June 6, 2012
Last week I told you about the troubles that Kentucky faced with insufficient surveys that resulted in multiple claimants for many properties.
This week I have spent a lot of time in the Breckinridge (and Preston and Hart and Shelby) family estates. Robert Jefferson Breckinridge had a good patrimonial estate. If you look up the “Kentucky Horse Park” in Lexington on a map, and look for a creek straight east from there, you will be at the center of “Braedalbane” (RJB’s estate), and “Cabell’s Dale” (his father’s estate – inherited by one of RJB’s sons) is at the junction of Iron Works Pike and Mt. Horeb Pike (where the Mt Horeb Presbyterian Church is located — the church that RJB’s older brother founded, and where RJB was ordained as a ruling elder). You actually get a better map when you search for “Mt. Horeb Presbyterian Church.” (RJB’s house is no longer standing, but it was located on Huffman Mill Pike on the northwest side of the stream). This is prime bluegrass real estate!
RJB married Ann Sophonisba Preston. Her father, General Francis Preston of Virginia, did rather well for himself — investing in Louisville, Kentucky, when the city was just forming. He picked up a piece of real estate along the Ohio River — later called Preston’s Enlargement — which yielded some good land rent at first, but as the city grew, it was right in the path of Main and Market streets. And when I say “in the path of” — I don’t mean twenty blocks away. “First Street” is two blocks away! In other words, he owned the land on which Louisville Slugger Field now sits. And he gave a sizeable chunk of that land to his daughter, Sophy, for her children’s inheritance. (Not surprisingly, the cross-streets are titled, Floyd [another son-in-law], Preston, Jackson, Hancock, Clay, Shelby, Campbell [his wife’s maiden name], and, a few blocks down, “Breckinridge”). In 1856, RJB parceled out the Preston lands to his wife’s eight surviving children. Each received a few lots, worth $10,000 each.
Both his father, John Breckinridge, and his father-in-law, Francis Preston, had much larger estates, but with all the legal battles involved in establishing a clear title to land, and since they both had at least nine children, the portion received by their grandchildren was far more modest than what they themselves owned. While there was some squabbling and hard feelings in both families, it was nothing like what some other families faced (RJB’s second wife, Virginia Hart Shelby, who was Sophy’s first cousin, had a much uglier family squabble over the Hart estate).
Francis Preston married Sarah Campbell (who was a niece of Patrick Henry). Together they had 15 children. I’ll just mention the ones who play a role in the story of RJB:
William Campbell Preston (1794-1860) — U.S. Senator from South Carolina (1833-1842) — which put him in Washington D.C. for much of the time that RJB was a pastor in Baltimore
Eliza Henry Preston (1796-1877) — married General Edward Carrington (his business went up in smoke in the fires that produced the panic of 1837 and he fell into depression — she opened a school for girls, and taught several of RJB’s daughters after the death of their mother, her sister).
Susanna Smith Preston (1800-1847) — married Governor James McDowell of Virginia (their daughter, Sally, married the infamous Governor Francis Thomas of Maryland — and later divorced him in a notorious scandal — RJB helped rescue her from the abusive Governor Thomas. She later married John Miller — son of Samuel Miller of Princeton Seminary. As noted below, John’s sister had previously married RJB’s brother; now he married RJB’s niece!).
Sarah Buchanan Preston (1802-1879) — married Governor John B. Floyd of Virginia
Ann Sophonisba Preston (1803-1844) — married RJB!!
John Smith Preston (1809-1881) — married Caroline Hampton (sister of Wade Hampton) of South Carolina and settled on a large plantation in Louisiana
Thomas Lewis Preston (1812-1903) — professor at the University of Virginia (executor of the family estate — which meant that most of the hard feelings in the Preston family oriented around him!)
Margaret Buchanan Preston (1818-1852) — married General Wade Hampton of South Carolina
The standard practice was for sons to inherit the “family estate” (in order to keep the family name associated with the family estate) while other property or cash would be given to daughters. But when wealthy patriarchs had large families, the children invariably wound up with a smaller piece of the pie. The 10 Preston children to reach adulthood produced 38 grandchildren. Likewise, 7 of John Breckinridge’s 9 children reached adulthood, producing over 40 grandchildren.
But while most of John Breckinridge’s children reached adulthood — only two outlived their mother! Mary Hopkins Cabell Breckinridge died in 1858 at the age of 89. The siblings of RJB were:
Laetitia Preston Breckinridge (1786-1831) — died at age 45 (her first husband is always referred to as “the unfortunate Mr. Grayson” — he ruined himself, his family, and his promising political career through his gambling debts; her second husband, General Peter B. Porter, was a business colleague of Martin Van Buren, and served as secretary of war under John Quincy Adams).
Joseph Cabell Breckinridge (1788-1823) — died at age 35 (he married Mary Clay Smith, daughter of Samuel Stanhope Smith, the president of Princeton College; he served as secretary of state for Kentucky, and was known as the only lawyer in Lexington to become a communicant member of a church).
[two children, Mary and Robert, died in infancy in the 1790s]
Mary Ann Breckinridge (1794-1816) — died at age 22 (she married a neighbor, David Castleman, and died shortly after giving birth to their daughter; David Castleman then served as guardian for RJB while he was in college).
John Breckinridge (1797-1841) — died at age 44 (he married Margaret Miller, daughter of Samuel Miller, professor at Princeton Theological Seminary; he went on to serve as pastor of 2nd Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, and then as a professor at PTS with his father-in-law; their son, Samuel Miller Breckinridge married a daughter of David Castleman’s second wife [though he had been interested in RJB’s daughter, Mary, for a time], and became a federal judge in St. Louis, and an influential ruling elder in the Presbyterian church. He died at the General Assembly of 1891, immediately after completing an impassioned speech arguing that the General Assembly should disapprove of the teaching of Charles Briggs and forbid his teaching in Union Theological Seminary. As stated in the Minutes, “The Hon. Samuel Miller Breckinridge, LL.D., took the floor, and after speaking twenty minutes in favor of the Report of the Committee, closed his speech with the words, ‘I have discharged my duty,’ and turning to leave the platform, fell dead.” Needless to say, the debate was suspended for the day, and the Assembly spent the rest of the day in a service of “prayer and solemn commemoration” [Minutes, p92]).
RJB (1800-1871) — died at age 71. But, as you can see, although he was the seventh child, by the time he was 41, he was the oldest of the Breckinridge children!
William Lewis Breckinridge (1803-1876) — died at age 73 (he married Frances Prevost — a granddaughter of Samuel Stanhope Smith — and therefore, a niece of Cabell’s wife, Mary — he served as pastor of 1st Presbyterian Church in Louisville for more than twenty years, and later as president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky).
James Monroe Breckinridge (1806-1819) — died at age 13.
I had intended to say a little more about the sin and misery involved in the estate conflicts — but that will have to await another day.
