At the corner of First and Walnut streets in Nicholasville stood a home of many-additions, the first of which was constructed in 1804. That original structure – a log cabin – was built in a year that was only six years after Jessamine County was carved from Fayette and Nicholasville was founded (though Nicholasville wouldn’t be incorporated for another 33 years).
A fire of unknown cause ripped through the structure on Thursday evening drawing a mutual aid by the Nicholasville Fire Department call that was responded to by the fire departments of Wilmore, Jessamine County, and Lexington.
 |
| A pile of debris from the old ca. 1804 log cabin. |
By Friday morning, a structure emerged that was badly charred. Without a doubt, the many additions would need to be demolished. But the log cabin which had withstood over 200 years of history and two other major fires seemed resilient. It might be able to be preserved.
The logs had been cut and hewn by hand. The trees from which those timbers came could have stood several hundred years before the trees were felled. If the log cabin couldn’t have been reclaimed, those logs could have perhaps been rebuilt on the same or another site. Or the logs could have been repurposed and reclaimed in other ways.
It would have taken preservationists only a few days to determine if some form of salvage was possible.
But those few days weren’t to happen. Despite attempting to save at least the old log cabin for a few days, the entire property was razed early Saturday morning.
The following video is just under 2 minutes in length and it contains some additional images and video which I took on my multiple trips to the site over the weekend.
The history of Nicholasville suggests a series of owners to the property. The most notable resident, though of whom little is truly known, was Lady Sterling who was born here. As an adult, she “became a lady in fashionable society in St. Louis, and later the wife of an English Lord, and the mistress of a superb mansion in London society.”