Runner nearing finish line, documented by Courier- Journal photographer Al Blunk ca. 1960s. Photo in Blunk collection in the Filson Special Collections.

On October 6, in celebration of my 27^th birthday I will be running a 50k (31 mile) trail race in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee.  A few weeks ago, after I learned that it was not advisable for me to run the Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon, I started looking for a new race in a new place. A few of my friends were running the Stump Jump 50k, and it seemed like the perfect fit. Never mind that I live in the Bluegrass, that my longest run to date is 15 miles, and that my trail experience is limited to hiking, one 4 mile trail race, and my long-ago tenure on Nelson County’s  varsity cross-country team.

You may be wondering if I’m crazy (the answer is yes, I’m crazy for running). I routinely get up and run at least 3 miles 3-4 days a week. You may also be wondering why on earth I’m telling you about this crazy running goal of mine and what it has to do with The Filson.

Since I’m fairly new to Louisville, having only lived here for a year, I needed to find some trails to run. I’ve always been interested in the outdoors and I enjoy hiking. So I turned to The Filson’s library to see if I could find information on Kentucky’s park system and the Smokey Mountains.

It turns out that The Filson has several resources on the history of the parks. A great book on trails is A Guide to the Backpacking and Day-Hiking Trails of Kentucky by Arthur B. Lander, Jr. At the writing of this book (1979), there were approximately 950 miles of backpacking and day hiking trails in Kentucky. I found some of my old favorites, namely the Martin’s Branch Trail in Morehead, which came out half a mile from my former apartment. The book gives the names of several trails all around the state with descriptions of each and how they are marked. This information is extremely helpful, especially if you get lost when every tree looks the same (kind of like me).

Among our resources, there are several pamphlets that are large and colorful. One of my favorites was Red River Gorge, Land of Arches, Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. With the bright colors, vivid photography, and the memory of hikes at Natural Bridge and driving through Nada Tunnel, it was wonderful to have this walk down memory lane while learning something new.

If you are interested in learning more about the parks and trails of Kentucky and Tennessee, I highly recommend a trip to The Filson. There are more books and pamphlets than I have mentioned here, all of which are fascinating to look at. These selections offer a peek into the area’s rich history and may just point you in the direction of your next day trip!

The D. X. Murphy & Bro., Architects records are comprised mostly of architectural records and drawings created by D. X. Murphy and his firm as well as a few plans by his mentor Henry Whitestone.

The Filson is pleased to announce that after years of preservation and cataloging efforts, the D. X. Murphy & Bro., Architects Records (1854 – 1949) are complete and open to researchers.

This massive collection of historical architectural drawings and business records documents 95 years of Louisville’s rich architectural history, mainly through the business records and drawings generated by two of the city’s most renowned architects: Henry Whitestone (1819–1893) and D. X. Murphy (1853–1933).  (Whitestone was famous for his work on the original Galt House and the L & N headquarters (located at the corner of Main & Seconds Streets which now anchors Whiskey Row) while Murphy’s firm was responsible for the iconic grandstand and twin spires at Churchill Downs and today is still extant as Luckett & Farley, Inc.).

Many of the grand buildings which once graced downtown, Broadway, and residential areas are documented in this collection, providing an invaluable glimpse of Louisville’s former architectural landscape. Additionally, a variety of late-19^th and early-20^th century Louisville building contractors and businesses are represented in the collection which provides valuable information on regional businesses, industry and technology, as well as substantive insights into architectural and decorative arts.

Filson intern Lena Gimbel arranging architectural drawings.

While most of the drawings in the collection are in excellent condition, a number of them have become severely brittle with time as well as exposure to fluctuating environment conditions, which hastened the breakdown of the papers’ composition.  Until rescued in the 1970s by local preservationists and historians Mary Jean Kinsman and Penny Jones, the collection resided for years in the turret of the old Louisville Trust building where it was exposed to the elements and an overly cozy population of pigeons.  The fragile nature of the collection as well as the dense amount of historical information it contains, made processing and stabilizing the historical drawings a slow process.

Lori Wilson sorting archival business records.

This work could not have been completed without the assistance of two dedicated, patient interns, Lori Wilson and Lena Gimbel, both of whom worked at the Filson while completing their Master’s in History at the University of Louisville.  Lori Wilson surveyed, arranged, re-housed and described project files, correspondence, business records, and account books associated with the D.X. Murphy & Bro. architectural firm and its predecessor Henry Whitestone.  Lena Gimbel indexed, preserved, and described architectural drawings representing nine decades of the area’s residences, churches, and medical, industrial, commercial, and federal buildings.

The two plus years it’s taken to process the D. X. Murphy & Bro., Architects collection have been an exciting and rewarding experience in building community and connections between historians, archivists, students, and architects all the while exposing a rich historical treasure for researchers.

The Filson is a non-lending library, and in the early years we did not keep records of what books were requested by the patrons. There was no way to tell who had used the book, or when it actually went missing, because its absence was discovered during a routine check of the collection. The item is rather thin so it could have been an accidental theft, perhaps gathered up amongst the papers brought into the library with a patron. 

The poor book was in terrible shape, the cover was detached and most of the pages loose.  I decided to make it a rare item and placed it in an acid free envelope to keep it all together.  Now this item resides in our rare pamphlet collection and hopefully will stay put and not have any more adventures.

While The Help is a great book, I was really interested in race relations in Louisville and Kentucky during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. I checked out a book from the university library (Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A.; The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities as Second-class Citizens by Stetson Kennedy if you are interested), and while that gave me a good background on the laws regulating education, housing, and entertainment between the races, it still wasn’t specific to our area.

Luckily, this year I get to be a part of “National Issues, Local Struggles: The Civil Rights Movement in the Ohio Valley and Beyond,” The Filson Institute’s upcoming public conference. While I’m not speaking, one of the perks of working at The Filson is that working sometimes includes attending our events, and I am very much looking forward to this event. The conference kicks off on May 17 with a reception and viewing of our upcoming exhibit 20^th Century African American Collections at The Filson, followed by a keynote speech by John Dittmer, Professor Emeritus at DePaw University. The conference continues on Friday, May 18 with a day of lectures. The speakers include Clarence Lang, Rhonda Y. Williams, and Luther Adams, with topics such as the border south, women’s role in the Civil Rights Movement, and the struggle for open housing in Louisville. Friday’s lectures will conclude with a panel discussion moderated by Tracy K’Meyer and featuring three local Civil Rights activists: Blaine Hudson, Mervin Aubespin, and Raul Cunningham. The conference ends with a driving tour of various Civil Rights sites in Louisville. The tour is led by Cate Fosl, Mervin Aubespin, and Bob Cunningham. During the tour, the leaders will talk about their own experiences in Louisville during this tumultuous period in history.

In related news, the winning essay from The Filson’s 3^rd Annual High School Essay Contest was about desegregation efforts in Louisville throughout the 1960s and 70s. Grace Elizabeth Daly, a senior at Sacred Heart Academy, authored the essay entitled “An Analysis of the Desegregation Efforts in Neighborhoods throughout the 1960s and 1970s in Louisville, Kentucky.” Her essay will be featured in the upcoming issue of The Filson magazine and will be uploaded onto our website in the next few weeks.

For more information about “National Issues, Local Struggles: The Civil Rights Movement in the Ohio Valley and Beyond,” check out the informational page here. We are adding more information all the time, and registration will open soon!

1817 bond for female distiller, Milly Stone. From the Eli Huston Brown III collection.

In June of 1812 the United States declared war on Great Britain. The war would be over by 1815, but the bills would not be paid for several more years to come. In order to pay for the war, the United States government decided to renew the tax on distilled spirits. The “whiskey tax” had been repealed by President Jefferson in 1802, but brought back in 1814 as the war debt increased. The war would end in 1815, but the tax on spirits would stay around until the end on 1817. The tax on distilled spirits was set at 20 cents a proof gallon (one gallon of 50% or 100 proof, alcohol).

With many of the men in Kentucky serving in the military, Kentucky’s women were often left to run the distillery and pay the taxes. Many would become permanent owners of the distillery when their husband did not return from the war. The Filson’s Eli Huston Brown III collection has a license to distill issued to Milly Stone, dated 22 December 1817.

Milly Stone, of Nelson County, Ky., became a distiller when she inherited the distillery from her husband, John Stone. John had three stills with a combined capacity of 298 gallons, that he was licensed to use as a distillery during the first whiskey tax.  There is no indication that Stone had served in the military, but his estate was settled in 1814 with his wife Milly receiving property in his will. The license issued to Milly lists her as the owner of the distillery and allows her to legally distill starting on 22 December 1817 till 22 March 1818. The license sets the tax at 54 cents per gallon of capacity of the distillery. Small distilleries that only operated part time were taxed on their capacity, not on their actual production. Accompanying the license is a copy of a bond issued on the same day showing that Milly Stone paid $160.92 in taxes for the license for the same period. The collection also includes two earlier bonds showing that Milly Stone paid her taxes on 14 January 1817 (two months distilling, $107.20) and 17 March 1817 (two weeks distilling, $26.82). With these figures, Stone was only expected to make about 80 gallons in the three month period between 22 December 1817 and 22 March 1818.

Distillery License for Milly Stone. From the Eli Huston Brown III collection.

The amount of whiskey Milly was producing at any one time was a very small amount and it was not what we know as bourbon. Milly was probably putting her whiskey directly into jugs and selling the spirits either to neighbors or a wholesale grocer, or keeping it for personal use. Chances are it was not a product aged in oak barrels but it could have been flavored to make “cherry bounce” or “blackberry cordial”. The tax was repealed in 1818 and there are no other records in the collection to show what happened to Milly Stone’s distillery. Most likely the distillery stayed in the family until the federal government brought back the whiskey tax in 1861 to pay for yet another war. By that time the changes in the industry made it unlikely that the Stone family would want the expense of making whiskey on such a small scale. Aged bourbon was the product everyone wanted to drink and that market was becoming dominated by larger distilleries with warehouses filled with barrels of aging whiskey.

Canine historian and genealogist, Dr. Bill researches his ancestry. President Thos. Jefferson once praised Bill's German Shepherd predecessors for their high intelligence, ease in training, and pleasant companionship.

Even though Spring has just begun, it almost feels like the dog days of summer in the Louisville area.  Maybe the weather is bringing canine researchers to the Filson in packs, or perhaps it’s our extensive resources on the canine history of the Ohio River Valley.

This Sunday, April 1, the Filson had the pleasure of assisting a distinguished researcher: Bill Poindexter.

Image credit: Laurence Pringle, 2004.

Dr. Bill Poindexter – who prefers to be called ‘Bill,’ ‘Billy Boy,’ or ‘Bilbo’ – is Chair of the history department at the University of Man’s Best Friend.  Though Bill has published numerous scholarly articles regarding Seaman, the Newfoundland, explorer, and goodwill ambassador who participated in the Lewis & Clark Expedition, this Filson visit was strictly for genealogical research.

Historic sheet music from the Filson archive about Bill’s canine kin "composed and sung with enthusiastic applause"

Bill found a plethora of information at the Filson that he used in his research including the 1890 Canine Census, the Encyclopedia of Kentucky Pups, the Mutt family letters, and plenty of dog-eared rare books that convey how his ancestors lived and work in 19^th-century Kentucky.  Much to his surprise, Bill uncovered a long lost family connection to the canine companions of our 3^rdPresident Thomas Jefferson. Bill was pleased with the information gleaned from the Filson’s research collections and stated that he would bark the message out to his canine cousins and colleagues that the Filson Historical Society is the premier facility for all historical canine information.

Happy April Fool’s from the Filson Historical Society!  Please note: no animals were hurt in the production of this blog post.

In 1890, the” Scientific American” journal, printed out of New York, described itself as a “weekly journal of practical information, art, science, mechanics, chemistry, and manufactures.” Here in the Filson Library, we have an article from the April 12, 1890 issue, entitled “The Cyclone of March 23, 27, and 28” which covers the storms that extended from Nebraska to Tennessee. The bulk of the damage, however; occurred in Louisville. Photos taken at St. John’s Episcopal Church, the Falls City Hall, the stand-pipe at the Water Works, and the Union Depot reveal extensive damage caused by this deadly 1890 tornado. The death toll in Louisville reached just over 100 with even more reported injuries.

This article was well written and provides a fairly comprehensive overview of the event, featuring a map of the path of the tornado in Louisville along with many photos and illustrations of the destruction. Furthermore, as one would imagine it elaborates on the scientific view of tornados, including illustrations of various phases in which funnel clouds present themselves.

The Filson library houses this article as a Rare, Large Pamphlet and it may be viewed in the Special Collections department reading room on the third floor of the building. On behalf of everyone here at the Filson Historical Society, the victims of the recent storms in the Ohio Valley have been and will continue to be in our thoughts.

The Path of the March 1890 tornado through Louisville, KY. Photo extracted from "Scientific American," April 12, 1890.

Debris of The Falls City Hall, the most complete destruction in Louisville. Photo extracted from "Scientific American," April 12, 1890.

A series of correspondence written almost weekly between 1939 and 1944 from Margaret “Peg” Allison to her parents, Young Ewing and Margaret Tarrant Allison, illuminates a young woman’s struggles during the Second World War, leading to her enrollment in the WAVES.

Peg Allison (center) with her grandmother (left) and mother (right) - all three "Margaret" Allisons.

Margaret Allison was born in August 1917 to Young Ewing Allison, who later became editor and president of Insurance Field (a trade journal) and Margaret Tarrant Allison, a talented performance soprano before her marriage.  Peg grew up in Louisville and New York City, and attended college in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan and a junior college in Chicago.  A portion of her correspondence these “college” years (1935-1939) is absent, and when the letters resume in 1939 Peg makes vague references to “class” on certain days, but also to work.  She later remarks upon not having “much college” or a degree.

Her early correspondence during World War II shows Peg working at Fields Department Store in Chicago, where she is clearly frustrated and bored with her position; her letters are filled with ideas about other jobs and about all of her “boyfriends”, many of whom are in training, going into service, and being sent overseas.  Peg writes, “Well I guess my nursing is out – 3 yrs is the training and no less and I don’t like to take that long. I’m going to see what else is cooking in defense work – I’m getting very restless at Fields and a defense job would help in the money end and also would be something new – I’d kinda like to get on the woman’s army if they ever really organize it, but I guess that will be never.”  [12 May 1942]

Despite Peg’s doubts, the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corp was established, and Peg talked about joining, writing to her mother, “Tomorrow is the start of registration for WAAC.  I’m going to try for it, tho’ I may not be very lucky. I think I’ll really enjoy the work for a change and I don’t think the war will last forever – and as long as I’ve been away from home it isn’t as tho’ I was leaving you. It will be a change in jobs and that’s all.” [26 May 1942] To her father, she writes, “I know mom doesn’t like the WAAC but I want to do something about this [war] and I don’t feel factory work is the answer and my bond and stamp buying isn’t too high.  So I’ll try to get in and if so I’ll be glad, if not I’ll try something else – but safer.  Tho’ I don’t think we’ll be sent any where out of the US, if so I’ll have joined the army to see the world….” [31 May 1942]

Peg’s letters throughout the summer of 1942 detail her failure to be accepted into the WAAC.  As a substitute, she begins taking a nurses’ aide course at the Red Cross and works at the Chicago Service Men’s Center, organized by the Chicago Commission on National Defense and Major Edward Kelly, which provided housing, clothing items, food, and dancing.

The beginning of a letter from Peg to her mother, 28 December 1942, along with the WAVES training Christmas image.

In the fall, Peg applied to be a member of the WAVES – Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.  This group was the United States Navy’s women’s service, in which women replaced Navy men at shore stations for office work, radio, communications, and storekeeping.  From the very beginning, the WAVES were an official part of the Navy, and its members held the same rank and ratings as male personnel. They also received the same pay and were subject to military discipline.  “Dear Family, your dear daughter is now a “Wave” I passed everything o.k. and was sworn in this morning.”  [29 September 1942] Peg left Chicago for Bloomington, Indiana for 3 months, and her letters home described her training to become a Navy Storekeeper.

Although Peg had been continually seeing various boyfriends in Chicago, one definitely stood out as her favorite, although he had been deployed overseas – Bill Nightingale.  As Peg was being shipped to Corpus Christi for her WAVES station, Bill was fighting in Northern African and was wounded.  He received a Purple Heart and was returned to the United States for recuperation in the Spring of 1943.  He eventually reunites with Peg in Corpus Christi, and they decide to get married.  “Please try and get used to the idea that lots of things in war-time have to change and getting married is one of them…he is good for me and I only hope you’ll agree later on…right now I can see your point but I’ve got mine too and it is the rightest thing I think I’ll ever do…” [7 July 1943]

An image of a store keeper from the WAVES info brochure; Peg became a WAVES shopkeeper in Corpus Christi

Things became more difficult when Bill was sent to a hospital in central Illinois while Peg remained in Corpus Christi; her letters began to talk of little but how to get transferred to a different WAVES unit, perhaps in Louisville, or how to get out of the WAVES all together.  Bill was eventually discharged from the army hospital in December 1943 and joined her again in Texas; soon after, Peg sent the following message to her mother “You’ll be the first…I am sure now – I’ve just come from the dr. and the bunny says I’m to be a mama about next Sept. 2 – and the prospect of being out of the navy has made me a new woman in only a short minute it seems.” [20 January 1944]  Due to her pregnancy, Peg was able to leave the WAVES; she and Bill moved to Chicago, both obtaining employment at Fields.  Peg’s letters throughout the rest of 1944 and 1945 do not mention the war, outside of her younger brother, Sonny, who was in Air Force training.  In later years, Bill re-joined the army, and Peg’s post-war letters first described the difficult life of the family of a non-commissioned officer, later juxtaposed with her elevated social standing and housing when Bill became a Warrant Officer.

Margaret Allison Nightingale’s interesting letters illuminate the yearnings of a young woman during World War II who wants to do what she can to participate in the war while loved ones are training and fighting; they also show the realities of day-to-day life once Peg became one of the first women in the armed forces; above all, they illuminate her story.

The St. Patrick’s Day Parades were began by the Irish community in Louisville shortly following the Civil War and continued until the early 1920s. These early parades featured marchers who assembled in front of St. Louis Bertrand Catholic Church on Sixth Street and marched to Broadway and back. Immediately following these parades Hogsdon notes that the attendees partook in “a glorified beer garden” across town at Phoenix Hill Park. Hogsdon’s article does not mention the reason for the parade’s 60 year absence, however; one could surmise that the Great Depression of the 1930s played a role at least in its initial demise.

The annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade continues to be a highly celebrated event in Louisville, although; it now proceeds from Broadway and Baxter Ave. down to Baxter and Bardstown Road. The Ancient Order of the Hibernians plan to put on another lively St. Patrick’s Day Parade this year on Saturday, March 10^th. More information about this year’s parade can be found online at http://www.louisvilleirish.com/shamrocks-shillelaghs.  Finally, the aforementioned article by Hogsdon can be found in the historical files within the Filson Historical Society Library.

This month, there is a Women’s History Month installation in the lobby of the Federal building (600 Dr. Martin Luther King Place). Filson Archivists Robin Wallace, Jennie Cole, and Sarah-Jane Poindexter organized the display, which is in two glass cases. The first case features images, manuscripts, and text about two different women, Julia Ann Tevis and Margaret “Peg” Allison Nightingale. The second case is a collection of approx. a dozen images (and captions) of women in a variety of roles during the nineteenth century (ex. aviatrix, women in the military, red cross during WWI, a tradeswoman/carpenter, etc. ).

Drs. Mark V. Wetherington and A. Glenn Crothers will be speaking at the “Victory Achieved – Freedom Denied: From Civil War to Reconstruction in Kentucky” on March 8^th and 9^th. On March 8^th, Dr. Crothers will present “Lucy Higgs Nichols and the Limits of Freedom in the Post-Civil War Ohio Valley,” and will also be part of a panel discussion entitled, “Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War.” Friday, March 9, Dr. Wetherington will present “‘Treat them as Wild Beasts’: The Breakdown of Law and Order in the Civil War and Post-War Era.” This symposium is open to the public; to register, please click here.

Finally, Curator Jim Holmberg will be giving a talk to the Louisville Historical League during their meeting about Researching at The Filson. He will be covering the types of sources that we have, how to research in the archives, and more! This meeting is Saturday, March 10 from 9:00 – 11:30. It is open to the public and will be held at the Peterson-Dumesnil House. There is no charge, but donations are always welcome.

We are always glad to see love of history shared with others!