222 UNION COUNTY PAST AND PRESENT
l ant O’Bannon. They were joined by 400 Mussulman mercenaries
i and Hamet. After a march of about fifty days across the barren
desert of Barca, they reached Derne, the capital of the richest
province of Tripoli. In an attack on the fort by the Marines,
g General Eaton was wounded and dropped back, Lieutenant
O’Bannon taking the lead. In the face of a storm of bullets
he climbed the ramparts and turned the guns of the fort upon
the enemy, tore down the Tripolitan ensign and, for the first
time in history, hoisted the American flag over a fortress of
the Old World. When O’Bannon returned to the United States
he was feted as the "Hero of Derne" and was commended for
bravery, but resigned two years later without even being
brevetted for his distinguished service to his country. 4
After leaving the Navy he lived in Russellville, Logan County,
Kentucky. He was married twice to Matilda Heard, daughter
of Maj. James Heard and Nancy Morgan, daughter of Gen.
Daniel Morgan of the Revolutionary War. The place and date
of their first marriage has not been ascertained, but according
to an entry in Logan County Order Book 13 it was "f0rever
annulled and set aside on November 11, 1826." Their second
marriage, as recorded in Logan County, took place on May
27, 1832.
O’Bannon represented Logan County in the State Legislature
in 1812, 1817, and 1820-21, and served in the Senate, 1824-26. In
1811 he filed the plat of the seat of Union County and named it
in honor of General Morgan. The streets and Public Square
were O’Bannon’s donation, and the highest and longest street
in Morganfield was named for him. O’Bannon, however, never
lived in Union County.
A small measure of recognition of O’Bannon’s conspicuous
bravery in behalf of his country came belatedly. During the
World War Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, named a
destroyer O’Bannon in his honor, and in 1919 his body was re-
interred in the State Cemetery at Frankfort in the plot reserved
for Kentucky’s honored dead.
CHARLES J . O’MALLEY (1857-1910), distinguished poet of
his day has been referred to as the George D. Prentice of Ken-
tucky letters, and also as "the farmer poet of Kentucky? He
was born in a log cabin in the old Hitesville precinct of Union
County. Through his Irish father he was related to the poet-
priest of the Confederacy, Father Ryan; his mother was of