Historical tales of Elizaville
Even the smallest of villages are full of rich history.
Elizaville is a small town about six miles west of Fleming County and is situated at the intersections of highways 32 and 170.
History tells us that a man named John Cochran built the first cabin in Elizaville and that he named the town in honor of his daughter Eliza.
The village was first incorporated in 1819 and then again in 1839.
The following is an historical account of Elizaville shared by L.D. Jackson on Rootsweb.com.
At the time it was incorporated, the trustees were James Cochran, James Johnson, William Nickelson, James Alexander and Joseph Reed.
The first merchants were men by the name of Green and Wesley Parker and Oliver Hazard Perry Dewey was a shoemaker.
In 1835, the town got a big boost when Henry and R. M. Bishop settled in the area and opened a tanyard, traded hogs and horses, and built a large stable behind the Throckmorton filling station. They packed pork for the New Orleans market.
Henry Warrick, another early merchant, was extremely prominent both socially and financially.
The Hon. R. M. Bishop was born at Bishop’s Old Tanyard, about two miles southwest of Elizaville, in the early part of the century.
John Aikman was an early blacksmith. He made a turning plow, which was known as the Aikman plow, which brought him a considerable reputation.
“Uncle Johnny” was known as a “character.” His wife was a devout Presbyterian and quite deaf.
Oliver Hazard Perry Dewey, a shoemaker, came to Elizaville in October, 1831. His shop was on the corner in the vacant building once owned by Rube Roberson.
A gifted music-master, Dwight Baldwin, appeared on the Elizaville scene in the 1840s.
This young man made quite a success in singing.
He subsequently met and courted a Miss Summers, who was an aunt of the late Mrs. W. E. Price, Mrs. T. Ribelin and Mr. Charlie Summers, and a great aunt of Mrs. Taylor Williams and Mrs. Lucy R. Dorsey of Flemingsburg.
He started the Baldwin Piano Company in Cincinnati and died immensely wealthy.
Captain G. W. Jackson, of the “Battle of Elizaville” fame, was another of Elizaville’s citizens.
He was an undertaker. Will Price succeeded him in the late 1890s.
Jacob Jockey, a Dutchman, was a shoemaker, and had his shop next to Raymond McIntyre’s store, and when the building burned, they placed ropes about his establishment and pulled it away intact.
Dr. Lucien Abney, grandfather of Mrs. Reuben Roberson and Mrs. Sam Burns, emigrated with his mother and stepfather from South Carolina when he was a child.
He first practiced medicine in Pleasant Valley. He was married to Jane Stewart, and his stepfather was killed when the steamship “Magnolia” blew up.
He settled in Elizaville in 1862 and stayed there until his death. He was also postmaster appointed by William McKinley, and remained in that position until Woodrow Wilson began his first term.
Dr. J. N. Proctor lived on the corner in the house opposite Gene Wood’s store.
A very early physician was Dr. James L. Baltzell, who died in 1849 with the cholera and is buried in a little cemetery behind the McIntyre home.
Probably the earliest doctor was Robert Tilton, who also died with the cholera in 1883, and is buried in the same place.
William Berry settled in Elizaville and opened a saddlers shop.
No name shines brighter upon the pages of history than that of Bruce.
A branch of this illustrious family pioneered the settling of the surrounding territory of Elizaville.
Available research shows that the Bruce family has a record that goes back to the dawn of history, and has been a large part of all that is great and glorious in the achievements of its own, native Scotland, and has contributed in no small measure to the ennobling activities of other countries, especially the United States.
Henry Bruce, oldest son of George and Mary Stubblefield Bruce and ancestor of Mrs. Iolene Hawkins, Mrs. J. Kidwell Grannis, Joe Pumphry and Mrs. Clark Overton, was born in Stafford County, Virginia on October 30, 1777.
At the age of seven, he was bound out to a neighbor to learn the shoe-making trade, and stayed with his master for eight years.
But, at the age of fifteen, he took one of his mother’s horses and slipped away with the Benjamin Threlkeld family and came to Mason County, Kentucky.
Upon his arrival, he had three crowns in money, and started to work by the day or month as he found it.
In the meantime, he purchased 50 acres of land in Fleming County, one mile and a half from the village of Elizaville.
He and an African American man built a one-room log cabin and made furniture from timber on the farm.
Later, on January 11, 1798, he married Eleanor Threlkeld.
In 1808, Henry Bruce began to drive hogs and horses south.
This enabled him to buy more land, and when his family began to arrive, another room was added to the cabin and floors were laid.
In 1813, a beautiful spot up the hill was selected for a house and work was begun.
Two years later, in November, they moved into their then considered palatial home of ten rooms, three halls and porches.
This was the second brick house built in Fleming County outside of Flemingsburg, and the first one to have a shingled roof.
Another distinguished personage was the honorable E. M. Bruce, born near Elizaville in the 1820s.
He became wealthy in his early life, and, when the Civil War broke out went with the South and was a friend of Jefferson Davis.
James Morgan, the youngest child of William and Ann Bruce Morgan was born in Elizaville.
Very early in his young life, his father emigrated to Illinois, where he entered newspaper work.
His first position was with the Boston Globe-Democrat and later became City Editor for that journal.
Mary Abney was the first body to be interred in the Elizaville Cemetery, and she had previously been removed from Johnson’s Fork Presbyterian Burying Ground.
A teacher by the name of “Meadows” taught a splendid school in Elizaville in the 1850s.
Among the subjects offered were mathematics, trigonometry, surveying, etc.
In the 1860s a basement school was organized by Miss Julia May.
Major William H. Darnall of this county persuaded Miss May to come to Elizaville to teach in a building which he had erected in his yard. However, the project was begun in the basement of the Elizaville Presbyterian Church. So successful was this venture that she was in need of help and called for her sister, Miss Sarah May to aid her in her duties.
A High School curriculum was inaugurated and courses in Latin, French, high mathematics and physics were given.
After several successful years the May sisters left to return to their New England home.
But they had made an outstanding record during their tenure. Students from all over the county came and boarded in Elizaville for the purpose of attending their classes.
On the first Monday in September, 1867, John J. Dickey began teaching with 18 pupils.
His sister, Eva Dickey, was soon called to assist, and, at the end of the school year, they had 80 students.
At the beginning of the second year, the enrollment was 81 but, since the Willow Dell Academy was soon organized, the basement school was shortly closed.
Prior to the opening of the Willow Dell Academy, there had been another old school in Elizaville, situated on the same lot, back toward Johnson.
This Willow Dell Academy, located where the present school now stands, was started as a two-room affair, one room on the ground and the other directly over it. True to the previous scholastic tradition, this academy was excellent, and the students were taught by many fine teachers, some of them from the North.
In 1875, Willow Dell had about seventy pupils in attendance, with Professor Clarence P. Caywood as Principal. Other early teachers in the school were Annie Rossell, Sallie Mahon from Glasgow, Ky., Kate Pryor of Carrollton, Lillie Wade, Hanson Peterson (who later became a lawyer in Cynthiana), Charles Marshall, who afterwards became a Bank President, Lizzie McClintock and Sallie McIntyre from Millersburg and Miss Lyle Hutchison.
This same Willow Dell was organized into a High school and Mrs. J. A. Carriker, formerly Miss Elizabeth Dorsey was the first person to graduate from here in 1920. It ceased to be a High School in 1935.
Many people are unaware of the fact that there was a clash of arms near the village of Elizaville.
During the Civil War, the Confederates had invaded and spread over most of the state.
Kentucky’s volunteers were flocking in large numbers to both armies. The Union forces and home guards had arrested many Southern sympathizers and treated them shabbily, and the Union sympathizers were fleeing before the invading Southerners expecting the same sort of treatment.
Several Confederate men had gathered in a body at Maysville, awaiting the turn of events. In the meantime, Captain G. W. Jackson, a native of Elizaville, was recruiting a company for the Confederate Army. He had already enlisted several men, who would lodge with friends at night and would scour the county for recruits during the day.
On Saturday afternoon, September 17, 1862, several Confederate recruits with Captain Jackson rode into Elizaville, halted there for a short time, and started in the direction of Maysville.
In the meantime, however, about forty Union men were approaching the town by that route having advance knowledge of Captain Jackson’s movements.
The latter company was composed of refugees and home guards, and were under the command of John Blair, who later became very prominent in politics and county affairs in Nicholas County.
Jackson’s group was composed of Rolla Porter, James T. Alexander, George D. and William Sousley, John E. Sousley, Jack Payne, John Ferguson, Felix Lowry, Jack, Joe and John Noe, John Aikman, Thomas Henry, Alfred Prather, Alfred Kirk, William Bowen, Lewis and Harrison Planck, John T. Cochran, Daniel Eckman, William Davis, Zaddock Spencer, William Allen and one whose name is unknown.
Two members of Jackson’s advance guard had halted at the summit of the gentle slope after crossing Mud Lick, opposite the present residence of Lucien Early.
The Union forces opened fire and Jackson gave the command, “Dismount, hitch your horses, fall into line and we’ll fight them right here.”
All but five or six of the men obeyed, and there was intermittent firing for about ten minutes. Then Capt. Jackson gave the order to retreat, but his men did, anyway and he and James Alexander were the last to leave the scene of the action.
The casualties were light, and an interesting incident occurred. James Cochran, then a small boy whose father, James Cochran, Sr. lived where Lucien Early now resides, was returning home from Elizaville when the battle began. He hid under the Mud Lick bridge and remained there until it was all over.
