FOREWORD

AFTERWORD

Early in the last century, Dr. Charles Lewis, a planter and physician of Albermarle County, Virginia, removed to West Kentucky and established himself on a tract of land not far from the frontier settlements of Smithland and Salem, in what is now Livingston County, upriver from Paducah at the confluence of the Ohio and Cumberland. He took with him his wife and two of his children -- two grown sons named Lilburn and Isham -- and a number of slaves. On a bluff overlooking the Ohio, he built a house, somewhat grand for the time and place, and quarters for the "people". He called the house Rocky Hill. His wife, Lucy Jefferson Lewis, the sister of Thomas Jefferson, died soon after the removal to Kentucky, and was buried on the bluff, some yards from the house. Charles Lewis now spent little time at Rocky Hill, making a trip to Virginia and leaving Lilburn, with his wife and children, and Isham to occupy the house and manage the estate.

On the night of December 15, 1811 -- the night when the New Madrid earthquake first struck the Mississippi Valley -- Lilburn, with the assistance of Isham and in the presence of his Negroes, butchered a slave named George, whose offense had been to break a pitcher prized by the dead mother, Lucy Lewis. After some months the crime was revealed, and Lilburn and Isham were indicted for murder. They were released