Ashland
Ashland, statesman Henry Clay’s estate in Lexington, once stretched 600 acres. Today, it is a 17-acre historic site in a downtown neighborhood, and the red-brick Clay mansion and its outbuildings are surrounded by shaded lawns.
A visit there yields more than an understanding of Clay. He was born in Virginia in 1777 and came to Kentucky, as many did, in search of opportunity. Clay became influential in many realms, so his estate is also a place to learn about 19th-century Lexington.
Clay and his peers brought “culture and a worldview to this growing city,” said Jim Clark, the estate’s executive director. “Ashland tells the story of how Lexington developed and was viewed as this Athens of the West.”
Clay practiced law and became a politician. He served as speaker of the house and ran unsuccessfully for president five times. “Visiting Ashland is important in helping understand how Henry Clay had such a great impact not on just Kentucky, but on the development of the U.S. and holding the Union together during a very turbulent period,” said Clark.
Had Clay been asked about his vocation, it is likely he would have called himself a farmer. He imported Hereford cattle and thoroughbreds from England and jacks and jennies from Malta for his mule-breeding operation. He championed hemp as a cash crop, pushing for its use in ropes for the Navy. “Clay had one of the largest hemp farms in Kentucky,” said Clark. “A lot of his policy and political philosophies were formed by his agrarian practices, and that is expressed on his estate.”
Because Clay’s interests were broad, tours at Ashland can be tailored to specific interests, such as his career in law, his work as a statesman and his involvement in the Thoroughbred industry and farming. Decorative arts is also a natural, as about 90 percent of the mansion’s artifacts and objects are from the Clay family and its descendants. “That is a high percentage for a house museum,” said Clark.
Mountain Homeplace
History refuses to sit idle, getting old and dusty, at the Mountain Homeplace in the eastern Kentucky mountains near Paintsville.
Arrive at this 27-acre historic site on a cool day, and bread might be baking in a cast-iron, wood-burning stove in the double-pen cabin where the McKenzie family once lived. Chickens roam freely and supply eggs sold for $2 a dozen in the visitors center. Vegetable gardens educate visitors and supply vegetables to eat and sell.
Four draft horses are hitched to discs to loosen soil and to wagons to give rides. Five baby goats entertain; three donkeys help ward off coyotes.
Mountain Homeplace has been educating visitors about mountain life in the 1800s since it opened 20 years ago. The experience is authentic, from the five historic structures moved to the site from other parts of the county to the staff and volunteers, all natives of the region.
Tours delve into daily life. Guides like Charlene Honeycutt explain traditions and features of the five buildings on-site, which include a one-room school, a church, a home, a blacksmith shop and a barn.
Honeycutt especially likes the story behind wooden pegs in the door frame of the McKenzie cabin. In the 1800s, settlers placed a lock of each child’s hair in a hole in the door frame and covered it with a wooden peg. Pegs on the left signified sons; on the right, daughters. “By doing that, you know how many children that McKenzie had,” Honeycutt said.
Visitors come to appreciate the practicality of the farmers, who placed washstands near the back door, not only to be convenient for washing up, but also so the stand’s mirror would catch the light from the door and a nearby window. “The reflected light could save 15 to 20 minutes a day of lamp oil,” said Honeycutt.
Wickliffe Mounds State Historic Site
Wickliffe Mounds State Historic Site makes it easy to imagine the lives of the prehistoric Indians who built the mounds that survive along a bluff where Kentucky’s western border touches the Mississippi River.
For example, through inventive hands-on activities arranged in advance, “you can try out prehistoric Native American technology for yourself,” said park manager Carla Hildebrand.
Hildebrand ticked off a few: grinding corn with a stone; making a clay pot to take home; and throwing a Native American spear with an assist from an atlatl, “an ancient technology for throwing a spear farther and faster.”
Groups short on time can arrange a guided tour; those with even less time can wander the grounds on a self-guided tour.
Several mounds remain, including one that is about 10 feet above the ground at its peak and that affords the best views of the nearby Mississippi River and a burial mound “where several hundred Native Americans of the Mississippian culture are buried,” said Hildebrand. “It is a place of reverence and respect.”
Visitors can also look inside a mound. “Our museum is an excavated mound,” said Hildebrand. “The building was built over an archaeological site dig area from the 1930s when the site was privately owned and was operated as a tourist attraction.”
Archaeologists from several prestigious universities assisted the owner with the digs, and items discovered are displayed in the museum, said Hildebrand.
“All of our collection came from this prehistoric village; that is one of the special things about this site. We have their pottery and stone tools.”
