The author of the poem, “Pewee Valley,” was Catherine
Anne Ware Warfield (1816-1877), another early Pewee
resident (see the c. 1890 map).
A native of Natchez, Mississippi, she came to Kentucky
at age 17 when she married Robert Elisha Warfield in
1833.
Her husband was from a prominent Lexington family and
was probably the son of Dr. Elisha Warfield, a professor
of surgery and obstetrics at Transylvania University and
a charter member of the Lexington Jockey Club. Dr.
Warfield is known as the “Father of Kentucky Turf,”
because he bred a bay colt named Darleymey that went on
to become the greatest thoroughbred stallion of the
1800s.
Catherine and Robert Elisha Warfield lived in the
Lexington area until 1857, when financial difficulties
forced them and their six children to move to a farm in
Pewee Valley.
During her lifetime, C.A. Warfield published two
volumes of poetry with her sister, Eleanor Percy Lee,
writing as “Two Sisters of the West.” Her first and most
popular novel, “The Household of Bouverie, or the
Elixir of Gold,” was published anonymously in 1860.
Some of her other novels included:
“The
Romance of the Green Seal” (1866);
“The
Romance of Beauseincourt” (1867);
“Miriam
Monfort” (1873);
“Hester
Howard’s Temptation” (1875); and
“A
Double Wedding, or, How She Was Won” (1875).
One of her children, Nathaniel W. Warfield
(1834-1908), his wife, Alice Estill (1839-1926), and
their son, Estill, are buried in
Pewee
Valley Cemetery. The 1880 U.S. Census shows
Nathaniel and his wife living in the Rollington
http://www.littlecolonel.com/Rollington.htm
district of Oldham County (probably on his parents’
farm
http://www.littlecolonel.com/Map.htm) with their
three children: Stella, 17; Nathaniel, 11; and
Estell (misspelled), 9.
In the 1890s,
the Warfield's former home became
Jennie Casseday's Rest Cottage for Working Women
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