Howard's Grove, Fayette County, Ky., Pioneer Hemp Farm

Howard's Grove
Fayette County, Ky., Pioneer Hemp Farm

The "long hunter" John Howard was born February 22, 1730, near Carter's Ferry, Va. In 1764 he married Mary, the youngest sister of Major William T. Preston of Smithfield. They lived on his father's 700 acres of land in Goochland County, then moved to Botetourt County where he was made a justice of the peace and got a license to make his house a tavern. He was off to Boonesborough, Kentucky in June 1775, and though he was a volunteer in the American Revolution, he spent much of his time hunting in Kentucky near Bryan's Station.

Sometime after 1789 he moved his family to Howard's Grove, the 1400 acre farm between the "Maysville Road," (now Paris Pike), and "Old Limestone Road," (now Bryan Station Road). John Howard was not a very stable character, often leaving his family behind for long periods as he went on adventures, even being accused of insanity at one point in Virginia.⁽ⁱ⁾ He relied on his son, Benjamin, to maintain his finances, secure his properties, and settle all business deals for his processed hemp.⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ He must have been working the farm at "Davie's Fork of Elkhorn in Fayette" at least the spring before 1804. John Dorman, the Preston geneologist commissioned by the Filson Club Historical Society, said that Howard was frequently in Kentucky as early as the 1780s, but his family was still paying taxes in Botetourt County in 1789.⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ According to legend, John Howard died soon after trying to break an unruly colt. He was 103 years old when he died on November 7, 1834.^(iv)

John Howard is buried there alongside his daughters, Sarah ("Sally" who never married and lived on the farm until her death in October 1822) and Margaretta (1778-1825, wife of Robert Wickliffe). Dorman said that John's wife, Mary Preston Howard (1740-1814), was buried there. However, her tombstone has been missing for a long time: Philip Preston Johnston II (1877-1937) did not record its existence when he repaired the tombstones at the request of Mrs. Margaret Preston Davie (his wife's aunt) sometime in the first half of the twentieth century. Another daughter, Mary Howard Parker (?-1854) was buried there, however her grave also is no longer visible.^(v)

In 1822 this hemp farm (by then 1133 acres) was willed by Sally in two tracts to both her brother-in-law Robert Wickliffe and Margaretta "to hold in trust for Benjamin Howard Wickliffe and Sarah Howard Wickliffe."^(vi) The farm was described by Robert Wickliffe in his will written in 1857 as "composed of part of the Howard tract, the Davenport and the Green tracts." He called the graveyard the "family burrying ground" since he had buried not only his first wife's children, but his second wife's family there.

The burying grounds were plotted out by W.S. Bell, the Lexington florist and landscape artist for the Lexington Cemetary, in the 1880s; and then again by P. Preston Johnston in the early 1900s.^(vii) There are some unfortunate discrepencies in their drawings, proving the loss of several marked and unmarked graves by the twentieth century. There are basically two rows of graves which once were encircled by a gravel walk which in turn was enclosed by a stone fence and iron double gate to create a burial space twice as large as was needed for the extant graves.

A Visit to Howard's Grove Cemetery,
August 1997

The first row of graves (more than halfway across the enclosure from the gate) are lined up from south to north and the bodies were laid to face the east. While there were once several more graves in this row (eight are now not visible, of which four were marked by Bell as having had headstones), there are now ten marked graves. The oldest are those of John then (moving north and after a space in which is probably the remains of his wife, Mary Preston Howard), Sally, then Robert Wickliffe's head and foot stones.

... I direct that I may be buried in a plain and decent manner, without show or parade, in the family burying ground at Howard Grove; that no other tomb stone be placed over my grave than such as have or may be placed over the members of my family buried there. If I do not erect a plain marble monument at the graves of my family before I die, my executors are charged with the duty of erecting such, with no other inscription thereon than the names of myself and of my family who shall be buried in said grave yard...^(viii)

Beside him is Margaretta's flat tombstone, on which the inscription is almost illegible by now. To the right, beside Margaretta's grave is an interesting line of flat granite tombstones of similar make and lettering created by artisan Peter Paul in 1842. The following inscriptions are more or less visible today, however the wording below is taken from Paul's notes found in the Wickliffe-Preston family papers.^(ix)

"Charles Wickliffe, Son of Robt and Margaretta P. Wickliffe was killed in a duel by James Trotter in October 1830 aged 21 years" This eldest son, named after Robert Wickliffe's brother, was also the "Coriolanus" in the Ky. Reporter who wrote a challenge which ultimately led to the famous duel with his former best friend when he was killed on October 9, 1829.^(x)
"John Wickliffe, Son of Robt and Margaretta P. Wickliffe died April 1838 aged 28 years" This red-head was a handful of trouble for his parents: he was specifically mentioned by his very ill mother as she travelled in Virginia. "Tell John I love every little boy I see with a red head like him he must be a good boy and I will bring him some very good things from this country." The Old Duke received a bill for 27 weeks board in Oxford, Ohio when he was 20, but John was trying his hand at farming his father's properties in Fayette Co. from 1832 on. His step-mother, Mary Owen Todd Russell Wickliffe, sent word to his father away in Frankfort that "John is here and conducts himself well." There is no record of how he died.^(xi)
"Caleb Ewing, Son of Charles and Sally Ewing, died in 1840" - this individual is not mentioned in the family papers; was he an illegitimate son of the hot-blooded duelist? Probably not. The Ewing name features heavily in the Preston-Wickliffe correspondence, because Andrew J. "Jack" Ewing was the Old Duke's agent in Bath County and served subsequently as MWPreston's advisor. No Caleb or Sally was ever mentioned.
"Benjamin H. Wickliffe, Son of Robert & Margaretta P. Wickliffe was born the 20^th of June 1841 and died on his way from London home at New York the 31^st day of May 1838." Howard was the scholar of the family, going to St. Joseph's College (as his father did) in Bardstown then Yale. He went to London to further his education, but contracted flu and never recovered. He returned to the U.S. only after his friends knew that he was dying. He finally died in the Holt Hotel in New York, where younger brother Robert wrote letters detailing his final moments.^(xii)
"Robert Wickliffe Jr. Died Aug. 29, 1850. Aged 34 years." This is a very short and meaningless epitaph for the man Lexingtonians called "the Young Duke of Town Fork." There are many letters in the Wickliffe-Preston family papers and in the Dickman-Balke-Troutman family papers by and about this man. Though historians have sometimes confused the father and son, the Old Duke was much more prolific, a more powerful politician, and certainly more successful in his law practice than his son. By the end of the son's life (he died of "an affection of the liver" and "dropsy of the heart" according to his obituary), the two men were not on friendly terms, and not a little of this animosity had to do with the antagonisms the Wickliffe family felt toward Robert's Dutch wife, Johanna Josephine Van Houtum.^(xiii)

Far off to the left (south) of John Howard, but still generally in line with this group in the first row, is buried Judge Aaron K. Woolley who died August 31, 1849, of cholera. Beside him, on his right side (further to the south), is his wife, the eldest of the Wickliffe offspring, Sallie Howard Wickliffe Woolley who died July 29, 1873.

She had lived on the farm as plantation mistress since the 1820s as well as in town at her father's first mansion at 2nd and Market Streets (now called the Woolley house). Upon her death the farm was split up among her children; see O.B. Huggins survey taken on October 1, 1873, Fayette County Deed Book 52, p. 394.

At an angle behind the headstone of Robert Wickliffe is his second wife's grave (in the second row), and neither her Todd nor Russell relations are displayed by her loving second husband who dubs her simply "Mary O. Wickliffe" on her tombstone. On either side of her are simple markers for her relatives: her first husband, "James Russell, died 1802" and her mother "Jane Irvine" (Jane Hawkins had married John Todd, who died at the Battle of Blue Licks, then Thomas Irvine and died in 1825). On the other side of Jane Irvine is "John T. Russell, son of M.O. Todd and J. Russell, born May 4, 1800 died [October 12,] 1822" -- this is her only child and is the alleged father of Alfred T. Russell, a white baby born a slave because his octoroon mother was owned by Jane Irvine.