Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South

1: "One great honored name" 1872-1889

1 Chapter 1 “One great honored name” 1872–1889 Sitting back from a road that winds through the heart of the Bluegrass between Frankfort and Georgetown rests a large two-story house surrounded by trees, with rolling fields on all sides. Stone gates on the edge of the highway read “Woodlake.” In this calm, serene setting in Franklin County, Kentucky, Madeline McDowell was born on May 20, 1872. She was originally named Magdalen after her father’s sister Magdalen Harvey McDowell, but her name was later changed to the French form, Madeline . The sixth and next to the youngest child of Henry Clay McDowell and Anne Clay McDowell, she soon acquired the nickname Madge. Four brothers—Henry Clay Jr., William Adair, Thomas Clay, and Ballard —and two sisters—Nanette, called “Nettie,” and Julia—completed this close-knit family. The McDowell name itself carried with it a legacy of wealth, power, and pride in its heritage.1 While the circumstances of a person’s birth do not necessarily determine that person’s fate, in Madge McDowell’s case they certainly had a great influence. Her family, with its long history of accomplishment and prominence, its political, social, and business ties, and its wealth, played a major role in the development of her personality, her opportunities, and her achievements. From early childhood her parents impressed upon her a sense of heritage that was to stamp an indelible imprint upon her character. She was a member of that privileged segment of Bluegrass society described by author and family friend James Lane Allen as “a landed aristocracy” in which “family names come down from generation to generation ” and where “one great honored name will do nearly as much in Kentucky as in England to keep a family in peculiar respect.” 2 Actually, Madge’s family was composed of several “great honored” 2 Madeline McDowell Breckinridge names. On her father’s side she descended from the McDowells, famous for their achievements in politics and medicine, while her mother was the granddaughter of Henry Clay, Speaker of the House, secretary of state, U.S. senator, and ofttime presidential candidate. “There was no Kentucky of which she was not a part,” her sister-in-law accurately noted.3 Beginning in early childhood Madge developed a sense of family history and a desire to match her ancestors in terms of community service, a sentiment strongly encouraged by her father. She heard from both father and mother stories of what the McDowells and Clays had accomplished in Kentucky’s early history. Perhaps recalling this early training, she once stated: “To me the inspiration of the past seems to call to the inspiration of the future. I think every Kentuckian may pronounce with the English poet that invocation to the Spirits of old that bore me, And set me meek of mind, Between great deeds before me And deeds as great behind!”4 To understand Madge and the influence her heritage exerted on her life and career, it is necessary to know at least the brief outline of her famWoodlake , Franklin County, Kentucky. Courtesy of Special Collections and Digital Programs, Margaret I. King Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington. 3 One Great Honored Name ily history. To such a family genealogy was important, and the McDowells especially were fully committed to maintaining an awareness of it in their descendants. They were originally the McDougals from Scotland of the Duke of Argyle’s clan. They immigrated first to Ireland and then to Pennsylvania, where Madge’s great-great-grandfather Samuel was born in 1735. He married Mary McClung in 1754 and moved to present-day Mercer County, Kentucky, in 1784. For his service in the French and Indian War, the Virginia House of Burgesses awarded him a large tract of land in Fayette County, which at that time constituted one-third of the “District of Kentucky.” During the American Revolution he served as a colonel in a regiment of volunteers from Augusta County, Virginia, and after the war he was appointed surveyor of public lands in Fayette County. In 1783 he sat as one of three justices in the first district court held in Kentucky and three years later was one of the judges who presided over the first county court held in the Kentucky District of Virginia. He then became a leader in Kentucky’s effort to separate from Virginia. After presiding over most of the ten Danville conventions...