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Historic Homes and Buildings

Liberty Hall

This brick home of fourteen rooms has a most striking entry of classic style topped with a second story palladium window, flanked by a twelve pane sash window. The building of the house began almost immediately after the purchase of the lot.  With exceptions, all of the materials used in the construction of the home were prepared on site.  The bricks were molded and kilns were set up to fire the brick. Lumber was cut and dried under a shed and the solid logs used for the stairs were shaped on site. The nails were purchased from a local blacksmith. Philadelphia supplied the glass, which was packed over the mountains on mule back, then by river boat to Frankfort and the brass imported from England.  The house contains furniture by Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton and good Kentucky cabinetmakers. John's library contains over six thousand books, including his Fee Book. Notable clients included are Governors Isaac Shelby and James Garrard, James Speed and Daniel Boone.

Senator John Brown was born in Staunton, Virginia on September 12, 1757,  the son of Reverend John and Margaret Preston Brown. John received his first education at his father's grammar School, Liberty Hall Academy.  In 1776  he went to the College of New Jersey, now Princeton, but was forced to flee as the British Army approached.   He then enrolled in the College of William and Mary in 1778 to study law. Studying under such notables as Edmond Randolph, George Wythe and Thomas Jefferson, he became a practicing lawyer in 1782.

On February 21, 1799 in New York, John married Margaretta Mason.  The couple moved to Frankfort and into Liberty Hall, the home John had built for his parents in 1796. John and Margaretta had four children, however only Mason and Orlando reached adulthood, their only daughter, died young.  John Brown died  on August 28, 1837 and is buried in the Frankfort Cemetery, section N along side his wife and children.

Read more about Liberty Hall.

Sources:
The Kentucky Encyclopedia, by Kleber
Capital On The Kentucky, by Kramer
A Century of Progress, by Farmers Bank

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