Published: July 02, 2009 11:15 pm      

Judge gives Rotarians ‘the history you’ve never heard’

Retired Circuit Judge James S. Chenault spoke Wednesday to the Richmond Rotary Club, promising to tell the Rotarians “some history that most of you probably have never heard.”

Claiming to be only a history buff, not a historian, Chenault cautioned his listeners, from whom he frequently evoked laughter.

“The last talk I gave on Madison County history was for a 1986 banquet commemorating the county’s bicentennial,” he said. “At least 200 people attended, and it was one of the most well-received talks I’ve ever given.”

The next day, however, “The Richmond Register reported, ‘Judge Chenault gave a rambling discourse on the county’s history,’” he said.

On Saturday, the nation will celebrate the 233rd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he said.

“But how many of you know that July 4, 2009, will be bicentennial of Richmond’s incorporation as a city?” He asked.

The city was founded in 1798, but not incorporated until 11 years later.

Not long after the town was founded, the citizens of Richmond, “then only a crossroads community,” persuaded the legislature to move the county seat here from village of Milford.

Court records were moved one night, and Milford residents were angry when they awoke and discovered their village had lost the county seat along with the economic benefits that came with it, Chenault said.

The Milford blacksmith challenged the Richmond blacksmith to a fight, with the understanding that county seat would go to the village of the winning blacksmith. A protracted struggle ensued, until the Milford blacksmith got the Richmond blacksmith’s thumb in his mouth and was about to bite it off, “a la Mike Tyson,” Chenault said.

The Richmond blacksmith asked that the fight be stopped, but the county seat remained in Richmond.

Later, however, the state legislature appropriated money to compensate the businesses of Milford, a blacksmith shop and a tavern among them, for the income they lost when the county seat moved. Still, Milford declined until it ceased to exist, Chenault said.

The first evidence of a white visitor to what is now Madison County resides in the foyer of the county courthouse.

Chenault, who served as circuit judge for Madison and Clark counties from 1966 to 1993, called the Rotarians’ attention to the Squire Boone Rock that sits in a display case in the county courthouse foyer.

“It’s the first evidence of a white man visiting what is now Madison County,” he said. “Squire Boone etched his name and the year, 1770, in the rock to let his brother Daniel know that he had come to Kentucky.”

Last year was the 230 anniversary of the Siege of Fort Boonesborough.

“Indians led by French-Canadian officers in the pay of the British laid siege to the fort for 10 days,” Chenault said.

The settlers inside the fort, led by Daniel Boone, held out and the siege party retreated north of the Ohio River.

“If that siege, during the Revolutionary War, had been successful, then the British could have claimed this territory in the peace negotiations, and Kentucky would now be part of Canada,” Chenault said.

“How many of you knew that Kit Carson was born in Madison County on Dec. 24, 1809?” Chenault asked.

While a county elementary school and an Eastern Kentucky University campus street is named for the legendary U.S. Army scout who played a role in the addition of California to the Union, no monument marks his birthplace off Tates Creek Road.

Dr. James Murphy, a Rotarian who was present for Chenault’s presentation, “has done a lot of research and is working to rectify that situation,” the judge said.

“The United States has only three folk heroes,” Chenault said, “Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Kit Carson, and two of them have connections to Madison County.”

After the 1862 Civil War Battle of Richmond, Col. David Waller Chenault recruited 11 men for Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s Cavalry during a barbecue picnic at the Woodlawn estate, which, until it was dismantled, stood at the intersection of what is now US 25/421 and the Eastern Bypass.

Among the recruits were Chenault’s great-grandfather.

During a lull in the fighting, Chenault’s ancestor and another cavalryman donned civilian clothes and left Morgan’s Camp in Tennessee to visit their families in Madison County.

However, they were captured near Monticello. Because they were in civilian clothes, the two were put on trial in Cincinnati, convicted as spies and sentenced to hang.

Pro-Union attorney Curtis Field Burnam of Richmond, who had connections to the Lincoln White House, sought a presidential pardon for them.

President Lincoln agreed to spare them if they took an oath of allegiance to the Union.

“They’ve already rejected that offer,” Burnam told the president, who granted them mercy if they would take an oath to no longer fight against the Union.

“If my great-grandfather hadn’t been pardoned, I wouldn’t be here,” Chenault said.

Interviewed Thursday, Charles Hay of the Madison County History Society, said the organization would formally commemorate four local historical milestones on Aug. 22 when the organization dedicates “The Walk of Fame” around the county courthouse in Richmond.

“We’ll be marking the 275th anniversary of Daniel Boone’s birth, the bicentennial of both Richmond’s incorporation and Kit Carson’s birth and the centennial of the opening of Boone Tavern in Berea.”



Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.