Museum Newsletter - 3 Jun 2005

Friends of the Bullitt County History Museum
E-Newsletter
June 3, 2005

Old Bardstown Village, Bardstown Civil War Museum, Bardstown Natural History Museum visited

My wife and I visited these museums last Saturday and they are well worth the trip. The village is a collection of several old log buildings that have been saved from destruction by moving them to the new site and restoring them. Scheduled activities such as iron work or Native American art are sometimes featured along with some displays.

The Civil War Museum was far more extensive than I expected and well presented. It featured several large rooms of artifacts from several Civil War campaigns. Short tours are offered. The only criticism that I might come up with is that the displays did not do enough to relate the war to local history, though I read that there are other activities available to do that. The Wildlife/Natural History Museum was located next to the village and the civil war museum. It is primarily a very large and interesting personal collection of taxidermied animals from around North America belonging to Kevin Brumley, who is happy to give a personal tour of the collection. Contact 502-349-0281 or www.civil-war-museum.org for details.

Fort Duffield and West Point visited

Fort Duffield is a local treasure that too few people know about. The earthen-walled Civil War fort is located on a hill top near West Point, just a couple of miles from the Bullitt County line. Volunteers there have done a fantastic job restoring the fort and creating a very pleasant park with walking and even bike trails. I visited there recently during one of their scheduled living-history re-enactments. It was great! Check it out. Web site is https://members.aol.com/FtDuffield/fort.html.

Activity at Our Museum:

>> New Displays.

We have created a new display of Native American artifacts. Volunteer Jim Crepps has graciously loaned us his large collection of arrow heads and tools that he has found on farm lands in the Bullitt County area over the years. They had previously been on display at another museum outside the county. I am glad to see them "return home". Linda Dishon, who is helping set up the Pow Wow in Shepherdsville this weekend, also gave us several nice items.

We also have put away our "Trainwreck of 1917" display for a while and replaced it with a fairly extensive display of "electricity, radios, and TVs" that includes what may be the very first TV in Bullitt County.

And we are always adjusting and adding individual items. Come by and see!

Speaking of individual items, we have had several donations:

>> Ancestral Trails Index 1976-2003. Harden County Historical Society President Gary Kempf gave the museum a copy of this nice index, which will help us find research articles that the organization has written in its newsletters over the years.

>> Gary has been quite generous to us. He has also given us a couple of his fine books on Ft. Knox, as well as maps showing the original landowners and cemeteries of the Ft. Knox area.

>> A big tabletop book, "The Official Military Atlas of the Civil War", was given to the museum by Pat Payne.

>> We plan to have a special history display some day on Education in Bullitt County and collect a few items related to that. Sarah Strange recently gave us three arithmetic books from 1877-1901. Margaret Hardesty Day gave us a "Congdon Music Reader" from 1918, a poetry book from 1937, and a novel, "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine", from 1909.

>> Penny Pack continues giving us many great items. The most recent is a box of maps and photos that we have only began looking into. She also brought us a long, framed photo of the Shepherdsville Girls Graduating high school class of 1918, which includes Nancy Trunnel Strange who later became Circuit Court Clerk for decades in Bullitt County.

>> Charlie Long loaned us a nicely-framed panoramic photo from the 1974 Bullitt County bicentennial celebration entitled, "Battle of Shepherdsville".

>> Linda Dishon and others with the Red Crow Indian Council gave the museum several items demonstrating Native American culture and skills. Included are a quiver of arrows showing how arrows were made with flint tips and natural feathers.

>> As part of our efforts to fulfill the museum mission of education and outreach, we have started having a booth at some festivals when we can. Jim and Madona Cash loaned us their tent for the Mt. Washington Festival.

Doris Owen and I went together and paid for a really nice full-color banner. Dale Mulhall of "Amazing Signs" made the banner according to my design, which is basically our museum letterhead, which has a current photo of the courthouse on one side, a 1909 photo of the courthouse on the other side, and "The Bullitt County History Museum", "A service of the Bullitt County Genealogical Society" in the center.

>> West Point history author Richard Briggs gave us one of his books on West Point and I bought another and gave it to the museum. Both are filled with good stories and photos from our past. Especially interesting are the parts concerning the Salt River.

Another Great Resource:

Kentucky Land Office. Thanks to a new database developed by the Kentucky Secretary of State's office and the Kentucky Historical Society, historians and genealogists can access a plethora of scanned images of historical land documents on line. Go to www.sos.ky.gov and select "Kentucky Land Office".

As always, thank you all for being a Friend of Bullitt County History!

David Strange
Bullitt County History Museum
Executive Director
Museum Phone: 502-921-0161
E-Mail address: David.Strange@BullittCountyHistory.org