wardhall

Enduring Influence

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 18:47:06 GMT

Antebellum Kentucky Embodied in Ward Hall

Click the button below to read Maryjean Wall's article in Keeneland Magazine (Winter 2012 issue). Copyright Keeneland Magazine and The Blood-Horse .

Johnson & Ward Families and the Mississippi Territory

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 18:36:11 GMT

Johnson & Ward Families and the Mississippi Territories

Ward Hall serves as the stage for the panoramic story of the greater Robert and Jemima (Suggett) Johnson family, from Orange County, Virginia, which in time became one of the most powerful political and economic dynasties in mid-nineteenth century America, and certainly in Kentucky and throughout the lower Mississippi Delta. Johnson was a Colonel in the Virginia Militia, a member of the Virginia Legislature and a participant in the Kentucky Constitutional convention. Jemima was a heroine of the siege of Bryan Station.

The Johnsons acquired several thousand acres of land near the Great Buffalo crossing on the Elkhorn near Ward Hall in Scott County, Kentucky, and by 1783 they had established a stockade fort at that location called Johnson's station.

They and their children all prospered. Betsy married Gen. John Payne who initially commanded the Kentucky troops in the War of 1812. James was Kentucky's leading promoter, owner and developer of shipping, stagecoach, and rail lines, representative, congressman and leader of Kentucky troops at the Battle of the Thames. William operated the family mills, producing flour, lumber, paper and gunpowder. One of his children was G.W. Johnson, Confederate Governor of Kentucky. Sallie married Col. William Ward, their son Junius built Ward Hall, and their son Robert was the father of the famous southern belle, Sallie Ward.

Richard Mentor Johnson was representative, senator, vice-president, and hero of the Battle of the Thames. Benjamin was appointed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, and also served as Federal District Judge. John Telemachus was aide to Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison and was in the legislature, congress, new court of appeals and became a minister and was involved in the movement to unite the Campbellites and the Christian churches led by Barton Stone. Joel, moved to Arkansas where he became the largest landowner, and his son built Lakeport Plantation. Henry became the wealthiest.

After the 1820 treaty of Doak's Stand, vast areas of Mississippi previously occupied by the Choctaw Indians became available for settlement. The Johnsons and grandson, Junius Ward, were among the first to settle these lands near Lake Washington, Mississippi and Chicot County, Arkansas. Junius Ward, Henry Johnson, Edward P. Johnson, and Samuel Worthington were absolutely the first planters to reach Washington County. Ward built a settlement cabin there.

By 1828 three flatboats laden with a year of supplies, slaves, oxen, and horses began the long journey along the Ohio down the Mississippi to what would later be known as the Kentucky bend of the great river. Fifty years of pioneering in Kentucky allowed this family to apply its resources to this new endeavor.

Simultaneously, Junius Ward's father, Col. William Ward, the Choctaw agent for the Mississippi Territory along with his brother-in-law Richard Mentor Johnson, enabled him to have the unique opportunity to take advantage of these new lands which benefited the entire Johnson family.

One aspect of the Doak's Stand treaty was the establishment of schools for the education of the Choctaws. And, Richard Mentor Johnson established such a school or academy just a mile from Ward Hall in Scott County, Kentucky. As many as two to three hundred Choctaws attended the school in 1825.

Unique Opportunity at Ward Hall

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 18:28:25 GMT

The Unique Opportunity at Ward Hall

Photography by Bob Willcutt

Ward Hall, thus, is in a unique position to tell the story of the founding of Kentucky. Its subsequent development, and the contributions Kentuckians made to the mid-nineteenth century development of the Mississippi Delta's river traffic, roads and later rail.

Ward Hall also occupies a unique position to tell the story of the black American experience in Kentucky and the Mississippi Delta and to compare and contrast the treatment of the enslaved in Kentucky and the deep South. The narratives or Ruben Fox and Mark Nichols taken from the WPA Slave Narratives at the Library of Congress is just one example of the experience which can be brought to life at Ward Hall.

The house can tell the story of the unique relationship between Richard Mentor Johnson and his mulatto consort Julia Chinn (more of which below).

Ward Hall provides an example of the closed relationship between white and black Americans in the antebellum South. Though the attachment was certainly unequal, each depended to some degree on the other. Modern Americans often associate America's racial past with the term segregation, but on an antebellum plantation like Ward Hall, the races were decidedly – if forcefully – integrated. The history of its residents reveals many of the ways in which black and white lived together and how whites depended on blacks in the daily routines of a large plantation.

When Junius Ward began the construction of Ward Hall in 1853, slaves certainly formed a large portion of the construction crew. James Baily, a free man of color, served an an assistant to Taylor Buffington in the construction project. Born in Louisiana, Baily was the son of a free woman of color named Mary and a white man, Littleton Bailey. Ward and Minor Williams, friends of Captain Bailey, brought James to Kentucky, educated him in Cincinnati as a carpenter and builder and encouraged their friends in Scott County to employ him. Bailey built some of the finest houses in Georgetown and Scott County, including several still extant structures at Georgetown College. Further complicating the understanding of race in America, as late as July 1863, James Bailey owned three slaves.

Tax records indicate that between fifteen and seventeen slaves attended to the work of the completed mansion. The basement of Ward Hall served as the control center of that operation. Slave women and men kept the fires going, prepared the food, and washed and ironed the clothing for the family and guests. Servants could be called to the public or private sides of the house at any time day or night.

Though slave quarters existed to the west of the mansion, some evidence indicates that slaves, perhaps a butler, kitchen manager, cooks and maids actually lived in the house. The personal servants, a valet, children's nurse, manservant, and maid servant accompanied the Wards from Mississippi each summer and probably resided in the house as well. White family members and guests came into contact with those servants many times everyday, knew them personally, and benefited directly from their labors.

Large-scale farming and the lifestyle it supported depended on the labor of African American slaves. The statesman Henry Clay, who believed slavery was wrong, told a son not to think about farming as an occupation if he remained opposed to owning slaves. Junius Ward certainly kept highly skilled slaves to care for his expensive thoroughbred horses, but rather than bring field hands from Mississippi, he probably borrowed slaves from his Johnson relatives to plant and harvest crops.

The Wards' extended family revealed another aspect of antebellum race relationships, one that occurred more frequently than Southerners admitted. Junius Ward was the son of Colonel William Ward and Sallie Johnson. His uncle, Richard Mentor Johnson, hero of the Battle of the Thames and Vice-President of the United States under Van Buren (1837-1841) maintained a twenty-year relationship with a slave named Julia Chinn, probably the daughter of another prominent white Kentucky male. Whether Johnson and Chinn were married is a matter of conjecture. That was forbidden by law but African Americans claiming descent from Johnson believe they were married by the Rev. Thomas Henderson, a close friend of Johnson.

What can be said with certainty is that Johnson refused to deny the relationship, and treated Chinn with a level of respect few Kentuckians granted their white wives. When he was in Washington, Chinn was in the charge of the farm, the slaves, and the Indian boys who attended Johnson's Choctaw Academy. They had two daughters, Adaline and Imogene, and Johnson provided them an education equal to that of the daughters of the local elite. Allegedly, Adaline played the piano when the Marquis de Lafayette visited Johnson's home in 1825, and Julia was in charge of the large dinner prepared in his honor. Much to the shock of Central Kentucky and the nation, Johnson married his daughters to white men and deeded all his land to them. And, like James Bailey, daughter Imogene later owned slaves.

The residents of Ward Hall, white and black, certainly knew of Johnson's socially unacceptable relationship. Ward Hall stands as a monument to a relationship between black and white Americans far more complicated and complex than we often suspect.

Through the pioneering spirit of this family, and others, Kentucky by 1840 was:

First in hemp and wheat
Second in tobacco, corn
Second in hogs and mules

Its population by 1840 was sixth largest out of 30 states.

Kentucky had established institutions of higher learning, Transylvania College, Centre College, Georgetown College, law and medical schools.

It was second in public schools in the South.

Louisville was the 12th largest in 1840 in the nation.

Leadership was reflected in politics; Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden, John C. Breckenridge, and Richard M. Johnson.

24% of the population was slave in 1830.

Ward and Thoroughbreds

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 17:26:36 GMT

Junius Ward and the Thoroughbred Horse

Not only did Junius and Matilda Viley Ward construct the finest house of its type in Kentucky, but Junius and brother-in-law Capt. Willa Viley, first President of the Lexington Racing Association, also played a key role in the development of the Kentucky Thoroughbred, most notably through his ownership of the incomparable racehorse Lexington, who won the famous race at the Metairie Race Course at New Orleans in 1854 against Lecomte and who sired Kentucky, Asteroid and Norfolk among many others.

Ward was a Kentuckian of pioneer stock, born in Georgetown in 1802 to Col. William Ward and Sallie Johnson Ward. His mother's parents, Col. Robert Johnson and Jemima Suggett Johnson, had departed their home in Orange County, Virginia in 1779 and established Johnson Station near Great Crossings, by 1783, just a mile from Ward Hall.

Ward and Viley owned and raced jointly Maria by Davis' Hamlintonian, out of Lady Grey (the grandma of Alice Carneal, the dam of Lexington). From her, they bred Catherine Ogle, by Trumpator; William T. Barry by Dick Singleton; Catherine and Tom Benton by Bertrand; and Oglenah by Medoc

They owned Black Eyed Susan by Tiger as early as 1821, and they raced her produce, such as Richard Singleton, Plato, Newcourt, Mistletoe, Dick Johnson, Emily Johnson, Catherine, etc.

From Catherine out of Maria by Davis' Hamlintonian, they bred and raced Alexander Churchill by imp. Zinganee, who ran four miles at Louisville in 7:41. They bred and raced Mary Brennan, by Dick Singleton, Lady Scott, Evergreen, Goodwood, Verbena, Maggiore, Glendower, Heliotrope, Keene Richards and others.

After Captain Viley quit the turf, Mr. Ward and his nephew Mr. J.R. Viley, raced together for some years. They owned Evergreen, by imp. Glencoe, dam Mistletoe by Cherokee, from whom they bred Goodwood, and Myrtle by Lexington, Maggiore by Lecomte; Verbena, Glendower and Heliotrope by Knight of Saint George, and Kene Richards by War Dance.

Ward was also a founding investor in the National Race Course in Louisville in 1858.

His obituary said he raced not for money, but from a love of turf sports.

Compiled from various sources including Keeneland magazine (Winter 2012) article by Maryjean Wall and pedigree research by Karen LaBach.