DR. HALSTEAD - DR. TODD HOUSE

N. Upper St., Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Built about 1836

Charles G. Young and his wife, Charlotte, sold this house--a quaint looking residence of ante-bellum days that has survived the crowding of modern office and bank buildings--on April 20, 1847, to Dr. Joseph Halstead.

The deed said the house was then in the occupancy of Mrs. Pickett. It was described as adjoining the lot purchased by Judge Robertson on the south and bounded on the north-east "by a lot owned by said Young upon which there is a Turning shop." Charles G. Young, who died in 1849, mentioned his "turner shop on Upper St." When it was allotted to certain of his heirs it had been "lately occupied by Smith Eliott."

Young's widow and Hiram Shaw, early in 1855, sold the turner shop to Dr. Halstead, who evidently proceeded at once to erect the house which now adjoins it. On August 21, 1855, Dr. Halstead sold his neighbor, Clifton W. Kennedy (one of the first trotting-horse men in Lexington) three feet "along the south-west of the lot at present owned and occupied by said Kennedy and along the north-east side of the lot at present owned and occupied by said Halstead." The three-foot passage-way remains today, back of the office in the next house on the north.

The 'lot of Judge Robertson on the south" was the law office of the celebrated Chief Justice George Robertson, also razed. Judge Robertson gave it to his daughter, the wife of Dr. S.M. Letcher, member of the faculty of old Transylvania Medical School. The deed, dated January 16, 1854, briefly said: "In consideration of my love and affection for my daughter, Ellen M. Letcher, I have given and hereby convey to her absolutely and forever my white framed house and lot on Upper St. near the Court House, adjoining Dr. Halstead's residence and where I until recently kept my law office."

Dr. Halstead and wife, Margaret H., conveyed the "house and lot fronting 75 feet" to Dr. Theophilus Steele in August, 1860. His neighbors were Dr. Letcher on one side and Mrs. C.W. Kennedy on the other. A year later Dr. Steele deeded it to Dr. William Warfield, together with the household furniture, to be held in trust for his wife, Sophinisba B. Steele. A suit forced sale of the property in 1863, however, and Dr. Steele conveyed it to John Taylor February 3, 1864, to permit Taylor to make a deed to Dr. John Whitney, to whom he had just sold it. Dr. Whitney sold it to Dr. W.T. Risque, the deed including both houses.

Dr. Lyman Beecher Todd, grandson of Levi Todd and cousin of Mary Todd Lincoln, had his residence and office here. President Abraham Lincoln appointed his kinsman Postmaster of Lexington, a position he held for eight years. Dr. Todd was at President Lincoln's bedside at his death. He had studied under Dr. David Bell and was a well-known Lexington physician.

Dr. Todd purchased the property in February, 1866, and when he deeded it in November, 1873, to be held in trust for his wife, he said it was "the same now used by Dr. L.B. Todd as a residence. This deed summed up the distinguished owners of the house, naming in turn "Dr. J.S. Halstead, Dr. Theo Steele, John M. Taylor, Dr. J.W. Whitney, Dr. W.T. Risque, Mrs. Eliza S. Brown and Dr. L.B. Todd."

The house Dr. Halstead bought evidently was built by Alexander S. Elliott, in the latter part of the 1830's. Charles G. Young's deed from Alex. S. Elliott and Martha, wife, of Fayette County, and Robert Elliott, of Woodford County, called for the payment of a substantial sum. It said the property was "now in the occupancy of Chas. G. Young, used as a shop and dwelling house." The "Elliotts' wheel-wright shop" had been in operation on the lot when they bought from Judge Chas. Humphrey's heirs in 1836 the frame building (Judge Humphrey's law office, then in occupancy of James E. Davis), which Chas. G. Young later sold to Judge Robertson. They also bought to the corner of Short Street, in a joint purchase with Wm. Thompson "the piano maker," as the deed described him. (The Judge Robertson frame building was cited as being "opp. Col. James Morrison's residence").

The Upper and Church Streets corner had a frame dwelling "owned by John McCracken and now (1842) occupied by Garland B. Hale." McCracken and wife, in 1845, bought the new house next to James Weir's at Limestone and Third Streets for $10,000 and gave it to Hale and wife for "the love and affection we near our daughter, Emily Hale." McCracken traded in the Upper Street house to Weir, who sold it to Clifton W. Kennedy.

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

Transcribed by pb, June 2006