The ruins of “Valley Farm” are one of the oldest standing structural remains in central Kentucky and are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Home to first child born in Kentucky to early settlers

The original house on “Valley Farm” was built around 1784 and is noted on John Filson’s map of Kentucky in that year as the site of Colonel Marshall’s office. In 1795, Colonel John Smith and his wife, Chenoe, bought Valley Farm. Col. Smith was a man of “considerable wealth” who migrated from Virginia to Kentucky. Chenoe, a daughter of pioneer Captain Nathaniel Hart, is believed to have been the first white child born in Kentucky, and was named after the Indian word for Kentucky. Her sister, Susannah Hart, was the wife of Issac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky (1792 – 1796). Col. Smith’s sister was the wife of George Madison, Governor of Kentucky in 1816. Col. Smith represented Franklin County in the Kentucky State Legislature (1799 – 1801) and is shown as paying taxes on 8,000 acres of land in Kentucky in 1800. The Smiths were prominent in the early society of Kentucky and their home on Valley Farm was most likely the scene of many important gatherings.

A grand old house

Instead of erecting a pioneer log cabin as was typical for the time, Col. Smith and his wife resided in the small stone structure at the back of the property (Col. Marshall’s former office) until the construction of their splendid two-story house was completed, approximately ten years later. Few people during that period of early settlement had the means to build such a fine residence. It was constructed entirely of stone and the elegant plantation style home was “one of the most pretentious residences of its time in this section of Kentucky.” An excellent example of federal design, the four-panel double door entrance was topped by a beautiful elliptical fanlight, which was framed in reeded moulding with corner blocks of “exquisitely-carved rosettes.” The interior detail was equally elegant. The house had ten large rooms with high ceilings, each with a fireplace. The wide central hall featured a hand-carved walnut staircase rising on three sides, with chair railing and fine paneling. Beautiful hand-carved fireplace mantels were flanked by round-arched and in-curved cabinets with oval sunbursts and much reeding. The grand old house was “a place of elegance” intended for “gracious living” and a “benchmark of its period.”

On the banks of the Elkhorn Creek

The house rested on the edge of the bluff overlooking the South Elkhorn Creek, with a scenic location that left “little to be desired.” A spring house was located to the north, about two hundred yards from the house. The entrance wall was constructed of rough Kentucky stone and the structure was located on a slope and carved into a rock cliff. A spring still flows through this structure today. An ice house was located south of the house and the entire valley was surrounded by a stone fence, parts of which remain today.

Grist mill and bridge

On August 18, 1795, the sheriff was ordered to “summon and impanel twelve fit persons of his balliwick to meet on the premises of John Smith to inquire agreeable to an act of the General Assembly of Virginia” and permission was granted to Smith to build a water grist mill. Two years later, a road was laid out from the Leestown road to Smith’s mill on the South Elkhorn, so as to cross the creek at the “Waggon” ford. A bridge was built at the “wagon ford” in 1819. This was supported by a stone pier in the middle, and was used until it was swept away by a flood in the 1890s. The bridge was never rebuilt since the road was no longer a public thoroughfare, but a swinging footbridge was used for some time afterward. The embankments leading up to this bridge on the side of the creek are still visible on the farm today, as are the thick wire cables imbedded into the nearby trees which supported the swinging footbridge. How long John Smith owned the mill is not known. A map of the area, drawn by Mrs. M.C. Darnell in 1960, shows the site of the old mill, Valley Farm, the original road, which follows the current farm road, and nearby Roaring Springs on Elkhorn Creek.

Col. Smith and Chenoe lived at Valley Farm until they sold the property in 1831, at which time they moved to Henderson, in Western Kentucky. According to Mrs. Charles Stagner, nee Charlotte Hart and a great-great-granddaughter of Col. John and Chenoe Smith, the Smiths built a frame house in Henderson that was an exact replica of their stone house at Valley Farm.

Scott family continues tradition

Joel Scott bought Valley Farm on September 3, 1831, and paid $10,340 for the house and 517 acres. Valley Farm descended to his son, John R. Scott in 1837, and when he died in 1870, he left the farm to his son, Thomas W. Scott. “In three generations of the Scott family, it was a place of abundant, overflowing hospitality.” The farm remained in the Scott family until the 1960s. The house was destroyed by fire in 1961, leaving only the grand walls of Kentucky stone laid with shell mortar to attest to its fine craftsmanship and colorful history.