Adsmore Museum, Princeton, Kentucky

We traveled about thirty miles and one hundred-twelve years back in time on September 15, 2018 to the Adsmore Museum in Princeton, Kentucky. When we entered the museum, we were transported back to 1906 and the day after 250 “Nightriders” had burned two of Princeton’s tobacco warehouses and held the town captive.

Adsmore is the name of the home which was purchased by the Smith-Garrett family in 1900. It got its name from an aunt who said every time she visited they were adding some more to the house and they should just call it Adsmore. The last family member to own and live in the house was Katherine Garrett, the only child of Robert Garrett and Mayme Smith Garrett. Katherine never married and lived her entire life in the house (1901-1984). It was her wish that the home and its contents become a public museum after she passed away. Therefore, she willed the property and all its furnishings to the library and left enough money for an endowment to fulfill her wishes.

Depending on what time of year you go, you might visit as the family is marking a joyous occasion such as Katherine’s Aunt Selina’s engagement or wedding to Wyoming’s former governor, John E. Osborne. Or you may arrive in time to observe the rituals of a Victorian wake. If you go during November and December, the house will be decked out for a Victorian Christmas. The exhibits at Adsmore change about seven times a year.

Our visit found the family in the opening days of what became known as The Black Patch War. The Black Patch War was a struggle by an association of tobacco growers to force the Duke Trust to pay a fair price for their tobacco. This is the same Duke that a university is named after in North Carolina.

The Smith-Garrett family was friends of the owners of the J.C. Orr and Stegar Dollar warehouses that were burned by the “Nightriders” and they hosted Princeton’s most prominent citizens at a dinner the next night to discuss how to protect their community. The exhibit gave us some insights to how the family members reacted to this event and was well-told by our docent, Sandy.

The tour was very affordable at $7.00 per person for about a 45 minute visit into the past. The home is packed with authentic original furniture and photographs. Admission tickets are sold in the property's carriage house  which also serves as a gift shop. We had a very good time and will probably go back for the Victorian Christmas Exhibit.

Cave-In-Rock, Illinois

We visited Cave-In-Rock, Illinois on September 13, 2018. This area attraction was a film location for John Wayne’s epic movie, “How The West Was Won”. For those of us living on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, the journey offers an opportunity we seldom get to experience. We crossed over the Ohio by the ferry at Crittenden County, Kentucky. The ferry is a joint venture between the two states and was free to all riders. One of the reasons we chose to visit now is because the ferry’s funding may not go past this month. Hopefully, the states will continue to fund its operation.

Crossing over the river on a ferry is quite a bit different than on a bridge. You go at a slower pace and you notice all kinds of debris floating in the water. When we were returning, our vehicle was the lead one and we saw how the pilot navigated the currents to align the ferry with the ramp on the Kentucky shore. The ferry doesn’t travel in a straight line but in an arc to compensate for the current. I must admit, I had to fight the urge to turn my steering wheel when he appeared to be drifting off course. 

Once we arrived on the Illinois side of the river, the state park was just a few minutes away. The population sign for Cave-In-Rock proudly informs visitors that 350 people live there. According to Wikipedia, the earliest known permanent white settlers arrived in 1816 and started building the town. However, it’s the history of the area before that settlement that makes it a tourist destination.

Beginning in the 1790’s, Cave-In-Rock became a refuge for frontier outlaws. An assortment of river pirates, highwaymen, robbers, counterfeiters, and killers used the cave into the 1800’s. The most notorious of them all was the “Harpe Brothers”. They were known and feared throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, and Illinois.

Micajah “Big” Harpe and his younger brother Wiley “Little” Harpe have the dubious distinction of being America’s first documented serial killers. Their murderous reign was thought to have started with a murder in Knoxville, Tennessee around 1799 before they entered into Kentucky that same year. Once they arrived in Kentucky, their murderous rampage escalated. Somewhere between thirty and forty murders across Kentucky and Southern Illinois were attributed to the pair.

Their brutality apparently knew no bounds and spared neither man, woman, or baby. Contemporary reports stated that they killed just for the sake of killing. One of their last murders would prove to be their undoing. In the summer of 1799, they murdered the wife and baby of a man named Stegall in a cabin a few miles from present-day Dixon, Kentucky. A posse, which included the husband of the victim, soon gave chase to the two outlaws. After days of evading their pursuers, Big Harpe was shot and captured in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.

Mr. Stegall exacted “frontier justice” by using a knife to decapitate the dying outlaw. Big Harpe’s head was placed in a sack and carried to a crossroads a few miles north of present-day Dixon. There it was placed on display as a warning to other outlaws. The place became known as Harpe’s Head and today an historical marker marks the location.

Historical Marker
HWY 41-A
Approximately 3 Miles North of Dixon, Kentucky

In the park, we looked through the opening at the top of the cave and could imagine the many innocent victims that had been pushed from it to a painful death from the fall. We followed the steps down to the cave’s entrance at the river’s edge. The interior of the cave was only illuminated by the daylight which entered through its two openings. We ventured into the main chamber of the cave, but we stopped before reaching the inner chamber. The footing was getting too precarious in the dim light and we turned back out of safety concerns. And perhaps, we chose not to enter the chamber which had served as a barbaric killing floor some two centuries before.

View of Cave-In-Rock, Illinois Shore
From the Ferry

We ate lunch at Kaylor’s, the park’s small restaurant. The food was good and the staff was very nice. A small display of photographs included a couple of Fess Parker and Darby Hinton in costume for the Daniel Boone TV Series. The photographs were signed by Hinton, who played Boone’s son, Israel. He apparently attended Cave-In-Rock’s Founder’s Day in 2017. 

We recommend a trip to Cave-In-Rock. You will enjoy the ferry ride and the views of the river from the picnic shelters in the park. And, if you are surefooted and up for some serious exertion, follow the stairs down to the cave entrance and enter a portal that will transport you to a time when Kentucky was the frontier and justice was handed out with a knife.

Two books about Cave-In-Rock that we recommend are: Satan’s Ferryman and The Outlaws of Cave-In-Rock. The first book is out of print, but the second one is available in print or Kindle version.

The National Quilt Museum In Paducah, Kentucky

The National Quilt Museum
Paducah, Kentucky

We visited the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky on September 10, 2018. The admission price to the museum is only $12 for those under 62. 

The first display we saw when we reached the museum had nothing to do with quilts. Prominently displayed on the front lawn of the museum was a set of statues entitled “ON THE TRAIL OF DISCOVERY’. The set honors Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and the Native Americans that helped them on their travels to the Pacific Ocean. In 1827, William Clark paid $5.00 in fees to transfer the land where Paducah and McCracken County now stand. In contrast to that, Seaman, the Newfoundland dog that is portrayed in the display, was bought by Meriwether Lewis for $20.00 in 1803.

"On The Trail Of Discovery"
Paducah, Kentucky

Our earliest memories associated with a quilt are waking up on cold winter mornings snugly wrapped up in quilts our grandmother had made. We heated our home with coal stoves until changing over to gas space heaters towards the end of our grade school days. Many winter mornings the house was chilly until the coal was replenished. In addition to our regular quilts, our grandmother and her mother made quilts for special occasions such as weddings or births. Furthermore, no shirt was ever just thrown away because it could become part of a quilt top.

Whirling Star
Kansas City Star Quilt Pattern

Some of the quilts, like those created from patterns that appeared in The Kansas City Star Newspaper (1928-1961), reminded us of those our grandmother made. But most were very elaborate works of art. One gallery was called, “Color-Play In Portraits” and included a portrait of Muhammad Ali that was quite good.

Muhammad Ali

We were also impressed by an American Flag quilt. Some quilts had a 3-D appearance and others used geometric designs to create a psychedelic effect. The most unusual quilt was a wooden quilt called “Floating”. The museum was interesting and deserves a visit. If you are a quilter, you may want to go more than once.

"Floating" By Fraser Smith