xt73ff3m0476 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt73ff3m0476/data/mets.xml Lexington, Kentucky John Moore McCalla 1793-1873 James D. Birchfield 1999 Transcriptions of funeral invitations from John M. McCalla's "Mortuary of Lexington, Kentucky" scrapbook (held by University of Kentucky Special Collections, accession number 2013ms0755). Includes an introduction and index by James D. Birchfield with 24 facsimiles. 95 p.; 28 cm. F459.L6 C655 1999 books  English University of Kentucky Libraries Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. McCalla, John Moore, 1793-1873 Funeral rites and customs -- Kentucky -- Lexington Invitation cards -- Kentucky -- Lexington Printed ephemera -- Kentucky -- Lexington Mourning etiquette A Collection of Lexington, Kentucky, funeral invitations (1802-1846) text A Collection of Lexington, Kentucky, funeral invitations (1802-1846) 1999 2019 true xt73ff3m0476 section xt73ff3m0476 A COLLECTION OF \,,‘,_1_
Lexington, Kentucky
1 Funeral Inv1tat10ns
(1802 - 1846)
ASSEMBLED BY
Gen. John Moore M’Calla
(1793 - 1873)
TRANSCRIBED AND INDEXED BY
James D. Birchfield
L E X I NC T O N
Special Collections 8Archives
University of Kentucky Libraries .
1 9 9 9

 A COLLECTION OF .
Lexington, Kentucky ‘
Funeral Inv1tations
, (1802 - 1846) .
ASSEMBLED BY
Gen. John Moore M’Calla
(1793 - 1873)
TRANSCRIBED AND INDEXED BY ' .
James D. Birchfield
L E X I NG T O N
Special Collections 8 Archives
University of Kentucky Libraries
1 9 9 9

 I

l

1 Contents _
', Introduction..........................................................V

l FuneralInvitations...................................................17 .
l Facs1m11es87 I
l .
,/l

l

 Introduction
7]' 1his pamphlet contains the texts of a collection of over 400 printed funeral
invitations from Lexington, Kentucky, dating from 1802 to 1846. They
were assembled by Gen. John Moore M’Calla, one Of the grandees of early '
Lexington. General M’Calla was a scholar of Transylvania University (AB. 1810, _
A.M. 1822), a Lexington attorney, owner for a period of The Kentucky Gazette, a
director Of the Transylvania Botanic Garden, and a trustee of the town.1 His
residence, by ”the college lawn” now known as Gratz Park, is the house called
Mt. Hope, or the Gratz House (he sold it to Benjamin Gratz in 1824), situated at
the southwest corner of Mill and New Streets.2 During the War of 1812, M’Calla
was Captain of the Lexington Light Infantry. He was one of the two marshals '
commanding an escort of troops for the visit of Pres. James Monroe and Gen. ' ‘
Andrew Jackson in 1819; he was also a marshal for Jackson’s second visit, as ‘
president, in 1832.3 In 1825, when the Marquis de Lafayette visited Lexington, .
M'Calla was Marshal of the Day and conducted a military review; he was also
Master of the Lexington Masonic Lodge, which tendered a ball to the French
nobleman.4 A Jacksonian Democrat, M’Calla was appointed U.S. Marshal of the ‘
. District Of Kentucky in 1830; in 1844 he was an attorney for abolitionists Calvin
' Fairbank and Delia Webster; in 1846 he departed Lexington to become an
1 auditor of the US. Treasury in Washington, DC.5 '
, Not only was General M’Calla a votary of Mars, he was a votary of Clio,
as well, and his liking for the stuff of history brought to the shelves of his library
books, newspapers, and pamphlets by the thousand. At his death in 1873, he '
was thought to have one of the finest collections documenting the history of
early Kentucky.6 However, because he died in Washington, his enviable mass of
choice publications was dispersed far from the fabled Bluegrass that had
conferred fame upon him. The only item which is presently known to have been
in his collection is a scrapbook which he labeled A Mortuary of Lexington,
Kentucky. This necrology of Lexington, in addition to the printed funeral
invitations which supply the text of the present publication, also preserves
numerous clipped death notices and obituary articles, including newspaper
pages which enumerate the casualties of Lexington from the cholera plague of
1833. llNever in the course of life, have I spent such a week as the past," wrote
the general to a friend on 10 June of that year. ”I would incomparably prefer a .
seven months campaign in a furious war, than to undergo another seven days
such as these/’7
The M’Calla collection of funeral notices, as its compiler no doubt
intended, offers the reader from another era an informative glimpse into the
Lexington of the early nineteenth century. Unless M'Calla fell heir to another’s

 hoard, it appears that he may have begun accumulating his notices as a boy of
nine or ten years old. They extend back to a Bluegrass of men in buckskins — to
those who saw Indians as well as buffalo; and, from coonskin caps and tricorns,
they come forward to the stovepipe hat. One finds, for example, the printed
funeral ticket of Capt. James Masterson, the pioneer and Revolutionary soldier,
who was always seen in fringed hunter’s garb.8 Added to the conventional
particulars of the invitation is the note: ”The Volunteer Battalion, consisting of
the Citizen Volunteer Artillery, the Lexington Light Infantry and Mechanics
Infantry, will parade at 1 o'clock. It is hoped that the companies will turn out
generally to bury this old pioneer and patriot.” Also preserved is the
announcement for the funeral of Mrs. Thomas Irvine, widow of Col. John Todd, a
soldier who was slain by Indians in August of 1787 at the Battle of Blue Licks.

In a work sometimes called ”The Indian Fighter," Matthew Harris Jouett ‘

. painted Capt. Masterson with buckskins and rifle and dog, and Jouett also
‘ painted others whose names appear in the roll kept by Gen. M’Calla. Another

drawn by Jouett’s brush is Dr. William H. Richardson of the Transylvania
Medical School.9 Richardson, who was wounded in a duel with Dr. Benjamin
Dudley, lived on the N ewtown Pike at Caneland, a house of fourteen rooms built
for Dr. William Warfield, amidst pleasure grounds laid out by an English
gardener. Mrs. Richard Higgins and Mrs. Augustus F. Hawkins were painted by
Jouett, as well, and so were Gen. Leslie Combs and the artist John Grimes. A
painter whose funeral notice is included among the invitations is Asa Park, of
Virginia, who moved to Lexington in 1816. He was known for his fruit and
flower still lifes. For the Lafayette Masonic Ball, he painted a transparency of the
American Eagle; according to the Lexington Reporter, ”This was placed in one of
the large arches between the two rooms [of the Masonic Lodge], and was often
the subject of our gaze and admiration.”10

Among others mentioned in the profusion of notices preserved by M’Calla
are Henry Clay, the statesman of compromise; Mary Nicholas, the widow of Col.

1 George Nicholas; John Bradford, Kentucky’s first printer; Matthew Kennedy,

Kentucky’s first architect; Eliza Todd, mother of Mary Todd Lincoln; W. T.
Barry, Congressman and diplomat; Charles Wilkins, capitalist and owner of
Mammoth Cave; ”Old Duke” Robert Wickliffe, the wealthy land claims lawyer;
Mary Owen Todd Russell (later Mrs. Robert Wickliffe), heir of John Todd and, by
consequence, wealthiest woman in the Bluegrass. There is Charles Humphreys,
whose brother David designed the great seal of Kentucky, and Walter Dunn,
who imported the first shorthorn cattle into Kentucky.11

One finds also references to numerous landmarks, some vanished, others
still at hand. Familiar to many are both the Ashland of Henry Clay and the
residence of William T. Barry (and later of William R. Morton) on ”Hill,” or High
Street, designed for Sen. John Pope by Benjamin Latrobe. There are frequent
allusions to the old steam mill, the earliest steam mill in the West, which was
established to grind flour by pioneer John Maxwell near the intersection of South
Mill Street and Bolivar.12 There are references, as well, to the John Bradford
House and the home of Col. Josiah Dunham (who conducted a girl’s academy
visited by and afterwards named for the Marquis de Lafayette), to the post office,

vi
.1

 l
l
the race course, the McChord Church, the Transylvania Medical Hall, and the
watch house. Various hostelries are named, including Postlethwait’s Tavern,
Mrs. Keen’s Tavern, and the Phoenix Hotel (all in the same location), the Franklin _
house, and apparent boarding houses, such as Mrs. Jouett’s. 4
One quickly discovers that few funerals were conducted in chruches.
Typically they began at the residence of the deceased or the home of a parent or
relative. Also, in the case of boarders, Visitors, or strangers, they may be held in '
a boarding house or hotel. (One service was held at a bank, and at least one
other funeral, not listed in this group of announcements, was held in a store”) It .
is interesting to see that the funeral for Isaac Legrange was held at the home of
Joseph Milward, who was a cabinet maker and whose family business, today the ,
oldest in Lexington, was the beginning of the Milward Funeral Home. It might
. be that Joseph Milward provided the coffin for Legrange’s burial, and perhaps .
hosted his last rites, as well. A further possible instance of a cabinet maker’s
home being the place of a funeral is that for Harry M. Dean, held at the home of
E. Warner, presumably Elisha Warner, who built the only remaining signed ,
example of early Lexington furniture, a handsome mahogany chest now in Baton ‘
Rouge, Louisiana.14 In some instances, a funeral sermon was scheduled for a
later date in a church.
A funeral of 1810 was described by Samuel D. McCullough in 1871.
According to McCullough: .
The body was borne to the grave on a bier, by six or eight persons, who
occasionally changed sides, so as not to weary the arms of the pall .
bearers. The minister, and family of the deceased, followed next in
double files, then the friends. All were on foot. On arriving at the place of
interment, the body was lowered into the grave, the minister made a short
and appropriate address to the living; a hymn was sung, a prayer made,
and the benediction pronounced, and the bereaved family, mourners,
and friends returned to their respective homes. . . ."15
McCullough notes that hymns might be sung by the procession. 1‘In many
instances,” he writes, ”especially among my old Colored friends, during the
march to the grave the minister gave out, line—by-line, the words of some old
beautiful hymn, and the mourners sung it to some plaintive air, generally in the
minor key.” He deplores the later appearance of brass instruments and
“newfangled music.”16
In a number of instances, General M’Calla has made notes concerning a
cause of death —— Mrs. Luckie, who was struck by lightning at the Presbyterian
Church; John Boswell, killed in a duel with Charles Durand, of New York”;
John Barton, who committed suicide (he was, in fact, the city coroner)”; and the
notorious Mrs. Carolyn Turner, of a Boston family, who was murdered by her
slave coachman, Richard. The widow of Judge Fielding Turner, she had crippled
a black child by throwing it out of a window and killed six other slaves in
beatings. While she was beating Richard in August of 1844, he tore loose from
his chains and strangled her. (Richard was hanged on 19 November)”
vii

 Especially piquant is McCalla’s note on the ticket for Thomas F. Brennan,
M’Calla’s editor at The Kentucky Gazette ~ ”Killed by Charles Wickliffe 1829.”
Under the pseudonym ”Dentatus,” M’Calla in 1829 published comments critical
of Robert Wickliffe. Wickliffe’s son, Charles, went to the Gazette office, and, in a
bitter exchange with Brennan, attempted to discover the author of the column.
Unsuccessful, Wickliffe drew out his pistol and shot Brennan, who died the next
day. ”The whole,” wrote Robert Wickliffe to his fellow Whig, Henry Clay, ”has
been the work and villainy of the prince of Villains, John M’Calla.”2 Tried for
murder, the young Wickliffe was defended by Clay, and the jury took only five
minutes to return a judgment of not guilty. Later in 1829 appears a notice for the
funeral of the hot—blooded Charles Wickliffe, killed in a duel with another editor,
George J. Trotter, who later went mad.21

Only one of the invitations is clearly for a black person, Mrs. Rachel Bleu,
who died in August of 1835. Formerly a slave of Mrs. James Morrison, she was

' emancipated by her husband, Rolla or Rolly, on 1 August 1825.22 One, that for
Mrs. Anne Armstrong, gives an age — 80 years. There are numerous
announcements for the funerals of infants — 36 (8%) in total; and this does not
include others who were children or minors. Overall, 238 (55%) are for males,
191 (45%) for females. The survey ends with 1846, the year M’Calla moved to
Washington, DC.

At a time when there was no governmental charge to gather statistics,
M’Calla no doubt saw the saving of these funeral notices as the creation of a
valuable record of the community. The Kentucky Gazette was established in

' August of 1787, but the first published death notice for a Lexingtonian, a
newsworthy case of suicide, appears in the Gazette of 28 June 1789; the second,
for an execution, appears on 30 May 1795, six years later. The coverage of early
local deaths appears to have been notably irregular, perhaps because of an
assumption that such nearby events were generally well known within the town.
Even the practice of circulating funeral notices was comparatively uncommon
until the early 18205, if evidence from surviving examples provides a

‘ representative sampling.

While General M’Calla’s extensive collection of Lexington funeral
invitations was finding form, another and ultimately larger collection was being
gathered by Cyrus Parker Jones, a black huckster who worked in the Market
House downtown. Cyrus Jones was called on to deliver many of the notices, and
he took care to keep a copy of each in his own scrapbook, located today in the
Lexington Public Library. 3 M’Calla appears at first to have kept his pieces in
loose form, making a book of them in Washington during the Civil War, when he
was almost seventy years old. At the beginning of the album is the note:
”Mortuary of Lexington, Kentucky. Register of deaths in Lexington and Fayette
county Kentucky, beginning in the year 1802, and containing the names Of
various other persons who died elsewhere; with an Index, Compiled by Jno. M.
M’Calla September 10“1 1862.” Although there is significant duplication between
the two collections, the M’cCalla collection extends several years further back in
time, and it also contains notices not in the Jones collection. Where M’Calla

\Iiii

 shows 430 invitations for the span of forty—four years, the Jones scrapbook
preserves only 192, and of these only 62 (14.5%) are found in both albums.
Below is an analysis of the distribution, year by year and decade by , '
decade, for Lexington funeral notices from the McCalla collection (M) and the
Jones collection (J) for the years 1802 to 1846.
MAI MAI MAI MAI
1811 - /- 1821 3/2 1831 14 / 6 I
1802 1 / - 1812 2 / - 1822 5/ 17 1832 19 / 2
1803 1 / — 1813 — / 1 1823 7/ 8 1833 29 / 7
1804 2 / - 1814 1 / 2 1824 6 / 10 1834 5 / 2 ‘
1805 1 / - 1815 1 / 1 1825 19 / 21 1835 23 / -
1806 3 / 1 1816 1 / 2 1826 22 / 19 1836 21 / 2 i
1807 - / - 1817 1 / 3 1827 15 / 11 1837 14 / 1
1808 - / 2 1818 10 / 3 1828 12 / 8 1838 28 / 1 ,
1809 2 / - 1819 5 / - 1829 12 / 11 1839 11 / 1
1810 2 / - 1820 — / 2 1830 17 / 10 1840 9 / -
MAI '
1841 17 / 1
1842 34 / 3
1843 29 / 1 .
1844 18 / 5
1845 7 / 9
1846 1 / 17 .
There were nineteen printed notices (perhaps more) in 1822 (two of those
in M’Calla’s group for 1822 are not in Jones), the first year to average more than '
one per month. The years Of greatest volume were 1833 and 1843. The year 1833
saw a cholera epidemic that reduced the population of Lexington by 10%; and,
even with the need to dispose of the usual funerary customs, a surprising
number of funeral invitations, at least thirty-two (three from Jones are not in
M’Calla for that year) issued from the press.24 The uneven distribution between
the two collections may show that Jones was favored by one, or perhaps, two
printers for making deliveries, whereas M’Calla’s social embrace as well as his
connections with the press favored the growth of his scrapbook — though his
collection was obviously not comprehensive.
In some instances, in addition to these perishable slips, a Bible entry or a
tombstone may still survive. It would be an error, however, to assume that these
slips of printed paper, so thoughtfully preserved, will lead, necessarily, to the
finding of burial sites. In many cases, no place of burial is mentioned. The
earliest burying ground in Lexington, called ”First Hill,” is situated at the corner
of West Main and Spring Streets. It was here that many of the oldest citizens,
including John Bradford, were buried. This cemetery and its monuments were
lost by the building of the First Baptist Church on top of it, although the
tombstone of Bradford was once seen beneath the church’s foundations.26 The
pauper’s cemetery located on West Sixth Street, was ploughed under by the Hon.
Thomas M. Hickey, and vegetables planted in its place.27 John Maxwell, who in
ix

 1775 was among the circle at McConnell’s Spring who named the town of
Lexington, gave a large parcel, situated near his old steam mill, between
Broadway and Upper, and bordering Bolivar on the North, for a city cemetery.
Under a large marble slab incised with his name and years, Maxwell himself was
buried here in 1819 beside his mother and wife. The cemetery nevertheless
passed afterwards through various hands; a workhouse was built and a factory
for spokes and wheels. Later a tobacco redryer was erected on the site, and, with
entrepreneurial expedience, the ground—up tombstones of Lexington’s pioneers
were placed in its foundations.28 (Similar ingenuity was shown in making rubble
from the W. T. Barry monument from the old courthouse lawn, and placing it in
the foundations of the Harrison city school/’29) Fragmentary remains from the
”Roman burying ground” on Third Street have been sunk in concrete at the rear
of the lot, where they may still be Viewed.30 The Presbyterian burying ground,
once called Waverly Square, between Fifth and Sixth Streets and South Upper

‘ and Limestone, was dismantled after the Lexington Cemetery was established,
and many of the graves once there were relocated to West Main Street}1

There are a number of references to family burying grounds on nearby

farms. The Allen farm, near the intersection of Georgetown and N andino Roads,
is an example. Mrs. Jane Wilkins (sister of William Short, Thomas Jefferson’s
secretary in France) was buried on the farm of Dr. Frederick Ridgley, in a
cemetery later lost to the signal yard of the Southern Railway near South
Broadway and Angliana Avenue.32 One of the most—often mentioned burial sites
is the family vault of Gen. George Trotter. The Trotters occupied ”Woodlands,”

, a country house of unique architectural features situated where the Woodland
Park pool is presently sited (at the end of Park Avenue).33 The family burial
vault was located to the rear of the pleasure grounds, at the present 327 Lafayette
Avenue. Covered with earth, it resembled an Indian mound. It was vandalized
by youths in 1898, who removed the skull of General Trotter and the name—plate
from his coffin. In the mid—twentieth century the Trotter family remains were
reinterred in the Millersburg Cemetery, the family vault was leveled, and a

, house was built on the city lot.34

The most frequently mentioned cemetery in this group of invitations is the
Episcopal Cemetery founded by Christ Church on Third Street in 1833.
Established during the period of the Gothic Revival, it is graced with a handsome

. sexton’s cottage of cruciform plan, adorned with bargeboards and pinnacles.
Although burials ceased in the cemetery in the mid-nineteenth century, and
some of its graves were moved to the new Lexington Cemetery, the Episcopal
Burying Ground and its cottage remained in place, though they fell gradually
into decay.35 In the early years of the twentieth century Judge James Hilary
Mulligan of Maxwell Place went there seeking the monument of the artist John
Grimes, and he responded in elegiac tones to the obvious neglect of the disused
site:

The tottering headstones, the broken urns, the effaced inscriptions, tell the

story, as does the riot of brambles and weeds that met over the hundreds

of forgotten graves. The hum of the busy heedless city drifts over its

desolation, and the chill autumn air, the sere brown leaves and bared trees
x

 harmonize with the forgotten tombs that rise still from out of the
bracken.36
Mulligan’s rich description recalls the country churchyard of the poet Gray, the
so-called Graveyard Poets, and the tradition of Romanticism which savored a
past filtered through crumbled architectural remains. A like sympathy informs ,
the prose of a Louisville editor, who preferred the gradual decay of Henry Clay’s
original Ashland to its demolition and rebuilding by Clay’s son, James B. Clay. _ '
If fall it must, every timber and brick should have been allowed to remain
Where they fell, for, in their very ruin they would have breathed in awful
and solemn tones the name of Clay. The Southern Breeze and the ‘ ‘
Northern blast might have passed over them; the rains, the snows, and
the dews might have baptized them with water, and the lightnings with
fire, yet all the world would have rendered them dearer and holier to
mankind. An old battle—worn banner is the more glorious for its tatters,
and the fallen and shapeless pile of Ashland would have been knelt at by '
myriads of the pilgrims of liberty with deeper reverence than ever was felt
by the worshippers at Mecca kneeling at the tombs of the Prophet.37
The same Romanticism finds its way into the graphic design of a number of the
invitations, which are printed within a woodcut of a cemetery scene, dotted with
tombstones, urns, and willows. They are the popular nineteenth—century .
pictorial legacy of a strong cultural tradition once seen in the paintings of
Poussin and Canaletto, the copperplate engravings of Piranesi, and, more
generally, the wood engravings of Thomas Bewick.38 .
Some of the earliest-known funeral invitations (true of those collected in
London by Samuel Pepys) were engraved.39 The examples from Lexington are
all printed by letterpress techniques. The earliest ten preserved by Gen. M’Calla,
dating from 1802 to 1814, show a simple mourning band at the outer edges. In
1815 begins a fashion for ”piece borders,” or ornamental borders constructed
from small individual typographical units. Some are delicate fleurons, some are
bold Greek meanders or other geometrical designs. The boldest of these is a
border of approximately two centimeters surrounding the invitation of Dr. John
Harvey Wallace. A mortised scenic cemetery cartouche first appears in use on 3
January 1835 and is last used on 6 October 1838. At the same time, there is a
more stylized arboral cartouche, with lettering placed between two over-arching
trees resting on an ornamental border. A third pictorial ornament appears on
three invitations, and consists of a female figure holding a cross and leaning
against a large vault surmounted by an urn, with a willow in the background. It
is uncertain how many printing offices are represented by the collection. The
invitation for John Bradford is doubtless printed by Bradford’s shop, and the
same border appears on numerous examples. Two are actually identified in
type, thus marked as the work of the Gazette office and The Intelligencer (1838).
The type used in these ephemeral specimens begins with a simple roman
Old Style type, showing capitals, lower case, and italic. Curiously, although
italic is used over a period of many years, no italic numerals ever appear. The
xi

 first three slips use the long 5, but beginning in May of 1804, the long 3
disappears. In England, the long s had been banished with the printer John Bell’s
series of the British Theatre in 1775. In 1786, a year before publication of the first
issue of The Kentucke Gazette, Benjamin Franklin noted the general use of the
round 5 and noted that ”in nice printing the Long s is rejected entirely.”40 In this
respect, Lexington appears to have been conservative in its typography by
perhaps two decades. Nevertheless, the town did see a variety of typographical
fashions, and by 1812 a script face was in use along with roman type.
Nineteenth-century typography is characterized by a great variety of typefaces,
and the letter stock, as well as the ornament stock, of Lexington’s printers is
illustrative of this trend. By the early years of the century, one sees not only the
old—fashioned Caslon style face, but the transitional forms typical of Bell and
Bulmer, and then the bolder types drawn by the Italian Bodoni, strong in their
contrasts of thick and thin strokes. Script faces and backward slants are

. common, and a shadowed face (a type reproduced by the Smithsonian as Marble
Heart) appears in 1826. A block—serifed Egyptian face first occurs on the notice
for Asa Park, set from the cases of the Bradford office in 1827. No doubt patrons
were given several examples from which to make a choice, and both simple and
flamboyant styles were issued together over a period of many years.

Another valuable source for death data of this period is G. Glenn Clift,
Kentucky Obituaries, 17 87 -1 854. Clift documents newspaper notices for 204 of the
individuals in the M’Calla collection. M’Calla’s invitations for individuals who
are also listed in Clift are marked by an asterisk in the following list; the
obituaries should be consulted, as they often contains useful additional
information. In some cases, the printed invitations may reveal errors for dates
inferred from the newspaper notices. A measure of General M’Calla’s foresight
in gathering these notices is that, altogether, there are eighty-nine funeral
invitations in M’Calla for which there is no information in either the Jones
collection or the Clift obituaries.

. Here lie the records for a few events of Lexington during a period of four
early decades. The roll reminds one of the old steam mill, the race course, the
churches and churchyards, and the dueling ground. Also recalled are Col.
Dunham, the schoolmaster who received Lafayette; David Weigart, who died
while drilling with Capt. Beard’s company; Mr. Harper, the banker; Mr. Norton,

. the bookbinder; their neighbors and their relatives, who fell to epidemics,
illnessses, weapons, accidents, and age. A Thornton Wilder of more recent times
might see in these the makings of a second Our Town, and many of the cast in
today’s Lexington will find their forebears in these pages.

James D. Birchfield
xii

 Notes _
1I am grateful indeed for information from Mr. Burton Milward, '
Lexington historian, provided both in conversation and from his research files. '
Thanks are due, as well, to Ms. Diane Wachs and Ms. Lisa Blackadar, of
Lexington’s Headley-Whitney Museum, for bringing this unusual collection to
the attention of the University of Kentucky Libraries. '
See obituary notices, New York Times, 2 March 1873 and ”General John M.
M’Calla,” Kentucky Gazette, 5 March 1873; Catalogue of Transylvania University .
(1826); Julius P. Bolivar MacCabe, Directory of the City of Lexington and County of
Fayette for 1838 8 1839 (Lexington: John C. Noble, 1838), p. 57; William A.
Leavy, ”A Memoir of Lexington and Its Vicinity,” Register of the Kentucky ‘
Historical Society 40 (July 1942): 263 (River Raisin campaign); 40 (October 1942): ,
361 (private library); 41 (April 1943): 126 (Botanic Garden). Re Gazette see letter
of John Bradford to Henry Clay, 4 October 1826, Papers of Henry Clay, V01. 5
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1973), pp. 750-751.
Fayette County Deed Book X, p. 343, 9 April 1824; Leavy, ”Memoir,”
Register 40 (October 1942): 361; Clay Lancaster, Vestiges of the Venerable City ,
(Lexington: Lexington—Fayette County Historic Commission, 1978), pp. 37, 233—
234.
3Edgar Erskine Hume, Lafayette in Kentucky (Frankfort: Transylvania .
College and the Sons of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Virginia,
1937), p. 102; George Washington Ranck, History of Lexington, Kentucky: Its Early _
Annals and Recent Progress (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1872), pp. 323-324.
4Hume, Lafayette in Kentucky, p. 81; Robert Peter, History of Fayette County, -
Kentucky, With an Outline Sketch of the Blue Grass Region, ed. William H. Perrin
(Chicago: O. L. Baskin 8: Co., 1882), pp. 405, 406, 409, 410, 443, 444. Dr. Peter, p.
422, writes that M’Calla was ”a clear, astute, and efficient political debater . . .
well-remembered for his earnestness, energy, and integrity.”
5”Gen. McCalla and his Church,” Kentucky Gazette — Extra (broadside),
rpt. From Kentucky Gazette of 28 September 1844 and ”To the Public,” Kentucky
Gazette — Extra (broadside), date at end given as 5 November 1844; John D.
Wright, Lexington: Heart of the Bluegrass (Lexington: Lexington—Fayette County
Historic Commission, 1982), p. 79; Sen. Docs. Executive Journal of the US.
Senate, IV (1830), p. 42, nominated U.S. Marshal of Kentucky by Andrew
Jackson; VII (1845), p. 21, nominated for Second Auditor of the Treasury Dept.
by James K. Polk; Peter, History of Fayette County, p. 422.
6”General John M. M’Calla,” Kentucky Gazette, 5 March 1873: ”This
gentleman, who was formerly a citizen of Lexington, died at his residence in
Washington City, where he moved more than twenty years ago to accept an
office in one of the Departments. General M’Calla was an old Jackson Democrat
in this city when Democrats were very scarce. He owned a collection of three
thousand volumes of old pamphlets, newspapers, &c., relating to the early
1

 history of Kentucky, which the State ought to buy. They would form an
invaluable addition to the public library.”
7Frankfort Argus, 12 June 1833.
8See William Barrow Floyd, Matthew Harris Jouett: Portraitist of the Old
South (Lexington: Transylvania University, 1980), pp. 50-51; see also Willam
Barrow Floyd, Jouett, Bush, Frazier, Early Kentucky Artists (Lexington: The
Author, 1968), p. 54. See also unidentified clipping in M’Calla’s Mortuary of
Lexington, Kentucky: ”In this city, on Tuesday last, Mrs. Mary Masterson, the
oldest inhabitant of our city. She was the relict of the late James Masterson, whose
eccentricity in his dress, &c., is well recollected by our all of our citizens.”
Masterson was buried on his land east of Lexington and moved in 1853 to the
Lexington Cemetery. See Bettye Lee Mastin, ”Early Hero Built House at 715
Bullock Place,” Lexington Herald—Leader, 29 January 1977. In 1949 C. Frank Dunn
noted that Masterson’s grave was unmarked, although a stone, illustrated in
Burton Milward, A History of the Lexington Cemetery (Lexington: Lexington
Cemetery Company, 1989), p. 90, reveals that one has since been erected. See
Dunn, ”Potato Patch, Highway, Signal Yard, Industries Operating Over Graves
of Revolutionary Heroes,” Lexington Herald-Leader, 3 July 1949; also Dunn, ”More
Revolutionary Soldier Graves Found Unmarked Here,” Lexington Herald-Leader,
28 August 1949.
9The Richardson portrait is reproduced in W. B. Floyd, Matthew Harris
J0uett: Portraitist of the Old South, p. 70; see this and Jouett, Bush, Frazier for
material on the subjects identified.
10Hume, Lafayette, p. 95, quoted from the Reporter, 23 May 1825. More
information on Park will be found in Arthur E. Jones and Bruce Weber, The
‘ Kentucky Painter (Lexington: University of Kentucky Art Museum, 1981), p. 61.
p 1 C. Frank Dunn, ”Wreath Placed on Cemetery Grave of Man Who
' Imported First Shorthorn Cattle,” Lexington Herald—Leader, 20 May 1948.
12C. Frank Dunn is referenced in Jack Lewyn, llAncient Casket Holding
Body of Boy is Unearthed: Hundred-Year-Old Heavy Cast Iron Box Turned Up
by ’Dozer,’” Lexington Herald, 19 September 1947.
13See entry for James Harper, cashier of the US. Branch Bank of Lexington,
' in Funeral Notices: Lexington Kentucky 1806-1887 (Rochester, MI: 5. n., 1982), entry
149.
14Jessie Poesch, The Art of the Old South (New York: Harrison House, 1983),
pp. 197-198; Kentucky Furniture: An Exhibition (Louisville: J. B. Speed Art
. Museum, 1974), item 38.
15Samuel D. McCullough, ”Samuel D. McCullough’s Reminiscences of
Lexington," Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 27 (January 1929): 419.
16McCullough, ”Reminiscences,” pp. 419-420.
17Coleman, Famous Kentucky Duels, p. 139.
18According to G. Glenn Clift, ”The newspapers made quite an issue of his
suicide, the question being whether he had failed to perform his duty when he
did not hold an inqu