KY:Historical Society - Historical Marker Database

KYHistorical Society

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County Named, 1799
(Marker Number: 1170)

County: Breckinridge
Location: Hardinsburg, Courthouse lawn, US 60

Description: For John Breckinridge, 1760-1806. Attorney General of Ky., 1793-97. Representative in Kentucky Legislature, 1797-1801. Coauthor with Jefferson of 1798 Kentucky Resolutions, opposing U.S. Alien and Sedition Acts. Appointed Attorney General of the U.S. in 1805. He was a key figure in the writing of the Kentucky Constitution, 1799. He served in the U.S. Senate, 1801-05.

(Subjects: Constitutional Convention (1799) | Jefferson, Thomas)

Courthouse Burned
(Marker Number: 584)

County: Breckinridge
Location: Hardinsburg, Courthouse lawn, US 60

Description: Twenty-two Kentucky courthouses were burned during Civil War, nineteen in last fifteen months: twelve by Confederates, eight by guerrillas, two by Union accident. See map on reverse side. Dec. 28, 1864, guerrillas set fire to courthouse at Hardinsburg but citizens saved building and records. CSA came in and allowed public to keep arms for defense.

(Subjects: Civil War | Courthouses Burned)

Early Shipping Point
(Marker Number: 850)

County: Breckinridge
Location: Cloverport, US 60

Description: Cloverport, an important shipping point beginning in 1798 when Joe Houston came from Va., built home and started trading and shipping business. Flatboats carried Ky. tobacco, other goods for sale in New Orleans. Boats sold as lumber. Men came back over Natchez Trace. Houston operated first ferry here in 1802. Shipping increased and steamboats came into use, 1820.

First Coal Oil
(Marker Number: 557)

County: Breckinridge
Location: 3 mi. E. of Cloverport, US 60

Description: Coal oil first produced here 1851. Plant built 1857, reputed first of kind in world. Mine known for extensive veins of cannel coal. Coal loaded here, exported to England via New Orleans for gas manufacture. English-owned with Prince of Wales (King Edward VII) an investor. Disastrous fire, the discovery of petroleum, and Civil War caused cessation of operation.

Joseph Holt
(Marker Number: 552)

County: Breckinridge
Location: 4 mi. E. of Cloverport, US 60 & KY 144

Description: Six miles north are birthplace and grave of Joseph Holt, 1807-1896. He was Commissioner of Patents, Postmaster General and Secretary of War in President Buchanan's Administration, 1857-1861. Lincoln named him Judge Advocate General of the Union army in 1862. Holt prosecuted conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln, 1865. He retired as Judge Advocate in 1875.

(Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham)

Lincoln Family Trail
(Marker Number: 73)

County: Breckinridge
Location: Cloverport, US 60

Description: Abraham Lincoln, then a lad of 7, with other members of the Thomas Lincoln family crossed the Ohio River on a log raft ferry near here in 1816. The Lincolns were moving to Indiana.

(Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham | Lincoln, Thomas | Roads)

Shelter for Lincolns
(Marker Number: 1003)

County: Breckinridge
Location: S. of city limits of Hardinsburg, KY 261

Description: In the autumn of 1816 the family of Abraham Lincoln, then 7 years old, migrating to Indiana, rested and recuperated for about three weeks in a cabin that stood here. Local residents gave them food. Lincoln route in Kentucky started near Hodgenville and went through Elizabethtown, Vine Grove, Harned, here to Cloverport, river ferry. Lincolns traveled by ox-cart.

(Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham)

Sue Mundy Captured
(Marker Number: 536)

County: Breckinridge
Location: US 60, near Meade Co. line

Description: At age of 17, in 1861, Jerome Clarke, called Sue Mundy, joined Confederate Army. He was with Morgan's Raiders from 1862 until Morgan's death in 1864. He then became notorious as a guerrilla. On March 12, 1865 Union soldiers captured him here with two other leaders of guerrilla bands. Clarke, then only 20, was executed three days later in Louisville.

(Subjects: Civil War | Morgan's Raiders | Sue Mundy)

Tar Springs
(Marker Number: 934)

County: Breckinridge
Location: Cloverport, US 60

Description: Four miles south. A fashionable health resort of 1840s which had the unique attraction of a l00-foot cliff from which tar bubbled while from its base flowed eleven springs, each with different type of mineral water. Indians knew and used these curative waters. Wiley B. Rutledge, Justice of U.S. Supreme Court, 1943-49, was born, 1894, at Tar Springs resort.

(Subjects: Springs)

William (Indian Bill) Hardin, 1747-1821
(Marker Number: 134)

County: Breckinridge
Location: Hardinsburg, US 60

Description: Founder of Hardinsburg. Virginia Revolutionary soldier, third continental line. Built Hardin's Fort here in 1780.

(Subjects: Forts and Stations)