Thank you Daniel and Rebecca Boone!

Sometimes I use Brenda, our GPS, to try to scope out some possible destinations in our travels by using her thousands of points of interest that are preloaded in her software. When looking around, I found out that Daniel and Rebecca Boone – yes, that Daniel Boone – were buried in the Frankfort Kentucky cemetery. So we headed there as it was only maybe 15 or 20 miles off the path we were taking anyway.

The gravesite was awesome – on a high hillside in the cemetery – about the only one with a vast clear view of the downtown area of Frankfort. Apparently it was well thought out because there is a gorgeous view of the Kentucky state capitol building and the governor’s mansion. More on that later.

We also learned about the Daniel Boone gravesite controversy. Boone dies in 1820 at his then home in Missouri, and was buried nearby next to Rebecca who had preceded him in death. In 1845 his and Rebecca’s remains were disinterred and moved to the Frankfort cemetery in the capitol of Kentucky to commemorate his exploration and settlement of Kentucky in the mid-1700’s, which at that time was part of the territory of Virginia. But his living family members in Missouri were not happy that these renegades from Kentucky had moved Boone and his wife.

Many years later the Boone heirs announced that when Boone and his wife had been buried in Missouri that the headstones were placed on the wrong graves. The relatives said they knew that all along, but that nobody had taken the effort to move the stones to their correct location. So they heirs claim that when the renegades from Kentucky came and exhumed Daniel and Rebecca, they actually had taken some other remains, and that Daniel and Rebecca are still buried near Marthasville Missouri. Both cemeteries lay claim to the gravesites to this very day!

If not for Daniel and Rebecca, we would not have figured out that Frankfort was the state capitol. So we headed to the capitol complex and toured it to add it to our list of state capitols visited. It was actually the third capitol building built – the first was wooden and burned – the second still sits in the business district of downtown and is still used as governmental offices. We visited it, but it is not open for touring.

The current capitol was built in 1905 to create the added space needed for the legislature, the Supreme Court, and state offices. It is a classic domed capitol design, and it is simply beautiful both inside and out. A huge statue of Abraham Lincoln sits under the dome. And the extensive marble and golden ceiling work is really stunning.

The governor lives right across the street from the capitol building – there is no doubt the governor could easily just walk to work. It is an impressive building, built in 1912 not long after the 3^rd capitol building.  While it is not available for touring, it was fun and impressive to see.

In nearby Hodgenville we found the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. There is a great museum here where we learned more interesting Honest Abe facts that we had not known before.

The actual cabin in which Abe was born and spent a few early years has been put inside a climate controlled monument. The monument building itself is quite impressive, not quite as big as the Lincoln Memorial in DC, but nearly that big.

The reason Lincoln’s father had picked this land to live on was because of the water source on the land – Sinking Spring. His dad thought that he had purchased the land legally, but someone filed a claim of ownership of the land, and in court, the ownership was granted to the other party. Apparently this was not all that uncommon back then when title records were not centralized and surveying not all that reliable. In fact, the land the Lincolns then moved to and rented came under an ownership dispute, which their landlord lost, and so they were evicted from his nearby boyhood home as well. That was enough for the Lincolns, who then left Kentucky never to return.

We went to see the boyhood home where the young Abe Lincoln spent his early formative years. This home is also a National Historic Site, but unfortunately it was under construction and remodeling, so not open to visit. We only got to steel a glimpse from behind the construction barriers.

In the small nearby town of Hodgenville we toured a private Lincoln Museum which was nice to see. There were not a lot of original artifacts, but the exhibits were interesting and compelling. As a bonus, across the street in the center of the roundabout stood a bronze sculpture of Abraham Lincoln, much like the one in the Memorial in DC. However this one predates the sculpture in the Memorial by quite a few years.
 

 And we learned one more gem that ties in with our traveling the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. In 1919, two substitute school teachers decided that they might be happier making candy together than teaching. Rebecca Gooch and Ruth (Hanly) Booe formed Rebecca Ruth Candy Company, which is still in operation today being managed by heirs of the Booe family. The only factory located in Frankfort Kentucky is still in Ruth’s old home. We toured the factory and had great fun, especially the sample at the end of their most infamous creation.

During prohibition, apparently revenuers paid visits from time to time to the factory because the smell of vanilla used in candy making was awful similar to that of alcohol. Apparently, even after Prohibition ended in 1933, rumors of the ladies using alcohol in their candies persisted, which actually drove both interest and sales. With all that interest it was generating, Ruth decided in 1938 that she would develop a candy that included fine Kentucky bourbon in it in a way that the alcohol was not cooked out of it. She called them Bourbon Balls, and they were an instant success. Now you see Bourbon Balls all over Kentucky.

The Bourbon Balls Ruth Booe invented in 1938 contained what she then felt was the best Kentucky bourbon available – Evan Williams. Today, you will still find Bourbon Balls on sale at Heaven Hills distillery, who makes Evan Williams bourbon, and those Bourbon Balls are made by the Rebecca Ruth Candy Company. But apparently Ruth’s heirs are business savvy – they also make Bourbon Balls containing Makers Mark (on sale at that distillery) and Wild Turkey (on sale at that distillery) and I am sure several others.

I love it when we make new discoveries that tie things together for us!

Talk to you soon!