On the banks of the Licking River

One of our back-logged stories for Around Town is about a small village that at one time was an industrious community.

Tommy Kiskaden shared his memories of the little river town with us years ago but those notes were misplaced until just recently.

The following recollections and historical accounts give us some sense of what Sherburne was like when the first settlers moved into the area in the 1800s.

Sherburne, a southern Fleming county community on Ky. 11 grew around the early nineteenth century mills of Robert Andrews from Sherburne, New York and was incorporated in 1847.

Some of the streets were named Sudduth, Cavan, Lee and Stockton in honor of the earliest settlers.

At the time of the towns founding, the ford of the river was upstream from the gristmill, but before too long the current of the river cut the channel too deep for fording and a more feasible one had to be located.

A Mr. Sudduth is said to have started a mill and built a home on the corner of third and Sudduth Streets. The Sudduth home was later owned by the Terhune family.

Sudduth sold the mill to a Mr. Wilson, who remodeled the store and used it as a dwelling.

Mr. Wilson sold the mill to Mr. Will Fant, who later moved to Flemingsburg where he started another mill.

Before he moved to Flemingsburg, Fant in turn sold the mill to Mr. J.R Scott and his brother in-law, Marshall Hurst.

Mr. Scott and Mr. Hurst added a lumber mill which became the Sherburne Mills.

Mr. Hurst sold his interest to J.R. Scott who continued to operate the mills until his death at which time his children, Charles and Pearl became the owners.

Charles and Pearls husband, B.M. Goodpastor, operated the mills until excessive floods made them unprofitable.

After the death of Charles Scott, Mr. Goodpastor had the mills torn down.

Another one of the early settlers was a Mr. Thomas Daugherty who built his home on the west side of First and Main Streets.

The Daugherty home, after it was sold, was used as a boarding house for many years

On the opposite corner of Mr. Daugherty, was the home of Will Darnall who also had an undertaking workshop and a livery stable where he kept his hearse and his team of sorrel horses.

In the beginning, Sherburne only had one brick building; a store with living quarters on the top floor located across the street from Darnall’s Livery Stable and was operated by Avery Burgess and his brother Cosby.

That first brick building burned in the late 1890s and another store was later built on the same location by E.N. Clinkenbeard.

After a few years Clinkenbeard sold his store to Mr. Stephens and started a store in Flemingsburg.

On the northeast corner of Main and Second Streets, the Gulley family built a tavern that was operated as a small hotel until 1910 and was later torn down by by Nells Tomlin who built a warehouse in its place.

The other corner of the square was occupied by a store which had many owners through the years. One of them, Mr. Will Graham, was the father of Col. Maurice Graham of Florida.

At one time it was operated by Mr. T.J. Daugherty and Mr. S.J. Daugherty, both with the same last name but not related to each other. Both of them later located in Flemingsburg.

This store was built with a high porch so that ladies riding in on their horses could dismount with ease and hitch their horses to rings set in the front porch floor.

The second brick building for Sherburne was the bank built in 1907. Its only cashier was Mr. Walter G. Smith of Jackson, Mississippi.

To be continued…