Category: Jessamine Journal

Historic Marker for Jessamine County at Courthouse – Nicholasville, Ky.

A thread seemed to weave a common message through last week’s Jessamine Journal.

New transportation options — both real and proposed — seem to be on the horizon.

“City supports proposal for bike/pedestrian connector path.”

And an advertisement for Lextran’s new park and ride into Lexington from two stops within Jessamine County. (Route times are available here.)

Walking, bicycling, and public transit each contribute to what Jeff Speck refers to as the “General Theory of Walkability.”

Speck is a city planner who lives in Washington, D.C. His studies have focused on cities, but he uses that term to include towns and villages. Nicholasville and Wilmore would both the definition.

Because of my interest in changing the way I get around, I attended his lecture in Frankfort last Thursday. The lecture was part of a historic preservation series by a state organization and was held in coordination with the annual conference for Main Street coordinators. I was glad to see at least one other local, Magistrate George Dean, in attendance.

A walk, according to Speck, must satisfy four conditions: it must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting. Consider Nicholasville’s Main Street. Recent streetscape improvements have made walking both safer, more comfortable, and more interesting. But useful?

Well, perhaps. One living close to Main Street could walk to the dry cleaner or the bank or the drugstore. Dinner can be had at Euro or Simmie’s.

An address on West Oak Street gets a WalkScore of 43. (WalkScore.com is a website that calculates walkability based on distance as the crow flies from certain desirable amenities like schools, parks, dining, and shopping.) The average score in Nicholasville is 28; in Wilmore, it is 51.

Those living near Kimberly Square might technically have the highest scores (55) in Nicholasville with walkable access to Kroger and many other shops, but the lack of sidewalks and bike lanes render walking or biking less desirable.

This is the idea behind the proposed bike/pedestrian path which would provide “a safe and integrated bike and pedestrian trail system that would allow residents to ride or walk to school form neighborhoods in Jessamine County.”

This project simply must go forward. And across both the city and the county, we need more projects like this. It is important for many reasons.

Walkable areas make economic sense, are healthier for citizens and are better for the environment. Each of these particulars could fill this page, but let me touch on a highlight for each as discussed during Speck’s lecture.

Economics: Realtors salivate here. Increased WalkScores have been shown to increase real estate values from between $500 and $3000 per point. For local government, that can mean increased tax revenues without increasing taxes.

Health: Our children will love shorter lives than we will. We are the first generation of Americans to make that awful claim. More useful walks (to school or the store) provide physical activity that directly correlates with reductions in obesity, asthma, and inattentiveness/hyperactivity issues.

Environment: Converting your light bulbs to CFL and driving a Prius are only drops in the bucket when compared to living in (and taking advantage of) a place that is walkable.

Nicholasville and Jessamine County could be on the precipice of significant growth that increases not just our numbers, but our quality of life. Connectedness within our community, and with improved transit to Lexington, offer tremendous potential that could improve our health and our daily lives.

This column originally appeared in the Jessamine Journal. 
It should not be republished without permission.

Ebenezer Church –

The Bible tells us that “Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer, explaining, ‘The Lord helped us to this very point.’” (1 Samuel 7:12, CEB).

The Israelites took the moment to turn again from disobedience finding restoration in God.

Robert Robinson penned the words of the traditional hymn “Come Thy Fount of Every Blessing” in 1758. It, too, referenced Ebenezer:

Here I raise mine Ebenezer
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.

In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens told the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge. The 1843 novel found the miserly Ebenezer begging for the opportunity to re-embrace life.

Whether from the Old Testament, the hymnist, or Dickens, the word Ebenezer conjures up a recognition of our need to be restored so that we can fully embrace life.

There is another reference to Ebenezer even closer to home in rural Jessamine County. A log meeting house constructed in the mid-1790s and there met a congregation identified as the Ebenezer Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

The founding minister was Adam Rankin who was a circuit-riding minister based in Lexington. Some believe his home, which was relocated to Lexington’s Mill Street several decades ago but remains standing, is the oldest in Lexington. It was Rankin who began many of the Presbyterian congregations in central Kentucky. Among them are Pisgah and Glenn’s Creek in Woodford County and Mount Zion (now First Presbyterian) in Fayette County.

The long lens of history has found Rankin to have been a disagreeable fellow. In 1789, he rode by horseback from Kentucky to a denominational convention in Philadelphia. There, he fought against the use of modern, contemporary hymns in worship. For Rankin, the worst offense was Isaac Watts’ enthusiastic “Joy to the World.”

Ultimately, Rankin would be permanently suspended from the ministry. He experienced his own restoration, however, as the first president of Miami University in Ohio.
Before then Rankin served as Ebenezer’s minister until 1803 whereafter he was replaced by Rev. Robert Bishop.

In the same year, the old log meeting house was replaced by a stone church which stands today as the oldest such structure in Jessamine County.

The ensuing decades took its toll on the congregation and the building was abandoned in 1883. Once abandoned, the toll was taken on the structure as the roof collapsed and several of the walls had fallen.

But the story doesn’t end there. For there is restoration for this Ebenezer, too.

In 1953, an organization was formed to care for the cemetery, a few thousand dollars was spent by the Ebenezer Cemetery Association to install a new roof, new windows, shutters and restore “the design of the old building as closely as possible.”

The old structure remains cared for a half century later. According to the 1983 application to the National Register of Historic Places, the Ebenezer Church is the only remaining stone church in Jessamine County and the oldest religious structure in the county dating from the settlement period.

The prophet Samuel took a stone and set it up and named it Ebenezer. Here, in Jessamine County, our own Ebenezer still stands thanks to those who gave it the opportunity to do so.

It is a tranquil, country church surrounded by the headstones of those who once worshipped here.

Though Ebenezer’s doors remain closed most of the year, one can easily find restorative peace in this place. There are many such places in our county. But as for Ebenezer — there’s just something about that name.

This column originally appeared in the Jessamine Journal. 
It should not be republished without permission.

And now, the History of Halloween as it originally appeared in yesterday’s Jessamine Journal:

Like any modern holiday, Halloween has an ancient history. First influenced by Gaelic paganism, the holiday took on Christian significance over time.

The Gaelic festival of Samhain, held at the end of October was to mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. During this time, spirits and fairies could more easily enter our world so people left for them both food and drink. Either imitation or disguise from these spirits prompted many to wear costumes and visit neighbors seeking small morsels of food.

Sound familiar?

And in 835, Pope Gregory IV moved the celebration of All Saints’ Day from mid-summer to Nov. 1. On the church calendar, Nov. 2 is All Souls’ Day.

These solemn, or hallowed, days had by the 12th century become holy days of obligation in prayer for the souls of all who had died.

But in Ireland and the other old Gaelic countries, the old tradition of Samhain lingered on the eve of these hallowed days. And so the term ‘All Hallows’ Eve’ evolved into ‘Halloween’.

When Europeans first came to America, they did not bring Halloween celebrations with them. The English who established the early colonies were Puritans who did not recognize — but largely opposed — Halloween.

(Remember the Salem Witch Trials? Suffice it to say that the Puritans weren’t fond of anything even remotely linked to paganism.)

But decades later, the Irish began to immigrate to the United States and with them they brought their traditions. Among these was the celebration of Halloween. With the celebration came visits from door-to-door in costume in exchange for treats and carved pumpkins to ward off evil spirits.

Like so many of our holidays, Halloween has its roots in both paganism and early Christianity with a hearty dose of American capitalism.

Yes, Halloween is big money in America. Second only to Christmas, more money is spent on Halloween (candy, decorations, costumes, etc.) each year than any other holiday on the calendar. It is estimated that the economic impact of Halloween is around $5 billion.

That’s a lot of Reese’s pieces.

At our church, we celebrated Halloween last Sunday evening with a trunk-or-treat where the kids dressed up and went from tailgate to tailgate to collect candy from fellow parishioners before we had a costume contest and ate supper together. A lot of good fun.

And tonight, my family will walk down Nicholasville’s Main Street as we see friends in the community doling out candy or receiving the same, all in costume. It will be, as it’s called, a Spooky Time on Main.

Whether it be witches or ghouls or goblins or, given our current obsession, zombies, the costumes are sure to give fright. Unless dressing up as a ninja or princess or doctor or other more subdued character is the costume of choice.

I think one of my favorite aspects of Halloween mirrors an aspect of the old Samhain simply because the holiday marks the onset of the long darkness of winter. Cabin fever will soon begin as our sense of community dissipates during the cold months of winter; we simply don’t see our neighbors as much when it is cold.

Until spring, our front porches sit largely barren. Our lawns won’t need mowing.

Our opportunities to see one another suffer a natural decline during the cold months.

So Halloween offers that last chance to visit with friends before the onset of winter.

This column originally appeared in the Jessamine Journal. 
It should not be republished without permission.

Keene Springs Inn – Keene, Ky.

The restaurant operated by Debbie Wheeler in the old Keene Springs Inn was recently profiled in the Jessamine Journal. And while my mouth watered for some of Wheeler’s fried chicken and green beans, I thought more of the history behind this grand locale.

By 1794, Manoah Singleton had established a grist mill near the crossing of a buffalo trace known as Shawnee Run Road and the Cave Spring Fork of Clear Creek.

At that time, Shawnee Run Road was considered the most direct route between Lexington and Harrodsburg; it is now known in the county as Keene-Troy Pike.

The community of Keene was laid out in 1813, though it was known first as Liberty. Patriotic fervor in the first decades of the 19th century created a laundry list of communities bearing that name. The result was confusion.

The original and extant Liberty, Ky., is the seat of Casey County. It was founded in 1806.

When Jessamine County laid out its Liberty, it must have soon become apparent that Casey County already had a town bearing the name so the people here renamed their community North Liberty.

Quite appropriate given the geographic bearings of Jessamine and Casey counties.

But along came those in Pike County who in 1822 debated whether their seat should be Piketon, now known as Pikeville, or Liberty.

As the debate raged in Pike County, those in Morgan County thought ‘Liberty’ would be a fitting name for a city.

Those in Morgan County believed Pike Countians would use Liberty, so they established West Liberty which remains the county seat. Pike County opted for Piketon and the end result was a geographic conundrum.

The town of West Liberty (located in Morgan County) lies approximately 100 miles east of Liberty (located in Casey County).

Fortunately, Jessamine County stayed out of the fray. So much so that when a post office was to be established in North Liberty in 1830, we got out of the ‘Liberty’ business altogether. Postmaster Ephraim Carter named his new post office after his hometown of Keene, N.H.

The state legislature authorized Keene’s incorporation in 1844. Four years later, white sulphur water was discovered in the nearby springs.

Of the water, the dean of Transylvania Medical College, Dr. Robert Peter, said it was “incomparably the best medical water on this continent … eminently adapted to the cure of every species of Indigestion, Liver Complaint, Scrofula, Cutaneous Affections, Mercurial Disease, a variety of nervous diseases and nearly all diseases that are usually denominated chronic.”

It is no wonder, then, that when the cholera epidemic hit Lexington in 1849 that those able to flee the city did so. And they came to and stayed at the Keene Springs Hotel.

Wrote Bennett H. Young in his 1898 History of Jessamine County, Kentucky, “during the prevalence of cholera, in Lexington, about this time, a large number of people came to Keene and lived during the panic, occasioned by this disease in Lexington and surrounding towns” staying in “a very nice hotel.”

A very nice hotel indeed. In fact, it was owned by Mason Singleton who was the grandson of the pioneer who first settled the community.

Popularity for the hotel, however, declined and Singleton was forced to sell by 1857. It was purchased by Alfred McTyre who operated the facility for a decade before selling it to Fielding S. Wilson in 1868.

And for 145 years, the historic property has remained in the hands of the Wilson family.

This column originally appeared in the Jessamine Journal. 
It should not be republished without permission.