Joseph Beard House, Fayette County, KY

JOSEPH BEARD HOUSE


#510 S. Upper St., Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Built 1846

Source: Old Houses of Lexington, C. Frank Dunn, typescript, n.d., copy located in the Kentucky Room, Lexington (Kentucky) Public Library.

Lot. No. 10 had passed through a good many hands before it was purchased by Joseph Beard in February, 1846, for a residential site.

The various conveyances, beginning in 1814, were from Stephens and Winslow to Michael Fishell, who traded it to Mrs. Mary Gilman (1824) for other property; to William McClelland, to George C. Timberlake, back to McClelland, and McClelland's heirs to Beard. The latter deed said it was between the frame house on the north, owned by Dr. Thos. P. Satterwhite's heirs, and the house on the south where "McDaniel now lives."

Joseph Beard appears in the 1838 Directory as a cabinet-maker, boarding at T. Megowan's." He had gone into the grocery business, however, by the time he built this house, as he issued a mortgage in May, 1848, on the following:

"Lot fronting on Upper Street 50 feet, on which is erected the brick dwelling of said Beard and in which he now resides," four slaves, his household goods and "all the goods and groceries and store furniture in his Beard Grocery Store, situated in Water St." He also pledged his interest in a slave and the estate of his mother, Martha Beard. The mortgage, which was paid off, thus disclosed the builder of the old brick cottage here.

The house remained in the family for fifty years. Joseph Beard's heirs conveyed it in 1895 to William Martin. 

Transcribed by pb October 2002