JAMES MASTERSON (JOHN BRYAN) HOUSE

334 W. Short St., Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Built 1820

James Masterson, one of the early pioneers and who built the first log cabin in Lexington in 1780, erected this typically Colonial two-story brick house before 1820, judging from the records.

Masterson had erected his log cabin on Main Street, just back of this building, on Inlot No. 8, which was deeded to him by the Town Trustees July 7, 1783. The north corner of the old fort was immediately in front of Masterson's log cabin. Martin Wymore, another pioneer who witnessed Masterson's will, gave the above and other valuable information about early Lexington in a Draper Manuscript.

Masterson leased this brick house and also his Main Street part of the lot to John Bryan June 20, 1820, for a term of twenty years. The lease was for "all that lot in the town of Lexington fronting on Main Street and running back to Short Street, on which it is now situated, a two-story brick house fronting on Short Street." It was bounded "on the south-east side by Mrs. Parker's lot" (Elizabeth J. Parker, widow of James Parker, who resided next door on Main Street) "and on the north-west by Mr. Steele's lot" (Wm. Steele, Sr., who died in Bourbon County in 1827).

The 1807 tax forms show John Bryan residing here and the 1818 Directory lists "John Bryan, Saddler, Main St." Bryan was then in Masterson's old log cabin (Masterson had removed to the country). A fire June 10, 1820, burned six houses on Main St., between Broadway and the middle of the block. One was "Mr. James Masterson's tenement" occupied by "Messrs. J. Bryan & Son, Saddlers."

The above-quoted lease continued:

"Bryan agrees to pay Masterson $120 per annum rent and to pay the taxes on said property; also, to build a good two-story Brick house on said lot fronting Main Street 24 feet wide, excepting a space for an alley."—almost every Main Street house in those days had a side alley.

Joseph F. Miller bought one-half of the Short Street house in 1840. Succeeding conveyances were: 1860 to Jackson M. Taylor, 1863 to John G. Hambro, 1864 to Speed S. Goodloe, 1885 S.L. Nock's Exor. to Wm. Harting. Miller already owned the other half of the house when the above conveyances were made.

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

Transcribed by pb, October 2006