Oh, but what a fun day it was! The girls and I started in downtown Bardstown at the Old Jailer’s Inn. They were a little intimidated about going to a jail, but our guide/daughter-in-law of the owner was so fun and eventually put them at ease. This limestone jail was built in 1819 (after a disgruntled wife of an inmate burned the original one down) and served as the Old Nelson Country Jail until 1987, just over 20 years ago! The new civilian owners have renovated part of it to serve as a bed and breakfast, but left some of it unchanged for tours and let me tell you, it’s what a jail should be. Stark, uncomfortable, and zero amenities (unless one counts the shackles on the floor!). The 30-inch thick limestone walls, heavy steel doors, fold-down wall cots, crowded conditions, non-existent air conditioning, and gallows in the courtyard surely would make a criminal think twice about going back after they did their time. Interesting note: the jail was frequently home to Jesse and Frank James, but not in the way one might think. Their cousin was married to the sheriff of Bardstown during their marauding heyday. Anytime Jesse especially needed to lay low, he knocked on the door of his sympathetic sheriff relative, who hid him in the jail. Obviously, the last place the law would look for an outlaw is in a jail, so Mr. James cunningly and repeatedly evaded capture while right under their noses. And how handy for him – the Old Talbott Tavern, apparently his favorite watering hole, is right across a narrow alley from the jail.
After our fascinating jail experience, we trekked down through much rural-ness to a completely nondescript town named Hodgenville. I’m not sure this town would even still be on the map today were it not for a fortuitous event in 1809…the birth of Abraham Lincoln. The 16th president’s parents bought 300 acres for $200 in the months before he was born and built a tiny log cabin on the top of a hill. He was born there on a February night. Unfortunately, a land dispute drove the family off the beautiful property (complete with a sinking spring) when the future president was just 2 1/2.
Their log cabin no longer exists, but in 1909, exactly one hundred years after Lincoln’s birth, President Theodore Roosevelt stood on the same hill where Lincoln was born and delivered a fiery oratory about the importance of preserving the property. He laid the cornerstone that same day of a grand memorial that looks like it belongs in Washington D.C. (and was designed by the same architect who did the National Archives, Jefferson Memorial, etc.).
The massive memorial is currently undergoing renovations so we weren’t able to go in, but inside is a “symbolic log cabin” that was touted as Lincoln’s and toured the country a century ago. It turns out it wasn’t the one he was born in, but it was on the property originally and is the closest thing they’ve got. We did get to see the family Bible from 1799. Lincoln filled in his own birth and kept his family’s records in it. The girls and I then loaded up again and drove less than 10 miles away to Knob Creek to see Lincoln’s boyhood home. The family leased land there while their land dispute was being resolved. Lincoln often spoke of childhood memories from his time at Knob Creek, which included his best childhood friend, Austin Gollaher. The latter once rescued the future president from certain drowning in the swollen rainwaters of Knob Creek.
It’s actually Gollaher’s log cabin, which is believed to be identical to the one Lincoln lived in, that survived and was moved to the land Lincoln lived on. Lincoln’s cabin had fallen into disrepair and was eventually used as a farm outbuilding for pigs before being dismantled decades after he’d lived in it. But the site is special nonetheless and the girls got to walk in Lincoln’s footsteps and play in the very same Knob Creek he nearly drowned in. We also saw the site, two miles away, where Lincoln had the only formal schooling of his childhood.
Lincoln’s family eventually lost the land dispute, by the way, and when a similar one threatened the Knob Creek land they were leasing, the family and several others packed up and moved to Indiana to take advantage of a new, kinder homestead law that didn’t favor previous owners as did Kentucky’s at the time. Lincoln was almost eight years old. It is said that Lincoln diligently watched what his family went through with the dispute and the lawyers and that’s what piqued his own interest in law and public service.
By this time, I had tired girls and two fell asleep in the car (not a regular thing for them). As the remaining girl enjoyed having her Mom all to herself and talked my ear off, I took a quick detour off the main road back to Bardstown to get a glimpse of Trappist, Kentucky, and the mysterious Abbey of Gethsemani. This unusual monastery rises up majestically in the middle of nowhere and is quite the curiosity. It was founded in 1848 by a strict order of French monks who favor labor, prayer, and silence. But here’s the crazy thing: they support themselves by shipping their world-famous bourbon fudge, bourbon fruitcake, and cheese all over the globe via the internet! I don’t know why that cracks me up, but it does. Somehow the combination of silent monks, bourbon-laced fudge, and e-commerce sounds something like the beginning of a goofy joke.
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