Treva shared some photos with me of a day’s catch… Here’s a stereoscope photo I found of one of the floods.īut, the river was a part of the town, a huge part. I’ve cleaned up after flood waters and it must not have been as much fun for the adults. It was fun for the kids to walk on stilts to school or ride in a boat to the store. My family wrote of the floods, when the Ohio spread across the town and people moved their furniture to upper stories and stayed in the homes of family and friends on higher ground. And the town has changed through the years, victim of nature and the times. The town had its other side as all towns do, all part of the Uniontown story. On the other side of town, my grandmother’s family were farmers, working hard in their tobacco fields, the children picking the worms off the tobacco plants. Children played along and in the river, went hunting in the lush forests nearby, and feasted on Kentucky hams, fried chicken, biscuits and peach pies. I’ve read of my grandfather and his siblings playing with the black children who lived across the street, riding their horses together, at a time when the town was growing away from the days of slaves and slaveowners in the post-Civil War years. I’ve read the stories of my grandfather being sent on errands when he was only three, watched over by the whole town along the way. She said it is always good! This was as good as it gets anywhere, I would imagine. Treva shared this older photo of a burgoo. Each time had to be different since you never knew what people would bring. There were all kinds of vegetables and meats, everything from Kentucky hams to wild game, all thrown together into a wonderful meal for all. There was a town band, whose members met twice a week to practice and learn the latest tunes.Īnd there were the Kentucky “burgoos,” which I learned about from my great aunt in her book, “My Sun Shines Bright.” My Uniontown friend, Treva Robards told me more about burgoos, which are a Kentucky tradition, a get together where everyone brings something to contribute to the burgoo, a kind of stew. Riverboats also brought entertainment with special shows that everyone would await with excitement. Ferries crossed the river for those on the Indiana side and riverboats arrived to pick up grain and coal and bring visitors to town. There were at least 6 churches, including Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and Christian. Uniontown had lovely wide streets lined with lovely homes with tall trees and schools for both white and “colored” children (The Telegram reported a scholastic population of 820 with 520 whites and 250 blacks in 1903). My great-grandfather, who bought and sold grain with an office on the river, also sold insurance for Aetna. There were doctors, a dentist, and lawyers. My great-great-grandfather arrived in Uniontown as a doctor. There was a Cooper Shop, which I surmise was a brewery for local beer. This little town of 2,000 had a fire department and a fairgrounds with a paddock (Kentucky does have horses, you know), an amphitheater and floral halls. There was a livery stable, a saddle store, and a tobacco and cigar store, along with a grocery story, a meat market and a fish market. Thanks to Mike Guillerman, author of “Face Boss: The Memoir of a Western Kentucky Coal Miner,” who was nice enough to send me a copy of the Jspecial edition of The Telegram, Uniontown’s newspaper, I’ve learned that this little town at one time or another had three hotels, a bank, a distillery, granaries, confectionery, millinery, dry goods, and furniture stores, along with a saloon and a wagon works. Here’s a picture taken by one of my relatives of one side of Main Street back when there were still horses and buggies with new fangled cars being introduced to the dirt streets. Founded in 1840 by an act that merged two existing communities into one, Uniontown flourished along the Ohio River due to the surrounding rich agricultural lands and the mining industry. Focusing on my family’s stories from Uniontown, Kentucky, I’ve absorbed so much information that brings it all home to my heart. Most of us learn about life in a small river town through the stories of Mark Twain, but I’ve also learned through my own family history.
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