The ruins of the old Buckner Furnace, known as "The Stack," form one of the most desolate, yet interesting landmarks in the county. As far as I am aware, nothing, save one paragraph in the First Kentucky Geological Survey, has ever been written on the history of this once flourishing place. The deed books in the county clerk's office record the dates of land transfers, but reveal none of the romances and tragedies that make up the Story of The Stack. Members of the younger generation--many, at least, of those with whom I have come in contact--simply know the remains of the Buckner Furnace as "The Stack," the "Old Furnace," or the "Pennsylvania Furnace," and that General Simon Bolivar Buckner had been in some way connected with the old iron works. Collins in his 1847 edition refers to it as the "Henry Clay Iron Works." So the old people were the only ones from whom I could gather any information, and they frequently disagreed on very important points. The Stack, I find, was erected in 1837 and was operated only a few years. The few men and women now living who saw the place when it was running were all too young to remember their visits; some of them, nevertheless, are well versed in the traditions of the old Furnace.

One young man, who might have learned something of the history of The Stack from his grandparents, unaware of his ignorance regarding local and national history, "informed" me that The Stack was built by General Buckner during the Mexican War, and a few years later, when the American Revolution broke out, General Buckner furnished Washington and Andrew Jackson with guns and swords with which to whip the French and British; that if General Buckner had not been prepared to supply the iron from The Stack for the making of American cannon, and if saltpeter had not been discovered in Mammoth Cave about this time, England would have won the fight and helped Jeff Davis defeat the North! All of which, if not history, is at least interesting.

The land on which The Stack stands was for a long time owned by a company of capitalists, and is therefore frequently referred to as "the Company land." However, the same young man insists that this title originated from the fact that many of the people living on this tract of land in olden times had "a heap of company."

Another rural philologist, pointing out a piece of pig iron made at The Stack three quarters of a century ago, "informed" me that his grandfather said that this pig iron is so called because on "hog-killing" days General Buckner heated these chunks of iron and then threw them into barrels of water in order to bring the water to a temperature sufficient to scald the skin of the hogs, preparatory to scraping off the hair. This process of heating water for cleaning hogs is as old as the hills, the only difference being that ordinary rocks are almost invariably used instead of pig iron.The Stack as It Appeared in 1905

It seems that about the year 1833 one William Miller, of Massachusetts, claimed to have received a revelation (written on some hen eggs he found in a hollow stump) to the effect that the destruction of the world would take place in 1843. He preached this doctrine throughout the United States, and had a few followers in Muhlenberg County. When, in 1842, the Furnace was abandoned, Miller's converts declared Buckner closed down his iron works because he did not want to be running a hot furnace on Judgment Day. Those who did not know why operations were discontinued immediately drew the conclusion that Buckner had become a Millerite. The absurd story thus started is still heard in a few of the local traditions.

Such confusion of the details of national history of which there is a written record, and the telling of such ridiculous tales as these I have just cited, are to be expected, and they serve to show that many statements regarding old places, like many reports regarding current events, are not only false but often absurd, and that "investigation brings out the truth."

At any rate, the discovery of the extensive deposits of surface iron ore in southern Muhlenberg County prompted Aylette H. Buckner (the father of General Buckner) and Cadwalader Churchill to organize a company for the purpose of working this ore. In 1837 they erected a furnace near the junction of Pond Greek and Salt Lick Creek, five miles south of Greenville, and before the close of the following year the iron works were put in operation. The Stack was built at the foot of a hill, and a level gangway was placed from the top of the hill to the top of the furnace, where there was a charging platform over the opening through which the ore was fed. The Stack was a double wall of local sandstone, hooped with six iron bands, the whole forming one massive tower about eighty feet-high, forty feet wide at the base, and twenty-five feet across at the top. 1

Alfred Johnson, Garland Craig, and Thomas Welborn, Muhlenberg's best stone-masons, with the help of others, did the stone work. They must have been masters of their craft, for in spite of the fact that some of the iron bands were removed about the year 1875 and that twenty years later two vandals dynamited it for the purpose of taking the heavy iron bars used to support the four arches, the walls stood for seventy years. It was the irreparable damage done by the two old-iron gatherers that, on January 14, 1907, caused the final collapse of the old landmark, which is now nothing more than a heap of dressed rock.

The Stack and its wooden gangway were by no means the only struetures erected by Buckner and Churchill. They also put up a substantial two-story log house of ten rooms, used as a residence, office, and store by the Buckners. It is said that three yoke of oxen were required to transfer Buckner's private library from Hart County to this place. The Buckner house was the largest structure of its kind in the county. It was about one hundred and fifty feet long, constructed of hewed logs, had good glass windows, and floors of sawed lumber. There were three large chimneys and a dozen open fire-places. The building contained a spacious dining room, used by some of the white employes. In an adjoining room, known as "the store," goods were kept for the convenience of the people connected with the Furnace and for the purpose of exchanging merchandise with farmers for produce. Opposite the south end of the log house, and built in the hillside, was the stone milk-house, through which there constantly ran a stream of spring water.

Not far from The Stack stood a grist mill, to which corn was brought by the farmers, who gave one sixth of their meal for the grinding. This mill, used later as a tobacco barn by Ben Mitchell and others, was burned to the ground about 1870, with a large crop of Yellow Pryor in it. Many of the white miners and wood-choppers and the forty slaves occupied log cabins north of The Stack, but all traces of their quarters have now disappeared. In fact the large pile of rock that now marks the site of the Furnace, a few pieces of slag, the ruins of the milk-house, two half-buried corn burrs, two half-filled wells, and a few small mounds where chimneys once stood--all more or less hidden in a jungle of bushes or second-growth timber--are the only evidences of the great work that flourished around The Stack a few years before and after 1840.Ruins of the Buckner Milk-House

As already stated, the discovery of iron ore in Muhlenberg County prompted Buckner and Churchill to organize a company to develop this mineral. Investigation revealed the fact that there was not only sufficient surface ore to justify the building of a furnace, but that there also existed enough good ore below the surface to supply them for a century or more. The furnace they built was in operation about four years, during which time various processes were experimented with. Besides making a great quantity of pig iron they also manufactured a number of iron utensils, among them kettles without legs or "ears," ovens, shovels, tongs, and andirons or dog-irons, some of which can still be found in the county.

The pair of dog-irons of which a picture is here given were made at the Buckner Furnace about the year 1840. Notwithstanding the fact that they were used during cold weather for seventy years, they are for all practical purposes as good now as the day they were cast. The part which supports the log of wood is in one solid piece, about fifteen inches long by four inches high and an half-inch thick. The base is kept in an upright position by a winglike pedestal which spreads out in front. The upright, which keeps the forestick from rolling off on the hearth, is twelve inches high and is a representation of the head of some animal of uncertain identity. It resembles somewhat the head of a camel on the neck of a goose.Andirons Made at the Stack in 1840

Many pairs of dog-irons of this type were made at The Stack, but tradition does not tell who designed them. The designer, if we apply the F. C. Morse theory, evidently was not a "Campbellite"; for Morse, in a book on "Furniture of the Olden Times," says that immediately after the Revolution andirons known as "Hessians," in which the upright was the figure of a Hessian soldier, were very popular, and that "the figures of the hated allies of the British thus received the treatment with flame and ashes that Americans considered the originals to merit, to say nothing of worse indignities cast upon them by the circle of tobacco-using patriots."

The dwellers in the Buckner colony lived on the best the country then afforded. They not only used the produce and meal furnished by the neighboring farmers, but also supplied themselves with game, fish, and forest fruits. In those days fish were plentiful in Pond Creek 2 Deer were so numerous and so destructive to crops that many farmers were obliged to guard their cornfields to keep the deer from trampling down the growing plants. Raising beans was almost an impossibility, for the deer loved sprouting beans better than some of us like venison. Turkeys were in abundance, and wild pigeons were more plentiful than sparrows are now. 'Coon and 'possum hunting was on the program nearly every night in the fall."The Stack House," Neae the Stack

A story is told of a certain Scotchman who, shortly after arriving from his native land, procured a position at the Furnace and one day shot some turkey buzzards while wandering around in Pond Creek bottom, mistaking them for a bird he had eaten in Scotland. With these he prepared a surprise dinner for his friends. All enjoyed the meal very much until the "Scotch fowl" was indulged in. Many commented on the peculiar flavor of the meat, but, fearing they might offend their host by declining to eat abundantly of his much-prized dish, they partook freely. They begged to know more about this peculiar "Scotch fowl." After some persuasion he proudly told them where and how he had captured this most palatable of birds. The guests threw up their hands in horror. They not only refused to continue the meal, but even declined to keep what they had already accepted!

Much of the salt used by the Furnace people was procured from Deer Lick or Salt Wells, or Salt Lick Creek, about one mile above The Stack, where common salt was made by the evaporating process from the waters of a small spring. It was a well-known lick even before the days of the Buckners, and for many years supplied the immediate neighborhood with this essential. About the year 1855, so runs the story, some men, thinking a stronger solution of salt could be found here, dug three wells near the lick. But the water from the wells proved to be no stronger than that coming from the spring. This was a disappointment to the investigators. Salt water was then boiled and evaporated for a number of days, and the salt thus obtained thrown back into the wells; a Greenville capitalist was then invited to inspect the new "gold mine." He made a hasty inspection and analysis of the water, bought the farm, and some time later learned that there is such a thing as "salting" a salt well.

The Furnace folks spent some of their leisure time on the hill west of The Stack, on the old Indian burying-grounds. Some of the picnic parties that spend a day around or near the ruins of The Stack climb this hill and view what is now left of the seven mounds that once stood there. It is a joke among some of the neighborhood boys to tell the newcomer that if he wishes to know why these Indians were killed he need but stand on any of the mounds and solemnly cry out, "Lo, poor Indian, for what did the white man kill you?" Not hearing a response, the newcomer is urged to ask the question again. He finally discovers that "Nothing" is the answer.

Louis Greenway was one of the many interesting characters around the Furnace. He made a wager he could lead a certain blind horse over the trestle to the top of The Stack and then safely back him off again, "with ten drinks in him." Tradition does not say whether "in him" had reference to the man or to the horse. At any rate, it was successfully done.

Shoemaker was the name of the official shoemaker. He exchanged shoes for untanned cowhides. His dealings with his patrons were anything but satisfactory to them, so one day they all joined in and gave him a "cowhide." He has not been heard from since. It was rumored that he 'joined Lonz Pennington, the outlaw, who was maneuvering in this part of the State at that time. The only thing Shoemaker left behind was a large trough, made from the trunk of an oak tree, and prepared by himself to be used as his coffin. After his departure his intended coffin was used as a feeding trough in a pig-pen.

Many of the men and women connected with The Stack attended church very regularly. Some went to Greenville, while others worshiped with the members of the then newly organized Friendship congregation. Friendship Baptist Church, two miles northwest of The Stack, was then and still is located in what is very appropriately called the Friendship Neighborhood. This congregation was organized in the old Hickory Withe Schoolhouse a few years before The Stack was built. In 1837 its members put up a log house on land donated by Charles Metzker. The third (the present) building was erected in 1893. The burying-ground adjoining was started in 1883, and is now one of the best-kept country graveyards in the county. In it are buried a number of men and women who in their youth saw the Buckner Furnace in operation. One of Friendship's best-known preachers was the Reverend William Dodd Pannell, who was born in Todd County in 1824, came to Friendship about 1855, and died on his farm, near the church, in 1877. He was the father of James P., Thomas B., and Frank B. Pannell.Friendship Baptist Church

There is a variety of stories told regarding the negro Isaac, who was hanged Friday, July 6, 1838, for attempting to kill Buckner. Some say Buckner had treated him shamefully by starving him and refusing to let him wear shoes, but such statements can not possibly be founded on facts, for Buckner was a tall and portly man, with the reputation of having a heart as kind as he was large. At any rate it was rumored among the slaves that Churchill was willing to abandon the Furnace, and would have done so had Buckner agreed to it. Isaac belonged to the Churchills, who then lived in Elizabethtown, and being dissatisfied with his surroundings came to the conclusion that if he killed Buckner then Churchill would desert the Furnace and he would be allowed to return to his master's home. Supported by this simple logie, the negro proceeded to carry out his plan. He approached Buckner with an ax, and without a word of warning began striking him in the face. Buckner was rescued by some men who happened on the scene, but not until he had fallen unconscious to the ground with two long gashes in his face, the scars of which never disappeared. In the confusion that followed the negro made his escape, and had fled to a point on the Russellville road, a little north of what is now Dunmor, when he was discovered by the Grabel boys, who found the exhausted slave sleeping alongside a log. Not knowing of his bloody deed they were about to release him, when Robert Jackson appeared and recognized him as the negro who had tried to assassinate Buckner. He was sent to Greenville tried by the court, and sentenced to death. While confined in jail he was frequently visited by Mrs. Churchill, who read religious books to him and also helped him in his prayers.

On the morning of the hanging Isaac was taken from his cell, put on a wagon, where his coffin served as a seat, and was thus driven to the edge of the woods, about half a mile south of Greenville. He was hanged between two poplar trees, and the same wagon and coffin on which he rode to his execution were used as the platform and trap of his gallows. He stood erect on his coffin with a suspended rope around his neck. The horses pulled the wagon forward, Isaac fell, and a few minutes later was prepared for burial. Upon presentation of a certificate of death, signed by the sheriff, Churchill received the sum of one thousand dollars from the State as compensation for his executed slave. 3

According to some tellers of the story, the negro was not killed by the hanging, but showed signs of life after he was placed in his coffin; whereupon his head was chopped off with the same ax he had used on Buckner, and placed on the end of a hickory pole at the side of the Russellville road, where it remained exposed to the public for a number of days. This statement is not true. However, a circumstance of that nature took place some years later, when a negro by the name of Gray was lynched in Greenville in 1870.Aylette Hartswell Buckner, in 1824

Shortly following his trouble with Isaac, Buckner had another narrow escape. A well was being dug north of The Stack. After reaching a depth of about twenty-five feet one of the charges of powder placed in the bottom did not explode, although a reasonable time was allowed for that purpose. Suspecting carelessness on the part of the man who did the work, Buckner directed one of the negroes to let him down in the box attached to the windlass. He had descended only a short distance when the fuse began to sizz. Buckner immediately commanded the slave to pull him up, but the negro became excited, lost his grip on the winch, and ran away. By the time Buckner had dropped half-way down the well the explosion took place, throwing him and the box up through the opening, landing him some ten feet from the rim.

The negro, having been punished for deserting his post, planned revenge. One of his duties was to dump the iron ore from the platform down into the furnace. One day while Buckner was inspecting that part of the works the negro sprang upon him, intending to throw him into the burning oven. Suspecting the slave, Buckner was on his guard. After a short struggle the negro discovered stronger resistance than he had anticipated. Having nothing but death and revenge on his mind, he decided to jump into the furnace, pull Buckner down with him, and thus cause both to perish together. He clutched at his master's arm, but instead caught hold of a loose shirt-sleeve. As he made the fatal leap Buckner's sleeve was torn, and the negro, with his hands clutching a bit of rag, fell into the fiery furnace alone. One version of this incident goes on to say that immediately after the negro fell into the furnace a long white flame gushed out of the top and the sky above was filled with black smoke, and that next day a black heartshaped cinder was found in the ashes.Simon Bolivar Buckner

The local trade on dog-irons and other domestic utensils made at the Furnace was far more extensive than was anticipated, but in the meantime the operating expenses grew greater, month after month, while the net receipts from the sale of pig iron increased comparatively little. However, Buckner and Churchill did not give up hope of success. In 1840 they mortgaged the works and their forty-five hundred acres of land to the Bank of Kentucky and various individuals. It is a well-known fact that about this time Eastern mines became better equipped. and being located in more accessible sections were able to place their material on the market at a lower figure than Buckner and Churchill could. The Stack's long road to Green River led to its financial grave. The hauling of the pig iron to Kincheloe's Bluff or South Carrollton, a distance of eighteen miles, over new and rough roads, involved an enormous expense that could in no way be reduced. So the Furnace was abandoned in 1842. Many families connected with it returned to their native towns, while others bought farms and remained in the county. No man in southern Muhlenberg did more to assist Buckner and Churchill while they were in the county, and none did more to encourage those who remained, than Esquire John Jenkins 4

From page 139 of the First Kentucky Geological Survey, compiled by David Dale Owen and published in 1855, I quote:

The discontinuance of the operations of the Buckner furnace was not due to any deficiency or defect in the ores, but for want of capital, and from the bad condition of the stack, which was entirely too large a diameter for the blast. ... The gray limestone used as a flux was obtained one mile south of the furnace. ... Both the analysis of the ore, the thickness of the ore beds, and proximity of all the necessary materials, with an ample supply of forest timber, all indicate a favorable position for iron works; especially if by the construction of a railroad through Muhlenberg County to the Ohio River a more direct line of communication to a market were established.

Simon Bolivar Buckner was a young man in those days. He was born in Hart County April 1, 1823. In the spring of 1839, after finishing a course of studies at a private school in Hopkinsville, he was given a position as clerk at his father's furnace. Here he worked for about two years, during which time he made many trips to Greenville, then a town of about three hundred people. It was in this way that he met Charles Fox Wing, who took a fatherly interest in him. In fact the two kept up a correspondence for twenty years, until the time of Captain Wing's death, which, as stated in the chapter on the Civil War, took place the day before General Buckner passed through Greenville with his army.John Jenkins, 1857

In June. 1840, Charles McLean, son of Judge Alney McLean, returned from West Point because of his dislike for military discipline and his longing to be at home with his brother Alney, jr. These twin brothers were bachelors and inseparable companions all their life long. Charles died in Greenville in May, 1895, at the age of seventy-six, and was followed ten years later by Alney, jr. Upon Charles McLean's return from West Point, Simon Bolivar Buckner, then employed at The Stack, was appointed a cadet to succeed him at the military school. He was graduated from the Academy on July 1, 1844, and, as is well known, was immediately assigned to the army. A daguerreotype, made in 1846, represents him as brevet captain, aged twenty-three; another picture, also here reproduced, is a copy of a portrait made sixty years later.

Although General Buckner lived in the county only two years, Muhlenberg has since that time regarded him more or less as a son, and the General looks upon Muhlenberg as the place where his destiny was shaped. This feeling he not only expressed in public when, in 1861, he marched through the county with his army, but again showed in 1887, when he visited Greenville as a candidate for Governor, to which office he was elected; and again in 1896, when as a candidate for Vice-President on the National Democratic Gold Standard ticket he stopped in town for a short time.

Colonel Aylette Hartswell Buckner, the father of General Buckner, was a son of Philips Buckner. He was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, in 1792, and came to Kentucky in 1803 with his parents, who settled in Hart County. A. H. Buckner was in his twenty-first year when, in 1813, he enlisted in Colonel James Simrall's regiment. He was present during the siege of Fort Meigs and also took part in the battle of the Thames. Like his friend Charles Fox Wing, he was always greatly interested in the soldiers of the War of 1812. In his day he was one of the best-known men in the State. About the year 1832 he built the Henry Clay furnace in Hart County, and about five years later left Hart County for Muhlenberg, where he erected the Buckner Furnace, or The Stack. As early as 1832 he prophesied that within a hundred years every county in the State would be reached by lines of railroad and that people then would travel in iron cars and sleep in beds at night while traveling, and that iron would in many things take the place of wood. During his four years' stay in Muhlenberg he did much toward the advancement of the county's interests. In 1842, when The Stack was abandoned, he moved to his plantation at Beechland, near Camden, Arkansas, where he died in 1852.The Buckner Cradle

When the Buckners came to Muhlenberg they brought with them the cradle in which their son Simon Bolivar and their older children had been rocked as babies. When they left the county Mrs. Buckner presented the old cradle to her friend Mrs. John Adair Allison, who handed it down to her daughter, Mrs. W. Britton Davis, in whose family it has since remained. It is thirty-nine inches long, sixteen inches wide and about fifteen inches deep. It seems to be of yellow poplar, put together with wrought iron or "shop" nails, and is typical of the cradles of the olden days. The rockers are off, and a stool that went with it has been lost.

A few years after the Buckner Furnace had been abandoned and the Buckners had vacated the large house, it was occupied by Alexander Hendrie, known as "Scotch Henry," who was then looking after the interests of R. S. C. A. Alexander. On a piece of land he cleared north of The Stack, about 1853, and on which he raised several crops of corn, the original ridges can still be easily traced in spite of the heavy second growth of timber now scattered over them. For a short time "Scotch Henry" was associated with J. Jack Robertson in the milling business. Their grist and saw mill was located on Pond Creek, on what is known to-day as the Welborn farm or the Jack Robertson old place. The well-known "Jack Ford" in this immediate neighborhood, now used by Carter's Creek Church as a baptizing place, derives its name from the fact that in olden times the farmers forded the creek there on their way to Jack's Mill. This mill was in operation until 1864, although Alexander Hendrie had withdrawn about ten years before 5 Alfred Johnson. 1864

The Buckner house was next occupied by Joseph Turner. He was followed by Alfred Johnson, the famed stone-mason and chimney builder. At the age of eighty "Uncle Alf" or "Old Honesty" as he was called, was baptized in "Jack Ford." In his later days, although he had grown old in years he remained young in spirit. A peculiar thing about him was that up to the time of his death (1896, aged eighty-five) his mustache remained black, although the hair on his head had been white for a quarter of a century. 6

Among those who occupied the famous old Buckner house after Alfred Johnson were James P. Drake, Isaac, Joe, and Ben Mitchell, James Dune, Eli Skipworth, Ferney and Hutson Driskell, Plunket Parnham, William Warren, and J. F. Driskell. Stanford Lee was the last man to make this noted house his home. He left about 1875, after which the deserted place soon began to collapse. The last of the old logs and chimney rocks were removed in 1890, and since that time nothing but a few broken stones have marked this historic spot. In 1880 Tom B. Johnson built a substantial log house on the Furnace land near The Stack, for the erection of which he procured much material from the abandoned Buckner house. There it stands to-day. "The Stack House," as it is called, is by no means as large as the original or of the same design. Although put up many years after the days of the early settler, it is a good type of the log house built in olden times.Alvin L. Taylor, 1912

The ground on which The Stack was built was part of a six-hundred-acre survey patented by James Weir, sr., and sold to Buckner and Churchill, who at the same time purchased all the land in the neighborhood, making a total of forty-five hundred acres. After they disposed of this tract it passed through several hands and in 1851 was bought by R. S. C. A. Alexander, who shortly after procured about twelve thousand acres on Green River near Paradise. In 1854, as is told in another chapter, Alexander opened up the Airdrie mines. In 1865 General Buell leased the mineral rights to all the Alexander lands for forty years, including the Buckner Furnace tract. However, the mineral on the Buckner land was not developed, for General Buell devoted his time to the Airdrie mines and furnace on Green River, which had been abandoned ten years before. In 1890 all the Alexander lands in Muhlenberg County were deeded to Alexander's sister, Mrs. Lucy A. Waller, who in 1893 sold the Buckner Furnace tract, then about three thousand acres, to Koerner Brothers, of Indiana, who cut staves off it for a few years. It was while connected with this company that Alvin L. Taylor and a number of others came from Indiana and settled in the county. 7 The land has since changed owners a number of times, and is now the property of the Rothert family, of which I am a member. Although the place is reduced somewhat in size, the original six-hundred-acre survey on a portion of which the ruins of The Stack stand is still a part of what for three quarters of a century has been known as the Buckner tract or Furnace land, this history of which it has given me pleasure to write.