Enlightenment Philosophy Meets the Great Revival of 1800 Sunday 8 October, as usual the Clark party started early and ate breakfast at Mr. Vance’s Tavern, at today’s corner of Main and College Street, Bowling Green, KY. The house rating was good but there was no comment on the quality of the food which cost $1.75. Mr. Vance is described in an 1835 travel journal as weighing 393 pounds, the exact weight is interesting if not questionable. The article also described him as having the gait of an elephant. (1)(2) Bowling Green’s 1810 census reports 154 total people. Mr. Vance’s Tavern was a central meeting location, even for a religious service. For several days the Clark party had been traveling through the region where the Great Revival of 1800, started at the near-by Red River Meeting House, creating an ecclesiastical storm that eventually raged through the Nation. (3) Local church history indicates that Mr. Vance was not sympathetic to the church meetings in his tavern and rang a bell to interrupt the services. Clark did not indicate that this disruption took place during the breakfast or that his enlightenment view of the world conflicted with the regional religious excitement. Leaving Bowling Green and heading north required the crossing of the Barren River at the Lawless Ferry, near the present-day I-65 bridge. (4) Traveling approximately 23 miles, the Clarks arrive at the Dripping Springs near Sunset . They met several people with their property headed to Louisiana. At this point they were within 8 miles of the Mammoth Cave and were truly in “Cave Country.” (5) Visitors at the Mouth of the Historic Entrance to Mammoth Cave In 1839, William Clark’s nephew Dr. John Croghan, the son of Lucy Clark and William Croghan, purchased Mammoth Cave as an investment and potential treatment center for consumption, Tuberculous. While the medical aspects of the investment did not turn out as envisioned, the tourism possibilities flourished. Dr. Croghan promoted Mammoth Cave tourism and built a new road leading directly the hotel. He enlarged the hotel which was near the cave entrance. (6) A significant part of the cave tourism development, came from exploration and mapping conducted by Stephen Bishop, an enslaved servant of Dr. Croghan. Many of the present-day cave routes were found, named, and mapped by Stephen. During January 1842, Stephen was at Locust Grove drawing and inking his cave map, published in 1845. (7)(8) Click Here for Rambles E-Book
Sources
(1) History of the State Street Methodist Church (Bowling Green, KY),
http://www.statestreetumc.org/history#3
(2) Personal Letter, Jonathan D. Jeffrey, Department and Head Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Coordinator Dept. of Library Special Collections, West Kentucky University.
(3) Merrill, Boynton, Jefferson’s Nephews: A Frontier Tragedy, Princeton University, 1976, page 191 & 193
(4) Person letter, Jonathan D. Jeffrey, Department and Head Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Coordinator Dept of Library Special Collections, West Kentucky University.
(5) https://cavecountrytrails.com/
(6) Potts, Gwynne T. & Thomas, Samuel W. George Rogers Clark: Military Leader in the Pioneer West & Locust Grove: The Croghan Homestead Honoring Him, Historic Locust Grove, Louisville, 2006, page 112.
(7) Harold Meloy, Rambles in Mammoth Cave, Introduction to the Reprint Edition, 1973, Original Book published by Morton & Griswold, Louisville, 1845, Page xxii.
(8) https://www.nps.gov/maca/index.htm