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EXPLORING
KENTUCKY - September 2002 by Katherine Tandy Brown Where Kentucky
Began
Eighty three-year-old Mary Elizabeth Freeman laughed. She was rattling off Boyle County history as fast as I could take it in on a tour of Danville’s Constitution Square State Historic Site. Clad in a floor-length, late-1700s costume topped by a crisp white bonnet, she breathed life into every item in the Danville-Boyle County Historical Society’s impressive, three-story collection that now fills the beautifully restored Watts-Bell House, a circa 1816 Flemish bond brick home. “Mary Elizabeth tells visitors the stories they’re not going to read in history books,” said Brenda Willoughby, historic site and museum manager. “They get the real historic inside scoop!” And what history this park has seen. Chosen as Kentucky’s first seat of government in 1785, Danville built a meetinghouse, courthouse and jail to manage the growing territory. Town citizens formed the Political Club, which recognized the need for a convention to discuss statehood. At the Constitution Square courthouse, where the Supreme Court of the District of Kentucky met, 10 such conventions took place between 1784 and 1792, the year the state constitution was drafted at the final meeting. On June 1, Kentucky became the fifteenth state in the union, naming Revolutionary War hero Isaac Shelby as its first (and later, fifth) governor. In the late 1930s, Danville native Emma Weisiger donated this chunk of historic downtown land to the city as a park in memory of her brother. In 1942, the Works Progress Administration rebuilt the log cabins that had been the meetinghouse, courthouse and jail. Soon Weisiger Park became a part of the Kentucky State Parks system and was renamed Constitution Square. In conjunction with the Ephraim McDowell House across the street, it became the first federal urban renewal project in the U.S. These days, folks can wander through the Watts-Bell’s museum for a nominal fee; peruse the Governor’s Circle, where each of the commonwealth’s leaders is remembered beneath a tall bronze replica of the state seal; and take a self-guided tour through most of the tree-shaded park’s historic and reproduction structures. In 1784, the Reverend David Rice directed the building of the original meetinghouse, where his flock became the first Presbyterian congregation in Kentucky. In addition to the replica log cabins, a number of beautifully-restored, original historic structures are scattered throughout the quiet area, available to tour. A pre-1792 post office, the first west of the Allegheny Mountains, commemorates the first mail delivery in November of ‘92. Once rental properties known as Fisher’s Row, two 1817 two-story brick homes now house the Wilderness Trace Art League and Gallery on the Square, where the upscale works of 50-plus Kentucky artisans are for sale. Don’t miss the gallery’s exquisite Ukranian batik eggs hand-painted by Dr. Rob Rettie, a Danville pediatrician. Nearby, the 1820 Alban Goldsmith House once was the residence of a physician who in 1809 assisted Dr. Ephraim McDowell, a pioneer in abdominal surgery, in performing the first ovariotomy. These days, the handsome brick structure is home to Constitution Square’s Kentucky Craft Marketing Museum Store, an award-winning shop with an array of handcrafts and educational goodies intriguing enough to lure locals in for holiday shopping. Though not open to the public, the first brick schoolhouse west of the Alleghenies is also on site. And right next door stands Danville’s first official watering hole. Built in 1875, Grayson’s Tavern often hosted the Political Club of Danville, the first political society in the West, and its lively statehood debates. The white wooden structure, the town’s first tavern, has been beautifully restored. Upstairs, among other artifacts, you can see the chair where Isaac Shelby died while at his estate, “Traveller’s Rest.” (Genealogy buffs can visit the Isaac Shelby Cemetery State Historic Site there, just south of Danville.)
At Constitution Square history is literally at your fingertips. “Awhile back, the head of Furman University’s history department and his wife were visiting,” the tour guide recalled. “He said he was amazed at the quantity and quality of things we have and at the fact they’re out in the open for people to see and are not behind glass.” Open year-round, the park welcomes groups. With prior notification, those with 10 or more can have a guided tour. For school groups Willoughby will stage a scavenger hunt, where kids will learn history despite themselves and have a ball in the process. With its tiny, dirt-floored cell, the jail is a favorite with youngsters, and also offers a fascinating county pictorial history from 1784 to 1842. In the past year, 67,000 visitors traveled from all over the world to see where Kentucky began. Many, said Willoughby, are surprised at how well the buildings are preserved and that the square’s story is still told after so many years. “They also love to come and walk through the park, sit and have a picnic and experience our rich history,” she continued. “They’re taken by the beauty of it being right downtown.” Each year on the third weekend of September, this green space is a-bustle with activity during the Constitution Square Festival. This year’s celebration, the 24th annual, will feature living history, museum tours, rafts of juried arts and crafts, colonial games for kids, regional music, food booths and a “terrific” 50-cent cup of coffee served by the Historical Society. The crafts are of such high quality that many folks start ticking off their Christmas lists in September. Next June 1, Constitution Square will start a new tradition when it hosts a birthday party for the state on the park’s first official Statehood Day. “We’re the birthplace of Kentucky,” said Willoughby. “We were the first seat of government. We were the capital for three days. It’s important we get the word out, especially to our young people.” For tasty picnic fare, the word about Burke’s Bakery, right across the street from the park, has been out for years. As one employee said, “We’re cheap, we’re friendly and we’re a great place to pick up lunch!” Just follow the aroma of fresh-baking bread to ogle the possibilities – homemade chicken salad or pimiento cheese sandwiches on salt rising bread, dressed eggs and thick cream pies. Or if you’re up for a leg-stretcher, take a 10-minute walk through downtown Danville to The Tea Leaf, where reservations are suggested for lunch or tea. Run by retired schoolteachers Jane Stevens and Rosemary Hamblin for 14 years, the homey eatery is a step back in Southern time, with a Friday brunch of frozen fruit salad, cheese grits, ham biscuit, a veggie and sweet iced tea. The Tea Leaf’s warm-from-the-oven blonde brownies are irresistible. May as well succumb. And while you’re at it, may as well put your feet up overnight at Twin Hollies Bed and Breakfast, an 1833 antebellum home on the National Register of Historic Places, with cool woodlands and a formal garden. Be sure to take a Danville walking tour to discover why Time magazine named it one of America’s 10 most successful small towns. Find out more at www.danville-ky.com.
Katherine Tandy
Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report. |
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Copyright 1996-2002, by Kentucky Business Online. All rights reserved. Editorial content
is copyright 2002, Lane Communications Group The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
“Back
in 1921 little Centre College beat mighty Harvard six to nothing in
football, and they haven’t stopped crowing about it since!”
Dressed
in her best bar wench attire, Freeman sometimes mans an iced tea pitcher
at the bar for Historical Society fundraising events. “If these
floors could talk, they’d be tellin’ about all the fightin’
and feudin’ that went on here,” she chuckled, a twinkle in
her eye.