Councilwoman seeks city help for group working to preserve historic log cabin

Councilwoman Kecia Copeland discusses the efforts to preserve a historically significant two-room log cabin.

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, 11 p.m. — The City of Bardstown has been asked for some help in the effort to preserve a historically significant two-room log cabin located on Plum Run Road.

Councilwoman Kecia Copeland told the council that preservationists want to move the log cabin to save it from further deterioration.

Mayor John Royalty voices concerns over possible liability issues related to Copeland’s request for a storage site for the disassembled log cabin.

The cabin was once home to Celia Mudd, an African-American woman born into slavery in Nelson County who later became one of the nation’s largest female landowners.

Samuel Lancaster was a farmer who lived on an 840-acre farm off Plum Run Road.

When Lancaster died in May 1902, he willed the farm to Mudd, who has served for years as his housekeeper. Mudd had to fight a number of court battles with Lancaster’s family contesting the validity of the will. Her story was inspiration for “Celia’s Land,” a book by her niece, former Kentucky Sen. Georgia Davis Powers who is working to help preserve the cabin.

The cabin Mudd lived in is on property now owned by the Newcomb family, and Copeland said My Old Kentucky Home State Park has expressed an interest in serving as the new home for the reassembled cabin. The group working is seeking to disassemble the cabin as soon as possible, store it for the winter and then reassemble it next year.

Copeland sought input from the mayor and council about using city property to store the disassembled cabin until it can be reassembled.

Mayor John Royalty told Copeland he had questions about possible liability issues with storing the log cabin on city property.

“I don’t think it is proper for city property to become a storage facility for a private endeavor,” Royalty said.

The cabin is a part of history that deserves to be preserved, Copeland said. She asked the mayor to look beyond the problems and instead look at the possibilities.

“I want you to look beyond what might happen and look at what we can do together,” she said. “This would be a great start.

“We have a chance to add to our history, everyone’s history,” she said.

Royalty said if he were to agree to store the logs, there would be no sight-seeing allowed and waivers would be required.

“We’re just asking to store the logs until spring,” she said, adding that time is short and the project needs to get started but could not until a place to store the logs was secured.

Royalty said he would seek additional information from Copeland before he made a decision on the request.

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