and to his cripple son Allen he gave a double portion of his estate. He left to his sister-inlaw, Patsy Lonsdale, who was an unmarried woman, an old negro servant named Caroline. By this gift Richard Menefee saved his wife's maiden name to Kentucky history, as he simply called her, in his will, "Mary." The slaves he left to his five sons, but they were not divided and sold until 1829. Richard Menefee, one of the founders of Owingsville, one of the wisest law makers of Kentucky's earlier years, and the father of one of the three great orators of Kentucky, sleeps to-day in an unknown grave.

On October 24, 1819, when Menefee was nearly ten years of age, his mother married Col. George Lansdowne,' who was for many years proprietor of the Olympian Springs, in Bath County, Kentucky.

1

'Marriage Record Book 1, Bath County Clerk's Office.

CHAPTER II

EDUCATION

The first twelve years of Richard H. Menefee's life were spent under his mother's watchful eye, and it is certain that she took the advice of the wisest man of antiquity, and brought up her child in the way he should go. She also lived to see that he did not depart from it. His elementary education was received at her hands and, in the fall of 1821, in his twelfth year, he was sent to the preparatory school of Walker Bourne, and not to "a gentleman whose name was Tompkins." Marshall described the characteristics of Menefee's

teacher, but in some way got his name incorrect. Perhaps the famous Kentucky orator and wit would ask, Juliet-like, "what's in a name?" In love a name is perhaps nil, but in history a name amounts to a great deal. Eloquence and accuracy do not always go hand in hand.

The first school in Montgomery County was opened in 1794, and taught by Robert Trimble,' who afterward became associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He taught school the entire year, five days in the week. Trimble's school was located near the Springfield church, which had been opened the same year that the school was founded, by Rev. Joseph P. Howe. A few years after Trimble

'Historical Sketches of Montgomery County, prepared by Richard Ried. 1882.

began to teach, Bourne opened his school in the same neighborhood.

Walker Bourne was born on the banks of the Rapidan River, in Virginia, on May 5, 1790. He was brought to Kentucky at the age of seven years by his father, James Bourne, who was a Revolutionary soldier. Bourne served as a private soldier in Richard Menefee's company at the battle of the Thames. He was also elected as a magistrate in Mt. Sterling, and was familiarly known as "Squire" Bourne. His reputation rests, however, on his ability as a teacher. For years he labored in the schoolroom and some of the State's most distinguished men were, at some period of their lives, his pupils. He is the Kentucky Doctor Thomas Arnold. One of Bourne's most distinguished pupils, Dr. Preston W. W. Hill, M. D., and one of Menefee's classmates, wrote an article on Menefee for the Kentucky Journal of Education,' many years ago, in which he testified to the excellent influence that Bourne exercised upon Menefee. Dr. Hill said that Bourne was quick to see that Menefee had the stuff in him out of which a great man could be made, and he did everything to encourage him to study and to think. He would take long walks out into the country with Menefee, as Professor James Woodrow did with a young Georgian, many years later, and whom the literary world loves as Sidney Lanier. He told Menefee of the arduous boyhood of nearly all the great Americans, how they had struggled with poverty and had overcome it. Bourne

'Article in Mrs. Robert Harding's Scrap Book. Begun in 1863.

read to Menefee North's translation of "Plutarch's Lives," which undoubtedly encouraged the young Kentuckian to aim at greatness.

Bourne used only three text-books in his school: Thomas Dilworth's Arithmetic and Speller and the King James Version of the Bible. Bourne was a Christian for nearly half a century and it is safe to say that his students were instructed in the principles of a catholic Christianity. He lived to see Menefee attain his fame, and also to have him testify, to Dr. Hill, after making one of his most brilliant speeches, that he was greatly indebted to his old teacher for his success.

Richard H. Menefee's classmate that attained celebrity far in advance of any other of his classmates, was Henry Smith Lane, who was two years younger than himself. Lane attended Bourne's school until he was sixteen years of age, when he studied law and removed to Indiana. He began practice at Crawfordsville, in 1837, and was sent to the legislature. In 1838 he was elected to the 25th Congress and served through the second regular session with Menefee. In Washington the two Kentucky schoolmates no doubt renewed their friendship, and must have passed many a happy hour talking over their boyhood school days spent at Bourne's school. Lane served in Congress until 1842, when Clay's defeat retired him from political life for the next sixteen years. He, like Menefee, was a Whig. In 1860 he was elected Governor of Indiana, and a few months later he was elected to the United States Senate, where he served six years. Lane

died in Crawfordsville, Indiana, June 11, 1881. 'Over in Indiana, Lane used to tell the Hoosiers of the wonderful young Kentucky orator whose eloquence fascinated the people of his native State, and captured the 25th Congress.

Two other of Bourne's pupils, although only one of them was Menefee's classmate, achieved greatness: Albert G. Harrison and John Jameison. Harrison left Bourne's school one or two years before Menefee became a student there, and at the age of eighteen years entered Transylvania University at Lexington, where he graduated in the arts and in law. After a few years of practice at Mt. Sterling, he removed to Fulton, Missouri, and in 1837 was elected as a member of the 25th CongressMenefee's Congress. In Congress Harrison made several good speeches on the public land question. He died in Fulton, Missouri, September 7, 1839.

Jameison, who was a student at Bourne's school at the same time that Menefee was a student there, emigrated to Missouri in 1825, and five years later was elected to the legislature, and served one term as Speaker of the House. In 1839 he was elected to Congress to serve out Harrison's term. After leaving Congress Jameison studied divinity and became a preacher in the Church of the Disciples. He died in 1855 or 1856.

2

Menefee's other classmate, Dr. Preston Hill, was a leading physician in Montgomery

'Article on Menefee by P. S. Kent, of Crawfordsville, in Menefee Scrap Book.

"Judge Bay's "Reminiscences of the Missouri Bench and Bar." 1878.