By Kathy Nichols, Executive Director, Farmington
In the mid-1950s, a group of influential Louisvillians created Historic Homes Foundation (HHF), inspired by landscape architect Anne Bruce Haldeman and headed by publisher Barry Bingham Sr., to purchase and restore the old Speed house, Farmington, and open it as a “public shrine.” On April 28, 1959, Farmington Historic Home opened as the first house museum in Jefferson County and quickly became one of the most visited historic sites in the Commonwealth.
HHF founders knew Farmington had been a thriving hemp plantation carved out of the Kentucky wilderness. It was home to John and Lucy Gilmer Fry Speed’s family. Construction of the Speeds’ brick residence, an outstanding example of Federal-style architecture, began at Farmington in 1815. The house, identified in the original building contract as the design of Paul Skidmore, was an unusual and ambitious plan clearly influenced by the architectural designs of Thomas Jefferson.
Although a few appurtenant buildings still stand—including a spring house and a barn—none of the cabins that housed enslaved people remained on the 18 acres HHF eventually acquired, yet we know that enslaved Black people almost certainly had a big hand in building Farmington. At the time of John Speed’s death, at least 70 enslaved Black people performed the physical labor required on the plantation.
John Speed (1772-1840) and Lucy Gilmer Fry Speed (1788-1874) came from wealthy families who moved to Kentucky County, Virginia, before 1790. Their fathers, like many wealthy Revolutionary War heroes, sought to make fortunes in land speculation in the newly opened territory west of the Appalachian Mountains. Immigrating at separate times, the Speed and Fry families and their enslaved people traveled over the Wilderness Road and settled near Danville.
After John’s first wife, Abigail LeMaster Speed (1768-1807) died, he took their daughters, Mary and Eliza, back to Mercer County. In November 1808, he married Lucy Gilmer Fry and returned with his new wife and family to the land that would become Farmington. The 554-acre tract was carved from celebrated Jefferson County “Beargrass Preserve” lands that Speed purchased with partners. An August 1809 letter from Speed to his partner, William Pope Jr., reports that “we are now living in our cabins.” Farmington was 6 miles from Louisville in the Kentucky wilderness being turned into crop lands by settlers. Enslaved men immediately began building cabins, cutting the woods, and clearing vast sections into fields for planting corn and hemp.
Women planted kitchen gardens, tended poultry, cattle and hogs for food and provisions. Wild game was common. One day, Lucy Speed took a walk to the spring with her baby and was chased back to the cabins by a bison!
In addition to Mary and Eliza, John and Lucy had 11 children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. Farmington was a busy place over the years, with 13 Speed children—seven girls and six boys—in residence at various times. All the Speed children, male and female, were well educated. Research indicates several children attended schools away from Farmington.
Music, an important form of entertainment at Farmington, was taught by Anton Heinrich, a Bohemian composer and violinist who lived with the Speed family for a year and a half beginning in 1819, teaching Mary and Eliza to play pianoforte, to compose and to give concerts. Both Speed daughters became accomplished pianists, and Mary inherited her father’s pianoforte.
Strong connections and family ties existed among the enslaved families at Farmington. Morocco, much favored and written about, and his sister Phyllis were likely a wedding gift from Lucy’s father, Joshua Fry. Phyllis and Morocco’s sister Jinnie was enslaved at nearby Oxmoor Plantation, owned by the husband of Mildred Ann Fry Bullitt, Lucy’s sister. When she was born, Phyllis’ daughter Diana was given to Mary Speed, and she remained with Mary, who never married, into the 1860s, when Diana, her daughter Dinnie, and son Henry successfully freed themselves and lived in Indianapolis until “after the war.” Today, the descendants of David and Martha Spencer and of Abram and Rosanna Hayes have generously shared family research and oral traditions to help inform our interpretation. Ongoing research continues to identify and connect people who were enslaved at Farmington.
Hemp, a bast fiber, was grown by Kentucky farmers to make twine and rough bags for the Southern cotton market. Production of hemp necessitated a large labor force and ensured that Kentucky would be a slave state. Slavery was an integral part of life during the Speed family’s 50-plus years on the property. Enslaved men and women worked in the house and its dependencies as agricultural field laborers and in “manufacturing” at a ropewalk and weaving house where the Speeds’ hemp was processed on the plantation, according to references from John Speed’s 1840 probate inventory.
Archaeology has uncovered several foundations near the present non-historic “carriage house,” including one that is likely the log house occupied by the Speed family during their first years on the property. This probably became a cabin for the enslaved in later years. Unfortunately, little is known about housing for the enslaved at Farmington. A reproduction outdoor kitchen, built on the footprint of the original in 1992, helps interpret the lives of people enslaved at Farmington.
Farmington’s best-known guest, Abraham Lincoln, came to Farmington in 1841. Joshua Speed and Lincoln developed a close friendship while roommates for four years in Springfield, Illinois. In late 1840, Lincoln broke his engagement to Mary Todd and fell into a deep depression.
Joshua, heading to Farmington after the death of his father, John, invited Lincoln to visit him. Lincoln arrived at the Louisville wharf in August. At Farmington, the young lawyer gained new perspectives through immersion in a lifestyle foreign to his previous experience. It is the only time the future president lived an extended period, approximately three weeks, fully immersed in the culture of the Southern planter elite. Lincoln’s Sept. 27, 1841, letter to Mary Speed shows the friendly, affectionate relationship that existed between Lincoln and his host’s family. Lucy Speed seems to have taken a special interest in her son’s friend. As a token of affection, she gave Lincoln an Oxford bible. Years later, President Lincoln sent an autographed photograph to Lucy referencing the gift. The Speed children all supported the Union during the Civil War, and Joshua and brother James served as unofficial advisers to the president. In 1863, Lincoln appointed James attorney general of the United States.
Lincoln’s letter to Mary Speed contains his earliest known personal comment on the enslaved. When he and Joshua boarded the steamboat Lebanon to return to Springfield, he saw men being taken for sale “… strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trot-line.” Years later he said, “… that site was a continued torment to me …” Joshua later claimed that seeing the slaves on board that ship helped focus Lincoln’s emancipationist sentiment.
Today, guided tours of Farmington’s main house and free, self-guided grounds tours explain the history of the plantation and the roles of the support structures on the property. The Farmington Board of Regents recently completed a strategic planning initiative with nonprofit consultant Ashley|Rountree that will help the site restore and care for structures as we continue important research into the people who lived at Farmington.
Farmington is growing hemp again and will feature a Hemp Dinner on Oct. 28, 2023. Whether you have an hour or an afternoon, we hope you will visit, take a tour and hear Farmington’s stories.
Farmington
3033 Bardstown Road
Louisville
502.452.9920
VisitFarmington.org