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A presentation given at the national meeting of the Washington Family Descendants on April 24, 1977. Recorded May 29, 1978 by Rena Milliken, Russellville, Logan Co., KY.
The distance from Sulgrave Manor in England to Logan County in Kentucky is a fourth of the way around the world. Today it can be traveled in a matter of hours; it took the Washingtons five to six generations.
John Whiting Washington, a third cousin of George Washington, and his wife, Frances Baylor Washington, came to Logan County in 1804, probably with her parents, Robert and Frances Gwynn Baylor, who settled in south Logan the same year. The Baylors built a one-story brick home with a large cellar. The kitchen was a log cabin nearby, where the family lived while the house was being built. The date, 1807, is carved on a brick at the top of the old smoke house. After the death of his wife, Robert Baylor left Kentucky in 1809 and moved to Mississippi, where he died in 1822. His son, Robert T. Baylor, remained in Kentucky, but he soon fell into financial difficulties, and the large acreage of land was sold in 1829 to the McCuddy family, who own it to this day. Mr. Overton McCuddy told me that when his grandfather moved to the place in September, 1829, Mr. Baylor was still living in the house and that John Whiting Washington and his wife were there too. The Washingtons left, but Mr. Baylor continued to live with the McCuddy family for several months before moving to Elkton where he died in 1830. The McCuddys added the second story to the old brick home.
Starting in 1804, John Whiting Washington bought city lots in Russellville, slaves, and land in the county. He built the house on the corner of Ninth Street and Rhea Blvd. in Russellville, which is now owned by Mrs. A.H. Hunt. The back part of the house was of log, the one-story front part was of brick, which has since been weather-boarded. In May, 1824, John Whiting Washington and his wife, Frances Baylor Washington, deeded this property to Robert Caldwell. Soon after this, according to records at the courthouse, several pieces of his property were sold at sheriff sales, which may account for the fact that he was at the home of his brother-in-law in 1829. John Whiting Washington is listed on the Logan County Census for 1810, 1820, and 1830, but not on any later ones. It is not known when or where he died.
The saddest of all the Washington stories is the life of Robert Washington, son of John Whiting Washington. There are three references to him in Finley’s History of Russellville and Logan County, Kentucky. All of them have to do with the fact that he attended Newton Academy in 1810 and 1811. This institution in Russellville was the center of education in western Kentucky, and many distinguished men attend school here in their youth. Elijah Hise, who was nine years old at the time, was one of Robert Washington’s classmates. The Breathitts also attended school at Newton Academy. Mrs. Edward Coffman says that Robert Washington stood up with her grandfather when he married; and that, when her grandmother was on her death bed, she told her children to always have a cup of coffee for Mr. Washington when he came. Sometime prior to July 19, 1883, Robert Washington was killed by a train on the L&N Railroad track between the county farm, where he had gone to live because he had no means of support, and Russellville. His administrator brought suit against the L&N Railroad on July 23, 1883. Two years later, July 29, 1885, the case was settled for $400.
In Will Book M, Page 608, Logan County, is this statement:
I, H.M. Caldwell, as personal representative of the late Robert Washington, dec., of Logan County, Kentucky, do certify that said Washington died with no estate whatever, and that since his death, to wit, this day, there has come into my hands the sum of $400 – the proceeds of a suit for damages in the Logan Circuit Court against the L&N Railroad Co. in favor of myself as administrator aforesaid, that this is a full and true inventory of said estate. August 7, 1885 - - H. M. Caldwell, Adm.
Whiting and Fairfax Washington, half uncles of John Whiting Washington, but younger than their nephew, came to Logan County around 1811. They were second cousins of George Washington. Whiting Washington and his wife, Rebecca Smith Washington, settled land near Gordonsville, and built a large brick house on a plateau called Green Ridge. The house had nineteen rooms and a large cellar. A stream of cold water ran through the cellar year round. The house was 2 ½ stories high, with a kind of roof garden on the top of it, which contained a small pool for fish. The brick walls were 16 inches thick. Everything in the construction of the house came from the farm except the glass windows and the large front doors. They were made of bronze and came from Paris, France. Relatives came from Virginia to wine, dine, and dance for weeks at a time. For a while Whiting Washington prospered more than his brother and his nephew, the census lists show that he owned many slaves. When Whiting Washington died in 1826 at the age of 46, he was buried in a grove of trees near the house. His wife, Rebecca, remained there with her younger children for several years. A letter written August 10, 1835, by Rebecca Washington to her daughter, Jane, who had married David Walker and migrated to Fayetteville, Arkansas, told of the terrible cholera epidemic which killed so many people in Russellville and Logan County. In the letter she told her daughter that she was trying to sell her property so that she and her children could come to Arkansas. Courthouse deeds indicate that she was living in Logan County in 1835 and in Arkansas in March, 1836. At that time her attorney sold 236 ½ acres of land on Big Whippoorwill in Logan County for $219.25, less than a dollar an acre. Soon afterwards, Robert Campbell, the great-grandfather of Mrs. Ed Wolf, became the owner of Green Ridge, and some of his descendants lived there until last year. However, the old mansion burned to the ground in December, 1872, and the beautiful bronze doors melted in the heat of the fire.
Fairfax Washington’s first tract of land was close to his brother’s mansion near Gordonsville. Then he bought a tract of land on Red River at Dot where he had a water mill. While living there the following action took place in Tennessee.
In the 1812 session of the Tennessee State Legislature, a petition was presented by residents of Robertson County and sundry citizens of Logan County against opening Red River to navigation. This was signed by Fairfax Washington, who was identified as owning a plantation in Logan County, Kentucky, and by George Augustine Washington, who lived in Robertson County, Tennessee. People who are familiar with the Tennessee Washingtons, know that George Augustine Washington was the son of Joseph Washington, who built Wessyngton, one of the three beautiful Washington homes in Robertson County. Wessyngton was the early Saxon spelling for Washington. The other two homes were Washington Hall and Glenraven. No Washington home in Logan County could compare with the three in Tennessee.
For a few years, Fairfax Washington and his family continued to live at Dot in a two-story house with a dog trot in the middle. In 1831 the property was sold to K.C. Mason, the grandfather of Maurice Rogers, who still lives there, and Mrs. William Robertson, his sister, who lives on a farm nearby. K.C. mason built the present brick home in 1844, and it is known as Fairfax Place. The Rogers family gave some old Washington farm tools to the Kentucky Library several years ago. It is said that Fairfax Washington was buried near a fence row on this farm when he died in 1861, but the marker has disappeared and the site has been lost.
In 1838 Fairfax Washington bought a tract of 132 acres on Big Whippoorwill from David Howard. It is believed that Howard built the old log house which is still standing on Watermelon Road.
William Armstead Washington, the oldest child of Fairfax and Sarah Armstead Washington, attended Volney Institute, and later taught at Old Volney and other early schools in Logan County. He was a poet and had a small book of poems printed. In December, 1857, a deed of gift to Dripping Springs Church was signed by William A. Washington and two sisters, Louisa Washington and Sarah Virginia Washington. This land was a part of the property on Watermelon Road. In the same year, 1857, these three Washingtons sold all or part of the same property to Benjamin F. Wood for $1,500. According to a letter written by William A. Washington to Dr. Marion Bailey, Louisa Washington was later buried in the garden on this property. In a little Album of Memory in the Kentucky Library, William A. Washington wrote that he and his two sisters started housekeeping together at Gordonsville in 1873. At that time he was 73 years old and his eyesight was failing.
Ten years later he wrote a letter form Owensboro to My Dear Friends, thanking them for a gift of $50. In the letter he said that he had no means of support, that he was sick, and that he had had difficulty in writing the letter because he had forgotten his glasses in his haste to leave Gordonsville. It is not known whether he ever returned to Logan County or not.
Elmwood was the home of Gabriel Jones Lewis and Warner Washington Lewis. It is near Dennis between Russellville and Auburn off the main highway about one-fourth mile, but in sight of the highway. The workmen on the L&N Railway, which runs in front of the house, came to the spring near the house to get water. These two young men were the sons of Captain John Lewis and his third wife, Elizabeth Jones. Their grandfather was Fielding Lewis and the grandmother was Catherine Washington, a first cousin of George Washington. Their step-grandmother, who reared their father, was Betty Washington, sister of George Washington. Gabriel Lewis, a surveyor, came to Kentucky in the 1790s to survey the land for George Washington, his own father. About 1807 he came to Logan County to live, and in November of that year he married Mary, daughter of Major Richard Bibb, a Methodist minister in Russellville, who freed 29 of his slaves and sent them back to Liberia in Africa in 1829. Warner Washington Lewis came to live with his brother at Elmwood. About 1811, Captain John Lewis and his daughter, Mary Ann, left Virginian for Warren County, Kentucky, to claim a 10.000 acre land grant, but when he arrived he found that this tract had been settled by “squatters.” When legislation was passed to give the “squatters” the land, Captain Lewis was left without any property. After a year in Warren County, he and his daughter came to Logan County, where they lived at Elmwood with his sons. In a letter written by Warner Washington Lewis, July 27, 1820, he said “My father and Ann are entirely supported by my brother and myself.”
Warner Washington Lewis was drowned in the Wabash River in Posey County, Indiana between April and September, 1833. His will dated February 26, 1829, was probated October 7, 1833, in Logan County. He left his property to the children of his brother, Gabriel. Captain John Lewis is buried in the old Bibb Cemetery at Echo Valley which is on the opposite side of the road from Elmwood. June 20, 1956, a bronze tablet in recognition of his Revolutionary War Services was unveiled and dedicated by the DAR. Mary Bibb Lewis, who died in 1819, is also buried in this cemetery.
Francis Whiting Washington, another descendant of Colonel John Washington, the Immigrant, was born in Virginia in 1781. He married Elizabeth Mason Hall, and had five sons, Beverly, James, Allen H., John, and Francis Whiting. He is on the census lists for 1820 and 1830. He is listed again in 1850 as a member of the household of his son, Dr. Beverly Washington, 38 years old with a wife and one son. Dr. Beverly Washington moved to Augusta, Georgia, where his father died in 1871.
The Washingtons lived in Logan County from 1804 to 1883. Some stayed only a few years before moving on to Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, and other points North, South, and West. Many of the Lewises and Baylors moved to Texas where Baylor University, at Waco, Texas, was named for the Baylor family. The Washingtons, Baylors, and Lewises were likable people, and certainly better educated than most of their neighbors. As a result of the Revolutionary War, they came to Kentucky with little more than a land grant, which some of them were never able to claim. Fielding Lewis lost his fortune trying to supply gun powder for Washington’s army.
The best description of the Washingtons in Logan County is included in a letter written by David Walker, the son-in-law of Whiting Washington, January 18, 1878, from Fayetteville, Arkansas, to George D. Blakey, author of Men Whom I Remember. He wrote:
Then there were others less distinguished as public men but occupying high places in social life, … Anthony Buttler Whiting, Fairfax Washington, George and Wythe Baylor, all Virginians of good family connections, but voltaries of pleasure rather than business. I much respected their amiable social qualities but even in boyhood marked their inevitable fall in the first battle for place and prosperity.
Today there are Washington family descendants in Logan County, but they do not bear the surname “Washington.” There are four black Washington families, three in Adairville, one in Russellville. Mrs. Bailey Gunn says that they are descendants of the Negro coachman, who served the Washingtons at Wessyngton Hall, near Cedar Hill, Tennessee. One member of this family, Steve Washington, an Adairville High School senior, was recently named Outstanding Student of the Year at the National Honor Society Convention. His achievements were in scholarship, leadership, service, and character. In Logan County, the descendants of the Washington slaves have outlived their masters.
Rena Milliken
April 24, 1977
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