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"Woodside (or Wayside)"
The Old Gatchel Place”
“
Woodside or Wayside as it was incorrectly
labeled on the
map created by the people of Pewee Valley for the “Little Colonel” movie.
The same incorrect name also appears on the Little Colonel
game board
Although Woodside appears on both the Little Colonel movie
map and game board, we do not believe it was ever mentioned by Annie
Fellows Johnston in the Little Colonel series.
The Gothic Revival-style house, located at 110 Central
Avenue, was built about 1857 by Nanette Brown Price Smith, according to
information provided to the National Register of Historic Places by Carol
B. Tobe in 1982:
“In 1856, Thomas Marshall,
trustee for his sister-in-law, Nanette Smith, purchased an 8-3/4-acre
tract for her in Pewee Valley. It was part of the land of Pewee Valley
pioneers, Henry and Susan Smith. The house was probably built soon
after…
Nanette Brown Price Smith
(1798-1878) was married to Thomas Smith (1787-1866). Nanette’s mother,
Susannah Hart Price, was the sister of
Lucretia (Mrs.
Henry) Clay.
Thomas Marshall, husband of Nanette’s sister Eliza, was Chief
Justice of the Court of Appeals and a teacher at
Transylvania For
more on the Clay family genealogy, see
Ancestry of Henry Clay (1777 - 1852).
Thomas Smith was a Lexington
newspaper editor and a prominent man in that city. He purchased the
“Kentucky Gazette” in 1809 when he was only 20. After five years, he
sold the “Gazette” and joined with his brother-in-law, William Worsley,
in publication of the “Reporter.”
Thomas Smith served as
President of the Lexington and Frankfort Railroad, Kentucky’s first
railroad to pass through Pewee Valley. Woodside may have been Smith’s
retirement home and several associations suggest why he may have chosen
Pewee Valley. Another prominent Lexingtonian,
Elisha Warfield, was connected
with the railroad and owned property in Pewee Valley. Louisville
newspaper publisher Walter Haldeman
built his home Edgewood next door to the Thomas Smiths.
In the 1860 census,
Edwin Bryant is listed as living
with Thomas and Nanette Smith. Bryant and a partner had purchased the
“Reporter” from Smith in 1832 and he was later to manage the “Louisville
Dime” with Walter Haldeman.
The Smiths sold Woodside in
1865 but may have continued to live there, or somewhere in Pewee Valley,
as Thomas died there in 1866 and Nanette’s will, written in 1877, states
that she resides in Pewee Valley. Thomas and Nanette had no children.
Although there is some
confusion about the Thomas Smiths’ residence,
it seems safe to say that they lived, at least for a time, at Woodside.
The notes of James A. Miller, who settled
in Pewee Valley in 1850, mention that Thomas Smith purchased the
property at Muir Lane and the railroad (Oak
Lea); however, the 1858 Bergman map of Jefferson County has Edwin
Bryant located on the Oak Lea property and Thomas Smith at Woodside. In
the 1860 census, Bryant and the Smiths were residing together in the
same house. The 1879 Beers and Lanagan Atlas identifies the Central
Avenue property as Woodside and Woodside is mentioned as the home of
Thomas Smith in the 1858 publication “Antiquitates Peweeji.”
James A. Miller’s notes also
state that Nanette Smith was the sister of Mrs. Henry Clay and raised
the three orphaned children of Henry Clay, Jr. Actually, it was
Nanette’s mother who was the sister of Mrs. Henry Clay. The three
children of Nanette’s cousin, Henry Clay, Jr., were orphaned. Their
mother died in 1840 and their father was killed in the Mexican War in
1847 so it is possible they were raised by Mrs. Smith.
In Miller’s reminiscences he
says that the Clay children were Henry, Thomas and Nanette. The boys, he
states, were killed in the Civil War and the girl married H.C. McDowell
of Louisville, who was later to buy the
Clay
homestead, Ashland. Clay family history confirms all this. Henry was
a Union soldier; Thomas, a Confederate; and both died during the war.
The daughter Ann (not Nanette) married Henry Clay McDowell in 1857.
Thomas S. Kennedy of Crescent Hill, a descendent of Thomas
Smith’s sister, Jane, who married Matthew Kennedy, wrote the following
profile of Colonel Thomas Smith of Louisville, Kentucky in 1897:
Thomas Smith was born in
Richmond, Va. about 1792. His father was Captain Samuel Smith, a
revolutionary officer, who had married Tabitha McLaughlin and resided on
Church Hill, near the
old Swan Tavern, a famous resort at the time for prominent men;
among the number was Chief Justice Marshall, who was a friend and
neighbor of Capt. Samuel Smith’s.
Col. Thomas Smith’s twin
sister, Rebecca, married William W. Worsley, who in copartnership with
Ritchie, edited the “Richmond Enquirer.” In the printing office of the
“Enquirer” young Smith learned to be a printer; and in after years, in
order to distinguish himself from others of the same name and post
office address, he always signed his name, “Thomas Smith (P)” and had
all letters to him thus directed. Whenever asked what the “P” stood for,
he would with great gusto replay, “for the Printer – Thomas Smith,
Printer.”
In about 1810 Thomas Smith’s
mother, then a widow, removed with her family … to Lexington,
Kentucky…When quite a young man, living in Lexington, Thomas Smith
joined the Kentucky troops and fought in the
battle of Raisin River (War of 1812), where the Americans,
under Cols. Allen and Lewis and Gen. Winchester were disastrously
defeated by the British and Indians in 1813.
Returning from the war,
young Smith was employed on the “Lexington Observer & Reporter,” then
owned and edited by (his brother-in-law) Mr. Worsley. In a few years, he
became associate editor and in 1825, when Mr. Worsley removed to
Louisville, Thomas Smith (P) became the proprietor and editor of the
“Observer & Reporter.” This weekly newspaper was the personal organ of
Henry Clay, whose residence called Ashland was only a short mile from
the Courthouse in Lexington. Mr. Smith had married Niss Nanette Price, a
sister to the wife of Chief Justice Thomas A. Marshall of the Kentucky
Court of Appeals and these sisters were nieces of Mrs. Henry Clay and of
Mrs. U.S. Senator Brown and Mrs. Thomas Hart and Mrs. John W. Hunt…The
office of the “Observer & Reporter” was in Jordan’s Row and just
opposite the eastern side of the courthouse. Mr. Clay always made this
office his headquarters when in town and so continued until Mr. Smith
sold the newspaper, about in 1838, to Edwin Bryant, a cousin to the
poet, W.C. Bryant. Mr. Smith was very kind to Mr. Bryants. He took him
to his home when he came to Kentucky, a young man in search of
employment; and gave him a position in his office. Mr. Bryant ever after
remained with mr. Smith and lived at his house or made it his home for
many years even until his decease in the 1860s. When Mr. Smith removed
to Louisville in 1848, Mr. Bryant came also and soon after organized an
overland company to California. On arrival at San Francisco, Major
Bryant was elected to the office of alcade serving for about a year. He
made some fortunate real estate investments in San Francisco; and by
leasing the lands he obtained a handsome income and a valuable property.
Judge Bryant, as he was familiarly called, returned in 1850 to
Louisville, and again made his home with his friend, Col smith, and
fully repaid him for the aid given him when he was a poor boy looking
for work. Judge Bryant never married. He was engaged in other newspaper
work in Lexington and Louisville.
…Mr. Smith, upon the removal
of Mr. Worsley from Lexington, continued the publication of “The
Observer & Reporter.”
...All during his life he
was ever engaged in building homes and in improving the rural grounds
surrounding him. He preferred suburban residences and after planting and
plotting the grounds into handsome style, he would sell at a good profit
and commence the building up of a new home on a larger and more
attractive scale. Thus at Lexington he owned The Villa, a very
attractive public resort which he built while he was president of the
Lexington and Frankfort railroad…After the Villa…Mr. Smith then bought
and improved the Trotter farm which he called Westbrook. Then again he
built a cottage home nearly opposite Ashland which he called Woodside
where he lived until he removed to Louisville.
Soon after coming to
Louisville he made up a party of clever men and bought land about 16
miles from the city of the LC&L railroad. They each built a suburban
villa residence. Among the party were Col. Smith and his friend
Judge Bryant;
W. N. Haldeman of the
“Courier-Journal,” W. D. Gallagher,
the poet; Prof. Noble Butler, the author
and others. The settlement was named Pewee Valley, although it is
located on top of a ridge 450 feet above Louisville. There Col. Smith
built up and improved three different home places and the settlement is
now one of the best and most delightful of all the suburbs about
Louisville…
In 1839 Col Smith formed a
co-partnership with his brother-in-law, Mr. Matthew Kennedy and his two
sons. The commercial firm was styled Kennedy, Smith & Co… and engaged in
selling bagging and rope manufactured at the factories in Kentucky, to
the cotton planters’ agents at New Orleans, Mobile and Charleston, S.C.;
also the firm sold New Orleans sugar…; and they sold coffee imported
direct from Rio de Janeiro…
…He died at his residence on
Third Street near Kentucky in Louisville and his body was interred in
the beautiful cemetery at Lexington, almost under shadow of the splendid
monument erected over the earthly remains of his friend, “the great
commoner” Henry Clay….
Woodside, with its woods intact, 1990s
Photo from "Historic Pewee Valley"
Alex Luken has found
information that indicates that Nanette Brown Price Smith was Thomas
Smith’s second wife. He was married first to Mary Darnall Henson on
October 7, 1803 in North Carolina.
She also notes that his role in newspaper publishing is the subject of
historical debate. Some sources, including JSTOR articles, list him as
Editor & Publisher of the “Lexington Reporter,” while the “History of
Printing in America,” written by Isaiah Thomas in 1874, links him to the
“Kentucky Gazette.” According to The Papers of Henry Clay, Thomas Smith
succeeded John Bradford as the editor of the Kentucky Gazette in 1809. In
1814, he and his partner Joseph Beckley sold out to Fielding Bradford, Jr.
. In 1816, Thomas Smith joined his brother-in-law William W. Worsley as
publisher of the “Lexington Reporter,” which was renamed the “Kentucky
Reporter.”
The Draper Collection has letters from Thomas Smith to William W.
Worsley during the war of 1812.
Pewee Valley resident B. Utley Murphy, whose parents owned Woodside
from 1949-1976, notes that Thomas’ wife, Nanette, was responsible for the
couple’s many real estate transactions in Pewee Valley, possibly because
he could not be trusted with money. Every piece of real estate the couple
owned in Pewee Valley was in Nanette’s name and was purchased through her
brother-in-law and financial advisor, Thomas Marshall. Edwin Bryant’s will
supports this contention, since he leaves no money to his good friend
Thomas, but makes two $5,000 bequests to Nanette.
**************
Woodside
changed hands a number of times until it was purchased by Francis Edwin
Francis Edwin Gatchel and his wife, Alice Craig Gatchel, in 1907.
The Gatchel family is Woodside’s “Little Colonel” connection. Alice Craig
Gatchel was the granddaughter of Annie Craig, Annie Fellows Johnston’s
model for Mrs. McIntyre in the
series. Alice’s mother, Alice Craig, had married Austin Peay in 1880 and
died a year later on December 13, 1881, less than two months after giving
birth to her daughter.
There's a poignant story connected to Alice Craig Peay’s
death. At the time of her final illness, her sister,
Mary (Mamie) Craig, had
recently become engaged to army Captain
(later General) Henry Ware Lawton. Sensing the end was near, Alice
begged her sister to marry quickly so she would be able to attend the
wedding. Mamie quickly telegraphed Henry and he obtained leave and
left for Louisville by special train. Their wedding took place on
December 12, 1881 at Alice's death bed. Alice died the next day. Mamie
Craig Lawton, her husband and their children later became Annie Fellows
Johnston’s models for the Waltons in the
Little Colonel series.
Alice Craig
Gatchel, standing, with her grandmother, Annie Craig,
and Aunt Fanny Craig holding Alice’s daughter, Frances C. Gatchel.
The photo appears to have been taken on the front porch of The Beeches,
which was built and owned by Alice Gatchel’s Aunt Mary “Mamie” Lawton.
Alice Craig Gatchel was raised by her grandmother and her
Aunt Fanny Craig at
Edgewood, just down Central Avenue from
Woodside. Her name was also changed from Alice Craig Peay to Alice Craig.
We have been unable to find any trace of her father, Austin Peay.
Frank and Alice
Gatchel standing in front of Edgewood, Alice’s childhood home.
From “The Land of the Little Colonel” published in 1974 by Katy Smith
In 1903, Alice married Frank Gatchel, a member of the
family photography business, W.D. Gatchel & Sons. The firm was founded in
Cincinnati in 1862 by Welcome D. Gatchel. According to family tradition,
his middle initial stood for “Darling,” making his name Welcome Darling
Gatchel. W.D. and his wife, Frances, had a daughter, Mary, and two sons:
Francis Edwin or Frank and Albert Durfee or Bert. The photo below, taken
in Cincinnati, shows the Gatchel family before Albert was born.
A Louisville branch of W. D. Gatchel’s & Sons was
established in 1870, with the purchase of a camera store. Frank later
served as president in Louisville, and his brother Bert, who married
Caroline Letitia Forwood or “Daisy,” in January 1890, moved to Birmingham,
Alabama and established another branch for the company there known as
Gatchel’s Photo Stock House.
Oldest known photo of
W. D. Gatchel & Sons’ storefront in downtown Louisville, circa 1940
Republic Building, Walnut St (now Muhammad Ali) northeast corner of Walnut
& 5th St = 431 W. Walnut
Frank and Alice Gatchel had two children, a daughter,
Frances C., named for Frank’s mother, and a son, William Culbertson or
Billy, named for Alice’s cousin, William S. Culbertson, who served as
Annie Fellows Johnston’s model for
Malcolm McIntyre, one of the “Two
Little Knights of Kentucky.”
Frances Gatchel,
Frank’s and Alice’s daughter.
From “The Land of the Little Colonel” published in 1974 by Katy Smith
Neither Bert nor Frank was destined to enjoy a long
marriage. Bert’s wife Daisy died of typhoid fever shortly after the couple
moved to Birmingham. He himself died in 1912. Alice died on March 8, 1909,
leaving behind a bereaved husband and two young children. The 1910 census
shows that Frances was only six years old, and Billy only two. According
to "The United Presbyterian Church in Pewee Valley 1866-1966 100th
Anniversary" booklet, an Aeolian organ was given to the church by Alice’s
aunt and uncle,
Mr. and Mrs. S .A. Culbertson, in her memory.
Standing in front of the Pewee
Valley Presbyterian Church are: (left to right)
Singie Singer, Clayton Stoess, Louise "Sis" Herdt Marker, Frank "Gatch"
Gatchell, Virginia "Gin" Herdt Chaudoin,
Jean Ann Stanforth, Tom Murphy, Franklin Walker and Mary Murphy
After Alice’s death, Frank continued to live in Woodside
and work downtown at W.D. Gatchels & Sons. He frequently served as
chairman of Pewee Valley’s town council and was an active member of the
Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church. He raised both his children
at Woodside and a muddy pair of brass-toed boots that may have once
belonged to his son Billy were found hidden in the attic years later. They
have since been donated to the
Oldham County Historical Society.
A handmade get well card from Francie and Billy
Gatchel to Mary Gardner Johnston,
“Miss Mamie,” their neighbor at
The Beeches
From the private collection of Suzanne Schimpeler
According to a vignette called “Christmas at Clovercroft,”
originally written by Florence Dickerson for the
Call of
the Pewee and later reprinted on page 87 of “History by Food,”
(copyright 2006 by the Oldham County Historical Society), Frank invited
neighbors and friends to drop by Woodside every Christmas Eve and listen
to him read aloud from Dickens’ “Christmas Carol.”
Business at the camera shop was not always the greatest.
Frank’s adopted grandson, Cleve Gatchel, says his father, Billy, used to
tell the tale of the Thanksgiving when financial concerns forced them to
serve duck instead of turkey. When Frank got older, Cleve says, he kept a
room downtown at the Watterson Apartments, between 4th and 5th
streets, where he napped after lunch. One afternoon in 1942, he went to
sleep and never woke up.
He and Alice are buried side by side at Cave Hill Cemetery.
Interior of W.D.
Gatchel & Sons, circa 1938
Frank’s son Billy succeeded his father as president of W.D.
Gatchel and served until his death in 1953, when the small plane he was
piloting crashed between Evansville and Louisville. He was replaced as
head of the company by his natural son, Frances Edwin Gatchel, II, and
later, by his adopted son, Cleve. The company eventually closed its doors
in 1990.
William Culbertson
Gatchel, “Billy,” in 1944
Francis Edwin
Gatchel, II and Cleve Gatchel in 1962 on W.D Gatchel & Sons’
centennial. The store was then located at 431 W. Walnut Street.
Woodside
remained vacant for some years after Frank’s death. It went through
several changes of hands until it was purchased from Col. Earl Major by
the Utley family. Several occupants have experienced paranormal activity
while living there -- doors that mysteriously opened and closed,
furnishings that moved by themselves, and occasionally apparitions.
Woodside Gate (as it was in early 2007, an estate set among trees)
Today, Woodside is owned by St. Aloysius Catholic Church, which cleared
nearly all the trees from the property in spring 2007 to make way for a new
sports field. Pewee Valley residents tried to stop the desecration and pled
their case both to the congregation and to the Archdiocese of Louisville;
however, their pleas to respect Pewee Valley’s designation as a “Tree City”
by keeping Woodside’s grounds intact fell on deaf ears. This is the fourth
Pewee Valley landmark that St. Aloysius has defiled or destroyed since
moving their church from the corner of Central Avenue and Rollington Road to
Mt Mercy Avenue in 1914. They also demolished
the Burge house, the
old post office building on Central Avenue, and the J. T. Moore house
shown on the ca. 1880
Pewee Valley map.
Woodside no longer lives up to its name, since St. Aloysius Church chopped
down all the trees to make way for a sports field
Late spring, 2007
In her autobiography, “Land of the Little Colonel” (1929) Annie Fellows
Johnston noted she was quite upset about the changes she found in her
beloved Pewee Valley when she returned there after her son
John died. One of the things she mentioned was the loss of
Oaklea’s famous oaks after the Muirs sold the family’s long-time
summer home:
"...Oaklea
had been sold and its new owner had cut down all the beautiful oak trees
that gave the place its name."
We wonder what she would think today about what's happening at Woodside,
her former neighbor just down the road on Central Avenue.
Many thanks to Cleve Gatchel for
sharing his family photos and memories and to B. Utley Murphy for her
historical research on Woodside.
page by Donna Russell
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