Bardstown, KENTUCKY

On up the highway, we found a place to park our home at White Acres outside of Bardstown, Kentucky. They had three permanent trailers there, a couple unrented cabins and then about three of us drifters. Not much going on there, but we made good use of our time in Bardstown and the surrounding area. One of the first things that Gary wanted to do was to get a photograph of a brick house on Stephen Foster Avenue that was the subject of one of his pencil drawings of 39 years ago. The drawing hung in our home all of these years which caused it to turn very yellow. So I think that it would be neat if Gary would do this drawing again using all that he has learned about pencil art since 1970. Less house shows now in this photograph because of all of the trees, but we were able to park where Gary sat in his car when he did the first drawing. It will be interesting to see the difference. As we often do when we visit a new city to find out what there is to see, we take a bus tour. Then we follow-up with our own tours of individual places. Bardstown was no exception. We took the Heaven Hill Distillery Tour Trolley which ended with a tour of the Heaven Hill Museum and Gift Shop where we saw the history of distilling , the equipment used early on as well as the various names of beverages produced by Heaven Hill . We began this tour with the purchase of tickets at the Old Nelson County Court House on the square. We were shown the Nelson County jail that has become the Jailer's Inn, Bed and Breakfast after criminals were no longer detained in this building. Next on the tour was St. Joseph's Church which was the first Roman Catholic Cathedral built in the United States west of the Allegheny Mountains. From 1808 to 1841 it was the Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church for a ten-state area as it's religious and education center. Spalding Hall next to the church was built in 1826 and was part of the St. Joseph College until 1889. During the Civil War St. Joseph was a military hospital. Spalding Hall has served as a college and seminary, as orphanage, and as St. Joseph Prep School from 1911 to 1968. The Kinkead-Wickliffe house built about 1830 with different additions which mask the early age of the house. In the back is a beehive shaped smoke house with original wooden finial on the roof. John Fitch Avenue was called Grave Street because of the cemetery . The stone boxes are called sarcophagi and protect the graves from digging animals. This cemetery is behind the Old Nelson County Jail . On the other side of this block was a one room log school house . The tour guide also pointed out the Old Talbott Tavern which has been in use since 1797- first as a mercantile business then as an ordinary tavern which was also known as Talbott Hotel. Since the food served there was highly recommended by the guide, we returned there for our lunch the day of the tour. He was right, it was very good food and the ambiance was good also. Enjoy the construction and features as we did . The tour guide pointed out forty-eight different sites on the Tour of Bardstown. It was very interesting and tough to keep up with his narration. I really recommend the tour, but follow it up with a walk of the downtown section on your own time also. I will do another Blog on a couple of the structures mentioned in this blog as the information for those was extensive and worth expounding on, especially St. Joseph's Church. Follow along!