Lexington's Phoenix Hotel

In 1806 Colonel Aaron Burr visited Lexington, Kentucky and stayed at a little place named Wilson's Tavern. This is one of the earliest famous national figures to rent accommodations at the address that would become the Phoenix Hotel.  In the late eighteenth century, Lexington was building a reputation among travelers as the "Athens of the West." Postlethwaite's Tavern opened in 1800 to provide comfortable lodging for visitors to the city. Over the next twenty years the tavern changed names many times. The Wilson's Tavern Aaron Burr visited was just one of the names for Lexington's finest lodgings before it burned in 1820. One of the Lexington newspapers printed a story about the mythical Phoenix being reborn from the ashes. The popularity of the story inspired the property owners to build a grander hotel on the site.

Out of the ashes, the Phoenix Hotel rose. Perhaps the owners should have considered the relationship between the myth and the hotel. The Phoenix lived up to the name. In 1833 the three story hotel burned to the ground. There are no known likenesses of the original Phoenix Hotel, but the hotel that replaced it was photographed in 1860.

One of the interesting things about this picture is that both the rooftop of General Leslie Combs' house and the steeple of the old Main Street Christian Church are visible beyond the hotel.  The church hosted the  1843 Campbell-Rice debate presided over by Henry Clay. General Combs home was considered one of the architectural jewels of the city. It was lost on May 14, 1879, when the Phoenix was again consumed by fire.

The history of the Phoenix doesn't end here, but this is the incarnation of the Phoenix Hotel that is part of my fictional world. Several scenes in Circle of Dishonor were set in or around the hotel. Concealed in Ash opens on the evening of May 14, 1879, and takes us into the grand ballroom on the fateful night the flames took her.

Book Review: Civil War Lexington, Kentucky

The History Press has just released a new book by Joshua and Karen Leet, titled Civil War Lexington, Kentucky: Bluegrass Breeding Ground of Power. In the interest of full disclosure, I was introduced to the Leets by fellow author Stephen Zimmer who invited me to their launch at The Morris Book Shop, here in Lexington, where I am sure you can still get autographed copies.

At first glance, you might think that Lexington is an odd choice for a Civil War book. There were no great battles fought in the city, nor was Lexington a key strategic location. Instead, Lexington contributed her greatest minds, bravest hearts, and most loyal citizens to the war. Civil War Lexington, Kentucky reflects the people, North and South, who loved their home state and fought for what they believed was in her best interests.

Joshua and Karen Leet take a history lovers' look at Lexington's leading families and Lexington's role in shaping United States history, and how Lexingtonian lives were changed by the war that divided the country. There is no deeply footnoted scholarly text to wade through; this is a book that is friendly to the lay reader. It's also the sort of book for history lovers, Civil War buffs, and anyone who loves Kentucky history. Certainly, there is enough meat to the text to be worthy of the researcher's shelf, but it also belongs in the gift shops of state parks and Kentucky historical sites, particularly those in the Bluegrass.

I am very happy to have this slim volume as a new addition to my Kentucky history bookshelf, and will be referring to it often to enrich the background of my novels.

Historical: Brucetown Day

Tomorrow the Brucetown neighborhood is having a block party Since I can’t be there in person, I am writing this blog to share a little of the history of Brucetown.

Brucetown was founded in 1865. It was one of several communities that were formed to accommodate the influx of former slaves into Lexington. Let me make it clear that these communities were not generally founded out of the goodness of Lexingtonian’s hearts. Most of these communities were in low lying areas, near railroad tracks, cemeteries, or factories where property was less valuable. Developing African American communities on these properties served the dual purposes of profiting from otherwise useless land and keeping African Americans as hidden from view as they had been in their former slave quarters.

W. W. Bruce was one of the men that took advantage of the opportunity to profit from these new citizens. He decided to subdivide the land next to his hemp factory and built homes for the African Americans he employed as factory workers, allowing them to pay for the houses from their earnings. Homes were available for sale to non employees, but most were sold through interest free loans from the company. The factory owned the mortgage. It took years to pay for a home in Brucetown. If the factory worker left his employment before the house was paid for, his home reverted back to the factory. Becoming disabled in Brucetown could leave your family homeless.

Despite the disadvantages I have pointed out to these loans, getting a job at the hemp factory and buying a home through the company was a better deal than most poor people of any race could get in the nineteenth century. Owning their homes was a source of pride and whole families worked to pay off the mortgage early. The little community might have disappeared into the city like Lees Row (which exists only as Leestown Road) had it not been for the ability of homeowners to sell the small cabins Mr. Bruce built and build larger homes on the outskirts of Brucetown.

Tomorrow’s block party isn’t about the success of Brucetown or its much deserved neighborhood pride. It is dedicated to the memory of three African American men murdered by a white mob in 1878. The murdered men were Tom Turner, who was shot, Edward Claxton, and John Davis, both of whom were lynched. The murdered men were not criminals. They were ordinary working men who were merely suspected of having knowing something about of the murder of a white man killed two weeks prior. A man named Stivers had been hanged for the murder. Killing one man wasn’t enough to satisfy the thirst for blood.

Tom Turner refused to be blindfolded and taken from his home by the five men who broke into his house in the middle of the night. Mustering as much dignity as a man could while facing a mob in his nightshirt, Turner pushed his wife aside and told the invaders that they might as well shoot him where he stood because he wasn’t going with him. Four of the men obliged and fired. Any one of the shots would have been fatal.

The other two victims were Edward Claxton and John Davis: both agreed to be blindfolded and taken away by the mob. The next morning they were found hanged in the woods on the Northeast side of Lexington.

None of the men involved in the murders of Turner, Claxton and Davis were ever identified. Arrests were made, but Mrs. Turner was unable or too frightened to identify any of the suspects as the men who shot her husband. No other witnesses came forward.

Oldest Mental Hospital West of the Alleghenies

Eastern State Hospital is moving. The old buildings will be torn down. In their place, the Bluegrass Community College and Technical School will build a larger campus. I have nothing against the Community College expansion, or against modern, state of the art, facilities for Eastern State. But I find the move an incredibly sad event because the hospital is a living part of Lexington's rich history.

Eastern State Hospital was started by private citizens, mostly from Lexington, through a fund raising campaign announced in the Lexington Register. Many gave anonymously. Some of Fayette County's most famous citizens were involved in the efforts to raise money for the hospital. John Hunt, Andrew McCalla, George and Samuel Trotter, Alexander Parker, Thomas January, John Bradford, JD Young, William Morton, Thomas Pendell, J. Postlethwaite, John Pope, Lewis Sanford, John Bradford, Robert McNair and Samuel Ayers were among the contributors. A ten acre tract of land at Sinking Spring was purchased for construction of the Fayette Hospital, as it was originally named. Henry Clay not only supported the effort financially, he delivered the oration when the cornerstone for the first building was placed.

Fayette Hospital was intended to treat "lunatics" and the "sick poor." But the Panic of 1819 halted construction. Lexington was devastated by the panic. Thomas January, one of the largest contributors to the project, had to close his factory after 24 years of operation. Governor Adair was able to keep interest in the project alive in the legislature. He pressed the state to take over and finish the hospital. After studying the advisability of the project, the state decided to purchase the property and complete the hospital, but wished to use it exclusively as a mental hospital.

Eastern State is the oldest hospital in the United States built for the express purpose of treating the mentally ill. The hospital opened on May 1, 1824 with a single brick building 66 feet square and three stories tall. As news of the work done there spread, the hospital became more and more involved in the care of mental patients from all over Kentucky with diseases of the mind were sent to Eastern State. Later, additional property was purchased to provide a park and farm to the hospital. Eastern State was a village within a growing city. Within the walls of the hospital grounds there were medical facilities, a farm, houses for employees, stores, parks, trails a cemetery and a private lake. Events like the "Lunatic Ball" allowed local citizens to visit with residents of the hospital community, but there was little interaction beyond these special events.

Today there is archeological research going on at the site of the cemetery and volunteers are trying to build a database of information about the patients buried there. Some of the graves discovered contain as many as four bodies. Geological studies have indicated there could be more than 10,000 people buried on the grounds. Many will never be identified. I truly wish there were some way to preserve what remains of this historical site.

Thursday's Thugs: When Good Guys Turn out Bad

How do you feel when the people you expect to heroic turn out to be the thugs? We've all seen it done in real life and fiction. It isn't hard for me to believe in rogue cops. After all, I live in Lexington, home of the Bluegrass Conspiracy. Freewheeling practices with undercover police in the 1970's drug trade did a lot of damage to the reputation of the Lexington-Fayette County Police. In the era when I write, the Lexington Police were up to their eyeballs in graft and corruption. Many officers and city officials were members of the Klan. Still, there are times when I just hate what a writer does with their heroes.

One of the most disappointing turns in a story involved Thomas Harris' character Clarice stopped chasing Hannibal and joined him in cannibalism. Really? After all she had done to stop Hannibal, Harris has them join forces? What was he thinking?

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against the tarnished badge as a plot line. Some of the best thugs have been wearing a uniform. L.A. Confidential did a wonderful job with bad cops as the villains. What I hate is when the good guys turn bad. For me, taking someone who has done years of fighting crime and turning them to the "dark side" is a disappointment I won't forgive. Write your plot that way if you must, but as a reader, you've lost me.

Thursday's Thugs: Knights of the Golden Circle

A group of five men met in Lexington, Kentucky on Independence Day of 1854 and took the first steps toward organizing the Knights of the Golden Circle. They placed a compass on a map of the Americas, with its center point being Havana, Cuba and drew a circle that encompassed the entire Southern United States, portions of Mexico, Central and South America. These men claimed they would unite in a Golden Circle and take over the production of cotton, coffee, sugar, chocolate, rice and tobacco. Through controlling these New World crops they believed they could control the world.

Dr. George Washington Lafayette Bickley was the moving force behind organizing the Knights of the Golden Circle. He and his friends supported the reopening  and expanding of the slave trade, buying up huge tracts of land in the countries he wished to control, and most of all, building a Southern-controlled empire around the plantation model.

A lot of Southerners would take exception to the Knights of the Golden Circle being called thugs, but the bad guys in Circle of Dishonor deserve the name. The KGC was behind a rash of payroll robberies in Kentucky and Ohio. These robberies probably led to the rumors of a secret stash of Confederate gold that the KGC was charged with protecting. They were also behind the reported 5th column of the Confederacy. John Hunt Morgan believed that the KGC would rise up and take arms when he led his command into Kentucky and Indiana.

Counting on thieves, profiteers, and assassins to form an army was a mistake that cost Morgan dearly. The KGC plot to burn New York City was closer to their type of rebellion. The one Castle that did take action, by stealing a train and attempting to invade Mexico, gave up without firing a shot before their train got out of Kansas.

The KGC appeared on the scene with a plot to assassinate Lincoln before his inaugural train could reach Washington. Nobody knows if the story is accurate or if it was the invention of Alan Pinkerton to establish himself as the newly elected president's bodyguard. Certainly there were members of the KGC in Maryland, but how effective they were at that stage of their growth is impossible to know.

By the end of the Civil War, the KGC had established Castles (local chapters of the Knights) in every Southern state. At their peak, there were 20 Castles in Texas alone. Kentucky is estimated to have produced 400,000 members of the KGC. The population of the state and the pro-Union factions active in Kentucky make me believe that the actual number of members was far lower.

One of the problems I have run into when researching the KGC is the "Golden Ticket." A group of New York con men managed to travel through most of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois selling gold/yellow tickets that could be presented to General Morgan and his men to would keep them from stealing horses and other livestock from Confederate sympathizers. But as one parses through fact and fiction, the pieces clearly form a picture of men intent upon ruling the world at any cost.

Rediscovering Nineteenth Century Kentucky Artist, Thomas J. Scott

This weekend I visited the opening of THE HORSE IN DECORATIVE AND FINE ART at the Headley-Whitney Museum. It was an interesting and well attended opening. If you haven't visited the exhibit I would highly recommend doing so before it closes on December 23rd.

My interest in the exhibit was sparked by the fact that a friend of mine was heavily involved in the research on Thomas J. Scott that lead to this nineteenth century Kentucky artist reemerging into the art scene. Scott would have been a contemporary of my detective, so I was very pleased to be given copies of some of the historical information about him. Who knows? One day he may show up in one of my stores. However, this post is the story of how a local artist came back into the spotlight in Lexington.

Some years ago, a friend and co-worker of mine, Carolyn Burnette, discovered an old painting discarded for trash pickup. The painting had suffered years of neglect, but she thought it was interesting and began looking into getting it professionally cleaned. Her painting turned out to be an original 1882 Thomas J. Scott painting titled Miss Russell and Foal.

Carolyn's interest in getting the painting cleaned took her to the Henry Clay estate, where a similar painting was discovered. That discovery led to her husband Gordon developing an interest in Thomas Scott which turned into countless hours of research into the artist and his work. Gordon now owns a second Scott painting and has built a website ( www.thomasjscott.com ) where his research into the artist's works is documented.

Those of us who love Kentucky history owe Gordon Burnett a debt of thanks for taking on the monumental task of bringing this piece of our past to light. Thanks, Gordon.