The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1912-1984, 1916-06-02
ANOTHER HISTORIC HOUSE.
Father of D. r. Francis Once Lived
Near Preachersville.

EnQ OF CnlS county, WHICH is Sdlu 10
have been the home of the father
of David R. Francis, ex-governor of
Missouri and now Ambassador to
Russia. Beneath the picture was this
story of the old house:
On the appointment of the Hon.
David r. Francis, of st. Louis, as
Ambassador to Russia, Richmond,
KY, grew boastful as being the place
of his birth. The village of Preach
ersville, Lincoln county, KY, too,
has a modest claim of association
with the life of the eminent st. Lou
isian, having within its environs
house which for time was his pa
rental home, and to which he fire.
ouently returned for visits of some
length.
After years of hotel keeping in
Richmond, John B. Francis, father
of the future Ambassador, must have
grown a little wearied, and harken-
ing to a back-to-the-land call, he
traded his hotel, lock, stock and bar
rel, for a farm in Lincoln county.
Since the farm extended to the high
way between Crab Orchard and Ian
caster, a small store of general mer-
chandise was set up to supplement
the income from the farm. The
store must have prospered, there be-
ing so few buggies or similar means
OF conveyance at the time that the
neighbors seldom got abroad and so
did all their trading at the roadside
store.
The farm was a fertile one, some
of it as the time in wooded loan, and
laid in the direction of the historic
Walnut Flat, famous in the begin
nings Of Kentucky history.
1t had come down after several
"swappings" as a part of the hold
ings of the Lackey family, pioneer
settlers-the early landed farmer
snapped off his farmstead of six or
eight hundred acres as -handedly
as he did his jack-knife or a trusty
gray mule.
The house was built on a plan sug-
gestive of the Col. William Whitley
place, near Crab rchard-irst brick
house built in Kentucky-as were
most of the residences of the bet
ter sort put UP in the locality of the
first quarter of the Nineteenth CEN
fury. A characteristic of those old
houses is that the cornice is built of
bricks, the edges rounded to form the
holdings.
In this house the Francis family
maintained open hospitality, guests
coming from different places for ex-
tended visits, none more frequently
than the eldest son, ''Davy," then a
student at Washington University,
St. Louis.
The beautifully ordered house
keeping which prevailed there is still
remembered in the neighborhood. To
the farmhouse were brought culina-
~ niceties, an excellence in prepared
dishes and a carefulness of service
reminiscent of the old tavern days.
As recollections of the mistress of
the house are invoked, Mrs. Eliza
Rowland Francis is presented as a
woman of handsome appearance,
much force and energy of character
and fine social attributes. One fan
cies that many of the qualities which
have carried David r. Francis to high
success in life came TO him by ma
ternal inheritance.
'She was certainly a stylish wo-
man." was the unexpected summary
made by one who knew her at this
time, which meant, perhaps, that she
not only had leanings for the modes
but that high spirit, taste, energy and
directness distinguished all that she
did. Her tastes were urban and it
is not, surprising that the family had
left the farmstead home some time
before the final removal to st. Louis.
Today as one follows the clay wag-
on road through upland fields the
brick walls of the house from its
eminence show above the surround
ing trees, having the aspect, one fan
cies, of pretty dignified little Eng
lish manor.
But a closer view discloses raw
ages, not so much of time for that
has been mellowing in effect, but of
tenant occupancy. Yet the remnant
Of yard about the door has much of
the charm of an old garden. There
was much trilling and twittering In
the just-fulling trees in the sunshine
of a May morning; bees were dron-
ingly busy under the locust bough
pendant in masses of bloom. Within
sheltered depths, among the rosy
japonica bushes, and the lilac and
SNOWFALL shrubbery beds of violets
and daffodils fiourished. Borders of
blue-hag Girls of the seed catalogue)