
Bracken County, 1889
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The Bracken County Historical Society is Here.
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On September 1, 1870, the Post Office Department
listed these towns in Bracken County as having
Post Offices: Augusta, Berlin, Bradford, Brooksville,
Browningsville, Foster, Harmon, Locust Mills, and Powersville.
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In 1876, the R. L. Polk Company published The Kentucky State Gazetteer and Business Directory, which listed information about virtually every town in Kentucky. The listings from Bracken County are these: |
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| Augusta | Berlin | Brooksville |
| Foster | Germantown | Lenoxburg |
| Powersville | ||
Cigar factory ad from the Gazetteer
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An earlier Gazetteer published in Louisville, was George W.
Hawes’ Kentucky
State Gazetteer and Business Directory, for 1859 and 1860. It's
pre-Civil
War, and has detail on these four towns:
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In 1919, there was a farm census, counting livestock, crops and farms. Bracken County's is here.
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Powersville was first settled in 1783 by
Captain Philip Buckner, a
revolutionary war veteran was is buried in the western edge of town.
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Burley tobacco was first discovered in Bracken County. Read about it here.
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Ferry from Chilo, Ohio to Bradford, Kentucky
(or, I've also seen it listed as the Ripley Ferry)
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At one time, Bracken Co had over 50 one room schools - the list is here.
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Information on the thirteen covered bridges that used to serve in Bracken County are listed in the data base at web site of Kentucky Covered Bridges, here. Some pictures, too. |
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In 1969, Edna Talbott Whitley compiled a list of
Cabinetmakers
in Kentucky. The Bracken County portion of that list is
here.
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An 1857 Tornado hits Augusta & Higginsport, read about it here.
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The Metcalfe - Casto Duel, May 8, 1862, here.
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Prominent Citizens of Bracken County in 1847, here.
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The Kentuckiana Digital Library has a
number of Bracken
County images. Quality is erratic, but it's worth a look,
here.
The Kentucky Historical Society's Bracken
County images can
be found here.
Click on the Bracken Box when you get there.
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| Remember when the Licking River flowed north to Hamilton, Ohio, and the Ohio River began at Manchester, Ohio? No? That’s because you were born after the last glacier left the area. Read all about it, here. |
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| The mother of all Ohio River Steamboat sites is the Cincinnati Public Library's Inland River Photographs. They estimate 19,000 photographs. See'em here. |
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Ed Mofford, a slave, escapes from Brooksville, here.
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| Bracken County's Francis M. McMillen is Bracken County's only winner of the US Medal of Honor. Born on March 25, 1832, he won his medal by capturing the enemy flag in a Civil War Battle in Petersburg, Virginia on April 2, 1865. He's buried in Washington Courthouse, Ohio. |
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A list of Bracken officials, merchants, doctors and attorneys, from 1847, is here.
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What traveling companies were told about
Augusta's Russell Opera House, in 1901, is
here.
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The news from Fairview, in 1879, is here.
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John Henderson's page on Germantown's History is here.
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Brief Histories of Bracken Communities from 1939:
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This list of Bracken County deaths from WWII is from
the National Archives. There's a key to
what the
various abbreviations mean here,
and the actual list is here.
The WWI list is here.
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A site dedicated to the bridges of Bracken County is here.
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You can get information on Bracken County
ancestors by subscribing
to the mailing list created for that purpose. You'll get periodic
information, and can submit your own questions, all via email.
Sign up
here for
Bracken County.
Here is a
list of all available lists on Kentucky.
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A List of Bracken County's Historical Markers is here.
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A site that has post a lot of older high
school yearbooks
of Kentucky schools is
here.
They invite your scans.
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| "W. O. Blackerby, in the Brooksville Review, says: 'On Friday night about midnight about twenty-five riders went to Edward Johnson's, near Willow, and burned his old log barn containing about 3000 pounds of tobacco. The barn, we understand, belonged to his father, Noah Johnson, of this place.'" from the Falmouth Outlook of October 22, 1909. |
1909 makes this the work of Night Riders. More on them, is here.
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The C&O has an on-line historical society, here.
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Unclaimed items in the 1833 Augusta Post Office, here.
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| If you have an interest in Slavery and the Underground Railroad in the Bracken County area, you absolutely want to find a book called Beyond the River, by Ann Hagedorn. It's the story of Ripley, Ohio's John Rankin, and has detailed information about slavery days in Bracken and Mason Counties. That's a handy link to Amazon for you to get a copy at the left. |
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Map of Primary Underground RR Routes
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Two Major League Baseball Players came
from Bracken County
Brooksville's Herbert Moford's record is
here.
Germantown's Carl Edward Bouldin's record is
here.
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There's only one Bracken County in the entire USA.
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| In October 1986, around the time PBS film producers were releasing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which was filmed in the area, the New York Times wrote a piece about Augusta, Maysville, and Washington called "Old Kentucky Towns" which provides a wealth of history about the area. Here. |
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| "The Ku-Klux in Bracken county took out two brothers (Tucker) for seducing two sisters, Vivian Bailey for knocking his wife down, John Watson and Duncan Strayler for laziness, Mr. Maybreier for keeping a house of ill repute, and Blevin Dixon for instituting a suit against one George Fowler for twenty five acres of land, and whipped each one soundly. Dixon's son was badly injured in an attempt to rescue his father" from Covington's The Ticket, 6-24-1876. |
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The Bracken County Roots Web site is here, and the Bracken Gen Web site is here.
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A list of people in many Bracken Co cemeteries is here, and here.
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Read about Bridgeville's Uncle Tommy
Kenton's 99th Birthday party, in 1886,
here.
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| A nifty little tool at the web site of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve will convert old prices (1913 and later) into current prices. Try it here. |
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Current Events in Bracken County are covered here.
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TV star Don Galloway was born in Brooksville. A List of all of his roles is here.
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Obituary of Mrs. Susan Lloyd, here.
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| from a January, 1900 Augusta Chronicle: Perry McDowell, of the Disher neighborhood, some three miles above Bridgeville on the North Fork, caught an otter last week in a steel trap. The animal weighed 23 pounds and measured three feet and ten inches. This is the first one caught or killed in this section for years, as they have become a rare specimen of animal. |
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Who went to the penitentiary from Bracken County from
1808 t0 1830, and why? There's a list,
here.
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"Licenses to vend spirituous or malt liquors in this the
Augusta
precinct, expired with both our saloons last Saturday. We are
now a temperance city now."
from Covington's The Ticket, 4-21-1877.
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These two charts both present slave population from Northern Kentucky. On the left is actual populations; on the left, is the number of slaves as a percentage of total population. Remember some counties were established later than others. More on these numbers, including a link to the mega-load of population data, is here. |
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