Word: bardstown
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...little Bardstown, Ky. (pop.: 1,767) last week a local legend was proudly celebrated as a national fact. Kentucky's rotund Senator Logan made a speech and ladies dressed in crinolines tittered and played hostess in "Federal Hill," the old home of Judge John Rowan. Bardstown believers were commemorating the birthday of a Rowan relation, Songwriter Stephen Collins Foster...
...Bardstown believes that Stephen Foster drew inspiration for famed "My Old Kentucky Home" from "Federal Hill." Some Kentuckians further claim he actually composed it on the spot, during a visit in 1852. John Tasker Howard, Foster's latest, most authoritative biographer (Stephen Foster, America's Troubadour: TIME, Jan. 22, 1933) doubts the story. He thinks it unlikely that Stephen Foster visited Bardstown later than the 1840's, points out that the original title of the song was "Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night," that "Uncle Tom" was the song's hero, not ''My Old Kentucky...
...Bardstown loves its legends and of these the Foster story is by no means the dearest. That story concerns Louis Philippe, King of France and his gifts to St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown. Rich indeed were Louis Philippe's gifts, if indeed he gave Bardstown a Murillo Virgin, three van Dycks, two van Eycks, a Rubens. If the collection is authentic, it would easily fetch...
...once have visited Bardstown where it is reported he spent one colic-racked day in bed. But his first meeting with Father Joseph Flaget probably took place in 1799 in Havana where Louis Philippe was raising money to return to France. Havana's French colony got together 14,000 francs and Father Flaget made the presentation; Louis Philippe thanked him and sailed away...