By Thelma Taylor 1983

Harrison County's 197,000 acres of land is shaped like a warm Hershey's chocolate---almost, but not quite, square. It is in the north-central part of the state, in the Bluegrass region. Seven counties touch its border---Bourbon, Nicholas, Scott, Grant, Pendleton, Robertson and Bracken.

Current county population reports, according to the Cooperative Extension Service, is 15,766. The 1920 census showed 15,798. According to these statistics, we've lost 32 people in 50 years.

No one seems to bother with statistics on horse trainers, buyers or sellers in Harrison County, but just from observation, they are numerous. None of these people make daily newspaper headlines, but they are making a good living from their business. They put on two first-class horse shows a year.

Main Licking and South Licking Rivers wiggle through Harrison County. It has one of the most adequate water supplies in the state aided by the Soil Conservation District started in 1945 and the Harrison County Water Association begun Dec. 15, 1969.

Manufacturing sprang up in the 1850s . . . woolen mills, saddle, harness, and implement manufacturers. The county settled back into agriculture with a few successful attempts at manufacturing. At one time, there were 33 distilleries.

A hundred years later, factories sprouted like dandelions around the perimeter of Cynthiana again. Kawneer was the first large metal factory, and was the first to leave after a 19-year stay. Recently, Wolfson Mfg., Blake and Johnson, and Cynthiana Screw Corporation have closed.

Still operation are Blue Grass Industries, Bundy Tubing, Cynthiana Manufacturing (Cleveland Twist Drill), Eaton Corp., Ladish, 3M, Production Plating, Safety Specialty (Bullard Mfg.), and Taylor Farms and Webber Farms, local meat processors.

Taylor Farms, on U.S. 27 north of Cynthiana, is noted for its cured hams. Howard Taylor's father started the business from his smokehouse in 1895. In 1958, Howard took over and began to enlarge the plant. A nephew, Mike Taylor, owns it now.

In 1974 Taylor was invited to the Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. to demonstrate the famous Kentucky cured ham. In August of that same year, his was the premium ham at the State Fair. It was auctioned to Tommy Borders of Borders Restaurant Service of Louisville for $600.00 a pound, or $9,600.00 for the ham!

Webber Farms, still called Webber's Sausage by locals, started in a house in Belmont, a westside suburb of Cynthiana in the 1930s. W. A. Webber Jr. sold sausage from the back of his station wagon. When his son Billy returned from World War II, he and his father went in business together on a 21 acre farm on the Tricum Pike two miles west of Cynthiana. They made $9.00 between them the first week.

Billy asked his father, "Will it always be this way?" His father's answer was, "Nope." Webber Farms now employs 170 and distributes pork products to midwest states, Florida and the west coast. Newest specialties are Johnny Ribs and Webber Cheese.

The Cynthiana Public Library won the Dorothy Canfield Fisher award in 1964 for being one of the "top 10" small public libraries in the United States. It was established in 1930 on the second floor of City Hall. In 1959, William Wohlwender willed money for a library building. The handsome edifice on South Church Street houses 46,000 books, plus records, film, tapes, prints, periodicals and community meeting rooms. The circulation for 1981 was 160,309 with 54 percent of the county registered as users of the library. Mrs. Prentice Burgan, Sr. is head librarian.

The modern Harrison Memorial Hospital on the Millersburg Pike next to Battle Grove Cemetery, originated on Penn Street in 1906, relocated on Pike Street in 1920, expanded in 1950 and moved to the present site in 1968. It has recently completed expansion and modernization of its facilities.

The city/county-owned airport was started by airplane enthusiasts in 1964. It provides a 3,200-foot runway, aircraft maintenance, tie-downs, flight lessons, and entertainment throughout the year such as fly-in breakfasts, parachute jumps and rides.

Flora Shropshire willed money to the county for a first class animal shelter. It is a 21-room indoor-outdoor run facility on a five acre lot on the New Lair Road near the airport. Bill Cummins, dog warden and superintendent of the shelter, said 1,400 dogs passed through the facility last year. There is an active humane and adoption service which has been helpful to farmers of the area. Many small animals were killed by starving, stray dogs---raising sheep was almost impossible.

There are 60 churches in the county and about as many clubs and organizations, from Coon Hunters to Gamma Chi of Beta Sigma Phi.

The county's business and industry is as diversified as the clubs, churches and agriculture. The county's people are of no special nationality. Nothing predominates except friendliness..

The person who might claim honor for having the longest name of any Harrison Countian was Archibald Alexander Asbury James Johnson January Marcus DeLaffayette Whitaker, of the Oddville community. They called him Arch.

Judge Mac Swinford is probably the best known name in the county. He lived on Pike Street in a beautiful colonial home with his wife, the former Minnie Benton Peterson. They were both lawyers and children of lawyers, with a lawyer son, John.

Judge Mac was elected to the Kentucky legislature in 1925 at the age of 25, the youngest representative to serve from Harrison County. He was appointed as a U.S. District attorney in 1933. He was appointed district judge of the Eastern and Western Districts by President Franklin Roosevelt on August 19,1937. He was the first judge to be appointed to serve both districts.

In November, 1955, Judge Mac wrote the first opinion on abolishing segregated schools.

Except for a New York judge, Swinford was a federal district judge longer than any other in the nation. He died at the age of 75 (in 1975) after working a full day in court. Mrs. Swinford lives at their home on Pike Street and is still Cynthiana's only woman lawyer, although she is busy now being a mother and grandmother.

George Slade, at one time, hated flags (iris). Twenty-one years ago he criticized his wife for planting "those old flags in the yard." Now they have an iris garden that is open to the public each spring, and George is internationally known for his iris growing, breeding and showing.

George is the prime power behind the development of one of the best iris shows in the state. He spearheaded a county-wide cleanup and beautification program during the county's Bicentennial celebration. He is a very shy man until you start talking about iris, then he will do anything to help.

Another contributor to UK from Harrison County was W. T. (William Thornton) Lafferty. He said, in an account written in 1915, "I carefully prepared a bill that created the State University." He lived on Pike Street with his wife and daughter, Helen, during his first year as dean of the law school, and rode the train to Lexington each day.

A Harrison Countian who never attended the University of Kentucky, Violet B. Renaker, left UK Medical School the largest single amount of money when she died in 1973.

Miss Renaker inherited 330 acres of land from her aunt, Lala Beale Gray. She was positive the land had oil on it. She was right…she hit five wells straight with her first five drillings. This land went to UK.

UK also received $200,000 worth of stocks, bonds and cash; a three-quarters interest in a Riverside, California orange grove; and six houses and lots in Fort Worth, Texas. The donation is known as the Andrew Jackson Beale Fund in memory of her grandfather, a Harrison County doctor, and is to be used to educate medical students from rural areas.

Miss Renaker, daughter of Cornelius and Julia Beale Renaker of Connersville, also made bequests to Kentucky Wesleyan College at Owensboro, the Cynthiana Library and relatives.

Margaret Goudy came to Cynthiana from Scotland with her father at the age of seven. At 21, she fell in love with a boy who had newly arrived in town from Scotland. Her father refused to let them marry until he had written to ask about the boy's character. The boy left, and Margaret's health began to decline. Gossips began to talk ... one woman met her before church one Sunday and shamed her for being seen in public in her "condition." Her father believed the gossips, regardless of his daughter's protests and sent her to the attic of their house on Main Street at the corner of Mill Street.

The boy returned, and he too believed the rumors. Standing below the attic window, he asked why she had deceived him.

I am innocent. God knows it and will prove it to all the world," she told him. "Please don't leave me. I am dying, I think." She dropped a long curl of her hair to his feet saying, "Keep it. You'll be glad when I am dead that you have it."

Almost a year later, her father saw her worsening condition and called back the same doctor who had confirmed the gossips. After this examination, the physician declared that she had a tumor and would die shortly.

Margaret wrote, I forgive those who have persecuted me and I am not afraid to die." At her request, the doctor performed an autopsy so that the town might know of her innocence before her burial. Her monument in the old Cynthiana cemetery bears this inscription:

Here lies the innocent - though persecuted - Margaret Gaudy, who was born May 6, 1792 and died October 12, 1814

The growing and sale of Burley tobacco has been the chief business of Harrison County during most of its history. There are 1400 farms in the county and most of these have tobacco bases. The 12 tobacco warehouses held the title of being the largest single-buyer market in the state. In the 1982-83 marketing year, Cynthiana warehouses sold over 42 million pounds at an average of $187.11...the highest of any town in the state except for two days of the marketing season.

Harrison has a large representation of both foreign and domestic buyers. Lark Kendall, long-time tobacco buyer, said in the beginning, farmers sold their crops in barns where buyers came to offer a price. Later, samples were wrapped in burlap bags and unrolled on the streets of Cynthiana to be bid on.

The loose-leaf market started about 83 years ago on South Church Street at the old Burley House. The first basket belonged to Barton and Smith. It was sold to S. K. Nichols of Paris at $11.75 per hundred pounds by auctioneer C. E. VanHook before 500 spectators.