Person:Peter Atherton (3)

Peter Atherton Sr.

• A Sesqui-centennial history of Kentucky: a narrative historical edition, commemorating one hundred and fifty years of statehood, preserving the record of the growth and development of the commonwealth, and chronicling the genealogical and memorial records of its prominent families and personages. (Hopkinsville, Ky.: Historical Record Association, 1945), Pages 1800 to 1802.^S5

Page 1800, 1801^S5

In 1771, Peter Atherton was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, and was therefore a British subject for the first five years of his life. In 1791 he came to Kentucky, carrying with him land grants from Virginia authorities (Kentucky being at that time a part of Virginia), and swam the Ohio River at Louisville, pushing all of his earthly possessions before him in a sugar trough.^S5

He took up the land described in his grants, something like a thousand acres, along the banks of the Rolling Fork River^S8 and Knob Creek, about fifty miles South of Louisville, Kentucky. Knob Creek is a mountain stream formed by the point is the boundary line between Nelson and LaRue Counties., For a year, as the family was moving from Kentucky to Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, who was born about ten miles from the headwaters of Knob Creek^S9, lived on the west bank of this stream.^S5

• United States Department of the Interior – National Park Service – National Register of Historic Places

Aaron Atherton House

Page 6 - In 1801, Aaron Atherton deeded his land to his son Peter M. Atherton. Peter Atherton assumed operation of the distillery and was also granted a permit to operate a ferry over the Rolling Fork River^S8 on the Bardstown-Hodgenville Road. Atherton’s Ferry and distillery were well known Larue County landmarks in the early 1800s. In 1841, Atherton remodeled the residence by enclosing the open breezeway and adding sawn weatherboard siding to the exterior. Also in 1841, a son John M. Atherton was born in the house and lived here until going to school in the 1850s. John M. Atherton later enlarged and expanded his father’s distillery and created the nearby community of Athertonville. The John M. Atherton House stood until recent months just to the northeast of Athertonville.

Page 6 - Following the death of Peter Atherton the house and 400 acres were left to his daughter, Elizabeth Atherton Key and her husband, Marshall Key. Later owners included the Jesse Dawson family and William Boone family. The house has been in the Enlow family since 1925.

Knob Creek established its experience in making fine Kentucky Whiskey during the early years of the Nineteenth Century. From 1800 to 1830, Peter Atherton built and operated a log distillery on the west bank of Knob Creek, a short distance from where it flows into Rolling Fork River^S8. Peter Atherton lived on this site until his death in 1844. John M. Atherton was born in 1841, and became in time the owner of the larger part of land conveyed in the original grant...^S5

• Peter Atherton 1771-1844 had a second marriage when he was 70 years old, to a 29 year old Betsy Mayfield. They had two sons before he died at age 73, Peter Mayfield Atherton and John McDougal Atherton. Peter left home to fight with the Confederates while John stayed in college. Peter died in the war while his brother John became a wealthy distiller, sold the distillery and moved to Louisville to be a business leader.
• WILL REST TOGETHER

Remains of Peter Atherton Sr., the Father, and Peter Atherton Jr., the Son

The remains of Mr. Peter Atherton, who died November 26, 1844, were disinterred last week and removed to a more desirable location in the Protestant cemetery in New Haven, Ky. He was the father of Mr. J. M. Atherton, of this city. The New Haven Echo contains an account of the removal of the remains of Mr. Atherton has a son, also named Peter Atherton, who was killed in Alabama during the war, to the same cemetery.

• The Echo says

“Mr. Atherton joined the Southern Army in September, 1861. He left here with Capt. Jack Allen and was a member of Morgan’s old squadron. During a skirmish in Northern Alabama in 1862, Mr. Atherton was wounded in the knee. The wound was not considered necessarily a fatal one, and Mr. Atherton pluckily held to his post. He was afterward taken to Huntsville, Ala., where he died. His remains were buried there. Last Sunday Mr. George Radcliff left here to exhume them, and bring them to be buried beside those of his father and mother in the cemetery here.

• A noteworthy incident in connection with his death is the recognition of Mr. Peter Atherton’s horse, a bald-faced roan that he was in the habit of riding here and on which he went forth to battle for Southern chivalry.

In 1863 when Bragg’s army passed through this place a Southern soldier was astride the little roan. Peter’s horse was recognized by Messrs. J. W. Dawson and J. D. Boles. They told the soldier. He immediately went to Peter’s mother, then Mrs. Capt. Key by a second marriage, whose homestead was then where Mr. Jesse Dawson now resides. She purchased the little roan. Mrs. Key, too, has joined the silent majority and her remains rest in the same cemetery, which will receive those of her valiant son, who will be buried beside those of his mother this week.”

( The above clipping from an unidentified newspaper was received from Cornelia Atherton Serpell with the words Peter Atherton written on it in ink in Cornelia Anderson Atherton's handwriting, and the date 1891 or 1897 more recently written on it in ball-point pen. – Information from Allan Atherton, 1997)

Peter Atherton Sr., Atherton's Ferry - Distilled Whisky

• The Miami News, 11 Nov 1929

Audubon's Whisky, (Louisville Courier-Journal)

Paragraph 2

1.   Peter Atherton, in Find A Grave.
2. ↑ Barton, William E. (William Eleazar). The paternity of Abraham Lincoln: was he the son of Thomas Lincoln? : an essay on the chastity of Nancy Hanks. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1995)
   Pg 402, 403.

   Peter Atherton witnessed the last will and testament of Joseph Hanks, the grandfather of Abraham Lincoln.

3. ↑ Miami Daily News and Metropolis. Audubon's Whisky (Louisville Courier-Journal)
   11 Nov 1929.

   Audubon's Whisky, (Louisville Courier-Journal)
   Paragraph 2
   Only a few years later, Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's father, loaded about 400 gallons of the best whisky he could find on his flatboat on Rolling Fork, near the mouth of Knob creek, and he took it to Indiana. Despite the upsetting of his craft at the mouth of Salt river, he recovered most of his cargo. Tom Lincoln was not a distiller, although an uncle of the same name owned a still house in Fayette county. However, the Rolling Fork country was noted for the quality of its whisky, both then and later. Possibly Lincoln bought his liquor of Peter Atherton, then the ferry-keeper of Knob creek. Atherton established nearby what later was to be the largest distillery in the world.
   Ever since the revolution, the farmers of the west had made whisky. There were few roads. A pack-horse could carry only four bushels of grain over the mountains, but in the form of whisky the product of 24 bushels could be carried. It was when Alexander Hamilton sought to levy the excise tax on these farmers that the "Whisky Rebellion" broke out.
   One of the chief mediums of exchange among the pioneers was "good merchantable whisky." Corn, therefore, was not only the principal food crop, but the main money crop. In liquid form, corn was a safer investment than in the shape of meat, either alive or packed. When Tom Lincoln carried whisky in barrels to Indiana, he was merely carrying the products of his farm, whether he made the liquor himself - which is unlikely - or took it to Peter Atherton or someone else to be distilled. When Audubon and his partner, Rozier, and years later Abraham Lincoln himself, dealt in whisky as merchants, they were selling it as a farm product, like so much tobacco, smoked hams, or meal.
   Peter Athertons' father Aaron Atherton was already operating the Knob Creek distillery.
   Thomas Lincoln, worked for a short time for Aaron Atherton and Wattie Boone's distillery. Thomas was efficient in wood making and probably made bourban casks for the distillery.

4.   Adams, Evelyn Crady. Goodin’s Fort (1780) in Nelson County Kentucky, in Filson Historical Society (Louisville, Kentucky). The Filson Club history quarterly. (Louisville, Kentucky: The Club, 1930-2000)
   Vol. 27, No. 1, January 1953.

   These were among the people at Goodin's Fort (According to Edgar Porter Harned)
   
   Samuel Goodin, Sr. , John Houston, Capt. Samuel Pottenger, Isaac Goodin, Samuel's son, Atkinson Hill, Samuel's son-in-law; Samuel Goodin, Jr., Samuel's son; Peter Kennedy (Indian scout); Thomas Goodin, Samuel's son; Elizabeth Goodin, Samuel's daughter; Catherine Van Meter, Elizabeth Goodin's daughter; Letitia Van Meter, Elizabeth Goodin's daughter; Sarah Van Meter, Elizabeth Goodin's daughter; Elizabeth Van Meter, Elizabeth Goodin's dau; Abraham Goodin, son of Samuel and Elizabeth; General Braddock^S10 (only slave mentioned at fort, freed in 1797); Abraham Van Meter, died about 1782; Beck Swank^S10, married General Braddock^S10; Abnego Carter; Unknown Hamilton; Aaron Atherton Sr.; Peter Atherton, son of Aaron; John S. Atherton, son of Peter; John M. Atherton, son of Peter; Peter Lee Atherton, son of John M. Atherton.
   
   The fort was the logical refuge for the following adjacent families: David Crady; Richard Edlin; Christopher Bush; Samuel Miller; Anthony Chambers; Daniel Vittitow; Samuel Vittitow (ie. Withrow); Stephen Vittitow; Zachariah Maraman; Leonard Johnson's son Clemmy, fiddler from Maryland.
   
   Page 5 - Atherton's Ford
   Page 7 - Aaron Atherton Sr. and family
   Page 18 - Milton Atherton
   Page 19 - B.F. Atherton, Finetta Atherton
   Page 26 - 16 Dec 1823, Suit of Purcell vs Atherton, in Hardin County Court
   Page 27 - Atherton Family. W.H. Perrin, op.cit., 1887, p. 781.
   
   When Samuel abandoned the Fort Goodin, he moved across the Rolling Fork to one of his plantations in present LaRue County, KY. He apparently retained more than half of his original land entries which approximated two thousand acres. He died on his plantation in the Edlintown area in 1807. He left no will.There seems to be some confusion about the names, "Goodin, Goodwines, and Goodwins" . There seemed to be a lot of them in early Kentucky, especially in Nelson and Hardin Counties.. And, they seemed to share the same given names as well. Several writers have attempted to sort this out.

5. ↑ A Sesqui-centennial history of Kentucky: a narrative historical edition, commemorating one hundred and fifty years of statehood, preserving the record of the growth and development of the commonwealth, and chronicling the genealogical and memorial records of its prominent families and personages. (Hopkinsville, Ky.: Historical Record Association, 1945)
   Pages 1800 to 1802.

   Page 1800 and 1801
   
   Interesting History Connected With Cummins-Collins Distilleries – Distilling History Made by the Site
   
   We can go back to the early days of American History to pick up the people and events that today reach their culmination in Cummins-Collins Distilleries at Athertonville, Kentucky.
   
   In 1771, Peter Atherton was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, and was therefore a British subject for the first five years of his life. In 1791 he came to Kentucky, carrying with him land grants from Virginia authorities (Kentucky being at that time a part of Virginia), and swam the Ohio River at Louisville, pushing all of his earthly possessions before him in a sugar trough.
   
   He took up the land described in his grants, something like a thousand acres, along the banks of the Rolling Fork River and Knob Creek, about fifty miles South of Louisville, Kentucky. Knob Creek is a mountain stream formed by the point is the boundary line between Nelson and LaRue Counties., For a year, as the family was moving from Kentucky to Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, who was born about ten miles from the headwaters of Knob Creek, lived on the west bank of this stream.
   
   Knob Creek established its experience in making fine Kentucky Whiskey during the early years of the Nineteenth Century. From 1800 to 1830, Peter Atherton built and operated a log distillery on the west bank of Knob Creek, a short distance from where it flows into Rolling Fork River. Peter Atherton lived on this site until his death in 1844. John M. Atherton was born in 1841, and became in time the owner of the larger part of land conveyed in the original grant...

6.   Perrin, William Henry; J. H. Battle; and G. C. Kniffin. Kentucky: a History of the State: Embracing a concise account of the origin and development of the Virginia colony : its expansion westward, and the settlement of the frontier beyond the Alleghanies; the erection of Kentucky as an independent state and its subsequent development. (Louisville: F. A. Battey, 1887)
   4th ed. Page 781.

   Nelson County, Kentucky
   
   Taken from an article about the Atherton family. John S. Atherton was born in 1825 in LaRue County, was a farmer and slave-holder, and died in 1840. He was the son of Peter and Elizabeth (Whitehead) Atherton, who came to Kentucky from Virginia as early as 1790 or 1795, bring ing 15-30 slaves. Peter Atherton was of English descent, was a Whig, was under Anthony Wayne in the Indian Wars, served as magistrate, and died about 1844, aged seventy-two years. Mrs Maria Atherton was born in Nelson County and a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Weaver) Beller.

7. ↑ Hardin Co. Court Order Bk A p.278.
   Jan court 1801- On motion of Elizabeth Elder and Phiip Read as admrs. of the estate of Joseph Elder dec'd they entered into bond with Robert Hodgen and Isom Enlow securities. Peter Atherton, James Brown, Henry Dewit and Daniel Vittetoe or any three to appraise estate of Joseph Elder dec'd. [ Hardin Co. Court Order Bk A p.278]
8.   Rolling Fork (Kentucky), in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
9.   Knob Creek Farm, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.

   Abraham Lincoln was actually born on the Sinking Springs Farm Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park. His childhood farm growing up was the Knob Creek Farm.

10.   Dr. John C. Butler, in Jacob Van Meter Family & History.

    The son, Abraham Van Meter, had at least one slave he brought with him from Virginia. This was "General Braddock", who earned his freedom through killing nine Indians. He moved from the Severns Valley settlement to Goodin's fort in the Rolling Fork when Abraham Van Meter's widow, who had inherited "General Braddock" from her husband, following his death from a poison Indian arrow, married Samuel Goodin. The slave was appraised at 100 pounds. On March 19, 1797 he was "set free forever". He afterwards married Becky Swan and lived on a small farm near Elizabethtown. This verifies that the Swans, who came out with the Van Meter party, also brought slaves to Kentucky. The son, Abraham Van Meter, had at least one slave he brought with him from Virginia. This was "General Braddock", who earned his freedom through killing nine Indians. He moved from the Severns Valley settlement to Goodin's fort in the Rolling Fork when Abraham Van Meter's widow, who had inherited "General Braddock" from her husband, following his death from a poison Indian arrow, married Samuel Goodin. The slave was appraised at 100 pounds. On March 19, 1797 he was "set free forever". He afterwards married Becky Swan and lived on a small farm near Elizabethtown. This verifies that the Swans, who came out with the Van Meter party, also brought slaves to Kentucky.