"THE THEATER LOT"
ROBARD'S JAIL

Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
 

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

(Henry Kelley, Tobacconist, Main St.--1818 Directory)
(Luke Usher, Innkeeper, "Sign of the Ship" Short St.--1818 Directory)

John McNair bought from the Town Trustees, In-lots 18 and 19 running through from Main to Short Streets, fronting 66 feet on each street. His executor, Samuel Ayres, and executrix, Jane McNair, conveyed Inlot No. 19 to "Father Stephen Theodore Badden" on November 20, 1804, "for the use of the Lexington Roman Catholic Church." John McNair had erected a log church (mentioned in his will August 19, 1801) on the Main Street end of the lot, which flanked what is now Felix Street--then the eastern boundary of the burying ground."

The old theatre was built on the Short Street end of the old residential lot (Inlot No. 18) on which John McNair, proprietor of the Buffalo Tavern, had his home and "farm" before 1800.

McNair in the early 1790's advertised that his famous stallion "Red Bird" stood here--the first ad of a "horse farm" within the town limits. McNair died in 1793.

The heirs of McNair sold Inlot No. 18 in 1813 to John D. Dillon, who sold it in 1817 to George Robinson, a wealthy Main Street merchant, for $3,400 cash. Both of these deeds read:

"Beginning on Main St. at the corner of Lot No. 19 being the lot on which the old Roman Chapel now stands, thence up Main St. (east) 66 feet to the corner of Lot. No. 17, thence along the line of Lot. No. 17 to Short St., thence down Short St. 66 feet to the corner of said lot on which the old chapel stands, thence along the line thereof to the beginning. Being Lot No. 18."

(The 1806 Directory indicates "John Morton, Sheriff," was residing then in McNair's house.)

Robinson sold the McNair "farm" October 25, 1817, to James Campbell.

John McNair's executors sold John D. Dillon (who handled the sale of lots on Short Street west of here for Mrs. Mary O. Russell) Lot No. 18, which adjoined Lot No. 19 on the east. Dillon bought the lot in April, 1813, and, as he had a corps of builders, including Captain Macey Thwaits, Robert B. King, Ezry Harney, Jesse Boyles and others, he sold the lot March 5, 1814, for $3,400 to George Robinson, of Woodford County, next to "the lot on which the old Roman Chapel now stands."

Robinson sold it October 25, 1817, to James Campbell. James Campbell conveyed it (66 feet Main and Short Streets) the following month (November 6, 1817) to Henry Kelley ("Tobacconist, Main St." 1818 Directory).

Kelley died in 1833 and willed his Lexington property to his friend Joseph Bruen, executor, for the use and benefit of his daughters, Charlotte Kane and Eleanor Stephens. By 1840 a company had been formed and a theatre erected on the lot.

(Ranck's History: "The remarkable Gus Adams, charmed a crowded audience in 1840 in a building, neither very large nor very pretentious, which the citizens dignified with the name "Theatre.")

The next conveyance was in 1850, to Richard B. Young from Elisha I. and Joe Winters by Commissioner, for the Short Street "part of the lot sold to Henry Kelley by James Campbell." The sale had been ordered by court decree in March, 1846, "in the consolidated case wherein Macey Thwaits, William Pullen, B.I. and C.M. Clay, Jesse Bayles and Patrick Doyle were complainants and Elisha I. Winters and others defendants." The lot "known as the Theatre lot" was sold by commissioner May 11, 1846, Richard B. Young being the purchaser. It was described as adjoining the property of the late Robert King and opposite the property of the late Elizabeth Parker, being the same formerly owned by Henry Kelley," and held by his executor, Joseph Bruen." The lot, the deed said, "extends from Short St. upon which the building fronts, back halfway to Main St."

Richard Pindell bought the "lot on which the old Theatre now stands," from Young February 18, 1850. He sold it December 17, 1850, to Lewis Robards, who converted it into a slave jail. When Robards deeded it to Bolto, Dickens & Co., in 1856, it was called "Robard's Jail." When they mortgaged it in 1860 it was called "Robard's Slave Jail." In March 1861, at Sheriff's Sale, when it was bought by Charles Gibson, it was referred to as the house "occupied by R.B. Thompson as a negro jail" (Thompson is listed here in 1859-60 Directory as a slave dealer). It was not finally conveyed to Gibson until January 1866, and suit had been brought in March, 1846, for possession by Macey Thwaits, William Pullen, B.I. & C.M. Clay, Jesse Bayles and Patrick Doyle (Thwaits & Bayles, builders of "Theatre"?) "lnown as Theatre Lot adjoining the property of the late Robert King and opposite the property of the late Elizabeth Parker.

It was used by the Federals as a prison during the war.

A new stone church now occupies the site, and it is interesting to note that the lot variously was the seat of a high-class theatre, a notorious slave jail and (a few years ago) a Negro church.

Transcribed by pb, April 2006