SAMUEL
AYRES HOUSE
"THE MADISON HOUSE"
102 W. High St.,
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
S.W. Cor. High
and Limestone Sts.
Built 1810
Source: Old Houses of Lexington, C. Frank Dunn, typescript, n.d., copy located in the Kentucky Room, Lexington (Kentucky) Public Library.
Samuel Ayres, the famous silversmith whose shop was located at Main Street and Ayres' Alley, paid William Hanson $500 for the part of outlot L on the corner of "High and Mulberry Sts.," June 13, 1810, and erected a home here that was destined to accumulate much history. Thomas Bodley, who had gotten the Outlot from the Town Trustees several years before, sold it to William Hanson. The house, built in 1810, was sketched on an adjoining survey October 6, 1814, and looked as it does today architecturally.
Samuel Ayres, for whom more than a century ago was named the quasi-street between Main and High Streets of "Ayres' Alley" (now the Union Station Viaduct), was a prominent jeweler, whose works still are sought and prized highly today. His shop and residence then were where the Lafayette Hotel stands.
The "Life & Times of Robt. B. McAfee" states:
"In the month of February 1795 I was taken back to Lex...and I was boarded at Mr. Samuel Ayres (a silversmith) who then lived on high street in the upper part of town, but afterwards moved down on Main street opposite the Seceder Church built the next year for the Revd. Adam Rankin of whose church my father was a member."
"(1796)...About the 1st of October I returned to school at Transylvania Seminary. Still boarding Mr. Samuel Ayres who always received me with kindness and only charged me sixty dollars a year which was very moderate."
Ayres soon began to encounter financial difficulties, and in July, 1817, issued a mortgage to Andrew McColla, Benj. Stout, Wm. T. Barrey and John Pope to secure $7,000 in notes. The property mortgaged consisted of "the house & lot in which said Ayres now lives, at the corner of High and Mulberry Sts." and "the house and lot on Main St. where Ayres keeps his Sylver Smith Shop."
Ayres expected to be able soon to liquidate this indebtedness--which was not unusual in those days--but history tells us a "panic" arrived in 1819. His aforesaid creditors, all of whom were intimate friends, had his house deeded over to them May 29, 1819, for the notes plus $1,500 bill of exchange "on Samuel W. Butler of Natchez, payable at New Orleans." This was at the request of Mr. Ayres, "Considering the extraordinary fall in the price of property within a few months past, and being willing and desirous to secure his endorsers."
The next year (1820, Lexington Public Advertiser) Ayres offered his shop for sale and also his house "as a residence and place of entertainment"--meaning a "tavern."
There was a renter--the famous Postmaster Joseph Ficklin, long one of Lexington's leading citizens--but the house had been sold at public auction August 1, 1821.
Joseph Ficklin, Lexington's sixth postmaster, who was appointed in 1822 and served for several years, roomed Jefferson Davis in this house while the latter was attending Transylvania University 1822-24, and was prominent in local affairs. Mr. Ficklin was editor of the Kentucky Gazette from October 17, 1821, to January 1, 1824, under a contract at "$500 per annum and washing" with the owner, John H. Ficklin of Scott County, who had just bought it from Joshua Norvel and Thomas Smith, and who sold it November 11, 1823, to Albert G. Hodges and Samuel Raily, "except the tipe put up for Versailles," which are already weighed and entered on the books of the office." Hodges and Raily agreed "that a work containing 250 Duodecimo pages shall be provided for the said John H. Ficklin, he (or his agent, Joseph Ficklin) finding paper sufficient for 2,600 copies, and also a good able-bodied hand to work at the press shall be supplied by the said John H. Ficklin, the work to be printed with the new beerjoin tipe now in office and gubbin and printed in a workmanlike manner at the rate of 36 pages per week until the whole job is finished."
Joseph Ficklin's wife, Polly Latham Campbell (of Christian County, marriage contract December 31, 1822), was very generous to her slaves, according to her will, made November 1, 1848 (probably September 10, 1849). She arranged to free all her slaves, except two given to her grandniece, Octavia Kentucky Anna Smith, and also to provide homes for them.
(Thos. Bodley bought Outlot "L" February 2, 1807, from the Town Trustees for "5 shillings." It extended back to "John Maxwell's line." The deed said "Thomas Bodley was the assignee of Samuel McClure, assignee of Nathaniel Massie, who was assignee of Stephen Collins" and that it was the out-lot "which the Town Trustees did grant to Stephen Collins by deed dated the 7th day of July, 1783.")
The Ayres house has its crowning distinction in the fact that Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, boarded here with Postmaster Ficklin in 1822-24, while attending Transylvania University. He also returned to Lexington in after years to visit the Ficklins.
Tradition has it that John James Audubon, the noted naturalist, stopped here when in Lexington.
The house has been known by several names. In 1866 it was called the "Ready House" and in the 1880's the "Madison House."
Transcribed January 2001 by pb