The Harrison Heritage News for March (Vol. 18, No. 3) is history!

IT'S DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

Shortly, some of you will receive five neatly-folded sheets of paper, sheets which have been carefully placed in a rather #10 business-size envelope that has a "Forever" stamp affixed to it.  The image on the stamp is rather unremarkable.  So is the Lexington postmark.

I can't say much more about the contents of the paper, envelope, or stamp ... except for to say that I think that this has all happened before.  For, you see, it is that time of the month when the next issue of the Harrison Heritage News, the monthly newsletter of the Harrison County Historical Society, should start to appear in mailboxes and email inboxes all across the country.

What makes this delivery so special is the ink ... its unique arrangement on those five sheets of paper is what makes this issue so different from all the others.

I think I hear a noise!  It sounds like some of you may be asking, "What's in this month's issue?"  Well, I can tell you.

HISTORIES & MYSTERIES

William A. Penn, editor and accomplished author and historian, has offered a brief item entitled "Fate of the Old Covered Bridge" on page two.

There is a fine article entitled "Ireland, Revisited" by assistant editor and senior staff writer Philip Naff.  It is the fourth in what might be called a series of articles about Irish immigrants of Harrison County.  It should help to fill in a little more of the history of the Irish in the county and add even more names to the overall list of Irish immigrants who have gathered together to call Harrison County "home."

A two-page article entitled "Unusual Quilt Donated to the Museum" hopes to help solve a mystery as to the origins of a quilt which has over a hundred names sewn into the fabric of the quilt.  Might you know who some of the names belong to, or what the significance of the groupings of names might be?  Only by subscribing can you help to solve the mystery ... (Well, you can go to the museum, too, and see it in person, but I gotta try to get you to sign up to become a member of the historical society!  ;-)

Another museum page offers pictures and descriptions of some fairly unique items on display at the museum.  What are they, you ask?  Well, why not subscribe and see for yourself!

President Don Wagoner has compiled another "Genealogically Speaking" article, a part of his series on regional libraries telling all about what they have in their stacks that might be of interest to anybody researching local history or genealogy.

There are other items in this month's newsletter, for which you'll just have to get a copy yourself if you want to see it.

JOIN TODAY!

This time next month is just a month away.  You don't have to wait that long to become a member, as it is never too late to join today.

Just send a check or money order for $10 (to receive a link to the PDF version in your emailbox) or $12 (for a hardcopy delivered to your mailbox via USPS) to the Harrison County Historical Society, P.O. Box 411, Cynthiana, KY 41031.  Past issues for the calendar year will be sent to you in the form for which you subscribed.

Applications to join can be found online at

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7pEiGCASdD1UG84cFNXOENoeUk/view 

Or go to www.HarrisonCountyKy.US/Harrison-Heritage-News/ and click on the link which says "Join the Society Today!"


THIS MONTH'S HHN

The ink on page one has been arranged to look something like the following image ...

ANY IDEAS?

Do you have any ideas for a story, whether it be about a topic you would like to see or perhaps even write yourself?  There are always about a half-dozen blank pages each month which are just waiting to be filled.  Just speak up or write in with your ideas or suggestions.

The Harrison Heritage News for February (Vol. 18, No. 2) is on its way!

OOPS!  THEY DID IT AGAIN!

The dedicated editor and staff of the Harrison Heritage News have put together another fine issue of the newsletter.  Members of the Harrison County Historical Society should be seeing copies of the second issue of 2017 in real and virtual mailboxes pretty soon.

What do the five sheets of paper hold for the subscriber this month?  Well, there is something about ...

• "A Tale of Two Tubmans,"
• What can happen if "Cupid Strikes,"
• What's in the rename of a city street,
• How regional libraries "stack up" against each other, and
• A quiz for museum goers ... and more about the "goings on" at the museum

All in all, the newsletter might not be any more exciting than a night in Sweden, but it  all depends on how you look at it.  You'll never know until you go to Sweden (Pretty expensive!) or  until you get your own copy in the mail (Less expensive!).  This is a choice which reminds me to bring up ...


BUSINESS ... AS USUAL

The annual dues are due, and, for your convenience, a form has been provided with this issue.  Nothing will be lost by using it, for the backside has been left blank.

You can only win by sending it in (along with a check or money order), so that even more issues will continue working their way into your mailbox or email inbox for the next ten months!


HELP THE SOCIETY SAVE YOU MONEY

You gotta spend some to save some!  The society would like to encourage members to sign up for the PDF subscription, versus receiving a hardcopy in the mail (USPS).

What are the advantages of the PDF version of the newsletter, you ask.  Well ....

• You can save a little money.  A PDF subscription costs only $10.  Hardcopies delivered via USPS cost $2 more.
• PDF newsletters help the society to save on paper and postage costs, and more of your subscription monies can be used for projects sponsored by the society.
• Most PDFs are in color.  Print editions are only in B&W.
• PDF articles contain hyperlinks to even more items of interest on the internet (One can't click on a hardcopy).
• PDF newsletters can be just a keystroke or two away and can be read "on-the-go" using smartphone and tablet apps.
• If you join later in the year, prior issues can be sen in "just a jiffy" (Hardcopies will be mailed via USPS).

A CHALLENGE

Harrison County Historical Society President Don Wagoner would like to challenge every member to bring in one more member this year.

I see there are about 225 members subscribed to this FB group.  How many of you are members?  If you are a member, can you persuade a friend or neighbor to join?  Why not pay for a membership for someone you feel would be interested?  If you aren't a member of the Harrison County Historical Society, why not join yourself?

Your February newsletter will look something like the following image ... only a lot bigger ... and, as usual, if delivered via USPS, it will arrive in an envelope!  ;-)

UPDATE: Harrison Heritage News Index (2000-2016) Now Available!

UPDATE

The index of the 17 volumes of the Harrison Heritage News has been updated by editor William A. Penn and uploaded to www.HarrisonCountyKy.US/harrison-heritage-news by Philip Naff.

That is where you will find it, but you won't find all 17 years of the award-winning monthly newsletter.

Index of the
Harrison Heritage News (2000-2016)

To see the most recent issues, you've got to become a member of the Harrison County Historical Society.

Links to an application can be found along the bottom of the screen of the Harrison Heritage News Viewer.

Happy Hunting!

Philip

The Harrison Heritage News for January (Vol. 18, No. 1) has arrived!

TAKING DELIVERY

I just got my hardcopy in the mail yesterday and so everybody, every member that is, should be seeing their own copy of the first issue of the Harrison Heritage News for 2017 in real and virtual mailboxes pretty soon.

What do the five sheets of paper hold for the subscriber this month?  Well, there is ...

THIS MONTH'S FEATURE:  CREATURE COMFORTS

This month's issue features an article about Ashford Acres, formerly the Owen House, now a B&B out on Millersburg Pike.  John Hicks has put together a nice and very informative article about the home's history, and, in addition, has provided a package of beautiful pictures to fill out the cover page and pages five and six.  The home has its own website (AshfordAcresInn.com), along with its own Facebook and Twitter pages.  So there is plenty more to look at when you finish reading the article.

Page four is about ice skating in the olden days of more than a century ago, when one could use the frozen waterways of Harrison County as icy roads on which to travel the county.  Can you imagine that?  Quite remarkable.

CYNTHIANA'S ATTIC

Mary Grable, Vice-President of the Cynthiana-Harrison County Trust, Inc. (aka the museum), wrote a nice piece about honoring three of Harrison County's own:  Herby Moore, Martha Barnes, and the late George Slade.  They will be presented with the "Everyday Heroes of the Cynthiana-Harrison County Trust, Inc. Award."  The award is for their service to the museum over the many years (Dare I say two centuries?), not to mention for the fact that they were among the founding fathers and mothers of what might be called "Cynthiana's attic."

The presentation will be made this Saturday, January 28, at the library's public meeting room, following a talk by Steve Flairty.  Steve is the author of a series of books, Kentucky's Everyday Heroes: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things, a series which has featured the museum's own Harold Slade in the past.

SOME BUSINESS ... AS USUAL

The annual dues are due, and, for your convenience, a form has been provided with this issue.  Nothing will be lost by using it, for the backside has been left blank.  You can only win by sending it in (along with a check or money order), so that even more issues will continue working their way into your mailbox or email inbox for the next eleven months!

And speaking of the months of the year, this year's calendar of historical society meetings is included (No pictures of pin-up girls included, just one of a guy named Joe B. Hall).  Stick the calendar on your refrigerator door, or maybe better yet, pin it to the inside of your front door, so that when you leave the house you will be sure to see that you aren't missing another interesting presentation offered by the Harrison County Historical Society (On the fourth Thursday of every month except December thru February)!

Your January newsletter will look something like the following image ... only a lot bigger ... and, as usual, if delivered via USPS, in an envelope!  ;-)

P.S.  If you should find yourself in need of another membership form, and the society sincerely hopes that you do, you can always find one here ... when I can update the link. ;-)

Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!

WHAT YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION SHOULD BE

It is the end of the year ... but a new one will be here soon.

So if you are making any resolutions, why not make this one ...

Resolve to join the Harrison County Historical Society today!

It only costs $10-12 per year, and twelve times a year you will see returns in your mailbox or emailbox, in the form of the Harrison County Historical Society's prize-winning newsletter, the Harrison Heritage News.

And to make it easy for you to keep your resolution to sign up today, a handy membership application has been made ready for you to download to your computer right now.

I am sorry to say, we cannot provide any downloadable stamps for you to put on the envelope.

And we seem to be entirely out of downloadable envelopes, too ...

But, hey, we will be sending you stamps on envelopes twelve times in 2017 if you can just take the time to send the society just one stamp, one envelope, one form, and one check (or money order).

Does that seem fair?

I think so.

You may not be able to lose any weight this year, but you just can't lose by ... JOINING TODAY!

So, do join and have a HAPPIER NEW YEAR!

Philip

How fitting!.  2017 will be the Year of the Rooster
(Jan. 28, 2017 - Feb. 15, 2018) in the Chinese lunar calendar.

Kentucky Rebel Town, a new book by William A. Penn

YOU NEED TO ADD THIS TO YOUR LIBRARY

If you somehow missed the news, William A. (aka Bill) Penn, editor of the Harrison Heritage News, with a little help from the University of Kentucky Press, has published a fine history of Civil War times in Harrison County.  It is entitled Kentucky Rebel Town - The Civil War Battles of Cynthiana & Harrison County.

One might call it a revision of the author's earlier Civil War history, Rattling Spurs and Broad-Brimmed Hats: The Civil War and Harrison County, Kentucky (Battle Grove Press, 1995).  Yet, it really is a body of work that stands on its own when one considers how much more work has been done in recovering the details of lost history using research techniques and records not readily available in what might be considered the pre-internet era of the 1980s and '90s.

The volume should fill all your desires to know what is knowable about Cynthiana and Harrison County in the 1850s, '60s, and postbellum era..  There are 278 pages of great reading for the history buff with about an additional hundred pages of citations, including the index. Copies are available directly from Bill (who is also proprietor of the Midway Museum Store in Midway, Ky.), from the University of Kentucky Press, and if you are in or can make it to Cynthiana, they have been offered recently at the Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum for $47.70, of which $10 will be donated to the museum.

Bill's book should be of interest to genealogists as well. Did you know the difference between how a regular person reads a book and how a genealogist reads a book?  Your average bookworm will start at page one, while the genealogist will go to the back of the book first ... not to find out how the story ends, but to see if his relations ever got listed in the index before even bothering to read the text!

So, for a genealogist, quite a few books end up being pretty short reads, but Kentucky Rebel Town has just over twenty pages of index, with lots of names for genealogists to search for.

Rebel General John Hunt Morgan thought that Cynthiana was worth coming back to for a second "visit," and, luckily for us, Bill came back, too, to put his pen to work in giving old history a new look.

Philip

They Did Not Pass - The Battle Of Verdun Ends I THE GREAT WAR Week 126

100 YEARS AGO

The centennial of America's involvement in the war won't begin until next year. At least if one accepts that our involvement didn't officially begin until war was declared by Congress on April 6, 1917.

In Europe the centennial commemorations began in 2014 and this series is of interest to anyone interested in World War I, or the Great War, as it was once known.

It is especially interesting in that the video series is updated weekly, allowing one to learn more in smaller increments ... something in the manner that the people of Harrison County would have learned about it by reading the Log Cabin or the Democrat.

THE GREAT WAR ON PBS

The "war to end all wars" begins again as a 3-part series on PBS, part of the American Experience series.  To find more about it visit WGBH American Experience: The Great War

I, for one, am going to watch.

Watch for books and DVDs to start hitting the shelves in bookstores, both virtual and brick & mortar.


LOOK FOR WAR REPORTING IN FUTURE ISSUES OF THE HERITAGE HARRISON NEWS

Beginning in the March or April issues of the Harrison Heritage News next year, I will begin a series of my own, to be published in the, in the special supplement to the HHN "The Genealogy Box."

My articles may appear as feature items in the newsletter, or perhaps under a different title under the umbrella of "The Genealogy Box."

Be sure to look for it!

Philip

The Harrison Heritage News for December (Vol. 17, No. 12) is on its way!

BREAKING OLD NEWS!

I just received my copy of the next and last issue of the Harrison Heritage News for 2016.  Yours should be arriving in your real and virtual mailboxes pretty soon.

This month's issue features a vintage Christmas postcard on the cover, with news of the society, a note from society president Don Wagoner, a list of upcoming events and presentations at future meetings thru June, 2017, details of a new addition to the Harrison County Historical Society's archive of past newsletters, and a genealogy query about McCarthys and Prices.

A fun presentation written by Mary Grable about a Star Trek exhibit at the Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum, as well as photos of exhibits brought in for evaluations at the Harrison County Historical Society's Antiques Road Show last month fill a couple more pages.

This month's newsletter also includes the by-laws of the historical society and it is requested that you vote your approval or disapproval of them.  Read carefully ... and VOTE!  We all know how important it is to VOTE ... because sometimes dreams come true when you VOTE!  Sometimes they don't!  So VOTE!

Your December newsletter will look something like the following image ... only a lot bigger ... and, if delivered via USPS, in an envelope!  ;-)

JOIN OR RENEW ... OR GIFT ... A SOCIETY MEMBERSHIP

So ends another interesting year at the Harrison County Historical Society.  Next year who knows what will happen?

Well, it will be easy for you to find out. Lastly, but not leastly, this month's issue of the Harrison Heritage News includes the annual membership application form.  Dues are very reasonable and it is recommended that you send them in NOW so that you don't miss a single issue.  The average Harrison Heritage News consists of eight-to-ten pages of REALLY GOOD STUFF about the history of Cynthiana and all that ever occurred ... well, maybe not EVERYTHING, but A WHOLE LOT about which people ever talked or wrote about ... and which is still FIT TO PRINT.

If you become a member of the Harrison County Historical Society for only a nominal fee ($10 annually for a PDF in your emailbox, $12 annually for one delivered by the United States Postal Service) you will find out about what has already happened in the county ... and about what happening at historical society meetings and events.

And with each issue running and average of eight-to-ten pages of original texts (which is all that can be stuffed into an envelope and mailed for the price of a Forever stamp), by the end of the next year you will have the almost the equivalent of a book to place on your shelves.  What other local historical society offers a virtual book's worth of value for the price of a membership alone? (A rhetorical question, to be sure, but if you know of one, let us know at the society; it will be sure to make us jealous ... and we work even harder to make our little newsletter better.  ;-)

If you don't believe me, just check out the archive of past newsletters which has been available at www.HarrisonCountyKy.US for some time now.

When you are ready, hopefully sooner than later, get a copy of the membership application, print it out, fill it in and send it along with a check or money order to ...

Harrison County Historical Society
P.O. Box 411
Cynthiana, KY 41031

... and the future will be all history!

That's all for this year!  Take care of yourselves.  Have a Merry Christmas and may good fortune and blessings follow you into the New Year!

Philip Naff

The Online Archive of Harrison Heritage News Newsletters Has Doubled!

That's right.  Doubled!

And now almost all of them are in PDF format, or soon will be.

An index of all issues up to the end of 2014 is provided in the opening window.  Just look up the subject matter in which you are interested, find the corresponding issue number, and then click on that number in the table to the left of the index.

And Voila!  Your issue will appear.

Sorry, but we can't take you to the exact page where your desired subject appears in print, but each issue is short enough that a quick skim should be enough for you to be able to find what you are looking for.

To begin a new search, just hit the "back" button on your keyboard or click on the link to the index which appears at the bottom of every screen while you are looking at issues of the Harrison Heritage News.

While reading through the archive of past issues, we at the Harrison County Historical Society hope that you may find it worth your while (and a few bucks, too) to sign up and become a member of the society.  You can get current issues in the mail or online (A link will be emailed to you each month).

To begin your journey through history as a member of the society, just click on the link (Join Today!), print the form and fill it out, and then mail it to the address at the bottom of the application.

And after that, the rest will just be history!

What Kept People Busy in 1850?

In the effort to fill in the blanks of a genealogy, one part of the record is largely overlooked, the documentation of what kept people busy from day to day. What did people do? How did they make a living? Where or to whom did one go to get a horse shod or a cabinet made?  The answers to those questions with regard to the 1850s have been around for a while, thanks to the efforts of two men named Thomson and Bassett.  Read the article, "What Kept People Busy in 1850?"

Harrison Heritage News (April 2014)

The latest edition of the Harrison Heritage News was mailed a couple of weeks ago.  What, you don't have one?  Well, you've got to be a member of the Harrison County Historical Society to get one!  It is too late to have joined yesterday, but today and tomorrow are viable options, which brings me to the subject of the feature article for this month's issue, the title of which, "Before It is Too Late Too Soon", is very apropos to the message expressed so far.

The article is about Berry, Kentucky in the 1910s, a time before World Wars and Depressions when Harrison County's second largest community (after Cynthiana) basked in what seemed to be an aura of boundless energy and enthusiasm.  Work could be hard, but people still had time to have fun, and if you grew up there in the early decades of the 20th century, you might not want to trade that time of your life for anything else or any other place in the world.

A budding interest in genealogy combined with the opportunity to travel in the 1990s allowed me to capture such sentiments as expressed by my great-aunt, Martha Elizabeth (Elmore) Byerley (1906-1998) nearly eight decades later.  She spent her preteen years living life, having fun, and, yes, going to school at Berry.  The stories she told are short and entertaining and . . . maybe best of all . . . she took albums full of pictures to illustrate the "good ol' days," some which have been reproduced on the front page of this issue of the Harrison Heritage News.

So, don't you wait to until it is too late too soon to get your copy of the April 2014 issue of the Harrison Heritage News today!  Visit www.HarrisonCountyKy.US/Historical-Society for membership information.

~

     “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”—Dr. Seuss