Sherman

by Pat Spillman

This information about Sherman was given to our class by Mr. Robert Atkins. 

Sherman, Kentucky is a village of about 250 people, located in the northern part of Grant County, in the edge of the famous Bluegrass Region.  It is thirty miles south of Cincinnati, on the Southern Railroad and the Dixie Highway (U.S. 25), one of the heaviest traveled highways in the nation.  IT is situated on a broad ridge, several miles in length, more than 600 feet above sea level. This ridge is the dividing line between the watersheds of the Kentucky and Licking Rivers.  This was once the home and happy hunting grounds of the Indians, and many Indian relics have been found here.

 Daniel Boone blazed a trail between Covington and Lexington, following the center of this ridge through here when this region was covered with virgin forests of the finest timber.  The highway and railroad now run parallel to the old trail.  The most fertile soil, the prettiest bluegrass farms, and many choice building sites of the county are in and around this community.

 Many people may think that Sherman and Grant County were named for two famous generals in the Civil War; however, Grant County was established and named in 1820, and Sherman was named long before that.  In 1820 William Arnold became the first postmaster here.  The first year's receipts were one dollar and twenty cents.

 Louis Myers, who had some connection with the Revolutionary War, was given a land grant of twelve thousand acres at what is now Sherman by the governor of Virginia, when Kentucky was still a part of Virginia.  Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792.  Myers has many slaves, and slave cabins were built all over the estate.

The old Lexington Turnpike was built through here along the Boone Trail from Lexington to Covington for the use of stagecoaches, stock drovers, and teamsters plying between this region and Cincinnati.  The exact date of when the first road was built is not known.

Louis Myers built an inn on this estate in 1812 for the accommodation of the stagecoaches and stock drivers.  It was built about three hundred feet west of the turnpike in the center of a spacious yard, shaded by many trees.  The inn has a long recessed porch in front, with a waiting room at either end, and a single door opening into three waiting rooms.  A door also opens from the center of the porch into a large, long, high ceiling office and barroom, with a door opening into these same waiting rooms.  Behind the office is a large dining room and beyond that is a storage room.  An open, roofed walkway led from this porch to a log cabin beyond and to the left of the inn, where slaves cooked the food and then served it to the guests in the dining room.  There is a long hall in the center of the upstairs with doors opening from either side into the bedrooms.  The inn was heated by several large fireplaces built of Kentucky limestone rock.  Logs were used for fuel.

 Near the inn, a few feet from the south porch is a deep well.  Above the rope and pulley is a shingle roof supported by four posts.

 In 1900, Sherman had four general stores, a depot and telegraph office, a school, two doctors, a blacksmith shop, coal deale4rs, livestock dealers, and a saw mill.

 The railroad had a section crew, a signal maintainer, a lake and watering station for the trains.  J. T. Price had a tobacco warehouse where tobacco was redried, prized into hogsheads, and shipped to the Cincinnati tobacco market.  Bob Shaw, a prominent tobacco buyer for the American Tobacco Company, lived here then.  Many livestock, much coal, building material and merchandise were shipped into Sherman.

 At that time Doke McNay owned the sawmill and threshed wheat and other grain, using a steam powered traction engine for power.  One year he started threshing grain at Sherman and threshed wheat all the way to the state of Kansas.  Then he shipped the machinery back on the train.

 Many people live in this area and work in Cincinnati; farming is the chief occupation of others.  High quality burley tobacco, beef cattle, and dairy products are produced here.

From a collection of essays written in American Literature Eleven.  The class was taught by Ms. Hazel Ogden of Grant County High School in the 1963-1964 school year, and was typed by the typing classes of Mrs. Mattie Cox.  It is copyrighted by the Grant County Schools, and is used here with their kind permission. We found a copy in UK's King Library.