Transylvania University President Horace Holley’s: Carriage Journey from Connecticut to Kentucky in 1822

Transylvania University President Horace Holley s Carriage Journey from Connecticut to Kentucky in 1822. EDITED BY I. B. HOLLEY,JR. The subjectofthis account,HoraceHolley,received his Bachelorof Arts degree from Yale College in 1803. A gifted student, he was a protdgd of Yale's president,Theodore Dwight,who persuaded him to return after his graduation to prepare for a career in the Congregational ministry . While studying in New Haven he met and married Mary Phelps Austin, cousin of Stephen Austin, one of the founders of the Republic of Texas. Horace's notable gifts as a preacher and his attractive personality soon brought him a call to the pulpit of the Hollis Street Church iii Boston, where he prospered as his theology became increasingly more liberal. Harvard College honored him with an appointment to its Board of Overseers. Holley' s fame as an orator and a theological liberal soon brought him a national reputation. In 1816 the trustees of Transylvania University in Lexington,Kentucky,considered inviting Holley to become president of their institution, but some of the trustees were fearful that his Unitarian views were too liberal. In 1818, under pressure from the legislature,they eventually voted for him.' Armed with a letter of introduction by John Adams to Thomas Jefferson to smooth the way for a visit to Monticello, Holley drove out to Lexington. In Washington he called on President Monroe in the White House and visited with his Yale classmate,John C. Calhoun. In Lexington, Henry Clay,the chairman of Transylvania's board of trustees, introduced him to the town and college so winningly that Holley accepted the office of university president. Back in Boston, an admirer,saddened at the thought of losing the much beloved preacher,commissioned the renowned Gilbert Stuart to paint a portrait of him: Holley and hjs family moved to Kentucky in 1818 and he began building up the college enrollment along with its law and medical departments. In 1822,after a visit to the East to introduce the Holley children to their Boston friends and to their respective families in Connecticut,they set out by carriage to return to Lexington. Their adventures on this thousandmile journey are recorded in the letters that Holley wrote to his father,Luther Holley, a successful ironmaster in Salisbury,Connecticut,whose blast furnaces supplied the iron for the anchors and chains for the U.S.S. Constitution and musket FALL 2003 53 HORACE HOLLEY' S CARRIAGE JOURNEY Map of tbe country embracing tbe several routes examined witb a view of a National Road from Zanesville to Florence.This undated map shows tbe possible routes tbat tbe Holley family could have taken from Zanesvitte.Ohio to Lexington,Kentucky. Cincinnati Museum Center,Cincinnati Historical Society Library f 1:» F»» »«« Ific barrels for the Springfield Armory. The trip,begun September 16, 1822,was undertaken in a barouche., a carriage with a folding top and a driver' s seat outside, and drawn by two wellmatched horses. T he party consisted of Holley,his wife, their two children, Harriette age 12) and Horace Cage 4),and Holley's twentytwo year old sister,Caroline,as well as a coachman named Reuben. Setting out on a journey of this length,made over many stretches of abominable roads with two young children, was itself undoubtedly daunting,but Caroline' s health further complicated the expedition. Caroline' s persistent cough suggests that she was suffering from consumption, or tuberculosis, and only with great reluctance did her parents consent to allow her to accept her brother' s offer to take her to Lexington where,he urged,the warmer climate promised to improve her health. Although the letters make almost no reference to baggage, the barouche must have been equipped rvith some kind of chest, aft of the carriage body,to contain the family luggage. With five passengers inside the carriage, little room would have remained for baggage. Holley did some of the driving, seated outside the folding top where one was exposed to sun and inclement weather that the party encountered. Did he have maps or a list of towns 54 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY 4 *t« i -» »» 4« . j .4/1 4 1' s labour for it. The roads were...