Mason – Page 2 – The Kaintuckeean

NoD: St. Patrick’s Parish

St. Patrick Catholic Church; Maysville, Ky.

One of the first buildings I noticed in Maysville was the Catholic church. An impressive contemporary interpretation of the Romanesque style, St. Patrick’s Parish includes many Gothic qualities in its brick and stone construction. [*] In April 1901, Fr. Patrick M. Jones became the parish priest and found the parish and its buildings in poor condition. The existing parish church was all-brick and had been erected in 1849.

Fr. Jones had been born in County Limerick, Ireland in 1853 and emigrated to the United States in 1875. Ordained in the Covington Diocese in 1877, he ultimately came to his pastorate in Maysville. He worked tirelessly to grow the parish and to improve its buildings. On June 26, 1910, the present church was dedicated. It seats 1,200. The considerable sum raised for the church’s construction was $100,000; the church was built (as well as a school, cemetery expansion and so much more) in a rather quick period of time. To note, all this was done with little debt:

[*] It is a great testimony as to how the St. Patrick’s Parish grew. As I’ve found with Catholic churches, St. Patrick’s was open on a typical day for prayer and reflection. The altar is beautiful; check out my other flickr photos.

NoD: Limestone (n/k/a Maysville)

Waymarking Sign, Maysville, Ky.

Lexington’s Limestone Street travels north to merge with Paris Pike and its history is there forgotten. Ultimately, you can take the road all the way to the Ohio River at Maysville. And Limestone Street was once aptly named since Maysville was formerly known as Limestone. Limestone was first settled in 1784, the road to Lexington (an old buffalo trace) was almost immediately established. [*]

In 1787, Limestone was formally established by the Virginia General Assembly which changed the name of the community situated at the confluence of Limestone Creek and the Ohio River to Maysville. At the time, Limestone/Maysville was part of Bourbon County (and was until Mason County was created in 1789) and was a key riverport for the bourbon whiskey industry.

By 1833, Maysville was a thriving riverport and was made the county seat of Mason County in 1848 (it was a contentious vote, as Washington was previously the county seat). The name “Limestone” was used to identify the community until the mid-nineteenth century as well.

No Destination: Dover

Founded in 1818 and incorporated in 1856, the Mason County community of Dover lies just north of the AA-highway and on the Ohio River.

Here is a description, c. 1860: “The village contains several churches, large steam flouring and saw mills, some twelve or fifteen stores and tobacco warehouses, and an equal number of mechanical trades. Population about 900.”

In 1963, “A beautiful town, located on a fertile plateau with a population of just over 700. It has a general store, schools, a fine youth centre, seven churches, a City Marshall, or policeman; a Police Judge and 24 volunteer firemen. The city is also excited as the mighty duPont has acquired 1,000 acres of land for industrial development.”

Then, April 23, 1968. A tornado destroyed 115 of the town’s 127 homes. Only three churches were rebuilt. All students were sent to Maysville for school and the city no longer offers city services. And duPont never built its factory. Despite the 328 residents (est. 2008), Dover remains a ghost town.

No Destination: Minerva

I’m not sure what community in Kentucky has the highest number of churches per capita (if you know, please advise!), but it very well could be Minerva, Kentucky. This Mason County hamlet, with a population of about 250 (as of 1876), has four churches. (According to the new Minerva Baptist Church, there are six churches and 115 people today.)

The four churches – Baptist, Methodist, Catholic and Full Gospel – are each architecturally unique. The Catholic church is least impressive – a late-20th century brick church. Both the Methodist (built in 1894) and the Full Gospel churches appear to be the quintessential white-siding country churches.

The Baptist Church, though no longer in use, is the most impressive. The church began as a “Traveling Church” in 1793 and the Baptist congregation formed about 1799. Services were held regularly on the site until about 1900. Sold in 1930 for $280 and then used as a tobacco barn, the Bracken Baptist Church structure was completely restored in 2005. Constructed in 1842, this Greek Revival building was added to the National Register in 1983.

On a religious note, the Baptist congregation split on two occasions. The first time was in 1805 (over slavery). The second was in 1829 during the Campbell movement, which was the beginning of many of the Christian Churches/Disciples of Christ churches that are prevalent in Kentucky today. It is curious that a movement which sought church unity was the cause of schism.

Minerva is most notably the birthplace (Dec. 31, 1884) of Supreme Court Justice Stanley F. Reed. Nominated by FDR, Reed was the last Supreme Court justice to not graduate from law school (he outserved the later-nominated Robert Jackson by three years). He served on the High Court from 1938 to 1957 and is the longest-serving Justice in Supreme Court History. One of Reed’s most famous quotes comes from his dissent in Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948) (first case to declare that a state had violated the Establishment clause): “A rule of law should not be drawn from a figure of speech.” Reed was referring, of course, to the wall of separation between church and state.

No Destination: Arnold Gragston

Although not a destination, Arnold Gragston deserves a post. I learned of him from a historic marker in Germantown, Kentucky. First, Germantown is a fine community located on the Bracken-Mason county line. The community, though small, was laid out in 1784 and later settled by the Pennsylvania Dutch (recall that the Pennsylvania Dutch are of German descent).

Arnold Gragston was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Though a slave himself, he risked his own life by transporting other slaves from near the farm where he was in servitude (Germantown) to Dover and across the river to freedom in Ripley, Ohio. Gragston would make three to four trips across the river each month, always returning to his own servitude. It is estimated that he helped some three hundred slaves to freedom. Eventually, however, Gragston (believing he could be of no more good in Mason County) did not ferry himself back to Kentucky. Ultimately, he moved to but returned to Germantown in the 1880s. Gragston tells his story here.

Pictured below is the Ohio River from the port of Dover.