tradition of education, of which Minerva College (high school) was a centerpiece. Herman Lee Donovan, a 1905 graduate of Minerva College, became the first student at the Western Kentucky State Normal School (now Western Kentucky University) in Bowling Green, returned to Mason Co. to teach, and then became president of Eastern Kentucky State Normal School (now Eastern Kentucky University) at Richmond and later the fourth president of the University of Kentucky at Lexington. Minerva College became part of the Mason Co. school system in 1909, and the 25 members of the class of 1960 were the last to attend Minerva High School. The other county high school that lasted until the countywide high school consolidation in 1960 was the Orangeburg High School, which had earlier taken in the schools in several surrounding communities including Lewisburg, Plumville, and Rectorville.

Lewisburg, Sardis, and Washington had both high schools and grade schools that came to be incorporated into other area schools. Dover, Rectorville, and Moransburg also once had substantial consolidated grade schools that took in the students from smaller district schools in the county.

Miss Jessie O. Yancey, the first woman elected to public office in Mason Co., was school superintendent when many of these school changes took place during the early 20th century. She was the force behind consolidation, building, and the transportation plan for the county’s public schools in 1912. New schools were built at May’s Lick, Washington, Rectorville, and Orangeburg between 1910 and 1922 as part of this arrangement.

Mason Co. High School was made up of students who would have attended the high schools that closed in 1960. The remaining county schools, those for the lower grades, were consolidated during the 1970s, and two new schools, the Straub Elementary School, named for former superintendent Charles Straub, and a middle school for grades six through eight, were built next to the high school. When the Maysville Schools were incorporated into the county system in 1991, the Jones Elementary School was converted to grades four and five. A new intermediate school was completed in 2005 and opened in January 2006, on new property along Clark’s Run Rd., approximately two miles from the high school.

Today, there are nearly 3,000 public school students in Mason Co. attending classes in four buildings (Mason Co. High School, Mason Co. Middle School, Mason Co. Intermediate School, and Straub Elementary) on two campuses a short distance apart, which constitute the Mason Co. Public School System.

American Association of University Women (Maysville Branch). From Cabin to College: A History of the Schools of Mason County.

Maysville, Ky.: G. F. McClanahan, 1976.

Clift, G. Glenn. History of Maysville and Mason County. Lexington, Ky.: Transylvania, 1936.

Collection of the Kentucky Gateway Museum, Maysville, Ky. “Integration in Mason,” KTS, February 16, 1956, 12A.

John Klee

MASON CO. STATIONS. During the early years of Kentucky settlement, small groups of men, often with their families, clustered their cabins together for mutual protection against the depredations of American Indians who opposed the influx of white settlers. These settlements were referred to as stations and were usually named for one of the founders. Sometimes a block house was erected to serve as a refuge during attack.

One of the earliest and most important stations in Mason Co. was Simon Kenton’s Station, established by the famous frontiersman. In 1775, on one of his early visits to Kentucky, Kenton traveled up Limestone Creek with companion Thomas Williams. About three miles from the mouth of the Limestone Creek on the Ohio River, Kenton and Williams found the canebrake they were seeking.

There, at a fork in Lawrence Creek near Drennon’s Spring, they cleared some land and planted corn.

Kenton recognized it as a good place for a station and planned to return there eventually. In 1784 he finally established a small station with a blockhouse, with which he intended to offer security and protection from Indian attacks to the settlers in the area. Two years later, his brother John established another station about two miles away, a mile southwest of the present-day town of Washington.

It became known as John Kenton’s Station to distinguish it from Simon’s. Washington itself originated as Fox’s Station; in 1786 it was parceled out in lots for the town by Arthur Fox, who had purchased the site.

Several other stations were built in the Limestone-Washington area starting in 1785. In that year, James McKinley erected a block house on the old Buffalo Trace (now U.S. 68) south of Maysville, then known as Limestone. Also in 1785, Gen. Henry Lee established his station two miles southeast of Limestone, and Waring’s Station was founded by Col. Thomas Waring a mile and a half southwest of the town. Mefford’s Station was established by George Mefford of Maryland in 1787.

He and his family sailed down the Ohio River in a flatboat to Limestone, and Mefford then selected a site for his station about two and a half miles south of Limestone. Once the site was chosen, Mefford disassembled his flatboat and used the timbers to construct a home. The cabin was moved to the town of Washington (now part of Maysville) in 1969. George Clark established his station seven miles from Limestone, on the North Fork of the Licking River near present-day Lewisburg. The station was built in 1787 but subsequently abandoned.

When George Lewis renewed settlement there in 1789, he renamed the station for himself.

Little information is available about some additional stations. Curtis’s Station and Whaley’s Station were both built in 1790 in the same vicinity two miles southwest of Limestone. Bailey’s Station originated in 1791 between Washington and Limestone. Bosley’s Station was founded in 1791 near

the main fork of Well’s Creek. Byne’s Station was also founded on the North Fork, and Daniel Feagan settled his station about 10 miles west of Limestone near Germantown.

Best, Edna Hunter. Historic Washington Kentucky.

1st ed., 1944. Reprint, Maysville, Ky.: Limestone Chapter of the DAR, 1971.

Clift, G. Glenn. History of Maysville and Mason County, Kentucky. Lexington, Ky.: Transylvania, 1936.

Collins, Richard. History of Kentucky. Vols. 1 and 2.

Covington, Ky.: Collins, 1882.

Laycock, George, and Ellen Laycock. The Ohio Valley: Your Guide to America’s Heartland. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983.

Update: Guide to Kentucky Historical Highway Markers. Frankfort, Ky.: Kentucky Historical Society, 1989.

Thomas S. Ward

MASON-DIXON LINE. Songs have been written about it; moving van lines, interstate bus companies, and airlines have been named for it; and many people talk about it, but few people know precisely where the Mason-Dixon Line lies. A portion of it, in fact, constitutes the northern boundary of Northern Kentucky. The line has historical origins in an 18th-century boundary dispute between two families: the Calverts, who administered the Maryland Colony, and the Penns, who oversaw the Colony of Pennsylvania. After litigation from the dispute reached London, England, two British surveyors were hired to draw a boundary line: Charles Mason, a mathematician and an astronomer, and Jeremiah Dixon, a mathematician and a renowned land surveyor. Their work began in 1763, and it took almost four years to survey the disputed boundaries. Once the surveyors had carved out what was to become the State of Delaware from the Delmarva Peninsula, their survey line arrived at a point 15 miles south of Philadelphia and headed west, at roughly 40° north. The line was extended about 244 miles west, to a point 36 miles east of the Ohio River, south of modern Pittsburgh. For its first 60 years or so, the boundary line generally was thought to be a local border; when Maryland and Pennsylvania became states, this line formed the border between them. With the passage of the Missouri Compromise by the U.S. Congress in 1820, the Mason-Dixon line was extended farther and gained a whole new importance. The Compromise pushed it westward to the Ohio River and southwesterly along the Ohio River to where it joins the Mississippi River at Cairo, Ill. From there the line headed due west through Missouri, along latitude 36° 30. According to the Missouri Compromise, all states north of the Mason-Dixon line would be free of slavery, and those south of it were to be slave states. Thus, as it relates to the Northern Kentucky region, the Mason-Dixon line forms the very northern boundary. In terms of dialects within the United States, the Mason-Dixon line also has been dubbed “the line that separates ‘y’all’ [the Southern term] from ‘youse’ [its Northern equivalent].”

MASONS About.com: Geography. “The Mason-Dixon Line.” http://geography.about.com (accessed June 25, 2007).

Danson, Edwin. Drawing the Line: How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America. New York: John Wiley, 2001.

Michael R. Sweeney

MASON HIGH SCHOOL. Mason High School was the last to be established of the four local high schools operated by the Grant Co. Board of Education. Officially referred to as Mason Consolidated High School, it was established in 1918 by the merger of three adjoining elementary school districts into one district. All 12 grades were offered by the new school. The school’s first principal was Nell Jordan, who served only a brief term, and D. B. Hubbard was the second. The first graduating class in 1921 consisted of one member, Thelma Threlkeld True; the last class, in 1953, had 23 graduates.

Thereafter, high school students were bussed to Grant Co. High School at Dry Ridge, and students in the seventh and eighth grades were bussed to the adjoining new Grant Co. Middle School.

Students in the first six grades continued to attend the Mason Elementary School in the old school building until the 1991 opening of the MasonCorinth Elementary School, on U.S. 25 between Mason and Corinth.

Conrad, John B., ed. History of Grant County. Williamstown, Ky.: Grant Co. Historical Society, 1992.

John B. Conrad

MASONS. Masonic lodges have played influential roles in fellowship and philanthropy throughout Northern Kentucky. The historical roots of freemasonry, as the movement is called, are obscure. Some scholars claim that a number of the rituals and symbols of Masonic lodges date back to the Middle Ages of Europe, to the guilds of stonemasons who traveled “freely” between towns, building medieval cathedrals. Others maintain that some of the traditions hark back to the Knights Templar, a religious order that was originally established to protect Christian travelers to the Holy Land. Modern freemasonry emerged during the height of the Enlightenment in the 18th century and included such founding fathers of the United States as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock. Known for their religious tolerance, Masons did not require a member to be a Christian—only to espouse belief in a supreme being. Freemasons in Europe generally supported the French Revolution and the unification of Italy, both of which the Roman Catholic Church opposed. Catholic popes condemned freemasonry, discouraging Catholics from becoming members of Masonic lodges; so Catholic men established their own fraternal organizations, including the Knights of Columbus.

Free and Accepted Masons (F.&A.M.) are fraternal organizations (historically accepting only men) and have three degrees of initiation, Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. After attaining the rank of Master Mason, a member can

proceed to the York Rite, which has further degrees, including those of Royal Arch Mason and Knights Templar, or to the Scottish Rite (Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry [A.A.S.R.]), which has 33 degrees.

Like many other fraternal organizations of the 19th and 20th centuries, Masonic lodges provided their members various benefits later supplied by Social Security, unemployment benefits, workmen’s compensation, and Medicare. For instance, by the 1870s, the Golden Rule lodge of Covington paid $1.50 per week to hospitalized members who had no one to care for them. Member dues and the proceeds of fund raising events were also used for donations to the Masonic Widows and Orphans’ Home in Louisville and the Old Masons’ Home in Shelbyville. Many other worthy causes were recipients of the Masons’ philanthropy as well, including Booth Memorial Hospital, the Covington Protestant Children’s Home (see Children’s Home of Northern Kentucky), and the YMCA. The earliest Masonic lodge in the region was Military Lodge No. 58 (1793–1794) at Fort Washington in what is now Cincinnati. F.&A.M. lodges developed quickly in the region thereafter. In 1820 Temple Lodge No. 64 of Covington was chartered; it met in a building owned by John Casey on the west side of Scott St. between Third and Fourth Sts.; an 1833 fire destroyed the lodge and all of its records. Covington No. 109 was chartered in 1839 and convened in a building owned by James G. Arnold, and in 1847 Colonel Clay No. 159 lodge was established in Covington. When A. L. Greer, owner of the Covington Locomotive and Manufacturing Works, built the Greer Building in 1849 (on the east side of Scott St. between Fourth and Market Sts.), the Covington No. 109 and Colonel Clay No. 159 Masonic lodges used the third floor of the building; orators at its dedication included two members of No. 109, W. W. Arthur and former governor James T. Morehead (1834– 1836). In July 1852 the Greer Building was damaged by fire but was repaired (today the 1897 Bradford Building stands on the site). Divisions between proslavery and antislavery factions may have played a role in the 1857 charter of the Golden Rule F.&A.M. No. 345 lodge of Covington. Some referred to the Golden Rule as the “Republican lodge,” and others derogatively called it the “Yankee lodge.” Amos Shinkle, a Republican and an antislavery advocate, was one of its prominent members, as was Henry Bostwick, who helped organize the 41st Kentucky Union regiment during the Civil War and later served as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky (1874–1875).

In 1866 the Masonic lodges of Covington began meeting in the new three-story Fechter Drug Store Building, on the southwest corner of Fourth and Scott Sts. (still standing), where they remained until fall 1870; the lodges later occupied the Walker Building (1870–1877) and then the Planters Building (1877–1899), both on Madison Ave. In 1899 the Masonic lodges of Covington moved to leased quarters in Bradford Shinkle’s building on the northwest corner of Fourth and Scott Sts. Shinkle hired the architectural firm of Dittoe and Wise-

589

nall to remodel the structure. Described as the “most commodious headquarters of any lodge in the state,” the temple—featuring electric lights— had a banquet hall on the second floor and an auditorium, a library, parlors, and smoking rooms on the third; the fourth floor held the armory of the Knights Templar. In 1911 the Covington Masons incorporated a Masonic Temple Association that subsequently purchased the building from Shinkle. The Covington lodges had a combined membership of over 7,000 by 1923. The Masons remained at their Fourth and Scott hall until 1956, when the Scottish Rite completed an impressive temple at 1553 Madison Ave. All of the Covington lodges (including Latonia and Unity in Ludlow) currently meet at the Scottish Rite Temple on Madison Ave., with the exception of the Golden Rule Lodge 345, which has its own hall at 12 Inez Ave. in Covington.

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (A.A.S.R.) of Freemasonry of the Valley of Covington and the Orient of Kentucky had its beginnings in about 1877. By 1909, however, the group was no longer active, so Charles H. Fisk and others reactivated the Covington rite; a class was established in January 1909 and degrees were conferred upon 27 men, including Orie S. Ware, an active member of the Masonic Order for 71 years and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky in 1913– 1914. In September 1909 the Grand Consistory at Louisville granted the Covington A.A.S.R. a charter. Covington has the only A.A.S.R. temple in Northern Kentucky.

Other cities in Northern Kentucky also had historic Masonic halls, including Brooksville, Dayton, Ludlow, Maysville, and Newport. Brooksville’s No. 154, chartered in 1847, still occupies its hall on Frankfort St., which dates from about 1853.

Brooksville also produced one of the Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, James W. Stanton, who served in 1893–1894. Dayton’s Henry Barnes Lodge No. 607, chartered in 1879, dedicated a new four-story Masonic Hall on the northwest corner of Sixth Ave. and Vine St. in 1923 (still standing). The Samuel Reed No. 478 Lodge of Ludlow, established in 1869, built a three-story Masonic Hall in 1884, on the northeast corner of Elm and Euclid Sts. (still standing). In 1925, when Ludlow’s two Masonic lodges merged to form the Unity Lodge, they purchased the historic Somerset Hall. In 1887 Maysville Masons dedicated their hall in the newly constructed four-story Cox Building on the southeast corner of Third and Market Sts. The fourth-floor banquet room could accommodate 300 people. William H. Cox and George L. Cox were the owners of the building.

The City of Maysville purchased the Cox Building in 2006 with plans to restore it. Newport’s Masonic lodges met in a four-story Masonic Hall constructed in 1886 on the northeast corner of Mayo (now Seventh) and York Sts. In 1922 Newport Lodge No. 358 purchased a large residence on the northeast corner of Sixth St. and Park Ave. for its headquarters; in 1964 it built a new hall on the site.

The York Rite of Freemasonry in Kentucky consists of the Royal Arch Masons (R.A.M.), the

590 MASTERSON, ALBERT “RED” Royal and Select Masters (R.&S.M.), and the commanderies of the Knights Templar (K.T.). The R.A.M. have chapters in Carrollton (No. 55), Covington (No. 35), Dayton (Temple Chapter No. 172), Fort Thomas (No. 177), and Maysville (No. 9). The Covington chapter, established in 1848, meets at the Scottish Rite Temple at 1553 Madison Ave. The R.&S.M. have councils in Covington (Kenton No. 13, chartered in 1851), and Dayton (Jeff ries No. 33).

The K.T. have commanderies in Covington (No. 7, chartered in 1852) and Newport (No. 13).

The Order of the Eastern Star, which enrolls both men and women, established a number of early chapters in Northern Kentucky, including Bradford No. 493 (Independence, 1948); Bristow No. 15 (later No. 31, Erlanger, 1896); Burns No. 31 (Maysville, 1909); Covington-Daylight No. 375 (Covington, 1923); Dora No. 2 (Dayton); Emera No. 392 (Covington, 1924); Fiskburg No. 334 (Fiskburg, 1921); Gertrude No. 19 (Newport); Keturah No. 50 (Latonia, 1905); Lucille (Brooksville); Miriam No. 365 (Bratton); Rosebud No. 39 (Covington, 1905); and Vashti No. 39 (later No. 22, Ludlow). Currently the Order of the Eastern Star has 13 chapters in Northern Kentucky, in Augusta, Brooksville, Carrollton, Covington, Dayton, Falmouth, Florence, Independence, Mount Olivet, Newport, Tollesboro, Warsaw, and Williamstown.

A.A.S.R.: Third Spring Reunion: Institution of the Consistory: Orient of Covington: Valley of Covington. Cincinnati: Sellers, Davis, 1911.

Bracken Co. Extension Homemakers. History of Bracken County. Bicentennial ed. Brooksville, Ky.: Bracken Co. Extension Homemakers, 2002.

Grand Lodge of Kentucky: Free & Accepted Masons. www.grandlodgeofkentucky.org/about/about.htm (accessed August 16, 2008).

Guthrie, Charles Snow. Kentucky Freemasonry, 1788–1978: The Grand Lodge and the Men Who Made It. Masonic Home, Ky.: Grand Lodge of Kentucky, F.&A.M., 1981.

Knight, William F. Golden Rule Lodge No. 345. F. & A. M. Centennial, 1857–1957. Covington, Ky.: T. & W., 1957.

“Masonic New Quarters,” CE, January 2, 1899, 8.

“New Masonic Temple!” Maysville Daily Evening Bulletin, February 23, 1887. Available in the vertical fi les of Kentucky Gateway Museum, Maysville, Ky. Pictorial and Industrial Review of Northern Kentucky. Newport, Ky.: Northern Kentucky Review, 1923.

“Square and Compass: Dedication of the Splendid New Masonic Temple,” DC, October 26, 1877, 1.

Paul A. Tenkotte

MASTERSON, ALBERT “RED” (b. December 22, 1905, Columbus, Ohio; d. December 12, 1972, Cincinnati, Ohio). Albert “Red” Masterson, also known as “The Enforcer,” stood six feet tall, weighed more than 200 pounds, and had distinctive red hair. From the 1930s into the 1950s, Masterson worked for the Cleveland Syndicate, which controlled organized crime in Newport. He was the son of William W. and Elizabeth “Bettie” Sampson Masterson; William was a bootlegger, and by 1920 the family lived in Newport’s West

F.&A.M. LODGES IN NORTHERN KENTUCKY

Name

No.

Location

Dates

Belleview

544

McVille, Grant P.O.

Boone Boone Union Burlington Burlington Florence Good Faith Hamilton Hebron North Bend Petersburg Petersburg Petersburg Verona Walton-Verona

100 304 56 264 949 95 354 757 540 579 693 926 876 719

Petersburg Union Burlington Burlington Florence Florence Big Bone Hebron Francisville Petersburg Petersburg Petersburg Verona Walton

1874–1945; merged with Burlington in 1945 1837–1854 1854– 1819–1841 1853– 1956– 1835– 1858–1889 1904– 1873–1886 1876–1893 1895–1903 1924– 1914; merged 1899–

80 154 274 207 476 767

Augusta Brooksville Foster Germantown Milford Milford

1826–1848; 1849– 1847– 1854; closed 1850; closed in the 1990s 1869–1892 1905; closed

152 397 808 607 135 198 358 163 916

Alexandria Grants Lick Fort Thomas Dayton Newport Silver Grove Newport Newport Silver Grove

1847– 1864; closed 1908– 1879– 1844–1856 1850– 1858– 1848– 1922–

Carrollton English

134 724

Carrollton English

Eureka Ghent Owen

867 344 68

Worthville

681

Sanders Ghent Port William, now Carrollton Worthville

1844– 1900–1945; merged with Carrollton in 1945 1913–1937 1857; closed 1821–1836

Glencoe Napoleon Sparta

498 216 260

Glencoe Napoleon Sparta

Tadmor Warsaw

108 94

Warsaw Warsaw

458 584

Mason Corinth

Boone Co.

Bracken Co. Augusta Brooksville Foster Germantown Milford Milford Campbell Co. Alexandria Aspen Grove Fort Thomas Henry Barnes Licking Valley Mayo Newport Robert Burns Silver Grove Carroll Co.

1893–1970; merged with Carrollton in 1970

Gallatin Co. 1870–1874; 1877– 1851–1930 1853–1942; merged with Tadmor in 1942 1839– 1831, probably never organized

Grant Co. Carter Corinth

1867–1903 1887–1947; merged with Grant in 1947

MASTERSON, ALBERT “RED”

End at 340 Patterson. At an early age Red was involved in crime; he claimed he got his “first square meal in a Newport whorehouse.” At age 19, Masterson and David Whitfield were accused of shooting at a man named Edmond Fitters, but the charges were dropped. On December 23, 1925, Masterson took part in a robbery at an Elmwood, Ohio, gambling house. For this, he was jailed for the first time.

In the mid-1930s, Masterson began to work for the Cleveland Syndicate, just as it was beginning to push the Chicago mob out of Newport. The murder of pugilist John Rosen was a part of this effort. Masterson was tried for the murder but not convicted.

On behalf of the Cleveland Syndicate, Masterson burned buildings, committed murders, and also, for some 20 years, managed the notorious Merchant’s Club, located on Fourth St. in downtown Newport. Older Newport residents still recall the fancy red Cadillac he drove through the city’s streets.

On August 5, 1946, a shootout between Masterson and Ernest “Buck” Brady helped to call attention to the Newport crime scene. The incident was later cited by the Kefauver Committee during U.S. Senate hearings on orga nized crime as an example of mob violence. It was also a factor in reform candidate George Ratterman’s election as Newport’s sheriff in 1961. Masterson helped to create and headed the Newport Civic Association (NCA), a group of local businessmen supporting a “clean up, not close up” of Newport gambling. The NCA complicated matters in Newport by enlisting several honest business people on Masterson’s side, but the orga nization dissolved once Ratterman had been elected sheriff and Masterson had been implicated in the criminal attempt, on behalf of the mob, to frame and defeat Ratterman. One of Masterson’s most shortsighted observations was his September 1960 statement to Louisville Courier-Journal investigative reporter and author Hank Messick that “Newport would never clean up. The town would die.”

In 1972, at age 66, Masterson died in a Cincinnati nursing home. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

Edstrom, Ed. “Gambling War Has Put Newport on the Spot,” CJ, August 8, 1946.

Messick, Hank. Razzle Dazzle. Covington, Ky.: For the Love of Books, 1995.

——— . The Silent Syndicate. New York: Macmillan, 1967.

——— . Syndicate Wife. Covington, Ky.: For the Love of Books, 1995.

Moncrief, Nancy. “ ‘Red’ Masterson, Crime Figure, Dies,” KP, December 13, 1972, 1.

Ohio Death Certificate No. 09528, 1972.

Reis, Jim. “Former Pugilist Shot to Death in Newport,” KP, April 21, 1997, 4K. ——— . “ ‘Red’ Masterson No Stranger to Gun Play,” KP, February 10, 2003, 4K. Shearer, Jason G. “Urban Reform in Sin City: The George Ratterman Trial and the Election of 1961 in Northern Kentucky,” RKHS 98, no. 4 (Autumn 2000): 343– 65.

Brad Sayles

Location

591

Name

No.

Dates

Corinth

611

Corinth

Crittenden Crittenden–Dry Ridge Dry Ridge

150 694

Crittenden Crittenden

849

Dry Ridge

Grant John H. Leathers Stewartsville

85 598 519

Williamstown Mount Zion Stewartsville

Bradford Col. Clay Covington Golden Rule Good Will

123 159 109 345 936

Independence Covington Covington Covington West Covington

Latonia Ludlow

746 759

Latonia Ludlow

Samuel Reed

478

Ludlow

Temple Unity Walton William O. Ware Lodge of Research Wilmington

64 478 202 999

Covington Ludlow Fiskburg Covington

1842– 1847– 1839–1864; 1867– 1857– 1928–1970; merged with Col. Clay in 1970 1903– 1904–1924; merged with Samuel Reed to form Unity 1869–1925; merged with Ludlow No. 759 in 1925 to form Unity 1820–1834 1925– 1850–1883 1965–

362

Fiskburg

1859–

386 337 395 342

Dover Helena Lewisburg Maysville

74 26 52

Mayslick Maysville Maysville

1861; closed 1856–1891 1864–1905 1857–1897; merged with Maysville in 1897 1822–1830 1814–1830 1818–

116 196 240

Minerva Sardis Tollesboro

1841–1890 1850–1972 1852–

560 621 411 637 470 126 409 546 128 472

Caney Fork Church Wheatley Lusby’s Mill Jonesville Gratz New Liberty New Liberty New Columbus Owenton Monterey

1874–1926 1885– 1866–1901 1888; closed 1868; closed 1843–1866 1866–1890 1874–1930 1868– 1868–

1880–1887; merged with Corinth No. 584 in 1887 1846–1874 1895– 1912–; merged with Crittenden 1827– 1887–1888 1872–1911

Kenton Co.

Mason Co. Fox Helena Hiram Bassett Mason Mayslick Maysville Maysville; founded as Philips in 1818, name later changed to Confidence and then to Maysville Minerva Sardis St. Mary’s Owen Co. Bethany Dallasburg East Owen Jonesville Keystone Liberty M. J. Williams New Columbus Owen W. G. Simpson

(continued)

592 MASTERSON HOUSE MASTERSON HOUSE. Presumably built by Richard and Sarah Shore Masterson in fall 1790, this two-story brick home is believed to be one of the earliest brick homes constructed between Louisville and Cincinnati. Others claim that the home dates to about 1803. It sits just east of Carrollton on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River and is visible from the old Louisville Rd. (U.S. 42).

Slaves erected the house with bricks made onsite from native clays burned on the farm. The bricks were laid in Flemish Bond style, with vertical and horizontal grooved mortar and brick foundations. The original openings in both the main story and the basement had brick jack arches. The facade is asymmetrical, with two windows on the left side and one on the right. Originally, there were two rooms on the first floor, one large room plus a smaller room; upstairs was one large room, probably a dormitory bedroom space; and a kitchen was located in the basement. The window frames retain the original wooden pegs. The back door has been bricked over. The house remained in the Masterson family from 1790 to 1850.

Richard Masterson (b. 1782, Fairfax Va.; d. 1806, Port William [Carrollton], Ky.) came to Kentucky about 1784, a date verified when he was registered as a deputy surveyor associated with Thomas Marshall, Fayette Co’s. surveyor. Masterson first settled at Masterson’s Station, near Lexington. Richard and Sarah Masterson were early converts to Methodism at Lexington through the preaching of Joseph Haw and Benjamin Ogburn, the first Methodist missionaries in Kentucky. In 1788 Richard constructed the first Methodist church building in Kentucky, at Masterson’s Station. Bishop Francis Asbury and six circuit riders were entertained at the house there, at the first Methodist Conference held west of the Alleghenies.

By mid-1790, Masterson had settled on the Ohio River just east of Port William and had become influential in what was then Gallatin Co. politics. In 1798 the charter to form Gallatin Co. was granted by the Kentucky General Assembly.

At the time, there were too few voters to entitle the new county to a seat in the legislature. On December 13, 1794, the trustees of the newly incorporated town of Port William, Jeremiah Craig, Cave Johnson, and Thomas Montague, met at the Masterson House. On May 14, 1799, the first court of Gallatin Co. met there. Justices of the peace included Benjamin Craig, Hugh Gatewood, John Grimes, Martin Hawkins, Gresham Lee, and William Thomas.

John Van Pelt was the county’s first sheriff, and Percival Butler was appointed clerk of the court.

Sarah Masterson is said to have fed the entire assembly. The court met at the Masterson House until 1808, when the first courthouse was erected in Port William, now Carrollton.

From 1790 to 1795, Methodist meetings were held at the Masterson House, and after Rev. Henry Ogburn located nearby, ser vices alternated between the Ogburn home and that of Richard Masterson. Bishop Asbury’s journal states that he visited Port William in 1808 and was entertained during his stay by the widow Masterson, who took him to see the burying ground where Richard and

Name

No.

Location

Dates

Bostwick DeMoss

508 220

1871; closed 1851–

Knoxville Orion

554 222

Butler DeMossville, later Butler Knoxville Falmouth

Bratton’s Mills

475

Bratton

Mount Olivet

291

Mount Olivet

1868–1937; merged with Mount Olivet 1854–

Pendleton Co.

1874–1908 1851–

Robertson Co.

several of her children were buried. The first Methodist church building at Carrollton was erected in 1810.

Elf Atochem, a corporation formerly known as M&T Chemical, located south of U.S. 42, deeded the Masterson House and five acres of land to the Port William Historical Society.

Th rough the efforts of Mrs. Rex Guiguid and Kathryn Salyers, the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places of the National Parks Ser vice in May 1975 and received a Kentucky State Historical Marker from the Kentucky Historical Society. The Port William Historical Society members obtained a substantial grant in 1980 from the U.S. Department of Interior and the Kentucky Heritage Commission, permitting a major restoration of the house. Today, the Masterson House is one of the main heritage tourism sites in Carroll Co. Adkinson, Ruth. “Masterson House Was Built Near River in 1790,” Carrollton Democrat, May 26, 1999.

An Atlas of Carroll and Gallatin Counties, Kentucky. Philadelphia: D. J. Lake, 1883.

Bogardus, Carl R., Sr. The Story of Gallatin County.

Ed. James C. Claypool. Cincinnati: John S. Swift, 2003.

Gentry, Mary Ann. A History of Carroll County.

Madison, Ind.: Coleman, 1984.

Diane Perrine Coon

MAURER, EDWARD (b. July 24, 1877, Grant, Ky.; d. June 17, 1953, Louisville, Ky.). Steamboat pilot Edward Maurer was the son of Joseph and Rebecca Cook Maurer of Grant (now Belleview Bottoms). He was an apprentice on several steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. In 1900 he earned his first-class pi lot license and two years later became a master pi lot. Traveling 1 million miles without a serious accident, he pi loted primarily on the steamers City of Louisville and City of Cincinnati for 17 years. Four of those years, he and his brother William partnered on the City of Cincinnati. Edward Maurer’s record-making Louisville-to-Cincinnati sprint on the new City of Louisville side-wheeler began at 3:00 p.m. on April 19, 1894. At 12:42 a.m., nine hours and 42 minutes later, the steamboat docked at the foot of Cincinnati’s Main St. To celebrate, the numbers 9-42 were painted on the pi lothouse sides and a set of deer

horns was mounted over the bell roof. The horns were still on the bell roof in January 1918, when the boat was lost in ice at Cincinnati. Maurer married Martha Board in 1915, and they had two children.

Appointed a local inspector of hulls for the U.S. Steamboat Inspection Ser vice in 1917 at Pittsburgh, he transferred to Louisville in 1922. In 1934, by presidential appointment, Maurer became the U.S. supervising inspector of the Sixth District.

He was the last man in the United States to receive such an appointment. In February 1942, when the Coast Guard took over the marine inspection service, he was made officer in charge of the Louisville District. In 1947, after more than 50 years on the river, Maurer retired, holding the rank of full commander in the U.S. Coast Guard. He was buried in Resthaven Cemetery in Louisville.

Boone County Recorder, illustrated historical ed., September 1930.

“Capt. Edward Maurer,” CP, June 23, 1953, 17.

Warner, Jennifer S. Boone County: From Mastodons to the Millennium. Burlington, Ky.: Boone Co. Bicentennial Book Committee, 1998.

Way, Frederick, Jr., comp. Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1983. Athens: Ohio Univ., 1983.

Nancy J. Tretter

MAY, JOHN (b. December 20, 1737 or 1744, Dinwiddie Co., Va.; d. February 1790, Ohio River near Portsmouth, Ohio). John May, the namesake of the city of Maysville and one of the founders of Kentucky, was the son of John May Jr. and Agnes Smith May. In 1769 he became the fi rst clerk of Botetourt Co., Va., after apparently fighting in the French and Indian War. The clerkship allowed May to pursue other goals, and in 1770 he was made quartermaster of the militia and was working as an attorney. He was also buying land, and he was so highly respected that in 1773, and again in 1776, he was chosen to be part of committees to examine land claims in Kentucky Co., Va. In the midst of the Revolutionary War in 1778, May became clerk of the General Court of Virginia at the state capital, Williamsburg, Va. His travels were frequent, and in 1779 or 1780, he was in Central Kentucky around Harrodsburg. He was the first teacher at McAfee Station, and thus one of the first of that profession in the state. In 1780 he was involved in the Battle of King’s Mountain in North Carolina, a turning point of the war. Back in

MAYSLICK

Kentucky in 1781, he became the Jefferson Co. clerk and that county’s elected representative to the Virginia legislature, one of four delegates from Kentucky. In 1780 he was named by the Virginia legislature as one of the trustees of lands donated

by Virginia to form a school, which became Transylvania Seminary. Fellow trustees included George Rogers Clark, David Rice, and Isaac Shelby.

While May served as a delegate in Richmond, Va., in 1782, discussions were held about Virginia Supreme Court positions in Kentucky. It was decided that May would be an assistant judge, but he became clerk of the court when it held its first session in Harrodsburg in 1783. May and Virginia attorney general Walker Daniel were given the responsibility of finding a site and having a courthouse built. The resulting log structure was placed in the town that carried the name of Walker Daniel, Danville, Ky. In the mid-1780s, May was again traveling back and forth between Virginia and Kentucky.

Throughout these years, May accumulated property. As a result of his various positions as clerk, his role in settling land disputes, his various partnerships, his explorations, his legal knowledge, and surveying by his brothers, he had claims, by himself and in partnerships, to more than 800,000 acres by 1790. It was on 100 acres of those lands, which he owned in partnership with Simon Kenton, that the Virginia legislature on December 11, 1787, established the town of Maysville on the Ohio River. Daniel Boone was one of its original trustees. The landing and community had been called Limestone, and that name was still in use by many for several subsequent decades. Mason Co. was formed the following year, and in 1848 Maysville became the county seat, replacing the pioneer town of Washington.

May, however, never lived in the town that bore his name. In February 1790, with his secretary, Charles Johnston, May was on one of his many journeys to Kentucky. His destination was Maysville, to conduct legal work on land claims.

Reports of that voyage, May’s fi nal, were written

by Johnston and other participants. The group purchased a boat at the mouth of the Kanawha River, and May, Johnston, and a merchant named Jacob Skiles, with goods bound for Lexington, Ky. were the passengers. At Point Pleasant (in modernday West Virginia), they were joined by a man identified as Flinn and sisters by the name of Fleming. A scheme often practiced by Indians was to use white renegades or captives to lure boats close to shore and overtake them. This is what happened to the seasoned pioneer May and his companions. Two white men, at the mouth of the Scioto River near what is modern Portsmouth, Ohio, hailed the May flatboat, pleading to be taken aboard. May was skeptical, but the other travelers were swayed by the wails of the men, who said they had escaped from their Indian captors and that the Indians were close behind. When the boat neared the shore, the Indians attacked. May was killed by a shot to the head, as was one of the women. Flinn was later burned to death, Skiles escaped despite wounds, and eventually the other Fleming woman and Johnston were released. The

two white men used as bait claimed they were captives and had agreed to the plan in the hope of being released. What happened to May’s body is unknown.

May left a young wife, Ann Langley, and two young children. The legal battles growing out of May’s estate involved such prominent lawyers as Henry Clay and John Rowan and dozens of people across several states. The new State of Kentucky adopted laws that essentially denied that May had ever been a legal resident, ignoring his political offices and long periods of time living in Kentucky.

His heirs saw little of the estate. Today, John May is largely remembered for the town that bears his name, his other contributions to the states of Virginia and Kentucky forgotten.

Clift, G. Glenn. History of Maysville and Mason County. Lexington, Ky.: Transylvania, 1936.

Coke, Ben H. John May, Jr. of Virginia: His Descendants and Their Land. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1975.

Collins, Richard H. History of Kentucky. Vol. 1.

Covington, Ky.: Collins, 1882.

John Klee

MAYSLICK (or Mays Lick or May’s Lick). Mayslick is a small Mason Co. community nine miles southwest of Maysville, which owes its importance to its place on the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike, now U.S. 68. For those traveling south on that route, Mayslick was the first community they came to after Washington, Ky. In 1773 William Thompson surveyed the area, and the founder of Lexington, Col. Robert Patterson, explored the area in 1775. It was a group of related families who actually established the settlement in 1787; they included brothers Abraham, Cornelius, and Isaac Drake; David Morris; and John Shotwell, along with their families. They bought 1,400 acres of land through a land agent, Judge Harry Innes. The land had been surveyed and claimed originally by William May, for whom May’s Spring and Mayslick were named.

William May was the brother of Maysville’s namesake, John May, a fact that has caused confusion over the origin of the name. The land was rolling and rich for farming, with a salt lick to provided salt for the pioneers and a large spring for water. Much of the information about early Mayslick comes from Isaac Drake’s son Daniel Drake, whose letters to his children plus some additional information were turned into a book, Pioneer Life in Kentucky. After landing at Limestone and staying for a short time in Washington in a shed built for sheep, the families moved to what became Mayslick. Isaac Drake was married to Elizabeth Shotwell, whose Quaker family strongly disapproved of her marriage to the Baptist Drake. William Wood, the Baptist minister who founded Washington, was instrumental in attracting the families to Mason Co. Pioneer life in Mayslick, as described by Daniel Drake, included log cabins, Indian problems, and the hardscrabble life of farming.

It was Abraham Drake’s tavern, where travelers stopped on their way west, that gave the town its early success. David Morris and John Shotwell also had tavern licenses. Early visitors, such as F. A. Mi-

593

chaux in 1793, commented on the lack of development and sophistication in the town. However, in 1810, with 132 residents, it was the third-largest town in the county. The founders were loyal to their religious convictions, establishing a Baptist church, the first in the town, in 1789. On February 1, 1837, Mayslick was incorporated, and Jonas Eddy, E. H. Herndon, John L. Kirk, Asa Runyon, and Samuel Sharp were its trustees. Among Kirk’s slaves was Elisha Green, who lived in Mayslick from 1828 to 1832 and recounts in his autobiography the hard life of a slave. Green later bought his freedom, established African American churches throughout the area, became a leader in the Republican Party, and spoke out for the rights of the freedman.

Slavery was a hot issue in the town. The Maysville Colonization Society met in Mayslick in 1823. Slaves accounted for one-third of the town’s population of 200 at the time of the Civil War. John Hunt Morgan made his way through Mayslick on one of his raids, and a pro-Union meeting on October 22, 1864, attended by former governor James Robinson (1862–1863) and Governor Thomas Bramlette (1863–1867), attracted 1,000 persons.

An African American school was established on August 27, 1868, after the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike company conveyed property to Stephen Breckinridge, Henry Jackson, and John Middleton, who were trustees of the Second Baptist Church. The land was to be used for a church and a school. The church stands today on the property, but neighboring property was purchased for a better school. Schools for black students were built there, the last one fi nished in 1921; it closed in 1960, despite a petition opposing the closure, when all black students in the county were integrated into the county system. The school building remains. Other schools flourished, both small district schools and more substantial private schools.

The Baptists had schools from the beginning, such as the one that Daniel Drake attended. James Blaine, later U.S. secretary of state, is believed to have taught at Mayslick, perhaps while he also taught in the 1840s at the Western Military Institute at Blue Licks, just 10 miles southwest on the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike. Hedge College was a late-19th-century private school. In 1909 a public high school opened in Mayslick. In 1910, a Shannon Creek flood washed away a small rural school called Arthuranna. Local citizens then lobbied to consolidate that school and the schools at West Liberty, Mayslick, and Peed, along with part of the Helena Station district. It became the first consolidated school with transportation in Kentucky; horse-drawn buses transported students. A three-story brick school was started in 1909, and a gym was added in 1929. Mayslick High School closed in 1960 and was consolidated into Mason Co. High School. It had previously taken in the students from the closed Sardis, Lewisburg, and Washington schools. Before consolidation, the school was the center of the community, which had grown to more than 300 residents in the early 20th century. For example, in 1931, the team of eight Mayslick High School girls won the basketball

594 MAYSLICK CHRISTIAN CHURCH district tournament and reached the final four in the state championship.

Mayslick had many churches over the years.

The role of the Mayslick Christian Church at a historic turning point stands out. In the late 1820s, Thomas and Alexander Campbell preached in the area, and as a result the Mayslick Christian Church, one of the first Disciples of Christ churches, was established in 1830. The Disciples of Christ, which had grown out of the Cane Ridge movement, became a distinct denomination at about the same time. Walter Scott, another founder of the Disciples of Christ, later was pastor of the church in Mayslick and is buried in the community cemetery. The Mayslick Christian Church, where Scott became the first full-time pastor, was built 1841 by Lewis Wernwag, a prolific covered-bridge builder.

The Mayslick Baptist Church suffered a loss of membership when the Campbellites left, but the church nevertheless proceeded to outgrow several structures and today worships in a building enlarged around the 1870 church. Both the Baptist and the Christian churches had black members but eventually sponsored separate churches for African American members. The Second Baptist Church began in 1855 with more than 100 members and has worshipped in the same church building since 1913. The Second Christian Church congregation began worship in their own church in 1889, but the church closed a century later. The Presbyterian Church, which started on Johnson Fork in 1793 and moved to Mayslick in 1850, now has only a few members. Bricks from the original church were used in the 1850 structure and in the 1876 rebuilding after a fire. That church, with some of the 18th-century bricks, stands today.

After the mid-19th-century influx of mostly Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany, Rev. John Hickey was appointed in 1864 to serve the needs of them and other Catholics in the area.

A church building at Mayslick was purchased from the Methodist Episcopal South Church in 1867 for $600, another church was built in 1886, and the present St. Rose of Lima Church was built in 1928.

Still today many of the farming families in the Mayslick area, descendants of the 19th-century immigrants, have Irish or German names.

In the early 20th century, a new bank opened in Mayslick; the Farmer’s Bank of Mayslick was chartered in 1902 and remained in some form until the 1990s in the same building. Beside the brick bank building, an impressive Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall was built in 1904 with a second floor large enough to house a skating rink at one time. Both buildings stand today. The community was a hot spot during the tobacco wars, having an active group of Night Riders in the first decade of the 20th century.

Large estates and plantations were established in the Mayslick area. It was called the “asparagus bed” of Mason Co., as it was believed to be the site of richest farmland. In the mid-1800s, the Mayslick Importing Company did a thriving business in mule breeding stock. Agricultural fairs were held in the early 1900s, and impressive houses built from the settlement period to the early 1900s dot

the area. Examples include a stone house believed to be built by Thomas Metcalfe, who was called Stonehammer at the time but later was elected governor of Kentucky. Another unique example is the William Pepper Fox house, built in 1854, which had an entrance hall that measured 14 by 30 feet.

On this estate is Fox Field, a federally protected Fort Ancient archaeological site. What is known as the Longnecker house was finished in 1825; its front door shows damage from the buckshot fired by tobacco Night Riders. James Mitchell, president of the First National Bank of Maysville, picked one of the highest spots in the county near Mayslick to build his home, Maplewood, in 1889; it is a Romanesque showplace with stained glass and impressive stonework. In that same year, Charles Young, who was born in a log cabin just down the road from Maplewood, became only the third African American to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and the first in a generation.

Today, the town square of Mayslick is no longer active with its former hardware store, pool hall, grocery stores, bank, and other businesses. A few businesses remain, along with the churches and a large number of homes, which continue to be built in the area for those who want country living only a short distance away from work. The area has flashes from the past in the significant number of older Amish people who have moved into the Mayslick area in the past decade. They are active members of the community, participating in community events, and their horses and buggies are common sights on the local roads.

Mayslick became the name of the town after it had first been called May’s Spring. Mayslick came into common usage in the 20th century, and today both spellings are used, along with Mays Lick and May’s Lick.

Calvert, Jean, and John Klee. The Towns of Mason County: Their Past in Pictures. Maysville, Ky.: Maysville and Mason Co. Library Historical and Scientific Association, 1986.

Clift, G. Glenn. History of Maysville and Mason County. Lexington, Ky.: Transylvania, 1936.

Collins, Richard H. History of Kentucky. Vol. 1.

Covington, Ky.: Collins, 1882.

David, Lynn, and Liz Comer. “Mayslick: Asparagus Bed of Mason County,” NKH 12, no. 2 (Spring– Summer 2005): 37–49.

Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1984.

John Klee

MAYSLICK CHRISTIAN CHURCH. The Mayslick Christian Church, located in the center of Mayslick, is tied to three of the founders of the Disciples of Christ movement, Alexander Campbell, Thomas Campbell, and Walter Scott. The history of the Mayslick Christian Church can be traced to 1789 and the first church in the community, the Church of Jesus Christ, Regular Order of First Day Baptists. The Mayslick Christian Church developed out of that group about 30 years after Barton Stone, another prominent Disciples of Christ figure, led the 1801 Cane Ridge revival in

Bourbon Co., setting off several decades of religious debate in Kentucky. In the 1820s and 1830s, Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander articulated a set of beliefs growing out of Cane Ridge, around which the Disciples of Christ movement was founded.

The Mayslick Christian Church was one of the first Disciples of Christ churches. Visits from the Campbells to the Baptist Church in 1828 and 1829, and debates in the area, led to its formation in 1830.

The number of Baptists in the area was reduced by half as members joined the rapidly growing number of Campbellite churches. The congregation of the Mayslick Christian Church first met in a stone schoolhouse. Its church building, which is still used, was constructed in 1841 by Lewis Wernwag, a renowned Virginia builder of covered bridges, who also built the house next door that served as the parsonage from 1911 to 1970. The church, similar in style to many of the period, had two entrances, from which members entered facing the congregation. Alexander Campbell, who preached at the church in 1841, afterward stated that he was able to address 1,000 people who were seated on the floor of the church.

Walter Scott became the first full-time minister in April 1850. Scott was another of the Disciples of Christ founders and had preached in many states. He introduced a teaching method on the process of faith based on the five fingers of the hand. The steps in the process were “faith, repentance, baptism, remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Scott left the church but later returned to Mayslick, where he died in 1862 and was buried in the cemetery within sight of the church.

In 1882 the church bought property for an African American congregation, and in 1889 a building was completed for that congregation, named the Second Christian Church. This church closed during the 1990s. In 1891 a major renovation of the 1841 church building uncovered the ceiling support beams of the original church, which displayed the practical and beautiful handiwork of Wernwag. These beams were finished and are now part of the striking interior of the church. On February 4, 1975, an arsonist, who had already burned three other churches in the county, set fire to Mayslick Christian Church. It survived, the damage having involved mostly the Sunday school rooms. Today the church has about 100 members.

Braden, Gayle Anderson, and Coralie Jones Runyon.

A History of the Christian Church, Maysville, Kentucky. Maysville, Ky.: Maysville Christian Church, 1948.

Calvert, Jean, and John Klee. The Towns of Mason County: Their Past in Pictures. Maysville, Ky.: Maysville and Mason Co. Library Historical and Scientific Association, 1986.

Documents and brochures, Mayslick Christian Church, Mayslick, Ky.

John Klee

MAYSVILLE. Maysville, originally called Limestone, is the county seat of Mason Co. It was established at the mouth of Limestone Creek where it empties into the Ohio River, 400 miles downriver

MAYSVILLE

from Pittsburgh, Pa., and 60 miles upriver from Cincinnati. Maysville was the original gateway to the nation’s West. The Cumberland Gap opened up Kentucky, but people traveling west soon discovered that the Ohio River was a more effective route, and for those settlers Maysville was an early gateway.

European exploration of the region dates to the 1600s. It was Pennsylvanian Simon Kenton who was the key to settling Limestone, the nearby town of Washington, and the county. Another explorer of the area was Robert McAfee, who arrived in June 1773. John Hedges gave the site its original name of Limestone earlier in 1773. But it was Kenton, on his fourth visit in 1775, who found Limestone cove and the canebrakes three miles south of Limestone that became part of pioneer legend.

Here Kenton built his cabin and began promoting the area. The site of Limestone was locked between the river and hills with insufficient land for farming and vulnerable to Indian attacks. Most settlers moved to the hills above Limestone or migrated farther to the west.

In 1776 numerous exploring parties came to Limestone, and Kenton welcomed them and helped guide them to their destinations. Local tradition holds that he urged only those visitors he found especially promising to stay in the area. Indian attacks kept most settlers away before 1784, the year Kenton returned to Limestone with 60 men. William Bickley, Edward Waller, and John Waller of that party built at the mouth of Limestone Creek a block house that was the beginning of Maysville.

Limestone was named a tobacco inspection site in 1787, establishing a relationship of that crop to the town that was especially important over the next two centuries. On December 11, 1787, the Commonwealth of Virginia established the town of Maysville in what was then Bourbon Co., “on the lands of John May and Simon Kenton.” The name Maysville was chosen instead of Limestone because John May was considered a founder of the town and owned the land with Kenton. Daniel Boone was among the original trustees, whose job it was to lay out the streets and build the town.

The next year, 1788, Mason Co. was established, and nearby Washington was made the county seat. Washington’s prominence was shortlived, however. Maysville grew after Mad Anthony Wayne’s victory in northern Ohio at Fallen Timbers in 1794 largely eliminated the Indian threat.

Another factor in Maysville’s favor was its prime location on the river. By 1789, 30 flatboats were landing at the town each day. Although small, Maysville was seen by early travelers “as the most important landing place on the river.”

The first paved (macadamized) road in Kentucky was completed on November 7, 1830, between Maysville and Washington. It later extended to Lexington (see Maysville and Lexington Turnpike), opening with six covered bridges and 13 tollhouses in 1835. The road had been the subject of national debate as Congress voted $150,000 in 1830 for its construction. During the congressional debate, U.S. senator Richard M. Johnson, a Kentuckian, called the Maysville road the most

traveled in the nation other than roads on the East Coast. The road was a pet project of Henry Clay, who wanted to build the nation through internal improvements. However, President Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) vetoed the Maysville Road Bill because he considered the road an internal improvement that would benefit only one state.

Between 1810 and 1830 the population of Maysville grew sixfold to more than 2,000; by the end of the Civil War, its population was 4,700. In the 1820s steamboats largely replaced the flatboats.

Maysville became the region’s cultural and economical center, a status illustrated in many ways.

In September 1824, Rev. Alexander Campbell, a founder of the Disciples of Christ denomination, preached in Maysville. When the great Choctaw chief Mingo Pusksbunnubbe died accidentally in Maysville in October 1824 on his way to the nation’s capital, he was given a grand funeral here with full military honors. On May 21, 1825, the French general the Marquis de Lafayette visited, and merchants literally laid down red carpets for this hero of the Revolutionary War. Henry Clay was a frequent visitor as he traveled back and forth to Washington, D.C. In 1827, 2,500 people gathered for a dinner for Clay to show their support after he had been accused of a “corrupt bargain” that gave John Q. Adams the presidency. President Adams (1825–1829) was also given a warm welcome when he visited Maysville on November 4, 1843.

When the parents of the future president Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877) wanted to give their son the best education, they sent him to Maysville in fall 1836 to attend the Maysville Academy.

This prominence led to Maysville’s incorporation as a city in 1833, and then in 1848 the Kentucky legislature moved the county seat to Maysville. An impressive Greek Revival building that had been built in 1845 became the county courthouse. As the community grew, so did its businesses, industry, and public institutions. Examples in the 1840s and 1850s included the Maysville Manufacturing Company, new gas and coal companies, ropewalks that made rope from the local hemp, and telegraph lines: one to Nashville, Tenn., and another to the north, passing through a cable laid under the waters of the Ohio River.

Maysville reflected the state and the nation in cultural and social issues in the antebellum period.

The cholera epidemic in 1833 took the lives of both the first mayor of Maysville, Charles Wolfe, and Capt. John Langhorne, who had entertained famous individuals and others locally at his Eagle Tavern. There were several other cholera outbreaks during the 1840s and 1850s. Despite some antiCatholic sentiment in the community, Irish and German immigration led to the establishment of a Catholic parish and the St. Patrick Catholic Church in 1847. The bank issue of the 1820s was played out locally, too: one of the controversial state branch banks had been established in the town in 1818, and the politician in the middle of the controversy, Kentucky governor Joseph Desha (1824–1828), was a resident of the county.

Like many Kentucky towns, Maysville’s citizens were split on the issue of slavery. On the one

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hand, a slave who had bought his freedom, Elisha Green, established the Bethel Baptist Church in 1845 for the African American citizens of the community and continued as the church’s pastor for 52 years. On the other hand, in the decades before the Civil War, a slave pen was located near the site of the first block house built in Maysville. In 1838 an Ohio minister, John Mahan, was prosecuted in Maysville for helping slaves escape from Mason Co. Since it could not be established that Mahan had committed any crime in Kentucky, he was found not guilty. His actions were an example of Underground Railroad operations in the area.

Meetings were held in Maysville in 1845 condemning Cassius Clay’s Lexington newspaper the True American and those who helped slaves escape. On February 12, 1849, there was a meeting in the city to discuss the gradual emancipation of slaves.

Soon after the start of the Civil War, two Union camps were set up near Maysville, Camp Lee and Camp Kenton. Confederate general John Hunt Morgan’s men raided Maysville in 1862, 1863, and 1864. During the 1864 raid, James Conrad tried to cross the Ohio River for help and was killed. A former mayor of Maysville, William Casto, fought Col. Leonidas Metcalfe, a son of Kentucky’s governor, in a duel on May 8, 1862, over Civil War issues.

Casto had been imprisoned for his Southern sympathies and blamed Metcalfe for his arrest. The participants fought the duel in nearby Bracken Co. to escape Maysville’s officials. Casto was killed in the fight (see Casto-Metcalfe Duel). When the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in January 1863, by President Abraham Lincoln, one Maysville Union Army officer and prominent citizen, Col. John C. Cochran, resigned his commission in protest.

African Americans have always constituted a significant part of the population in Maysville.

They faced special challenges after the Civil War. Freed slaves who could not show evidence of having a job were subject to arrest. Local black minister Elisha Green responded to the tensions by staying in Maysville and fighting for civil rights. He was active in the state Republican Party. In 1883 he took a white man to court for physically abusing him when Green refused to give up his seat on the train while traveling from Maysville to Paris, Ky., to preach. Many talented African Americans left the city, however. James Mundy, for example, the son of a former slave, moved to Chicago in the 1920s and became one of the most famous choir directors in the nation. His choirs were invited to perform at the dedication of the Navy Pier and at the closing of the 1933 World Fair in Chicago. The worst manifestation of racism in this period was lynching. The public burning of Richard Coleman in 1899 in the city was so horrendous, with hundreds of participants, that it was condemned in the New York Times. By 2005 the percentage of blacks in Maysville was approximately 11.5, or around 1,000, a number that had decreased since 1865.

After the Civil War, the nation was becoming more industrial, but Maysville continued to be largely dependent on its surrounding agricultural base. The stockyards, for example, were located

596 MAYSVILLE ACADEMY near the center of town well into the 1980s. The community did not attract immigrants, and the population of Mason Co., between 16,000 and 20,000, has been constant since 1870. The city of Maysville has increased in population (8,993 in 2000; 9,179 in 2006), although much of the increase was due to expansion of the city through annexation that has physically doubled the size of the city several times. Even the original county seat, Washington, was annexed in 1990.

Railways connecting Maysville to both Cincinnati and Lexington were completed after the Civil War and were frequently used by locals until the 1950s. The look of Maysville was altered in the 30 years leading up to the 20th century, as downtown businesses with three or four stories, castiron ornamentation, and upstairs apartments were constructed. In the second half of the 19th century, the County Clerk’s Office, in Gothic Revival style; a jail, in the Second Empire style; a block that is largely Romanesque in character; and several fine examples of Italianate houses were built. Brick streets were laid in town and mule-drawn streetcars began ser vice in 1883. Maysville suffered from significant floods in 1883 and 1884 (see Flood of 1884).

In 1901 a visitor to Maysville might have seen Mayor Tom Russell driving the first automobile in the town alongside the streetcars and horses and wagons. In the early 20th century major entertainers, such as John Philip Sousa and Buffalo Bill Cody, came to town, usually performing at the Washington Opera House on Second St. Showboats were frequent visitors. Local activist Alice Lloyd devoted her life to causes such as the fight of tobacco farmers against the trusts, temperance, and women’s rights. Mary Wilson in 1908 donated the Hayswood Seminary for use as a hospital (see Hayswood Hospital). From 1907 to 1911 the executive branch of the State of Kentucky was in the hands of native Maysvillians Governor Augustus E. Willson (1907–1911) and Lieutenant Governor William H. Cox (1907–1911).

The Farmers and Tuckahoe tobacco warehouses opened in 1909 and 1910, respectively (see Maysville Tobacco Warehouses), reflecting the increasing importance of tobacco to Maysville.

These were loose-leaf tobacco auction warehouses, only the second and third of the kind to be established anywhere. Maysville became the secondlargest auction market for burley tobacco in the world and remained so until the changes in tobacco marketing that occurred in the 1990s. When the local radio station opened in 1948, founder James M. Finch traded an out-of-state radio station owner a country ham so he could obtain for the new station the call letters WFTM, which stood for “World’s Finest Tobacco Market.” Dozens of warehouses opened in the community, and a large tobacco-processing plant, Parker Tobacco, was once the community’s largest employer.

Sports have been important to the people of Maysville. Beginning soon after pioneer times, racetracks for horses were laid out in the town.

Forest Ave. was once named Race St., and Hillcrest Dr. has a circular shape because it once served as a

horse track. In 1910 Maysville had a team in the Bluegrass Baseball League that featured Casey Stengel as a player. In 1925 the Maysville High School girls’ basketball team won a state championship. A team led by legendary coach Earl Jones won the boys’ state basketball championship in 1947. Also in Maysville, Coach John Fields coached the African American John G. Fee Industrial High School boys’ basketball team to a state runner-up finish in 1952. Both of those schools eventually became part of Mason Co. High School, which captured the state basketball crown in 2003 and 2008. The people of Maysville did more than watch others participate in sports and sporting activities. From the 1890s until the 1930s, the Princess Roller Rink was a popu lar spot for skating and dances. City residents also had access to recreational baseball parks in the community and other community parks, including Beechwood Park, which has been in continual use since it opened in 1884. A number of golf courses opened, and the Country Club was established at its present location in 1925. Houseboat cruises and swimming in the Ohio River were also popu lar in the early 20th century.

The hard economic times that swept the nation during the 1930s commenced in the 1920s in Maysville, because of the community’s agricultural economic base; the great flood of 1937 exacerbated the hard times. Despite these conditions, in 1932 the city opened the Simon Kenton Memorial Bridge (a suspension bridge) across the Ohio River, ending the ferry ser vice in Maysville that dated from the 1790s. A second bridge, the William H. Harsha Bridge, built in a cable-stay design, was dedicated in 2000. Maysville built a floodwall in the 1940s. Urban renewal in the 1960s destroyed some of the oldest buildings in the town.

It was also during the 1960s that Maysville began to extend westward to the “top of the hill,” and annexation followed. Institutions that moved away from the historic district downtown include the hospital and most health care providers, the consolidated school system, and most retail shopping.

Industrial parks that opened along the AA Highway, constructed during the 1980s, contain many of the factories in the city.

Famous people who had a connection to Maysville and came to national prominence in the last half of the 20th century include Nick Clooney, a popu lar and respected newscaster in the Cincinnati area and other cities. He continues to write columns and books and is involved in community ser vices throughout the region. Rosemary Clooney was simultaneously a movie star, a recording artist, and a television performer during the 1950s. She premiered her movie The Stars Are Singing on January 28, 1953, at the Russell Theater in Maysville. Heather Renee French became Miss America in 2000, and today she works for veterans’ rights and writes children’s books.

William Kenton, a descendant of the pioneer Simon Kenton, was a rising star in Kentucky politics and was the Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives at the time of his death in 1981.

Lyda Lewis was the first African American to be-

come Miss Kentucky (1973) and afterward traveled with the USO in the Far East. Stanley Forman Reed was a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court that handed down the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. He served on the Court from 1938 to 1957.

In 1977 East Kentucky Power built an electric generating facility, later annexed by Maysville, that provides stable employment and good wages to its employees in Maysville (see Power Plants). The state-of-the-art plant has been expanded several times and also attracted the Inland Container Corporation, which uses steam from the power plant to break down and reconstruct paperboard products. The Emerson Electric Company now operates the former Browning Manufacturing plant, which dates from 1886 and remains a large employer. Maysville Community and Technical College, now annexed into the city, has expanded its educational offerings significantly since 1995. Maysville is no longer tobacco-dependent, and agriculture has a reduced role in the local economy. Embracing the Ohio River, Maysville has introduced an opening in the floodwall and encouraged greater recreational use of the river.

Now a regional hub for education, health care, and retail shopping, the community also publicizes its history and natural features to promote tourism.

Calvert, Jean, and John Klee. Maysville, Kentucky: From Past to Present in Pictures. Maysville, Ky.: Mason Co. Museum, 1983.

———. The Towns of Mason County: Their Past in Pictures. Maysville, Ky.: Maysville and Mason Co. Library Historical and Scientific Association, 1986.

Clift, G. Glenn. History of Maysville and Mason County. Lexington, Ky.: Transylvania, 1936.

Collins, Richard H. History of Kentucky. Vol. 1.

Covington, Ky.: Collins, 1882.

Friend, Craig Thompson. Along the Maysville Road: The Early Republic in the Trans-Appalachian West. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2005.

John Klee

MAYSVILLE ACADEMY. The Maysville Academy, Maysville, Ky., was also known as the Maysville Seminary. In 1829 a local contractor, Thomas D. Richardson, built the school’s red brick building at 109 West Fourth St. in downtown Maysville. Two noted scholars, Jacob W. Rand and William W. Richeson, opened the school in 1830; they also served as instructors. In the beginning, Maysville Academy was an all-boys’ school, but later it became coeducational. One of the school’s teachers was John Flavel Fisk, who became a Kentucky state senator, representing Campbell and Kenton counties. Some well-known people educated at the Maysville Academy include U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877); Walter N. Haldeman, founder and president of Louisville’s Courier-Journal newspaper; William H. Wadsworth, ambassador to Chile; John J. Crittenden, U.S. attorney general; Thomas H. Nelson, ambassador to Chile and Mexico; Gen. William “Bull” Nelson; Henry Thomas Stanton, Kentucky’s poet laureate; and historian Richard H.

MAYSVILLE AND LEXINGTON TURNPIKE

Collins, son of Lewis Collins, who authored the classic work History of Kentucky. The school’s most illustrious student, Ulysses S. Grant, lived with his family in Georgetown, Ohio, as a young child but at age 14 was sent to live with his uncle, Peter Grant, in his uncle’s home on Front St. in Maysville. Grant attended Maysville Academy during the school year 1836–1837.

William Richeson bought Jacob Rand’s interest in the school in 1860 and continued to operate the Maysville Academy until 1868, when he took a position as principal of the Maysville High School, which had just opened. At that time he closed the Maysville Academy and sold the school’s building.

Over the years, the structure that had housed the school was used as a single-family and later as a two-family residence. Having deteriorated, the building was condemned in 1983. The City of Maysville took possession of it in early 1997. Several interested parties attempted to secure funding for restoration of the building, but none of these efforts were successful. Later in 1997 part of the front wall collapsed, and authorities decided to raze the structure. During demolition, a secret passageway containing a stash of alcohol was found under the building. Because the bottles had screw-on caps, it was determined that the alcohol was of recent vintage, not from the structure’s early history. Some have speculated that the passageway may also have been used as part of the Underground Railroad.

“Grant’s School to Fall,” KE, December 22, 1997, C2.

“Historic School to be Razed,” KP, December 19, 1997, 16A. Kentucky Historical Society. “Kentucky Historical Marker Database.” http://kentucky.gov/kyhs/ hmdb/ (accessed January 25, 2007).

Reis, Jim, “Governor Was Torn by War,” KP, August 18, 2003, 4K. RootsWeb.com. “Walter H. Haldeman.” www .rootsweb.com (accessed February 3, 2006).

“School house Mystery,” KP, December 24, 1997, A6.

MAYSVILLE AND LEXINGTON RAILROAD. At the end of the 18th century, Lexington was the major city west of the Appalachian Mountains. Unfortunately, though, it was not located on a navigable waterway. Goods coming from the east were transported overland to Wheeling, Va. (now W.Va.) and were taken from there by boat down the Ohio River to Limestone (Maysville), where they were reloaded onto wagons for travel over what became the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike to Lexington. Overland transportation was expensive and slow. Costs doubled for every 100 miles moved, and because wagons generally traveled at a speed of 12 miles per day, perishables could not be carried any appreciable distance.

By the mid-19th century, Cincinnati and Louisville had become important commercial centers of the West, at the expense of Lexington. In an attempt to regain its place as the leading city of the West, Lexington advanced the canalization of the Licking and Kentucky rivers and the development of railroads. Lexington promoted four railroads, each leading to the Ohio River: the Lexington and

Ohio to Louisville, the Covington and Lexington (C&L) to Covington, the Lexington and Big Sandy to Catlettsburg, and the Maysville and Lexington (M&L) to Maysville.

The M&L began construction north from Lexington in 1854, meeting the C&L at Paris, where the C&L provided ser vice to Covington beginning in December of that year. In March 1856 the Kentucky General Assembly permitted the C&L and the L&D (Lexington and Danville) railroads to use the name Kentucky Central Railroad. In 1858 Robert Bonner Bowler, a director of the Kentucky Central Railroad, persuaded the company to defer debt payment in order to make improvements on the line. A major creditor fi led suit, and the railroad was sold at public auction. In 1865 the original stockholders fi led suit against the heirs of Bowler but lost. In the same year, the C&L and the M&L were sold at a foreclosure sale and bought by the Kentucky Central Association, a holding company, which continued to operate the C&L and the M&L as separate entities. The revived M&L began laying track from Paris to Maysville that year; in March 1872, the first train from Maysville arrived at Paris. In 1875 the C&L and the M&L were merged as the Kentucky Central Railroad (KC).

The M&L at this time consisted of two separate railroads, the line from Lexington to Paris and the road from Paris to Maysville. The KC, in turn, was sold to Collis P. Huntington in 1881 to provide a connecting route between two of his railroads, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O) on the east and the Chesapeake, Ohio, and Southwestern on the west. These railroads were part of his grandiose plan to build a seamless coast-to-coast rail system. Shortly after Huntington purchased the KC, his railroad empire went into receivership, and the KC was sold in 1891 to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N).

The L&N had aspirations for the Paris-toMaysville line and built a large depot in Maysville (now the Maysville Police Department). Traffic, however, did not develop. When the C&O opened its line from Ashland to Lexington in 1895, after purchase of the Elizabethtown, Lexington, and Big Sandy Railroad, through traffic from the east to Lexington was switched to the more direct AshlandWinchester-Lexington road. The Maysville section became solely dependent upon local traffic and limited to seasonal agricultural products. The building of the Covington, Flemingsburg, and Pound Gap Railroad (CF&PG) eastward from Flemingsburg Junction (along the M&L) in 1877 hinted at some future coal business for the M&L, but the CF&PG failed to extend eastward beyond Hillsboro.

In 1908 the L&N acquired the Frankfort and Cincinnati Railroad (F&C), which operated from Frankfort and Georgetown to Paris. The L&N planned to open a Louisville-to-Maysville ser vice via that route, but the Kentucky Railway Commission ordered the L&N to divest itself of the F&C for antimonopoly reasons.

After World War II, the M&L was losing money. There was no through-line activity to sustain the line, and local business was switching to

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trucks. In 1951 its track between Lexington and Paris was abandoned, and in 1979 the L&N sold the Paris-to-Maysville track to TransKentucky Transportation Railroad Inc., a modern shortline operator that uses it to haul Eastern Kentucky coal from its connection with the L&N and CSX’s Covington-Corbin division at Paris to an Ohio River barge terminal at Maysville.

“First Railroad Trip to Paris,” Maysville Bulletin, March 7, 1872, 3.

Herr, Kincaid A. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1964.

Tenkotte, Paul A. “Rival Cities to Suburbs: Covington and Newport, Kentucky, 1790–1890,” PhD diss., Univ. of Cincinnati, 1989.

Turner, Charles W. Chessie Road. Richmond, Va.: Garrett and Massie, 1956.

Charles H. Bogart

MAYSVILLE AND LEXINGTON TURNPIKE. The road between Maysville and Lexington dates to prehistoric times and has been an important transportation link ever since the time when Kentucky’s first settlers traveled it. The road has also been at the center of local and national debate.

Both prehistoric and historical animals, especially American bison, beat down a path or trace (see Buffalo Traces) from the Ohio River at Maysville to the salt springs at Blue Licks and then on to Central Kentucky. A large Fort Ancient village near Mayslick once flourished along the route, attesting to the path’s early use. The Indian trail was called Alanant-O-Wamiowee, or the Warrior Trail, and used by American Indians into the historical period. The path was also used by early Kentucky explorers such as Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. In the early pioneer period, the route from Limestone to the Licking River was also called Smith’s Wagon Rd. In the 1790s, Limestone (later Maysville) was the departure point for western settlers. Unless they traveled on down the Ohio River, their usual route in those early years was westward into Central Kentucky. The first stop was Washington, three miles from Limestone. It was a day’s journey, because the first part of the trip was up a steep hill, and with livestock, belongings, and family, it was a difficult trip. Communities eventually sprang up along the road to Lexington. After Washington, Mayslick was the first substantial town along the route. Blue Licks was desired for the salt it provided pioneers, but later it developed into a substantial town anchored by a large spa. It attracted visitors from around the country in the mid-19th century.

The next community was Ellisville, which was the county seat of Nicholas Co. until 1805. Millersburg came next, and then Paris, the county seat of Bourbon Co. These towns were approximately 10 miles apart along the route, and each eventually had a tollhouse on what became the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike.

The road was seen as key to the development of the western United States. Even before the National Road was built, Ebenezer Zane was concerned about the dependability of the Ohio River route from Wheeling, Va. (today, West Virginia), to

598 MAYSVILLE BRICK COMPANY Limestone, and about access from there to the road to Lexington. When Congress in 1796 granted Zane’s request to build an overland route, he began building a road (Zane’s Trace) from Limestone to what became Zanesville, Ohio. This reduced the distance to Maysville from Wheeling by 100 miles and was not subject to difficult Ohio River conditions and the pirates who troubled travelers. When the National Road reached Wheeling in 1818, Maysville and points west were already connected

by Zane’s Trace. Some 19th-century cast-iron highway markers remain in Maysville, showing the directions to Zanesville, Lexington, and Nashville, Tenn.

Local residents understood the importance of the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike and continually made improvements. Mail had long traveled along the route, but in 1829, during the Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) administration, the road was made part of a mail system that connected it to the North, to the East Coast via the National Road, and to the South from Lexington all the way to New Orleans. The Maysville and Washington Turnpike Company was formed on January 29, 1829, and by November 1830 the road between those two cities had been paved, based on the principles espoused by John McAdam. The McAdam system, the preferred road system, was adopted throughout England and the United States in the 1800s. The road between Maysville and Washington was the first macadamized road in the West.

The turnpike company became the Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington Turnpike Company and by 1835 had completed the road. It included six covered bridges and 13 tollgate houses.

Henry Clay proposed that the national government should support this company by buying stock and thus completing this major internal improvement. The road was an important part of Clay’s American System, and it was also a road that Clay traveled often on his journeys between Washington, D.C., and his hometown of Lexington.

Congress passed the bill in 1830, because roads and canals were seen as central to the growth of the republic and worthy of national support. President Jackson, Clay’s political enemy, used the Maysville Road Bill veto to make his point that the federal government should not support projects of a “local character.” The message was sent that internal improvements were the responsibilities of the states, and this philosophy prevailed for a generation.

The Maysville and Lexington Turnpike, like most 19th-century roads, was kept in poor repair and was difficult to travel, particularly in winter.

However travelers, settlers, teamsters with commercial goods, and slaves made the trek. Coffles of slaves were often seen moving in either direction, generally traveling after having been sold or going to a slave auction. By the 1890s, Kentucky citizens had become weary of paying tolls, and violence against the road system became so widespread it was termed the “tollgate wars.” County governments, and later the state government, took over the highway and abolished the tolls. One of the last tollhouses was on the Nicholas Co. line near Millersburg.

Eventually the road was paved and the covered bridges replaced. However, the Maysville-toLexington road still essentially followed the original buffalo trace. It was thus a curvy, dangerous highway. Beginning in the 1950s, the state began making major improvements. By the 1970s, the old highway to Blue Licks had been replaced, often taking a slightly different route, bypassing the towns of Washington, Mayslick, and Blue Licks. Now called U.S. 68, the road was straighter with fewer hills. It had wide shoulders and passing lanes.

Two sections remained that had not been upgraded in the 1990s. The road from Paris north to a few miles out of Millersburg and the Paris Pk., between Paris and Lexington, had not been improved greatly. There was, however, a completed bypass around Paris. The Paris Pk. section was debated as opposition organized against improvements that would destroy historic rock fences, trees, and the beautiful vistas of the road. The debate raged from the 1960s until a new road was finished in 2003.

That road included wooden guardrails, the protection of rock fences and plants wherever possible, and the building of new rock walls and bridges with rock facades. The four-lane highway also has grass shoulders and new plantings.

The road between Lexington and Maysville remains the link between northeastern and Central Kentucky. With its natural setting, limestone road cuts, horse farms, and attention paid to preservation, it is one of the most picturesque roadways in the country.

Friend, Craig Thompson. Along the Maysville Road—The Early Republic in the TransAppalachian West. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2005.

“To Straighten Road,” KP, February 21, 1931, 3.

John Klee

MAYSVILLE BRICK COMPANY. The Maysville Brick Company was located on the south bank of the Ohio River in Mason Co., about three miles southeast of the courthouse in Maysville.

The Maysville Daily Independent reported in 1935 that John H. Hall, Sallie S. Hall, A. C. Sphar, and Elizabeth D. Sphar had organized the brick company in July 1894. However, the Kentucky State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1879–1880 included a listing for A. C. Sphar and Company, suggesting that the brickyard may have started some years earlier (see Sphar Brick Company). A. C. Sphar served as the firm’s president, and John Hall was secretary and treasurer until his death in 1902. Initially, the company had $15,000 of capital stock. During the spring of 1912, Sphar sold the company to William H. Hall, son of John H. Hall, and G. J. Thomas, a son-in-law of John H. Hall, with Elizabeth Hall retaining one-half interest in the company. William Hall became president and general manager; Thomas served as secretary and treasurer. G. J. Thomas died in 1917, and another of William Hall’s brothers-in-law, Howard Curtis, became secretary and assistant manager. In 1919 the Maysville Brick Company increased its stock capital to $35,000. By 1929 the

thriving brickyard employed 40 men. Following the expiration of the original corporation, the company was incorporated again under the same name in 1947. Esther Curtis, Howard Curtis, Elizabeth Wells Hall, and Adella T. Wade owned this second corporation. The company completed its history under the leadership of Howard Curtis and his son Houston Curtis, ceasing operations sometime between 1955 and 1957.

The local Sanborn Insurance maps provide some insights into the Maysville Brick Company.

In 1895 the company had four brick clamps, drying racks, a clay pit, and two structures housing the clay-mixing equipment and the engine room. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad transported the bricks produced by the company. By 1908 changes to the property included a fift h brick kiln, new drying racks, a brick machine, and an 80-horsepower engine. By 1914 a small building and a water tank had been added on the property.

Initially, the company used a Henry Martin Wooden Brick machine, which produced about 25,000 bricks per day. By 1907 brick production was increased to 40,000 bricks per day by utilizing new equipment, and in 1917, 45,000 bricks were being made each day. Sometime after 1922, a stiffmud brick machine was installed at the yard. By 1935 the cherry red bricks produced by the Maysville Brick Company were sold in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

Two published historic photographs of the brickyard and its facilities provide a glimpse of the company during the 1920s and 1930s. The Kentucky Geological Survey first published a view of the brickyard in 1922, showing two of the updraft kilns, railroad cars, and structures next to the Ohio River in the background. The Daily Independent published another photograph in 1935 that reveals the addition of an office, a barn, and miscellaneous structures. In 1994 the surviving ruins included a standing kiln, remnants of three other kilns, the brickyard office, a barn, the clay pit, and an old steam shovel. The company produced the Maysville brand of bricks made by the soft-mud method (made in a mold). The last bricks produced at the yard were unmarked three-hole stiff-mud bricks (made from a column of stiff clay that was cut into bricks by wire).

The Maysville Brick Company was a major industry in Mason Co. and played an important role in supplying bricks to the building trades regionally. Although the company closed a half century ago, many of its bricks undoubtedly survive in historic structures that are still standing.

Hockensmith, Charles D., and M. Jay Stottman, “Investigations at the Maysville Brick Company: An Example of Industrial Archaeology in Kentucky,” Ohio Valley Historical Archaeology 12 (1997): 89–111.

Ries, Heinrich. The Clay Deposits of Kentucky: An Economic Consideration of the Pottery, Brick, and Tile Clays, Fire Clays, and Shales of Kentucky, with Notes on their Industrial Development. Series 6, vol. 2. Frankfort, Ky.: Kentucky Geological Survey, 1922.

MAYSVILLE COUNTRY CLUB The Spirit of Greater Maysville and Mason County.

Maysville, Ky.: Daily Independent, 1935.

Charles D. Hockensmith

MAYSVILLE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. The Maysville Colonization Society of Mason Co., which was active from at least 1822 to 1827, was associated with the state and national colonization societies. The group first met on December 26, 1822, in the Methodist Meeting House to “form a colonization Society in this place, auxiliary to the American Colonization Society of Washington City for the purpose of colonizing blacks of the United States on the Continent of Africa.” Meetings were generally held in church meetinghouses, and Rev. John T. Edgar, one of the organizers, chaired the first meeting. Many prominent citizens were involved in the original group, including George Corwine, Peter Grant (the uncle of future U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant), William Grinstead, and Andrew Wood. Later members included Lewis Collins, a newspaper editor and an early Kentucky historian, and A. M. January. The Maysville Colonization Society met again two days after its first meeting and approved a constitution that stated the goal of raising money to pay for “the emigration and colonization of all people of colour who are willing to join the colony.” Much of the local society’s time was occupied with the administration of the group, although they also informed the public of their goals and raised money for their stated purpose. On February 23, 1824, the Maysville Colonization Society petitioned Henry Clay, a U.S. Senator from Kentucky, to support the congressional incorporation of the American Colonization Society.

In 1825 the group selected members to meet with the Marquis de Lafayette, if he were to stop in Maysville, and ask him to meet with the society.

There is no record that such a meeting took place, but Rev. Edgar and Johnston Armstrong, members of the Maysville Colonization Society, were selected to be part of the welcoming committee for the French general. There is no evidence that the local society’s efforts were very successful, despite the organization’s efforts to have “the managers of the Society see and converse with free blacks in our town and neighborhood and show them the advantages resulting to them by their moving to the colony of Liberia.”

Maysville Colonization Society Record Book, 1822– 1827, Kentucky Gateway Museum Center, Maysville, Ky.

John Klee

MAYSVILLE COMMUNITY AND TECHNICAL COLLEGE. Part of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) since 1997, Maysville Community and Technical College (MCTC) was founded in the late 1960s as Maysville Community College and enrolled students for the first time on August 27, 1968. Community colleges were popu lar innovations during the 1960s, created to meet the needs of the babyboomer generation and specifically to increase op-

portunities in higher education. Kentucky was part of this trend in education, and in 1966 the Kentucky legislature named Maysville as a possible site for a community college. That decision, later confirmed by the University of Kentucky (UK), was partially attributable to the political influence of local state representative Mitchell B. Denham, who had close ties to Kentucky governor Edward Breathitt (1963–1967). From February through June 1966, more than $200,000 was raised for the new community college, and the Wood family’s farm on U.S. 68 in the community of Washington, three miles south of downtown Maysville, was chosen as the specific site of the campus. Ground was broken for the school on November 15, 1967, with Governor Breathitt and UK president John Oswald in attendance. The Maysville Community College opened in 1968, at first holding its classes in church buildings downtown. The first director of the school was Dr. Charles T. Wethington, who was soon promoted to be head of Kentucky’s community college system. Dr. James Shires was named the second director of the college in 1971 and held that post until 1996 (his title was changed to president in 1987). The first faculty member selected was Dr. Robert K. Berry; he taught chemistry and agriculture at the college for 30 years.

In the early history of the community college, most students at Maysville and throughout the state’s community college system took liberal arts classes with the intention of transferring to colleges offering four-year degrees. The Associate in Applied Science (AAS) programs quickly grew, though; graduates of these two-year programs generally went immediately into the workforce with skills in their chosen field of study. The first AAS programs offered were in agricultural and secretarial studies, and the associate degree in nursing followed in 1972. Other programs were added in subsequent years. The Kentucky Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997 created KCTCS and organized the community and technical colleges in the state into one system.

Maysville Community College then began to offer diplomas and certificates in dozens of technical areas, while continuing to grant two-year degrees.

In 1983 a building named for Representative Denham was added to the school’s campus. Offcampus classes began to be offered during the 1980s in Vanceburg, Flemingsburg, and other nearby communities. An official off-campus site developed in Cynthiana in 1988, and a permanent building was opened there in 2002. In 1992 a student center was added to the campus in Maysville and named for Mrs. C. C. Calvert, an early proponent of the college, a noted local historian, and the chair of the school’s Board of Directors from the college’s beginning in 1967 into the 1990s. In 2003 a 45,000-square-foot technical center was added to the Maysville campus. With its four attached buildings, the Maysville facility now totals 145,000 square feet.

In 2004 Rowan Technical College in Morehead and Maysville Community College were merged, and the resulting college officially became Maysville Community and Technical College. MCTC, through

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an agreement with the Kentucky Department of Corrections, also oversees the educational programs at the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex near West Liberty.

The total enrollment of MCTC’s multiple campus sites had grown to more than 3,600 by 2007.

MCTC was a leader in incorporating technical offerings into its curriculum during the late 1990s and was a pioneer in the use of distance learning.

Following Dr. Shires’s long tenure as the school’s leader, Dr. Hans Kuss served as president from 1998 to 2000, and Dr. Augusta Julian was named president in 2001.

The Maysville college’s basic goals since its beginning have been to provide college courses for those wishing to transfer afterward for further studies and for those who want to learn a par ticular skill to enter the workforce, to provide continuing education for the community, and to train students for jobs in businesses and industry. Partner four-year colleges have offered programs leading to BAs beginning in 2000, largely through classes held on the weekends. MCTC also sponsors and cosponsors events such as health fairs, plays, lectures, pageants, art shows, and musical per formances. The faculty and staff of MCTC serve the community as science fair judges, speakers, experts in specific fields, and in many other such ser vice capacities.

Maysville Community and Technical College. www .maycc.kctcs.edu/ (accessed January 5, 2006).

John Klee

MAYSVILLE COUNTRY CLUB. The Maysville Country Club, located on U.S. 68 South in Mason Co., was established in 1925 as a private country club. The club actually began as the Edgefield Club on Maple Leaf Rd. in Mason Co. near the current AA Highway. Dues were $50 a year and the Edgefield Club’s first president was J. Barbour Russell (see Russell Theater). The Edgefield Club had a nine-hole golf course that closed in 1925. Afterward, it was reconstituted and renamed Maysville Country Club. Another nine-hole course was built in 1927 at the Maysville Country Club’s current location, and in 1993 nine more holes were added.

The club has a swimming pool and tennis courts as well, and its membership typically numbers 200– 250. It is now a semiprivate club with restaurant and bar facilities and hosts several banquets and weddings during the year. A major fire in 1959 destroyed much of the country club’s kitchen facilities.

Maysville Country Club’s annual Chippeways three-day golf invitational tournament is the golfing highlight of each season. Its 70th Chippeways Golf Tournament was in 2005, and the club has been hosting a Junior Chippeways Golf Tournament for more than 40 years. One of its junior golfers, Mark Blakefield, went on to play college golf at the University of Kentucky at Lexington, earning All-South Eastern Conference Second Team honors during his senior year, in 2005.

“Maysville Country Club.” www.thegolfcourses.net (accessed June 26, 2006).

600 MAYSVILLE HIGH SCHOOL Rains, Laura. “Greener Pastures,” Maysville Ledger Independent, July 15, 2005.

Dennis W. Van Houten

MAYSVILLE HIGH SCHOOL. The Maysville High School, in Maysville, provided for the educational needs of adolescents from the end of the Civil War until 1991, when the school was consolidated into Mason Co. High School. Before Maysville High School was started, there were private academies in the city, such as the Rand and Richeson School, also called the Maysville Academy (for boys), the Maysville Collegiate Institute, and the St. Francis de Sales Academy (for girls).

In November 1864 the Maysville High School was established in what was called Neptune Hall at the corner of Market and Fourth Sts. in Maysville, and classes began in 1865 with 29 students; Professor Andrew January Grundy was the school’s first principal. The first four diplomas were awarded in 1876. Two years later, the senior class included 10 girls and 10 boys, but only the girls graduated; the boys refused to take their exams. Mollie Blanchard Owens was a member of that class. A new building was built on the same site in 1879. The Maysville school system was further organized in the first decade of the 20th century, when the position of city superintendent was established and a building program planned. A result of the building program was that a large high school was built on the corner of Limestone and Second Sts. and dedicated on May 14, 1908. This was the location of the first building in Limestone (Maysville’s earlier name), close to the mouth of Limestone Creek. The 1908 structure served as the Maysville High School until 1991.

A bond issue passed in 1928 resulted in the building of an auditorium and a gym for the Maysville High School and the construction of the John G. Fee Industrial High School for African American high school students. Before the gym was built, the basketball court was on the top floor of the school. Maysville High School provided a diverse curriculum that over the years was adjusted to meet changing needs. Extracurricular activities included a variety of sports, music, and academic clubs. The students and the community had a strong interest in basketball, and Maysville’s boys’ and girls’ basketball teams were known throughout the state. In 1926 Coach Flossie Jones led the girls’ basketball team to a state championship; boys’ basketball teams, coached by Earle D. Jones, won the state championship in 1947 and took second place in the state in 1938 and 1948.

Maysville High School’s colors were black and gold, and its mascot was the bulldog. When the John G. Fee Industrial High School was integrated into Maysville High School beginning in 1956, teachers as well as students became part of an integrated system. During the first year of integration, the high school’s enrollment stood at 578. In 1962 an addition to the school provided art, music, and office facilities. In 1960 Mason Co. High School was opened, consolidating the remaining high schools in the county, except for Maysville High

School, which remained separate until 1991. The school districts in Maysville were long established, but housing, business, and industry shifted from the old downtown area to the suburbs “on the hill” over the next decades. This caused both declining enrollment and a reduced tax base for the Maysville City Schools, including the high school. In the 1970s, the John G. Fee Industrial High School had become a junior high, and in 1983 it was closed and the Maysville High School became the Maysville Junior-Senior High School. In 1990 the Maysville Independent and Mason Co. school boards voted to consolidate the schools; the last graduating class of Maysville High School was 1991. The City of Maysville bought the high school building and sold it to Classic Properties of Covington in 1994. That firm converted the building into apartments maintaining the look of the school. The auditorium, the 1962 addition, and the high school’s gym continue to be used by the Mason Co. school district.

Lyda Lewis, a Maysville High School graduate of 1966, was the first African American to become Miss Kentucky (1973).

American Association of University Women (Maysville Branch). From Cabin to College: A History of the Schools of Mason County.

Maysville, Ky.: G. F. McClanahan, 1976.

“Maysville Schools to Integrate,” KTS, September 3, 1956, 4A. “Maysville’s Surprising Foes,” KP, October 4, 1974, 10K. “Old School May House Apartments,” KP, January 11, 1994, 7K. Reis, Jim. “Changing Times Bypassed Schools,” KP, June 15, 1952, 4K.

John Klee

MAYSVILLE

HISTORIC

BUILDINGS.

Many historic private and public buildings, especially dating from the 19th century, remain in Maysville, one of Kentucky’s earliest communities.

A few structures still survive from earliest times, including the original log houses known as Bickley’s Station and the Canebrake. These are mostly in Washington, a town annexed by Maysville in 1990.

On the corner of Market and Second Sts. in downtown Maysville, a log house called the Reverend Martin house dates from 1800. The log structure has been covered with other facing materials, but inside, the original doors are in use and the log infrastructure retains its bark. This is the oldest building standing from early downtown Maysville.

A log house and tavern built around 1795, known as the Newdigate-Reed house, sits atop the hill on the Buffalo Trace. The structure, which now belongs to the City of Maysville, served as a tavern and inn for early travelers and later became the home of U.S. Supreme Court justice Stanley Reed when he visited his home county.

In the 19th century, the prosperity of Maysville and its citizens was manifested in many of the buildings in use today. Dr. Charles Shackelford, who provided medical care to both Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, improved the front section of a 1790s house on Fourth

St. in a classical Federal style during the 1820s. The second mayor of Maysville, W. B. Phillips (or Philips), began construction of his home at Third and Market Sts. in 1825, and then, according to legend, ran out of money. The project came to be called “Phillip’s Folly.” Finally, after a successful gambling trip to New Orleans, Phillips was able to complete the large Greek Revival house in 1831. In the same year, along W. Third St., the renowned educator John Richeson finished his Greek Revival home. Rosemary Clooney later lived there, and it is now known as her home; it sits at the head of the street renamed for her in the 1950s. Kentucky historian Lewis Collins, the editor of the Maysville Eagle, built his impressive Greek Revival home overlooking the Ohio River at Third and Short Sts. in 1834. It was later used as the First District School, then as a funeral home, and again served as a private residence in the 1950s. The brothers Peter and Henry Lee enlarged the 1798 hotel at Front and Sutton Sts. in the 1840s. The Lee House entertained many important guests, including Henry Clay, who stayed there several times. The A. M. January House, a long structure, as befits its lot, was built in 1838 on Third St. It has been passed down to the eldest female descendant of the family since that time. The house features descending parapets, a common decorative feature in the town.

Because of the town’s narrow lots, homes in the community also often had long side porches.

The early 1800s saw the building of many row houses in Maysville. On W. Second St. are the row houses built by John Armstrong during the 1820s, believed to be for workers in his various businesses, including the nearby cotton mill he owned. One of the homes was deeded to a plasterer, revealing that Armstrong traded one of these houses for plasterwork on the rest. Along Third St. are several sets of row houses built from the 1820s to the 1840s. Near the Lewis Collins house are several of the oldest row homes, simple in their design.

Across from the post office are the row houses of Benjamin, James, John, and Lewis Jacobs, called Jacobs’ Row. The Jacobses, plow manufacturers, were able to afford these larger row houses, which also have undergone many changes and have had decorative features added over the years. What is called Mechanics Row, built during the 1840s on Third St. near the center of town, has decorative iron fences, porches, and other features said to have been influenced by the architecture of New Orleans. Other extant examples of early row houses can be seen on Limestone St. The Maysville City Hall was built in 1845 and became the Mason Co. Courthouse in 1848. Built on a narrow lot, it is a classic three-story Greek Revival building with Doric columns two stories tall and a clock tower. It was the center for law, politics, and county administration for a century and a half. Other important meetings were held in this building, even church ser vices such as a 1925 revival sponsored by the Bethel Baptist Church.

Nearby is the house of silversmith Pleasant Baird, which dates from 1817 and is now the sheriff ’s office. In 1850 the Maysville Presbyterian Church, next to the courthouse, opened ser vices in the

MAYSVILLE ROAD BILL

same building used today. The year before, Maysville’s Church of the Nativity began ser vices for the Episcopalians in the Tudor Gothic–style church on Third St. A house on W. Fourth St. at the head of Sutton St. is the location of the Underground Railroad Museum. Carriage maker Jonathan Bierbower built it in 1847. The large house, with two-story porches that run across its entire front, was also the home of Col. Frederick Bierbower, who was with the Perry expeditionary group that opened up Japan. Oral history has linked the Bierbower House and Phillip’s Folly to the Underground Railroad as safe houses.

The Gothic Revival style was less popu lar than other styles in Maysville, but the County Clerk’s Office, built in 1860, is one example of this style.

The iron doors and shutters provide unique styling and safety for the building. Above the doors, also in iron, is a representation of Justice holding scales.

The late 19th century saw a boom of building in town, with much variety, and many of the structures are still standing. In 1881 a library building was erected on Sutton St.; a second floor was added later in that decade, and a new facade matching the original architecture was built in 1976. Beginning then, the building, which has round-topped windows extending from floor to ceiling and an open floor plan, housed the Mason Co. Museum, now renamed the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center. Around the corner on Third St., a new jail was finished in 1882 in the French Empire style, complete with a Mansard roof and appropriate window treatments. It is currently used for state offices. In 1898 the Washington Opera House on W. Second St. was rebuilt in the Renaissance Revival style with an intricate brick design. This theater is the fift h-oldest operating theater in the nation.

Throughout the business district of the town, two-, three-, and four-story buildings, many of them featuring iron treatments around the doors and windows, were constructed during the late 1800s for businesses, warehouses, and living quarters. On Second St., the Zweigart block, which was remodeled in 1884, is an example of the business buildings that lined Front, Market, and Second Sts. The four-story Russell building, constructed in 1892, was the headquarters of a warehouse grocery business and has been a landmark with many uses since. Another four-story brick structure from the same time period stands on Market and Second Sts. A painted sign on the Market St. side of the building advertises the J. Wesley Lee Clothing and Tailoring business, which was housed there around 1900. The Glascock building, whose door opens onto Market and Second Sts., was new at that time and housed the First National Bank. There are dozens of examples of 19th-century business buildings in downtown Maysville, most in a good state of repair.

Fraternal organizations built many of their lodges in this time period, with beautiful results.

The most impressive is the Masonic Temple (see Masons), built by future Kentucky lieutenantgovernor William Cox in 1886 on the southeast corner of Market and Second Sts. It featured a large

ballroom where colored light filtered through the round stained-glass window when the Masons held their initiations. The rest of the building was used for apartments and businesses, including, for a time, the post office and Kilgus’ Drug, which had a popu lar soda fountain. On the outside of this Richardsonian Romanesque–style stone building are gargoyles, towers, and the symbols of Masonry around the stained glass. The DeKalb lodge on Third St. also features Masonic symbols in stone, and another lodge building still stands on lower Sutton St. On Market St., in 1915, the Ringgold Lodge was finished with a facade that features Italianate-style windows and a striking use of colors.

Private homes were designed in a variety of styles in the 19th century. In 1848, along the Fleming Rd., John Dobyns built a two-story octagonal house called Glen Alice. A house called Buffalo Trace overlooked Maysville from the top of a hill on the Buffalo Trace Rd. This 16-room Gothic Revival house was finished in 1862. Nearby on the same road is Point au View, an 1860 Italianate house that features a three-story tower in the center and distinctive arched windows. The 1888 CoxRussell house, a few doors down from the Cox building, is also in the Romanesque style and has a turret decorated with seashells. At 128 W. Third St. is the 1880 Queen Anne–style home of Mayor Rebekah Hord, who in the 1950s was Kentucky’s first woman mayor. In this house she entertained Justice Stanley Reed and Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1888 Cox built a set of seven row houses on upper Market St., which alternate features and go by the nicknames of the days of the week. They and several other homes in the vicinity are Queen Anne style with a mix of other influences.

Several churches were built in this period. The 1876 Maysville Christian Church on Th ird St. was restored in 2006 (see First Christian Church, Maysville). The First Baptist Church on Market St., built in 1886, was the third and last built on the site. The Scott United Methodist Church on Fourth St. was built by its African American congregation with their own hands in 1884. In 1909 Roman Catholics fi nished their second church on a site at Second and Limestone Sts. in the Gothic style. It featured large stained-glass windows depicting St. Patrick and St. Boniface, the patrons of the many Irish and German immigrants in the congregation.

Maysville growth slowed at the beginning of the 20th century, and when it resumed at the end of the century, it was focused on the “top of the hill,” away from the traditional downtown area. The result was that few of the older buildings were destroyed. Some historic building activity did occur in the first decades of the 20th century. Both the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad depots remain, as well as the “new” C&O depot, which opened in 1918. A post office still in use was built in 1905. The loose-leaf tobacco auction system began in the teen years of the century in Maysville, and eventually there were more than 20 tobacco warehouses in the city, some impressive brick buildings. Many of

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them remain today, although the tobacco floor auction system has nearly disappeared. A large threestory tobacco manufacturing and processing plant that started in 1913 stands empty on Forest Ave. It once housed R. J. Reynolds and later the Parker Tobacco Company. Factories, including Browning’s (see Browning Manufacturing/Ohio Valley Pulley Works) and Wald’s, were expanded throughout the 20th century and are still in business in what is called the east end of Maysville.

In downtown Maysville, the new Hayswood Hospital opened on Fourth St. in 1925 and served as the city’s hospital until 1983. Montgomery Ward built an impressive Art Deco–style building in 1928 that still displays the symbol of progress in the tiles at the top of the building (see Department Stores). The Russell Theater, whose tiles, colors, and decorative features make it hard to characterize, was completed in 1929. Its style is Moorish; inside, the lights in the ceiling represented the stars. At age three Rosemary Clooney gave her first on-stage performance at the Russell Theater, and she later premiered her movie The Stars Are Singing there in 1953.

Many other historic buildings existed in Maysville and have been lost. When Front St. buildings were destroyed in the 1960s urban renewal period, residents interested in historic preservation mobilized. Most historic buildings have been saved since that time, often with privatepublic partnerships.

Calvert, Jean, and John Klee. Maysville, Kentucky: From Past to Present in Pictures. Maysville, Ky.: Mason Co. Museum, 1983.

John Klee

MAYSVILLE ROAD BILL. The proposed Maysville Road Bill was legislation pushed by Henry Clay and the National Republicans in 1830, stipulating that the federal government would subscribe $150,000 to the Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington Turnpike Company (see Maysville and Lexington Turnpike) for the macadamizing of the dirt highway from Washington, Ky., to Lexington. The Maysville-to-Washington section of the road, approximately four miles, had been completed already in 1830. The bill passed the U.S. Senate on May 15, 1830, by a vote of 24 to 18, having previously passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 102 to 84. Senators Daniel Webster and John Rowan were among the bill’s supporters. Other than the congressmen from Kentucky, representatives from the South gave the bill almost no support. President Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) vetoed the bill on May 27, 1830, and efforts to override the veto failed.

The Maysville Rd. was already connected through Ohio to the National Rd. at Zanesville, Ohio. It was the stepping-off point for many settlers who came west down the Ohio River and moved from Maysville along the route into the interior of Kentucky. The Maysville Road Bill was part of Clay’s program called the American System, an effort to help the nation prosper from government support of business and internal

602 MAYSVILLE TOBACCO WARE HOUSES improvements. For Clay, an improved Maysville Rd. was a bonus since he traveled the route often between Washington, D.C., and his home in Lexington. Support for the road in the areas it would cover in Kentucky was strong. In April more than $30,000 in stock had been sold at Paris, Ky., and more than $30,000 in other communities on the road’s path. In the U.S. Congress, many felt that supporting this project would encourage development of similar local-interest projects around the country.

From Jackson’s perspective, there were several reasons to veto the measure. Doing so gave him an opportunity to state his position that the federal government should not fund internal improvements that do not clearly benefit all the people. He also simply stated that the bill was unconstitutional; it was his “conviction that Congress does not possess the power, under the Constitution, to pass such a law.” For example, the federal government was not empowered by the Constitution to take money from the national treasury and give up jurisdiction by turning it over to the states. Jackson proposed instead that, in the event of a surplus, moneys should be proportionally appropriated to the states. Jackson was also able to use the veto to strike a blow against his political enemy Henry Clay. U.S. secretary of state Martin van Buren largely authored the veto message. Public meetings protesting Jackson’s veto were held in Kentucky.

The Maysville Road Bill was the center of a national debate on the power of government and the direction of the federal government. A first-class road between Maysville and Lexington, in Clay’s opinion, would benefit the entire country. It would facilitate commerce, trade, and even national defense and thus deserved the support of the national government. Jackson’s position was the one that prevailed, however. Because the Maysville Rd. was totally within the confines of a single state, he believed it did not deserve federal support. Also, in his strict-constructionist viewpoint, the Constitution did not allow for such support. This view of the role of the national government dominated national thinking up to the Civil War. It left internal improvements in the hands of the states. It also permanently stymied the development of the section of Kentucky that lay along the proposed road’s path. No first-class highway between Maysville and Lexington has ever been completed.

Collins, Richard H. History of Kentucky. Vol. 1.

Covington, Ky.: Collins, 1882.

Friend, Craig Thompson. Along the Maysville Road: The Early Republic in the Trans-Appalachian West. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2005.

Kleber, John E., ed. The Kentucky Encyclopedia.

Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1992.

Library of Congress. A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875. Register of Debates, 21st Congress, 1st session. http://memory.loc.gov/ (accessed September 23, 2006).

John Klee

MAYSVILLE TOBACCO WAREHOUSES. Maysville, in Mason Co., is a tobacco town. Despite tobacco’s decreasing popularity in recent

years, the crop remains a staple among Maysville farmers. Accounts of smoking tobacco date to the 1500s when Amerigo Vespucci recorded its use

by American Indians. White burley tobacco is the type grown in Mason Co. Once burley was brought to the Maysville area, farmers realized very quickly that it grew well in the fertile, limestone soil of the bluegrass region. By the late 1800s, farmers in Mason, Fleming, and Bracken counties were producing more tobacco than anywhere else in the nation.

Not only is growing tobacco a long-standing tradition in Maysville, but also the warehouses where tobacco is auctioned and sold have a special place in the city’s history. With the rapidly increasing production of tobacco in the late 1700s and early 1800s came construction of the first tobacco warehouses in northeastern Kentucky. By order of the Virginia legislature, the Limestone Warehouse was built in Mason Co., in 1787. (Maysville was not yet a city then, and the territory that became Kentucky was a county of Virginia.) The Limestone Warehouse later was called Farmers and then Independent No. 2. Independent No. 2 no longer houses tobacco but is rented out to a manufacturing company.

Through the years, Maysville has ranked second in the world, behind Lexington, as the leading burley tobacco market. Many farmers have traveled from Eastern Kentucky, and some from even greater distances, such as from West Virginia, Indiana, Mississippi, and Kansas, to sell their tobacco at warehouses in Maysville. In 1912 the largest tobacco warehouse in the world, the Home Tobacco Warehouse, was built in Maysville. The 1933 harvest saw tobacco arriving from six different states.

By 1974 Maysville had 14 warehouses, where 23.3 million pounds of tobacco were sold. Just nine years later, in 1983, Maysville sold 49 million pounds in 18 different warehouses. During their heyday, tobacco warehouses featured the chanting of auctioneers as buyers traveled down the rows where burley leaves fi lled the floors.

The sale of tobacco in Maysville has decreased dramatically, from 503 million pounds in 1997 to 95 million in 2001. The switch to contracts with cigarette companies and large quota cuts are mainly to blame for this massive decrease. Also, the negative connotation that smoking has developed over the years has damaged tobacco’s reputation, forcing many farmers to rely on alternative crops. Farmers have endeavored to grow different crops with the aid of the Master Tobacco Settlement and with help from extension offices.

Of the 31 tobacco warehouses grouped around Maysville, only 5 were being used for tobacco in 2004. Two of those are running under contracts, and the other three still conduct auctions. Finding new ways to use these rundown, empty warehouses has been a challenge for city officials in Maysville. Many warehouses are rented to manufacturing companies, others are sitting empty, and some are facing demolition. With purchasers buying directly, there is not much need for these facilities.

Alexander, John. “Maysville Ranked Second among Kentucky Markets,” Maysville Ledger Independent, November 24, 1974.

Coutant, Betty. “Bills Related to Tobacco Moving in Statehouse,” Maysville Ledger Independent, February 28, 2001.

Fryman, Virgil. “Maysville Leaf Market First,” Maysville Ledger Independent, October 26, 1960.

“Kentucky Expansion,” Maysville Ledger Independent, Tobacco ed., November 20, 1986.

Maysville Centennial Exposition Commission. As We Look Back: Maysville, 1833–1933. Maysville, Ky.: Daily Independent, 1933.

Peterson, Bill. Interview by Heather Gulley, December 7, 2004, Maysville, Ky. The Spirit of a Greater Maysville and Mason County.

Maysville, Ky.: Daily Independent, 1930.

“Warehouses Built in 1783,” Maysville Ledger Independent, Tobacco ed., 1974.

Heather Gulley

MCARTHUR, JAMES MADISON (b. January 3, 1810, Georgetown, Ky.; d. February 10, 1900, Dayton, Ky.). James McArthur, a legislator, developer, and city official, was the son of Peter and Mary Michie Tomkins McArthur. James’s father, a surveyor, was employed to locate land warrants for veterans of the Revolutionary War. As payment for his ser vices, he was given part of the land he surveyed, and by this means he acquired vast amounts of real estate. The family moved to Newport in 1815, where James was educated in the best private schools of the day. He then entered Centre College at Danville, Ky., at age 15, but remained there just one year, preferring to pursue a business career. After his father died on July 21, 1828, James took over management of his father’s holdings and managed the estate. He married Mary J. Stricker on March 28, 1837, and they had seven children.

McArthur began investing in real estate and soon became one of the largest landowners in Campbell Co. He was responsible for much of the early development of Newport, where he built numerous homes and businesses. He was elected a magistrate in 1833, and he served as president of the Newport City Council for 10 years. He entered into a partnership with James Berry and Henry Walker in 1848 to plat and develop the city of Jamestown (now part of Dayton, Ky.). McArthur moved there, where he served as president of the Jamestown City Council for eight years. He was responsible for extending the street railway from Newport to Jamestown, encouraging the development of that area.

McArthur also played a key role in the creation of the Newport Safety Fund Bank and served as its president from 1852 to 1856. Because he was so generous in the granting of loans, the bank eventually failed. He was twice elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives, once in 1846 and again in 1873. While serving as a legislator, he sponsored a number of consumer-protection laws, such as the Mechanic’s Lien Law, the Cemetery Act, and a law authorizing the taxing of real estate to fund the public school system. James and Mary McArthur had been happily married for 56 years when she died on April 6, 1893. James died in 1900 and was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate.

M C CLANAHAN, EDWARD POAGE “ED” The Biographical Cyclopedia of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Chicago: John M. Gresham, 1896.

The Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky. Cincinnati: J. M. Armstrong, 1878.

Campbell County Kentucky 200 Years: 1794–1994.

Alexandria, Ky.: Campbell Co. Historical and Genealogical Society, 1994.

MCBRIDE, JAMES (date and place of birth unknown; d. 1791, Fayette Co., Ky.). According to John Bradford, the distinguished editor of the Kentucky Gazette, in 1754 James McBride and others came down the Ohio River in canoes and landed at the mouth of the Kentucky River, “where they marked on a tree, the initials of their names and the date of the year.” The tree with the carved initials could be seen in Port William (Carrollton) as late as 1784. Thus, McBride became one of the earliest Anglo-Colonial explorers of Kentucky, along with Dr. Thomas Walker in 1750, Christopher Gist in 1750, Capt. James Smith in 1766, and John Finley in 1767–1769.

In April 1779 McBride joined Robert Patterson and several men from the fort at Harrodsburg, Ky., to construct the first permanent settlement at what became the city of Lexington. In January 1780 McBride purchased Outlot H, five acres on Mulberry St. between Second and Short Sts. in the original town plat of Lexington. He also owned land in other parts of Kentucky.

In August 1782 McBride fought at the Battle of Blue Licks. He survived and settled on his farm along the South Elkhorn Creek. Apparently, he died in 1791. His estate was entangled in suits and countersuits for the next 10 years; such landinterference claims were prevalent in the settling of Kentucky.

“Battle of Blue Licks,” RKHS 47, no. 158 (January 1949): 247–49.

Samuel Mackay Wilson Papers, 1871–1946, Special Collections, King Library, Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky. Staples, Charles R. The History of Pioneer Lexington, 1779–1806. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1939.

Stipp, G. W., comp. John Bradford’s Historical Notes on Kentucky from the Western Miscellany. 1827.

Reprinted by John Wilson Townsend, San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1932.

Barnhorn, artist George Elmer Browne, and landscape artist Emile Gruppe of Gloucester, Mass.

McCarthy taught at La Salette from 1915 to 1923; she opened her own studio in 1927 in her home and continued to teach at 321 W. 21st St. until 1974. Two of her better-known students are Bernard Schmidt, who was a celebrated artist in his own right and served as chair of the art department at Thomas More College, and Marlene Von Handorf Steele, a distinguished pastel artist who followed McCarthy’s example by attending the Cincinnati Art Academy and teaching at various local schools in addition to giving art lessons from her own home studio on Oliver St. in Cincinnati.

McCarthy was best known as a portrait artist; her subjects included her well-regarded teacher Frank Duveneck. She is best remembered, however, as a teacher who helped young artists to see more clearly and thus paint more realistically.

The Covington Deanery Diocesan Council of Catholic Women honored McCarthy in 1975, and she was named a Kentucky Colonel. In 1976 she was awarded a Medallion by La Salette Academy, along with two other prominent citizens: Dr. J. E. Randolph, the first African American physician on staff at St. Elizabeth Hospital (see St. Elizabeth Medical Center), and Mary Moser, who founded the Catholic Social Ser vices (see Catholic Charities) in 1948. These recognitions show how treasured she was by the community.

An active member of her community, McCarthy was president of the La Salette Alumnae Association, which was formed in 1931. She presided over teas and orga nized rummage sales as fundraisers for the school. She was also an active member of the Cincinnati Women’s Art Club.

When she was no longer able to live on her own, she moved to St. Charles Care Center, but she did not stop drawing. She was known at St. Charles for the sketches she drew as long as she could move a pencil to form the images she could

Diane Perrine Coon

MCCARTHY, AILEEN (b. September 19, 1886, Covington, Ky.; d. January 25, 1982, Fort Wright, Ky.). Aileen McCarthy, the third daughter of Jeremiah and Cordelia Lambert McCarthy, taught private art lessons from her home on 21st St. in Covington. While public and private schools offered art lessons to students in the Peaselburg area of Covington, it was more prestigious to attend McCarthy’s private lessons. McCarthy began drawing as a child and studied under Sister Josina Whitehead at La Salette Academy. When she graduated from La Salette in 1905, she continued her education at the Cincinnati Art Academy, where she won scholarships and was tutored by Frank Duveneck. She also studied under sculptor Clement

Aileen McCarthy, ca. 1970.

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barely see. She died at the St. Charles facility in 1982 and was buried at Highland Cemetery, Fort Mitchell.

“Aileen McCarthy, Last Art Student of Frank Duveneck,” KP, January 25, 1982, 8B. “Former Pupil of Duveneck,” KTS, March 18, 1919, 4.

“Society—Covington,” KP, January 12, 1931, 4; January 16, 1931, 4; April 11, 1931, 4; November 17, 1939, 4.

“Three Receive LaSalette Recognition,” CE, February 19, 1976, D1.

Katherine Meyer

MCCLANAHAN, EDWARD POAGE “ED” (b. 1932, Brooksville, Ky.). Author Ed McClanahan, best known for his novel The Natural Man and his writings for Esquire, Playboy, and Rolling Stone magazines, is the only child of Edward L. and Jessie Poage McClanahan. The family moved to Maysville in 1948, and McClanahan graduated from Maysville High School in 1951. He attended Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va., for a year before transferring to Miami University in Ohio, where he graduated in 1955. After enrolling in graduate work at Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., McClanahan transferred to the University of Kentucky and earned an MA in English there in 1958. At UK he became associated with other Kentucky-born writers such as Wendell Berry, Gurney Norman, and Kentucky Poet Laureate James Baker Hall—all of whom had received the prestigious Wallace E. Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University. From 1958 until 1962, when McClanahan moved back to California to accept a Stegner Fellowship, he taught freshman English and creative writing at Oregon State University. Through one of his students, Ken Kesey, McClanahan became acquainted with a group of political radicals in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. Included were Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, Beat Generation icon Neal Cassady, the Black Panthers, and Jerry Garcia, lead singer of the rock group The Grateful Dead. Many of McClanahan’s adventures and misadventures during this period, which has been characterized as the passing of the Beat Generation and the rise of the Flower Children, found their way into his fiction and nonfiction, such as Famous People I Have Known (1985), A Congress of Wonders (1996), and My VITA, If You Will: The Uncollected Ed McClanahan (1998).

His long prizewinning meditation about Garcia and the fanatical devotion of his fans, “Grateful Dead I Have Known,” is just one example. As a lecturer at Stanford, McClanahan, using the moniker Captain Kentucky, often sported a knee-length red velvet cape, granny glasses, and Peter Pan boots. In 1964 Esquire magazine included McClanahan in a list of up-and-coming writers.

After Stanford, McClanahan taught creative writing at the University of Kentucky for a year, and then at the University of Montana from 1973 until 1976. After that he returned to Kentucky, where he makes a living doing farm work in Henry Co. for his old friend Wendell Berry while continuing to work on his books. Also, on occasion, he has taught creative writing as a part-time instructor at Northern Kentucky University. “My career

604 M C CLUNG, JOHN A. has been a series of fits and starts,” McClanahan said. “I am, what you might call, a meticulous writer.

I don’t just write—I compose.” McClanahan’s work, though limited in quantity, has been well received. The title story of A Congress of Wonders was turned into a prizewinning short fi lm in 1993, and in 1994 McClanahan was the subject of an hour-long documentary on Kentucky Educational Television. “Ed is a stylist—a man intricately aware of how he sounds, meticulously attentive to the nuances of diction, rhythm, syntax,” said Berry. “Ed’s language is his compass and map.”

Of the stories McClanahan has written, a long, reflective profi le of Little Enis, “the World’s Greatest Left-Handed, Upside-down Guitar Player,” which appeared in Playboy, is his personal favorite. McClanahan founded, directed, and chaired the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Writers’ Roundtable, held annually since 1998 at Hanover College in Madison, Ind. In 2002 Larkspur Press in Monterey, Ky., published McClanahan’s memoir Fondelle; or, The Whore with a Heart of Gold. In 2003 McClanahan served as editor of Spit in the Ocean #7: All about Kesey, a tribute issue of the late Kesey’s self-published magazine, and he contributed the introduction to Kesey’s Jail Journal, a volume featuring Kesey’s artwork. McClanahan’s most recent work, The Return of the Son of Needmore, is based on his hometown of Brooksville and includes the revival of his self-based character, Harry Eastep.

McClanahan, who has been married three times, has five children. He and his third wife, Hilda, live in Lexington, which he has called home since 1991.

McClanahan, Ed. Interview by Stephen M. Vest, December 11, 2004, Lexington, Ky. ———. My VITA, If You Will: The Uncollected Ed McClanahan. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1998.

O’Bryan, Danny. “Captain Kentucky,” Kentucky Monthly, January 2001, 41.

Stephen M. Vest

MCCLUNG, JOHN A. (b. September 25, 1804, Washington, Ky.; d. August 6, 1859, Niagara River, N.Y.). A distinguished preacher, lawyer, and writer, Rev. John Alexander McClung was the son of Judge William McClung, a grandson of Col. Thomas Marshall Jr., and a nephew of John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. McClung was educated in a private school near Versailles in Woodford Co., Ky., run by his uncle Dr. Louis Marshall. At age 18 he entered the Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, where he studied for two years. In 1825 he married Eliza Johnson, a sister of Judge Josiah Stoddard Johnson and of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. McClung was licensed to preach in 1828 and for the next two years served as pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Washington, Ky. McClung left the ministry in 1830 to pursue a career as a writer. His first book, Camden, a Tale of the South, was published that year; in 1832 another one, Sketches of Western Adventure, was published. He also wrote numerous newspaper articles during those years. He became a friend of noted Kentucky historian Judge Lewis Collins

and made significant contributions to the first edition of Collins’s History of Kentucky. McClung was considered one of the best historical writers of his day. However, he often added details from his fertile imagination that were later retold as fact by other writers. Some of the events for which his version deviates from the accepted one include the Battle of Blue Licks, the Siege of Bryants Station, and the Battle of Dayton, Ky. (see Rogers’ Defeat).

McClung began the study of law in 1834 and was admitted to the bar the following year. He began practicing law in Mason Co. in 1835 and soon became one of its most prominent attorneys. In 1838 he was elected to the Kentucky legislature. He returned to the ministry in 1849 and for the next nine years pastored churches in Louisville, Indianapolis, Maysville, Cincinnati, and Augusta, Ga. He was offered the presidency of Hanover College in Madison, Ind., in 1858, but he declined.

McClung was an excellent leader and orator; however, he preferred to spend his leisure time alone, seldom developing close relationships. Because of his hectic schedule, he developed health problems, which were diagnosed as dyspepsia (possibly stomach ulcers). As treatment, he was placed on a strict diet and told to take long walks as exercise; however, his severe pain persisted. Hoping to improve his health, he took a vacation to Niagara Falls, N.Y., in 1859. While swimming in the Niagara River, about three miles above the falls, he drowned. His body went over the falls and was retrieved four days later near the mouth of the Niagara River. Some considered his death an accident, while others speculated that it might have been suicide. His body was brought back to Mason Co. and buried in the Maysville Cemetery.

Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky. Cincinnati: J. M. Armstrong, 1878.

Cyclopedia of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Chicago: John M. Gresham, 1896.

Ward, William S. A Literary History of Kentucky.

Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1988.

MCEVOY, WILLIAM (b. June 28, 1915, Clermont Co., Ohio; d. December 23, 1989, Florence, Ky.). County attorney William Peter McEvoy was the son of John and Jenny Jameson McEvoy. He graduated from Lloyd Memorial High School in Erlanger, attended Centre College in Danville, Ky., on a football scholarship, and went to the Chase College of Law. In 1940 he married Margaret Kaelin, and they had one child. McEvoy was a 1st sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II. He served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by appointment in 1948. McEvoy, the first Catholic to be elected in Boone Co., was the county attorney for 28 years, retiring in 1977. After his first election, he ran unopposed. He was chairman of the Boone Co. Democratic Party for 18 years, a member of the Democratic State Executive Committee for 20 years, and chief counsel for the state Democratic Party more than five years.

A founding member of the Cincinnati/ Northern Kentucky International Airport Board, McEvoy was also chief counsel for the air-

port. He served as chairman of the board (20 years) and legal counsel (25 years) for the Florence Deposit Bank, at that time the largest bank in Florence, Ky. He served as president of the Kentucky County Attorneys Association and of the Florence Rotary Club and was a Paul Harris Fellow of the Florence Rotary Club. McEvoy was an original member of the Northern Kentucky Businessmen’s Association and a Northern Kentucky University Foundation board member, as well as a member of St. Paul Catholic Church in Florence.

It was said that organized crime wanted no part of Boone Co. while McEvoy was the county attorney. He was approached many times to run for state office but did not want to leave Boone Co. He loved practicing law; that was his passion. He died in 1989 and was entombed at St. Mary Cemetery Mausoleum in Fort Mitchell.

“William P. McEvoy, 74, Attorney, Political Leader,” KP, December 25, 1989, 9K.

Nancy J. Tretter

MCFARLAND, ROBERT WHITE (b. June 16, 1825, Concord Twp., Champaign Co., Ohio; d.

October 23, 1910, Oxford, Ohio). A university professor and administrator, he was the son of Robert and Eunice Dorsey McFarland and a descendant of the frontier scout Simon Kenton.

Robert W. McFarland began his college education at Augusta College in Bracken Co. He received his BA (1847) and his MA (1850) from Ohio Wesleyan in Delaware, Ohio. From 1851 through 1856, he taught at Madison College in Antrim, Ohio.

From there, he moved on to Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, where he became a professor of mathematics and astronomy. An excellent teacher with a great sense of humor, McFarland demonstrated the stars to his students from a wooden platform built above the roof of his home. On two separate occasions during the Civil War, he commanded contingents of Miami University students serving in the 86th Ohio Volunteer Regiment. His unit was given the assignment of transporting Confederate general John Hunt Morgan and Morgan’s band of marauders to prison at Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio, and the task was accomplished without one prisoner escaping. In 1873 McFarland received the keys to Miami University’s physical plant as the school was being shut down. He then became one of the first professors at the opening of the new agricultural and mechanical school, Ohio State University, in Columbus. In September 1885, with the reopening of Miami University, he returned as its eighth president. He served only three years, resigning because of a confl ict with the board of trustees over the need for reforms. He spent his last years working as a consulting engineer. He died at home in Oxford in 1910 and was buried at the Oxford Cemetery. McFarland is one of many prominent academics once associated with Northern Kentucky’s Augusta College.

Havighurst, Walter. The Miami Years: 1809–1984.

New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1984.

M C LAUGHLIN, CHARLES J. Rankins, Walter H. Augusta College. Frankfort, Ky.: Roberts, 1955.

MCGRADY, THOMAS (b. June 6, 1863, Lexington, Ky.; d. November 27, 1907, San Francisco, Calif.). Rev. Thomas McGrady was a nationally known Socialist author and lecturer (see Socialist Party).

The son of parents who fled Ireland during the Great Famine, he became a lifelong advocate of the oppressed. In 1887 he was ordained as a Catholic priest in Galveston, Tex. and transferred to the Diocese of Covington (see Roman Catholics) in 1891. Bishop Camillus P. Maes appointed him pastor of St. Edward Church in Cynthiana and then, in 1895, of St. Anthony Catholic Church in Bellevue. Initially a supporter of the populist position favoring unlimited coinage of silver, McGrady had become a Socialist by 1899. He walked in picket lines to support laborers, lectured nationally, and published several works, including The Mistakes of Ingersoll (1898), The Two Kingdoms (1899), Beyond the Black Ocean (1901), Socialism and the Labor Problem: A Plea for Social Democracy (1902), and The Catholic Church and Socialism (1913, with Frank Bohn). Bishop Maes, a liberal but not a Socialist, was tolerant of him, but when other bishops and Catholics throughout the nation began to complain about McGrady’s Socialist views, which were at odds with Vatican teachings, Maes was forced to respond. He asked McGrady to retract a letter that he had published in Wilshire’s Magazine in July 1902. Instead, McGrady chose to resign as pastor of St. Anthony’s and left the diocese. He remained a priest, continuing to write and lecture elsewhere, and eventually moved to San Francisco and practiced law. He died at St. Mary Hospital, San Francisco, of a heart condition and was buried in the Catholic cemetery in Lexington.

Scibilia, Dominic Pasquale. “Edward McGlynn, Thomas McGrady, and Peter C. Yorke: Prophets of American Social Catholicism,” PhD diss., Marquette Univ., 1990.

Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Terrar, Toby. “Catholic Socialism: The Reverend Thomas McGrady,” Ecumenist 21 (November– December 1982): 209–35.

Paul A. Tenkotte

MCGRAW, T. J. (b. ca. 1837, Flagg Springs, Ky.; d.

May 15, 1863, Johnson’s Island, Ohio). Thomas Jefferson “Jeff ” McGraw spent his childhood years in southern Campbell Co. He was a friend of William Francis Corbin, who lived on Washington Trace Rd., and Absolom Columbus “Lum” Dicken, who lived on California Crossroads. He moved with his family to Virginia during his teenage years. On April 17, 1862, McGraw enlisted in the Confederate Army at Moccasin, Va. He asked to be attached to the Kentucky 4th Cavalry, where he would serve with his friends from Campbell Co. McGraw must have been fairly well educated, because he held the rank of captain in the Kentucky Cavalry. Will Corbin was a 1st lieutenant, and Lum

Dicken was a private. On February 20, 1863, with the Confederacy in dire need of additional troops, McGraw and his friend Corbin were ordered by Gen. Humphrey Marshall to return to Northern Kentucky and recruit a company of men. While doing so, they were captured by a squad of Union Home Guard troops at the home of Garret Daniel, near Rouse’s Mill and the Wesley Chapel Church.

The men were taken to Demossville, Ky., then to Cincinnati, and eventually to a military prison on Johnson’s Island, near Sandusky, Ohio. There they were tried by a military court and sentenced to death by firing squad. The action appears to have been illegal, since the men were arrested on April 8, 1863, and Union general Ambrose Burnside’s order, which they were charged with violating, was not issued until April 13, 1863. Upon hearing the news of the sentences, their families were horrified. Will’s sister, Melissa Corbin, traveled to Cincinnati to plead their case before General Burnside, but he refused to change the decision. Undeterred, she traveled to Washington, D.C., in an attempt to persuade President Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) to spare the men’s lives. The president refused to see her, but an aide said that the request would have to be submitted in writing. She then went to the pastor of the church that Lincoln attended in Washington and asked for his assistance. A Rev. Sutherland was sympathetic to her cause and helped her compose a written request for clemency. The next day, the pastor went to the Capitol and met with Lincoln, but the president refused to read the request. Heartbroken, Melissa returned home the next day to await the men’s fate. On May 15, 1863, Jeff McGraw and Will Corbin were executed by firing squad at the prison. Several days later, the men’s bodies were returned home and were laid out in the Corbin home on Washington Trace. Jeff McGraw was buried in the Flagg Springs Baptist Church Cemetery, and Will Corbin was buried on the Corbin family farm. For years later, residents of the area, whether Union or Confederate sympathizers, bristled with anger at the mere mention of the executions.

Demoss, John C. The Short Story of William Francis Corbin. Privately published, 1897.

Dicken, Absolom Columbus. “Civil War Diary of Absolom Columbus Dicken, 1862–1865,” Kenton Co. Public Library, Covington, Ky.; Campbell Co. Historical Society, Alexandria, Ky. Also available at the National Archives, Washington, D.C. Wessling, Jack. Early History of Campbell County Kentucky, Alexandria, Ky.: Privately published, 1997.

Jack Wessling

MCKINNEYSBURG. This small town, whose name is sometimes spelled “McKenneysburg,” is located in Pendleton Co., six miles south-southeast of Falmouth. McKinneysburg sits within a bend of the Licking River, almost in Harrison Co., and is one of the most southern cities of Northern Kentucky. The town was named for the many members of the McKinney family who lived in its vicinity.

The historic McKinneysburg Bridge across the river at McKinneysburg was constructed in 1862;

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it survived the floods of 1937 and 1964, but not the flooding of March 1997, when its center section collapsed into the water. This spot along the Licking River is where in 1994 the federal government removed one of its 18 automatic river-level gauges in Kentucky, for budgetary reasons. Many people contend that the gauge, if it had not been removed, might have alleviated flood conditions farther downstream at Falmouth in 1997. Today, a river gauge has been installed again to that part of the Licking River. The Pendleton Co. Public School system once had an elementary school at McKinneysburg, and it was attended by Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, the 1993 Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He was a student there during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and he remembers appreciatively the fine training he received at the school.

Dreihaus, Bob. “Old Bridge Bows to a Flow,” KP, March 11, 1997, 1K. “Feds Mum on River Gauge,” KP, December 22, 1997, 2K. Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1984.

MCLAUGHLIN, CHARLES J. (b. June 6, 1888, Covington, Ky.; d. September 10, 1964, Charlottesville, Va.). Charles Jasper McLaughlin, a multitalented artist and architect, was the son of Edward Ball and Nancy Waller Sandford McLaughlin. His paternal grandfather once owned the Big Bone Mineral Springs Resort Hotel, in Boone Co. Born and raised in Covington, McLaughlin studied art under the renowned artist Frank Duveneck and later continued his art education at the Sorbonne, Paris, France, and in Belgium, Italy, and Greece.

McLaughlin painted portraits, pictures of animals, and scenes of everyday life, using oil on canvas. He worked for the Rookwood Pottery on Mount Adams in Cincinnati from 1913 to 1920, and there he displayed his artwork on Rookwood pottery.

McLaughlin married Dorothy Kellogg and they had two children, Nancy and Ralph. In 1916 Charles designed and built the family home at 321 Riverside Dr. in Covington. The house had two apartments on the first floor, and the McLaughlin family lived on the second, with 15-foot ceilings and large windows, affording a spectacular view of the Ohio River. The McLaughlins used their home to entertain many celebrities, including actors, musicians, and opera stars. On July 30, 1922, Dorothy McLaughlin died of suicide, at age 34.

For several years, McLaughlin taught architecture and design at Texas A&M College, College Station, Tex. He was a member of the Christopher Gist Historical Society, the Cincinnati Art Club, and the McDowell Society. Later in life, he spent summers in Covington and winters at his art studios in Saldillo, Mexico, and Twenty-Nine Palms, Calif. He died at age 76 while visiting with his daughter, Nancy McLaughlin Dammann, in Charlottesville, Va. He was cremated and his ashes were returned to Cincinnati for burial next to his wife, in Spring Grove Cemetery.

“Charles McLaughlin: Widely-Known Artist,” CE, September 11, 1964, 38.

606 M C LEOD, JOHN C. “McLaughlin, Noted Artist, Dies at 76,” KP, September 10, 1964, 1.

Peck, Herbert. The Book of Rookwood Pottery. New York: Crown, 1968.

Spring Grove Cemetery Records, Cincinnati.

Stamm, Michelle. “Riverside Renaissance: Covington’s Historic Riverside District from the 18th Century to the Present,” NKH 1, no. 1 (Autumn– Winter 1993): 1–22.

MCLEOD, JOHN C. (b. September 27, 1877, Covington, Ky.; d. March 24, 1962, New Rochelle, N.Y.). John C. McLeod, a black veterinarian, was the son of John S. and Anna McLeod. His father was the first principal of Lincoln- Grant School in Covington. The family eventually moved to Cincinnati, where McLeod attended public schools and graduated from Hughes High School. He was employed at the Phoenix Grain and Stock Exchange in Cincinnati as an assistant bookkeeper.

On October 5, 1901, he married Elvira Cox of Cincinnati, and the couple had a son. John McLeod entered the Cincinnati Veterinary College, where he studied veterinary surgery and earned a DVM. After graduation he was appointed the U.S. Veterinary Inspector in the Bureau of Animal Husbandry and served in the stockyards at Chicago.

Before he left for Chicago, McLeod was the only African American veterinarian in Cincinnati.

McLeod was active in the Masonic Lodge; he was a 32nd degree Mason, a Shriner, and a Past Master of the St. John’s Lodge in Cincinnati. During the 1930s he moved to New Rochelle, N.Y., where he continued working as a veterinarian with the U.S. Public Health Ser vice. He died in that city in 1962 and was buried at Malden, Mass.

“Births,” KTS, August 9, 1902, 11.

Dabney, W. P. Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens. Cincinnati: Dabney, 1926.

“Death Notices,” CP, March 26, 1962, 4.

“Journey’s End,” CE, March 26, 1962, 37.

Theodore H. H. Harris

MCMILLEN, FRANCIS (b. March 25, 1832, Bracken Co., Ky.; d. March 8, 1913, Dayton, Ohio).

During the Civil War, Bracken Co. native Francis M. McMillen enlisted in the Union Army at South Charleston, Ohio, on August 15, 1862. He rose to the rank of sergeant in the 110th Ohio Infantry and was mustered out with his regiment on June 25, 1865, at Columbus, Ohio. McMillen captured an enemy flag on April 2, 1865, at the Battle of Petersburg, Va.; this deed earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor, which he received on May 10, 1865. Only an act of conspicuous gallantry, far above the call of duty and in the presence of an armed enemy, merits this medal, the nation’s highest military honor. McMillen placed his life in danger during the Appomattox Campaign, and the act of seizing the flag spoke highly of his heroism. McMillen’s career after the war was in carpentry. He died in 1913 at the National Military Home in Dayton, Ohio, at age 80, and was buried in the Washington Cemetery in Washington Court House, Ohio. His wife had preceded him in death.

A descendant donated his military medals to the

Fayette Co. Museum in Washington Court House.

McMillen’s name was listed with 55 others from Kentucky on a Medal of Honor memorial in Louisville, dedicated on November 12, 2001.

Bradford, Valerie S. “Civil War Soldier of Bracken County Received Medal of Honor in 1865,” Kentucky Explorer, February 2006, 19.

Ohio Death Certificate No. 17811, for the year 1913.

Witherspoon, Carol A. “Two Medals of Honor Awarded,” Fayette Co. Museum, Washington Court House, Ohio.

Caroline R. Miller

MCNAMARA, MARY C. (b. September 2, 1865, Covington, Ky.; d. November 4, 1938, Covington, Ky.). Author Mary Catherine McNamara was the daughter of a Covington tobacco merchant, Patrick J. McNamara, and his wife Catherine. The McNamara family arrived from Ireland in New York City’s harbor aboard the Alexina on July 6, 1849.

They settled in Virginia but by 1860 had moved to Covington. McNamara spent much of her early life in Covington, where the family belonged to St. Mary Cathedral (later named Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption). An 1892 city directory lists her as living at 735 Garrard St. in Covington with her mother; McNamara’s 1925 will was drawn up in Covington, where she was a resident at that time too.

McNamara wrote her 1930 book, “Glory” of the Hills, while staying at the Lynch Hotel in the Appalachian coal town of Lynch, Ky. The novel is set in Kentucky and dedicated to her parents. It was reviewed in the fall of 1930 at the inaugural meeting of the Covington Business and Professional Women’s Club, held at the Covington Chamber of Commerce (see Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce). McNamara also wrote “several other pieces of literature of lesser importance.”

In the years just preceding her death, McNamara lived in Asheville, N.C., although she visited Northern Kentucky frequently, often staying at Mount St. Martin in Newport. It was during one of her Kentucky visits, in March 1938, that McNamara became ill and was hospitalized at St. Elizabeth Hospital (see St. Elizabeth Medical Center) in Covington. She died later that year and was buried at St. Mary Cemetery in Fort Mitchell. She left her estate to the Diocese of Covington (see Roman Catholics) as the Miss Mary McNamara Bequest to the Mountain Missions. The bequest was used to construct St. Michael Church in Paintsville, Ky. Arnim, Margaret. “Society,” KP, September 18, 1930, 4.

Kenton Co. Will Book, book 23, pp. 469–71.

“Kentucky Author Is Taken by Death,” KTS, November 5, 1938, 1.

Kentucky Death Certificate No. 27870, for the year 1938.

McNamara, Mary. “Glory”of the Hills. Louisville, Ky.: John P. Morton, 1930.

Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Kathryn Witt

MCVILLE. McVille is a quiet, close-knit community nestled in the valley of the Ohio River in western Boone Co. Rich farmland and historic homes such as the Thomas Sutton Farm touch the boundaries of this town that once centered its livelihood on the river. An ancient American Indian village, south of the present-day town, left behind artifacts that locals once gathered by basketfuls (see Fort Ancient Indian Sites). McVille, established by Green McMullen in 1881, was a steamboat town, like its older sister city, Belleview. The local 1883 Lake atlas shows four city blocks in McVille bordered by Scott, Vine, Center, Main, and Front Sts. McMullen, a contractor, paint dealer, and wharfmaster, owned 2 of the 17 town lots.

The need for an improved system of locks and dams brought little McVille to the forefront of Ohio River commerce. The river level would sometimes drop as low as two feet, and river traffic would come to a standstill. At other times, the river was a raging torrent, spilling over its banks to a depth of 71 feet. U.S. Lock and Dam No. 38 opened near McVille in 1926 and became one of a series of navigation dams along the Ohio River system (see Ohio River Locks and Dams). In its day, before the construction downstream of the Markland Dam near Vevay, Ind., McVille’s Dam No. 38 was a critical link in this navigation system. Crops reached their destinations with speed and efficiency when the river level was under control. The river was as essential to commercial shipping as the interstate highways are today.

On October 8, 1962, the scheduled detonation of 5,000 pounds of dynamite ended McVille’s era as a vital part in Ohio River commerce. The structures once used for the day-to-day operations of Lock No. 38 became housing for a women’s detention center called the Daniel Boone Correctional Center. Today, the former dam’s buildings are rented living space.

An Atlas of Boone, Kenton, and Campbell Counties, Kentucky. Philadelphia: D. J. Lake, 1883.

Boone Co. Historic Preservation Review Board. Historic Structures of Boone County, Kentucky.

Ann Arbor, Mich.: Cushing-Malloy, 2002.

Reis, Jim. “Controlling the Ohio’s Flow,” KP, February 23, 2003, 4K. ———. “Tiny Unincorporated Towns Abound in Boone,” KP, December 9, 1985, 4K. ———.” What’s in a Name?” KP, June 5, 1995, 4K.

Jannes W. Garbett

MEADOWVIEW REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER. Located along the John Y. Brown Jr. AA Highway, on a ridge south of Maysville in Mason Co., this 101-bed acute-care hospital provides health care in the eastern part of the Northern Kentucky region. As the successor to the Hayswood Hospital in Maysville proper, the center serves a seven-county market area: its home county of Mason, Brown and Adams counties across the Ohio River in Ohio, and four additional Kentucky counties, Robertson, Fleming, Lewis, and Bracken.

The new $6 million, three-story facility was dedicated on January 23, 1983, and opened as the Meadowview Regional Hospital. It was first owned

MEANWELL, JACK L.

and managed by the Hospital Corporation of American (HCA); the name was changed to Columbia Hospital Maysville in 1996 as a result of the merger of Columbia Healthcare Corporation with HCA, both major players in the national acutehealth-care industry. The facility’s name was later changed to the Meadowview Regional Medical Center for public relations reasons and to emphasize its regional market. The center offers most of the standard specialties of a major hospital, since there is no other acute-health-care facility within many miles. The replacement of the not-for-profit Hayswood Hospital by a for-profit health care center has pumped new blood (capital, resources, talent, and experience) into hospital care in this area.

For 5 of the past 10 years, the Joint Commission of the Accreditation of Hospitals Organization has ranked the Meadowview Regional Medical Center among the top 100 hospitals in the United States.

The Meadowview Regional Medical Center is the largest of the rural hospitals in this part of Kentucky, and for trauma victims who need medical attention within that first critical hour, the center has proven to be literally a lifesaver.

“Maysville Hospital Reverts to Old Name,” KP, January 24, 1998, 1.

“Maysville’s Meadowview Ranks among Top 100 U.S. Hospitals,” KP, December 7, 1995, 16A. Meadowview Regional Medical Center. www .meadowviewregional.com (accessed June 25, 2007).

MEANWELL, JACK L. (b. February 6, 1919, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; d. June 7, 2005, Cincinnati, Ohio). The painter John “Jack” Leonard Meanwell was the son of Leonard William and Mary Eleanor Jenkins Meanwell. Jack Meanwell’s father, an architect, was born in Rugby, England, and immigrated to the western provinces of Canada. Not finding a demand for architects there, he moved his family eastward to Windsor, Ontario, where he secured a lifelong position at the internationally renowned architectural firm of Albert Kahn in Detroit, Mich. Jack shared his father’s artistic talents, as well as his mother’s, aunt’s, and grandfather’s interests in painting. He began his study of art with figure drawing in high school and received further training at Meinzinger’s Art School and at the Society of Arts and Crafts, both in Detroit.

The Great Depression led Meanwell to learn business art in a technical school. World War II followed. After a month in the Essex Scottish Infantry, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, where he instructed aircrews in radar for four years. On June 27, 1942, he married Marjory Wallingford, of Fort Mitchell, in Windsor, Canada. He had met Marjory when she visited McGregor Bay, Canada, with her neighbors the Eatons. Meanwell was working on the mail boat in McGregor Bay for his aunt Ethel, who ran the store and the post office there.

In 1945 Meanwell joined Greenhow Art Studios in Windsor, Canada, which handled advertising art for the Chrysler and Ford auto companies.

This type of technical work proved stifling for him, so he moved with his wife and their first son to the

Cincinnati area in 1947, taking up residence in Northern Kentucky. Jack lived with Marjory’s parents in Fort Mitchell. Soon, Meanwell received half of the Wallingford Coffee business from Marjory’s father. Eventually, the Meanwells moved to Erlanger. Much later, Jack Meanwell took up residence in Southgate, where he lived until the early 1980s.

In 1972, seeking to devote himself full-time to his painting, Meanwell sold his half interest in the Wallingford Coffee Company. By 1976 he was teaching at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, where he remained for the next 25 years. In addition, beginning in 1979, he taught art at Northern Kentucky University at Highland Heights.

Following a divorce, Jack Meanwell married two more times, the last time to Mary Ann Shaffer, and moved to Cincinnati, where he lived the rest of his life. He did, however, operate an art studio for about 25 years at Elmwood Hall, in Ludlow.

The Meanwells spent many summers in the rugged wilderness of Canada’s McGregor Bay, where Jack found inspiration for his landscapes.

His grandparents the Jenkinses were the first nonnative people in McGregor Bay, and the McGregor tradition continued with his parents, who also had a summer home there. Eventually, Jack bought his own home and island in the same area and returned year after year.

As Meanwell was becoming one of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky’s most accomplished modern painters, his works were displayed in nearly 100 exhibits at many galleries in Kentucky and Ohio, with an occasional show in New York City, Chicago, Toronto, and Windsor. The first of his local exhibits was in 1969. Meanwell had the privilege of exhibiting in the governors’ mansions in both Ohio (1974) and Kentucky (1979). In 1981 he participated in the Cincinnati Art Museum’s traveling exhibition, as well as its Invitational.

Merida Galleries in Louisville hosted Meanwell in 1977, 1979, and 1982. One of his earliest one-man shows was in 1979 at the Shaw Rimmington Gallery in Toronto. In February 1981 the Gallery at

Jack Meanwell, 1964.

607

Ohio University, Lancaster, featured an exhibit of his watercolors. In 1983 he was one of fewer than 20 Northern Kentuckians to show artworks in “Kentucky Revisited, 1983” in Frankfort.

By 1984 Meanwell’s reputation prompted an interview by the Cincinnati Enquirer art critic Owen Findsen. The interview focused on Canada’s Group of Seven show at the Cincinnati Art Museum, as well as Meanwell’s shows at both locations of the Closson galleries in Cincinnati. Findsen said Meanwell’s paintings were “charged with color and energy” and had “a freedom that is far beyond the Group of Seven.” In 2001 the curator of collections at the Miami (Ohio) University Art Museum, Edna Southard, described the Meanwell works exhibited there as “dramatic landscapes and figures painted with bright bold colors and energetic brushstrokes.” She added, “The bright, abstract images are infused with power and originality.”

Closson’s was the primary gallery that represented the prolific Jack Meanwell throughout much of his career. One of Closson’s early Meanwell shows (1979) was described as a “Forceful Art for a Vast Landscape” by art critic Findsen. Closson’s held multiple exhibits of Meanwell’s work at its downtown Cincinnati store. On February 3, 1996, Closson’s opened “25 Years with Jack Meanwell” in downtown Cincinnati; the exhibit was shown at the firm’s second gallery in Kenwood on March 28 of the same year.

In February 2001 the Art Academy of Cincinnati held a retirement party for Meanwell. Findsen, by then retired himself, was the master of ceremonies. He presented to Meanwell an honorary doctor of fine arts degree, which Meanwell greatly treasured. On October 31, 2001, the Mary Ran Gallery of Hyde Park (a suburb of Cincinnati) organized and presented a major exhibit of 40 of Meanwell’s strongest paintings at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. A very handsome cata log, the only cata log of his work ever prepared, was developed for this exhibit. In November 2004 the Ran Gallery presented Meanwell’s last exhibit while he was alive.

The works of Jack Meanwell have been gathered for numerous corporate and individual collections. In Kentucky, there are collections at the Bardstown Gallery, Bardstown, and at the Commonwealth Hilton in Florence. In Ohio, Meanwell works are included in collections at Cincinnati Bell, American Financial (Cincinnati), Marietta College (Marietta), Western and Southern Life (Cincinnati), and the Cincinnati Art Museum. In Canada, the University of Windsor and the Windsor Art Gallery have collections. And among individual collectors are Tom Gaither and Rick Sacksteder. At the 2003 opening of the Cincinnati Wing of the Cincinnati Art Museum, two of Meanwell’s paintings were put on permanent display.

Meanwell died on June 7, 2005, in Cincinnati, and was cremated. After his death he was acclaimed throughout the Greater Cincinnati area.

Daniel Brown, author of the Blue Book of Cincinnati, wrote in the 2006 edition, “Greater Cincinnati lost one of her most popu lar and gifted painters when Jack Meanwell died in 2005.” Cliff Radel

608 MEATPACKING reported in the Cincinnati Enquirer that “Jack’s death left a void in the local art scene. He was one of the giants of Cincinnati’s artists.”

There have been two one-man shows of Meanwell’s work since his death. On May 5, 2006, the Mary Ran Gallery in Hyde Park, Cincinnati, featured an exhibit “pegged as the first anniversary exhibit of Jack’s death” and “fi lled with muscular, thickly painted abstract landscapes, seascapes, and figurative works that were his signature.” On December 7, 2006, the second exhibit, “Jack Meanwell, a Cincinnati Treasure,” opened at Closson’s in Montgomery, Ohio. At the opening, Marie Rigney, the curator of this extensive one-man show, reported to former student and collector Rick Sacksteder that she had pulled together 60 of Meanwell’s works on paper and oils on canvas. The subjects of the images were the familiar female figure, landscapes, and florals that were so representative of his abstract expressionist work during the last 25 years of his life.

Bauer, Marilyn. “Weekend Art Warrior: Update.”

Cincinnati.Com. http://frontier.cincinnati.com/ blogs/art/ 2006/ 05/ weekend -art-warrior -update .asp (accessed December 13, 2006).

Findsen, Owen. “A Forceful Art for a Vast Landscape,” CE, February 18, 1979, F8.

———. “Local Artist Creates His Own Vision of Mystic North,” CE, April 1, 1984, D19.

Kreimer, Peggy. “Northern Kentuckians Taking Their Artwork to Frankfort,” KP, November 25, 1983, 5K. Lansdell, Sara. “Meanwell at Merida,” LCJ, October 7, 1979, H16.

Meanwell, Marjory. Telephone interview by Rick Sacksteder, June 14, 2006, Covington, Ky. Meanwell, Mary Ann. Telephone interview by Rick Sacksteder, June 14, 2006, Cincinnati.

Radel, Cliff. “Painter’s Death Leaves Void in Local Art Scene,” CE, June 13, 2005, 1.

Smith, Gregory A. “Jack Meanwell—Painter, Teacher, and Friend,” Art Academy of Cincinnati News (Summer 2005): 1.

Richard M. Sacksteder

MEATPACKING. Meatpacking was one of the major industries of Northern Kentucky during the 19th and early 20th centuries. As early as the 1840s, cattle drovers were herding stock, mainly hogs, north into Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati for slaughter, dressing, packing, local consumption, and shipment to distant markets. Cincinnati may have deserved its former nickname of “Porkopolis,” but Covington also has had its share of meatpacking. In some years, as much as 30 percent of the livestock packed in Cincinnati came from the Central Kentucky area (Winchester, Cynthiana, and Paris), through Northern Kentucky. Herds were driven northward for as long as a week’s time to Covington stockyards. Some of these livestock were processed totally in Northern Kentucky and some were killed in Northern Kentucky and sent immediately to Cincinnati meatpackers. Others were taken alive across the Ohio River on ferries, or sometimes driven over the frozen river (later over the John A. Roebling Bridge); the animals were taken through the streets of downtown Cincinnati to slaughterhouses in the Deer Creek valley

Milward and Oldershaw, pork packers, Covington.

on the east side and, later, to the Brighton area on the west side.

Before the Covington and Lexington Railroad was built, herds of livestock traveled along the Covington and Lexington Turnpike, spending the night in pens adjacent to hotels; the animals were watered and fed at such stops. Usually their first Northern Kentucky destination was the Drovers’ Inn, where the Fort Mitchell Garage stands today along the Dixie Highway in Park Hills. With a little luck, the drive team found buyers from meatpacking operations and struck a deal. Prices received at the Drovers’ Inn were published in the newspapers of the day, as were the number and type of livestock arriving in a given day. The Drovers’ Inn later became known as the Hawkins House. Housing up to 100 herders, it was also a gathering place for political rallies of all sorts. It closed in 1868. Local historian John Burns has noted that Covington had as many as 19 similar places of rest, and it is possible that the parents of Kentucky governor William Goebel (1900) ran such an establishment.

Once a deal was negotiated and the herd was no longer the responsibility of the seller, the drovers were free to spend a night or two “on the town” in Covington, before returning home. Cattle that did not change hands at the Drovers’ Inn were herded down the hill to Lewisburg, where Covington’s first stockyard was located. Business activity was somewhat seasonal; the peak numbers of hogs arrived beginning about the first of November of each year. Other animals had different peak seasons. It was easier and less expensive for farmers to sell their animals rather than to feed them over the winter. Other factors that influenced the industry were the amounts of grain available for feed purposes and the quantities of rainfall during growing seasons. Drought conditions frequently made it necessary for producers to send their animals to markets to be slaughtered prematurely.

At the slaughterhouses, the animals were killed with a blow to the head or a knife to the throat, cut up into the various sides, hung to dry, dressed,

packed in salt from West Virginia’s Kanawha River (see Frederick Laidley), and shipped to East Coast markets such as New York City and Philadelphia. Some hogs were shipped to England, where consumers preferred to have their pork prepared differently: the pigs’ bristles were singed in large, airtight hot rooms before shipment. Most local pigs lost their hair by being dipped in scalding hot water. There were years when 500,000 hogs were slaughtered and processed in Cincinnati while another 100,000 were being processed in Covington. It has been said that Cincinnati fed the Union Army during the Civil War with its pork; reportedly, a portion of that pork also found its way illegally to the Southern army. Pork was the preferred meat, for, unlike beef, it could be packed and salted away for years in 31-inch white or burr oak barrels. In addition, some hogs provided as much as 30 pounds of lard, which was used for lubrication, cooking, candle-making, and soap; cattle hides were used for such things as the manufacture of shoes and baseballs.

Once the railroad arrived in Covington, the stockyards moved to a location near the Covington and Lexington’s rail line at 22nd St., between modern Donaldson Ave. and the tracks. It became known as the Central Covington Stockyards, and the yards remained, though not in operation at the end, until sold to the Donaldson Lithographing Company of Newport, in 1913. The livestock pens were wedged between the tracks and the old Banklick Rd., making it easy to receive stock either from the trains or via the Banklick Turnpike. As many as four trains per day arrived from Central Kentucky. The days of the weeklong drives were gone by this time, so the animals sent to slaughter arrived faster and generally in better health. Central Kentucky farmers owned the Northern Kentucky stockyards and thus had both a vested interest in the successful operation of the businesses and a place to sell their livestock. Once the railroad was able to cross the Ohio River in Newport over the L&N Bridge (1872), in Ludlow across the Cincinnati Southern Railroad Bridge (1877), and

MEDAL OF HONOR, CONGRESSIONAL

in Covington via the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Bridge (1888), most cattle were shipped directly into Ohio; cattle destined for Covington packers were offloaded at the Covington rail yards.

When refrigeration became available, the major packers moved on to Chicago.

Over time, several stockyards did business in Covington along the railroad into the city. Many were situated on Russell St., near 16th St., and replaced the Central Covington yards farther south.

The newer ones, north of the Kenton Junction railroad intersection, allowed for the easy loading of cattle cars from the east off the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad after 1888, in addition to the Louisville and Nashville (formerly the Kentucky Central and the Covington and Lexington) Railroad. Other stockyards in Covington included the Jennings and Wilkerson facility that opened for business in 1875; that same year, the Nagel Slaughter House was operating in Lewisburg, and the Benzinger Slaughter House on Burnet St. in Austinburg burned. Fire was a common problem for meatpacking companies.

The foremost packer in Covington’s history operated for only a decade. The firm of Milward and Oldershaw was situated along the banks of the Licking River and flourished during the 1850s. Its specialty was singed pork for the English market.

The firm was the largest pork processor in the United States in 1850, with the capacity to prepare as many as 1,000 hogs per day. During the 1849– 1850 season, Milward and Oldershaw packed 25,000 hogs. Its plant burned to the ground in 1859. That same year saw Daniel Ruttle begin his meatpacking firm, and in 1862 that company became the Ruttle-Schlickman Company. Its plant was on W. 12th St., and it gained a national reputation for its quality pork products. In 1885 Ruttle’s retail operation at Seventh and Madison Ave. burned, and by 1902 both Ruttle and Schlickman were dead. In 1904 the company went bankrupt, and the business was assigned to John Osterholt by the Kenton Co. Fiscal Court. Ruttle’s descendants became well-known Covington florists. In 1928 Covington experienced a cattle stampede, when a herd being driven from the Russell St. pens to the C. Rice plant on the east side became unruly and got out of hand at 16th and Madison Ave. Traffic was stopped for an hour before the herd could be regrouped.

At one time, Augusta, Falmouth, and Williamstown had stockyards where the buying, selling, and trading of livestock took place on specified days each month. Maysville still has a small stockyard facility. That city lost two stockyards to fires: in 1940 the old Carlisle Stockyard burned, and in January 1994 its replacement, Maysville Stockyards, burned. In the 19th century, there were slaughterhouses in Finchtown, just south of Newport along the Short Line (Louisville, Cincinnati, and Lexington Railroad) to Louisville.

Today, Bobby Mackey’s nightclub on the Wilder Pk. just outside Newport sits on land where a slaughterhouse once operated. Meatpacking now takes place in southern Campbell Co. in Claryville, at the Kahn’s plant, owned by the Sara Lee Corpo-

ration; Kahn’s used to be located along Spring Grove Ave. in Cincinnati, near that city’s former stockyards. Smaller Northern Kentucky packers have included C. Rice Packing (Direct Meats), once at Patton St. and Eastern Ave., and another Rice family operation, Bluegrass Meats in Crescent Springs. Long gone are the days when local butcher shops, such as Ebert’s Meats in Newport, led live animals into their basements, where the animals were killed and processed on the spot.

“Cattle in Stampede,” KP, September 18, 1928, 1.

“Council to Close Street for New Plant,” KP, October 21, 1913, 2.

“New Stockyards,” CE, April 9, 1899, 3.

“Plant,” KP, April 4, 1904, 1.

Pork Packers Association of Chicago. Packing of the West. Chicago: Pork Packers Association, 1876.

Tenkotte, Paul A. “Rival Cities to Suburbs: Covington and Newport, Kentucky, 1790–1890,” PhD diss., Univ. of Cincinnati, 1989.

“Will Wreck Landmark,” KP, October 26, 1917, 1.

Michael R. Sweeney

MEDAL OF HONOR, CONGRESSIONAL. Through 2008, 56 Medals of Honor have been awarded to Kentuckians, 16 of whom had Northern Kentucky connections.

During the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington began the practice of awarding medals to soldiers for individual acts of heroism. Those early awards were called Badges of Military Merit.

Awards were also made during the Mexican War (1846–1847) but were called Certificates of Merit.

On July 25, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation creating the Medal of Honor.

Congress changed the name to the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1918. The purpose of the medal was to honor members of the armed forces who displayed acts of heroism beyond the call of duty.

Initially, the medal was given only for heroism in armed conflict, but later it was also awarded for noncombat heroism. Each branch of ser vice designed its own version of the medal. The Congressional Medal of Honor is the only medal issued by the armed ser vices that is worn on a ribbon around the neck. The medal is usually presented in person by the president of the United States. More than 3,400 individuals have received the honor, more than half of them posthumously. Recipients of the award have come from all 50 states. Twenty individuals have been awarded the medal twice. The only woman to receive the Medal of Honor was Dr. Mary Edwards Walker (1832–1919). Some of the famous people honored in this way are Buffalo Bill Cody, Adm. Richard Byrd, Jimmy Doolittle, Eddie Rickenbacker, Douglas MacArthur, Theodore Roosevelt, and Charles Lindberg. Two recipients of the medal have had movies made about the military actions that led to the award: World War I hero Alvin C. York (1887–1964) and the most decorated World War II veteran, Audie Leon Murphy (1924–1971). A Veteran’s Convention is held each year, at which living Medal of Honor recipients are recognized and their exploits recounted.

The first Northern Kentuckian to receive the Medal of Honor was Sgt. John S. Darrough (1841–

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1920), who was born at Maysville, in Mason Co. He received his medal for saving the life of a captain at Eastport, Miss., on October 10, 1864. Darrough was buried in the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery, Watseka, Ill. Carroll Co. native Pvt. John Davis (1838–1901) received his medal for capturing the Confederate flag of the Worrill Grays in February 1865 at Cullodon, Ga. He was buried in the Fort Logan National Cemetery in Sheriden, Colo. Sgt. Francis M. McMillen (1832–1913), who was born and raised in Bracken Co., received his medal for capturing the Confederate flag at Petersburg, Va., on April 2, 1865. He was buried in the Washington Cemetery at Washington Court House, Ohio. Civil War drummer William H. Horsfall (1847–1922), was born and raised in Newport. At the age of 14, he was one of the youngest ever to receive the medal. He was credited with rescuing a wounded officer who was trapped between battle lines at Corinth, Miss. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Southgate. Pvt. William Steinmetz (1847–1903), also born and raised in Newport, was awarded the medal for gallantry during a charge by his volunteer storming force at Vicksburg, Miss. He was buried in the Wesleyan Cemetery in Cincinnati. Pvt. Charles Wesley Rundle (1842–1924) grew up in Covington. He received his medal for gallantry with the same volunteer storming force. He is buried in the Los Angeles National Cemetery. Sgt. Cavalry M. Young (1840– 1909) was awarded his medal for capturing Confederate Gen. William Cabell in Osage, Kans. He was buried in Highland Cemetery, Fort Mitchell.

Covington-born Sgt. Thomas Shaw (1846– 1895) was a member of the African American cavalry regiment known as the Buffalo Soldiers. He won his medal for stubbornly holding his ground, in an extremely exposed position, against a superior force of Indians at Carrizo Canyon, N. Mex., on August, 12, 1881. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Pvt. Thomas Sullivan (1859– 1940), also born in Covington, was awarded the medal for gallantry in action against Indians on December 29, 1890, in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona. He was buried in the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange, N.J. German-born Sgt. Louis (Lehman) Hineman (1839–1920) received his medal in August 1875 for gallantry against the Apache Indians during the winter of 1872–1873.

He died at his home in Newport and was buried in St. Stephen Cemetery, Fort Thomas. Minnesotaborn Col. Harry Leroy Hawthorne (1859–1948) was stationed for a time at the Newport Barracks, and his parents lived nearby in the city of Newport. As a 2nd lieutenant with a U.S. Army artillery unit, he won his medal for distinguished conduct in battle at Wounded Knee, S.D., during the Indian Wars on October 11, 1892. He was a career officer who later served in World War I, where he was awarded a Purple Heart and a Silver Star. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Seaman Edward W. Boers (1884–1929) was born in Cincinnati but later moved to Bellevue, Ky. He won his medal in peacetime by displaying extraordinary heroism in helping injured sailors

610 MEDICINAL HERBS after a boiler explosion aboard the U.S.S. Bennington on July 21, 1905, in San Diego Harbor. Boers was buried in the Vine Street Hill Cemetery, Cincinnati.

Irish-born Cpl. Thomas M. Doherty (1869– 1906) won his medal for rescuing wounded soldiers from the front lines while under heavy fire at Santiago, Cuba, on July 1, 1898. After the war he was stationed at the Fort Thomas Military Reservation, where he committed suicide in the restroom of what is known today as the Midway Cafe across the street from the fort. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Southgate.

Samuel Woodfi ll (1883–1951), who was a 1st lieutenant when he received the medal, was described by Gen. John (Black Jack) Pershing as “the most outstanding soldier of World War I.” Woodfi ll was awarded the Medal of Honor for destroying three machine gun nests near Cunel, France, on October 12, 1918, even though he had just inhaled mustard gas. After the war Woodfi ll lived in Fort Thomas, where a school is named in his honor. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Lt. Col. Donald C. Faith Jr. (1918–1950) grew up in Fort Thomas, graduating from Highlands High School and from Xavier University in Cincinnati. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for leading a counterattack on November 27, 1950, against Chinese troops at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. Faith was mortally wounded while clearing an enemy roadblock, thereby permitting his battalion to escape encirclement. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Charles Clinton “Chalky” Fleek (1947–1969) was born and raised at Petersburg in Boone Co. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in the Vietnam War. On May 27, 1969, he gave his life by throwing himself on an enemy hand grenade to save his fellow soldiers from harm.

He was buried in the Petersburg Cemetery in Petersburg.

About: Women’s History. “Mary Edwards Walker.” www.womenshistory.about.com (accessed April 25, 2006).

Congressional Medal of Honor Society. www.cmohs .org (accessed April 25, 2006).

“Ft. Thomas Man Awarded Medal,” KTS, February 6, 1919, 20.

Home of Heroes. “Hometown Heroes of the Bluegrass State.” www.homeofheroes.com (accessed April 26, 2006).

Kentucky Medal of Honor Memorial. www.kymoh .com (accessed April 25, 2006).

Reis, Jim. “Memories of the Korean War Still Linger,” KP, July 11, 1988, 4K. “20 Years Later a Soldier’s Sacrifice Is Not Forgotten,” KP, May 24, 1989, 1K.

MEDICINAL HERBS. In 1797 Gilbert Imlay, who had been a captain in the U.S. Army, wrote a topographical description of the western territory of the United States, including Kentucky. Historian Michael Flannery later remarked that Imlay’s description of the fertility foretold of the many botanical medicines native to Kentucky. Medicinal products before the 20th century were predominantly natural substances. Although some medi-

cines came from distant lands, such as cinchona, the source of quinine, and the poppy, the primary source of opium, many were from indigenous sources. Among the most important medicinal herbs that grew in Northern Kentucky were goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), black snakeroot (Cimicifuga racemosa), mayapple or mandrake (Podophyllum peltatum), and ginseng (Panax quinquefolius).

Goldenseal was found in open woods where there was a rich layer of leaf mold. The plant was abundant in the wild but quickly disappeared when woods were cut and the land cultivated. Used as a yellow dye by American Indians, its medicinal properties were first exploited by the eclectic physicians, who found it effective in the treatment of inflammation of the mucous membranes. Goldenseal was especially valued for its effects in ophthalmologic and gynecologic treatments.

Black snakeroot, widely available in the Ohio River Valley, reportedly was used by early Indians.

Professor John King of Cincinnati was probably the first to popu larize its use for gynecologic conditions. It later became an important ingredient in Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Formula.

Mayapple was a common plant in the woods of the Ohio River Valley. The active constituent of the plant in resin form, podophyllin, was a potent cathartic, sometimes called “vegetable calomel.”

Eclectics used it in place of the mercurial preparations previously favored by many physicians.

William S. Merrell of Cincinnati was the fi rst to manufacture the product; it remained a popu lar ingredient in laxatives for many decades.

Ginseng was also an important plant in the Ohio River Valley. Although it never achieved general acceptance as a medicine in North America, eclectics described its use as a mild tonic and stimulant, noting that some people believed it increased virility. Ginseng was an important commercial product as early as the end of the Revolutionary War. Daniel Boone was involved in the trade during his time in Kentucky, shipping 15 tons of the plant up the Ohio River in 1787–1788.

Other botanical medicines were also indigenous to the fields and woods of Northern Kentucky, such as echinacea (Echinacea purpurea), skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora), and puccoon (Sanguinaria canadensis).

Flannery, M. A. “For a Voluptuous Glow of Health and Vigor: Medical Botany in Kentucky, 1792– 1910,” Journal of the Kentucky Academy of Science 60 (1999): 15–30.

Imlay, Gilbert. A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America. 3rd ed.

London: J. Debrett, 1797. Reprint, New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1969.

Dennis B. Worthen

MEDICINE, HISTORICAL REVIEW. Before the establishment of accessible medical schools, physicians in Northern Kentucky, as elsewhere, were educated through medical apprenticeships.

They were referred to as “doctors of physic” and often served wide geographic areas. Because no formal medical facilities were available, patients

were usually treated at home. With few diagnostic tools, early medicine was undoubtedly challenging: even simple X-rays were not discovered until 1895, and laboratory tests were similarly lacking.

The earliest physicians had little except their own senses and skills to guide their diagnoses. Then, even if a doctor was fortunate enough to reach a correct diagnosis, successful treatment was anything but assured. There was no benefit of prior research, nor any extensive medical experience to refer to. When the causes of diseases were a mystery and treatment options nearly as scarce as diagnostic tools, mortality rates were understandably very high.

Abundant health challenges confronted the early medical community. Diseases prevalent during the early years in Northern Kentucky included the familiar illnesses of cholera, typhoid, and smallpox. However, some other diagnoses of the times are less well known today. One was milk sickness, also known as “the trembles” or “the slows.” Later the cause of this sometimes-fatal disease was identified as the white snakeroot plant (Eupatorium rugosum). A toxin from this plant would pass into the milk of cows feeding on it and cause disease in unknowing humans who ingested the seemingly wholesome milk. Milk sickness is believed to have claimed the life of Abraham Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, when Abraham was nine years old. Dropsy was a widespread cause of illness and death. It denoted swelling, usually caused by what is known today as congestive heart failure or, less frequently, by kidney disease.

Tuberculosis, called “consumption,” took the lives of many. Syphilis was known as “bad blood.”

“Milk leg” referred to a postpartum blood clot in a leg vein. Rabies was termed “hydrophobia” because of an affected person’s aversion to water. “Catarrh” meant an upper respiratory infection, what we now call the common cold. Pregnancy was an especially risky condition during early times, and childbirth was likewise hazardous. Hemorrhage or infection frequently resulted in the death of the mother or the baby or both.

Northern Kentucky did not escape the global pandemic that struck in 1918. Between September 1918 and March 1919, churches, schools, saloons, and theaters closed. Families were told to keep their children at home. In Covington alone some 260 died from the Spanish Flu or “La Grippe.” Dr. John Todd, the well-known Health Department director in Newport, managed to survive, though some of his fellow city workers did not. Newspapers reported almost daily the deaths of Northern Kentuckians away in the military, many of them aboard ships at sea. The Fort Thomas Military Reservation was quarantined until early November 1918; Halloween ceremonies that year were canceled. Worldwide, the number of people who died from the flu, at least 20 million and perhaps 40 million, exceeded the number killed in World War I. Newspaper advertisements from the early years in Northern Kentucky paralleled those of other cities, offering an abundance of cures for nearly anything that could afflict a person. If a per-

MEDICINE, HISTORICAL REVIEW

son had an ailment, there were tinctures, balsams, liniments, or bitters to cure it. The lack of proven treatments opened the door to abuse by unethical individuals, referred to as quacks or charlatans.

Eventually, the formation of medical organizations helped to abolish quackery within the medical community.

Phrenology was an attempt at diagnostic technique that was popu lar in the 1800s. This pseudoscience claimed that a person’s character traits, mental capacity, and even criminality potential could be discerned by observing the shape the person’s skull and examining the bumps on his or her head.

The concept of humoralism formed the basis for many treatments of early ailments. Disease was believed to result from an imbalance of the body’s four humors or fluids—specifically blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Treatments consequently involved attempts to rebalance those substances by purging with either emetics or laxatives or by performing the ever-popular bleeding or bloodletting. Cupping (drawing blood to the skin with heated glass cups) was also utilized, as were leech treatments. Gradually medical advances such as the acceptance of germ theory, the recognition of contagion as a factor in disease transmission, the use of antiseptics during surgeries, and improvements in nutrition led to better community health and longer lives.

In the 1800s there was a proliferation of medical schools throughout the United States. Many early Northern Kentucky doctors who received the benefit of formal training attended the Medical College of Ohio (later the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine), which graduated its first class in 1821. Also educating physicians in the region were the Eclectic Medical Institute at Worthington, Ohio, which graduated its first class in 1833, and the Woman’s Medical College of Cincinnati (later the Laura Memorial Woman’s Medical College), which graduated its first class in 1888. Although some pioneer physicians of the Midwest went to eastern medical schools or institutions abroad, not many local physicians did so.

The Newport Barracks, a military establishment, played a role in the development of medicine in the Northern Kentucky area by drawing skilled and accomplished physicians to the region. Besides serving the U.S. Army, the Newport Barracks also treated nonmilitary people in surgical emergencies. Dr. John Sellman was the institution’s first surgeon. Like many physicians of the time, he did not hold a formal medical degree, but later in his life he received an honorary doctor of medicine degree from the Medical College of Ohio. Other practitioners at the Newport Barracks included Dr. Nathaniel Shaler and Gen. Charles S. Tripler.

Numerous early physicians influenced the Northern Kentucky community. One pioneer physician who had a direct impact on patient care was Dr. Joshua Taylor Bradford of Augusta. He was a Civil War surgeon; however, his career is most notable for the revival and refinement of ovariotomy, an operation used to treat “ovarian dropsy”

(abdominal swelling caused by ovarian cysts or sometimes ovarian tumors). The procedure had been abandoned, and in fact was condemned, because of high mortality rates. However, Bradford performed a series of such surgeries with a much better survival rate than had been previously experienced, and subsequently many patients began to benefit from this treatment—a direct result of his courageous resumption of the controversial therapy.

Two very early Washington, Ky., physicians included Dr. William Goforth and Dr. Basil Duke. Although better known for his work in the Cincinnati medical community, Dr. Daniel Drake was from Mason Co., where he spent most of his youth before moving to Cincinnati to apprentice under Dr. William Goforth. He then practiced briefly in Mayslick. Dr. Drake became a prominent medical figure in Cincinnati and in 1819 founded the Medical College of Ohio.

Dr. Thomas Hinde, from England, is the first medical doctor known to practice in the Covington and Newport areas; he was practicing medicine in Newport as early as 1799. Earlier, Hinde, an officer in the British Navy during the French and Indian War, had been portrayed and immortalized as the attending naval physician in the famous painting The Death of General Wolfe. Dr. Thomas Madden was the first physician of Florence, Ky., in 1818. Dr. C. B. Schoolfield of Dayton, Ky., was the first president of the Northern Kentucky Medical Society. Dr. James Barnsfather, originally of Scotland, practiced in Dayton, Ky., as well as in Cincinnati. Remembered as one of Northern Kentucky’s earliest microbiologists, he provided detailed early descriptions of organisms associated with scarlet fever and tuberculosis. There are claims that he discovered these two microbes many years before their official discoveries were credited to other individuals. He reportedly failed to share or publish his findings, perhaps unaware at the time of their great significance. Dr. Alvin C. Poweleit of Newport, a survivor of the Bataan Death March in World War II, was reputed to be the first physician to earn a combat decoration during the war.

He received the silver star for an act of heroism.

Early women physicians of the area included Dr. Dell Edwards, Ludlow’s first female doctor. Dr. Anna Wolfram, Bellevue’s first woman physician, was practicing in that city by 1892. Dr. Julia Thorpe, who moved to Covington in the late 1870s from New York, where she attended medical school, is recognized as Covington’s first female doctor. Dr. Louise Southgate received her medical degree in 1893 and also practiced in Covington. She is remembered as an early women’s rights activist as well. Dr. Sarah Siewers of Newport graduated from the Eclectic College of Medicine in Cincinnati in 1891 and was an early lecturer on alcoholism and tobacco abuse.

The Northern Kentucky area also benefited from the care of early minority physicians. Dr. Simon J. Watkins, a physician and dentist who practiced from 1891 until 1946, was Covington’s first African American doctor. Dr. James Randolph established a practice in 1922 on Greenup

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St. in Covington and was reported to be the first African American physician on staff at St. Elizabeth Hospital (see St. Elizabeth Medical Center) as well as the first African American member of the Campbell-Kenton Medical Society. Two early Campbell Co. African American physicians were Dr. Charles Horner and Dr. Percival Bacchus.

In the 1800s medical facilities other than doctors’ offices began to appear in Northern Kentucky.

Altruism was the common foundation for several of them. During the Civil War, at least five temporary Northern military rehabilitation hospitals appeared, mostly in Covington. Staffed mainly by women volunteers from the area and housed in rented hotels, they cared for persons injured in the Tennessee and Mississippi campaigns, who were brought to the region via steamboats. As the war wound down, these facilities were consolidated and closed (see Civil War Hospitals). Opening in 1897, the Speers Memorial Hospital resulted from the benevolence of Elizabeth Speers, a widow and philanthropist who left provisions in her will for the establishment of a hospital in Dayton, Ky. The Booth Memorial Hospital opened in 1914 in a building that had been donated to the Salvation Army, the former Amos Shinkle mansion along E. Second St. in Covington. Three nuns were sent from the Little Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis in Cincinnati to establish a hospital in Covington to care for the poor. From this mission St. Elizabeth Hospital (see St. Elizabeth Medical Center) was born in 1861, providing care for anyone in need, including the poor, orphans, and veterans.

Campbell Co.’s St. Luke Hospital (see St. Luke Hospitals Inc.) opened in 1954, after voters approved a bond to support its establishment. One medical facility that never materialized was the Effie Slaughter Memorial Hospital, planned as a Covington hospital for African American patients. Although fundraising drives were carried out during 1928, further plans for the facility never evolved.

Several other small medical facilities existed in early Northern Kentucky. Founded in the 1890s on Washington Ave. in Newport by Dr. John Pythian, the Emergency Hospital was Campbell Co.’s first nonmilitary hospital. The Jenkins Hospital, operated by Dr. J. Oliver Jenkins, existed for only two years, from 1895 to 1897, at Seventh and Isabella Sts. in Newport. The U.S. Public Health Ser vice Hospital in Fort Thomas was created in 1921 to care for World War I veterans. Also known as Hospital No. 69, this facility encompassed several buildings, including the renowned Altamont Springs Hotel. The hospital closed in 1926.

Twenty years passed before a second facility for veterans was founded in Northern Kentucky. The Veterans’ Hospital (see Veterans Administration Medical Center) was opened in 1946 in Fort Thomas, after the short-lived military ser vice branch called the U.S. Army Air Force departed the premises at the end of World War II. The Pest House near Kyles Lane in Covington was established to isolate individuals who had smallpox. In 1938 it became the Covington–Kenton Co. Tuberculosis Sanitorium, also dedicated to public health.

612 MEEHAN, JAMES In the 1940s poliomyelitis, or polio, appeared in Northern Kentucky along with the rest of the United States, affecting children especially. In 1944, during the first seven months of the year, 412 cases were reported in Kentucky. In 1952 the YMCA Camp Ernst in Boone Co. was closed due to the threat of contracting the disease. After Dr. Jonas Salk developed an immunizing injection in 1955 to prevent the spread of polio, more than 27,000 children received vaccinations locally. Festivals, dances, and all sorts of fundraisers were held to collect money for the fight against polio. In 1957 Dr. Albert Sabin improved the vaccine so that it could be administered in an oral sugar-cube dose, and this vaccine also was offered throughout Northern Kentucky. For example, St. Therese Catholic Church in Southgate was where many Campbell Co. citizens received their dose of the Sabin cubes.

Great respect and gratitude are due those medical pioneers who daringly stepped onto the unknown road of medicine during its infancy. The sophisticated medical care we enjoy today stands as a tribute to their bravery.

Ellis, John H. Medicine in Kentucky. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1977.

McCormack, J. N., ed. Some of the Medical Pioneers of Kentucky. Bowling Green: Kentucky State Medical Association, 1917.

Poweleit, Alvin C., and James A. Schroer, eds. A Medical History of Campbell and Kenton Counties.

Cincinnati: Campbell-Kenton Medical Society, 1970.

———. Medical History of Northern Kentucky.

Northern Kentucky Medical Society, 1989.

Judy L. Neff

MEEHAN, JAMES (b. October 1834, Ireland; d.

February 28, 1908, Covington, Ky.). James Meehan, a master railway mechanic and inventor, came to the United States with his parents in 1840, just before the potato famine that brought so many of their countrymen. The family settled in Covington.

As a young man, Meehan found a job as a machinist at the Covington and Lexington Railroad’s repair shop. When the Civil War started, he joined the Confederate Navy, and thus began a series of unexpected adventures. He was captured

by Union forces but escaped and hid in Florida briefly before fleeing first to Cuba and then Mexico. In Mexico, Meehan became active in railroad construction; during those years Maximilian was emperor of Mexico. After the emperor was executed in June 1867, rebels seized Meehan. They were convinced that the U.S. engineer was a confidant of the late emperor and knew the location of certain treasures. Meehan knew nothing, but his Spanish was not adequate to persuade his captors of his lack of knowledge. He was going to be shot for not revealing the treasure site, but fortunately another U.S. citizen among the Mexican loyalists explained the facts in this matter to the rebel chief.

Meehan was set free and made a speedy exit across the Rio Grande River. He returned to Covington and spent the next several years working in a local machine shop.

Late in 1881 Meehan was appointed master mechanic at the Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railroad (CNO&TP, the lessee of the Cincinnati Southern) shops in Ludlow. When the shops burned a few years later, he designed a new and much enlarged repair facility. While handling this demanding position, he found time for invention. One of his patents, a special type of railcar brake shoe, proved popu lar and made Meehan a wealthy man. He resigned his position with the CNO&TP in 1893 to devote his full energies to promoting the brake shoe. A large plant was built in Chattanooga, Tenn., to manufacture his invention, the Ross-Condon-Meehan brake shoe, as more railroads adopted it. In 1906 Meehan built a stylish new house in Hyde Park, a fashionable suburb of Cincinnati, and so ended his longtime residency in Covington. He died in 1908 and was survived by his wife, Eleanor, and their five children.

His remains were returned to Kentucky for burial in St. Mary Cemetery in Fort Mitchell.

“Inventor Dies at the Age of 74,” CC, February 29, 1908, 3.

“James Meehan Dead,” KP, February 28, 1908, 3.

“Meehan Was Sentenced to Death in War,” CP, March 3, 1908, 2.

White, John H., Jr., On the Right Track: Some Historic Cincinnati Railroads. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Railroad Club, 2003.

John H. White

MEIER, JANE SCHEPER (b. March 14, 1951, Covington, Ky.). Mary Jane Scheper Meier, athletic director at Northern Kentucky University (NKU), is the daughter of William and Marianne Kennel Scheper. The eldest of eight siblings, Jane had a passion for sports even as a child. In her youth, Meier played softball for the St. Pius X Elementary School, in Edgewood, and swam competitively for the Cincinnati Marlins. During her high school years at the all-girl Villa Madonna Academy, Meier competed in swimming, tennis, basketball, and volleyball. Thanks to the influence of her physical education teacher–high school coach, Mary Lou Elgrim, Meier knew by her sophomore year that she wanted to become an athletic director. From 1969 through 1973, while completing her BA in physician education and health at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Meier excelled in volleyball, basketball, and tennis. Her volleyball team competed in the first-ever collegiate volleyball championship sponsored by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. After college, Meier spent three years at Notre Dame Academy, a girls’ school, where she was a physical education–health instructor, a coach for several sports, and the athletic director.

At Notre Dame Academy, she initiated basketball, softball, swimming, tennis, and track and field programs. In 1976 she received a graduate assistantship from Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) in Richmond; while pursing her degree there, she served as an assistant volleyball coach. In 1977 Meier completed an MS in physical education, with a sports administration emphasis, at EKU. She spent the next year as head volleyball coach at

Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Mich. Meier returned to Northern Kentucky for the 1978–1979 school year as the head volleyball and softball (slow-pitch) coach at NKU. In 1982 NKU’s president, Dr. A. D. Albright, asked her to serve as the head women’s basketball coach. During her two-year commitment as basketball coach, Meier hired former NKU basketball player Nancy Winstel as her assistant. Meier returned to softball coaching in 1985, while retaining her volleyball coaching position. She also accepted an appointment as cocoordinator of NKU athletic programs.

In 1988 following the resignation of the institution’s athletic director, Meier served as interim athletic director for three months. Dr. Leon Boothe, then NKU president, subsequently selected Meier as the school’s first female athletic director, beginning during the 1988–1989 school year. Her appointment came at a time when there were far fewer female NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) athletic directors than there are today. Meier’s resourcefulness and leadership has helped NKU’s athletic program to win numerous conference and regional championships. The program had made 48 national tournament appearances by 2005, thereby providing increased visibility and prestige to all of NKU’s NCAA Division II athletic programs. Meier has set her sights on continuing to develop the university’s athletic facilities and on the possibility of an upgrade of the program to NCAA Division I status.

Northern Kentucky Univ. www.nku.edu.

Paul A. Carl Jr.

MELBOURNE. Frank and Hubbard Helm established the city of Melbourne, Ky., in 1890. The Helms were from Australia, and it is thought that they named the city after the one they had left in that country. Melbourne is on the Ohio River, just to the south of Silver Grove. A civil engineer, John Ellis, laid the town out into lots in 1891. The first city officials were Dr. Jules Pinguely, William Haigis, John Greis, and Frank Springer, trustees, and Joseph Good, marshal and assessor. A post office was established that same year, and Robert A. Carnes was named postmaster. The Helms ran excursion boats along the Ohio River and operated a carriage factory, which was severely damaged by the flood of 1913. Several times floods have inundated the city, discouraging new housing, business, and industrial development. Melbourne was incorporated as a sixth-class city in 1912. In 2000, the city had a population of 457. In 1988, the Hollywood fi lm industry injected some unexpected excitement into this sleepy little city when several scenes from the movie Rain Man were filmed at St. Anne’s Convent, located along Ky. Rt. 8, the main road through Melbourne.

Kleber, John, ed. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1992.

Reis, Jim. “Buggies, Fairgrounds Put Melbourne on Map,” KP, December 16, 1996, 4K. U.S. Census Bureau, “American Fact Finder. Data Set. Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-Percent Data. Custom Table.” www.census.gov (accessed November 9, 2007).

MENTAL HEALTH AMERICA OF NORTHERN KENTUCKY

MELDAHL DAM. This U.S. Army Corps of Engineers high-lift dam is located 2.5 miles east of Foster, Ky. The official name of the structure is the Captain Anthony Meldahl Locks and Dam; it was named for a renowned Ohio River pi lot of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Construction was begun in 1958 and completed in 1962. The locks, located on the Ohio side of the river, consist of a small lock chamber and a large lock chamber; the larger lock chamber was designed to accommodate the biggest tow of barges used on the river. The dam wall contains a series of gates that are lifted from the bottom of the river to control water level in the pool above (behind) the dam. The gates are balanced using counterweights so that they can be controlled by low-horsepower electric motors.

Contrary to a popu lar misconception, the Ohio River dams are not for flood control; rather, they were built for navigational purposes only. When the water level in the river exceeds the height of the pier wall, flood stage for that dam has been reached, and all control of water depth is lost. The upper and lower gates to the lock chambers are opened, the gates in the dam wall are lifted to the top, and the river is declared an open river. During flood stage, the water level is equal above and below the dam.

Towboats pass freely through the opened lock chambers.

The City of Augusta holds a license from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the Meldahl Hydroelectric Project. When completed, the project is expected to use “drop in” generators in some of the gates in the dam wall. These generators will harness the power of the water flowing under the gates to generate electricity.

The lock chambers can be viewed from the public park area adjacent to the dam on the Ohio side of the river. The fishing and sand-beach areas below the dam on the Kentucky side of the river can be accessed from the parking area adjacent to the dam on that side. The fishing area provides a dramatic view of the dam wall and gates, where the force of the water flowing under the gates is evident.

Construction of the dam created a pool of water extending more than 90 miles upstream. The depth of the pool exceeds 40 feet in some areas immediately above the dam. This massive pool of deep water has changed the ecology of the river in the dam area and has also created a microclimate change in the immediate area of the locks and dam.

Species of fish and wildlife not indigenous to the area, such as spoonbill catfish, sauger, and freshwater gulls, now populate the dam site. From early spring to late fall, the valley immediately adjacent to the dam is subject to nightly fogs, which, before construction of the dam, were uncommon. Towboats deal with the fog with the convenience of modern radar.

The pool above the dam provides excellent recreational boating and fishing. Numerous boatlaunching and marine facilities are located along the pool. The pool has also affected creeks that enter the Ohio River above the dam. Some that were partially dry streambeds now have permanently deep water navigable for some distance upstream from the river and provide excellent fishing for

bass, crappie, and other sport fish. Two examples are Snag and Locust creeks in Kentucky.

Johnson, Leland R. Men, Mountains, and Rivers: An Illustrated History of the Huntington District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1754–1974. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977.

Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. Yarmouth, Maine: DeLorme, 1997.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Huntington District. www.lrh.usace.army.mil/contact/ (accessed March 19. 2007 ).

John A. Lenox

MENTAL HEALTH. See Comprehend Inc.; Kentucky Consumers Advocate Network; Mental Health America of Northern Kentucky; NorthKey Community Care.

MENTAL HEALTH AMERICA OF NORTHERN KENTUCKY. This organization grew out of the Mental Health Association of Kentucky, which was initiated in 1951. The modern self-help and advocacy movement of people diagnosed with mental illness began about 30 years ago. But as early as the mid-19th century, former psychiatric patients worked to change laws and public policies concerning the “insane.” For example, in 1868 Elizabeth Packard, founder of the Anti–Insane Asylum Society, published a series of books and pamphlets describing her experiences in the Illinois Insane Asylum, to which her husband had had her committed. But in the 19th century, individuals fighting for patients’ rights met great opposition. Owing to ignorance and fear, many still believed that mental illness was the result of demonic possession. Thus, such early attempts at activism were largely ignored.

A few decades later, another former psychiatric patient, Clifford W. Beers, founded the National Committee on Mental Hygiene, which eventually became the National Mental Health Association.

Beers, a Yale University graduate, sought to improve the plight of individuals receiving public psychiatric care, particularly those committed to state institutions. His book A Mind That Found Itself (1908) described his experience with mental illness and the treatment he encountered in mental hospitals. Beers’s work was significant because he stimulated public interest in the care and treatment of people with mental illness. He used his connections to involve concerned citizens who had standing in the community. However, there was still enormous opposition to the idea of patients’ rights.

The Mental Health Association of Kentucky (MHAKY) was incorporated in 1951 to promote mental health, prevent mental illnesses, and improve the care and treatment of persons with mental illness. Its founding members and early supporters included Dr. Spafford Ackerly, Barry Bingham Sr., Dr. Frank Gaines, Dr. Arthur Kasey, Dr. William Keller, Dr. Harold McPheeters, and Cornelia Serpell. Under the guidance of Ackerly and Bingham, the MHAKY took a survey of state hospitals, and when Kentucky governor Lawrence Wetherby (1950–1955) saw reports of the survey in

613

newspapers, he responded to the urging of the MHAKY and agreed in 1951 to create a separate government agency, the Department of Mental Health, focused on caring for people with mental illness. Continuing its advocacy work, the MHAKY sponsored, funded, and published Pattern for Change in 1966, which provided the infrastructure for comprehensive mental health care in every region of the state. In 1972 the Survey of Mental Health Needs in Kentucky was made public, and Blueprint for Mental Health in Kentucky was published in 1979.

In July 1954 the Northern Kentucky Mental Health Association was incorporated as a nonprofit agency by Mae Emmett, Patricia Kysar, June H. Lukowsky, Mary Moser, Rev. John. F. Murphy, Bruce A. Weatherly, and Marie Williams. A clinic was opened in Covington at the Trinity Episcopal Church. Rev. Bruce Weatherly was the first duly elected president, and Caty Bottorff Nienaber was the first director. The agency’s first office was along Fourth St. in Covington in the Trinity Building. Thus, mental health ser vices began in Northern Kentucky in 1955. In 1956 the association became a Community Chest or United Way member agency. In 1958 it moved to 19 W. 11th St. in Covington; in the 1960s its programs expanded to include training for pastors, which was revived in the 1990s to focus on lay ministries to people with mental illness. Board chairmen in the 1950s were George Higdon, C. Gordon Walker, and Rev. Bruce Weatherly; in the 1960s, Dr. Charles Baron, Charlotte Baron, Rev. John Keller, and Rev. Clarence Lassetter. In 1962 the association, having outgrown its three rooms, moved to 412 Garrard St., also in Covington. In 1965 the association and the clinic separated at the request of the state. The clinic became Comprehensive Care (see NorthKey Community Care). The Mental Health/ Mental Retardation Regional Boards were formed in January 1966.

In 1970 President Richard Nixon (1969–1974) signed into law the Community Mental Health Centers Act. Chairmen of the MHAKY in the 1980s included attorney Bob Lotz, who embodies in life and actions what advocacy is all about and strongly advocated in the Kentucky legislature; Bob Lilly, who planned with Lotz and developed the home incarceration bracelet to allow authorities to track offenders. In 1984 the Exodus Jail Ministry program began to help meet needs of persons incarcerated in jails. The Christmas Day Dinner began in 1989 and continues today. In 1998 the Northern Kentucky association moved to 605 Madison Ave. in Covington.

In the 1990s there was an explosion of research, new medications, and technology. The 1990s brought the Supported Living Ser vice and a mentoring program. The Exodus and the Christmas Day Dinner won awards for excellence. To crown the association’s 40th year, 1994, the Kenton Co. Fiscal Court granted money that allowed for the purchase of the office building at 605 Madison Ave. in Covington. In the 1990s mental illness made headlines. It is the association’s mission to be there

614 MENTOR and to help fi ll the gaps in ser vices and build bridges between mental health ser vices. The decade of 2000 is the decade of recovery. Under President George W. Bush (2001–2009), the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health has become a consumer-driven industry instead of providerdriven. The Recovery Network is an independently operated consumer resource center in collaboration with the Mental Health Association. It also offers classes and support groups.

In 2006 the Mental Health Association of Northern Kentucky, one of 340 affi liates of the National Mental Health Association nationwide, followed in the footsteps of its national body in adopting a new name—Mental Health America of Northern Kentucky. In 2005 the organization reached 2,000 people through screenings and education programs, 500 within its Recovery Network, and with 45 volunteers, it visited 500 inmates in confinement.

cently, the congregation built a new church nearby in Flagg Springs. The grocery store at Mentor, affectionately called the Mentor Mall, and the feed store, Dickens Mill, both longtime fi xtures, now are gone. Mentor continues as a quiet town sitting along the river, just as it has been for more than 150 years. Traffic through the town has been greatly reduced with the opening of the AA Highway, which bypasses Mentor on the south. In 2000, Mentor had a population of 181.

Kreimer, Peggy. “Mental Health Group Renamed,” KP, November 20, 2006, 2A. Mental Health America of Northern Kentucky. www .mhaky.org (accessed December 6, 2006).

MENZIES, JOHN WILLIAM (b. April 12, 1819,

Robin Rider Osborne

MENTOR. Mentor is a small town, about one mile square, located along Ky. Rt. 8 (the Mary Ingles Highway) and the Ohio River in southeastern Campbell Co. Settled during the mid-1800s, the town was incorporated in 1957. Its history goes back to the days of a large American Indian presence, as evidenced by the artifacts from the Adena era found along the riverbank. Originally, this town was called Belmont. When the railroad came through during the late 1880s, the town was assigned a post office, but there already was a town named Belmont in Kentucky, so the name Mentor was chosen as a replacement; the post office at Mentor closed in the 1970s.

The story of Mentor had several major episodes. First were the coming of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the various Ohio River floods, permanently altering life in this small, mostly agricultural area. A brickyard operated here from the 1880s until 1918. The bricks were stamped “Mentor,” and many Campbell Co. residents have retained them today as treasures. Mentor bricks were shipped off by rail and used in buildings throughout the region (see Brickyards).

In the 1960s, when the Black River Mining Company arrived in Carntown, a small community just down the road from Mentor, the company’s trucks created dust and made dusty conditions a constant feature in the area (see Lime Industry). During the 1970s, the prospect of the Zimmer Nuclear Power Plant across the Ohio River in neighboring Ohio brought concerns to the residents of Mentor. After pressure was applied on the power company by concerned citizens living on both sides of the Ohio River, the nuclear aspects of the operation were dropped, and today the Zimmer Power Plant is a coal-fired facility.

The Mentor Baptist Church, the only church in town, for years was the town’s meeting place. Re-

An Atlas of Boone, Kenton, and Campbell Counties, Kentucky. Philadelphia: D. J. Lake, 1883.

Campbell Co. Historical Society. Campbell County, Kentucky, 200 Years, 1794–1994. Alexandria, Ky.: Campbell Co. Historical Society, 1994.

U.S. Census Bureau, “American Fact Finder. Data Set. Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-Percent Data. Custom Table.” www.census.gov (accessed June 4, 2008).

Kenneth A. Reis

Bryants Station, Ky.; d. October 3, 1897, Falmouth, Ky.). John Menzies, a lawyer and a legislator, attended local common schools and then entered the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, from which he graduated in 1840. He began the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1841. That year he moved to Covington to begin his practice. During his career he served as Covington city attorney, city clerk, and city councilman. In 1848 and again in 1855, he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives, representing Kenton Co. He also served in the U.S. Congress from 1861 to 1863.

When that term ended, he returned to Covington and resumed the practice of law. In 1864 he was a delegate to the Democratic national convention in Chicago, which nominated George B. McClellan for president. In 1867 he moved to Bracken Co., where in 1873 he was elected judge of the 12th District Chancery, at Brooksville. He served in that position until it was abolished in 1892. At that time, he again returned to his law practice in Covington. When he died in Falmouth at age 79, Menzies was said to be one of the oldest practicing attorneys in the state. The Menzies Bottom area in northern Pendleton Co., where Menzies had a farm, is named after him. He was buried in Linden Grove Cemetery, Covington. His wife, a son, and six daughters survived him.

there in a plot on his family farm. Some other early residents of Menzies Station were Reuben Mullins and his wife, Betsy Love Mullins, and their son, Gabriel Mullins. Menzies Station is just south of Boston Station off U.S. 27. There is an elementary school at Menzies Station today.

Belew, Mildred Boden. The First 200 Years of Pendleton County. Falmouth, Ky.: M. B. Belew, n.d. [ca.

1994].

Mildred Belew

MERKEL, UNA (b. December 10, 1903, Covington, Ky.; d. January 2, 1986, Los Angeles, Calif.).

Known as a wisecracking supporting actress in classic motion pictures and later as a dramatic actress on the stage, Una Merkel was the only daughter of Arno E. Merkel Jr. and Elizabeth Phares Merkel. Through her mother, Una was related to Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s mother.

Una attended the First and Sixth District schools in Covington. She also studied elocution under Patia Power. Her family moved to Philadelphia when she was a young teenager, and she attended the Girl’s Annex there. Later she enrolled in dramatic and dancing classes in New York City.

While she was studying in New York, in 1920, Merkel became a stand-in for Lillian Gish because of Una’s resemblance to the silent-screen actress.

Merkel appeared in multiple Hollywood fi lms for movie director D. W. Griffith. In one of them, her first feature fi lm credit, she had the leading role in The Fifth Horseman (1924). She also performed in stage productions during the 1920s. The highlight of her early stage career was her casting with Helen Hayes in Coquette (1927), which ran for nearly two years at the Maxine Elliot Theatre in New York City.

Merkel returned to Hollywood in 1930 when the fi lm industry was in need of photogenic actresses with good voices. Because of her stage experience, she was among the few silent-fi lm personalities to successfully make the transition to sound

Lanman, Charles. Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States. Washington, D.C.: James Anglim, 1876.

Reis, Jim. “They Served as Legislators When War Clouds Billowed,” KP, January 27, 2003, 4K.

MENZIES STATION. Menzies Station, or Menzies Bottoms as it was once known, is a community in Pendleton Co. It was originally named Irvine Station, after Elisha Irvine and his wife, Sallie Bonar Irvine, and the first school in that area was called the Irvine School. The area was renamed Menzies Station after John W. Menzies, who for years served as chancery judge of the circuit court of Kenton, Pendleton, and Harrison counties. He made his home in the community and was buried

Una Merkel.

METHODISTS

motion pictures. Her career flourished especially during the 1930s, when she made nearly 60 fi lm appearances. Her perky personality enlivened comedies and musicals and, on occasion, a serious drama or suspense. Impressive highlights of her early sound work in movies included the role of Ann Rutledge in Griffith’s first sound production, Abraham Lincoln (1930), and a memorable performance in the well-crafted comic thriller The Bat Whisperers (1930), both made at United Artists.

During her coveted seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Merkel was loaned to Warner Bros. productions, appearing as a sarcastic chorus girl beside Ginger Rogers in the cutting-edge musical 42nd Street (1933). At MGM she played her trademark wisecracking support role for Jean Harlow in Bombshell (1933) as well as for Clark Gable in Saratoga (1937). However, it is her chirpy image in the MGM musicals that have become favorites of classic fi lm buffs. She appeared in the extravagant Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) and Born to Dance (1936) with Eleanor Powell, in The Merry Widow (1934) with Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette McDonald, and in the later remake of The Merry Widow (1952) with Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas.

Merkel’s comedic talents were showcased on a radio variety program, the Texaco Star Theatre, from 1938 through 1940. Shortly after her studio player contract with MGM ended, she performed in a famous brawl scene with Marlene Dietrich in the classic Destry Rides Again (1939) and as W. C. Field’s daughter in The Bank Dick (1940), both for Universal Studios. She also appeared in a supporting role with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in The Road to Zanzibar (1941) at Paramount Studios.

During World War II, Merkel went on a 23,000-mile USO (United Ser vice Organizations) tour in the South Pacific with Gary Cooper. Although her fi lm career slumped through the 1940s, Merkel remained popu lar as a regular cast member, Leila’s cousin Adeline Fairchild, on one of classic radio’s most endearing situation comedies, The Great Gildersleeve. She briefly returned to Broadway in 1944 to star in Three’s a Family. After years of more mature supporting parts in comedy and musical fi lms, she landed a serious role in The Kentuckian (1955) with Burt Lancaster at United Artists.

Back on Broadway again, she won an Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for best supporting actress in The Ponder Heart (1956). She later received an Academy Award (Oscar) nomination for her performance in Tennessee Williams’s fi lm Summer and Smoke (1961) at Paramount Studios.

Although her Academy Award nomination did not produce more serious roles, she appeared in the family favorites The Parent Trap (1961) and Summer Magic (1963) for the Walt Disney Studio.

Merkel appeared in Cole Porter’s television broadcast of the musical Aladdin (1958). The following year she returned to Broadway to star in Take Me Along (1959), a musical version of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness, with Jackie Gleason.

From the first of her silent fi lms for D. W. Griffith through her final screen role in MGM’s Spin-

615

out (1966) with Elvis Presley, Merkel appeared in about 100 motion pictures (40 of them at MGM).

She married aircraft designer Ronald Burla in 1932; they divorced in 1947, with no children, and she did not remarry. She died in 1986 at age 82 in Los Angeles and was buried near her parents at Highland Cemetery in Fort Mitchell. A Kentucky State Highway Historical Marker along Philadelphia St. at Covington’s Goebel Park honors Una Merkel for her achievements.

Commire, Anne, ed. Women in World History. Vol. 11. Waterford, Conn.: Yorkin, 2001.

Dunning, John. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998.

Folkart, Burt A. “Una Merkel, 82, Covington Born,” CE, January 4, 1986, C4.

Garraty, John, and Mark Carnes, eds. American National Biography. Vol. 15. New York: Oxford Univ.

Press, 1999.

Harrison, Warder. “Almost Forgotten Today, Movie Star Una Merkel Has Many Kentucky Roots.” Kentucky Explorer, November 1996, 68– 69.

Juran, Robert A. Old Familiar Faces: The Great Character Actors and Actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Era. Sarasota, Fla.: Movie Memories, 1995.

Parish, James, and Ronald Bowers, eds. The MGM Stock Company: The Golden Era. New York: Bonanza, 1972.

Reid, Alexander. “Una Merkel Dies at Age of 82; From Silent Films to a Tony,” NYT, January 5, 1986, 24.

John Schlipp

MERRITT, JOHN AYERS (b. January 26, 1926, Falmouth, Ky.; d. December 15, 1983, Nashville, Tenn.). “Big John” Merritt, who became a football coach, was the son of Bradley and Grace Merritt.

He received his early education in the segregated public school system of Falmouth. During summers, John often visited his aunt and uncle at the Gene and Bess Lacey Grocery Store in Covington, where they discussed various topics. Gene Lacey was a member of Covington’s African-American Businessmen’s Association. In later years, these exchanges at his aunt and uncle’s store inspired Merritt to become involved with community activities in Nashville. When Merritt reached high school age, he moved to Louisville, where he attended Central High School and played guard on the football team; he graduated in 1943. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was discharged in 1946. Thereafter, he enrolled at Kentucky State College in Frankfort, where he again played football, and earned his BS in 1950. In 1952 he received his MA degree from the University of Kentucky in Lexington and immediately was appointed head football coach at the segregated Versailles High School in Woodford Co. Coach Merritt began his college coaching career in 1953 at Jackson State College in Mississippi as the school’s head football coach. He spent 10 highly successful years at Jackson State before accepting the head football coaching position at Tennessee State College in Nashville in 1963. While coaching at Tennessee State, he had 21 consecutive winning seasons. Over the course of his high school and college football coaching career, Mer-

John Merritt.

ritt achieved more than 30 straight winning seasons. In 1982 Coach Merritt’s coaching record totaled 215-64-9, third-best behind Bear Bryant of the University of Alabama and Eddie Robinson at Grambling University. Merritt placed more than 200 players in the National Football League. In 1982 the City of Nashville honored him by renaming its Centennial Blvd., running from 28th to 44th Aves., John Ayers Merritt Blvd. Merritt died in Nashville in 1983, at age 57, and was buried at the Greenwood Cemetery there. In 1994 he was elected to the College Football Players Hall of Fame.

Climer, David. “One of a Kind Merritt Nears 200th Victory,” Tennessean, August 1980.

“Coach John Merritt,” Special Collections, BrownDaniel Library, Tennessee State Univ. Memorial Ser vice, Coach “Big” John Ayers Merritt, Tennessee State Univ., December 18, 1983.

Theodore H. H. Harris

METHODISTS. Methodists have been worshipping in Northern Kentucky since before 1790. The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in the United States in 1784, although there had been Methodists in America for more than two decades at that time. There are more than 23 separate Methodist denominations in the United States, the largest of which is the United Methodist Church. In Northern Kentucky one can find United Methodist churches as well as African Methodist Episcopal churches.

Ser vices were originally held in homes, public buildings, or outdoors until church buildings were built in the early 1800s. During the first 100 years of Kentucky’s history, Methodist churches relied heavily upon lay leadership of congregations, since trained Methodist preachers were primarily circuit riders on horseback, who served many

616 METHODISTS churches in a large geographical region. Methodism came to Kentucky under the direction of Bishop Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke. Asbury was directly responsible for the founding of at least two churches in Northern Kentucky, including Asbury United Methodist Church in Cold Spring.

The Methodist Church is divided into conferences, each one usually presided over by a bishop.

Conferences are divided into districts, which are headed by a district superintendent who advises the bishop and supervises the churches in the district. Unlike Baptists and many other Protestant denominations, the United Methodist Church is a connectional church or denomination; local pastors are assigned by the bishop of the conference (the equivalent of a diocese), and church property is owned by the conference rather than the local congregation.

During the first 100 years of Methodism, there were several branches due to cultural, social, and political differences of American settlers who called themselves Methodists. Here, the subject is primarily the church that in 1968 became the United Methodist Church. The predecessors of that denomination included the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the Evangelical United Brethren Church, and the German Conference of the Methodist Church.

The national Methodist Episcopal Church also had the Central German Conference. The Immanuel United Methodist Church in Covington (now in Lakeside Park) and the Salem United Methodist Church in Newport were part of the Central German Conference. Wilhelm (William) Nast, the founder of German Methodism, arrived in Cincinnati in 1835. A year later, he was appointed as a Methodist missionary to the Germans of all Ohio. He spent that year as a circuit rider and in 1837 returned to Cincinnati as a missionary to the city’s German population. By summer 1838, Nast organized the first German Methodist society (not church) in Cincinnati. One of Nast’s early converts, John Zwahlen, had by 1838 built a congregation in Wheeling, Ohio, that became the first German Methodist Church in the United States and perhaps in the world. These Methodist Episcopal Churches used the German language until World War I. In 1939 the churches in the Central German Conference in Newport and Covington became part of the Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Church.

There is evidence that several Methodist families lived on the west bank of the Licking River (Covington and Kenton Co.) and worshipped with Methodists in Newport as early as 1802. By 1804 there was a preaching point for Methodists in the Covington School House on the west corner of Third and Greenup Sts. in Covington. The First United Methodist Church claims to be descended from Methodists who met in homes in the Covington area as early as 1796.

The Methodist Church grew during the Second Awakening as a result of revivals and camp meetings of the 19th century. Methodists partici-

pated in the Cane Ridge Rival in Bourbon Co. as well as others throughout Kentucky and the West.

Methodists were active in promoting education generally and in the Sunday school movement of the 19th century. Originally established to supplement public education, Sunday schools were for both adults and children to learn the Bible and responsibilities of Christianity and worship. Methodists still today support a strong public school system.

In 1820 the Ohio and Kentucky Conferences cooperated to found Augusta College in Augusta, as part of the Methodist emphasis on training ministers and teachers in institutions of higher learning. Peter Cartwright, a famous Methodist preacher and evangelist who gained fame in Illinois and other midwestern states for his brawling style of preaching, was present at the meeting that established Augusta College. In 1846 Cartwright lost a race for the U.S. Congress to Abraham Lincoln. Augusta College began classes in 1822 but was forced to close in 1849 when the Ohio Methodists withdrew their financial support during a dispute over slavery with Kentucky Methodists.

Despite its short existence, Augusta College produced some distinguished graduates, including John G. Fee, who founded Berea College in Kentucky; Bishop Randolph Sinks Foster; and Alexander W. Doniphan. Kentucky Wesleyan College in Owensboro is a descendant of Augusta College. Other Methodist colleges in Kentucky include Union in Barbourville and Lindsay Wilson in Columbia.

The slavery question was responsible for major denominational splits. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, and Methodists in Great Britain were ardent opponents of slavery, and it was partly due to the urging of Methodists that the British Parliament outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833, 30 years ahead of the United States. In this country, however, the Methodist Church generally avoided speaking about slavery until the General Conference of 1844, the year of the denomination’s great national schism over slavery. In May 1845 at Louisville, the southern conferences formed the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and most Kentucky Methodists joined that southern branch of Methodism. In 1861 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Kentucky had some 41,000 members, whereas the northern Methodists counted only 3,405 members. However, it must be stated that the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Kentucky had many loyal Union Army men in its ranks.

An example of the split in Northern Kentucky is seen in the former Scott St. Methodist Episcopal Church in Covington. Due to the issue of slavery, some members, including Amos Shinkle, formed the Greenup St. Chapel, which eventually became the Union Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1939, when the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Episcopal Church merged, the Union Methodist Episcopal Church merged with the First (formerly Scott St.) M E. Church, South.

One of Kentucky’s best-known evangelists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was Dr.

Henry C. Morrison, who was born in Bedford in Trimble Co. As a young Methodist preacher, he served the Concord Circuit in Mason Co., as well as churches in Covington and Ft Thomas. In 1890 he became a full-time evangelist.

The issue of clergy rights for women became an issue for Methodists during the 1800s. Women had been leaders in Methodism since 1760, with the leadership of Barbara Heck in New York. The United Brethren Church approved ordination of women in 1889, but the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, did not grant full clergy rights to women until its reunion with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1939, when the two groups became the Methodist Church. It is estimated, based on present seminary enrollment trends, that by 2025 more than half of the pastors in the United Methodist Church will be women.

During the 20th century, the way Methodists worship became more formal. Ministers as well as choirs began to wear vestments. Candles joined the cross on the Communion tables. The circuit rider on horseback, a symbol of Methodism, became a thing of the past within the first decades of the new century.

In the 1926 Newport Church Census, the membership in Methodist denominations in Newport was as follows: Methodist Episcopal Church, 2 churches, 730 members; Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1 church, 193 members; African Methodist Church, 1 church, 176 members; and United Brethren in Christ, 1 church, 196 members.

Kentucky has the smallest percentage of Methodists of any of the states in the Southeast Jurisdiction. In 2005, the Kentucky Conference experienced a net growth in membership. In 2006 there were 941 United Methodist congregations in Kentucky, with a combined total of more than 254,503 members. The Web site for the Covington District of the United Methodist Church listed 73 congregations in 2006 in Northern Kentucky.

As a connectional church, Methodists from Northern Kentucky work with Methodists throughout the Kentucky Conference and the world to support missionaries and mission programs as well as relief efforts throughout the world. On some occasions, Northern Kentucky is the mission field, such as when the Licking and Ohio Rivers rose in the flood of 1997. At that time, Methodists and others worked from a building at Butler United Methodist Church to serve people in Pendleton, Harrison, and Campbell counties whose homes and businesses had been damaged in the flooding. In 2005–2006, Methodists from Northern Kentucky sent volunteers (for more than a year) through the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) to assist in relief efforts from Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Today, the large Methodist churches in Covington and Newport are memories of the past.

With the migration of population to the suburbs, most of the larger Methodist congregations are now located in the suburbs of Northern Kentucky, where there is an abundance of parking near suburban homes and room to expand.

MEXICAN WAR Archives and History, First United Methodist Church, Covington, Ky. Kentucky Conference Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary Library, Wilmore, Ky. Kinghorn, Kenneth Cain. The Heritage of American Methodism. Kentucky Annual Conference ed.

Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1999.

Short, Roy H. Methodism in Kentucky. Rutland, Vt.: Academy Books, 1979.

Wittke, Carl. William Nast: Patriarch of German Methodism. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State Univ.

Press, 1959.

Paul L. Whalen

MEXICAN WAR. The Mexican War significantly impacted Northern Kentucky, through the efforts of the men who fought, the politicians who made use of the war in their careers, and even the average everyday folk who read the newspaper accounts of the soldiers in Mexico and who voted for the politicians.

On May 13, 1846, President James K. Polk (1845–1849) declared that a state of war existed between the United States and Mexico, and Congress ratified the declaration two days later. These actions followed months of increasingly tense confrontations surrounding the U.S. annexation of Texas in December 1845, which made Texas the 28th state in the Union. The annexation sparked a war with Mexico because Mexico continued to claim Texas as its national territory.

Discussions of the possible annexation of Texas had kept the idea of an ensuing war with Mexico in front of the American people for years. For more than two years, newspapers in Northern Kentucky had applauded the idea of annexation and exhorted readers to prepare for anything that might happen when it came about. Throughout that period, frequent mention was made in the local papers of militia or volunteer units that had organized themselves in response to war rumors. As the annexation drew nearer, newspapers across the nation were full of war fever and rumors of battles, keeping the American public in a state of agitation.

Northern Kentucky was no different. Weekly, newspapers speculated that war was imminent or had indeed already begun. Enthusiasm swept the region. When the call for volunteers finally came, Northern Kentuckians were ready.

On May 17, 1846, Governor William Owsley (1844–1848) issued a call for volunteer companies to form and present themselves in the three regiments, two infantry and one mounted, that comprised Kentucky’s quota of 2,400 men. The volunteers were needed because of the small size of the regular U.S. Army. At that time the federal army consisted of approximately 8,700 officers and men, a number completely inadequate to fight the new war.

Across the commonwealth of Kentucky, more than 13,000 men rallied to the flag. In Covington alone, three companies of infantry organized, as did companies in Newport and Boone Co. However, not all of these companies were accepted into government ser vice. In his desire to support Gen. Zachary Taylor’s small army in Texas, Governor Owsley decided to have the first companies report

to him in Frankfort. Geography and accessibility gave preference to companies from the bluegrass region and from Northern Kentucky. In the name of expediency, Owsley also accepted an entire militia regiment, the Louisville Legion, into ser vice as the 1st Kentucky Infantry, reducing the number of positions available for the companies forming around the state. Owsley’s decisions angered many state citizens, notably those of Democratic persuasion, who viewed the governor’s actions as benefiting his Whig constituents unfairly. In Northern Kentucky, however, the consensus was that Owsley had acted appropriately for the good of the country.

Northern Kentucky companies accepted into the first requisition included two Covington companies in the 2nd Kentucky Infantry and a company from Gallatin Co. in the 1st Kentucky Cavalry. The infantry boated down the Mississippi River to New Orleans and then on to Texas, while the cavalry disembarked in Arkansas and traveled cross-country to northern Mexico. Both regiments joined Zachary Taylor at Monterrey, Mexico.

The Northern Kentucky volunteers typified the volunteers employed by the federal government in this conflict. In camp or garrison they were belligerent, disorganized, slovenly, and unhygienic; in battle they performed effectively, earning the praise of Gen. Zachary Taylor after the battle of Buena Vista.

On February 22 and 23, 1847, General Taylor’s small army of fewer than 5,000 men, untested volunteers bolstered by a small contingent of regular army troops, met Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s 15,000-man force of raw recruits near the hacienda of Buena Vista in northern Mexico. In a fierce two-day contest, the American forces were badly mauled, suffering 665 casualties. At the end of the battle, they held the field after inflicting approximately 2,100 casualties on the Mexican army.

Nineteen Northern Kentuckians lost their lives in this battle. In his reports of the battle, General Taylor singled out the Kentucky regiments for special praise. He wrote “The First and Second Illinois, and the Kentucky regiments, served immediately under my eye, and I bear a willing testimony to their excellent conduct throughout the day. The spirit and gallantry with which the First Illinois and Second Kentucky engaged the enemy in the morning restored confidence to that part of the field, while the list of casualties will show how much these three regiments suffered in sustaining the heavy charge of the enemy in the afternoon.”

In August 1847 a second requisition was received for Kentucky volunteers. This time, in response to his critics, Governor Owsley apportioned the 20 companies to be raised among the state’s congressional districts. Boone, Fleming, Campbell, and Mason counties all raised infantry regiments, but only the first two were accepted.

The regiments of the second requisition, the 3rd and 4th Kentucky Infantry regiments, saw only garrison duty, not battle.

At the same time as this requisition, the U.S. Army was expanded by a number of regiments, including the 16th Infantry. One of the 16th’s battal-

617

ions, four companies, formed at the Newport Barracks. Many Northern Kentuckians joined this regiment, which was commanded by John W. Tibbatts, a Democratic congressman from Northern Kentucky.

While the combatants struggled on the field of battle and suffered through the onerous duty of occupying a foreign nation, daily life in Northern Kentucky continued very much unchanged; this first U.S. foreign war did not significantly impact the region directly. However, people near the Ohio River viewed a steady stream of boats and barges shipping supplies downriver to the scene of battle.

Newport Barracks served as a personnel depot, processing a continuing stream of recruits and reaching a peak of 450 men in September 1847.

One of the few instances of domestic excitement revolved around the federal government’s purchase of mules in August 1846. For several days nearly 800 animals, purchased throughout Northern Kentucky at the substantial sum of $75 a head, overran the streets of Covington and Newport.

As the war dragged on with little sign of a Mexican capitulation, opposition to President Polk and the Democratic Party grew. In Northern Kentucky, newspapers attacked one another and their political affi liates, while staunchly defending the soldiers abroad and wishing and praying for their speedy and safe return.

The war also proved notable for the political activity of soldiers themselves, not just left-behind politicians and newspapermen. Maj. John P. Gaines of the 1st Kentucky Cavalry, a prominent Boone Co. landowner and politician, ran for election to Kentucky’s 10th congressional seat from a Mexican prison, where he was a prisoner of war.

Despite his captivity, Major Gaines was elected to the office by a margin of 124 votes. After the war Gaines used his experiences to help him gain appointment as governor of the Oregon Territory.

Capt. George W. Cutter of the 2nd Kentucky Infantry, a former Indiana legislator and a Covington lawyer and poet, parlayed his military experience into a post with the U.S. Treasury Department. Major general of volunteers William Orlando Butler used his experiences to gain the Democratic nomination for U.S. vice president in 1848.

The war left a legacy in Northern Kentucky that can be seen in places like the town of Monterey, in Owen Co., which is named for the Mexican city seized early by General Taylor’s army, and in the fact that both Covington and Newport have neighborhoods named for the battle of Buena Vista. The Carroll Co. park named for William Orlando Butler, General Butler State Resort Park, commemorates not his governorship in Oregon, but rather his War of 1812 experience and his generalship in Mexico.

Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Projects Administration for the State of Kentucky. Military History of Kentucky. Frankfort, Ky.: State Journal, 1939.

Tim Herrmann

618 MICHAELS ART BRONZE COMPANY MICHAELS ART BRONZE COMPANY. From 1914 until the early 1990s, the Michaels Art Bronze Company and its successor corporations operated in Covington, Erlanger, and Florence.

The business specialized in ornamental bronze, aluminum, and stainless steel casting products.

Founded in 1879 in Cincinnati by Lewis Michaels at 182 W. Pearl St., the company moved to 230 Scott St. (formerly a Standard Oil Company building) in Covington in 1914 under Frank L. Michaels with 50 employees, and by 1927 it had a payroll of 150 workers. Both E. C. Kelley and Maurice Galvin, Covington businessmen, were officers in the corporation in its early days in Kentucky. During its heyday, Michaels produced parking meters, signs, post office equipment, pinball machine parts, exhibit cases, and even a 560-pound bronze crucifi x for Holy Family Church in Dayton, Ohio. In 1937 Michaels supplied the aluminum work for the 40-story First National Bank tower in Oklahoma City, Okla. At the time, it was the largest aluminum work contract ever awarded in the United States. The company prospered during World War II with its specialty production, amassing back orders in the amount of $3 million.

In 1955 the Michaels plant and offices moved to Kenton Lands Rd. in Erlanger. During the 1950s, the company had become the nation’s largest producer of parking meters (the Mi-Co Meter). In 1958 Chicago’s Inland Steel building was encased in a 250-ton sheath of gleaming Michaels stainless steel. For that project, the company won numerous national awards. Locally, Michaels did work on the St. Elizabeth Hospital (see St. Elizabeth Medical Center) and St. Benedict Catholic Church in Covington, and the Kroger building in downtown Cincinnati, and at the University of Cincinnati. In 1965 Frank L. Michaels died of a stroke, having served the company for many years as well as being a Northern Kentucky civic and business leader. In 1991 Michaels Architectural Inc. was located in Florence, doing business in a much reduced state, when it was acquired by Crescent Designed Metals of Philadelphia, Pa., where the operation moved.

“Another New Plant for Covington,” KP, November 24, 1913, 7.

Carr, Joe. “Death Ends Busy, 94 Year Career of Frank L. Michaels,” KP, June 21, 1965, 1.

———. “ ‘Made by Michaels’—for 100 Years,” KP, August 27, 1970, 44K. “Michaels Art Bronze Plant Gaining Status with Steel,” KP, April 17, 1958, 1.

MIKE FINK FLOATING RESTAURANT. The Mike Fink Floating Restaurant was built in 1936 by the Dravo Corp., Neville Island, Pittsburgh, Pa., with a length of 171.5 feet, a beam of 34.6 feet, and a hold 7.2 feet deep. This sternwheeler steam towboat was originally christened the John W. Hubbard, for a Pittsburgh financier who held an interest in the Campbell Transportation Company of Pittsburgh. Sold to the Ohio River Company in 1947, the vessel was renamed the Charles Dorrance in September 1950. The following year it was sold again, this time to Point Towing Company, Kanauga, Ohio, and entered ser vice as a harbor

boat until the Todd Marine Ser vice of Cincinnati bought it in June 1959. Captain John Beatty purchased the vessel in about 1967 and converted it to a floating restaurant, which he named after the legendary river man Mike Fink. Beatty moved the Mike Fink to the Covington riverfront in May 1968 after successfully battling the Kentucky Heritage League (which opposed allowing a commercial entity to encroach upon the city’s historic Riverside Dr.) and after winning the approval of Covington’s Board of Adjustment by 1 vote (see Licking-Riverside and Ohio Riverside National Historic Districts).

During the Beatty family’s ownership, hundreds of student tours were conducted aboard the vessel. Besides attracting a regional clientele, the restaurant was frequented by international celebrities including Bob Hope, Perry Como, Raymond Burr, Peter Graves, David Frost, and Mickey Rooney, who became a regular because he swore that the Mike Fink Floating Restaurant served the best bean soup in the world. Under its first two names, the Mike Fink had carried the whistle and the roof bell from the Queen City steamboat, considered by many to be the classiest packet ever built, and these two items were still aboard when Beatty Inc. purchased the boat. Under the corporate name of International Food Ser vice Corporation, restaurateur Benjamin Bernstein (see also Betty Blake) purchased the boat on October 1, 1977, and it continues in business today under the ownership of his widow, Shirley Bernstein, and their son, Captain Alan Bernstein (see BB Riverboats). In 2008, after suspending restaurant operations for four months, the boat completed a $500,000 restoration and reopened for business.

Huffman, Barbara. Beatty’s Navy: The Life and Times of Capt. John L. and Clare E. Beatty. Vevay, Ind.: Spancil Hill, 2004.

Way, Frederick, Jr., comp. Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1994. Athens: Ohio Univ. Press, 1994.

Barbara Huff man

MILBURN, FRANK S. (b. 1910, Louisville, Ky.; d. February 11, 1984, Burlington, Ky.). Frank Sinton Milburn, called the “Cornfield Edison,” was considered to be the inventor’s inventor. He dedicated his life to helping others develop their ideas into reality. He was the son of John William and Grace Barrington Sinton Milburn. Frank’s family relocated to Fort Mitchell by 1920. His first workshop was in the basement of the family home, where he repaired record players and made models of inventions. Milburn graduated from the Ohio Mechanics Institute in Cincinnati in 1931 and soon began developing inventions under the name Frank S. Milburn Experimental Station. From these early efforts, he received patents for an “apparatus for fertilizing” (U.S. Patent 2,057,785) in 1936 and for a “bottle holder” (U.S. Patent 2,075,217) in 1937.

In 1938 Milburn bought 50 acres in Burlington and built a concrete-block machine shop, an extension of his Milburn Products Company in Osgood, Ind., which manufactured lathes, dies, and other metal items. During World War II, the

Frank Milburn.

Burlington machine shop subcontracted with the Gruen Watch Company of Cincinnati to make a component of the Norden bombsight. Milburn employed local women as workers in the shop during the war. Throughout his career, he served as a technical consultant to the U.S. military, and it was this work that paid the bills. With the help of his associate Henry Jenisch, who later served as industrial director for the City of Covington, Milburn helped amateur inventors develop working models of their inventions. In 1947 he began ghostwriting a weekly column, Genius at Work, in the Cincinnati Enquirer. A feature article by him, published in the June 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics, generated more than 30,000 letters and 500 visitors to his Burlington machine shop. That year, Milburn began writing a twice-weekly Cincinnati Post column called The Invenoscope, using his own name.

The column showcased real-life success stories and gave practical advice to budding inventors. During the 1950s, more than 600 of the Invenoscope columns, together with a short-lived Inventions for Sale television show in 1952 and several nationally syndicated feature articles, brought more than 100,000 letters and thousands of would-be inventors to Milburn’s shop in the quiet hamlet of Burlington. Frank Milburn was always a champion of the “little guy,” and his long-term goal, never realized, was to develop an institute in Burlington where inventors could vacation with their families and concentrate on inventing.

In 1948 Milburn ventured into activism when he organized citizens in Boone Co. to protest against the Consolidated Phone Company’s services; as a result, this company was forced by the Kentucky Public Ser vices Commission to upgrade significantly the ser vices it was offering in Boone Co. The talented Milburn was also a particularly adept ham radio operator and photographer. Some of the finest photographs featured in a localphotography book, Images of America: Burlington, were taken by Milburn and developed in his

MILLER, JOSEPH BERNARD

Fort Mitchell darkroom. Milburn died at home in Burlington in 1984 and was cremated. He was survived by his wife, Dr. Carol Swarts Milburn, a cancer specialist.

Becher, Matthew E. “Burlington’s Cornfield Edison,” NKH 13, no. 2 (Spring–Summer 2006): 13–47.

Becher, Matthew E., Michael A. Rouse, Robert Schrage, and Laurie Wilcox. Images of America: Burlington. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2004.

“Bring on Your Inventions!” Popular Mechanics Magazine, June 1950, 158.

“Frank Milburn, 73, Helped Develop Nordon Bomb Sight,” KP, February 13, 1984, 8A. Laycock, George. “When an Inventor Needs a Friend,” Mechanix Illustrated, October 1953, 86.

Matthew E. Becher

MILES, JULIET (b. date unknown, Bracken Co., Ky.; d. 1861, Frankfort, Ky.). Juliet Miles began life enslaved on the John Fee Jr. farm near Germantown. She married Add Miles, a slave on a neighboring farm, but continued to care for the Fee children. Fee’s son John Gregg Fee purchased Juliet from his father after the elder Fee threatened to sell her “down south.” Although Fee emancipated Juliet, she preferred to continue living at Fee’s farm in order to be closer to her children. After much persuasion, coupled with Add’s ability to purchase his own freedom, the couple and their freed son Henry moved to Felicity, Ohio. However, Juliet’s other children and her grandchildren remained in bondage in Bracken and Mason counties, Ky., where their owner, the elder Fee, threatened to sell Juliet’s family to a slave trader.

In 1858 Juliet made plans to return to Kentucky, collect her children, and flee with them back across the Ohio River. She retrieved her children first from the Elijah Currens plantation, west of Germantown, before entering Feeland to lead her remaining family to the appointed crossing at Rock Springs, west of Augusta in Bracken Co. Whoever was to provide them with skiffs for the crossing at Chalfont Creek did not show up, and Juliet was met by local patrollers, who seized the fugitive band and escorted them to the Bracken Co. jail. After a few days, the children were released but then were sold to a trader and shipped to New Orleans.

Juliet remained in jail until her trial, where she was found guilty and sentenced to three years in the penitentiary at Frankfort. There she found favor with the penitentiary warden, who recognized Juliet’s Christian values. She died at the penitentiary two years later. Her son Henry continued his life in Ohio and joined the Union Army during the Civil War. The other children’s fates remain unknown.

Bracken Co. Court Records, October 28, 1850; October 4, 1858, Brooksville, Ky. Fee, John Gregg. Autobiography of John G. Fee, Berea, Kentucky. Chicago: National Christian Association, 1891.

Miller, Caroline R. “Juliet Miles and Matilda Fee: Willing Participants in John G. Fee’s Anti-Slavery Crusade,” Northern Kentucky Univ. Borderlands Conference, 2004, Highland Heights, Ky.

Caroline R. Miller

MILFORD. Milford, one of the early pioneer settlements in Bracken Co., is located near the North Fork of the Licking River. It sits on Ky. Rt. 19 just north of Ky. Rt. 539, some seven miles southwest of Brooksville. Its origins date back to 1831 when the village was founded by John Ogdon, who operated a store. The name came from a water-powered grain mill that was at a ford in the river. The post office began in 1850. Over the years the community has had a bank, several stores, and the Milford Christian Church, first organized in 1853. The town was home to longtime medical practitioner Dr. W. A. Moore. Milford has survived several fires and many floods. A flood-control dam at Falmouth that might have saved Milford from inundation was first proposed in the 1920s and was often discussed thereafter but was never built. In 2000 the U.S. Census Bureau reported fewer than 150 people living in the now unincorporated town of Milford and its immediate environs.

Bracken Co. Homemakers. Recollections: Yesterday, Today for Tomorrow. Brooksville, Ky.: Poage, 1969.

Dressman, Elmer. “Sounds Death Knell for Kentucky Towns and Villages,” KP, April 12, 1925, 13.

Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1984.

U.S. Census Bureau, “American Fact Finder. Data Set. Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-Percent Data. Custom Table.” www.census.gov (accessed April 7, 2005, for Blocks 4012, 4021, and 4025, Block Group 4, Census Tract 9503, Bracken Co., Ky.).

MILLENNIUM MONUMENT WORLD PEACE BELL. At the southeast corner of Fourth and York Sts. in Newport, the World Peace Bell hangs poised to ring as it glistens in the daytime sunlight, a monument to hope and fulfi llment of a dream that began in 1992. That year, David Hosea, a member of the local planning organization Quest, suggested building a 1,000-foot-plus millennium tower, designed to accommodate a carillon of 83 bells, and a large free-swinging bell housed in a freestanding tower. He took the idea to local businessman Wayne Carlisle, who agreed to finance the project. However, only one-third of the project, the World Peace Bell and its smaller tower, was completed. The bell weighs 66,000 pounds and is 12 feet in diameter and 12 feet high. Its clapper weighs 7,000 pounds, and the yoke in which the bell swings weighs an additional 30,000 pounds.

The heavy bell rings with a deep and resonant tone.

Made in Nantes, France, and decorated with symbols representing peace, it was shipped to New Orleans in 1999 and then transported to Northern Kentucky via the Mississippi and Ohio rivers by a barge attached to the Belle of Cincinnati steamboat. Along the way, it stopped at various sites, where celebrations were held to welcome it and where citizens could write notes about peace in special World Peace Bell ledgers. Inscribed on the bell is this message: “The World Peace Bell is a symbol of freedom and peace, honoring our past, celebrating our present and inspiring our future.” At midnight on December 31, 1999, the bell was rung in public for the first time to celebrate the advent of the new millennium and to focus on the hope for

619

peace. The Verdin Bell Company of Cincinnati, which designed it, administers the World Peace Bell and the 54-foot glass and steel tower where it is housed. Thousands of visitors annually come to view it, various organizations use it for peace-themed ceremonies, and the bell is rung each day.

Claypool, James C. “A Bronze Star Is Born: The Story of the World Peace Bell,” 1999, unpublished manuscript, author’s fi le.

Flynn, Terry. “Belle and Bell Readied for 3-Week Journey,” CE, July 4, 1999, C1.

James C. Claypool

MILLER, BARTLETT T. (b. May 15, 1891, Johnsville, Ky.; d. May 1, 1986, Hartford, Conn.).

Bartlett T. Miller, the son of Frank and Mattie Yelton Miller, became a vice president of marketing for AT&T in New York City. He and his brother Charles were placed in a Lexington Odd Fellows orphanage after their father’s early death and the onset of their mother’s terminal illness. While in the orphanage, Bartlett Miller was called to talk with his mother via a new method of communication, the telephone. When he later returned to Northern Kentucky, his first job was with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in Latonia; but while visiting his family in Denver, Colo., on a trip he made using his railroad pass, Miller accepted a new position in the telecommunications field.

By 1915 long-distance telephone ser vices were being slowly extended westward in America. Miller had joined the pioneering group of people trying to put these new telephone systems together. He spent the duration of World War I working on line problems for AT&T, solving problems, and perfecting techniques. After a brief assignment assisting the vice chairman of the War Production Board, Miller was transferred to New England, where he became a vice president with AT&T. He was put in charge of developing transmission and reception of microwave lines from New York to Chicago. Soon thereafter, Miller introduced the concept of market research to his corporate bosses and was given the job of redesigning and marketing a revolutionary telephone, the lightweight, attractive 701 Princess telephone, which, as Miller had envisioned, became one of his company’s most popu lar products. When Miller died, he was buried, according to his request, in Johnsville.

The Princess Telephone. http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ freshwater/princess.htm.

Terry, Carol. GP, Grandpa. Denver, Colo.: Privately published, 1981.

Caroline R. Miller

MILLER, JOSEPH BERNARD (b. May 26, 1902, Owen Co., Ky.; d. August 18, 2002, Lexington, Ky.). Joseph Miller, who became a violin-maker, was one of 11 children born to George Harrison Miller and Anna Bell Dickerson. He was raised on a tobacco farm in Gratz in western Owen Co., later lived in Frankfort, and moved to Lexington in 1933.

After working as a barber for more than 40 years, Miller retired in 1964 and devoted the remainder of his life to making and repairing violins. He happened into his craft by being asked to repair his

620 MILLER, NINONA “NONA” brother’s broken violin in 1927. He did such an excellent job that he was encouraged to learn the trade and completed making his first violin in 1929. A self-taught violin-maker, he created more than 40 violins in his lifetime, as well as a few violas, mandolins, and guitars. He held a guitar design patent and even designed an upright guitar. It was estimated that about 100 hours of labor were put into each of Miller’s violins. Some of them sold for as much as $3,500. His clientele included university students, symphony orchestra musicians, and bluegrass and country stars, including Roy Acuff.

In 1995 Miller was inducted into the Stringed Instruments Maker Hall of Fame in Scott Co. He died of congestive heart failure in Lexington at the age 100 and was buried in the Bluegrass Memorial Gardens in Jessamine Co. Hewlett, Jennifer. “Famed Violin Maker, Repairer Dies,” Lexington Herald-Leader, August 20, 2002, B1.

McClelland, Robert L. “Where I Got My Wood,” Devil’s Box 31, no. 2 (1997): 45–47.

Peck, June. “J.B. Miller Made His First Violin in 1929 and Is Still Going Strong,” Kentucky Explorer, July–August 1999, 23–24.

Warren, Jim. “After 51 Years of Ser vice, J.B. Miller Is Hanging Up His Bow,” Lexington Herald-Leader, December 31, 1979, A4.

———. “Fit as a Fiddle,” Lexington Herald-Leader, 1988, D1.

Jenny Plemen

MILLER, NINONA “NONA” (b. November 6, 1916, Newport, Ky.; d. March 20, 2003, Fort Thomas, Ky.). Ninona Luella Miller Kew Scott, the daughter of Rev. William M. and Margaret J. Metcalfe Miller, was 19 years old when she first was recognized for her ability to write poetry. Four short poems by her, “Flight,” “I Love You So,” “Triad,” and “New Moon,” were published in J. T. Cotton Noe’s A Brief Anthology of Kentucky Poetry in 1936. The subjects of the poems were love, religion, and nature.

Ninona Miller graduated from Newport High School in 1933. She attended Morehead State University in Kentucky and received a BA from the University of Cincinnati in 1957 and an MA in education from Northern Kentucky University in 1976. In September 1938 Nona married George Willard Kew, a minister, in Newport. She gave birth to a son, William Earl Kew in 1940, and a daughter, Mary Margaret Kew, in 1941. From the early 1940s until the 1970s, she lived along Ohio Ave. in the Cote Brilliante neighborhood of Newport. Miller was the treasurer of the Newport and Fort Thomas boards of education from 1948 through the early 1960s. From the late 1960s through the 1970s, she taught English and the Bible as literature at Campbell Co. High School.

She was also a member of Latonia Christian Church, Dora Chapter Number Two Order of the Eastern Star, Campbell Co. Retired Teachers Association, Northern Kentucky Virginia Asher Bible Council, and the Campbell Co. Historical Society. In 1972 she married Floyd W. Scott, who died in 1982. Ninona died of congestive heart failure in 2003 and was buried in the Alexandria Cemetery in Alexandria.

Campbell Co. Kentucky Marriage Book 164, p. 102.

“Ninona M. Miller, 86, Sunday School Teacher,” KP, March 22, 2003, A13.

Noe, J. T. Cotton, ed. A Brief Anthology of Kentucky Poetry: Selections of Poetry Written by NinetyThree Persons Closely Identified with Kentucky, Most of Them Native Born. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Department of Extension, 1936.

Jenny Plemen

MILLER, WILLIAM O. “BILLY” (b. September 15, 1914, Johnsville, Bracken Co., Ky.; d. February 8, 1986, Lexington, Ky.). William O. Miller, a war crimes investigator and prosecutor, was the son of William E. and Beatrice Lytle Miller. He graduated from Brooksville High School and from the University of Kentucky in Lexington and attended the University of Louisville’s Jefferson School of Law in Louisville. After practicing law briefly in Bracken Co., he was selected to be a U.S. Attorney investigating war fraud in Chicago. Subsequently, he was appointed as an investigator at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, Germany, and later transferred to the distinctive legal unit of 75 counsels serving in the 7708th War Crimes Group based at Dachau, Germany, in 1946–1947. In 1950 Miller married Leona Mumedy, who was also a member of the 7708th Group and served as a court stenographer.

The cases at Dachau that Miller was assigned to prosecute pertained to the actions of the commandants and guards of the death camps at Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenburg, Mauthausen, and Mühldorf. Dachau’s concentration camp was the paradigm of inhuman treatment, torture, and murder. However, the Mauthausen camp, along with its 60 subcamps, housing 70,000 prisoners, was given the title of a death factory for its operations of the “Vienna Ditch” and the so-called scientific research conducted there, which killed onethird of these facilities’ 206,000 detainees.

While Miller was an investigator at Nuremberg, under the newly formed Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT), 22 major Nazi directors from seven separate concentration camps were prosecuted. The proceedings of the 7708th Group differed from those of the IMT and the NMT in that persons who were tried in proceedings at Dachau had directly ordered or committed atrocities. The court at Dachau conducted 489 trials, convicted 1,416 criminals, acquitted 256, and sentenced 426 defendants to die.

The cases Miller prosecuted involved a wide variety of crimes, including one case that Leona did the stenographer’s work for, involving a commandant of the Dachau Camp named Piorkowski. The conviction in this case set the legal precedent that commanders at the concentration camps were to be held responsible for atrocities they oversaw. Normally, six to eight courtrooms were in daily operation during the trials at Dachau; during these proceedings Leona normally recorded for two hours and transcribed for six. According to military records, Miller prosecuted 35 accused commanders and guards and was the prosecuting attorney responsible for sending 25 war criminals to their deaths.

After the trials at Dachau had ended, Miller returned home and set up a legal practice in Maysville. However, he continued to provide the review courts in Germany with correspondence and legal points as part of the appeal process of the defendants in the last Dachau trial he prosecuted.

Miller ran for commonwealth attorney in the 19th Judicial District, and won in August 1951; he was the youngest commonwealth attorney in Kentucky. In 1956 Kentucky governor A. B. Chandler (1935–1939 and 1955–1959) appointed Miller to the Workman’s Compensation Board, and he became the board’s chairman two years later.

The experiences Miller had during the Dachau war crimes trials continued to vex him. When in 1982 he was asked to testify at a West German trial of a Buchenwald executioner, an SS guard related to one of Miller’s cases, Miller did not comply. The trial transcripts and photographs Miller gathered remain as a record of his experiences during the world’s first attempt to bring just punishment to persons responsible for the crimes committed during the Holocaust and World War II. Miller died in Lexington in 1986.

Harris, James Russell, and Caroline R. Miller, ed.

“Dachau Album: Perspectives from War Crimes Prosecutor William O. Miller and Court Reporter Leona Mumedy Miller, 1946–47,” RKHS 95, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 135–80.

“Mrs. Rebekah Hord Is Elected First Woman Mayor of Maysville,” KP, August 6, 1951, 1.

Personal History Statements, William O. Miller and Leona Mumedy, January 15, 1948, National Personal Records Center, St. Louis, Mo. War Crimes Case Files, National Archives, College Park, Md., Record Group 338, boxes 358– 60.

Caroline R. Miller

MILLIKEN, JAMES B. (b. August 8, 1900, Louisville, Ky.; d. August 11, 1988, Frankfort, Ky.).

Chief justice James Butler Milliken was the son of Herbert B. Milliken, a Louisville and Nashville Railroad engineer, and Sarah Milliken. The family moved to Northern Kentucky, and James graduated from Bellevue High School in 1918. He spent three months in the military during World War I. He received his undergraduate degree from Centre College in Danville, Ky. (1922), and entered law school at the University of Cincinnati, finishing at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. (1926).

Milliken married Janet Pugh of Bellevue, and they resided in Cold Spring. Besides teaching classes at Dayton High School (see Dayton Public Schools), Milliken coached basketball. He often joked that he had a better record at the high school than his successor, the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. Milliken served as the city attorney for Southgate and practiced law in Campbell Co., Ky., and in Cincinnati. A Democrat, he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1933, and he was the campaign manager in Campbell Co. for A. B. “Happy” Chandler’s 1935 successful campaign for governor. Later, Milliken worked in state government under Kentucky governors Chandler (1935–1939 and 1955–1959), Keen Johnson (1939–1943), and Simeon Willis (1943–

MITCHEL, ORMSBY M AC KNIGHT, MAJOR GENERAL

1947). Milliken was a member of the Kentucky Court of Appeals (the supreme court for the state) from 1951 to 1975, and he was chief justice of that court three times: 1956–1957, 1963–1964, and 1971–1973. For many years, he was regarded as one of the few persons from Northern Kentucky within the inner governing circle at Frankfort. After retiring from the bench, Milliken taught at the Chase College of Law of Northern Kentucky University at Highland Heights. He died at the King’s Daughters Memorial Hospital in Frankfort, and his cremated remains were buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate.

“Milliken Remembered as Likeable but Principled Judge,” Frankfort (Ky.) State Journal, August 14, 1988, 6.

MINERVA. Minerva, often called the town of beautiful homes and famous people, is located at the junction of Ky. Rts. 435 and 1235, eight miles northwest of Maysville in Mason Co. The town was named for Minerva Green, an early settler and the fi rst white woman to live there. Preacher and stonemason Rev. Lewis Craig built the fi rst church at Minerva in 1793. The church, which was completely restored in 2005, is one of the oldest buildings in Mason Co. Its grandiose Greek Revival design seems to indicate that early residents hoped to create a town of high-quality buildings. Craig built a number of other structures in Mason Co. as well, including the fi rst school in Minerva and the court house at Washington. A post office was established at Minerva in 1812, with James M. Runyon serving as postmaster. Minerva was incorporated on January 31, 1844; however, that town charter was later rescinded. The city’s fi rst newspaper, the Minerva Mirror, began publishing in the mid-1850s. The 1876 atlas of Mason Co. listed a general store, a Masonic Order lodge (see Masons), and a tobacco warehouse in the town.

The most famous person born and raised in Minerva was Stanley Forman Reed, who became a Kentucky state senator and later a U.S. Supreme Court justice. His father, Dr. John A. Reed, was a physician in Minerva for many years. On nearby Tuckahoe Ridge there were several large plantation homes, which were described and made famous in a novel entitled Drivin’ Woman, by Elizabeth Pickett Chevalier, who lived on the ridge. Another of Minerva’s claims to fame was the town’s educational facilities. An 1885 newspaper article said that Minerva had about 200 residents and 5 schools, the largest number of schools per capita in Mason Co. The best known of the schools was Minerva College, a high-quality grade and high school. Monthly tuition was two dollars for the grade school and three dollars for the high school. Class sizes were very small, and the typical graduating class had only five or six members. A Minerva College graduate, Henry L. Donovan, later served as president of the University of Kentucky at Lexington. Another graduate, Cleo Gillis Hester, served for 33 years as registrar of Murray State University at Murray, where a dormitory,

Hester Hall, was named in her honor. Minerva College operated from 1855 to 1909 and was then taken over by the Mason Co. School Board. Ironically, although Minerva now has a much larger population than during the 1800s, there are no schools operating in Minerva.

“College Town,” KP, December 4, 1975, 5K. EachTown. “City of Minerva, Kentucky.” www.each town.com (accessed January 22, 2006).

Kentucky Atlas & Gazetteer. “Minerva, Kentucky.” www.uky.edu/kentuckyatlas (accessed January 22, 2006).

Lake, Griffi ng & Stevenson. An Illustrated Atlas of Mason County, Kentucky. Philadelphia: Lake, Griffi ng & Stevenson, 1876.

Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1984.

MINERVA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH. In the northwestern Mason Co. community of Minerva stands the Minerva United Methodist Church, founded in 1836. A stone from the original church building, which burned in the 1890s, says “Wesleyan Chapel, Founded 1836.” The church was called Minerva Methodist Episcopal Church South in the mid-19th century. The present church building was built in 1894, and in 1994 the church celebrated its centennial. People with connections to the church came from throughout Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley. People from all walks of life have attended Minerva Methodist Church. Justice Stanley Foreman Reed, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who was born and grew up in Minerva, was a member.

Thomas Donavan, who became president of the University of Kentucky, also occasionally attended the church. Although the congregation in the early 21st century is small, the church continues to generously serve the community and individuals by providing a location for civic events, weddings, and funerals.

“Commission Has New Director,” KE, September 9, 2006, B3.

Paul L. Whalen

buried next to the Episcopalian Church in Charlestown, N.H., near the Hoyts’ country estate, with hundreds of friends, co-workers, and well-wishers in attendance.

“Death,” KP, October 3, 1898, 4.

“Hoyt’s Choice—The Famous Playwright Selects a Wife: Will Marry Miss Scales, an Ex-Covingtonian,” KP, January 25, 1894, 1.

“Mrs. Hoyt Buried,” KP, October 5, 1898, 1.

MITCHEL, ORMSBY MACKNIGHT, MAJOR GENERAL (b. July 28, 1809, Morganfield, Ky.; d. October 30, 1862, Beauford, S.C.). Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, an astronomer and a Civil War general, was the youngest child of John and Elizabeth MacAlister Mitchel. After the death of his father, the family moved to Lebanon, Ohio, in 1816. There, Mitchel studied Greek, Latin, and arithmetic. In 1825 he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., where he graduated in 1829 in the same class as Robert E. Lee. He married Louisa Clark Trask in 1831. Mitchel resigned his commission the next year and moved to Cincinnati, where he was admitted to the bar, became a professor of mathematics and engineering, and was the chief design engineer of the Little Miami Railroad. However, astronomy was his love. He sold 300 shares of stock to citizens, rich and poor, to fund the construction of the first large U.S. observatory. In 1843 John Quincy Adams laid the facility’s cornerstone atop Mount Ida (today, Mount Adams) in Cincinnati. It became the U.S. Weather Bureau. In 1860 Mitchel left Cincinnati for the Albany, N.Y., observatory. When the Civil War began, Abraham Lincoln appointed him a brigadier general. He was assigned to fortify Cincinnati. Reassigned to Beaufort, S.C., Mitchel died of yellow fever in 1862 and was buried in Brooklyn, N.Y. Today, his telescope is at the Cincinnati Observatory Center in the Hyde Park section of that city. The city of Fort Mitchell was named for him, and why the town’s name is spelled with two l’s remains a mystery.

MISKELL, CAROLINE “CARRIE” (b. Caroline Scales, September 15, 1873, Covington, Ky.; d.

October 2, 1898, New York City). Actress Carrie Scales was the daughter of Christopher Columbus and Mary Menzies Scales. Her father was a tobacco dealer, and her mother was a niece of Kenton Co. judge John W. Menzies. Carrie studied at the Cincinnati Art School and performed as an actress at local theaters in and around Covington. Soon, she found her way to New York and the Broadway stage, appearing under the name of Caroline Miskell. She debuted with Augustin Daly’s stock company and later worked with Charles Hale Hoyt. In 1894 she married Hoyt, a former Boston Post theater critic, who had become one of America’s wealthiest playwrights. In 1896 Carrie starred in her husband’s production of A Contented Woman, one of 18 comical farces that Hoyt wrote and produced between 1893 and 1898. In 1898 Carrie, age 25, died while giving birth to the couple’s first child, a son, who also died. The two were

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Ormsby Mitchel.

622 MODEL EVANS PHARMACY McNutt, Randy. “From the Heavens, Mitchel Watches His City,” CE, June 15, 2004, G13.

Mitchel, Frederick A. Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel: Astronomer and General. Boston: Houghton, Miffl in, 1887.

Ann Hicks

MODEL-EVANS PHARMACY. The ModelEvans Pharmacy was the first pharmacy owned and operated by African Americans in the Northern Kentucky region, and thus far it is the only one.

In 1923 Charles W. Anderson was the manager of the Model Drug Store, at 1039 Greenup St. (on the northwest corner of Lynn and Greenup Sts.) in Covington. It was one of the branches owned by the Model Drug Stores Company of Cincinnati, a chain owned and operated by African Americans.

In 1926 Mrs. Richie Kyles Smith, a pharmacist, was manager of the chain’s Covington store. Smith received her training at Meharry Medical School, Nashville, graduating in 1916. Before coming to Covington, she was employed at Bright’s Pharmacy in Louisville for two years.

In 1928 the Covington drug store was sold to Evans Noble, a pharmacist, thus becoming known as Model-Evans Pharmacy. In October 1930 thieves ransacked the building and stole money, cigars, and sundry drug articles. As a result of this break-in, an investigation by the Covington license inspector cited Evans to Police Court and charged him with violation of the city’s license law for failure to secure a separate license for the sale of bottled soft drinks. Evidence of his and his store’s importance in the African American community is that Evans was selected in March 1932 to represent the African American businessmen at the dedication of the new Lincoln-Grant School in Covington. Evans operated his drug store until late 1932, when it closed. He and his wife, Ethel, lived in Covington at 207 Lynn St. until 1939.

In 1936 the store at 1039 Greenup St. became a shoe repair shop operated by Napoleon Waddell.

Later, during the 1940s and 1950s, Raleigh Fender had a restaurant there. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Walton family ran a candy and soda fountain shop at this address. And from the late 1960s through 1971, Claude Grubbs had a barbershop in the building. Various other businesses were located there until finally, in the early 2000s, the old Model-Evans Pharmacy building was torn down.

Dabney, Wendell P. Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens.

Cincinnati: Dabney, 1926.

“Docket Is Light,” KP, October 20, 1930.

“Drug Store Looted,” KP, October 20, 1930.

“To Dedicate New School,” KP, March 31, 1932.

Theodore H. H. Harris

MONMOUTH ST. ARCHITECTURE. The architecture of Monmouth St. in Newport reflects the street’s history as the main street of Campbell Co. from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, as well as a century and a half of architectural fashions.

The oldest surviving buildings there are houses

built before the Civil War, some of which were later converted to commercial use. Earliest of all may be the Federal-era Captain James Curtis Reed House at 336 Monmouth St., which dates from the 1830s.

Most commercial buildings erected in downtown Newport from roughly 1860 to 1910 are two to three stories tall, with ground-floor storefronts and upper-floor apartments. From around 1865 to 1885, the Italianate style was dominant. “Phoenix Halle,” a German American social club at 923 Monmouth St., has an austere Italianate design with arched stone hoodmolds and a paired-bracket cornice. Similar details can be found in the structure at 911–913 Monmouth St., which also features a denticulated (toothed) wood cornice with elliptical frieze windows. The building was later expanded to take in a tiny one-story building next door. Good examples of the style on Monmouth St.’s 600 block, all of which have been sympathetically renovated, include buildings at 623, 627, 631 and 635. Oldest of the group is the one at 621, built in transitional Greek Revival–Italianate style in about 1865.

High Victorian eclecticism reigned on Monmouth St. in the 1880s and 1890s. The asymmetrical facade of the 1888 Marx Furniture Store Building at 840 is a showplace of the bricklayer’s art, with four different kinds of arches. The Rust Cornice Works at 935, which produced sheet-metal architectural ornamentation, displayed the firm’s artistry in a deep concave cornice with Gothic arches and in segmental (flattened) brick arches.

The structure at 646 Monmouth St. is a fine example of the Commercial Queen Anne style, popu lar from 1885 to 1899. It features an arcaded brick corbel table (stepped brickwork), stained-glass transoms, and a mansard-front roof of patterned slate.

The Neoclassical Revival brought a new symmetry and restraint to commercial architecture in the 1900s. The Kentucky Enterprise Savings Building at 800 Monmouth St., clad in pure white limestone and white terra cotta, is encircled by Corinthian pilasters (flat columns). During a 1960s modernization, the storefront was severely altered and the upper stories hidden by metal screening, which has since been removed.

The 20th century also introduced novel materials, including glazed and wire-cut brick, terra cotta, prism glass, and center-pivot windows, and structural systems such as steel beams and reinforced concrete. Virtually unaltered on the exterior since its construction, the Cookie Jar Bakery at 919 Monmouth St. features glossy white brick, metal casement windows, and an original hanging sign. The wire-cut brick facade of the structure at 828 Monmouth St. is relieved by green and white terra cotta and large, center-pivot windows. The “zigzag” storefront, which revealed only part of the window display from any vantage point, was designed to draw passersby into the store. In 1926 Marx Furniture built an L-shaped addition, a fourstory, brick-faced concrete warehouse that wrapped around to Ninth St., designed by Weber Brothers architects. Color contrast and subtle details, in-

cluding Gothic arches, brightened an otherwise utilitarian design.

The 1930s brought a machine-age aesthetic to Monmouth St., with “modern” synthetic materials such as opaque glass and streamlined metal trim, and with aerodynamic curves. The stylish storefront of Dixie Clothiers at 809 Monmouth St. features curved glass, Deco lettering, glass block, and a polychrome terrazzo floor. Built in the 1940s, the American National Bank (647 Monmouth St.) and Security Federal Savings (735 Monmouth St.) buildings meld modernism with traditional forms.

Many Monmouth St. storefronts retain original details designed to catch the pedestrian’s eye.

Examples are the storefronts at 635, a wood storefront; 621, stone piers; 900, amethyst glass transoms; 722–724, stained and beveled glass; 625, faux painting, a tin ceiling, and wood cabinets; and 817, a patterned tile floor.

Although most Monmouth St. buildings were probably created by local contractors, two highstyle, architect-designed landmarks anchor the corner at Fourth St. The Newport Mutual Fire Insurance Building, built in 1872, is one of the few surviving commercial works of James W. McLaughlin (1834–1923), one of 19th-century Cincinnati’s greatest architects. It is a dignified Renaissance Revival design in brick and sandstone. Diagonally opposite is the Newport Carnegie library (1903), a Beaux-Arts Classical design of dressed limestone dominated by a monumental Roman arch. The competition for its design was secured by Cincinnati architects Werner & Adkins.

Numerous Monmouth St. buildings were poorly altered during the district’s nadir in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the 1990s, the designation of Monmouth St. as a National Historic Register site, a facade-improvement program, and a business revival have renewed interest in the street’s distinctive architecture, and many buildings are being restored to their original character.

Langsam, Walter E. “Biographical Dictionary of Architects Who Worked in the Greater Cincinnati Area Prior to World War II,” 1986, Cincinnati Preservation Association, Cincinnati.

Warminski, Margo. “Monmouth Street Historic District,” National Register of Historic Places nomination, 1995, Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, Ky.

Margaret Warminski

MONMOUTH ST. BUSINESS DISTRICT. Monmouth St. in Newport was once one of the major retail shopping districts within the state. Before the city’s floodwall was built, Newport’s downtown business district stretched from the Ohio River on the north to 11th St. on the south, at the underpass. People came to shop not only from Campbell Co. but from all over the Northern Kentucky region. U.S. 27 follows Monmouth St. through Newport, and until 1951, when it became one-way northbound, that federal highway ran through the middle of the district for vehicles going either north or south. Located within the town’s business district were banks, bars, butcher

MONTEREY

Monmouth St., Newport, looking north, ca. 1940.

shops, candy stores, chili parlors, five-and-dime stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, jewelers, movie houses, restaurants, shoe stores, and nightclubs. Several of the mafia’s nightclubs stayed open 24 hours per day. Special shopping events, such as Fashion Week, were scheduled by the merchants throughout the year, complete with valuable prizes, food, and beauty competitions.

Many shoppers rode buses to Newport. Green Line bus routes ran along Monmouth St., and the crosstown route to Newport brought riders to and from Covington. The Monmouth Street Merchants Association operated its own bus, the Merchants’ Bus. Maintained and operated by the Green Line bus company, it was often seen parked on the east side of Monmouth St., at Ninth St., in front of the Crystal Chili Parlor, waiting to begin its scheduled run north on Monmouth St. and east through Bellevue and Dayton, Ky., and back. Originally, it was a free ride. The existence of the bus underscored the importance of downtown Newport as a shopping destination, as well as the support its merchants received from the residents of Bellevue and Dayton. During the 1930s the Monmouth St. merchants provided storefront space for a small bus station near Eighth and Monmouth Sts. The bus operated from 1919 well into the 1970s.

Kresge’s Five and Dime Stores (the forerunner of Kmart) had two stores within the 800 block of Monmouth St. on the west side: one was a five and dime store, and the other was a dollar store. The Kresge store’s major national competitor, Woolworth’s Five and Dime Stores, was located just down the street in the next block. In early 1956, with the opening of the Newport Shopping Center just a little south of the district along U.S. 27, shopping patterns in the region shifted. The new shopping center offered something that the landlocked Monmouth Street Business District could not: free, spacious, and convenient parking. The Kroger grocery store and the Woolworth Five and Dime Store in Newport’s downtown business district

quickly moved to the shopping center, and the slow decline of the downtown began. In recent years the downtown has experienced a resurgence, partially fed by the construction of a new City Hall there, as well as developments such as Newport-on-theLevee.

“Bus Station Is Fixed,” KP, June 13, 1930, 1.

“Light Donations Not Expanded for Lights,” KP, December 4, 1930, 1.

“Newport Sidewalk Days,” KE, July 30, 1996, B1A.

MONTE CASINO CHAPEL (MONTE CASSINO CHAPEL). Monte Casino Chapel derives its name from the famous Italian abbey (spelled Monte Cassino) founded by St. Benedict, the Roman Catholic founder of the Benedictine order. The Benedictine priests and brothers who came to Covington from Latrobe, Pa., operated a vineyard called Monte Casino in Covington, where this chapel originally stood. Bottles from their wine operation were clearly marked “Monte Cassino,” the Italian spelling with which the Benedictines were accustomed. Exactly when and how the localized and improper spelling “Monte Casino” evolved over the years is unknown.

In 1901 several Benedictine monks built the tiny Monte Casino Chapel on the grounds of their Monte Casino Monastery on a hill above the Peaselburg neighborhood of Covington. Six monks lived on the property and tended the vineyards growing there. For many years they made wine at the monastery, for sacramental and commercial purposes. One of the monks, Father Otto Kopf, conceived the idea of building a small church at the monastery, to be used by the residents for meditation and prayer. Kopf asked permission from his superiors to construct the building, but his request was denied. The leaders felt that the community was too small and the expense too great to justify such an endeavor. Kopf had already collected much of the needed stone, so he decided to build a small shrine instead. Another monk,

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Brother Albert Soltis, who had been a stonemason in Germany, agreed to dress the stones for the workers. The monks built the tiny building entirely (even the roof) of natural limestone found on the property. When completed, the miniature church was an architectural marvel, with two stainedglass windows and an impressive 10-foot-tall steeple. The interior was six feet wide and nine feet deep, with an eight-foot ceiling. The church furniture consisted of two prayer benches and a small shrine, on which stood wooden statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The chapel was designed to contain many of the features found in full-size edifices. Over the years, Monte Casino Chapel has gained considerable fame, and much has been written about it; however, that was not what the monks originally intended.

With the passage of Prohibition, the vineyards and the monastery were closed, and the monks returned to their provincial house in Latrobe, Pa. With no one to maintain the small church, it soon fell into disrepair. The Diocese of Covington (see Roman Catholics) had the building dismantled in 1965 and rebuilt near a lake on the Thomas More College campus in Crestview Hills. Moving the 50-ton structure proved to be a daunting task, requiring four months of difficult labor. In the course of the move, Carlisle Construction broke the drag (flatbed trailer) that transported the chapel.

In 1922 Robert Ripley, of Ripley’s Believe It or Not fame proclaimed Monte Casino Chapel “the smallest church in the world.” A retired local volunteer, George Windholtz, obtained permission from the diocese to renovate the building at his own expense in 1992. He tuck-pointed all of the mortar joints, repaired the metalwork, added an exterior concrete bench, and planted two blue spruce trees.

Originally built in an obscure location, Monte Casino Chapel today stands next to a beautiful lake, where it is easily accessible from the Thomas More College campus and surrounding highways.

Many local residents regularly visit the lake and the tiny church, to feed the ducks and enjoy the peaceful atmosphere. The diocese does not allow weddings to be held at the chapel; however, many exterior wedding pictures have been taken there.

A motion picture was made in 1929 extolling significant points of interest in Kentucky, and the Northern Kentucky sites featured were the Monte Casino Chapel and the John A. Roebling Bridge.

“Chapel’s Story Largely Untold,” KE, April 14, 1991, B1.

“He Greets the Lord Daily by Restoring Tiny Chapel,” KP, July 13, 1992, 1.

“Miniature Chapel Only a Place of Prayer,” KP, March 9, 1930, 3.

RoadsideAmerica.com. “Tiny Churches.” www .roadsideamerica.com (accessed November 8, 2006).

MONTEREY. Monterey in Owen Co. was settled

by John and Mary Williams, who arrived in 1795 and between 1805 and 1810 were living in the southern part of today’s Owen Co., along the

624 MONTEREY BAPTIST CHURCH Kentucky River. Another early area landowner was Stephen French, a surveyor. The pioneer settlement at the site of Monterey was called the Mouth of Cedar, in reference to the location where Cedar Creek empties into the Kentucky River. By 1816 circuitriding preachers were visiting the Mouth of Cedar Meeting House, the only place of worship in the vicinity. The Williams’s youngest son, James, established a trading post at the Mouth of Cedar named Williamsburg. In February 1817 Turner Bramham established the first mail ser vice, and T. B. Calvert was postmaster. In 1819 Owen Co. was formed from Franklin, Gallatin, and Scott counties, and the Williamsburg trading post continued to operate.

In 1821 John Weems, a Scotsman, ran a small store that chiefly sold coffee, lead, powder, salt, sugar, tallow candles, and whiskey. The town was officially established by an 1845 statute of the Kentucky legislature. On February 23, 1847, its name was changed from Williamsburg to Monterey to commemorate the Mexican War Battle of Monterey. The town has been enlarged by legislative statute three times: in 1847, 1874, and 1881.

Monterey was visited by numerous steamboats and had considerable industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Kentucky River traffic and commerce hastened the growth of the town; it flourished as a shipping point once locks and dams were established on the Kentucky River in about 1838–1842. Monterey was a tobacco-marketing center from 1840 through 1910. The Monterey Local of the Burley Tobacco Society was the first to be organized in the region’s Burley District. Lee H. McGraw, a local capitalist, and W. D. Hardin formed the Monterey Realty and Warehouse to handle and finance the business that became Monterey’s Equity Tobacco Company. In March 1907, the Ware Tobacco Company began to manufacture tobacco in town.

A Civil War skirmish occurred at Monterey on June 11, 1862. In 1868 the W. G. Simpson Masonic Lodge 472 was established. In 1885 a disastrous fire destroyed a hotel and a whole block of business structures in town. In 1869 the Union Church was built, where different denominations worshipped on designated Sundays. On the last Sunday in June 1901, a new building for the Monterey Baptist Church was dedicated after the congregation had been using the old Union Church for 32 years. In a June 1908 visit to the town, James Tandy Ellis wrote a renowned poem, “Among the Hills of Monterey.”

Monterey is divided by Cedar Creek, which at one time was spanned by a covered bridge constructed by Paddy Byrns and in use until 1910. A 210-foot iron truss span replaced it, and in 1931 the Works Progress Administration built the current concrete bridge, which remains in use.

The first school building was erected in Monterey about 1880, on a lot adjacent to the Union Church that was leased from the church in September 1878 for 32 years. On June 17, 1901, the trustees of the school at Monterey bought a site for a second school building from Samuel Sanders for $150. The building was available for use beginning

with the school year of 1902–1903. On September 10, 1926, students attended their first classes at the newly organized Monterey High School. An addition was built onto the elementary school building to accommodate the high school, which was used through the year 1934. In fall 1935, area high school students began attending the Owenton High School. On December 15, 1938, the Monterey elementary school building burned. A new school building was finished for the fall classes in September 1939, along Owenton Rd., and it served the community for 31 years. In fall 1970 the town’s elementary-school students began attending the Owen Co. Elementary School in Owenton.

Monterey experienced challenges in the midto-late twentieth century. River commerce and industry declined, the flood of 1937 completely covered the town, and on April 12, 1952, flames destroyed a portion of the business section, including the post office, on Worth St., just off Ky. Rt. 35.

Furthermore, in April 1969, the Monterey Post Office closed, and residents were required to place rural delivery boxes in front of their houses in order to receive mail.

In 1997 the Kentucky Heritage Council listed Monterey’s Downtown Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. The area is bounded on the north by Hillcrest St., on the east

by U.S. 127, on the south by High St., and on the west by Taylor St. Agriculture is the major local industry. Most residents of Monterey work in stores, factories, or in state government in Frankfort, and others travel to Florence or Georgetown for employment. There are two Kentucky State Highway Markers in Monterey: one of them chronicles the history of the town, and the other concerns the life of Col. Henry Sparks. The U.S. Census Bureau listed the population of Monterey as 167 in 2000.

Houchens, Mariam Sidebottom. History of Owen County: “Sweet Owen.” Louisville, Ky.: Standard, 1976.

Kentucky State Land Office. Historical Land Records.

Frankfort, Ky. Logsden, Donna G. Final Survey Summary Report of Monterey, KY. Hardyville, Ky.: Logsden and Logsden Architects, 1997.

Murphy, Margaret A. History of the Monterey Baptist Church and Community, Frankfort, Ky.: Roberts, 1976.

Murphy, Margaret Alice, and Lela Maude Hawkins.

The History of Historic Old Cedar Baptist Church and Community, 1816–2004. Frankfort, Ky.: Lynn, 2004.

designated Sundays, and there was a Sabbath school each Sunday. This grand old church served the area for about 80 years before it burned on November 18, 1953.

Baptists worshipped in the Old Union Church from 1871 to about 1901 as an organized church.

Elder John Alfred Head was the first pastor, and there were 46 charter members. At the turn of the century, the current building was constructed about two blocks down the street from the Union Church; it was dedicated on the last Sunday in June 1901. The church overlooks bottoms at the edge of Cedar Creek facing the Kentucky River. The onestory brick building was designed in the Gothic Revival style with an auditorium seating about 250. The first pastor at this location was Thomas C. Ecton.

The Kentucky Heritage Council listed the Monterey Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places on August 19, 1997, and the Monterey Baptist Church property is located within the district. Although the town of Monterey has flooded many times, the church has never been flooded. During the flood of 1937, many families found refuge in the building.

In 1950 construction of a 10-room brick addition began. A library was added in 1960 and closed in 1993. Many important fi les and books of local history were rescued and remain available at the home of Margaret Alice Murphy near Monterey. Also, the church’s archives of births, marriages, and deaths are being kept by Murphy.

A church parsonage built adjacent to the church was dedicated in 1958. The church museum opened for the fi rst time October 3, 1965. Valuable artifacts, documents, and photographs are housed there, some dating from the Civil War. Showcases containing artifacts and histories are dedicated to local ser vicemen serving in all wars, beginning with the Revolutionary War. A 360page history entitled History of the Monterey Baptist Church and Community was released October 10, 1976. Tony Watkins, the current pastor, celebrated his 10th anniversary of ser vice on June 4, 2006. In 2005 the church membership was 375.

Houchens, Mariam Sidebottom. History of Owen County: “Sweet Owen.” Louisville, Ky.: Standard, 1976.

Murphy, Margaret A. History of the Monterey Baptist Church and Community. Frankfort, Ky.: Roberts, 1976.

Margaret A. Murphy

Margaret A. Murphy

MONTEREY BAPTIST CHURCH. Monterey Baptist Church, located at 44 High St. in Monterey, near U.S. 127 in southern Owen Co., was established as a mission of the Baptists’ Concord Association in 1867. On October 28, 1867, lot 34 in Monterey was transferred to Daniel S. Clark, James E. Duvall, Michael Jewett, G. S. Sparks, and George W. White, founding fathers of the Union Church, as it came to be known. The Union Church was built between 1869 and 1871. Several denominations worshipped in the Union Church on their

MONTZ, LUCY ANN DUPUY (b. December 30, 1842, Gallatin Co., Ky.; d. March 23, 1922, Madison, Ind.). Lucy Ann Dupuy Montz, the first woman dentist in Kentucky, was a leader in gaining acceptance of Gallatin Co. women into professions traditionally held by men. Her father, John T. Dupuy, a descendant of French Huguenots, came to Gallatin Co. from Virginia and married Lucy’s mother, Henrietta Ross, in 1841. When John Dupuy heard of the discovery of gold in California, he left for the West in 1849 and was never heard from again. Lucy was the eldest of three surviving chil-

MORGAN, JOHN HUNT

dren. Her two brothers served in Union regiments during the Civil War. Lucy was 18 when she married Frank P. Montz, a steamboat man, in Louisville. They had a daughter who lived only a short time, and by age 20 Lucy was widowed. Her early education and the years immediately after her husband died are a mystery, but a photograph dated 1877 shows Lucy Montz among a group of teachers at Scott Street School in Covington. In that same year, the Covington School Board recognized her excellent teaching skills by promoting her to teach a higher grade level. She was 34 at the time. While teaching, she attended the Cincinnati College of Dental Surgery and graduated with honors on March 4, 1889. She became a member of the faculty of that school. In 1893 the Kentucky State Board of Dental Examiners issued her a license registered in the Gallatin Co. Clerk’s office. Dr. Lucy, as she was called, practiced in the front room of her home, a house that remains standing at 301 W. High St. in Warsaw, overlooking the Ohio River. She had an active practice until 1921, when she retired, sold her real estate and personal items, and moved to Madison, Ind., to live with a niece. Montz died in 1922 in Madison and was buried at the Warsaw Cemetery.

Bogardus, Carl R. “Kentucky’s First Woman Dentist,” Kentucky Dental Journal 36, no. 2 (March–April 1984).

“Death Notice,” KTS, March 23, 1922, 43.

“Death of Dr. Lucy D. Montz,” Madison (Ind.) Courier, March 23, 1922, 1.

“Local Personals,” Covington Ticket, November 17, 1877, 3.

“Taught School for Many Years,” KTS, March 23, 1922, 43.

Judith Butler Jones

MOORE, JOHN H., HOUSE. See John H. Moore House.

MORA, PATRICIA “PAT” (b. January 19, 1942, El Paso, Tex.). Pat Mora, a noted author of children’s books, a poet, and an activist, lived for six years (1998–2004) in Edgewood. The daughter of Raúl Antonio and Estela Delgrado Mora, she received her BA and MA in English from Texas Western College (now the University of Texas, El Paso [UTEP]) in 1963 and 1967. She was a teacher in the El Paso Independent School District, a part-time instructor of English both at the El Paso Community College and at UTEP, and an assistant to the vice president of academic affairs and to the president at UTEP. Since 1989 Mora has been a full-time writer. Her many awards include a Kellogg National Fellowship (1986–1989), a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in creative writing (1994), a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship to write in Umbria, Italy (2003), honorary doctorates from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo (2006) and North Carolina State University (2008), and honorary membership in the American Library Association (ALA) (2008). Mora was the founder of the family literacy initiative entitled El día de los niños/ El día de los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day), now a part of the ALA. Her many children’s books in-

clude A Birthday Basket for Tia (1992); Agua, Agua, Agua (1994); Pablo’s Tree (1994); Confetti: Poems for Children (1996; named a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Reading Association); Tómas and the Library Lady (1997); This Big Sky (1998); The Rainbow Tulip (1999); Doña Flor: A Tall Tale about a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart (2005; named an ALA Notable Book and also awarded the Golden Kite Award of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators); Yum! Mmmm! Que rico! (2007; winner of the Américas Award), and a new bilingual series entitled My Family/Mi Familia. Mora lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Mora, Pat, to Paul A. Tenkotte, e-mail correspondence, July 18, 2008.

Pat Mora. www.patmora.com/ (accessed August 10, 2008).

Paul A. Tenkotte

MOREHEAD, JAMES T. (b. May 24, 1797, Shepherdsville, Ky.; d. December 28, 1854, Covington, Ky.). James Turner Morehead, a Kentucky governor, was the son of Armistead and Lucy Latham Morehead. When he was about three years old, his family moved to Russellville in Logan Co., where he was educated in local schools; he then attended Transylvania College in Lexington. After graduation he returned to Russellville. He studied law under circuit court judge H. P. Broadnax and John J. Crittenden, was admitted to the bar in 1818, and began the practice of law in Bowling Green. He married Susan A. Roberts in 1823, and they had two children, Robert and Joseph. In 1828 he was elected to the Kentucky legislature from Warren Co. and served until 1831. Elected lieutenant governor of Kentucky in 1832, he held that office until the death of Governor John Breathitt (1832–1834) in 1834, when he succeeded Breathitt. Morehead became the 12th governor of the state, serving from 1834 to 1836, and the first who was native born. After leaving office in 1836, he became the president of the Kentucky State Board of Internal Improvements. The following year, he returned to the practice of law in Frankfort. Morehead was elected to the Kentucky legislature again in 1837, this time from Franklin Co. In 1841 he was appointed to the U.S. Senate, where he served for the next six years (1841–1846). He was a close ally of Henry Clay, leader of the Whig political party.

Morehead subsequently set up his law office in Covington, where he died in 1854 at age 57. He was buried at the Frankfort Cemetery.

Collins, Richard H. History of Kentucky. Vol. 1.

Covington, Ky.: Collins, 1882.

“Death of Honorable James T. Morehead,” CJ, December 30, 1854, 2.

“Hon. James T. Morehead Leaves Frankfort and Sets Up Residence in Covington,” LVR, September 9, 1843, 3.

Powell, Robert A. Kentucky Governors. Lexington, Ky.: Kentucky Images, ca. 1989.

MORGAN. Morgan in western Pendleton Co. was known in the early days as Fork Lick, after a long creek that enters the Licking River at that

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point. The settlement was on the west side of the Licking River at the mouth of the creek. There were several stores, a sawmill, a gristmill, a tavern, and a large tannery operated by Thomas L. Garrard and Jonathan Callen. The community had a wellknown racetrack, where local breeders raised fine Kentucky thoroughbreds. Morgan was also once called Stowers Station or Stowersville in honor of Richard Stowers, who lived there and was one of the directors of the Kentucky Central Railroad, which passed through Morgan. One of the oldest houses in this community was built of stone by John Myers. Fork Lick, a large creek originating in Grant Co., empties into the South Licking River at Morgan. The word lick was used to designate a place where salt was available for wild game; several miles up Fork Lick was such a site. In the early days, Tyree Oldham, father of Thomas J. Oldham, leased or purchased the right to bore a well to make salt at the lick. He dug a hole to some depth but later abandoned the project because of a disagreement with a partner. Robert Taylor, from Virginia, purchased the well and a large amount of adjoining land and established a health resort called Gum Lick Springs. It was located near the creek just west of what is now known as the John Denny Rd. Belew, Mildred. The First 200 Years of Pendleton County. Falmouth, Ky.: M. B. Belew, n.d. [ca. 1994].

Mildred Belew

MORGAN, JOHN HUNT. When the Confederate general John Hunt Morgan raided into Kentucky, he gave Northern Kentuckians some of their most suspenseful moments during the Civil War. The great alarm was during his First Kentucky Raid in July 1862, when he struck the Bluegrass and appeared to be marching toward Newport and Covington. By then Morgan, world famous, was moving behind Union lines, where resistance was weak and where he seemed almost invincible.

Morgan was born in Huntsville, Ala., and grew up in Lexington, Ky. He was manufacturing uniforms when the war began. On the Green River in Kentucky and around Nashville, Tenn., his success with irregular warfare thrilled the Southern people, and they identified with him as a chivalrous knight, a cavalier from a romantic novel come to life. Southerners called him “Marion of the War,” for Francis Marion of the Revolutionary War, and he was the model for the Confederate Partisan Ranger Act, authorizing guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. Morgan never intended to be a folk hero, but he stands today as one of the greatest guerrilla commanders in history. Tactics that he employed are used today by special military forces.

He sent scouts in every direction, detached squads to burn railroad bridges, and practiced intelligence preparation of the battlefield by sending companies to threaten strongholds he had no intention of attacking. One of the first to use the telegraph, he confused the enemy with imitative communications deception. George “Lightning” Ellsworth tapped Union telegraph lines and sent messages that lured railroad trains into ambush and made it seem that Morgan’s men were threatening when

626 MORGAN, JOHN HUNT actually they were miles away. The London Times heralded Morgan’s use of the telegraph as one of the first innovations of the war. Morgan’s raids diverted Union forces from the front and caused the Union army to expend a great deal of effort in false alarms. Describing how the raiders traveled light, the Louisville Journal noted: “They carry nothing but their arms, which are first class, and their blankets—no haversacks, or any other encumbrance, and live upon the country through which they pass.”

The First Kentucky Raid The First Kentucky Raid gave citizens of Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati their first significant alarm in the war. The raiders marched to Glasgow in south-central Kentucky, and Morgan published a broadside challenging fellow Kentuckians to rise and join his band. “Strike—for your altars and your fires!” he urged, and when Northern Kentuckians read the challenge in Cincinnati newspapers, they imagined that Kentuckians were responding en masse. From Louisville came word from the Union commander in Kentucky, Gen. Jeremiah T. Boyle, that Morgan was attracting large numbers of recruits and that his force was increasing as he moved into the state. Morgan had a brigade of about 850 men, although Boyle estimated that it had increased to 3,000. He wired Cincinnati mayor George Hatch: “Send artillery to Lexington and as many men as possible by special train without delay.” In reality, Morgan gained fewer than 300 recruits on the expedition. From July 4 to July 28, 1862, the raid continued: the raiders marched from Glasgow into the Bluegrass, captured Cynthiana, and withdrew in victory, totally eluding the Union pursuit force of 3,000 under Gen. Green Clay Smith. They caused so much confusion and disruption that President Abraham Lincoln (1861– 1865) told Gen. Henry Halleck, “They are having a stampede in Kentucky. Please look to it.”

“To Arms!” challenged the Cincinnati Commercial, calling able-bodied men to join the home guards. A telegram from Frankfort, received in Covington on Friday afternoon, July 11, 1862, broke the news that Morgan was at Glasgow and rapidly moving toward Lexington. The news spread rapidly, and mass meetings were scheduled in Newport and Covington for 8:00 p.m. Saturday. A large crowd gathered for the Covington rally, at the Union Armory at Fourth and Greenup Sts. Speakers read the latest telegrams, and 150 men volunteered to take the train to Lexington to fight Morgan. In Newport, at the meeting in the courthouse, about 70 men stepped forward. The volunteers from both cities departed from the Covington depot of the Kentucky Central Railroad the next day.

That Sunday, July 13, 1862, was one of the most exciting days in Covington’s history. In response to General Boyle’s pleading, detachments of armed Union soldiers and home guards converged on Covington to board trains and get to Lexington as soon as possible. A sense of urgency fi lled the air as steamboats brought men over the river from Ohio and Indiana; trains arrived and departed every few hours. First came 280 Union soldiers from Camp

Dennison, northeast of Cincinnati; they crossed the river about midnight and departed on a special train at 2:15 a.m. During the day, a regiment came from Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio, and another arrived from Indiana. The Covington volunteers departed about noon, and the men from Newport left in the evening along with 120 heavily armed Cincinnati policemen and other Union units from Ohio.

Then on Monday, July 14, officials realized that if Morgan bypassed Lexington and Frankfort and came to Northern Kentucky, there was no one to defend the area. New home guards were required immediately. “Attention! Attention! Union People of Newport!” proclaimed a Newport broadside.

“There will be a meeting of all lovers of the Union, at 8 p.m., this [Monday] evening, at the Court House, to orga nize a Home Guard, as all the military companies have gone to Lexington. All friends of the country are requested to be present.”

Men volunteered in Newport, Covington, and Cincinnati, but the tension continued through the week for a total of eight days from the beginning.

Race riots broke out on the riverfront in Cincinnati between African American workers and white stevedores, contributing to the tension. ProConfederate Northern Kentuckians identified with Morgan, and in Covington several families celebrated the raid by inviting their friends to secession meetings in their homes. The Union provost marshal heard about these gatherings and ordered them halted. Newport mayor R. W. Hawkins proclaimed that Newport required “perfect loyalty of her people.”

As the Northern Kentuckians feared, Morgan avoided the forces that Boyle deployed in Lexington and Frankfort and marched northward between the two cities. When the raiders camped at Georgetown on July 16, people imagined that they were advancing toward Covington. The Cincinnati Gazette inquired: “Are the fortifications back of Covington and Newport properly manned?”

The answer was obviously no, and that night at 11:00 p.m. a mounted courier from Independence raced into Covington with the false rumor that Morgan’s entire force was 11 miles south of Independence and therefore only about 30 miles from Covington. The alarm bells rang to call out the home guards, and about 50 guards walked to the armory, where they talked it over and voted to send a rider to Independence to confirm the news before manning the fortifications. Two days later another false report had Morgan steadily moving toward Northern Kentucky. “Another day’s hard riding in this direction,” declared the Cincinnati Commercial, “and there is no adequate force to detain them, and they are at our very doors. We must be fully prepared this day for any emergency.” The next day was Saturday, July 19, and tension overwhelmed Union authorities in Covington. They declared martial law, posted guards at all roads into town, and warned that anyone on the streets after the 9:00 p.m. curfew would be shot.

Most of the Union men who passed through Covington toward the Bluegrass on July 13 helped defend Lexington and Frankfort and experienced

no fighting. But home guards from Newport and Cincinnati and firemen from Cincinnati were among the Union force of 345 that fought the raiders in the first battle of Cynthiana on July 17, 1862.

The Federals fought bravely and Morgan was surprised at their determination. When they surrendered, Morgan paroled them and they returned home along with the other volunteers. Morgan and his men turned southeast from Cynthiana and the raid ended, but the emergency left Union defenders better organized and with strengthened home guards. Covington had experienced martial law, and the crisis prepared citizens for the real threat two months later when, during Bragg’s invasion of Kentucky, Gen. Henry Heth conducted a demonstration in Northern Kentucky with about 8,000 infantry, artillery, and cavalry.

The Great Raid The following July, during Morgan’s Great Raid, manning the defenses south of Newport and Covington was not an issue because Morgan and his raiders, violating commanding general Braxton Bragg’s instructions not to cross the Ohio River, stormed through southeastern Indiana, moved into Ohio, and marched toward Cincinnati’s vulnerable right flank. He had a division of 2,400 men and the threat was not as great as it had been from General Heth, but the three cities prepared for an attack. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, who was in Cincinnati organizing an army to invade East Tennessee, closed all traffic on the river to prevent Morgan’s men from using boats to escape. He and other authorities closed businesses, called out the home guards, and declared martial law in Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport. However, Morgan never intended to attack Cincinnati. He conducted an all-night march around the city to the north on July 13, 1863, but Union cavalry under Gen. Edward Hobson and Gen. Henry Judah overtook him in Meigs Co. In the battle of Buffi ngton Island in the Ohio River, near Pomeroy, Ohio, the Union cavalry captured 700 of his men, including Basil Duke, Morgan’s second-in-command, and Thomas Major, and killed and wounded more than 100.

Morgan withdrew with most of his men and continued the raid for another week.

The Confederate soldiers captured at Buffington Island were loaded onto three steamboats and transported down the Ohio River to Cincinnati.

They arrived on the morning of Thursday, July 23, four days after their capture, and the steamboats anchored in the middle of the river between Newport and Cincinnati while preparations were made for guarding the prisoners. Word spread through Newport, Covington, and Cincinnati that the famous raiders had come, and people rushed to the river to see them. They gathered along the landings and on the wharves and stood on rooftops and balconies. It was probably the largest crowd on the river until recent times. As people watched, the prisoners were unloaded and taken through the city to the train station, from which they were transported to prison camps.

On July 26 Morgan and the remainder of his command were captured near West Point, Ohio.

MORGAN HIGH SCHOOL

Afterward, Morgan and 67 of his officers captured during the raid were incarcerated in the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. They tunneled for weeks with improvised tools, and on November 27, Morgan and six of his men escaped. Morgan and Capt. Thomas Hines took the night train to Cincinnati. Early the next morning, they jumped off north of Cincinnati, walked to the river, and hired a boy with a skiff to take them to the first stop on the Southern underground railroad, the home of Helen Ludlow (the wife of Israel Ludlow) in Ludlow, Ky. She gave them breakfast and supplied them with horses and $60 in gold. From Ludlow, Morgan and Hines cut across northern Kenton Co., stopping at the Thomas and Cleveland homes before meeting up with Benjamin F. McGlasson at the home of Francis S. Tupman, located along Dry Creek south of the Anderson Ferry. At Tupman’s house, they were given fresh horses and led into northern Boone Co., where they followed Zig Zag Rd. down Gunpowder Creek to Pleasant Valley Rd. (Ky. Rt. 237). They went to Dr. John Dulaney’s house on Pleasant Valley Rd., and Dulaney led them through Sugartit (see Gunpowder [Sugartit]) and then south on the Florence Turnpike (U.S. 42) to the home of Daniel Piatt. The Piatt-Fowler house is one of the best-known stone houses in the county. It still commands a sweeping view of the land along U.S. 42 in Union. From the Piatt house, Morgan and Hines were conducted along Clarkston Ln. and Hathaway Rd. (Ky. Rt. 536) to the home of Henry Corbin on Big Bone Rd. They reached Corbin’s house at 10:00 p.m. and rested for the night.

The news of Morgan’s trip through Boone Co. spread quickly, and the following morning many members of the Big Bone Baptist Church came to pay their respects. Morgan and Hines accepted fresh horses and visited with the congregation for a time before continuing their journey south along Gum Branch Rd. past the church. Although this road is now closed, the Civil War–era roadbed is clearly visible next to the parking area at the Adair Wildlife Management Area. With Henry Corbin’s son Perry as a guide, the men passed Big Bone Lick and continued south along Bender Rd. They crossed Mud Lick Creek and followed Big Bone Creek to Big South Fork, making their final Boone Co. stop at the Richardson house on South Fork Church Rd. Morgan and Hines passed into Gallatin Co. late on Sunday, November 28, less than 40 hours after their daring escape from the penitentiary in Columbus. With the aid of a network of Confederate sympathizers, Morgan and Hines traveled all the way through Kentucky to Tennessee. The Great Raid served to boost Southern morale and delayed Burnside’s advance for one month.

The Last Kentucky Raid Assigned to southwestern Virginia and with 2,000 men, Morgan led the Last Kentucky Raid in June 1864. He captured Lexington on June 10, and on that day a false alarm in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati reported that the raiders were fifteen miles from Covington and riding hard for the city.

Union soldiers and home guards manned the defenses, but the alarm was nothing compared to two years before. Morgan captured Cynthiana and returned south. He was killed on September 4, 1864, in Greeneville, Tenn., and ultimately was buried at the Lexington Cemetery.

CC, July 14, 17, 18, 1862.

CDG, July 16, 1862.

Duke, Basil W. A History of Morgan’s Cavalry. 1867.

Reprint, West Jefferson, Ohio: Genesis, 1997.

Ferguson, Bruce. “The Story of John Hunt Morgan Presented by Bruce Ferguson,” presented to the Boone Co. Historical Society, March 21, 2002. Videotape available at the Boone Co. Public Library, Burlington, Ky. Holland, Cecil F. Morgan and His Raiders: A Biography of the Confederate General. New York: Macmillan, 1943.

Horwitz, Lester V. The Longest Raid of the Civil War: Little-Known Stories of Morgan’s Raid into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. Cincinnati: Farmcourt, 1999.

Houchens, Mariam Sidebottom. History of Owen County: “Sweet Owen.” Louisville, Ky.: Standard, 1976.

Louisville Journal, October 22, 1862.

Ramage, James A. Rebel Raider: The Life of General John Hunt Morgan. Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1986; 2nd ed., 1995.

James A. Ramage and Matthew E. Becher

MORGAN ACADEMY. The Morgan Academy in Burlington was a private school established in 1814 by the sale of seminary lands set aside by the government of Kentucky. It opened as Boone Academy and operated under that name from 1814 to 1832, then as Burlington Academy (1833–1841), and finally as Morgan Academy (1842–1897). Instructors Thomas Campbell, Dr. B. W. Chamblin, Willie Gaines, and Lovette Whitehead were among the school’s leaders.

By 1842 the new name, Morgan Academy, had been cut in stone and etched in gold leaf on the front of the academy’s building. Boone Co. resident Allen Morgan had died without a will or heirs, and Kentucky law said that such estates were to be donated for educational purposes; therefore, Boone Academy inherited Morgan’s estate and adopted his name.

A partial honor roll list dated October 29, 1886, named Annie Cowen, Harry Fisk, and Katie Huey as high achievers, having marks in the 90th percentile. Tuition was $1.50 per month for primary students, $2.50 for intermediate students, and $4.00 for those attending high school. Students who boarded at the school were charged an additional $2.50 to $3.50 per week. A few of the Boone Co. leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries who attended Morgan Academy were J. W. Calvert, Dr. Otto Crisler, J. W. and Fountain Riddell, and Dr. Elijah Ryle.

In the final years of the academy, Professor Henry Newton was both teacher and principal.

Newton was said to resemble John Wilkes Booth, was very closed-mouth as to his personal life, and limped on his disabled foot.

Morgan Academy closed its doors in 1897. The school building was demolished many years ago.

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Boone County Recorder, August 27, 1878, 3; August 18, 1886, 3.

Conrad, William. Yesterdays. A project of the Kentucky 200th Anniversary, Judy Clabes, ed. Fort Mitchell, Ky.: Picture This! Books, 1992.

County history fi les, Boone Co. Public Library, Burlington, Ky. Kentucky Death Certificate No. 18053, for the year 1924.

“Old Burlington Cemetery Contains Remains of Many Prominent People,” Boone County Recorder, July 7, 1955, 7.

Russ, Gina. “Morgan Academy—Burlington’s Earliest,” NKH 16, no. 1 (Fall–Winter 2008): 39–45.

Jannes W. Garbett

MORGAN HIGH SCHOOL. By 1909, Pendleton Co. had three independent high schools, one of which was the Morgan Graded and High School.

This institution’s first schoolhouse was a multistory brick structure located near the banks of the Licking River. In 1920, Morgan High School’s first graduating class consisted of Kate Hand Douglas and Minerva Rigg. Between 1920 and 1928, the 12th grade was not offered at the school; to finish high school, students completed their senior year elsewhere, typically at Falmouth High School or Butler High School. When Charles S. Brown began serving as principal at Morgan High School, in 1928 or 1929, he reinstated the final year of the high school curriculum. As a result, in spring 1929 diplomas were awarded to four students. During this same year, the school added a gymnasium.

Morgan High School joined the Pendleton Co. Public Schools and began using buses for transportation in 1930. In 1939, a new brick building was added for the high school, providing additional classrooms for the lower grades in the original structure. Also in 1939, the school added a lunchroom, a very modern convenience for a rural school at the time. An old church building near the campus was secured in 1947 and converted into a home economics facility.

In 1941 Morgan High School graduated its largest class, totaling 31 students. By the time its last class graduated in 1959, an estimated 600 students claimed the Morgan High School as their alma mater. The school’s colors were royal blue and gold, its mascot was the Raiders (a pirate head was the symbol), and the school newspaper was The Sky Rocket (printed from 1940 to 1959). The freshman basketball team was known as the Morgan Midgets. The Morgan High School yearbook, The Morganeer, was published for the last 10 years the high school operated and included information on all grades, 1 through 12.

Morgan High School ceased to exist at the close of the 1958–1959 school year, and the Pendleton Co. Board of Education consolidated the upper grades from Butler and Morgan high schools into the newly constructed Pendleton Co. Memorial High School in fall 1959.

At least 11 principals served Morgan High school. The high school’s alumni reside in 18 states and a few live in foreign nations. Seventy-five or more of the high school’s graduates served in the

628 MORNING VIEW armed forces during World War II. Included among the more distinguished graduates is Kenny Price, who was a popu lar recording artist and star on the television program Hee Haw until he died in 1987. An alumni organization was formed in 1935. After several dormant years, a more active alumni organization was formed in 1951 and continues to meet semiannually.

From fall 1959 until the early 1970s, the high school’s building served as one of the county’s primary schools, housing grades one through eight.

For many years afterward, the building served as a recreation center, including a gym for church league basketball and a roller skating rink. Today, the building is privately owned.

Belew, Mildred Bowen. “History of Pendleton County Schools.” www.rootsweb.com/~kypendle/school history.htm (accessed September 30, 2006).

Dennie, Debbie, and Patty Jenkins, comps. Forks of the Licking, Bicentennial Edition, 1798–1998.

Falmouth, Ky.: Falmouth Outlook, 1998.

Morris, Linda S. Thornton, ed. The Pendleton Echo, 1960. Falmouth, Ky.: Pendleton High School, 1960.

Wilson, Lois. Interview by Aprile Conrad Redden, September 20, 2006, Falmouth, Ky. Wolfe, Ronald Glenn, ed. The Morganeer, 1958– 1959. Morgan, Ky.: Morgan High School, 1959.

Michael D. Redden and Aprile Conrad Redden

MORNING VIEW. Morning View is an unincorporated community located in the Licking River valley in Kenton Co.’s southeastern corner.

Before the Covington and Lexington Railroad arrived in 1853, the Licking River and the American Indian trail that followed it served as the main transportation arteries for this area, which had been primarily a farming community. The area comprising Morning View was called Mullins Station for a time after the railroad arrived. The establishment of a post office in 1855 officially changed the community’s name to Morning View. Tradition has it that the name Morning View came from a passenger on a morning train who enjoyed the valley’s scenery. George H. Mullins, a prominent Morning View resident during the early period, lent his name to the train station. The Mullins family also operated a hotel and saloon, established a local school, and donated land for a train depot.

When Mullins’s hotel burned down in 1883, the town rallied to support the family by staging a festival to raise funds for reconstruction. By the mid1870s, Morning View was a bustling railroad stop with a population of about 75. Morning View’s farmers shipped grain, hay, livestock, and tobacco.

The railroad provided more than just convenient shipping for Morning View’s farm products; it also allowed affluent businessmen to reside in the country and commute to their jobs in Covington and Cincinnati. James Threlkeld was one of the commuters. A native of Flemingsburg, Threlkeld was a prosperous and well-connected Cincinnati merchant who moved to Morning View during the late 1860s. His brother-in law Richard M. Bishop was mayor of Cincinnati during the early 1860s and governor of Ohio during the late 1870s. In 1870

Threlkeld’s real estate holdings, which included a 600-acre farm in Morning View, were valued at $21,000. Upon his death in 1877, a correspondent of Covington’s Daily Commonwealth credited the civic-minded Threlkeld for much of Morning View’s prosperity and noted that the town “could not have had so great a loss in any other person.”

Two of Morning View’s most enduring institutions are churches, St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church and Morning View United Methodist Church. Located on Decoursey Pk., St. Mary’s was built in 1869 to serve the needs of German Catholic railroad workers. The parish also operates a school. The congregation that became the Morning View United Methodist Church first met in the Mullins School. In 1887 the church acquired property and constructed a one-room frame church building. The present church building was dedicated in 1974.

Morning View’s rural setting has made it a center for outdoor recreation in Northern Kentucky.

During the 1880s, Threlkeld’s Grove was a popu lar site for picnic excursions. For several years, Morning View was a hub of area Boy Scout activity.

Camp Hatfield, located near Brady’s Lake in Morning View, hosted several scout gatherings during the 1920s. The camp was named for local Boy Scout leader Capt. J. T. Hatfield. In 1929 the Northern Kentucky area Boy Scouts established a new campground in Morning View. Named after a Covington grocer who donated land for the site, Camp George W. Hill comprised 40 acres.

Southeastern Kenton Co., including Morning View, retains its rural atmosphere. But, though housing subdivisions and strip malls have yet to encroach upon the area, the major redesigns of Ky. Rts. 17 and 536 in central and southern Kenton Co. portend a level of development in Morning View unseen since the railroad first arrived.

of Chicago, defeating the Democrat William Jones.

He served two years as mayor, 1838 and 1839. His work as mayor was hindered by the economic effects of the panic of 1837 and a poor real estate market. In 1851 he was elected to a judgeship in the Illinois circuit court. In 1860 he was a candidate for governor of Illinois. During the Civil War, because of his Southern leanings, he was generally thought to be a copperhead (a Northern resident with Southern sympathies). In the early days of Chicago, Morris had invested well in real estate, and though not fabulously rich, he lived comfortably throughout his last years. He married three times; his first two wives preceded him in death.

Morris was a Roman Catholic. He died in 1879 in Chicago and was buried in the Chicago area’s largest cemetery, Rosehill.

Politicalgraveyard.com. “Buckner Stith Morris.” www .politcalgraveyard.com (accessed June 25, 2007).

Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice L. Reife, eds. The Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004.

MOSER, MARY (b. March 17, 1897, Covington, Ky.; d. December 28, 1987, Covington, Ky.). Mary Moser, a social worker, was born Mary Catherine Macke, the daughter of Frank J. and Julia Walsh Macke. She grew up in Covington, attending St. Mary Grade School and La Salette Academy. Mary married Ralph E. Moser upon his return from World War I, and they had four daughters; Ralph started the first unemployment agency in Northern Kentucky. The family moved to Idaho Ave. in Fort Mitchell. Ralph died prematurely in 1935, leaving Mary to support the family, and she went to work for the Kenton Co. Welfare Department as a social worker when that profession was still in its infancy. In 1948 Mary Moser became one of the founders of Catholic Social Ser-

An Atlas of Boone, Kenton, and Campbell Counties, Kentucky. Philadelphia: D. J. Lake, 1883.

“Camp Is Ready,” KP, June 22, 1929, 1.

“Morning View,” DC, November 29, 1877, 2.

Morning View United Methodist Church. www .mvumc.faithweb.com (accessed April 8, 2006).

Greg Perkins

MORRIS, BUCKNER STITH (b. August 19, 1800, Augusta, Ky.; d. December 16, 1879, Chicago, Ill.). Buckner Stith Morris was the son of Dickinson and Frances Buckner Morris. His father was the county surveyor in Pendleton Co., and his maternal grandfather laid out the town of Augusta.

Buckner was educated at home and worked on a farm as a youth, where he also hunted small game.

In 1824 he began to study law and in 1827 opened a law practice in Augusta. He was elected to the Kentucky legislature at age 29 and served two terms.

Politically, he was a conservative Whig. In 1832 he married Evilina Barker of Mason Co., and in 1834 he left Kentucky on horseback for Chicago. When he set up his law practice in Chicago, there were only 37 homes in the city. He participated in the incorporation of Chicago in 1837, and on March 6, 1838, as a Whig, he was elected the second mayor

Mary Moser.

MOTCH JEWELERS

vices in Northern Kentucky (see Catholic Charities), the social ser vices delivery arm of the Diocese of Covington (see Roman Catholics). She worked tirelessly helping people and families in need, and over the course of her employment arranged for more than 300 children to be placed in adoptive homes. In 1980 Moser was honored for her years of effort by being chosen the national social worker of the year at a convention in Rochester, N.Y. At age 90 she continued to visit “her old people” in nursing homes in the region. Mary Moser died in 1987 at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Covington and was buried at St. Mary Cemetery in Fort Mitchell.

“Dedication Marked Mary C. Macke Moser,” KP, December 30, 1987, 1.

Ott, James. A Brief History of the Diocese of Covington. Strasbourg, France: Editions du Signe, 2002.

Tenkotte, Paul A., Thomas S. Ward, and David E. Schroeder. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Anne Moser Flannery

MOSGROVE, GEORGE DALLAS (b. August 18, 1844, Lousiville, Ky.; d. February 21, 1907, Carroll Co., Ky.). Writer George Dallas Mosgrove was the son of William and Elizabeth Mosgrove. Where he was educated is not known, but it is obvious from the style of his famous work Kentucky Cavaliers in Dixie that he learned how to write well. He enlisted in the 4th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment CSA (Confederate States of America) on September 2, 1862, at New Liberty in Owen Co. and remained a private throughout his time of ser vice. He was assigned as a clerk to the regimental, and later the brigade, headquarters, where he was a copyist and a messenger. He had the opportunity to meet and work with many famous participants in the Civil War, such as John C. Breckinridge, John Hunt Morgan, Humphrey Marshall, Basil Duke, and Jubal Early. As the events of the war transpired, he had the presence of mind to record them, and it resulted in his book Kentucky Cavaliers in Dixie (1895). This work presents short biographies of many of the members of the 4th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment. It is far more than the standard regimental histories that were published after the Civil War. When the war ended, Mosgrove moved to Carroll Co., where he taught in a one-room school at Locust Grove near Carrollton. He wrote many articles for various local and national publications. One morning in 1907, he was found dead along the road from Carrollton to Locust Grove, having apparently died of heart failure. His gravestone at the International Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery in Carrollton notes his allegiance to the South. His famous work continues to be reprinted because of its value as a primary historical source.

Mosher, a Confederate activist and a wood carver, was the daughter of Thornton and Julia A. Keene Perry. She became deaf at age 20, having contracted meningitis after attending a ball at the Newport Barracks. Shortly after her marriage to William Webster Mosher, whose family owned the Latonia Springs Hotel in Latonia, she moved to Covington. William Mosher died in 1897.

Kate Mosher was a Southern sympathizer during the Civil War. She was known to render aid to Southerners who passed through Covington. She also helped some 50 prisoners escape from the Rock Island Arsenal, a prison in Illinois near the Mississippi River for captured Southern soldiers. She entered the prison allegedly to visit a prisoner and later used information gathered during her visit to effect the Confederate prisoners’ escape. After the fighting ended, she assisted homeless persons in Northern Kentucky who were victims of the war.

As a clubwoman, Mosher was a charter member of the Covington Art Club. She organized the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Kentucky and started the organization’s Henrietta Hunt Morgan chapter in Newport and its Basil Duke chapter in Fort Thomas.

As an artist, she was a student of famed Cincinnati wood carver Benn Pitman. Mosher’s carved furniture was exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 and at the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. A member of Trinity Episcopal Church in Covington, she oversaw and contributed to the wood carving done on its altar and in the chapel during the 1890s.

Mosher died in 1926 at the home of a relative on Madison Ave. in Covington and was buried in the Mosher family lot at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati.

Kentucky Death Certificate No. 10669, for the year 1926.

“Mrs. Kate Mosher Called by Death,” KP, April 6, 1926, 1.

Mosgrove, George Dallas. Kentucky Cavaliers in Dixie. Ed. Bell Irvin Wiley. 1895. Reprint, Wilmington, N.C.: Bradford, 1987.

MOSHER, KATE E. P. (b. July 11, 1836, Warsaw, Ky.; d. April 5, 1926, Covington, Ky.). Kate E. Perry

Motch Jewelers, ca. 1905.

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Roth, George F., Jr. The Story of Trinity Episcopal Church in Covington. Covington, Ky.: Trinity Episcopal Church, 1991.

Spring Grove Cemetery Records, Cincinnati.

MOTCH JEWELERS. In 1857 Michael C. Motch, a watchmaker and jeweler from Cincinnati, opened the Motch Jewelry Store in Covington (see Covington, Downtown). The store advertised its expertise in watch and jewelry repair as well as the best prices and selection available for clocks, new jewelry, and fancy articles. Motch’s watch, jewelry repair, and restoration business thrives today, and complete appraisal ser vices have been added. The enterprise continues to be family owned and operated. It is the oldest jewelry store in the Midwest, having been at its current location, 613 Madison Ave., since 1871. The original display cases are in the store, as is a 10-foot-tall George Jones regulator clock. A street clock from Boston’s E. Howard & Company stands on the sidewalk in front of the store and is a Covington landmark.

Motch’s displays watches, eyeglasses, and letter openers that were samples 100 years ago.

The first store was located at 512 Madison Ave. Success enabled Motch to retain Cincinnati architect James W. McLaughlin to design a new jewelry store building. In September 1871, the business moved across the street into the new structure. Advertisements for the Grand Opening acclaimed the building as a work of art and encouraged citizens to visit just to see the “adornments.” Upon his death in 1900, Motch was said to be one of Covington’s wealthiest residents.

Covington City Directory, 1869.

“Dropped Dead,” CE, January 2, 1900, 5.

Kenton Co. Death Records, for the year 1900, Kenton Co. Public Library, Covington, Ky. “M. C. Motchs New Store Opened,” CJ, September 23, 1871, 3.

“Motch Jewelers.” www.motchjewelers.com/ (accessed August 17, 2007).

630 MOTHER OF GOD CATHOLIC CHURCH Nelson, Kristi. “Business Is Good—and LongLasting,” KE, November 8, 1996, B1C.

Jeanne Greiser

MOTHER OF GOD CATHOLIC CHURCH. Established in 1841 for German-speaking Catholics of St. Mary Church (now the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption), the architectural and artistic masterpiece Mother of God Church in Covington holds the distinction of being the “mother parish” of German-speaking Catholic “daughter parishes” throughout Northern Kentucky. In addition, its early brother-pastors William (1848– 1907) and Henry (1855–1929) Tappert promoted German American Catholicism in the United States outside of Kentucky. For instance, William Tappert was one of the incorporators of Leo House in New York City (1888), which offered temporary overnight accommodations, the Sacraments, and assistance to German-Catholic immigrants arriving at New York harbor.

The present church edifice, dedicated in 1871, is considered one of the premier examples of Italian Renaissance Revival architecture in America.

Designed by the noted Cincinnati architectural firm of Walter and Stewart, it was the tallest structure in Covington until the building of skyscrapers in the late 20th century. It is distinguished as a landmark by its 150-foot dome and its twin 200-foot bell towers, long used by steamboat pilots as a guide point in their navigation along the Ohio River. The church’s interior is embellished by a secco paintings on the ceiling and the sanctuary walls, mainly by the German American artist Wenceslaus Th ien (1838–1912). Five large murals by the renowned German American artist Johann Schmitt (1825–1898) depict the five Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. Thien’s symbolic depictions of the five Sorrowful Mysteries wrap around the apse of the sanctuary, and his fi nely

Mother of God Catholic Church.

rendered symbols of the Glorious Mysteries flank the main reredos altar and crucifi xion scene. The altars, the communion rail, and the furnishings of the sanctuary are of hand-carved oak. The statues of the altar’s crucifi xion scene, imported from Germany, are of hand-carved wood covered by gesso (a thin layer of plaster). The outstanding stained-glass windows were, for the most part, executed by the Munich firm of Mayer and Company. The Stations of the Cross were the work of the Swiss artist Paul Deschwanden. The organ, by the Cincinnati firm of Koehnken and Grimm, was built in 1876. In recognition of the outstanding architecture of Mother of God Church, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Mother of God’s school building, designed by the famous Cincinnati architectural firm of Samuel Hannaford and Sons and dedicated in 1906, was perhaps the finest parochial school edifice in the Diocese of Covington. The building included 10 classrooms, a teachers’ conference room, an auditorium seating 900 (with a gallery and four boxes), a music recital hall, a gymnasium, club rooms for Catholic men and women of the city, a reading room, a billiard room, a kitchen, and shower and tub rooms. At the time of its dedication, the school enrolled about 565 students. When the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra visited Covington, it regularly played in the school’s acoustically perfect auditorium. By the early 20th century, the school had lost enrollment as families left the downtown area and moved to other neighborhoods of Covington, as well as to outlying suburbs. In absolute numbers, the parish reached its peak about 1915, with 4,000 members.

From about 1950 until the 1970s, Mother of God was an inner-city, downtown congregation facing the twin crises of urban renewal and suburban flight. By 1950 the parish had declined to a membership of 1,400, and its school enrolled a mere 112 students. The decrease in the parish’s elementary school enrollment actually proved beneficial to other educational institutions, as parts of the mammoth school building were utilized as an “incubator.”

Covington Catholic High School (for young men) was housed in the building from 1925 until January 1955, and from September 1957 until June 1967, Villa Madonna College (now Thomas More College) leased space for its science laboratories. A Braille Classroom of the Society for Visually Handicapped Children (see Blind and Visually Impaired) was opened in the school in 1958. Mother of God School closed at the end of the 1961–1962 academic year, and its children attended neighboring St. Aloysius School. The closing of Mother of God School enabled Good Counsel School (see Riverside–Good Counsel School) to occupy the building from September 1962 until June 1971.

In June 1966 Bishop Richard Ackerman asked Msgr. Edward T. Hickey, chancellor of the diocese, to become pastor. At that time the parish had more than 600 active households. Urban renewal, suburban migration, and an aging urban core quickly took their toll, and by 1969 the parish had declined to about 350 active households (537 parishioners),

many of whom were senior citizens, widows, widowers, or single. Only 30 traditional family units with children remained. The parish council hired Community Action Associates of Pittsburgh, Pa., in late 1969 to study the future of the parish. As a result of that study and the members’ resiliency, the parish determined to remain open and to replace the church’s furnace and leaking roof, carry out other necessary repairs and renovations, demolish the school building for additional parking, and construct a parish hall in the undercroft of the church. Rev. William Mertes (1921–2003) (administrator 1971 and pastor 1971–1981) oversaw construction of the parish hall, which was designed by the architectural firm of Robert Ehmet Hayes and Associates of Fort Mitchell. The nearly $75,000 construction project was completed by Martin Zalla of Building Crafts Inc. of Newport. The demolition of the school followed in 1974, with the construction of a parking lot in its place.

In 1974 Mertes became instrumental in sparking a neighborhood restoration movement, when he and 12 other “urban pioneers” formed the Covington Avenue Property Partnership. This group originally rehabilitated nine homes on Covington Ave. and has since sponsored more restoration projects, as well as construction of new in-fi ll housing in the neighborhood. The area is now appropriately listed in the National Register of Historic Places as Mutter Gottes (German for “Mother of God”) National Historic District.

In 1981 Rev. Ralph Hartman, formerly director of Campbell Lodge, became pastor of Mother of God Church. Hartman’s indefatigable labors on behalf of Mother of God saw the parish through three difficult crises. First, on May 16, 1985, lightning struck nearby St. Aloysius Church at W. Seventh and Bakewell Sts., and the resultant fire destroyed the historic building and its famous grotto. The diocese subsequently (January 1, 1986) merged that parish with Mother of God. Second, on March 10, 1986, a “micro blast” of tornadic winds (see Tornadoes) struck Covington. As Mother of God Church was undergoing repairs necessitated by the storm, the third crisis occurred. On the evening of September 25, 1986, workmen accidentally set the church dome afire. The fire caused extensive damage to the dome, as well as smoke and water damage to the historic interior. A subsequent $1.5 million restoration, overseen by Hartman and parishioners Victor Canfield and Paul Tenkotte, faithfully recovered the church’s former historic appearance.

Bruce Goetzman, a well-known restoration architect and professor at the University of Cincinnati, was hired, and Martin Zalla of Building Crafts Inc. of Newport served as general contractor. The lantern of the dome was rebuilt to the exact specifications of the old. Canvas paintings were carefully consolidated, cleaned, and restored. The plaster capitals of damaged columns and pilasters were remolded to exact specifications and covered with gold leaf. The repainted sky scene in the dome was painstakingly matched to surviving plaster pieces.

The entire process of restoration was professionally photographed and documented. The Miami Purchase Association for Historic Preservation of Cin-

MOUND BUILDERS

cinnati recognized the restoration in a 1987 annual awards ceremony. The restoration received national acclaim at the 42nd Annual Conference of the National Trust for Historic Preservation (Cincinnati, 1988) and at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians (Cincinnati, 1991).

In 1991 Rev. Raymond Holtz (1932–2003) became pastor, just as the parish was marking its sesquicentennial. In the following year, the church installed a lift for disabled persons. Then the parish commissioned Goetzman to design a new educational and meeting facility, the St. Aloysius Center, which was dedicated in 1995.

Long recognized for its generous commitment to social concerns, Mother of God Church expanded these efforts during the leadership of many pastors. In 1931 Bishop Francis W. Howard appointed Rev. Edward Klosterman (1884–1961) (pastor 1930–1961) as chairman of the diocese’s Charity Association, the predecessor of the Catholic Charities. Klosterman’s charitable work during the Great Depression, the flood of 1937, and World War II was legendary in Northern Kentucky. He was instrumental in the founding of the Kenton Co. Relief Committee in 1931 and served as its first chairman. He was a member of the board of directors of the Kenton Co. chapter of the American Red Cross, a strong supporter and advisory board member of St. Elizabeth Hospital (see St. Elizabeth Medical Center), and influential in the founding of both the Kenton Co. Tuberculosis Sanatorium and the Carmel Manor Nursing Home (see Nursing Homes and Retirement Housing). In 1946 Klosterman was involved in establishing the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s Salvage Bureau, originally located on Greenup St.; it later moved to 241–243 Pike St. The store, managed by Mother of God parishioner Andrew Lonneman, sold used clothing and furniture at reasonable prices to the poor. In the same year, Bishop William Mulloy announced the establishment of a central office of the Bureau of Catholic Charities in the St. Vincent de Paul building. Klosterman continued as director, while the daily operations of the bureau were placed in the capable hands of Mrs. Mary Moser. Succeeding Klosterman as director of Catholic Charities was Msgr. John A. Bankemper (1888–1972), appointed to this post by Bishop Mulloy in 1960. In the following year, Bankemper became pastor at Mother of God Church. Mertes was appointed director of the Catholic Social Service Bureau following his term as pastor.

In 1974 Mertes and parish leaders founded the Parish Kitchen to feed the poor of the area. The kitchen was housed in a building at the southeast corner of Pike and Russell Sts. In 1976 parishioners expanded the operations to include an emergency food shelter to dispense groceries to the poor.

Mertes began an intensive campaign in 1977 seeking grants to establish a home for abused women, later named Welcome House and officially opened in 1982. In 1980 the parish purchased and renovated a one-story building at 531 Russell St. Subsequently a not-for-profit corporation, 531 Building Inc., whose purpose was “to encourage sobriety . . . and carry out the ideals and objectives

of Alcoholics Anonymous” (see Substance Abuse Treatment), leased the building from the parish as a meeting hall.

Mother of God Church has long excelled in the liturgical arts. From the 1840s until the 1870s, B. H. F. Hellebusch (1825–1885) was the organist and a teacher at Mother of God. Hellebusch, through multiple editions of his best-selling German American hymnal Gesang und Gebet Buch, popularized many German songs in America, including “O Come Little Children,” “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name,” and “Hail Holy Queen Enthroned Above.”

From 1895 until 1955, Professor Edward Strubel (1875–1964) was organist. Born in Bavaria in 1875, he studied at the musical conservatories in Speyer and Würzburg, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in 1894. As a composer of secular and religious works, he was perhaps best known for his composition “When Evening Shadows Fall.” Mother of God’s Choral Club, which may have been the first diocesan choir to feature both male and female voices, was founded in 1938. For many years, it was under the direction of Leo J. Grote. In 1941 it began its highly successful Lenten meditation the “Seven Last Words of Christ,” by Theodore Dubois. In 1949 it earned the grand prize at a three-state music festival at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., qualifying it to sing at the Chicagoland Music Festival at Soldiers’ Field. There, it placed third in national competition.

Today Mother of God parish continues its commitment to historic preservation with its National Register church, to fine music with its Choral Club and its Folk Ensemble, and to community ser vice in the inner city. The congregation numbers about 1,900 people, drawn from throughout the Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati metropolitan region.

Ryan, Paul E. History of the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky. Covington, Ky.: Diocese of Covington, 1954.

Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Paul A. Tenkotte

MOTHER OF GOD CEMETERY. The Mother of God Catholic Church in Covington established the current Mother of God Cemetery. The Buena Vista Cemetery (also known as Mother of God Cemetery or as St. Joseph’s Cemetery) was the first cemetery for Covington’s Catholics. Located on E. 26th St in Covington, the Mother of God Cemetery began interments in 1849. Since the Diocese of Covington (see Roman Catholics) was not organized until 1853, Bishop John Purcell of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati signed the deed to purchase the Buena Vista Cemetery property. Organized for the Mother of God Church, the Buena Vista Cemetery soon accepted burials from other Catholic churches The St. John Cemetery on the Dixie Highway (U.S. 25) in Fort Mitchell did not open until 1867. By the 1880s, the Buena Vista Cemetery had reached its capacity.

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On November 2, 1887, parishioners of the Mother of God Church organized the Mother of God Cemetery Association of German Catholics.

As their first task, they purchased land near the intersection of Madison Pk. and Latonia Ave. in Latonia and laid out the new cemetery, designed in the rural style. Burials, which began almost immediately, were on lots organized along winding lanes.

After the closure of the Buena Vista Cemetery, many families paid to have their family members’ graves moved to the new Mother of God Cemetery.

In 1902 the Diocese of Covington organized the transfer of the burials of local priests, including Ferdinand Kuhr, who organized the Mother of God Church in 1841. They were moved into the new cemetery in October of 1902.

The cemetery lies on a gently rolling terrace of the Licking River. Narrow roads wind through the cemetery, creating interesting perspectives and focal points. A beautiful Crucifi xion scene sculpted

by Clement Barnhorn and dedicated on November 1, 1915, provides one focal point in the cemetery; another is the grave of famed Covington artist Frank Duveneck. Noted local artist Johann Schmitt also rests there.

During the first half of the 20th century, as the Buena Vista Cemetery fell into disrepair, more graves were moved to the new Mother of God Cemetery. A final effort was made in 1960 to move any remaining graves. The Mother of God Church leased the land on E. 26th St. to the City of Covington for use as a boys’ club. A few unclaimed grave markers were gathered and placed inside a small fenced area but have since been removed.

The Mother of God Cemetery has remained in private ownership under the direction of a board of trustees. It has become a regional Roman Catholic cemetery. Originally, trustees were chosen from among the German-speaking Catholic parishes in Covington, but now they are selected from across Northern Kentucky. The Diocese of Covington established the Cemetery Office in the 1960s; however, the Mother of God Cemetery remained independent. Today, the cemetery includes both aboveground and inground mausoleum and crematorium facilities and has maintained its peaceful, rustic character.

Cemeteries fi le, local history fi les, Kenton Co. Public Library, Covington, Ky. “New Monument Will Soon Be Erected—Clement Barnhorn Will Design a Crucifi xion Monument,” KP, March 21, 1911, 3.

Reis, Jim. “Cemeteries,” KP, April 21, 1986, 4K. “Removing Bones from Old to New Cemetery,” KTS, October 27, 1902, 3.

“Seeks to Move Body,” KP, February 6, 1932, 1.

Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Jeannine Kreinbrink

MOUND BUILDERS. Many researchers have referred to the creators of above-ground earthworks in the Ohio River Valley as Mound Builders.

This is a collective term used in the past for the

632 MOUNTAIN ISLAND builders of all the different burial mounds, ceremonial mounds, and nonburial earthworks found in the region. The above-ground mounds were built by at least four different cultures or traditions.

The Adena Culture of American Indians built the earliest mounds and earthworks during the period of roughly 500 b.c.–a.d. 200. These were conical burial mounds, and many of them are found in Boone Co. Other earthworks attributed to the Adena people are circular, nonburial earthworks.

None of these have been documented in Northern Kentucky, although some are known from locations in southwest Ohio and Central Kentucky.

The Hopewell tribes, which were centered in central Ohio and extended into southwest Ohio in the Cincinnati area, built many geometric earthworks that were used for ceremonial purposes.

Other above-ground features included burial mounds and hilltop enclosures such as Fort Ancient in Warren Co., Ohio. Little evidence for the well-known Hopewell ceremonial earthworks exists in Northern Kentucky. Only a few such sites have been documented in all the 11 Northern Kentucky counties, and these include Hopewellian diagnostic artifacts such as bladelets. Only one is a mound that has been characterized as belonging to the Middle Woodland Period (ca. 200 b.c.–a.d. 500); the others are represented by diagnostic artifacts found at open sites such as artifact scatters in agricultural fields.

In the early Late Woodland period (a.d. 500– ca. 700), the American Indians of Northern Kentucky lived in small villages and buried their dead in low mounds that were often covered with limestone. These mounds are found in two types of situations. Some are adjacent to village sites, and other stone-covered mounds are found high on narrow ridgetops, often overlooking permanent streams.

Sites such as the Rogers burial site in Boone Co. are typical of this time period. The Rogers site includes two adjacent villages and one burial mound next to one of the villages. Stone mounds have been documented in Boone, Bracken, Mason, and Owen counties in Northern Kentucky. Since these counties are not contiguous with one another, it is likely that stone mounds exist in other counties but have not been reported as being stone-covered mounds owing to lack of excavation. The Rogers burial mound was covered with limestone but had a layer of soil above the stone, obscuring the stone until excavation.

Mound Builders seem to have ceased their activities for several centuries during the latter part of the Late Woodland period (after about a.d.

700). The Fort Ancient Period of the Late Prehistoric saw a resurgence of mound-building for burials. Some Fort Ancient Period villages have burial mounds associated with them. The mounds are rounded earth constructions that are usually found near the edge of a village site. At least one site in Boone Co., near Mudlick Creek, had an associated burial mound. The University of Kentucky at Lexington excavated the site and the mound many years ago.

Lewis, R. Barry. Kentucky Archaeology. Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1996.

Pollack, David, ed. The Archaeology of Kentucky: Past Accomplishments and Future Directions. 2 vols. State Historic Preservation Comprehensive Plan Report No. 1. Frankfort, Ky.: Kentucky Heritage Council, 1990.

Jeannine Kreinbrink

MOUNTAIN ISLAND. Mountain Island, which is unique because it came to be entirely owned by African American families, is a 110-acre island in Eagle Creek in northern Owen Co. That stream flows northwest into the Kentucky River just south of Carrollton, splitting into two channels on the eastern side of Mountain Island. The island is composed of limestone bedrock that resisted the flow of Eagle Creek, which divided instead of carving through the hill. The two channels rejoin on the southwest corner of the island, where Caney Fork Creek merges into Eagle Creek. The island consists of three microtopographic zones: floodplain, steep hill slopes, and a narrow ridgetop.

A road right-of-way reference to Mountain Island as early as 1792 has been found in Scott Co. records; at that time Owen Co. was part of Scott Co. The earliest record of settlers on the island coincides with the founding of the Mountain Island Baptist Church in 1801. By 1832 the church had moved several miles up Eagle Creek and changed its name, first to Rocky Point Baptist Church and then to Pleasant View Baptist Church. The initial church membership rolls include no reference to the Herndons or the Rogerses, the two families that were most influential in Mountain Island’s earliest history, but James Herndon was mentioned in the later records of the Mountain Island Baptist Church. The Herndon and Rogers families (Herndon’s sister) were apparently not active in the church. Several disputes occurred, after which members with abolitionist tendencies left the rolls.

Since both James Herndon and Susannah Herndon Rogers freed their slaves upon their deaths, perhaps they stayed away from the church because most of its membership supported slavery.

James Herndon first appears in Scott Co. records in 1797. In 1802 Herndon was the administrator of Lewis Herndon’s will; he and his sister later took control of the property that had been owned

by Lewis Herndon. James Herndon owned Mountain Island and some of the surrounding mainland until his death in 1853. He built a mill “on main Eagle Creek on the lower part of the Mountain Island above the mouth of Caney Fork [Creek]” in 1812. His sister Susannah Herndon Rogers owned land on the mainland east of Mountain Island. She died in 1847, and according to the provisions of her will, freed her slaves and gave them land surrounding the island. James Herndon applied to the Owen Co. court in 1850 in an attempt to free his slaves but was told to pay a high bond on each one. He refused and freed 23 persons in his will. He divided his estate among them and gave allotments of property to the adults. The settlement contained 21 parcels, with lots 1–15 on the island and lots 16–21 on the mainland. All of the lots included creek frontage. Herndon took care to ensure that each lot had access to the creek and to either bottomland or

ridgetop tillable land. The list of the recipients of this land division survives. Twenty-one of the 23 persons listed received property. Only Joshua Junior and Masiat did not; perhaps they were minors at the time of emancipation. The family names of Vinegar, Carroll, and Smith dominate these lists.

The 1883 atlas for Owen Co. depicts the division of the island but is silent about the African American owners of Mountain Island. The atlas shows no structures on the island or in the immediate surroundings. Apparently, either the surveyors did not approach the African American owners, or those owners did not subscribe to the atlas in order to obtain a listing therein (a common practice when making such maps). Census records from the late 19th century identify several members of the Vinegar and Carroll families.

Mountain Island contains significant archaeological resources related to the black families. In 1998 the Behringer- Crawford Museum in Covington conducted an archaeological survey of the island to document the locations of the sites associated with the African American ownership and occupation. The survey found the following archaeological sites that are associated with the families who took ownership after the resolution of Herndon’s will in 1860: five house sites, a barn, a limestone wall, scattered historic artifacts, and a mill site on the mainland bank of Eagle Creek.

The Mountain Island community lasted until the early 20th century. The Great Depression and local hardship forced inhabitants to look elsewhere for employment. Family members still own the island but do not live there. Perhaps the foremost descendant of the island’s families was the successful horse trainer Theodore Vinegar.

Bryant, James C. Mountain Island in Owen County, Kentucky: The Settlers and Their Church. Owenton, Ky.: Owen Co. Historical Society, 1986.

Jeannine Kreinbrink

MOUNT HERMON BAPTIST CHURCH. The Mount Hermon Baptist Church was founded in July 1909 by Carroll Co. Baptists of the Union Grove Church. The members decided that, instead of constructing a new church building, they would purchase a log church building that the Mount Hermon Methodists owned on King’s Ridge Rd. The congregation added to the building a new roof and a new foundation and lowered the log building, which had been on stilts, onto the new foundation. They held their first ser vice there that December. It was not until November 5, 1910, that the Baptists decided to adopt the name Mount Hermon Baptist Church. Before the name change, the church had been known as the Union Grove Baptist Church, a name the members briefly kept after moving to the log church building. That year the church reported having 109 members.

In 1977 the church added four Sunday school rooms and two restrooms. On July 14, 1985, the church observed its 75th anniversary and held a homecoming celebration. Members and friends dressed in turn-of-the-century clothes for the wor-

MOUNT OLIVET CHRISTIAN CHURCH

ship ser vice, dinner-on-the-grounds was served, recreational activities were available, and baptisms took place in the creek. From June 6 through 14, 1997, a group of 40 people from the Sulphur Fork Baptist Association Baptist Builders near La Grange came to a site that had been chosen as the location of a new Mount Hermon Baptist Church in Trimble Co., about a mile west of the old building, and erected the framing and roof for the new building. In 1998 the new modern sanctuary and educational building were finished. In 1999 the church paved the parking lot at the new location and sold the building and grounds of its old location in Carroll Co. Gentry, Mary Ann. A History of Carroll County.

Madison, Ind.: Coleman, 1984.

Ken Massey

MOUNTJOY HOUSE. The Mountjoy House was the first house in Falmouth, built for Alvin Mountjoy, a Revolutionary War veteran, on N. Chapel St. The land where it stands was a grant to John Waller and was sold to Mountjoy for $750.

The chimneys in the house were built of locally hand-molded brick. The structure has hand-hewn joists and pegged rafters and was equipped with four fireplaces: one on the second floor, two on the first floor, and one in the full basement. The trustees of Falmouth met at the house of Alvin Mountjoy on June 4, 1799. On that day, the first county court session was held in Pendleton Co., the act creating the county having gone into effect May 10, 1799. In 1837 the Mountjoy House was sold to George Lightfoot, who deeded the property to his daughter, Savannah Holton, in 1848. A lean-to was added at the rear of the house in the late 1800s. It changed hands several times afterward. In 1975

Carrol and Nancy Houchen purchased the house and restored it.

Alvin Mountjoy was born January 17, in either 1745 or 1746, at Overwharton Parish, Stafford Co., Va. He served as a 1st lieutenant in the 3rd Regiment of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and resigned in December 1777. On September 2, 1777, in his home county in Virginia, he married Mary “Molly” Edwards. The Mountjoys moved to the area that later became Bourbon Co., Ky., in 1786, where Alvin was closely associated with his brother-in-law, future Kentucky governor James Garrard (1796–1804). He served as the county’s justice of the peace and high sheriff. By 1794 Mountjoy had acquired land along the South Fork of the Licking River and also a number of town lots in Falmouth. From that time until his death on November 3, 1827, Alvin’s name appeared in many Pendleton Co. official records. It is believed that he and his wife were buried in the “Old Cemetery” on Mountjoy St. in Falmouth. In the 1930s, the tombstones from that graveyard were ground up for use on streets.

“Alvin Mountjoy Log Cabin,” KP, October 11, 1991, 4K. Belew, Mildred Boden. The First 200 Years of Pendleton County. Falmouth, Ky.: M. B. Belew, n.d. [ca.

1994].

Mildred Belew

MOUNT OLIVET. Mount Olivet, the county seat of Robertson Co., was founded around 1820 and incorporated on December 27, 1851. This fift hclass city was in Nicholas Co. before Robertson Co. was created in 1867. The town was once known as Hell’s Half Acre. Mount Olivet is located at the intersection of U.S. 62 and Ky. Rt. 165. It was chosen as the county seat owing to its central location, even though the state representative who promoted

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the formation of Robertson Co., Duncan Harding of Harrison Co., had hoped that his hometown of Kentontown, six miles to the southwest, would be the county seat. The name Mount Olivet was derived from biblical sources.

In 1870 Mount Olivet had a population of 254; in 2000 it had 289 residents. Mount Olivet is where the court house, the jail, most of the churches in the county, the Masonic Hall (see Masons), the offices of lawyers and doctors, the drug stores, the hotels, and the grocery stores are located. The Penn Grove Camp Meeting grounds are on the edge of town. The Robertson Co. Fiscal Court meets in Mount Olivet. In recent years, a new nursing home, the Robertson Co. Health Care Facility, has opened in town. Mount Olivet is also the home of the one school in the county, the Deming High School (see Robertson Co. Public Schools).

The stately hotel known as the Louisiana Hotel (initially the Cumber House) opened in Mount Olivet in 1869 and consisted of three stories with 23 rooms. Its large ballroom was the scene of several festive galas over the years, and many famous people were guests there. The name of the hotel goes back to owner S. H. Bettys, who in 1886 reportedly bought the property with winnings from the Louisiana Lottery. At times over the years, the hotel was closed for various reasons, and often the building has been used for apartments. During the 1930s, part of the building was converted for use as a Chevrolet auto dealership.

Moore, T. Ross, ed. Echoes from the Century, 1867– 1967. Mount Olivet, Ky.: Robertson Co. Historical Society, 2000.

U.S. Census Bureau. “American Fact Finder. Data Set. Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-Percent Data. Custom Table.” www.census.gov (accessed June 3, 2006).

MOUNT OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH. This church, organized at Mount Olivet in Robertson Co. in January 1851, was an offshoot of the former Two Licks Baptist Church. The Mount Olivet Baptist Church’s first building was a log structure on the east end of town. A new church building was completed in November 1877, near the old Baptist Burial Grounds in town. The church ran a successful Sunday school in the basement of the Knights of Pythias hall in Mount Olivet for many years. A new church building was dedicated in May 1908; in 1928 a parsonage was built. The Mount Olivet Baptist Church was often called the “proving grounds” for Baptist ministers in the region. In 1953 the church was remodeled, and in 1960 a Sunday school annex was constructed. The church, because of its small membership, has always had trouble finding and retaining a minister.

Moore, T. Ross, ed. Echoes from the Century, 1867– 1967. Mount Olivet, Ky.: Robertson Co. Historical Society, 2000.

MOUNT OLIVET CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

Mountjoy House.

Organized in Robertson Co. at Mount Olivet in October 1860, the Mount Olivet Christian Church first held ser vices in a private residence. The group followed the teachings of Alexander Campbell.

634 MOUNT OLIVET MALE AND FEMALE ACADEMY The Christian Church has always been strong in Robertson Co., and many Christian Church ministers have come from area families. Soon, a church building was constructed and the church’s congregation grew rapidly. That building was remodeled in 1911, and the church’s membership continued to rise. In 1947 the church sustained major damage in a fire, prompting interest in building a new structure. The new building was dedicated 13 years later, in 1960, during the congregation’s 100th anniversary. The Mount Olivet Christian Church will soon reach the age of 150 years.

Moore, T. Ross, ed. Echoes from the Century, 1867– 1967. Mount Olivet, Ky.: Robertson Co. Historical Society, 2000.

MOUNT OLIVET MALE AND FEMALE ACADEMY. Before there was any public secondary education in Robertson Co., the Mount Olivet Male and Female Academy offered education at this level, making it possible for students in the county to prepare for college. It was around 1893 when W. C. Deming joined with Professors R. H. Keys and J. W. Rile in establishing this first secondary school in the county. Classes were conducted on the second and third floors of the county courthouse at Mount Olivet. The academy employed seven teachers, and its reputation was such that it drew students from several adjacent counties. The Mount Olivet Male and Female Academy continued until 1905, when it was replaced by Professor C. E. Colyer’s Special School. Colyer was also the editor of the Robertson County Advance newspaper, and he constantly published appeals for the county to provide a free public high school.

In 1910, with the help of Kate Zoller, a free public high school was opened, with about 17 freshman students enrolled; the new school replaced Colyer’s school.

Moore, T. Ross, ed. Echoes from the Century, 1867– 1967. Mount Olivet, Ky.: Robertson Co. Historical Society, 2000.

MOUNT OLIVET METHODIST CHURCHES. Methodists have lived in Robertson Co. since early pioneer days, and initially their spiritual needs were ministered to by circuit riders.

By 1836, however, two permanent Methodist Episcopal Churches had been established: one was the Mount Olivet Methodist Episcopal Church in town, and the other was the Mount Zion Methodist Episcopal Church along Pinhook Pk., where the Mount Zion Church is located today.

In 1844 the congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Mount Olivet split over the issue of slavery. Subsequently, the town had two Methodist churches, North and South. The Methodist Episcopal Church South dedicated a new frame building just before the start of the Civil War. In 1869 a two-story parsonage was added. In 1890 the church burned, and in 1926 a large oak tree fell on the rebuilt church during a storm. The sanctuary was extensively remodeled and expanded following that incident. The Mount Olivet Methodist Episcopal Church North remained independent

of the Methodist Episcopal Church South until May 1939, when the churches were consolidated.

The South church’s building, due to its size and age, was chosen as the home of the combined Mount Olivet Methodist Church, which continues. Few examples better illustrate the long-term effects of division over the issue of slavery within the world of religion than that experienced by the Methodists who attended church in Mount Olivet.

Moore, T. Ross, ed. Echoes from the Century, 1867– 1967. Mount Olivet, Ky.: Robertson Co. Historical Society, 2000.

MOUNT ST. MARTIN. An Italian Villa–style mansion, demolished in 1977, that crowned the hillside just east of 13th and Monmouth Sts. in Newport was for more than a century one of the city’s most recognizable architectural landmarks.

It had long been known as Mount St. Martin, a name assigned by the Sisters of Divine Providence, who occupied the structure in 1889. Based in France’s Alsace-Lorraine region, this Roman Catholic teaching order of nuns named its newly established U.S. provincial house in honor of the order’s founder, the Venerable Jean Martin Moye, a parish priest from the Diocese of Metz in France.

For more than 80 years, the “castle,” as it was also known, served as a mother house, an academy, a home for working girls, and later as a retirement home for elderly women. Yet, decades before the French order of nuns took up residence there, this stately antebellum mansion and the land on which it stood was an exceedingly generous wedding gift from a loving father to his brilliant and beautiful young daughter.

Mary Keturah Taylor was one of Kentucky’s most accomplished and cultivated young women.

A scholar and a writer of history and poetry, Mary was also the granddaughter of Newport’s founder, Gen. James Taylor Jr. On September 12, 1848, she married Thomas Laurens Jones, a promising young lawyer from Rutherford Co., N.C., who later achieved distinction as a representative from Campbell Co. in the Kentucky legislature and as a member of the U.S. Congress.

While on their honeymoon in Europe, the newlyweds fell in love with an Italianate-style castle in England; and as the couple’s wedding gift, Mary’s father, Col. James Taylor III, offered to replicate the structure on the site of their choosing from among his substantial landholdings. Mary and her husband selected a rural, densely wooded hillside in the area then known as the Newport Highlands, located at the head of Monmouth St., near the modern-day intersection of U.S. 27 and Carothers Rd. From this remote but well-chosen promontory, the Joneses were afforded a sweeping view of Newport, Cincinnati, and the Ohio River.

After culling the remembered details of the structure in England from the newlyweds, Cincinnati architect Robert A. Love designed the stately 22-room, three-story gray brick mansion, complete with twin towers. He estimated that the building would cost $3,500 to construct. Many workmen and artisans were needed to complete

the massive structure, including James Hall, plasterer; George Pagan, painter and glazier; Charles Stricker, bricklayer; and Thomas Westcott, carpenter. The final construction costs for the Jones Mansion totaled $7,552, though $2,500 of this cost was for one of the structure’s most striking architectural features, the cornice, which unified the threesectioned exterior facade with its repeating pattern of closely spaced, delicately curved brackets. Despite his great wealth, Colonel Taylor balked at the total cost of construction, which had more than doubled after the final bill had been tallied. The wealthy businessman evidenced his displeasure over the inflated figure by refusing to pay Westcott, the carpenter Love had hired, more than the $1,600 that had been originally estimated. The impasse was resolved only after a lawsuit was brought against Taylor for nonpayment.

Construction on the Jones family’s impressive mansion had begun in 1851, but their first child was two years old before Thomas and Mary were able to move into their new home in 1853. The completed structure comprised three sections: the two-story central section featured four triplesectioned windows set in arched, recessed panels and was flanked on either side by two four-story towers with tall, narrow, one-over-one windows.

The northwest tower, the taller of the two, was surmounted by a four-sided belvedere and enclosed the building’s stunning mahogany spiral staircase; its 70 steps led to a unique, windowless room with a circular, balustraded opening in the ceiling and a side stairwell by which the belvedere and its spectacular, full-circle view of the surrounding area could be accessed. The building’s eye-catching exterior was richly complemented by its interior accoutrements, which included marble and tile floors; ornate ceilings festooned with decorative plasterwork such as molded fruits, acanthus, and garlands; several hand-carved fireplaces; and rare red Bohemian glass transoms above the stair hall’s main entry doors.

The magnificent mansion provided the perfect backdrop for the lavish gatherings and gala events hosted by the socially prominent couple. Newspaper accounts of the time noted the Jones couple’s propensity for entertaining; members of Newport’s high society and Kentucky’s political elite as well as the Commonwealth’s brightest literary luminaries frequented the loft y hilltop home. The home was also the site of joyous family celebrations; on April 17, 1879, Thomas and Mary Jones held a reception for their only daughter, Elizabeth Mills Jones, on the occasion of her marriage to Col. Brent Arnold.

After Thomas Jones’s death on July 20, 1887, Mary lost interest in the house in which she and her husband had so happily resided. She eventually moved into a smaller home located at Fift h St. and Park Ave. in Newport, and on September 7, 1889, Mary sold her former home to the Diocese of Covington (see Roman Catholics). The year before, Bishop Camillus Paul Maes had begun corresponding with Mother Anna, superior general of the Congregation of the Sisters of Divine Providence at the general motherhouse of the St.-Jeande-Bassel Convent in Mosselle, France. Mother

MOUNT ZION GRANT CO.

Anna had written the bishop regarding the order’s search for a mission diocese in which to establish a U.S. province. As he had promised in his yearlong correspondence with the superior general, Bishop Maes had found a suitable home for the sisters’ Northern Kentucky convent—the former Jones Mansion.

On August 7, 1889, the three sisters who had been selected by Mother Anna to form the nucleus of the community’s new colony in the United States set sail from Le Havre, France. Sister Mary Chantal Arth, Sister Mary Lucy Damidio, and Sister Mary Camilla Schaff arrived in Covington on August 23, 1889. Because provisions for their future home in the recently purchased Jones Mansion had not yet been made, the sisters temporarily resided with the Sisters of St. Francis at St. Elizabeth Hospital (see St. Elizabeth Medical Center) in Covington.

On October 20, 1889, Bishop Maes blessed the new convent and provincial house; thus, the former Jones Mansion became the Mount St. Martin Convent. That fall, the sisters promptly opened a day school, Mount St. Martin Academy, with an enrollment of three pupils: Emma Fischer, Clementine Hurley, and Clara Nagle. Given the curriculum’s European influences, the school soon became known as the French Academy. Over the next decade, as the ranks of the order continued to swell with newly arriving French postulants and growing numbers of American applicants, a clapboard wing and chapel were added to accommodate the convent’s flourishing novitiate.

The mansion’s original owner, Mary Keturah Jones, died in February 1896. Her funeral, officiated by Bishop Maes, was held at Newport’s Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, and she was laid to rest among her prestigious forebears in the Taylor family plot of Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate.

By 1901, Mount St. Martin Academy’s expanding enrollment made it necessary to move the school to a new facility. That same year, the sisters purchased a site at Sixth and Linden Sts. in East Newport. Forty-six students attended Mount St. Martin Academy during its final school year of 1902–1903; Stella Carius was the lone and final graduate that year. Though Mother Maria Houlné, provincial superior, had pressed the family to postpone the graduation until the new building opened in 1903, they were unwilling to wait. Because Stella’s parents were the only guests, the commencement was held in the parlor rather than in the chapel. The simple program included some music, Stella’s valedictory address, and the conferment of her diploma. Father L. G. Clermont of St. Ann Catholic Church in West Covington officiated at the ceremony, since Bishop Maes was traveling in Europe.

In 1903 the new facility was completed and christened Academy of Notre Dame of Providence (later Our Lady of Providence Academy) at its dedication by Bishop Maes on August 23. Even with the academy’s relocation, the congregation was rapidly outgrowing its original Kentucky motherhouse. In 1909 Peter O’Shaughnessy, a

generous benefactor of the diocese and one of Newport’s wealthiest businessmen, served as an undisclosed agent for the sisters, assisting them in their acquisition of a picturesque 77-acre farm along Ky. Rt. 8 in Melbourne. On May 16, 1910, Bishop Maes blessed the satellite community, to be known as St. Anne Convent. For 27 years, the convent had buried its dead in an old cemetery adjoining the Mount St. Martin mansion. By November 1918, in preparation for the motherhouse’s relocation to rural Campbell Co., all 31 burials had been removed and re-interred in the new cemetery on the spacious grounds of St. Anne Convent. The Sisters of Divine Providence retained Mount St. Martin as their primary motherhouse until 1919, when the spacious new provincial house and novitiate in Melbourne were completed.

After some needed renovations were completed, the former provincial house was converted into a home for young working women. On January 20, 1919, the Mount St. Martin Young Women’s Institute was formally opened, with Sister Providentia serving as superior. Up to 30 young women could be accommodated at the institute. In its later years, the sisters operated the aging Newport landmark as a retirement home for elderly women. By 1974, the order finally voted to close the financially troubled facility. In 1975 the stately old mansion was pressed into ser vice one last time, functioning as temporary home for Vietnamese refugees. The following year, the Sisters of Divine Providence put the building up for sale. The asking price for the home, the outbuildings, and the surrounding acreage was $350,000.

Although concerned citizens had worked tirelessly to get the former Jones Mansion added to the National Register of Historic Places in February 1976, their efforts did not save the historic structure from the wrecking ball. American Diversified Developments Inc., which owned both the Newport Shopping Center and the Newport Plaza, saw the vacant mansion and its wooded surroundings as a prime opportunity for property expansion. In October 1976 the Cleveland, Ohio, developer purchased the site, but controversy over traffic congestion and the new center’s impact on Newport’s blighted downtown shopping district temporarily stalled the deal.

In December 1976 Newport city commissioners finally approved the contested zoning change.

On April 22 and 23 of the following year, approximately 3,000 items housed within the mansion, including antiques, glassware, china, jewelry, furnishings, architectural features, and religious items, were sold at public auction. In July 1977, while assisting with the demolition of the Newport landmark, Melvin H. Brown, a 60-year-old semiretired construction worker from Independence, was killed after falling 150 feet from a scaffold. A Kmart store now stands on the partially leveled hillside that was once home to one of Newport’s most strikingly aesthetic, historically important, and architecturally significant antebellum landmarks.

Archives of the Congregation of Divine Providence, Melbourne, Ky.

635

“Mount Saint Martin,” Local History fi les, Campbell Co. Public Library, Newport, Ky. “Mount Saint Martin,” Local History fi les, Kenton Co. Public Library, Covington, Ky. “Old Cemetery in Newport Is Abandoned,” KP, November 15, 1918, 20.

Purvis, Thomas L., ed. Newport, Kentucky: A Bicentennial History. Newport, Ky.: Otto Zimmerman, 1996.

Reis, Jim. “Graceful Castle Crowned Newport,” KP, March 18, 1991, 4K. Russell, Burl. “Young Women’s Home Is a Castle— Mount St. Martin’s Was Wedding Gift,” KP, March 6, 1959, 1.

Ryan, Paul E. History of the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky. Covington, Ky.: Diocese of Covington, 1954.

Janice Mueller

MOUNT VERNON BAPTIST CHURCH. See Truesville.

MOUNT ZION (GRANT CO.). Today only a crossroads near a Baptist church, during its heyday Mount Zion in northern Grant Co. was a prosperous farming community with a school, two general stores, a fi lling station and garage, the Mount Zion Baptist Church, and a bank. It had as many as a few hundred inhabitants. Mount Zion was where Ky. Rt. 1942 and Ky. Rt. 2942 intersect today. The Mount Zion Baptist Church was founded in 1827 with 19 members, under the direction of Pastor David Lillard.

The community of Mount Zion was at the center of two of Northern Kentucky’s most interesting tales, the first one true and the other probably not.

On the morning of April 6, 1931, the Mount Zion Deposit Bank, founded in 1903, was robbed of more than $2,000 by the legendary Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd and his partner, Bill “The Killer” Miller. The two entered the bank at 10:00 a.m., asked for change for a $20 bill, and pulled revolvers on the teller, W. Carl Smith. They then ordered Smith to the floor, bound his hands, and covered his mouth with “sticking plaster.” Floyd and Miller drove four miles to the farm of Charles M. Flege, near Sherman, and spent the day touring the property pretending to be interested in buying it. According to the Grant County News, “Flege fed the party (which included the criminals’ girlfriends) and drove them around, showing them his own farm as well as others, showing them real Kentucky hospitality.” By nightfall, the search was suspended and the party drove away undetected.

Mount Zion was also the longtime home of Henry Newton, an educator and school administrator who, local legend asserts, was actually John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865). Newton had a mustache, quoted Shakespeare, and walked with a limp—supposedly from his fall from the balcony at Ford’s Theater.

The first house built in Mount Zion was completed in 1790, by John Martin Franks (1751–1817), a fur trader born in the Michigan Territory, and his father, Jacob, a German immigrant. John Franks’s grandson, D. A. Franks, started the first general store in the community in 1885; it was owned by

636 MOUNT ZION CHURCH SCHISM Clyde Franks at the time of the Floyd robbery. John Franks and his wife Elizabeth were charter members of the Mount Zion Baptist Church and donated the land upon which the church stands.

Conrad, John B., ed. The History of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Mt. Zion, Kentucky, 1827–2002. Grant Co., Ky.: Privately published, 2002.

“Did Booth Escape to Kentucky?” Kentucky Monthly, July 2004, 28–29.

Grant County News, April 10, 1931, 1; April 24, 1931, 1; May 8, 1931, 1.

Nash, Jay Robert. Bloodletters and Badmen: A Narrative Encyclopedia of American Criminals from the Pilgrims to the Present. New York: M. Evans, 1995.

Stephen M. Vest

MOUNT ZION CHURCH SCHISM. Like many Methodist congregations in Kentucky, members belonging to the Mount Zion Church in Bracken Co. depended on the “peculiar institution” of slavery to provide workers as household domestics and as farm laborers. Slavery’s economic benefits brought growth and prosperity that allowed the Dora and Bradford families to become principal contributors toward the construction of a permanent Methodist brick chapel in 1837.

When Rev. A. H. Redford arrived in 1843, the Minerva Methodist Preaching Circuit in this region of Kentucky included Dover, Germantown, and Mount Zion. The church at Augusta remained connected to Augusta College, the first Methodist college in Kentucky and the third one in the United States. Its president, Joseph S. Tomlinson, and members of the faculty joined with students to lead meetings at Mount Zion where they talked openly about the abolition of slavery.

At the 1844 General Methodist Church Conference in New York, Bishop James O. Andrew’s connection to slavery created an acrimonious debate that led to a “Plan of Separation.” Augusta College president Tomlinson opposed the plan and later submitted several resolutions against division when the Quarterly Conference met at Mount Zion Methodist Church on February 8, 1844. A majority of the congregation felt the church should respect and follow the region’s social and racial customs.

They also believed that the issue of slavery would be better resolved through accommodation than by abolition. With the exception of those at Augusta College and a small minority at Mount Zion, all of the churches in the Minerva Circuit elected to become part of the Southern Methodist Church.

Tomlinson did his utmost to keep the Minerva Circuit within the Methodist Episcopal Church (North). He and his supporters sought grand jury action against Redford, the Mount Zion Methodist Church leader, for disturbing the peace; but when the jury learned that Redford had acted under a mandate from the Kentucky Conference of the denomination, the charges were dismissed. Afterward, Tomlinson and Redford engaged in a series of public debates defending their respective viewpoints before a number of local congregations.

Delegates from the Southern states in the Methodist Church met at the Fourth St. Church in

Louisville on May 1, 1845. By May 19 the groundwork had been laid for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. When the Methodist Church’s Annual Conference convened at Frankfort on September 1, 1845, the church at Augusta was the only one to adhere to the Northern church’s policies laid out at the Ohio Conference on June 1, 1845.

The conference in Frankfort withdrew all aid for Augusta College and transferred its support to Transylvania College in Lexington, effectively leading to the demise of Augusta College. On October 24, 1845, William Dora and others met at Mount Zion Methodist Church to elect a Board of Trustees that would follow the church disciplines established by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. On November 3, 1845, a dissident group of Mount Zion Methodist church members met at the home of Thomas H. Bradford because they believed Dora and the others had forfeited their positions at Mount Zion by their stance in favor of slavery. It made no difference: the proslavery faction had won out in the battle for control of Mount Zion Methodist Church. The minutes of the minority group were not certified and recorded in the Bracken Co. Court until November 1849; by then the issue was moot.

Arnold, W. E. A History of Methodism in Kentucky.

2 vols. Louisville, Ky.: Herald Press, 1936.

Court Order Books, C, p. 464; D, pp. 112, 162, Bracken Co. Court house, Brooksville, Ky. Ockerman, Elbert W. “The Separation of Methodism in Kentucky,” Master’s thesis, Univ. of Kentucky, 1940.

Redford, A. H. Methodism in Kentucky. 3 vols.

Nashville, Tenn.: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1870.

“Schismatic Decided Action in Augusta, Ky.” True American, July 29, 1845, 1. From the Western Christian Advocate.

Donald A. Clark

MOUNT ZION METHODIST CHURCH. This church was organized at Mount Zion in Robertson Co. during the 1830s. Around the time of the Civil War, a group of people split off from the Mount Zion Methodist Church because of their opposition to slavery. They became the Foster’s Chapel Church, under the Methodist Episcopal North conference. The Mount Zion Methodist Church remained associated with the Methodist Episcopal South conference. After the split, and continuing for many years, a minister from nearby Mount Olivet traveled to the Mount Zion Methodist Church to preach on one Sunday each month.

In 1901 the church building was either remodeled or rebuilt. In 1927, with the congregation dwindling rapidly, the structure was deeded over to Mount Zion’s African American Methodists. The church is used today occasionally, on an integrated basis.

Moore, T. Ross, ed. Echoes from the Century, 1867– 1967. Mount Olivet, Ky.: Robertson Co. Historical Society, 2000.

MOVIE THEATERS. Sandwiched between the era of live variety shows and the era of television

and drive-in theaters, stood the local neighborhood movie theater, a fi xture in Northern Kentucky as in other regions. Generally located in an urban setting; seating upwards of 1,000 patrons; selling popcorn, soft drinks, and assorted candies; showing cartoons and newsreels along with feature fi lms; and often offering some of the first airconditioned space in the area, the local movie house reigned from roughly the 1920s through the 1950s. Downtown Cincinnati had at least 10 large, plush movie theaters, which were mainly corporately owned, seated as many as 4,000, had private smoking areas and sometimes even thick red carpet, and were easily reached by Covington and Newport residents. Northern Kentucky had several of these venues, smaller in scope.

In 1905 the Edison Company’s fi lm division advertised its moving-pictures slate for November 30. At the Edisonian Annex at 521 Madison Ave., second floor, in Covington, that evening’s selection included the silent fi lms The Great Train Robbery, Peck’s Bad Boy, and other short subjects.

Admission was five cents, including seat. As technology improved, the Edison method was soon replaced by other methods. Covington had more theaters than most cities in Northern Kentucky. In 1883 Nowland’s Opera House had opened for live variety at Seventh and Washington Sts. in downtown Covington. On that site in 1912, a 700-seat movie house was constructed, known as the Hippodrome Theater. In 1928 movie-theater mogul L. B. Wilson acquired it and held a contest to rename it; thus it became the Broadway. The Broadway closed in 1950 and was torn down by 1954; today a parking lot occupies its spot. Pop Eckler and his country music group were known to perform at the Broadway. It was common for theaters to have contests and other promotions, just to get people to come through the doors. The Colonial Theater, along Madison Ave. between Fourth and Fift h Sts., was a favorite venue for Patia Power, the mother of Hollywood heartthrob actor Tyrone Power, to stage her theatrical productions. The last movie show to operate in Covington was the Madison, at 728 Madison Ave., which opened in 1912 and closed in 1977. It began as the Kozy and changed to the Lyric and then the L. B. Wilson, before becoming the 1,350-seat Madison. Today it is a concert hall, having been rebuilt in 1928 and then again in 1946 as the result of a 1944 fire. It still has the name Wilson in lights at the top of the front of the building. Other Covington movie ventures included the Shirley, 1813 Holman St.; the Family Theater, 633 Main St.; the Strand, 132 Pike St.; and the Liberty, 608 Madison Ave. Finally, at 17th St. and Eastern Ave. stood the De Milo Theater in the 1930s. Famous Covington songwriter Haven Gillespie, a self-proclaimed devotee of movie houses, kept a log of the many theaters he visited throughout the nation.

Other movie theaters in Kenton Co. included the several in Ludlow: the Dixie and the Elm, both on Elm St., and the Wilma, the Ludlow, and one at the Ludlow Lagoon (see Lagoon Amusement Park). Latonia was home to the Grand and the Delbee (later the Derby), both on Decoursey Ave.,

MULLINS, PAMELA E.

and the Kentucky, on W. Southern Ave., which replaced the old Latonia Theater in 1939 but was vacant by 1962. Elsmere had the Village Cinema, 107 Dixie Highway, previously named the Gayety.

Fort Mitchell was home to the 600-seat Four Star Dixie Theater, which opened in 1940 at 2497 Dixie Highway and closed in the mid-1950s; Columbia Federal Saving & Loan moved into the building and eventually remodeled the structure. Farther south on the Dixie Highway in Walton was the James Theater.

Newport had the Strand, 827 Monmouth St., a parking lot today; the Hippodrome, 711 Monmouth St., another parking lot today; the State, 716 Monmouth St., later to become Cinema X; and the Music Hall Theater, 11th and York Sts., which was torn down, and its site became part of the Trauth Dairy complex. The Hippodrome was the site of the 1936 Miss Kentucky contest, where Newport native Charlotte Hiteman took home the honors.

The “Hipp,” as it was called, ran into the early 1960s, and The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962) continued to be advertised on its marquee for years after its last picture show. Major league baseball player Bill Sweeney put on a benefit in which he performed for the victims of the flood of 1913 at the Music Hall Theater. Even after the arrival of “talkies,” movie establishments were used for other purposes.

Other Campbell Co. theaters were in Dayton, such as the Princess, 711 Sixth St., which became Klingenberg’s Hardware, and the Dayvue, 115 Sixth St., today a printing company. When the 750seat Dayvue opened in June 1941, its owners, Jerome and Woodrow Bressler, closed Dayton’s Liberty Theater, at 512 Berry St. The Dayvue was out of business by summer 1955, although it tried a brief and unsuccessful comeback in the late 1960s. Bellevue had the Marianne, 607 Fairfield Ave., an Art Deco structure that operated into the 1990s, vacant today, and the Sylvia, 314 Fairfield Ave. Fort Thomas was home to the Hiland, 18 N. Fort Thomas Ave., an office building today, and the Fort, at the top of River Rd. near S. Fort Thomas Ave., across from the Fort Thomas Military Reservation. Countless soldiers were entertained there.

In Maysville was the Russell Theater, 9 E. Third St., which is being restored today; it was the site of local entertainer Rosemary Clooney’s 1953 movie premier of The Stars Are Singing, her movie debut. Max Goldberg, longtime mayor of Falmouth, showed motion pictures in the Washington Opera House, 116 W. Second St. in Maysville, and there was a Pastime Theater in that town also.

Goldberg later owned the Pastime Theater in Falmouth, which was closed for a few years, only to reopen recently. Bracken Co. had two movie theaters.

The Lyric was in Brooksville, along E. Miami St, and operated from 1925 until 1963. The Odeum, in Augusta, near the Beehive Tavern, operated from the 1930s into the late 1950s. Owenton in Owen Co. had a Pastime Theater, which was damaged by fire in 1955.

Another Northern Kentuckian, besides L. B. Wilson, who owned movie theaters was Anna

Bell Ward, who began as an actress in Covington.

She owned and operated the Phoenix Amusement chain of theaters (35 in number), based in Lexington. She started as the owner-manager of the Pastime Theater at Maysville.

As early as 1910 in Covington, the ministerial association fought to ban certain fi lms that were considered immodest. Around 1915 there were rumors that the Ludlow Lagoon (see Lagoon Amusement Park) might be sold to a fi lm production company for use as a set. About the same time in Fort Thomas, there was a proposal to build a fi lm plant, the Highland Film Company. The movie theaters of the 20th century were a far cry from today’s modern multiscreen cinemaplexes that are planted in shopping centers and similar settings in suburbia. Gone are the promotions (plate ware, chances to win cars, and so forth) to lure people inside, and organists no longer surface from below the stage playing music such as “The Surry with a Fringe on Top.” Only the popcorn remains.

“Edisonian Annex,” KP, November 30, 1905, 2 (advertisement).

“Elsmere’s Gayety Has Long History,” KP, June 14, 1957, 7.

Gillespie, Haven. “Haven Gillespie’s File of Movie Theatres in the 20s, 30s, 40s Found in the Basement of His Former Home on Montgomery St., Covington, Ky.,” 1950–1989, Kenton Co. Public Library, Covington, Ky. Reis, Jim. “Late 1930s Saw Movie Theaters Abound,” KP, February 26, 1996, 4K. ———. “Movie Houses Still Stand but Silver Screens Silent,” KP, December 9, 1996, 4K. Singer, Allen J. Stepping Out in Cincinnati. Charlestown, S.C.: Arcadia, 2005.

MOXLEY. Moxley in Owen Co. was situated along the eastern banks of the Kentucky River some 13 miles northwest of Owenton and near Perry Park. The homes and stores are gone, and the Showboats that once provided entertainment for the community’s residents no longer tie up to the dock, but the name Moxley still identifies the area.

The general mercantile store, which housed the post office, made up the business district. The first post office in Moxley was established in 1886 and continued until about 1928. The mail was transported from Eagle Station to Moxley. Typically, a trip to Eagle Station delivered produce, poultry, animal skins, rabbits, and other farm products to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad depot for shipment to Louisville or Newport. Returning to Moxley, the freighter brought staples, stock for the store, and huge baskets of fresh bread, stacked in unwrapped loaves, a luxury directly related to Moxley’s proximity to the railroad. Riley Dillender carried the local mail and hauled the freight between Eagle Station and Moxley. If Eagle Creek was too high to ford, he would unhitch the mule from the wagon and swim the animal across, returning with only the mail. Dillender, who during the Civil War had been a Union prisoner for several years at the South’s notorious prison at Andersonville, Ga., always had interesting war stories to relate.

637

Perhaps the best-known story about the community concerns the Alexander home, which once stood atop the hill overlooking the river community. Near the intersection of Ky. Rt. 335 and Moxley Rd., about one mile west of the Alexander home, a historical marker tells of a visit of Confederate general John Hunt Morgan to the home of J. J. Alexander in 1863. Several Owen Co. men were members of Morgan’s group.

Houchens, Mariam Sidebottom. History of Owen County: “Sweet Owen.” Louisville, Ky.: Standard, 1976.

KYHistorical Society. “Kentucky Historical Marker Database.” www.kentucky.gov/kyhs/hmdb (accessed October 15, 2005).

Vertical fi les, Owen Co. Public Library, Owenton, Ky.

Doris Riley

MULLINS, PAMELA E. (b. January 22, 1953, Covington, Ky.). Pamela Mullins is one of the six children of Robert and Shirley Jennings Mullins.

During her early childhood, Mullins’s father and mother worked long hours as a factory worker and a day laborer, respectively, in Covington. As she observed their circumstances, she came to believe in the linkage between a quality education and the expansion of one’s socioeconomic opportunities.

In her early years, Mullins did not desire a life as a social activist or a career in public ser vice. However, her goals changed gradually. Mullins became a student activist at Covington’s Holmes High School, partly because of her admiration of various national and local leaders of the civil rights movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

She and several of her classmates organized a student demonstration at Holmes that was generated by the school’s inability to hire an adequate number of African American teachers, as well as the use of a history curriculum that disregarded the experience of black Americans.

After she graduated from Holmes High School in 1971 and earned a BS degree in marketing from the University of Cincinnati in 1983, Mullins took a more active leadership role in the city of Covington. For example, in 1988 she became the fi rst African American woman elected to the Covington Board of Education, where she served until 1996. During her tenure there, Mullins aimed at improving public education for African American students as well as other underrepresented pupils. When asked about some of her major accomplishments as a member of the school board, Mullins proclaimed, “Although it was a hard fight, I was successful in enhancing the educational experience of African American students in the Covington school system as well as the sponsoring of legislation that focused on such issues as site-based management, diversity, and multicultural [education].”

In 1996 Mullins was elected to the Covington City Commission, the first African American to hold such a position in Northern Kentucky. She left this position in 1998. Among her many achievements in the political arena, Mullins sponsored several neighborhood economic development

638 MULLOY, WILLIAM T. projects, worked on a regional transportation commission, and helped to create the Covington Human Rights Commission. Through it all, she has worked to improve the lives of all the residents of Covington.

“African-American Day Celebrates Roots,” KP, April 27, 1990, 2K. Covington Board of Education Meeting Minutes, Board of Education, Covington, Ky., 1996.

“Covington Elects First Black to School Board,” Suspension Press, November 1988, 1.

Driehaus, Bob. “Mullins Brings Diversity to Covington Commission,” KP, November 6, 1996, 1K. Mullins, Pamela E. “Editorial: A Graduation of Sorts,” KP, September 27, 1998, 4K. ———. Telephone interviews by Eric R. Jackson, September 15 and October 4, 2006.

Vance, Debra Ann. “Chapman Returns as School Chair,” KP, January 19, 1991, 3K. ———. “Covington Board Member Pushes for RaceGender Data,” KP, September 14, 1991, 3K. ———. “School Board Won’t Seek Test-Score Breakdown—Gender, Race Analysis Rejected,” KP, September 18, 1991, 8K.

Eric R. Jackson

MULLOY, WILLIAM T. (b. November 9, 1892, Ardoch, N.D.; d. June 1, 1959, Covington, Ky.).

William Theodore Mulloy, who became a bishop of the Diocese of Covington, was the son of William James and Margaret Ann Doyle Mulloy. After studying at St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., Mulloy was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Fargo in North Dakota on July 7, 1916. His boyhood on the farm and his ser vice as a priest in rural parishes made him an advocate for Catholic farmers in their difficulties on the land. He became an early member of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC) and helped formulate its Manifesto on Rural Life. He was the president of NCRLC from 1935 to 1937 and again from 1946 to 1948, the latter term while he was bishop of Covington. Rev. Mulloy also dedicated himself to improving Catholic education in the Diocese of Fargo and was appointed superintendent of diocesan education in 1938. In the same year, he was made pastor of St. Mary Cathedral in Fargo, N.D., and he was made a monsignor in 1941.

Mulloy received word from the Vatican on November 11, 1944, that he had been appointed the bishop of Covington, Ky. He chose “Teach Your Sons” as his episcopal motto. His consecration occurred on January 10, 1945, in St. Mary Cathedral in his home diocese; he was officially installed in his new diocese with an impressive ceremony at the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington on January 25, 1945. As bishop of Covington, Mulloy greatly increased the number of Catholic churches and schools in the diocese and established several Catholic hospitals in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. The new Covington Catholic High School and Newport (Central) Catholic High School were two of the largest educational facilities that he approved. In 1946 he purchased the Marydale property on Donaldson Rd. in Boone Co. and created there Camp Marydale, the Marydale Retreat House, and the Semi-

nary of St. Pius X (now the Catholic Center). He was also responsible for a major renovation of the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in 1950. It was at this time that the large carved-wood baldachin was erected above the high altar. Mulloy put a high premium on religious vocations, especially the priesthood. His episcopacy saw numerous ordinations at the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption. Mulloy died in 1959 at St. Elizabeth Hospital and was buried in St. Mary Cemetery in Fort Mitchell.

“Bishop-Elect Leads Busy Life,” Messenger, December 21, 1944, 12.

“Diocese Goes into Mourning for Death of Bishop Mulloy,” KP, June 2, 1959, 1–2.

Ryan, Paul E. History of the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky. Covington, Ky.: Diocese of Covington, 1954.

“Tributes to Bishop Mulloy from Fargo Diocese: Bishop Mulloy as an Educator,” Messenger, January 22, 1945, 18.

Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Thomas S. Ward

MUNDY, JAMES (b. July 9, 1886, Maysville, Ky.; d. December 25, 1978, Chicago, Ill.). James Ahyln Mundy, the son of a former slave, became one of the premier choir leaders in the United States. He directed choirs, primarily in Chicago, from 1913 to 1978. While Mundy lived in Maysville, he served as organist for the Bethel Baptist Church in Maysville, and the church gave him some support as he attended Simmons Normal School in Louisville. Upon the death of his father, Mundy moved to Chicago with his mother. He later commented, “I had heard that up in Chicago a colored man could even work in the post office.” Actually employed at a post office in Chicago, Mundy attracted the attention of civil rights leader Ida Wells Barnett, who learned of his musical ability and asked him to form a choir to perform as part of an appearance of W. E. B. Du Bois in Chicago. The day when James Mundy led the choir, January 12, 1913, was the first time an African American group performed in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. Mundy enjoyed creating combined choirs from Chicago’s black churches in addition to arranging music and giving private voice and piano lessons. In 1916 he directed his group, named the Mundy Choristers, at the dedication of Chicago’s Navy Pier. In 1931 Mundy was chosen to lead the choir at the rededication of Abraham Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield, Ill., where President Herbert Hoover (1929–1933) gave the address. When Chicago hosted the World Fair in 1933 and 1934, the Mundy Jubilee Singers provided biweekly entertainment. Mundy took pride that only his group and a police band were invited to reappear at the closing, where 400,000 people witnessed the per for mances. Beginning in 1935, Mundy directed a Works Progress Administration–funded group of singers that delivered more than 5,000 performances in Chicago area schools over the course of seven years. In

1946 a Mundy-directed choir of 1,000 voices performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Mundy directed tens of thousands of singers, and his choirs performed for combined audiences numbering in the hundreds of thousands. He led his last choir, the Olivet Baptist Church Choir, on Thanksgiving Day in 1978. Mundy was still teaching and directing when he died on Christmas Day of 1978.

Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice L. Reife. The Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004.

Jarrett, Vernon. “James Mundy Still Stirs Yule Spirit,” Chicago Tribune, December 29, 1974, A6.

“Prof. Mundy, Who Raised Black Voices in Song, Dies,” Chicago Tribune, December 27, 1978, A11.

George Vaughn and John Klee

MURPHY, RAYMOND L. (b. February 17, 1905, Cincinnati, Ohio; d. November 10, 1969, Fort Thomas, Ky.). Judge Ray Murphy began working at age 13, selling newspapers on the street and running a projector in a local movie theater. He graduated from the Woodward Night High School in Cincinnati and later took evening classes at Xavier University in Cincinnati and at the old Cincinnati YMCA Law School. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1928 and then began his law practice.

Early in his career, he served as Newport city solicitor and was a state assistant attorney general under Kentucky governor Ruby Laffoon (governor 1931–1935). Over the years Murphy campaigned for several key Democratic candidates, including U.S. vice president Alben Barkley, a native Kentuckian. In 1940 Murphy was appointed a judge by Kentucky governor Keen Johnson (1939–1943) to succeed Roger L. Neff. Murphy was elected to four consecutive six-year terms as a circuit court judge in Campbell Co. before being defeated by Fred Warren. Judge Murphy was regarded as a “downto-earth” jurist; his decisions were seldom overturned by higher courts. His personality and sense of fairness were two of the positive traits that characterized his long tenure as judge in Campbell Co. After his judgeship, he joined Morris Weintraub and Ban Sampson in their law firm (Weintraub and Sampson) and remained until his retirement in 1967. Murphy died at St. Luke Hospital two years later and was buried at St. Stephen Cemetery in Fort Thomas. His wife, Alma E. Horne Murphy, and a son, William Murphy, survived him.

“Colorful Campbell Judge Murphy Dies,” KP, November 11, 1969, 1–2.

Social Security Death Index. www.rootsweb.com.

MURPHYSVILLE. Murphysville is today a small collection of homes nine miles southwest of Maysville, along U.S. 62 where it crosses the North Fork of the Licking River in Mason Co. A prosperous community existed there in the mid-19th century. The town was named either for an early settler, William Murphy, or for the first person who dammed the North Fork and built a mill there. A post office was established in 1830, and in 1867 a large woolen mill with a 120-foot-long dam was

MUSE, GEORGE, LIEUTENANT COL O NEL

established in the town. The pool created by the dam was used by residents for fishing and swimming. The mill, a substantial enterprise, was described in the June 29, 1867, edition of the Maysville Republican as “one of the best in the United States.” It was highly mechanized. The newspaper article described the process, from sorting the wool to the seven looms that produced the finished plain and plaid cloth. The 1876 Mason Co. atlas indicates that the Murphysville precinct had 786 people. An 1877 newspaper reported that the town had two doctors, the woolen mill, a flour mill, businesses, a lawyer, and “several loafers.” The local chapter of the International Organization of Good Templars was noted for its excellence and for its successful effort to have liquor banned “forever” in Murphysville by the Kentucky legislature. The flour mill produced so much flour that a group of nearby houses was nicknamed “the white row” because they often were covered with flour. The town’s location on the North Fork made it subject to frequent flooding and was the major reason for its decline. The post office closed in 1906, and the large woolen mill was torn down in 1921. “High water at Murphysville” was local shorthand for flooding that repeatedly closed U.S. 68 until a new bridge and roadway were built in the 1990s.

Calvert, Jean, and John Klee. The Towns of Mason County: Their Past in Pictures. Maysville, Ky.: Maysville and Mason Co. Library Historical and Scientific Association, 1986.

Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1984.

John Klee

MURRAY, THOMAS PETER “TOMMY” (b.

January 1, 1902, Covington, Ky.; d. January 18, 1963, Cincinnati, Ohio). Jockey Thomas Peter Murray was one of 10 children of Irish immigrants Martin and Margaret Gavin Murray. The family attended St. Patrick Catholic Church in Covington.

“Hey Livingston, I need one of your monkeys in the sixth race to show [my horse] Money Maker what the finish line looks like. Let me have Murray.” Spoken by horse-owner K. Spence and addressed to fellow horseman J. R. Livingston on July 1, 1919, this request and similar ones were commonly heard mornings in the stables at old Latonia Racecourse in Latonia, where the Latonia Shopping Center now sprawls. A few weeks earlier, May 31, 1919, Lillian Shaw, another of Livingston’s horses, had been ridden to victory in the fift h race at Churchill Downs in Louisville, by jockey Thomas Peter Murray. That race was the 45th running of the Kentucky Oaks, a race considered the Kentucky Derby for three-year-old fi llies.

“Monkey” was what a jockey was sometimes derisively called. In those times, jockeys did not ride as independent agents; instead, they were employees of the owners, who controlled when, where, and how often jockeys worked. Sometimes when an owner needed a rider for one of his mounts, he would pay another owner for the ser vices of one of that person’s jockeys.

Murray was one of the smaller jockeys, riding at a weight of 107 pounds and standing not quite

five feet tall. In 1919, when he won the Kentucky Oaks and was second leading jockey in the country, his winnings totaled $140,562. That year he had 832 mounts and 157 first-place finishes. Jockey Clifford Robinson beat him out for the national riding title by a mere six wins. There was not an avid horseplayer in the country who did not recognize Tommy Murray’s name—he was the jockey sensation of the day. Remarkably, Murray, who begun his racetrack career mucking horse stalls, had become an elite jockey in only two years.

“We’re shantyboat Irish,” Murray would proudly remind his four children. As a young man, he hung out at the Latonia Racecourse in Covington, where he nurtured his horse-racing interests by observing, asking questions, and meeting people, all the while building his determination to become a jockey. It was certainly not an easy career path for Murray, who later recalled how he worked his way up from the bottom. “When I was broken in by Kay Spence, I walked horses and cleaned out stalls for a year before I got on a horse. Now some of the kids are riding in less than a year’s time,” he lamented to Louisville newspaper reporter Marvin N. Gay in a 1950 interview. Murray was working at the time as a valet in the Churchill Downs jockey quarters; he was 48. Murray was always a proponent of weight control through exercise. “The only way to really hit riding trim is to jog around the track,” he insisted in the interview. But family members recall seeing Murray leave the supper table and go into the bathroom, where he would thrust his fi nger down his throat in order to regurgitate—still a popu lar method of weight control among jockeys.

In 1918 at age 16, Murray rode his first race, at Douglas Park in Louisville. His first win was the same year at Latonia on a mount named High Gear. During his career, Murray rode at practically every racetrack in the United States as well as at tracks in Canada and Cuba. He rode such famous horses as Kentucky Derby winner Old Rosebud, Busy Signal, and the notoriously bad-acting horse Flags. His slam-bang stretch duel in the Kentucky Oaks of 1919 at Churchill Downs against legendary jockey Earle Sande is considered a classic. Of his famous ride in the Kentucky Oaks, Tommy reminisced, “I was on Lillian Shaw, the winner, and Earle Sande was on Milkmaid, who ran second.

Coming down the stretch, he grabbed my saddle and I took my stick and half beat him to death. We had a ding-dong battle that afternoon.” Tommy got his only ride in the Kentucky Derby in 1920 aboard Bersagliere, who broke third but faded after a half mile, placing ninth in a 17-horse field. The last time Murray recorded more than 10 wins as a jockey was in 1929, when he had 134 mounts, with 21 firstplace finishes and earnings that totaled $22,840.

That year the stock market crashed, as did Tommy’s riding career.

After 14 years as a jockey, Murray retired from riding in 1931 at age 30. His riding career abruptly ended, Murray was reduced to near poverty and struggled to support his wife Virginia (Conley) and their two daughters and two sons. He eventually became a trainer, but to maintain a trainer’s li-

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cense he was required to win 10 races annually, something he accomplished only in 1935, with 14 wins and $9,290 in purses, and in 1940, with 10 victories and purses of only $3,120. Murray’s story of riches to rags was typical for the times.

On September 22, 1942, Murray joined the U.S. Army as a private and served on active duty until May 10, 1943. Afterward he was assigned to the Enlisted Reserve Corps. When he left the military, Murray returned to the racetrack in various capacities, finishing his career as a jockey’s valet.

He died at age 61 in 1963 at the Dennison Hotel in Cincinnati, where he had taken a room after having surgery 10 days earlier at the Cincinnati Veterans Administration Hospital. He was buried at St. Mary Cemetery, Fort Mitchell.

Chew, Peter. The Kentucky Derby—The First 100 Years. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1974.

Gorham, Bob. Churchill Downs 100th Kentucky Derby—First Centennial. Louisville, Ky.: Churchill Downs, 1973.

“Jockey Tom Murray Rites Are Tuesday,” KE, January 20, 1963, 6A. Leach, Brownie. The Kentucky Derby Diamond Jubilee, 1875–1949. Louisville, Ky.: Gibbs-Inman, 1949.

“Tommy Murray,” KP, January 21, 1963, 4.

James C. Claypool and Don Clare

MUSE, GEORGE, LIEUTENANT COLONEL (b. 1720, England; d. 1790, Nelson Co., Ky.). Lt. Col. George Muse was a Caroline Co., Virginia officer, who served under Col. George Washington during Braddock’s campaign in the French and Indian War; Muse was properly discharged in 1754. For his ser vices in the war, based upon his rank as lieutenant colonel, Muse was granted 5,333 acres of land. Five of his tracts, or a total of about 2,700 acres, were located in Northern Kentucky; thus Muse was the first American to own the territory that became Covington, Newport, Bellevue, and Dayton, Ky. Muse sold part of this Northern Kentucky land to his friend James Taylor Sr. of Caroline Co., Va. However, as part of the deal, he asked that the eastern 1,000-acre tract (where Dayton now stands) be deeded back to his two daughters Katy and Caroline Muse. James Taylor Sr. had all the tracts surveyed by his son Hubbard Taylor and then gave 500 acres to another son, James Taylor Jr., in exchange for managing the Campbell Co. properties. On May 3, 1793, James Jr. moved to Northern Kentucky and had the 1,500-acre tract on the eastern side of the Licking River laid out in lots.

He named it Newport, after Christopher Newport, the captain of the first ship bringing English settlers to Jamestown, Va. The Muse daughters later sold their 1,000-acre tract to Washington Berry, a brother-in-law of James Taylor Jr. George Muse is said to have taught military tactics to Gen. George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Several land transactions between the two men are listed in Washington’s will.

“The James Taylor Narrative,” 1840, Kenton Co. Public Library; Campbell Co. Historical and Genealogical Society, Alexandria, Ky.

640 MUSIC Tenkotte, Paul A. “Rival Cities to Suburbs: Covington and Newport, Kentucky, 1790–1890,” PhD diss., Univ. of Cincinnati, 1989.

Wessling, Jack. Early History of Campbell County Kentucky. Alexandria, Ky.: Privately published, 1997.

Jack Wessling

MUSIC. The first professional musician known to reside in Northern Kentucky was Mexico-born Joseph Tosso, who was of Italian descent. He arrived in Cincinnati in time to play for Gen. Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to Northern Kentucky in 1825 and performed regularly at Mrs. Trollope’s bazaar, located along E. Fourth St. in the Queen City. The music professor, as Tosso was called, soon moved his family to Covington, and later to Latonia, and played at concerts and important events in both Newport and Covington. He was well trained in classical music and also was a talented fiddle player.

He often played his own compositions, including “The Arkansas Traveler,” which became a popular fiddle tune. Tosso died in Covington in 1887, having performed locally for more than 60 years. He was a founder of the first school of music in Cincinnati.

Religious music played a large role in Northern Kentucky. Several musicians were associated with Mother of God Catholic Church in Covington.

Bernard H. F. Hellebusch was a teacher and the principal at the Mother of God School beginning around 1850. As a musician, he practiced the German singmesse tradition of church music, emphasizing the folk song in contrast to the traditional classical Latin style. He wrote and published some 34 singmesse hymns, as well as a popu lar hymnal entitled Gesang und Gebetbuch, before his death in 1885. Henry Tappert (see William and Henry Tappert) replaced Hellebusch’s singmesse style with newer Cecilian reform music, stressing polyphony and chant. He published his compositions in his St. Cecilia Hymnal. In 1895 Tappert hired Edward Strubel as an organist at the church.

Strubel, a virtuoso on the organ and a talented composer, served in that capacity for 55 years. Ecclesiastical music was a much larger part of parish life in the early years of Catholicism in Northern Kentucky, and it was played in all parish churches, not just Mother of God Church in Covington.

Two new types of secular music appeared in America at the turn of the 20th century. Ragtime was popu lar for the first 20 years of the new century, and the Gasdorf Music Publishing Company of Newport helped to popu larize ragtime, including an occasional piece written by a young composer from Covington, Haven Gillespie. The blues soon followed, brought up the Ohio River on the riverboats; it prospered in Covington and Newport, as well as in the west side of downtown Cincinnati. Longtime area blues-players such as James “Pigmeat” Jarrett and “H. Bomb” Ferguson performed regularly at Northern Kentucky entertainment venues. Currently, the Mansion Hill Tavern in Newport is a prominent gathering spot for performances of the blues.

Country music arrived with the Appalachian migration into the area during the 1920s.

Barn dances held in Grant Co. and the Boone County Jamboree (later to become both a radio and a television show) provided a venue for this new musical style. Early country music performers from the area included Grant Co.’s singer-composer Pop Eckler, the Bird Family from Covington; fiddler Bill Livers from Owen Co., and Blanche Coldiron, who had family ties to Grant Co. Radio station WLW in Cincinnati and L. B. Wilson’s WCKY in Covington regularly played country music for their listeners. Today, in Nashville, Tenn., the top-rated country music disc jockey is Gerry House, a native of Kenton Co. Later in his career, Pop Eckler performed bluegrass music.

The 1920s also saw the beginning of swing-era dancing music. A popu lar Northern Kentuckian involved in this type of music was Covington’s Justin Huber, whose bands and orchestras, from the early 1920s through the late 1940s, played at ballrooms regionally. His groups were booked at company gatherings and parties, as well as at the Horseshoe Gardens in Bellevue. It was at the Horseshoe Gardens that the famous Mills Brothers got their start. In that same era, Newport native Tommy Ryan went from steel-mill worker in his hometown to major national band leader during the 1940s and 1950s. Club musicians playing piano lounge music locally included Larry Vincent, who died in 1977, just months before the fire that destroyed the Beverly Hills Supper Club, where he often performed. Vincent’s good friend Haven Gillespie was the lyricist who produced the most famous song written by a native of Northern Kentucky, the best-selling “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” Gillespie, who died in 1975, wrote lyrics to more than 1,000 works in his life, including several that became popu lar hits.

Also around the turn of the 20th century, several Northern Kentucky women excelled as musical performers. Local voice teachers such as Patia Power trained students who made it to the Broadway stage. Vocalist Clara Loring from Covington wowed the New York crowds for several years in the second decade of the century. Mary Hissem DeMoss, from California, Ky., sang at prestigious Protestant churches in New York City and throughout New England. She taught voice well into the 1950s at her home in New Jersey. Katherine Hall Poock, a descendant of a family of Covington educators, spent years singing and teaching voice around Greater Cincinnati. Elizabeth Parks, also from Covington, sang for the troops in Europe during World War I. In the 1920s, Eugene Ysaye wrote music and produced musical concerts for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra while living in Fort Thomas. In recent years, Lee Roy Reams, a 1960 graduate of Covington’s Holmes High School, has shared top billing with the greats of the musical theater in New York City, such as Hello Dolly! and with road companies throughout the United States, such as the Fantastics.

Along with the Beverly Hills Supper Club, which booked nationally known entertainers, there were other high-caliber musical venues in Northern Kentucky. Kenton Co. had its similarly famous Lookout House, where Larry Vincent

also performed as well as top-name entertainers such as Dizzy Gillespie, Ted Lewis, Frank Sinatra, and the like. Some of these entertainers even performed for free at the Devou Park Band Shell (amphitheater) before thousands of appreciative fans. In Campbell Co., gambling spots such as Glenn Schmidt’s, the Latin Quarters, and the Tropicana booked topflight entertainers, some of whom were seen gambling or “bar hopping” after their performances. Maysville’s historic Washington Opera House, located in that city’s downtown area, also hosted shows by several famous performers.

Military band music has long been popu lar in Northern Kentucky. In the 19th century, the presence of the U.S. Army at the Newport Barracks gave the area the Army Band for musical entertainment at important events. The musical Gasdorf family of Newport sponsored the popu lar Gasdorf Military Band, which performed in the decade beginning 1910, and John Philip Sousa’s Naval Band performed before large crowds in Covington in 1918. Later, after the army relocated to the Fort Thomas Military Reservation, the Army Band performed at parades and on Decoration Day at Evergreen Cemetery and, during the 1920s, gave free public concerts on the fort’s grounds.

Other types of bands that performed or now perform locally include the Newport Jug Band at the turn of the 20th century, today’s Florence Community Band, and several bands that have had modern rock connections. The area’s bestknown rock band is Pure Prairie League, a musical group that includes several members raised in Northern Kentucky. High schools such as Beechwood, Highlands, and Covington Holmes have won statewide band competitions. Local groups like the McCormick Fiddlers were featured on the Boone County Jamboree and later regional television’s Midwestern Hayride. During the first three decades of the 20th century, the Harvard Piano Company of Dayton, Ky., manufactured almost 30,000 pianos for use nationwide.

The academic world has also contributed to music in Northern Kentucky. Since it opened in 1970, Northern Kentucky University (NKU) has been developing its music department. Internationally renowned Russian immigrant Sergei Polusmiak teaches piano there; Robert Knauf, the longtime choral director of the Cincinnati Symphony’s May Festival, taught choral music and also served as the music department’s first chairman; and a number of students and performing groups who have studied music at NKU have performed with distinction nationally and internationally. Herschel Linstaedt of Fort Thomas had a distinguished career as a music teacher at the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, and jazz musician Roger Schueler (see Dixie Heights High School) founded and directed a highly successful high school jazz band during the 1960s; several of his students became professional jazz musicians.

The foremost recording artist from Northern Kentucky is Maysville’s Rosemary Clooney. Her successful musical and movie career spanned more

MYERS, HARVEY, JR.

than seven decades. She and her sister Betty Clooney performed during their teenage years as the Clooney Sisters until Rosemary struck out on her own after landing a singing part in the 1953 movie The Stars Are Singing. Her brother Nick Clooney, a former radio and television personality who now writes opinion columns for the Cincinnati Post and the Kentucky Post, also recorded songs but produced no hits. Another entertainer, the late Bob Braun of Ludlow, also had a highly successful career in regional television and radio, but the songs he recorded never became hits.

Lonnie Mack, remembered for his hit song “Memphis,” fi lled Ben Kraft’s Guys ’N Dolls Club in Cold Spring during the 1960s, as did rock and roller Billy Joe Royal singing his biggest hit, “Down in the Boondocks.” Later, Adrian Belew from Boone Co. gained national acclaim as an electrical guitar player. Country singer Skeeter Davis, born Mary Frances Penick in Glencoe, had a country music crossover hit in 1962 entitled “The End of the World”; Bobby Mackey’s in Wilder remains the longest-running country night spot in Greater Cincinnati; and Kenny Price, once dubbed the “Sheriff of Boone County,” went from the Midwestern Hayride to Hee Haw on national television with his robust country style before his death in 1987. Southern Gospel singing has been represented for 30 years by the touring Ball Family of Covington; Nelson Burton from Covington played jazz backup for many visiting musical groups; African American music is represented by the internationally acclaimed singing group from Covington’s Eastside, the Northern Kentucky Brotherhood, whose appealing harmonies have carried them around the world; ecclesiastical music and pipe organ pieces are well represented by the performances of Robert Schaffer and his family at the Roman Catholic Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington; and both Nancy James and Mary Ellen Tanner, former Cincinnati television vocalists with Northern Kentucky ties, continue to entertain in the area— James with the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra and Tanner on Sunday evenings at Chez Nora’s in Main Strasse.

MUSSMAN, RALPH G. (b. February 3, 1919, Newport, Ky.; d. March 25, 1987, Newport, Ky.).

Politician Ralph Mussman was the son of Ralph G. and Josephine Beazley Mussman. For more than 30 years, he had a truly remarkable public life.

Ralph grew up on E. Third St. in Newport and graduated in 1936 from Newport High School, where he played football and basketball; in his senior year, he was captain of both of those teams. He also engaged in sports at the college level and in 1941 was voted the most outstanding athlete at Morehead State College in Morehead. In 1984 he was inducted into the Northern Kentucky High School Sports Hall of Fame.

During World War II Mussman served as a navigator in the U.S. Army Air Corps and attained the rank of captain. He was stationed in New Guinea in the South Pacific. During the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (March 2–4, 1944), the combat

aircraft he was navigating participated in the sinking of one of the four destroyers that the Japanese lost.

He began his career in public ser vice as Newport’s first recreation director, for the summer of 1951. Later, he taught history and coached football at Holmes High School. For 10 months during 1957 he served as Newport’s city manager, a post that he held three times. He was the mayor of Newport from 1960 through 1964. He taught school in Cincinnati for a short time before becoming the principal of the Arnold Elementary School in Newport (1967–1970). At other times during his career, he sold real estate. He became city manager of Newport for the second time in 1976 and served until he was fired and soon rehired in 1980. He then continued as city manager until he retired in 1984. In 1985 he was elected to Newport’s city commission.

In his early days of public life, Mussman was accused of being too harsh on Newport’s gambling element. He softened somewhat on the gambling issue as time passed, but he never stopped wanting to rid his hometown of vice and corruption and of those who promoted them. In September 1961 he was indicted for not enforcing the state’s gambling laws, but a jury found him not guilty. As mayor, he helped to bring the Newport Mall to W. Fourth St. He is often recognized as the person who, during the mid-1980s, initiated the early redevelopment of Newport’s riverfront. Mussman worked with the Shilling family to bring to the Newport shore the Islands floating restaurant, the first of a long line of developments—still continuing—along the city’s Riverboat Row. Mussman’s first wife died early in their marriage. His second wife, Kathryn L. Poff Mussman, survived him; she died in early May 2005. Ralph Mussman died in 1987 of a heart attack at his longtime home on Monroe St. in Newport. The flags were at half-mast as he was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate. Athlete, war hero, educator, and politician, Ralph Mussman is still remembered by many as deserving of his nickname “Mr. Newport.”

“Athlete, War Hero, Politician—Ralph Mussman,” KP, February 26, 1987, 1–2.

Michael R. Sweeney

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gation built the current Italian Renaissance Revival structure on W. Sixth St. The neighborhood around the Mother of God Church developed along with the parish. Beginning in the 1840s, residents began constructing primarily Italianatestyle row houses in the vicinity of the church. These two-story frame-and-brick homes were built close to the street and had small backyards. Familyowned and -operated businesses were also scattered throughout the neighborhood, including grocery stores, taverns, and a pharmacy.

In the years following World War II, residents began leaving Covington for the suburbs, and the neighborhood surrounding the Mother of God Church began to deteriorate. In 1962 Mother of God School, which had existed in the neighborhood for 120 years, closed because of low enrollment. In 1972 the beautiful school building on W. Sixth St. was demolished. Parish membership had declined to less than 200 families. The parish experienced a revival, however, under the leadership of Rev. William Mertes, who arrived in the parish in 1969. The parish began a number of outreach efforts in the community, such as the Parish Kitchen and the Welcome House.

The revival of the Mother of God Church also had an impact on the health of the neighborhood.

In 1974 Reverends Ray Holtz, William Mertes, and Paul Wethington and a small group of dedicated laypeople established Covington Avenue Properties Inc., a partnership that purchased 12 dilapidated homes on Covington Ave. for $59,000 with the intention of rehabilitating the properties.

Only persons who agreed to restore and live in the homes were permitted to participate. Within several years, Covington Ave. had been transformed.

The success of the Covington Ave. project led to the creation of the Russell Row Partnership and the Kentucky-Craig St. Project, which resulted in the restoration of 25 historic structures. The success of all these efforts prompted the neighborhood to apply for National Register Historic District status.

Mutter Gottes Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form, 1980, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

MUTTER GOTTES NATIONAL HISTORIC DISTRICT. The Mutter Gottes (Mother of God)

David E. Schroeder

National Historic District in Covington was established in 1980 in a neighborhood in the city’s West End. The focal point of the neighborhood is the Mother of God Catholic Church, which is itself listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The boundaries of the neighborhood are Kentucky and Covington Aves.; Montgomery St.; portions of W. Fourth, Fift h, and Sixth Sts.; and portions of Craig, Johnson, and Russell Sts. When Rev. Ferdinand Kuhr established Mother of God Parish in 1841, the parish was the first German Catholic congregation in Northern Kentucky.

The parish grew quickly with an influx of German immigrants to the city. In 1870–1871, the congre-

MYERS, HARVEY, JR. (b. December 24, 1859, Covington, Ky.; d. July 1, 1933, Latonia, Ky.). Harvey Myers Jr. was a noted attorney, politician, and sports enthusiast. His father was Harvey Myers, and his mother was the former Susan C. Scott.

Harvey Jr. was educated in the Covington Public Schools (see Covington Independent Schools) and after graduation worked for the Cincinnati Times newspaper. In 1879 he married Cara Wells, and they had four children. Harvey studied law under Theodore F. Hallam and was admitted to the bar in 1881. He was a partner of Hallam in the firm of Hallam and Myers for thirteen years.

642 MYERS, HARVEY, SR. Unlike his father, who was a Republican, Harvey Myers Jr. was a Democrat (see Democratic Party).

He served in the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1886 to 1890, where he held the office of Speaker. Although all three men were Democrats, by about 1890 Myers and Hallam became vehement opponents of William Goebel. For a number of years, Myers was head of the Latonia Jockey Club and a member of the Motor Club. He was responsible for organizing the Twin Oaks Golf and Country Club in 1927. Myers suffered a stroke at his law office in 1931 but continued his regular work. After a half century of law practice, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home on 45th St. in Latonia. His second wife, Anna Belle Menefee, whom he married in 1904, and five children survived him. Burial was in the Highland Cemetery, Fort Mitchell.

Biographical Cyclopedia of The Commonwealth of Kentucky. Chicago: John M. Gresham, 1896.

“Harvey Myers, Jr. Dead,” KP, July 3, 1933, 1.

Johnson, E. Polk. History of Kentucky and Kentuckians. Vol. 2. Chicago: Lewis, 1912.

Levin, H., ed. The Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky. Chicago: Lewis, 1897.

Perrin, William H. Biographical Sketches from Kentucky. Vol. 7. Louisville, Ky.: F. A. Battey, 1887.

“The Secret Hand Revealed,” KP, July 9, 1894, 4.

MYERS, HARVEY, SR. (b. February 10, 1828, Chenango Co., N.Y.; d. March 28, 1874, Covington, Ky.). Noted attorney Harvey Myers Sr. was the son of Aaron and Aurelia Bridgman Myers. In about 1852 he moved to Trimble Co., Ky., where he taught school, studied law, and was admitted to the bar.

After a few years, he moved to Covington and in 1858 married Susan Clark Withers. His children included Harvey Myers Jr. As a Republican, the senior Myers was a strong supporter of the Union during the Civil War (see Republican Party). In 1865 he was elected as a representative to the Kentucky General Assembly from Kenton Co., but he refused the office when he learned that soldiers had been assigned around the county polls, arresting voters and holding them in custody until the day after the election. In 1866 Myers purchased a large brick home at Shelby St. and Riverside Dr. in Covington; the historic home is still standing. In the 1860s he formed a law partnership with Governor John W. Stevenson (1867– 1871). Myers published a code of practice for Kentucky attorneys, as well as a supplement to the general statutes of Kentucky. In November 1872, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Sixth Congressional District but lost to incumbent William E. Arthur. In the early 1870s Myers and Oliver Root were representing Mrs. W. G. Terrell

in a divorce case. On March 28, 1874, while working in his office, Myers was approached by Mr. Terrell. An altercation ensued, and Terrell shot and killed Myers. Myers’s funeral ser vices were held at Trinity Episcopal Church in Covington, and he was buried in Highland Cemetery in Fort Mitchell.

Terrell was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. In 1877 Terrell’s attorneys successfully appealed his case to the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, then Kentucky’s highest court, on the basis that procedural errors had been made. These errors included the refusal of the lower court to grant a continuance until Nicholas Corcoran, the only other person in Myers’s office that day, could appear as a witness for the defense. The Court of Appeals ruled that Terrell should be retried, and in 1879 he was acquitted.

Biographical Cyclopedia of The Commonwealth of Kentucky. Chicago: John M. Gresham, 1896.

“Deplorable Tragedy: Hon. Harvey Myers Shot and Killed by Col. W. G. Terrell,” CJ, April 4, 1874, 1.

Johnson, E. Polk. History of Kentucky and Kentuckians. Vol. 2. Chicago: Lewis, 1912.

“Sixth Congressional District: Official Statement of the Result,” CJ, November 16, 1872, 2.

Paul A. Tenkotte