Interview with Alberta Moynahan

CAROLYN CRABTREE: This is Carolyn Crabtree; I am at the McDowell House and Apothecary Shop with Alberta Moynahan, the assistant director at the museum here. This is August the 24th, it's 10:30. Well, Alberta, I'm glad you're here to do this interview for me.

ALABERTA MOYNAHAN: Well, thank you.

CRABTREE: Today we're here to talk about the McDowell family mostly but I'd like to ask you a few other questions first. How long have you been working here?

MOYNAHAN: I've been here 25 years.

C: How did you become interested in the McDowell House?

M: Well, I was rather new to Danville. I was looking for something else to do. I read in the Sunday Advocate a little quip that said they were wanting docents at the McDowell House Museum. A new friend had brought me here on a tour and I 1:00enjoyed it and I decided to give it a try. Susan Nimocks was the director, so I came and took the training and started; I've been here ever since.

C: What did you do before you started this?

M: My husband was a wildlife biologist; we lived all over the state in different areas. I had been his secretary or the one who took care of the paperwork for him when we had our office at home and then when we moved western Kentucky to the office building there. I started that kind of work right out of high school 2:00so it was something I thought I could do here at McDowell House. With the Western Kentucky hunting area there were all those folks around and always making reservations for hunting so I had had some work doing that. And I felt like I could do this.

C: Have you enjoyed doing this? I'm sure you have with as many years as you've been here. M: Yes, I am enjoying it.

C: What is your favorite part of the job?

M: Working with the people, giving the tours -- like last week a doctor came in from New York, a doctor and his wife. He had been to a medical seminar and during the seminar they had talked about the anniversary of Dr. McDowell's surgery. He told his wife, "We're going to Kentucky; we're going to see the House." So they came from New York to Danville just to see the House; it was 3:00good to see him and his interest in the House.

C: Do you have many doctors and their families who come by here?

M: Yes, quite a few. Often they don't tell us they're doctors, but when you get in the operating room upstairs and start telling the story, there's just a little glimmer or something that comes to their eyes and I'll often say, "Is that right, Doctor?" They will agree with me. We've had people that have come from England -- and they've come from Scotland -- who want to see the House because Ephraim studied there at their university.

C: I understand you're quite an expert on the family history.

M: Well--

C: I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that today.

M: I don't know if I'm an expert but I've enjoyed studying about them. There's always something new, it seems, that you can find out about them. This part of history has always been my favorite time and so I pick up any books that I can about them, and family members write us and family members send us genealogies. So many people now with website and e-mail, write e-mail and ask, "Can you tell me how much kin I am to Ephraim McDowell?" so I just enjoy looking into that.

C: Who is your favorite family member, besides Ephraim?

M: Adeline.

C: Now who is she?

M: Adeline is the doctor's daughter.

C: Ok.

M: She married a young man who came from Tennessee to study at Central College. 5:00They called it Central before they did Centre.

C: Oh, is that right?

M: They met and she wanted to get married and her father Ephraim reminded her that he had told the girls that if they married before 18 that he wouldn't give them any money. So they waited a year and they married and went to Nashville. He was a storekeeper. They had monetary problems, so they sold their furniture so that he could have the money to study law with some of the people in Nashville and he became a lawyer.

C: What was his name?

M: James Deaderick.

C: Ok.

M: There is a street in Nashville named Deaderick Street for him. He became a superior court judge and during the Civil War time they had to go out. The wives and children were sent by the husbands out into the country to get away from the Yankees, and they were bothered more by the deserters from each side than they would have been by the Yankees in Nashville.

C: Was that at the time that the north controlled Nashville?

M: Yes, at that time. I have a diary she wrote about that and in it she mentions that I am not a braggart. I have never told my children that one of their grandfathers was the first governor of Kentucky and that the other was a famous doctor.

C: Who was the first governor? Oh, Isaac Shelby.

M: Yes.

C: Of course.

M: I brag to my grandchildren all the time.

C: I try to. How many children did they have?

M: They had nine.

C: What happened to those children?

M: One, the oldest son Shelby, named for his grandfather, was out in the barn and he ate some wheat which young men and farmers often did. And he choked on that.

C: How old was he?

M: Uh, there're different stories on that. I have always heard from family members that he was just a child, but seeing records I think that he was closer to the teen years. Then two children died close together, we don't know why, but 8:00you know they had diphtheria times and it's just not mentioned what caused their death.

C: I know there was a Cholera epidemic around 1833 but that would have been later.

M: That was later.

C: Did the Shelbys come to visit here quite often or do you know that?

M: That we don't know. I've often wondered; but wasn't too far, so perhaps they visited back and forth.

C: I know the story at Grayson's is that the night before he left to go to Lexington to be inaugurated as governor, he stayed there.

M: Yes.

C: I've often wondered why he didn't stay here with the McDowells when that happened. Tell us a little bit about Ephraim McDowell's wife.

M: Sarah we know was well educated for a young lady of her time. And we have the 9:00pianoforte that the governor gave to her. There is a question of whether he gave it to her before she and the doctor were married, or if it was a wedding gift. We're glad to have that; it went down through Adeline's family, so we received it from a great-great-great-great.

C: Were there a lot of doctors -- I know there were a lot of politicians -- governors, etc.; but were there a lot of doctors that came in later generations, 10:00that you're aware of?

M: Nephews, cousins; while he was practicing here, he had two nephews at one time who were apprentices to the doctor. One of them wanted to marry one of the daughters and the doctor asked the daughter and she didn't want to marry him. At that time fathers often told their daughters, "You will marry this person." Dr. McDowell said, "No, she didn't have to." This nephew got very unhappy and left. Nephew James who helped with the surgery on Jane Todd Crawford, the doctor was expecting so much of him but he died of measles in the war of 1812.

M: And as I go through the genealogy list I find a number of doctors and a number of doctor Ephraims.

C: Were most of them from Kentucky or were they from other states?

M: Kentucky and other states, too.

C: What other states? Where did the other children end up?

M: William Wallace inherited Cambus Kenneth, Dr. McDowell's farm. It was literally left half to him and half to Sarah. It belonged to Sarah as long as she didn't remarry. Then it would go back to William Wallace, but William Wallace very kindly went on a note for a friend and the friend wasn't able to pay off the note so he lost Cambus Kenneth and then went on to Missouri. We have a portrait of his daughter upstairs. When she got old enough to be married he 12:00sent her back to Kentucky to marry a Shelby who was her grandmother's third cousin.

C: Who was that? Do you know? What was his name?

M: I don't remember which one of the Shelbys he was.

C: So how many of the children lived to be old enough to marry?

M: Just five.

C: Out of how many?

M: One boy and four girls.

C: Really? Now when the son lost Cambus Kenneth, of course the mother did, too?

M: She had died.

C: Oh, she had.

M: Yes.

C: Tell us about some of the things that are in the house and how you've acquired those -- some specific things, like portraits.

M: The doctor's portrait was in Oklahoma. One of the doctors on the early board 13:00of McDowell House found that the portrait was there with a great-great-great granddaughter. It was the dust bowl time, so he was able to buy the portrait for $4,000 from her at that time. I'm sure it was a great help to this family. We have often wondered and have tried to find if there was also a portrait of Sarah there, too. This portrait was done by the local artist Davenport. We just imagine that Sarah would have had her portrait done, too; but this doctor evidently wasn't interested in anything but the portrait of Dr. McDowell. Then we have a good portrait of Governor Shelby that a doctor in Harlan was able to 14:00help us get. We have the whale oil lamps that belonged to Governor Shelby. Of course, the pianoforte is now here. We have some miniatures, a miniature of Dr. McDowell and a miniature of Sarah. We've had the one of Sarah for a long time. The one of the doctor -- family member came in and I gave them a tour of the House and when she left she gave me this miniature. No one in the family had wanted it so she brought it here to us. Miniatures were very popular; they put them on a chain like we do lockets. Men wore them, too. It is said that George Washington wore a miniature of Martha.

C: I didn't know that.

M: We have some medicine things that belonged to the doctor, and just a number of things that belonged to different family members. Of course, when this house was sold after the doctor died, they had a sale. And so a lot of things went other places.

C: Did mostly family members buy the things from the house?

M: That we don't know.

C: There's no inventory to show?

M: There's no inventory, no.

C: I've read about Isaac Shelby's granddaughter that went out west.

M: Yes.

C: Susan Shelby Magoffin I believe her name was.

M: Yes.

C: Do you ever hear or do you have anything here that belonged to her?

M: No. I have hoped sometime to trace some of her kin but I haven't been able to.

C: Well, I've been trying to do a little bit of that myself; that's the reason I asked the question to see if you had anything. I believe that's probably who I'll speak about in November.

M: Yes.

C: You said the portrait was by Henry Davenport?

M: Yes.

C: And he lived right across the corner here --.

M: Yes.

C: -- in a tavern his mother ran. Do you have any indication that he did these portraits for money or because they were neighbors or --?

M: That I don't know. We have another of his portraits here. It's of the young 17:00man that married his daughter, the oldest daughter Susannah. We have the portrait in the other room of one of Shelby girls Leticia that Davenport did. Their names, his name is on the back of the portraits.

C: Really?

M: So, we're sure about that.

C: How did you come to receive the medical instruments that he used? How long have you had those?

M: Since before I was here. Inventory wasn't kept as nicely as Anna keeps it now and often things were just written on a little scrap of paper, so many of the early things we're not really sure where they came from or who gave them, so we don't know exactly who gave those to the House.

C: Sarah Shelby McDowell was younger than her husband.

M: Yes.

C: How much younger?

M: He was 31 and she was 18 when they married.

C: When they married. I know you've heard the story, but tell us the story of her party that she had here and the results of that.

M: Well, there's a story that at one time she had a dance here, evidently on a Saturday night. On Sunday morning when the young ladies went to church at the Presbyterian Church, they were asked to leave and told that they wouldn't be a member of the church anymore because they went to a dance at the McDowell House on Saturday night and that was very improper for ladies to do that at that time.

C: Sarah McDowell had quite an influence on starting the Episcopal Church here, I believe.

M: Yes.

C: Do you believe that was probably the reason that she helped to begin that other church?

M: Well, I haven't dug into that. I have been interested in that. Evidently, the Shelbys, and you should know more about this than I do, were Episcopal, Episcopalians. Dr. McDowell had started going with Sarah to Lexington to church. And so they needed a church here.

C: I didn't realize that. Now, the Shelbys though were quite involved in the Presbyterian Church here, weren't they?

M: That I don't know.

C: He was also on the board of trustees for Centre College, wasn't he?

M: Right. He was one of those who helped start the college. And he had something to do with the deaf school, too.

C: Really?

M: Yes.

C: Let's talk about where they're from --where they came from to America. We haven't talked about that. The McDowells were from what country?

M: They came from Ireland. Of course, they originated in Scotland and because of 21:00all of the troubles they had, they went to Ireland. Great-grandfather Ephraim was in a number of noted battles. A brother of his came to Philadelphia and then a year or so later he sent notice for Ephraim to come. Ephraim's wife had died so he came with his four children. And the children of his brother came to Philadelphia. And it said about this time there were more McDowells in Pennsylvania than any other group of people.

M: After I think about two years, Ephraim was offered a chance to go to 22:00Virginia. There was a track called the Borden track. And Mr. Borden wanted nine other people, nine other families to go with him and they received 1,000 acres of land. So Ephraim and three of his children went. One son had already established himself in Pennsylvania, so he stayed there. So they went and they established a nice place to live. One story is that Ephraim helped build the first road in Rockcastle County, Virginia. He lived to be 101 years -- 102 years old and he was about 7 feet tall so that made him outstanding and well known. 23:00His son Samuel studied under a relative who was a lawyer and that's where he got his lawyer training.

C: And he was the father of Ephraim?

M: Right.

C: Who was his wife?

M: Her name was Mary McClung. And it is written in the book McDowells in America that she was the prettiest woman in Virginia at that time.

C: I wonder who made that decision?

M: I do too. I wonder.

C: I've seen that in other books where this woman was the prettiest woman in Kentucky at this time, things like that.

M: Well, Florence, the daughter I told you about coming back from Missouri to marry her cousin. Her portrait is called Florence the beautiful.

C: Oh, my.

M: Her portrait was in Michigan with a great-great-great; in his will he said at 24:00his death that Florence goes back to Danville. So about three years ago, the portrait came to us.

C: Do you have any other stories that you feel would be interesting for other people to know about the McDowells or the Shelbys?

M: Well, I thought of Samuel McDowell coming to Danville, bringing his family, and that to me was all that came. I just read recently that Samuel, when he got ready to come to Kentucky, told his older children who were already married that they were coming, too. He didn't give them any choice. I was thinking of just 25:00that family, but now I've come to realize that he brought a lot of other people. I've been trying to find out for years who it was that started the little town near Prestonsburg of McDowell and I haven't been able to. I've corresponded with everybody of some importance that I can think of there and nobody's ever answered my mail about this. So others would have come, too and perhaps there was something about that area that they liked and stayed there rather than to come on to the Bluegrass. And I've found that when Samuel came to Kentucky he had patents, they called them; he had 7,000 acres of land in his name.

C: In this area?

M: Yes, in Kentucky.

M: Some in the Bluegrass and some along the Ohio River.

C: Really?

M: And the Augusta area. And we have a hard time with the genealogy there. It sort of stops when it gets there and we can't help those folks there. So, there was more land than I thought about that the McDowells would have settled in this time. So there were more people in early Kentucky than just Samuel and his family. Samuel was able to get his sons jobs as commissioners and attorney generals and judges and I found just recently they called them "The Courthouse Crowd." It was name for them, and he, of course, was the president of the 27:00conventions that wrote the Commonwealth Constitution. I believe he was president seven times of the nine times they met. He is known to have believed that other people than the gentry should have a part in the government. It was important to be elected to the job and not given it just because you owned certain acres of land.

C: How did he happen to come here?

M: George Washington asked him to come. They fought in the revolution together; they were in the House of Burgess together, and they needed somebody to come and 28:00help folks. People didn't know how to write deeds. They didn't know how to survey their land. Samuel knew how to do both. To get this, people were coming over the mountains so fast at the end of the French and Indian War George the King had said the people from Virginia shouldn't cross the mountains. But as a little boy told me one time he wasn't here so the people came over the mountains and so many of them weren't able to get their land settled right. They often lost it to people who would take it from them. They thought they owned the land but they didn't. And so that was on of the things George Washington wanted Samuel to help with.

C: Do you know how they actually came into Kentucky? Did they come through the gap or did they come up the Ohio River?

M: I haven't really found out about that, but I think they came through the gap.

C: So it was just Samuel and his family that came to this area and the other parts of the family settled in other places, or do you believe they all came here?

M: I think -- this is just my thoughts and reading about the land that he owned in other places -- that, perhaps, this cousin stopped off here and then another cousin stopped off there.

C: What was so early to bring your family here--

M: Yes.

C: It was a pretty courageous thing to do.

M: Yes, it was.

C: He seemed pretty determined that he was going to stay here from the beginning. Is that right?

M: That's right.

C: So he felt like it was going to be a permanent move. Why do you think Ephraim McDowell did not go back to Virginia to be a doctor after he studied medicine?

M: Well, perhaps Kentucky had taken a hold of him, too. And he wanted to come back to this area to practice. Kentucky, and Danville, needed doctors badly and to have someone with his education was a really good thing for this area.

C: I know there were other families who came here from that very same part of Virginia, Rockbridge County, who were very prominent people in Danville.

M: Yes.

C: Danville is unique in the way it grew and became very influential from the very beginning; the first courthouse and the first capital of the Kentucky district were here. What do you think was in these people that made them able to accomplish this?

M: A desire to see the United States grow. Of course it wasn't the United States it was the different states but to see it grow. I think Samuel had a deep interest in education, good government; he wanted the people to be able to run 32:00their own government, not to be subjected to the king and the things that somebody so far away who had no idea what the people needed. They believed in education for their young men and maybe some for their daughters and I think that they just saw it. Virginia was already beginning to be crowded. And I read that already they were wearing out the farms and that they needed more space. Many of the people always had to work for somebody else. And Samuel saw their desire to want something of their own and so that they would come here and take that land grant -- many of them 1,000 acres. I can't imagine what it must have 33:00been like for someone who had always worked for somebody else to come to have 1,000 acres. Then, in the early years, if you could get enough furs or if you could get amount of money other ways, a certain amount that was set at the time, you could get another 1,000 acres. Many people were able to have 2,000 acres or maybe buy from some soldier who was given acreage and didn't want it; they could buy his. Those folks settled there and then as their families came along they divided. The oldest son married so he gets so many acres, then the next son comes and so the population grew very fast.

C: I know that several of the men who came here were younger sons.

M: Yes.

C: And the entailment laws had affected them.

M: Yes.

C: Was Samuel McDowell an older or a younger son or a younger son?

M: He was an older son and reading about him in our book it said that he didn't accept all of his father's land, he divided it with his brother and his sisters.

C: Ok. So he did have a completely different attitude than most of these people did, it seemed.

M: Yes.

C: I've admired him very much as I've read about him. He seemed to have a very good moral character.

M: Right.

C: Religious, he loved his family and wanted them close by. Are these the same feelings you get of him or do you see him in a different way?

M: Yes. When he was 80 years old he rode a horse to Nashville to a Presbyterian meeting and at that time most 80 year old men would have stayed at home.

C: Well, Isaac Shelby evidently lived to an older age than most. Is that right? You would think that all their war years and their experiences with the hardships of living on the frontier would have shortened their lifespan, but it didn't seem to do that with these men.

M: No. They seem to be very vital and very interested in what was going on up until their very last days.

C: What about their wives? What do you think about their lifestyle here? What was it like for them?

M: Well, I think it must have been rather difficult. I think that Mary had been 36:00raised in a very nice home and that whether she wanted to come or really didn't want to, I think of her telling some of her children, "What are your daddy and George Washington up to? What are they doing in these meetings in the parlor with the door shut?" Then she's finding out that she's coming here. I want to make the frontier time last a long time but it didn't really last very long. Very soon they were getting furniture, china, and crystal from Philadelphia and from England. They had very nice homes very quickly. Some people here often tell us that this house is too elaborate for this period but studying other things I 37:00have found out that they got them. I don't know if the men promised their wives that they would get this or if they just were able to do it and wanted to have them to have nice homes.

C: We think of these men as being wealthy in land but not necessarily in money.

M: Right.

C: What do you think about this? I mean were they wealthy in money, as well?

M: Wealthy or maybe well-to-do, able to get education for their sons, able to have nice homes.

C: I know David Birney was here early.

M: Yes.

C: He was a trader, a merchant here who brought things from Pennsylvania to this area, very, very early. And I had read that he was considered the wealthiest man 38:00this side of the Green River.

M: Yes.

C: So, it seems to me there was a lot of other influence here that could've served the people here to build homes like this.

M: Yes.

C: And it's not far fetched to me. But it seems so different from Harrodsburg and some of these other places close by, Stanford. Why didn't they develop in the same way it seems as Danville did? What do you think was the difference?

M: I have never thought along that line.

C: It just seems to me Danville is unique.

M: Well, it is.

C: I've wondered what makes it unique. I'm interested in hearing what you think 39:00makes it unique. Is it Centre College?

M: Yes, I think that Centre College had an influence because we have a portrait here of a niece of Dr. McDowell's who married Michael Sullivant from what is now Columbus, Ohio. She met him here; he was attending Central College and so she married and went with him. Other people came and it would have been a drawing point for men to send their sons to Danville for their college work to get their early training. These young men studied Greek and Latin and early Greek history 40:00and things of that sort when they went to Centre. Many of these men in Danville were able to send their sons to Europe for a year to study there. When Dr. McDowell was studying in Scotland at the University, I have read that during the summer he was there he went to the continent and traveled there. We have scales that he is supposed to have bought in Venice. His father wrote him a letter and told him to be careful with money but to bring home good tools and good books, and he wanted to know if he were going to church.

C: There were several girls' schools in the area as well. Where do you think the McDowell girls were educated?

M: That I haven't been able to find out; in all of my studying and reading I haven't found out. We have a book a granddaughter wrote, but she doesn't mention in any way how the girls would have studied. Mostly she's talking about her grandfather. She tells about being up in the children's bedroom looking out and seeing her grandmother's garden that was laid out in the circle and the cross. So we have the garden laid out that way now. She tells that her grandfather didn't imbibe very often, but when he did he wanted cherry bounce. So we have 42:00some cherry bounce.

C: Tell us what that is. What is cherry bounce?

M: It is made from bourbon or an early whiskey, sweet cherries, sour cherries, and brown sugar. It sits for awhile, you have to stir and strain. It's got a pretty red color to it.

C: Did they make their own whiskey here or was it Elijah Craig's job?

M: Just recently I read that people like the McDowells and other important people in the area, the Henry Clay family, each had a little type of distillery and that they made their own.

C: And you often think about them using that for medicinal purposes more than anything else.

M: Right.

C: Where did Dr. McDowell get his medicines? Did he make them himself?

M: He made many of the medicines. And then, about 1815 we started getting what are the patent medicines from England. So he would have ordered those or order some things from Philadelphia.

C: The tools and different things he used. Did he get those in Scotland or did he buy them here somewhere in America?

M: He brought some from Scotland. His father told him to bring some and then we 44:00believe he brought the scales from Venice. So he probably had some from there. The portrait there has pictures of books that he brought back from Scotland with him. And then he would have been able to order from Philadelphia to get other things that he needed.

C: I know there was also a newspaper very early in Danville. Kentucky Gazette first, I believe.

M: Yes.

C: Do you ever see any references to him? Have you ever looked to see if there are any references to him in any of these early newspapers?

M: No, I haven't; that's one thing on my list that I just haven't gotten around to.

C: Since you're not very busy.

M: I've always wondered, "Did he buy medicines from the Shaker's?" Being this close, would he have bought medicines from them? And that's where I planned to 45:00go, go to Shakertown, to get into their records to see if perhaps he bought medicines from them.

C: They do have quite a few records out there, but I think most of their records have been transferred to the Filson Club over in Louisville.

M: Yes.

C: I've been wanting to go over there, too. Maybe we can go together sometime.

M: Yes, yes. That would be interesting.

C: Well, I was trying to think of some other directions here. I want to get your brain on this tape as much as possible. When you do your tours, they're wonderful. You do wonderful tours.

M: Thank you.

C: When you do these tours, do things in the rooms trigger things in your mind 46:00and all these wonderful stories you tell. Tell us some of the things you talk about when you do your tours.

M: Well, usually by the second room you can get the feel of what the people are interested in and so you can reach back for those stories that are beyond the basics of what is in the room and fit it to your group. You learn to do that. Each one of us who tells the story of the House has our own little favorite things that we always like to tell. And we try to get the basic facts and then some of the little stories like I just told you about cherry bounce and other things that would be about the family there. Upstairs we have a truck that 47:00belonged to Jefferson Davis. I like to mention that. Of course, Jefferson Davis went to school in Springfield and then he went to Transylvania.

C: He went to school in Springfield, Kentucky?

M: In Springfield, Kentucky. There was a school taught for young men that was behind what is the St. Rose Catholic Church. The Davises moved to Mississippi, but Mr. Davis sent his son back to Kentucky back to study there. So Davis got early classical teaching there.

C: Were they Catholics?

M: No. They were Baptists. Mr. Davis was chastised for sending his son to a 48:00Catholic school, but he said that if that he hadn't taught him enough Baptist by now, well the other faith could have him. That's the story that comes through all of my study when I lived in Springfield. That school isn't there anymore. They just were not able to keep it and wasn't money to fix it up for something, but St. Rose Church is still definitely there.

C: Is that that beautiful church down there behind St. Catherine's that you can see in the distance?

M: Yes.

C: That's a beautiful building.

M: Yes.

C: I notice a lot of people though, members of the Caldwell family, members of the Wickliff family that were from Bardstown, their children went to Catholic schools. Some of the families were Catholics but not very many, it seems. They 49:00were Presbyterians as well.

M: St. Catharine's started in 1823, a girls' school. My great-grandmother attended that school when it was a girls' school there. They sent their small daughters there. It's hard for me to think about letting my daughter leave home at nine or ten years of age, and going to school but to get an education sometimes that's what they had to do.

C: That's why I've often wondered about the girls of the McDowells or Shelbys, if they didn't go somewhere like that or Lexington, so I've been doing a little research trying to find out.

M: Oh, and they had tutors that came and lived with them. One early Kentucky 50:00family, a man came who was studying history, writing books, and so he needed a place to live. So he lived with the family and then he taught their children, so they were better educated than most other families.

C: Traditionally we have children that go to school for twelve years. How many years do you think these boys and girls would have studied?

M: Oh, if they had gotten close to what we call an eighth grade education I think that they would have been considered well educated. Now, the sons in the south got to go study in Europe, but the girls didn't.

C: I noticed some of the people who attended Centre College were very, very young really.

M: Yes

C: Their, education was apparently oriented towards training ministers. Am I right about that?

M: I think that was the way it was leaning but now the Sullivants, came to study but they didn't become ministers. I think they became lawyers.

C: Were there very many McDowell descendants who attended Centre College, or do you know?

M: That I don't know.

C: And most of them were either lawyers or doctors, those kind of people. But the girls seemed to marry ministers, if I'm not mistaken.

M: Yes.

C: Because they came here to study?

M: Yes.

C: The Greens and people like that weren't they connected in with the McDowell family?

M: Oh, I haven't found that in my checking; I haven't found that many but they were an early family. The quilt that was brought back to us this summer, and that was from the Caldwell family and one of the Caldwells married Dr. McDowell's cousin.

C: So they were connected in some way.

M: Two important families intermarry.

C: How do you keep up the artifacts here? How you take care of them? Is there quite a bit of money used from the McDowell foundation just to keep the artifacts in good condition here?

M: Well, we just do the natural things of taking care and we have a good inventory of the things we have the tours. We do not rent out catering for weddings, bridal receptions, or other things like that because we do not want too many people in the house at one time. We always like to be, somebody in the room at all times to watch. There have been some small things that have been stolen. During one big tour somebody took the original key out of the front door 54:00and was able to get away with that. And so, you do, you watch carefully. Just recently at Liberty Hall had some sort of reception someone stole two miniatures.

C: Oh.

M: That was a $50,000 loss for them, so we do, we watch carefully. We do the regular cleaning there and everyone is always careful. We try to keep people behind the ropes. Once in a while you have a difficult time. Somebody wants to go up close and touch. If there's something we are supposed to pick up, we're supposed to put on gloves before we touch anything.

C: There are quite a few children's things in the house.

M: Yes.

C: What is the reaction of children to the tour?

M: Well, it is surprising how exciting so many people, the children, get about the House. And we have less trouble with children than we do with older folk. We tell the children, "Please stand here and don't touch." They watch each other if somebody looks like they are going to touch; but it's difficult sometimes to get the older folks to stand behind and they just go. One lady said, "I've got to touch that quilt; I just have to touch it." We put a little sign on each of the beds, which I don't like, but we had to put "Please Don't Touch" to keep them from touching the quilts. So it is just daily care and daily watching. When 56:00we're having events like our Christmas open house some small things that are around we put away. The spoons, the coined silver spoons, some of the dishes that belonged to the McDowells -- we just put those away for that time.

C: The books you mentioned earlier, do you still have some of the books that Dr. McDowell had?

M: No, we don't know exactly what happened to those books, though we do have a lot of the books of the period as we say. We have Sir Walter Scott books. Sir Walter Scott was studying at the University at the same time Dr. McDowell was. 57:00So we can think of his knowing Sir Walter Scott and being interested in his poetry. We have a violin, or a fiddle; Dr. McDowell was supposed to have played the fiddle. One story is that he liked to entertain his company by playing the Scottish reels that he learned when he was studying in Scotland.

C: Well, when Holly was doing her play we talked about the fact that the surgery happened on Christmas, at Christmastime.

M: Yes.

C: But at that particular time they didn't celebrate Christmas the same way we do now because there was no Santa Claus, that sort of thing. How did they 58:00celebrate certain holidays?

M: In other things I've read, and I've wondered if the writer really knew how they did, I read from a New England book that said that they would have cookies and they would make a little Christmas tree out of feathers. If they decorated a tree, it would have had cookies on it. I think they might have had a family meal and we know that they were having church that Sunday morning, the Christmas morning that Dr. McDowell did the surgery because he sent someone there to ask them to pray for him and his patient. So they would probably have had a 59:00Christmas morning church service for people who lived in a town who could get to church, but the Santa Claus bit that we have now I don't know. I don't know when Christmas stockings started. I've wondered if for the surgery they sent the children to the Shelbys so the house would be quiet or rather they were put off in one room and told to be quiet.

C: So the children were actually still living here when that surgery was done?

M: Yes.

C: What about the 4th of July? Do you ever read anything about how they celebrated that since that was such an important day?

M: They often gathered people together, and they would get out and shoot guns, maybe have a parade of old soldiers. They did that.

C: I realize that since Samuel McDowell was in the Revolution that was a pretty important day for him, I would think.

M: Yes, yes. It would have because he helped very much; he was one of Washington's aides. And one Irvin McDowell who was of the same family, became a very important general in the Civil War. He was very much involved in the Battle of Bull Run. So McDowell's were important; part of them were in South Carolina and some of them were with Isaac Shelby in the battle that he is famous for.

C: Down at King's Mountain?

M: Yes.

C: Where did Dr. and Mrs. McDowell get married? Did they get married at the 61:00Shelby home?

M: We think so. We believe that they lived in the brick part of the house, and then they built this part of the house between 1802 and 1804.

C: For the McDowell House here.

M: We have records that show it took two years to build the house and we have the bill of sale for all of the lumber and the building of the house.

C: So, when did they start building it?

M: 1802 and finished it in 1804.

C: Now the brick part, are you talking about the apothecary shop?

M: The dining room, and the kitchen, the operating room upstairs.

C: Oh, ok.

M: Now the apothecary shop was a small shop that Dr. McDowell and Dr. Rankin started practicing in 1795. Now I don't know whether that that was a building 62:00that was already here or if they built it there.

C: Now Dr. J.J. Polk had an office somewhere in Danville before he went to Perryville. Do you have any idea if he was connected with Dr. McDowell in anyway?

M: No, I don't. Dr. Rankin sold his part of the business to Dr. McDowell and moved to Texas and then Dr. McDowell had several other partners. I haven't kept up with their names. The post office was also in the apothecary shop for awhile and Dr. McDowell was the 3rd or 4th postmaster.

C: Really?

M: For a time.

C: Ok, so this little building that is over at Constitution Square that they 63:00found that was the first post office. After that one the apothecary was the post office?

M: I haven't been able to put that together. Just, records show that he was and then those people who knew about the apothecary said that the post office was there for awhile.

C: You may shake things up in Danville if you studied that a little bit more.

M: Yes, yes, yes. Of course many of these stories have been told to me.

C: Uh-huh.

M: They've been coming down through family history--

C: Tradition.

M: Mr. Grider knew so much about the apothecary shop and he told me stories about that.

C: That's interesting. I also wanted to ask you a little bit about -- there are 64:00a number of free blacks who have lived in this area for many, many generations.

M: Yes.

C: But didn't Dr. McDowell have slaves who lived here?

M: At one time he had 17 slaves.

C: Dr. McDowell did?

M: Yes.

C: What about Samuel?

M: That I don't know.

C: Ok.

M: Where did they live?

C: I wonder that, too. After he got Cambus-Kenneth, of course part of them would have lived there. I would have imagined that there was a cook, and probably Mrs. McDowell had a maid, somebody to take care of the children. Dr. McDowell would have had somebody to take care of his horse. Somebody for the garden; you see this land actually went farther back than it does now. Dr. McDowell owned more 65:00land so there could have been cabins back there.

M: Ok.

C: Did he free his slaves at any time?

M: No.

C: He kept them.

M: He gave his daughters slaves when they married.

C: Ok. Do you have any idea if his slaves were educated or anything like that?

M: That I know nothing about.

C: Because I know that across the street Robert Craddock had what is Grayson's Tavern.

M: Yes.

C: His slaves were educated people and he actually gave one of his slaves land over there.

M: The family Bible is in UK in the library there, but we have copies of the 66:00family records and in those records Dr. McDowell lists the slaves that were born while they lived here, so the family of slaves was rather large.

C: Do you know what the names would have been of some of those slaves when they were free later on? Would they have been McDowells?

M: Just first names are mentioned.

C: Ok.

M: There's no last name mentioned.

C: Well, I think we've covered quite a bit. You've done a wonderful job. And I appreciate so much what you do here.

M: Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. It's just been so interested and knowing more of the history of and you keep finding it out. It's not just something that 67:00is a dead-end. You know everything about it you can possible know, but it seems that every day you can find out something different.

C: I'm amazed at how interactive the history is of the families here.

M: Yes.

C: I'll start studying one family and all the sudden I've run into another one that I've studied before and didn't realize they were connected.

M: Yes.

C: But there were so few people living here in the beginning I guess the children married each other.

M: There is a letter from one of the governor's granddaughters that's also with the collection in Lexington and she is writing, she's being so excited because we're having roads. Well, you wouldn't think about a teenage girl being interested in a new road, a new highway, but she is saying now we won't have to 68:00marry our cousins.

C: Our perspective of things is so different now than it was back then. So, it's interesting. I love the history.

M: Oh, I do too.

C: Have you always been interested in history?

M: Yes, always. There was a lot of history around Springfield.

C: Well, thank you so much for doing this today.

M: You're welcome.

C: I appreciate it. I'm not going to try to wear you completely out but I may come back and do some other direction with this if you'll allow it.

M: Yes, I'll do some more digging.

C: Thank you very much.