An in-depth look at
Merchants' Row

Picture it. Perryville, Kentucky—1862. A bustling strip of mercantile buildings—general stores, a post office, drug store and doctor’s office; parents and children crossing the street; farmers loading wagons with supplies; the picture of a healthy, yet vibrant agrarian community. Substitute the wagons for cars and pave the roads. The picture of Perryville, Kentucky–2002–is not much different. The same quaint, wooden buildings continue to house a variety of consumer shops. The noise of children playing can still be heard along the Chaplin River, and the sight of local residents bustling along the street is still an everyday image.

Merchants’ Row has long been a cornerstone of life in Perryville. Indeed, many of these buildings played a significant role in the aftermath of the Battle of Perryville. The unique blend of civilian and military stories found in this town makes Perryville’s history standout nationally. In addition, Merchants’ Row is one of the only, intact 19^th-century mercantile districts in the nation. As such these treasured structures, each with an amazing story to tell, are at the heart of the PEP’s restoration efforts.

Brinton House

The Brinton House, located at the corner of Buell (Highway 68) and Second Streets (Highway 150), was probably constructed in the 1840s. The home, an excellent example of Federal style architecture, was damaged during the Battle of Perryville when a cannonball crashed through the roof and an interior door. Following the battle, the home was used as a hospital.

Purchased by the PEP in 2000, the Brinton House is the first building on Merchants’ Row that will be restored and is the future site of the PEP offices and town welcome center. Work on this site will also include the construction of a period outbuilding to house public restrooms and vending machine facilities as well as the completion of additional parking space on the top section of the corner lot.

The Opera House

The building located just to the right of the Community Center and the first building of Merchants’ Row proper is commonly referred to as the "Opera House." However, nothing in the building’s deeds reflects an official use as an opera house. As such, it is assumed the building was used at one point by traveling musicians and performers, hence its popular name. There is historic documentation that early in the 20^th century, the second floor was used for entertaining. Following the advent of the automobile, local proprietors, faced with the growing attraction of weekend entertainment in larger towns like Danville and Harrodsburg, began showing silent movies on Friday and Saturday nights for an admission of five cents.

In addition to playing home to various forms of entertainment, the Opera House also held a number of businesses. The first floor has been a poultry house and general store with the second floor holding, at various points in time, a photography studio and a Masonic Hall. There is also historic reference to the structure housing the city Post Office for a period of time.

The Opera House, the PEP’s most recent Merchants’ Row acquisition, was purchased in 2001. Following restoration, the building will serve as either commercial/retail space or museum space.

Parks Store

The Parks Store, once located in the building adjacent to the Opera House, was built in the mid-1800s. At the time of the Battle of Perryville the general store was owned and operated by J.A. Burton. In 1874, Mr. William Huston Parks purchased the store, which his family then operated for nearly one hundred years.

The dry good store sold a variety of items from boots and shoes to groceries, flour and cloths. During the 19^th century, area residents lived much farther apart than we do today; as such they rarely came to town. Shop patrons would often buy enough supplies to last several months to a year. Almost all the supplies were bought in large quantities–nails by the keg or flour by the barrel. In addition to serving as a dry goods retailer, Mr. Parks wrote wills, sharpened tools and repaired shoes. During the winter months one could often find a group of male customers gathered around the pot-bellied stove playing cards and trading tales.

In 1918, Mr. Parks’ daughter, Lora, began working in the store, despite her father’s opposition to women holding public employment. In April 1932, following both her parents’ deaths, Miss Lora, as she was affectionately known, bought out the remaining heirs and continued to operate the store. Miss Lora kept the store open until just before her death in 1972 at the age of 85. During this time Miss Lora befriended many of the area residents. Miss Lora once told the story of a man that came once a year to purchase supplies. The gentleman always had a pocket full of different length sticks, each showing the size shoes and boots he needed for his children and neighbors. On one such trip he bought fourteen pairs of shoes.

The Parks’ family holds a prominent place in the history of Perryville, and the PEP is grateful to own the store and all the merchandise that was in it when it closed to business. The collection of merchandise includes items spanning more than a century. Moreover, the Parks family was notorious for keeping everything; as a result the collection includes a number of handwritten notes and store ledgers that tell amazing tales of historic life in Perryville. Following the restoration of the Parks’ Store, the PEP will return the collection to the store’s shelves and use the building as a museum depicting a 19^th-century store.

The Green Drug Store

This structure, located almost dead center on Merchants’ Row, was owned and operated as a drug store by Dr. Wallace Green from 1866 to 1933. Born on April 30, 1843, Dr. Green clerked for Perryville’s original pharmacist, Dr. Walker before buying him out. Green married a local girl, Hallie V. Karrick and became brother-in-law to his best friend, W.H. Parks who married Hallie’s sister.

Dr. Green was twenty when the Civil War disrupted life in Perryville. He recalled hearing the "roar of the cannons and rattle of musketry and cries of wounded and dying men as they were carried through Perryville." One day "One Armed" Sam Berry of Sue Munday’s guerrilla gang rode his horse through the drug store doors and demanded money from the cash register. Quick-thinking Dr. Green claimed to have already been robbed. Berry shot several bottles off of shelves and countertops but left without Dr. Green’s money.

Dr. Green worked in the store for seventy years and never missed a day of work. He never hired any clerks claiming he had "no reason for assistants–I’ve always done my own work." During this time, Green became a prominent citizen in Perryville. Perryville’s first phone was installed in Green’s store and the second in his home. Green served from time to time as the town’s deputy sheriff and helped found the Perryville Bank.

Green’s Drug Store was a popular stop in town. People often stopped in to gossip and sample the "local beverages." As Dr. Green once commented: "the merchants keep a barrel of liquor on hand in the rear of the store and customers could go back and get a drink for free anytime."

At the time of his death on January 7, 1933, Dr. Green was the oldest active businessman in Boyle County and the oldest druggist in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Following restoration, the PEP will either use the building as a pharmaceutical museum or as retail space.

Dr. Polk Office and House

The buildings commonly referred to as Dr. Polk’s home and office are located on Buell Street across from the Green Drug Store. Dr. Jefferson J. Polk was Perryville’s primary physician from 1837 to 1866. During his career Dr. Polk attended to 14,000 ill patients and delivered 825 babies. In addition to practicing medicine, Polk served as a local minister, delivering 1,560 sermons that included temperance lectures and political speeches.

Throughout the Civil War, Polk remained a staunch Unionist. When the war reached Perryville Dr. Polk was forced out of retirement, despite what he called "a severe bronchial affection [sic]," to care for the 7,500 wounded and dying soldiers. Dr. Polk’s accounts of the battle’s aftermath are chilling: "The first hospital I entered was Mr. Peter’s house. Here were about two hundred wounded soldiers, lying side by side on beds of straw. Notwithstanding they were wounded in every possible way, there was not heard among them a groan or complaint. In the orchard close by a long trench had been dug, in which to bury the dead; about fifteen were lying in a row, ready for internment."

Following the war, Dr. Polk served as a claim agent for the Union Army and as the local postmaster. Always political, always devout, the coughing and stooped Dr. Polk died on May 23, 1881. He is buried in Perryville’s Hillcrest Cemetery with is wife and a number of his nine children.

After restoration work is completed, Dr. Polk’s office will likely be used as interpretative space. A use for the home has not been determined but will likely be filled as museum or retail space. The PEP maintains the period medicinal and culinary herb garden located between these structures.

The Karrick-Parks House

Located at the end of Merchants’ Row on the corner of Buell and Fourth Streets, the Karrick-Parks House was home to one of Perryville’s most prestigious families. The original structure was enlarged and a second floor added in 1850. The walls are 15 inches thick and no ceiling is less than nine feet. Total, the home has five chimneys, ten rooms and three halls. The home’s interior features stand as proof of the family’s prominence as the doorways are all painted with faux wood graining and the entrance hall floor is a hand-painted floor cloth–both expensive decorating touches of the 19^th century.

In 1856 James Vance Karrick bought the house from Squire Robards and moved in with his wife, Harriet Skinner Karrick, their eight children and 15 slaves. Karrick was originally attracted to Perryville because of it was home to several good schools and offered excellent educational opportunities for his children. Four years after moving in, James V. Karrick died leaving his wife and eight children in the house at the time of the Battle of Perryville.

On October 7, 1862, the night before Perryville’s famous battle, Confederate troops arrived at the house. Officers, most likely from General Benjamin F. Cheatham’s division, slept inside the home while other soldiers slept on the walks outside. The next morning, with sounds of the battle echoing through town, the troops advised the Karrick family to leave town for their own safety.

Taking their jewelry, silver and bedding the family and slaves left Perryville on a two-horse wagon. They camped four miles outside of town, returning the next day to find their house ransacked. Many of the Karrick’s clothes were torn into strips to be used for bandages. Trunks, drawers and closets had been emptied, their contents piled in the middle of rooms. Luckily, little was missing. It is presumed soldiers searched the house for food, salt, coffee and money.

The family moved back into the house on October 10, but shared the structure with Union officers and doctors for over six months. The structure was one of the few buildings in town not used as a field hospital following the battle. In 1866, Rebecca Karrick married William Huston Parks. Parks purchased the home from his in-laws in 1882 for six hundred dollars. The Karrick-Parks home remained in the Parks family until 1972 when W.H. and Rebecca’s daughter, Lora, died.

Following restoration, the Karrick-Parks house will be opened as a house museum or used as retail space. The PEP is fortunate to have a number of pieces of furniture, dishes and other items original to the structure.

The Cave

Located behind the Karrick-Parks house, this cave was the site of Perryville’s original settlement, Harberson Station. Named for its founder, James Harberson, the fort built here was settled just after the American Revolution. Harberson and the group of Pennsylvanians traveling with him chose this location because the cave housed a natural spring and was situated on the banks of the Chaplin River.

When trouble with local Native-Americans arose, the settlers would flee across the water and into the cave to seek shelter from attack. One day James Harberson failed to reach the cave in time. Local legend holds that Harberson disappeared. His head, however, was later discovered about a mile from the fort. Dr. Jefferson J. Polk recalls in his autobiography that Harberson’s wife then "took the head and managed to keep it in a complete state of preservation for many years."

In 2007 the Enhancement Project, in partnership with the Dry Stone Conservancy and the Kentucky Heritage Council, began a major reconstruction and interpretation of the cave site and the stone walls. The goal is to stabilize the site and make it more visible and accessible to visitors. Work is expected to be finished in the spring of 2008.