BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 229
the summit of Blanc Mont, at Medah farm, was the objective
of intense artillery fire, but due to the courage which he dis-
played the telephone line was repaired, the observation post
maintained, and the staff of the division was always kept in-
formed of the activity at the front.
IGNATIUS A. SPALDING, JR. (1833-1913), one of Union
County’s several outstanding legislators, was also a merchant, J .
lawyer, and gentleman farmer. Some of his activities in each
of these fields are milestones in local history and even of State-
wide importance.
He was born at Morganfield, the only son of Ignatius A. and
Ann Huston Spalding. He received his early education in the A
common schools of the county, and attended St. Joseph’s Col-
lege of Bardstown for four years. In 1853 he married his first
cousin, Susan A. Johnson, of Daviess County, at Owensboro. A
, dispensation was granted by the Rt. Rev. Martin J. Spalding
allowing them, as iirst cousins, to marry.
He distinguished himself early in his law practice, and in 1861
he formed a partnership with Hiram McElroy, and subsequently 4
practiced in partnership with other outstanding lawyers, in- ‘~
cluding Cromwell Adair and his son, Jack Johnson Spalding.
During the War between the States he was captured by Federal
troops just as he was preparing to leave for the South to join
the Confederate Army. I
In 1867, without any canvass on his part, he was sent to the
State Senate, where he served until 1872. He was appointed
one of the three building commissioners for the new court-
house in 1871, and he was sole commissioner for the jail. In
I 1885 he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives  
where he became western Kentucky’s candidate for the speaker-
ship, but was defeated. He was made a State Railroad Commis-
sioner during the administration of Gov. J. Proctor Knott (1883-
87) and was reappointed in 1890 under Gov. Simon Bolivar
Buckner (1887-1891), serving for some time as chairman of
the commission. It is said he never recovered from the dis-
appointment of not being made Secretary of State during the
latter’s administration, as he thought he had been promised.
He was also a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention
which convened at Frankfort in September, 1890. He and two
· other members of this convention were sons of men who had