Museum Newsletter - 27 Sep 2010

Friends of the Bullitt County History Museum
E-Newsletter
Sept 27, 2010 (Volume 6, Number 9)

Dear Friends,

Announcements...

>>Trouble receiving this newsletter in good format?

Friends, I am getting reports that a few people are receiving this newsletter with a lot gibberish. That is not supposed to be a slur on my writing [grin]. But they are getting a lot of unreadable text, apparently only when I include photos in the newsletter. There are no photos in this newsletter, but watch for future ones, and be sure to let me know if you are having this problem.

>>Bullitt Genealogical Society meeting cancelled for October.

The October meeting is cancelled so we can all go to the Louisville Family History Seminar and Book Fair. The Louisville Genealogical Society's annual Family History and Book Fair falls on the same day as our normal October Bullitt Genealogical Society meeting. The special Louisville event is so good, we voted to not have our meeting, so that everyone can go there.

The seminar and book fair will be held at Beargrass Christian Church, 4100 Shelbyville Road, in Louisville on October 16, from 8:30 to 4:00. Check their web site at www.rootsweb.com/~kylgs for more info.

By the way, we'll have a booth there. Come see us!

>>Mt. Washington Historical Society Meeting October 5. The Mt. Washington Historical Society, which is working to restore its Lloyd House Museum, meets on October 5 at 7:00 p.m. at the Mount Washington government Annex Building.

Activity...

>> Donations.

Judy Richardson donated her documentation on Gardner McKay. As far as I know, the three inch binder of information, along with her document on McKay that will be published in the next edition of The Wilderness Road, represents Judy's first major foray into writing a genealogical work. It's great stuff! A couple of years ago, Judy discovered that Gardner McKay, a major TV star of the 1960's, was buried in Bullitt County. As a girl, she had loved his shows, and, like thousands of girls at the time, loved the handsome young adventurer as well. Turned out he had pretty deep family ties to Bullitt County, and more than a few mysteries to unravel. Look for the December issue of i>The Wilderness Road, or come by the museum to take a look. Mailed subscriptions of The Wilderness Road are one of the benefits of membership in the Bullitt County Genealogical Society. If you are not already a member, please consider joining.

Besides Judy's great work, and her donation this month, Volunteer and Society President Daniel Buxton donated a copy of a new book on Little Flock Church, one of the oldest, and biggest churches in Bullitt County.

>>Boy Scout memorabilia on display.

Many thanks to Barbara and Ken Bailey for their loan of their son's Boy Scout items we are using in a display celebrating the anniversary of scouting.

>>New major display at Museum.

Barbara Bailey has helped us set up a new display at our museum. We have removed an older display, with it radios and TVs about electricity coming to Bullitt County, and replaced it with a display on the early 1900's. Pretty darn nice one too! The display features clothing and other personal items of the times, including such things as some primitive-looking hair curling irons that were used by heating them in the oven, and sqeeeeezing them down on the hair like a pair of pliers. We loved our previous display, but space is very limited and it was time to refresh the old one. The new display still uses our active silent movie projector from Shepherdsville, 1914.

>>Visitors/researchers at the museum.

Just today we had a visitor from Washington State researching some of his family line, and our volunteers were proud that we were able to help. Though he wasn't aware of it, Lexington, Kentucky is hosting a major World Equestrian event over the next 16 days. It is sort of the equivalent of the Olympics for horses and is a very big deal. Hotel rooms are pretty much sold out all around the Lexington area, and we expect some of those folks might visit our little museum and research room while they are in state.

>>Scanned images in County Clerk's Office.

I reported on this a couple of months ago, but the County Clerk's office has been doing some important preservation and access work of our older documents. Well, today our Washington State friend was maybe the first to use it in a real project. Forgive me Friends, if I don't get this exactly correct (I am writing this at the end of a very long day.), but one of the series of documents scanned has been the old marriage bonds. Our Washington friend was at our research room and really wishing that somehow he could find information on a particular family member's marriage. We sent him over to the Clerk's office, and, sure enough, he was able to find and print out an excellently scanned copy of the original bond. The bonds are organized by year; he knew the year, so, with a little help from the clerk staff, he found it almost right away. He was very happy. These are documents, by the way, which the originals were almost inaccessible normally.

>>Web Site Additions. Our Web Master, Charles Hartley, has been so active adding things to our web site, I can hardly report them fast enough. Follow this link to the page of Latest Additions.

For Your Information...

>> Check all sources.

When looking for information on families, especially at our research room, be sure to check the booklets "Who Was Who in Bullitt County" (with info from Bullitt County Census 1850) and "Prepared by the Devil's Devil". These booklets, produced by Betty Darnell, include a lot of references to people that might surprise you. For example, we recently rediscovered some valuable information on Troutman and Shain family names by glancing through these books.

>> Update on "Registrars Copy".

Back in the July newsletter, I told you about a donation by Joyce Trammell of an original "Local Registrar's Copy" of birth certificates from 1911-1922. Well, I scanned the 92 pages, and Charles Hartley trimmed up the images, made a basic list for our web site, and then made a binder of the scanned images with some text, for our museum library. Check out this page.

>> Lebanon Junction and St. Benedict web page.

There is a new web page for Lebanon Junction and for its St. Benedict church. Check https://www.lebanonjunction.org/index.html.

Finally...

Vigilante-ism in the 1800's

From Abstracts of Newspapers in Hardin County, Kentucky: "Friday, June 28, 1889. On Tuesday night a mob of 25 men rode into Shepherdsville and demanded Jailer Boreman (actually should read Bowman) give them the keys and two prisoners, Henry Ardell and Thomas Mitchell, the men charged with the murder of Joe Lavine a Jewish peddler. They took only Ardell after the jailer begged for the life of Mitchell, as he thought he was innocent. Ardell was taken about two miles from town and hung. Mitchell later told that Ardell shot the peddler and he had tried to stop him."

This jail, if I recall correctly, was a wooden building that was on the southwest corner of the current county courthouse property. In 1891, a new jail was built, that we now call, "The Old Stone Jail", which still exists and is restored for visitors.

Thank you for being a Friend of the Bullitt County History Museum.

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