Uncovering Early American History in Bourbon Country

In Kentucky, all families and all roads lead to Bourbon. But early American history sometimes gets obscured. Today, careful research and restoration is helping to recover it, right under our feet.

Revolutionary War Land Grants

Marking the John Kennady Family Cemetery

Many families came to Kentucky in the 1700s thanks to Revolutionary War land grants. One of these land grants was given to Revolutionary War soldier John Kennady, who settled in what today is the Boston area of Nelson County, Kentucky. Upon his death, he was buried on his property, followed by his second wife, and several other family members. There was a church nearby with a church graveyard that eventually expanded to include the Kennady family cemetery. Eventually, the church disappeared, possibly lost to fire, and along with it the record of where the cemetery was or who was buried there. As properties changed hands time and time again, the story of who exactly was buried there became increasingly obscured. In the 1970s, the John Fitch chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution found John Kennady’s grave, still intact enough to read his name and date of death, and placed a bronze marker. Then the location of the site was again lost, until Kennady’s 4th great-granddaughter, Karyn Courtney, set out to find him.

Finding the Cemetery. Again.

Searching historical records for the cemetery

“My late sister and I found the cemetery in 2019,” Courtney recalls. “The only way we could tell it was our grandfather's cemetery was the bronze plaque that marked his Revolutionary War service. It was placed there in the 1970s by the Bardstown DAR. Unfortunately, they did not have any records of the exact location of the cemetery when I was looking for it. No one in the family that I was aware of knew the exact location either. My one cousin had been looking for it off and on for several years also. I got very lucky to talk to a local man that was very familiar with the area and pointed me to multiple cemeteries. One of them was the right one.”

Courtney recalls driving around Nelson County on a trip with her sister in 2019. A local had pointed up the hill from the road, and away she went through the heavy brush until she reached the top. Through the thicket, she spotted the glimmering bronze plaque and knew she’d found her 4th great-grandfather’s final resting place. Nearby was a fence that bordered a lake, and beyond that were the rickhouses of the Jim Beam Booker Noe plant in Boston, Kentucky.

Just before that trip, Courtney had come in possession of a book about the Kennedy family history (there are multiple spellings of Kennedy, including her Kennady relatives) and had a map that showed a creek and the Nelson County and Bullitt County line with an approximate location of the family cemetery.

“There are about 15 other graves there that we think are family relatives, but most stones are impossible to read,” Courtney says. “While the cleanup was going on last year, Beam uncovered another 100 graves that we think were a church graveyard. The church used to be on the property before my grandfather bought it. I believe the church burnt down at some point and was rebuilt elsewhere.”

Revolutionary War History

Restoration work at Jim Beam

Beam employees who have been working over the last several years to clean up the site said they’d heard a rumor that there was a Civil War graveyard up on the hill behind the lake where Booker Noe used to fish, but they weren’t sure exactly where it was. Once Courtney found it, Beam Vets of the Jim Beam Booker Noe Plant set out clearing the brush and locating the badly weathered headstones. They’d brought in ground penetrating radar and were able to confirm that there were at least 40 burials in the area, explaining that animals may have scattered parts of the stones, making it appear as though there were more graves than there really are.

Beam Vets Restoration

Marking the grave of John Kennady

“I’m really excited that this year will be the end of five years of restoration,” says Nathan Crosley, General Manager, James B. Beam Distilling Co. Operations at Suntory Global Spirits. “Beam Vets is a group that we have developed that is mainly veterans who work for Beam and allies that all come together to better support veterans in our own community. The group has been fantastic. They really have come together in partnership. Our Beam Veterans group steps up to work on many activities, and this is one of them. We’re very proud of what the group has done. They took charge. Once they found out about this cemetery, they were the ones that led the search for the cemetery and also led all the cleanup efforts. We just supported it and made sure that our employees were able to volunteer and we donated some resources to be able to support that.”

Restoration efforts have included clearing brush and cutting down trees to make the graves once again visible, adding benches for visitors, and installing a gravel pathway that leads to the gate. Volunteers have also sprayed a special headstone cleaning solution on what’s left of the headstones in hopes that additional information would become visible, and they put a barrel hoop and gravel around each marker to prevent overgrowth from taking over again. The cemetery border is marked with an American flag made from reclaimed Bourbon barrel staves, created by Cruise Custom Flags, a local Veteran-owned business.

“The only people we have been able to identify for sure are my 4th great-grandfather, John Kennady, and his 2nd wife, Elizabeth Countryman Kennady,” Courtney says.

After years of searching, she’s still looking for Kennady’s first wife, her 4th great-grandmother.

And, of course, whenever a family has been in Kentucky that long, it’s not hard to find a tie to the distilling industry.

“One of my grandfather's sons, John (maybe Jr.), was married to Agnes Samuels, a sister to Robert Samuels, who I believe started the distillery that would later become Maker's Mark, which now Beam owns,” Courtney says. “I just found that out about a month ago myself.”

What other fascinating history will turn up at distilleries in Kentucky is anyone's guess.