Good Monday morning,

As we reflect on the months we’ve spent bringing this project to life, we in the Frazier’s education department are excited to share with you The Journey: Unsung Stories of the Underground Railroad.

What inspired The Journey was a chance encounter we had with the story of a couple named Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, enslaved Louisvillians born in 1812 and 1803, respectively. The Blackburns’ story — one of hope, resilience, and love — is documented in historian and archaeologist Karolyn Smardz Frost’s 2007 book I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land. In 1831, the Blackburns, faced with the threat of separation under the dark shadow of the system of slavery, chose to liberate themselves — and, in doing so, paved the way for Canada to become the legal terminus of the Underground Railroad.

Inspired by the Blackburns’ story and others like it, The Journey is the upshot of a collaborative effort by many people — individuals whose work and voices you may already recognize.

We’ve shared the Blackburns’ story in several different ways: We’ve hosted a symposium on the Underground Railroad and the Ohio River, developed a school program, and created The Journey — an immersive walking and driving audio experience — among other things. The Journey allows the listener to view places related to Thornton and Lucie’s path and hear the stories of the untold others who sought freedom via the Ohio River.

Below, you’ll get a sense of the sights and sounds of The Journey through a brief video trailer. You can now access The Journey web page, where the experience is available to you, free of charge, thanks to our generous donors, who are included on the materials.

In this week’s issue of the newsletter, Tyler Horne explores another aspect of the Underground Railroad, the crossing from Maysville, Kentucky to Ripley, Ohio. Charlene Hampton Holloway shares the story of her grandfather, Charles D. Whitlock, who was the first Black florist-owner in Louisville. Rachel Platt interviews the sisters of the late photographer Tyler Gerth about the foundation named in his honor. And Brian West performs Give Us the Ballot!, Larry Muhammad’s one-act play about Russell P. Lee’s campaign for Louisville’s Board of Alderman in 1961.

In learning the story of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, we hope you find the same inspiration we did.

Education Team
Frazier History Museum

This Week in the Museum

Curator’s Corner: Ripley-Maysville Crossing on the Underground Railroad

Greetings, readers! I am so happy to once again share a bit of the work we’ve been doing in the exhibits department. We have made a point in our research and crafting of the story of Kentucky to make sure our stories are as diverse as possible — conveying the history of all of the Commonwealth’s residents, no matter their nationality, race, gender, or sexuality.

As February is Black History Month, I want to highlight some of the experiences of African Americans within our state. There are few stories as dramatic or impactful as that of the Ripley-Maysville Underground Railroad.

Kentucky, as a slave state on the border of free states, was an unavoidable place of travel for many escaped slaves. The Ohio River, often called the River Jordan, was seen as the border to the promised land of the free northern states. While there were many crossings at the river cities along the Ohio, the Maysville crossing has a special place in the history of the Underground Railroad, including the adoption of the name “Underground Railroad.” The first recorded use of the term occurred in 1830 when Kentucky slave Tice Davids swam across the Ohio River from Maysville. Confused by this sudden absence, Davids’s owner is quoted as saying he “must have gone off on an underground road.”

One of the most celebrated stories of the Underground Railroad is that of John Rankin. Rankin, a Presbyterian minister in Ripley, Ohio, located across from Maysville, was a staunch abolitionist who became one of the most famous “conductors” along the Ohio River. His home, situated high above Ripley, overlooking the Ohio River, housed numerous slaves after they made the crossing, guided to his home by a torchlight he had placed outside his front window to help guide runaway slaves. During a visit to his friend Professor Calvin Stowe, Rankin told the story of Eliza Harris, a woman whom he had housed in 1838. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the wife of Professor Stowe, upon hearing the account and being touched by it, was inspired to write the abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Working with John Rankin was a formerly enslaved man named John P. Parker. During his enslavement in Mobile, Alabama, Parker had actually been paid a wage due to his specialized skills working at a local iron foundry and thus managed to purchase his freedom from his former master. He soon left the Deep South, moving to Louisville then Cincinnati before eventually settling in Ripley. By day he ran and owned his own ironworks in the town, and by night he helped fugitive slaves escape across the Ohio. As a Black man, even a free one, he was still in extreme danger if caught while aiding slaves in their escape; in many cases, African Americans found breaking the fugitive slave laws in southern states were reenslaved by their captors. But this did not deter the fearless Parker from continuing his work with the Underground Railroad, traveling as far as twenty miles inland to guide people across — and, in the process, gaining a $1,000 bounty on his head. In all, Parker ferried over 1,000 escaped slaves across the river to Rankin’s home.

For those interested in learning more, there are many other stories of the Underground Railroad in Maysville. One is the story of Joseph Settles, a slave who escaped from a farm near Maysville with his family, only to go back the next day to lead eight more people to freedom. Settles’ story is told by his descendants, alongside many others, in the excellent KET documentary Kentucky’s Underground Railroad: Passage to Freedom. Other stories are documented at the National Underground Railroad Museum in Maysville and the John P. Parker House in Ripley, both of which are set to reopen in May. Lastly, there is the incredible story of Thornton Blackburn, an enslaved man born in Maysville who eventually escaped with his wife Lucie from Louisville. That story is available now via The Journey: Unsung Tales of the Underground Railroad, with a beautiful narrative written by the Frazier’s education team and voiced by Brian West, Shae Smith, Dr. Ricky L. Jones, Jermaine Fowler, and Mick Sullivan.

Sources

“Harriet Tubman and the History of the Underground Railroad.” WBUR. April 21, 2016.

Ison, James. “John P. Parker (1827 – 1900).” Blackpast. February 7, 2018.

“Kentucky’s Underground Railroad: Passage to Freedom.” KET Education.

Ohio History Central

“Settles, Joseph.” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database. Last updated January 11, 2021.

“Underground Railroad: Special Resource Study Management Concepts / Environmental Assessment.” National Park Service. September 1995.

Tyler Horne
Curatorial Assistant

Museum Store: Boundary Oak Bourbon and Honest Abe Tea Towel

We might be biased because he was born in Kentucky, but we’re big fans of President Lincoln. If you share our affinity for the sixteenth president, then our Museum Store is the place to shop! We offer a wide variety of fun merchandise related to good old Honest Abe. Boundary Oak Bourbon is available for $60 and the Lincoln tea towel costs $16.

West of Ninth Eats: Franco’s Restaurant and Catering

In Shively, on the outskirts of the Algonquin neighborhood, stands a Louisville institution: Franco’s Restaurant and Catering. A cafeteria-style restaurant, Franco’s, which opened in 2009, remains a mainstay of Southern cooking in the River City. While thirteen years may seem like a blip of time in the restaurant business, especially in a city as food-savvy as Louisville, the traditions that lie behind Franco’s go back even further — encompassing nearly fifty years of experience.

Franco’s was opened by the son of one of Louisville’s most famous restaurant owners, Frank Foster. Foster made a name for himself, and the Russell neighborhood, by opening Jay’s Cafeteria in 1974. Originally located at 504 South Eighteenth Street, Jay’s quickly acquired a reputation as the premier soul food restaurant in Louisville. Folks from all over the city and Jefferson County would come to Jay’s for chicken and dumplings, stewed tomatoes, barbecued ribs, and blackberry cobbler.

Jay’s got so big that Frank and his wife Barbara became pillars of the community in Louisville, rubbing shoulders with political bigwigs and everyday customers alike. The Fosters eventually had to move their operation to a bigger and better-suited location. In 1994, following two years of working to meet the Fosters’ specifications, the new restaurant opened. Located at 1812 West Muhammad Ali Boulevard, the 13,000-square-foot facility included a dining room and two banquet halls.

Jay’s remained in business for eleven more years under the Fosters, until 2005, when due to bankruptcy the property was auctioned off and the business was sold to two local churches. The churches continued to operate the restaurant, but with little success; soon thereafter, the business shuttered.

According to a 2010 restaurant review by critic Marty Rosen, Frank’s son Domanic opened Franco’s in 2009, as a way to fill the void left by the closing of Jay’s. The business has been operating at 3300 Dixie Highway ever since.

When I visited Franco’s, I came at lunch time. There was a steady stream of customers, most of whom grabbed metal utensils and lunch trays to dine in. For those who are more COVID-conscious when dining out, there was no masking policy in the restaurant itself, though quite a number of the employees behind the lunch line were masked. Also, patrons have the option to order their food dine-in or carry-out. Since I was buying lunch for two — my mom and myself — I opted to order my food to go.

For my mom, I bought the smothered pork chop dinner, with fried potatoes, candied yams, white rice in brown gravy, two cornbread muffins, and an extra side of steamed cabbage. For myself, I kept it simple: a fried chicken dinner with green beans, mac and cheese, and a single cornbread muffin. For dessert, I bought a personal size lemon merengue pie for my mother and a personal size sweet potato pie for myself.

All in all, the food was pretty good. My mom was pleased to eat the smothered pork chops, the cabbage, and the yams. I liked the fried chicken, but was not thrilled by the mac and cheese, which could have been more flavorful.

Still, the green beans proved to be the real surprise. At first glance, with their emerald green tint, they looked like they were store-bought, not homemade. But one bite of them convinced me they had been cooked on site: they had hints of pepper and butter and a smattering of onions. If I had the privilege of going to Franco’s on a regular basis, I would always order those, I think.

From the food to the layout, Franco’s carries on the tradition of cafeteria dining and fine southern cuisine in Louisville. It also stands as a place where people from West Louisville and all over the city can come together for some good down home cooking.

Brian West
Teaching Artist

First Black Florist-owner in Louisville Charles D. Whitlock

If you visit our “West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation” exhibition, you may notice four beautiful children on an advertisement calendar for Charles Whitlock Florist. Those are Whitlock’s great-grandchildren. Whitlock was the first African American florist-owner in Louisville. Born in 1898, he had quite the story to tell, and he often shared his memories and stories with his granddaughter Charlene Hampton Holloway. I asked her to share a few of those memories with us during the month of February, when so many of us are sending flowers for Valentine’s Day. — Rachel Platt, Director of Community Engagement

I loved going with Gramps to the various wholesale florists where he bought his fresh flowers, bolts of ribbons, vases, and other items. Some of those now-closed businesses were Wade Fleming, Rasmussen Florists, and Berthold-Grigsby Wholesale Florist. I have great memories of my Grandfather taking me fishing with him at either the Ohio River or Kentucky Lake in Gilbertsville, Kentucky. I was the first grandchild Granddaddy spent time teaching to design floral arrangements. In 1959, when I was twelve years old, he instructed me to write down many of his family members’ names.

He wanted me to know my family’s roots.

For thirty-four years, he and I shared a birthday cake each April 26. I am named for him — Charlene for Charles. In his 80s, he would drive to my home to visit with my three children, three of his great-grandchildren, whom he loved dearly. Fifty-five years ago, Granddaddy attended my wedding ceremony and provided me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Several people in this city have told me Gramps designed their wedding flowers.

Having already lost both his parents by the age of thirteen, he moved to Louisville in 1916. By eighteen, he was married to Parthenia Hamilton. He began working as a chauffeur to Mr. Schultz, owner of Schultz’s Florist — but by 1922, he had decided to establish his own business. In doing so, he became the first African American florist-owner in the city of Louisville.

Charles also worked for the U.S. Post Office for thirty-five years. He was a talented poet: WHAS radio host Milton Metz interviewed him several times, and some of his poetry was published in the Courier Journal.

He reminded me, his oldest granddaughter, that he was born in an era in which he knew his paternal grandmother — who was born a slave. He then lived to witness integration in Louisville, when in 1961 his two oldest grandchildren participated in peaceful marches.

I was one of those grandchildren.

Charlene Hampton Holloway
Granddaughter of Charles D. Whitlock
Guest Contributor

Bridging the Divide

Brittany Loewen and Tiffany Hensley on the Tyler Gerth Foundation

He was their beloved baby brother, and, for so many reasons, this is their favorite picture of him.

His sisters, Brittany Loewen and Tiffany Hensley, say this picture represents an awakening of their brother, Tyler Gerth, who traveled out west in March 2020 to do some soul searching, reflect, and take photographs. It was the trip of a lifetime. Who could imagine his life would be tragically taken just three months later?

Photography was one of Tyler’s many passions.

The photo was snapped by an older man who happened to be visiting the Badlands at the same time Tyler was. It is a precious gift Tyler’s relatives now cherish, one that offers insight into who he was, and who he was becoming.

Tyler was always kind and compassionate, they say. He lived by the mantra, “Be excellent to each other.” But upon his return from that trip out west, he lived even more fully into his beliefs and began documenting the protests for racial justice in Louisville.

On June 27, 2020, when a gunman opened fire into the crowd at Jefferson Square, Tyler was shot and killed.

Since that time, his sisters established Building Equal Bridges: The Tyler Gerth Foundation to carry on his name and legacy. A fundraising gala will be held at the Frazier History Museum on March 4, and tickets are available to the public.

A sample of Tyler’s work is on display at the Frazier History Museum as well. A temporary exhibition on the Frazier’s third floor, Tyler Gerth: Imaging Kentucky, includes photographs captured at the 2020 protests, as well as beautiful nature shots taken in Kentucky and beyond, providing a glimpse of who Tyler was.

The Gerth family hopes you will come March 4 to learn more about a beautiful soul, their brother, and help live into his mantra of being excellent to each other.

I had the pleasure of talking to both sisters. Tears were shed by all. But through it all, love is what really came shining through.

Rachel Platt
Director of Community Engagement

History All Around Us

George Washington’s Favorite Food Hoecakes

In honor of Presidents’ Day, officially called Washington’s Birthday, we asked Frazier Museum board member Vickie Yates Brown Glisson to write about hoecakes, a type of pancake the first president is said to have craved. Washington is one of nine U.S. presidents — including Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower — represented by objects at the Frazier, whether on display or in collections. Two such objects, a flintlock hunting rifle Washington owned and a Liverpool pitcher that bears his image, are now on display next to Teddy Roosevelt’s 1908 “Big Stick” Holland and Holland hunting rifle in the Founder’s Gallery on the second floor of the museum. — Simon Meiners, Communications & Research Specialist

The celebration of George Washington’s birthday on February 22 began in 1885 as a federal holiday. In 1971, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved several federal holidays to create three-day weekends for workers. Washington’s birthday was moved to the third Monday of each February, and today it is popularly known as Presidents' Day.

Washington was a farmer and he clearly enjoyed raising his own food and distilling his own spirits. Washington was industrious and rose early and usually ate breakfast by dawn. He was enterprising — always looking for new investment ventures. Although Washington never ventured into Kentucky before his death, he was able, after much effort, to acquire about 5,400 acres south of Louisville. After reading John Filson’s book The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke, Washington became convinced that an area in what is now Grayson County around the Fall of the Rough likely contained deposits of iron ore. It would be one of his last land acquisitions and Washington still held title to the property at his death.

Family and visitors to Mount Vernon confirmed that one of Washington’s favorite foods, particularly for breakfast, was hoecakes, a dense cornmeal type of pancake. He enjoyed his hoecakes covered with butter and honey, along with a cup or two of tea — “a temperate repast.” Based on a letter his step-granddaughter Nelly Custis Lewis wrote to a close friend in 1821, Nelly shared the recipe for the hoecakes Washington enjoyed. Nelly wrote “Make it by candlelight & let it remain by a warm hearth until the next morning.” For the baking portion, she noted “drop the batter a spoonful at a time on a hoe or griddle (as we say in the south). When done on one side turn the other — the griddle must be rubbed . . . with a piece of beef suet.”

Fortunately, Mount Vernon provides an updated recipe for hoecakes. Mount Vernon notes that this is a modern adaptation of the eighteenth century original. It was created by culinary historian Nancy Carter Crump for the book Dining With the Washingtons.

Recipe for Hoecakes

Ingredients

• 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast

• 2 1/2 cups white cornmeal, divided

• 3 to 4 cups lukewarm water

• 1/2 tsp. salt

• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

• Melted butter for drizzling and serving

• Honey or maple syrup for serving

Directions

1. Mix the yeast and 1 1/4 cups of the cornmeal in a large bowl. Add 1 cup of the lukewarm water, stirring to combine thoroughly. Mix in 1/2 cup more of the water, if needed, to give the mixture the consistency of pancake batter. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 8 hours, or overnight.

2. Preheat the oven to 200° F.

3. When ready to finish the hoecakes, begin by adding 1/2 to 1 cup of the remaining water to the batter. Stir in the salt and the egg, blending thoroughly.

4. Gradually add the remaining 1 1/4 cups of cornmeal, alternating with enough additional lukewarm water to make a mixture that is the consistency of waffle batter. Cover with a towel, and set aside at room temperature for 15 to 20 minutes.

5. Heat a griddle on medium-high heat, and lightly grease it with lard or vegetable shortening. Preparing 1 hoecake at a time, drop a scant 1/4 cup of the batter onto the griddle and cook on one side for about 5 minutes, or until lightly browned. With a spatula, turn the hoecake over and continue cooking another 4 to 5 minutes, until browned.

6. Place the hoecake on a platter, and set it in the oven to keep warm while making the rest of the batch. Drizzle each batch with melted butter.

7. Serve the hoecakes warm, drizzled with melted butter and honey or maple syrup.

Even this updated recipe for hoecakes can be time consuming. To encourage readers to enjoy hoecakes on Presidents’ Day, I have included my “go-to” corncake recipe that is much quicker and easier to prepare. I usually serve my corncakes as a side dish for chili, beef stew, or pork. I hope this will encourage you to fry up a batch of hoecakes to celebrate our founding father’s birthday.

Recipe for Southern Corncakes

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising cornmeal

• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk

• 1 tbsp. sugar

• 1 tbsp. vegetable oil

• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

• Vegetable oil for the griddle

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Pour oil to depth of 1/4 inch into a large heavy skillet or on a griddle. For each corncake, pour 1/4 cup batter into the skillet or griddle. Fry corncakes in hot oil over medium-high heat 3 minutes on each side or until golden. Serve immediately. Yield 8 corncakes.

Vickie Yates Brown Glisson
Board Member, Frazier History Museum
Guest Contributor

On This Date: Oscar Wilde’s Run-in With Keats’s Great-niece in Louisville, 1882

On February 21, 1882 — 140 years ago today — Louisville found a brief reprieve from the dreariness of winter, at least for the more artistic crowd. For an evening dubbed the “Aesthetic Event of the Season,” the “Sunflower Gentleman,” poet and noted aesthete Oscar Wilde, gave a lecture on the English Renaissance at the Masonic Temple on Fourth Street in downtown Louisville.

The poet, who had just turned twenty-eight and was celebrating the publication of his first book of poetry, was in the first stages of a year on tour in North America. As Wilde had already gained a following as a character and, occasionally, a caricature, he understood that “there was some money to be made in the United States, which is always willing to pay for notoriety of any kind.”

Wilde’s notoriety was, according to many sources, due to a particular kind of distaste in the culture at large: People were shocked by Wilde’s long hair, showy style, and extravagant appreciation of beauty. (One article in the Courier Journal recounts a time when Wilde went to a restaurant and stared in awe at a lily in a vase for a half-hour; then, when approached by staff with a menu, left with the comment “I have now dined.”) Upon realizing that the young men who made up the “Sunflower Brigade” at the lecture in Louisville might have more in common than a taste for velvet suits, a subsequent show was canceled in Paducah due to the “damphoolery” of the “culchah” which “plain city people take very little interest in” (you might have to read a few of those words out loud to understand the lingo!). A Washington reporter had already remarked on Wilde’s “effeminacy of delivery best described as ‘Sissy,’” deeming him “neither a man or woman, [but] between the two.”

Despite the backlash, Wilde considered Louisville one of his favorite destinations for a very specific reason. After the lecture, a woman came up to him and introduced herself as Mrs. Emma Keats Speed. She was none other than the great-niece of Wilde’s hero, the Romantic poet John Keats. Her father, George Keats, had emigrated to Louisville from the United Kingdom in 1819. He made a fortune here as well as an impact in the city’s intellectual life, founding a philosophical society that met in his living room and later became the board of Louisville College (which even later became the University of Louisville). After hearing Wilde’s effervescent praise of her uncle in his lecture, she invited him to her house on Third Street the next day. Wilde accepted gleefully and spent several hours there poring over John Keats’s letters to Mrs. Speed’s father.

Wilde left for St. Louis the next day, continuing his tour, but around the time he reached California, he was reminded again of his visit to our city when he received a package from Emma Keats Speed. In it was a treasure beyond what Wilde could have ever hoped for: an original manuscript of a John Keats sonnet. “What you have given me is more golden than gold,” he wrote to her in gratitude — “more precious than any treasure this great country could yield me.”

Five years later, Wilde described this event in an article analyzing the poem for a Victorian literary journal back home in the UK. For many of us, Louisville holds a special place in our hearts — and how interesting is it to know that it held a special place in the heart of none other than Oscar Wilde, too?

You can find forgotten connections, fascinating stories, and more in the Frazier Museum’s Cool Kentucky exhibition! Check out our daily tours for more of these six-degrees-of-separation stories.

Sources

“The Sunflower Gentleman.” Courier Journal. February 22, 1882: 4.

Heather Gotlib
Manager of Youth & Family Programs

Calendar of Events

In Case You Missed It: Give Us the Ballot! (Feb. 16)

Give Us the Ballot!, a one-act play written by local playwright Larry Muhammad, tells the story of Louisvillian Russell P. Lee and his bid to be elected to the nearly all-white Board of Aldermen — the chief governing body of the City of Louisville before 2003 — in 1961. Since Russell Lee’s story ties so closely into the history of West Louisville, some of which is relayed in our exhibition West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation, the Frazier decided to stage a version of the play for the public.

On Wednesday, February 16, at noon, for one day only, teaching artist Brian West performed as Russell Lee virtually via live stream on the Frazier’s YouTube channel.

In Case You Missed It: “Changemakers” (Feb. 17)

Membership Madness Sports Trivia Giveaway!

The Frazier History Museum is giving away three individual memberships!

The first three readers to email membership@fraziermuseum.org with the correct answer to the following question will receive an individual membership.

What was the first non-HBCU college or university in the state of Kentucky to integrate its men’s basketball team?

In the subject line of the email, please write “2.21 Trivia Question Answer.”

Stay tuned for next week’s issue, when we will reveal the answer . . . but that’s not the only thing we will reveal! I’ll leave you to your own imagination, but just know that it is going to be MADNESS! (Hint: the theme of the question has a big part in what’s to come . . .)

We will be responding to all who submit an answer throughout the week. We look forward to seeing what your answers will be!

Amanda Egan
Membership & Database Administrator