One hundred and fifty years ago this month the “mothers, wives, sisters and daughters” of Graves County petitioned the Kentucky State Legislature to “guard them from the direful calamity of civil war”. On May 16, the State Legislature resolved that “this state and the citizens thereof should take no part in the civil war now being waged, except as mediators and friends to the belligerent parties and that Kentucky should, during the contest, occupy the position of strict neutrality”. Four days later, Governor Magoffin notified and warned “all other states, whether separate or united, and especially the United States and…
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The Spring Meeting of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society at the Paducah Railroad Museum began with a brief discussion on the minutes from the Winter Meeting and a treasurer’s report from Marvin Downing. It was also announced that the Summer Meeting would be held at the Quilt Museum in Paducah sometime in late July. The speaker was Bob Johnston, the President of the Paducah Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. His presentation was on “Railroading in Paducah: Then and Now”. The story of the railroad at Paducah dates back to the early 1850s with Lloyd Tilghman, former West Point graduate and later Confederate general, who came…