Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
In 1754 at the age of 24, John Cole signed a lease with Hancock Lee for 150 acres of land on the north side of Horsepen Run. The land adjoined the plantation of John Herndon in King George County, Virginia.
In 1775 and 1776, Lee’s son Willis Lee entered Virginia’s District of Kentucky and encamped at the spring named Lee’s Big Spring, midway between today’s Frankfort and Lexington. Willis Lee, his cousin Hancock Taylor, Isaac Hite, James Douglas, and John Floyd surveyed the area, for the Ohio Company. They filed 18 surveys, totaling 7,200 acres. Taylor built a log cabin but then was killed by an Indian war party. In April of 1776, Willis Lee also was killed.
Capt. John Lee, son of Hancock Lee of Virginia, entered Kentucky and made a brick addition to Taylor’s log cabin. He occupied the structure and began a tavern business. The Kentucky Gazette advertised Lee’s Blackhorse Inn.
John Cole died three years after executing his lease. His funeral expenses were paid with a case of whisky. In 1782, John’s youngest son, Richard James Cole, joined John Lee in Kentucky, building a residence on Cole’s Road, connecting Lexington to Frankfort. With Humphrey Marshall, Cole surveyed Frankfort for a new state capitol. He soon acquired slaves. On Cole’s Road, Richard James Cole established and operated Cole’s Tavern. The notoriety of the place nicknamed the business as Cole’s Bad Tavern.
In 1802 John Cole died. His ordinary, not too distant from Cole’s Bad Tavern, was sold to the mulatto William Dailey and his partner John Kennedy. Fortesqieu Cummings wrote his stays at the Blackhorse Inn and Cole’s Bad Tavern.
“Any traveler who has once contrasted the rough vulgarity and the badness of his table and accommodations, with the taste, order, plenty and good attendance of his (Cole’s) mulatto competitor will never trouble Mr. Cole a second time.”
In 1811, Cole’s Bad Tavern burned. In December of 1812, Richard James Cole acquired the nearby Blackhorse Inn from Dailey & Kennedy. Richard James Cole Jr. became its operator. Richard Sr. died three years later. His great-granddaughter Zerelda Elizabeth Cole was born in the Inn on January 29, 1825. Zerelda’s sons are Frank & Jesse James.
RELATED: More about Cole’s Bad Tavern
More about the Blackhorse Tavern
FREE DOWNLOAD: The Descendants of John Cole Sr. – the Immigrant
☞Today in Old-West History — On today’s date 119 years ago, Sunday, October 19, 1902, notorious Old-West outlaw & fiddle player James Hardin “Uncle Jim” Younger (1848-1902) met his earthly demise at the age of 54 when he committed suicide by gunshot whilst on parole at Saint Paul, Minnesota.
☞Requiéscant In Pace, Jim Younger.
☞Jim Younger was one of the central figures of a band of the most desperate outlaws the Old West ever knew — the infamous James-Younger Gang, which was formed by Jim’s brother Cole Younger along with Frank & Jesse James.
☞Jim Younger joined the Confederate Army during the War Between the States (1861-1865) & served with Quantrill’s Raiders. In 1864, he was captured by Union troops & was imprisoned until the end of the War.
☞After the War, Younger worked on various ranches until he joined the James-Younger Gang in 1873. When his brother John was killed at Roscoe, Missouri in 1874, Jim left the gang & went out west where he worked on a ranch in San Luis Obispo, California.
☞In 1876, Jim returned to the gang, & on September 7 he participated in a bank robbery that became known as the Great Northfield Minnesota Raid. During that robbery he was shot & captured. The James brothers escaped, but Cole, Jim, & Bob Younger were shot up by a posse, arrested, & sentenced to long terms in the state penitentiary at Stillwater, Minnesota, where they were afforded celebrity status.
☞Jim Younger’s fiddle was one of the few possessions that he was allowed to have with him in prison, & he played it often. As time passed, Jim noticed that a little bird would appear most every day in the window of his jail cell. It seemed as though the bird came to listen whenever Jim played his fiddle. Jim was lonely & he befriended the bird which he named “Swipsy.” The bird would fly into the prison cell & Jim would always try to have crumbs to feed Swipsy. One day, a fellow prisoner killed the little bird just for spite. Jim then painted a picture of Swipsy on the back of his violin to remember his little feathered friend.
☞In 1898, the prison warden allowed the prisoners to throw a Christmas party at his own home, with Cole Younger portraying Santa Claus & Jim Younger playing his fiddle.
☞Paroled in 1901, Jim became engaged to his long-time lover Alix Mueller; however, because of the terms of his parole he couldn’t marry her.
☞On October 19, 1902, after a failed attempt to sell tombstones & then insurance, Jim Younger locked himself in his room, wrote a suicide note to Alix, picked up his revolver, & blew his brains out.
☞In 2013, Jim Younger’s fiddle, which was played by him at the famous 1898 Christmas party at Stillwater Prison, was sold at a Dallas, Texas auction for over $11,000.
☞The left-hand photograph depicts the image of Swipsy the Bird that Jim Younger painted on the back of his fiddle. The right-hand photograph depicts an undated studio portrait of Jim Younger.
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Stray Leaves Daily updated their info in the about section.
After 10 years, our webpage for the Flat Lick Baptist Church & its founder John M. James has been updated. New additions include a video about the rebel preachers and their Traveling Church, the "talented, but erratic" pastor Joe Martin James, photos of the 100th & 200th anniversaries, slaves in the congregation, collapsing stone walls, Flat Lick on YouTube today – all waiting for a new pastor to take the reins in the 21st century. ericjames.org/wordpress/2011/05/13/flat-lick-baptist-church/
Flat Lick Baptist Church Founded by John M. James
ericjames.org
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes John M. James, the grandfather of Frank & Jesse James, arrived on the Kentucky frontier in 1782 in the company ofFor Drury Woodson James, founder of Paso Robles, CA., and all his descendants, PASO ROBLES FOUNDERS’ DAY 2021.
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