William L. Barkley

Welcome to Genealogy Trails

Jessamine County Kentucky

Biographies

History Of Kentucky, Vol. 4, Year of 1922

Contributed by Brenda Weisner

BARKLEY, WILLIAM L.,

William L. Barkley was one of the venerable native sons of Jessamine County at the time of his death and was an honored representative of one of the sterling pioneer families of this county. Here he was born on the loth of January, 1811, and here his death occurred in 1886, when he was seventy-five years of age, his wife likewise having been seventy-five years of age at the time of death.

Mr. Barkley was a son of George Barkley, who was born in Jessamine County on the 7th of December, 1782, a son of John Barkley, who was numbered among the earliest settlers in this section of the state. George Barkley married Miss Martha E. Higbee, who was born January 13, 178o, a daughter of John H. Higbee, who built and operated one of the early saw mills and pioneer distilleries at South Elkhorn, Fay- ette County. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. George Barkley was solemnized in 18o6, and he was but thirty- three years of age at the time of his death. His youthful widow remained on the home farm and reared her four children with the utmost maternal devotion, the two sons having been John K. and William L. Margaret, the elder daughter, became the wife of William Clark, who was engaged in the practice of law at Nicholasville for a number of years and who later resided on his large and valuable farm on the Nicholasville Turnpike, in Jessamine County, where his death occurred, his widow having passed the closing period of her life in the City of Louisville. Mary, the younger daughter, became the wife of John Lafon, a substantial farmer of Jessamine County, and she was sixty years of age at the time of her death.

John Barkley, the elder son, maintained his home at Danville and as president of the Southern Railroad, passing through that city, he was instrumental in having the fine towers erected at the high bridge over the Kentucky River where crossed by the line of this railway. He was in middle life at the time of his death, he having been killed in a runaway accident while driving a spirited team. His son William resides in the City of Louisville, and his daughter Mary became the wife of Rev. William Brown, a Presbyterian clergyman in that city.

Mrs. Martha E. (Higbee) Barkley had come as a bride to the farm now owned by her granddaughter, the wife of Joseph H. Lane, of whom individual mention is made on other pages of this publication, and after the death of her husband she erected the fine old house which still adorns the homestead, the closing years of her life, however, having been passed in the home of her son William L., who then resided on the Harrodsburg Turnpike in Jessamine County. Mrs. Barkley, a gracious gentlewoman who was revered by all who knew her, passed to the life eternal at the venerable age of eighty-two years. On the walls of one of the rooms in the house which she erected, as above noted, there hangs an oil portrait of her when she was somewhat more than forty years of age, and it is needless to say that the same is treasured by her granddaughter, Mrs. Lane.

William L. Barkley was reared and educated in his native county and as a young man he wedded Miss Adaline Stout, a daughter of David R. and Delilah (Higbee) Stout, her mother having been a daughter of John H. Higbee, mentioned in a preceding paragraph. In addition to his successful association with farm industry, Mr. Barkley operated a distillery and powder mill at South Elkhorn in Fayette County. He divided his estate of 6oo acres among his children, but retained 3oo acres in the home farm, on which he and his wife resided at the time of their deaths. Of their children the eldest is Martha, wife of Joseph H. Lane, who is the subject of a personal sketch on other pages; Margaret C. is the widow of John Steele and resides at Nicholasville; John is a prosperous farmer in the State of Oklahoma, near Paden, and his property is well within the oil district in that section of the state; Ada became the wife of Dr. F. O. Young, of Lexington, and died at the age of fifty-one years; Eugenia.

History of Kentucky, by Charles Kerr 1922