Moonshine Murder: 52 Ancestors 2023 Prompt “Spirits”

 Young “Revenuer” Shot by Owner of a Distillery

Francis “Frank” Weir: 1865-1890 (Maternal 3^rd Cousin 2x Removed)

 

While young Frank Weir was a distant relative—a third cousin twice removed doesn’t even qualify as a “kissing cousin”—his story is so interesting I wanted to write it up. It is a remarkable little piece of American history.

We all know a little about bootleg liquor and the efforts of the federal government to tax and control the liquor trade. After all, we’ve heard about illegal stills, mostly in rural areas of Appalachia where people distilled moonshine, and we know that there were violent confrontations between the G-men (now ATF or the Dept of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) and the moonshiners that sometimes led to death. Most of these stories stem from the Prohibition era, which ran from 1920 to 1933. However, the history of violent interactions between “revenuers” (alcohol tax collectors) and liquor distillers started much earlier than Prohibition, and involved other types of liquor besides moonshine. Edward Rumsey Weir’s grandson, Francis “Frank” Weir, was a victim of this violence and rebellion. He was killed by a brandy distiller in rural Barren County, Kentucky on September 19, 1890. He was only 25 years old.

Francis Weir was born February 18, 1865 in Greenville, Kentucky. His father, Col. Edward Rumsey Weir Jr., had served in the Civil War as a Union officer, and had been mustered out before war’s end in 1864. He had married Eliza Triplett Johnson of Owensboro earlier that year. Francis was the eldest of their six children.

Frank appears on the 1880 federal census as a 15-year-old student. After that, he doesn’t appear in Kentucky records again until he started employment with the Internal Revenue Service as a “storekeeper gauger”. I was unfamiliar with this job title, so did a little research. The positions involved measuring and verifying alcohol produced and warehoused by distilleries, in order to assess taxes on the liquor.

The tax on spirits became a huge portion of national tax revenue in the late 1800s. William Miller’s article cited below (see No. 2) states that in 1876, liquor taxes comprised 48 percent of all national revenue, and by 1892 the percentage climbed to a staggering 59 percent—six out of every ten tax dollars came from liquor taxes (pg 20).

In 1890, the year young Frank Weir was killed, the “whiskey” tax on distilled liquor was ninety cents per gallon—a considerable sum in those days, equivalent to over $30 per gallon in today’s money. Political allegiances had little impact on the distilleries’ compliance with tax laws. “A military officer reported that the hostility to the revenue laws is not confined to one political party but is general.’ It was the tax to which mountain people objected regardless of who collected it.” (pg 7)

William Miller noted that “blockaders intimidated and bushwhacked revenue officers.” (pg 8). The most violent years were 1877-78. Miller wrote: “After the government intensified its campaign against illegal distillers in 1876, gun battles between revenue posses and moonshiners became common.” (pg 7)

Frank’s job was normally quite safe. He worked at “bonded” warehouses—distilleries that were complying with the Revenue Service. Local newspapers published the names of the storekeepers and gaugers on a regular basis, listing the employee’s name and the distillery he would be working at for the period.

From March 6, 1890 Twice a Week Messenger

Frank Weir spent most of his time at Owensboro area distilleries, and the newspapers reported that he was well liked:

“He was appointed to the revenue service about fifteen months ago, soon after Collector Feland took charge of his office. For some time he was assigned to duty at one of the Owensboro distilleries and had made a number of friends here. He was a pleasant young man of good habits, and the shocking murder by which he lost his life will be much regretted here.” (No. 3 below.)

“Weir was a model young man in every respect. At the internal revenue office it was said he was the best general officer in the service. He always did his duty well and there was never any trouble with his reports. When last in Owensboro, about a month ago, he announced his intention of resigning his office and going to Chicago to go into business. Great pity it is he did not resign then.” (No. 4 below.)

So what was Frank doing out in Barren County that day? According to news reports, the Second Internal Revenue District’s Division Deputy Collector, J.E. Biggerstaff, had levied a tax on whisky produced in 1889 by the Parker & Button distillery located near the Barren County town of Lucas. The distillery had failed to pay the tax, so Biggerstaff had ordered the sale of hogs and some whisky owned by the distillery partners at a public sale later in September, with the proceeds used to pay the $160 tax bill. One article stated,

“Fearing the removal of the hogs by Button before the day of sale, Deputy Collector Biggerstaff, in a buggy, accompanied by young Weir, yesterday went to Button’s to see about removing the hogs himself to some safe place.” (No. 3 below)

Herding hogs was not a one-man job, so Biggerstaff apparently brought Frank along to help him corral the critters. Biggerstaff left Frank alone with the buggy and horse near Button’s property while he went to try to persuade a neighbor to provide a place to pen the hogs until the sale date. He had trouble finding a cooperative neighbor, so didn’t return for two hours. By then, Frank and the buggy were missing. After a search, the buggy and horse were found a half mile away. The horse had been treated with more concern than poor Frank; the horse had been unhitched from the harness and was left browsing the grass along the roadside. Frank’s body was found one hundred yards from the buggy’s original location. He had been shot through the body with a Spencer rifle. At first it appeared he had been shot twice, but the second hole in his body was the bullet’s exit wound.

Suspicion immediately turned to W.C. Button, the owner of the hogs, half-owner of the distillery, and the owner of a Spencer rifle. He claimed he knew nothing of the murder and had been away from home at the time. However, at the inquest, two men testified that while cutting timber near the road where Frank Weir was killed, they saw Button pass by. Another witness reported Button asked workers at the mill down the road who was parked near his property, galloping off when he heard the buggy belonged to Biggerstaff. The timber cutters saw him pass by again, this time with a rifle, and they tesitified they later heard two shots.

While there were no eyewitnesses to the crime and no direct physical evidence, Button was arrested. The trial was postponed for several months despite strong public sentiment to get justice for young Weir. There was also considerable support for Button. A news article on the trial preparations reported that the prosecution had twenty-four witnesses scheduled, and the defense had over forty.

Unfortunately, the trial never took place. Button developed tuberculosis and died in jail a year after Frank’s murder. Button’s attorneys had filed a motion asking the court to release him so he could die at home. The Louisville Courier Journal reported that he had to be carried into court “on a lounge and presented a most pitiful sight” and that it was “obvious the man could live but a few days longer.” The motion was denied by the judge, and Button died in jail, claiming to the end that he was innocent. The article noted, “The prevalent belief, however, is that he was guilty.”

Frank Weir’s death truly was tragic because it was so pointless. If you object to government actions, you need to take your case to the ballot box, not turn to violence and murder. While I can see that liquor taxes were ridiculously high during the late 1800s, I feel that distillers could have easily passed on the cost of the tax to their customers. Instead, they tried to evade taxes and treated the tax collectors as enemies. Frank Weir was no one’s enemy. He was a young man trying to do the job the taxpayers were paying him to do.

Sources:

1.       Officer Down Memorial Page entry: “Storekeeper-Gauger Frank Weir” https://www.odmp.org/officer/24249-storekeeper-gauger-frank-weir

2.       The Revenue: Federal Law Enforcement in the Mountain South, 1870-1900.Wilbur R. Miller. The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 55, No. 2 (May, 1989), pp. 195-216 (22 pages) https://doi.org/10.2307/2208902 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2208902

3.       “Brutally Murdered: Young Frank Weir, a Government Storekeeper, Shot to Death”. Owensboro Twice a Week Messenger, Owensboro KY, Sep 23, 1890. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

4.       “Poor Frank Weir: The Victim of the Cold-Blooded Barren County Murder”. Owensboro Twice a Week Messenger, Owensboro KY, Sep 25, 1890. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

5.       “Storekeeper-Gaugers”. Owensboro Twice a Week Messenger, Mar. 6, 1890. Owensboro Messenger Inquirer. Aug. 27, 1890. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

Ante-Bellum Wealth, Ante-Bellum Guilt: 52 Ancestors 2023 Prompt “Prosperity”

The Financial Life and Times of the Edward R Weir Family: Ante- and Post- Civil War

Edward Rumsey Weir: 1839-1906 (Maternal First Cousin 4x Removed)

 

Edward Rumsey Weir wrote a brief memoir, which principally focused on the period of his life before and during the Civil War. The memoir provides a window into the life of a prosperous merchant and plantation-owning family. As I noted in the previous posts, Edward R. Weir was in temperament an abolitionist, but as a practical businessman, he continued to own slaves. His wealth was built and maintained upon the work of those human beings, as he acknowledged and regretted.

His memoir begins with a description of his ante-bellum holdings and home: 

“When war broke out, I was a well-established farmer/merchant in Western Kentucky. I had business activities that[extended] throughout the region even into southeastern Illinois. The centerpiece of my entrepreneurial activities was my 1200+ acre plantation. At the heart of the plantation was the main house.

“The Weir Mansion had two main stories and an attic and basement and a porch stretching three quarters of the way across the front of the house. The porch roof was held two stories high on four square pillars. There was a small balcony overlooking the front entryway. On the main floor, there were four windows and a door across the front. On the second floor, there were four windows and a doorway to the small balcony across the front.

Edward R. Weir mansion, date unknown.

“Behind the house was the summer kitchen. The summer kitchen was used for cooking during the summer months to keep any heat so generated from the main house. Winter cooking was done in the winter kitchen in the basement. In addition to my spouse, my children and me, there were four domestic servants (slaves) living in the mansion.”

The Summer Kitchen, after Weir's death

The Edward Weir house is also described in a paper on Old Buildings in Greenville” written in the 1930s by Martha Beth Shelton, and reprinted in the 1990s. (See below) Miss Shelton wrote:

“The present home of L.Z.Kirkpatrick was originally the home of E.R. Weir, son of the pioneer, James Weir. This house was built about 1840 for Mr. Weir by Richard Guynn…It took a year and a day to build it, and Mr. Guynn only had a negro man to help him.

This house was one of the best built homes in the county. Close to the house was probably the most symmetrical stone-lined well ever made in Kentucky. Around the house were brick cabins built for slaves, and also the green houses and the icehouse. These have all been torn down, but the solid old house still stands. There is also the remains of is hexagon shaped brick office in the front yard.”

Photo from Otto Rothert book

In addition to his land, Edward Weir owned slaves who worked the land. It isn’t clear what crops Weir produced on his plantation. I researched Kentucky plantations online. It appears that hemp and tobacco were the top crops grown that were labor intensive enough to require dozens of enslaved workers. Cotton was rarely grown in Kentucky.

Four sisters, servants in the Weir home

In addition to his plantation business, Edward Weir also took over much of his father’s mercantile business. As noted in the footnotes to his memoir written by the memoir’s editor and Weir descendant Douglas B. Brockhouse,

“  After the death of his father, James R. Weir, in 1842, Edward R. Weir, Sr. took over the operation of the family businesses.  By most standards, Edward R. Weir, Sr. was a wealthy man.  Though he sold off some of the more distant establishments, the business empire Mr. Weir was managing was still quite extensive and generated a great deal of revenue for the times.”

Weir was a strong supporter of the Union when the Civil War broke out and as a result, was the target of angry attacks from Confederate supporters. Prior to the war, the family seems to have lived in comfort. But war disrupted that life. There are references to their fears of Confederate raids and the potential ransacking of their home. Edward’s wife had their slaves bury the family silver in the yard to hide it from Confederate raiding parties, and the family decamped to Illinois for a period.

Edward Weir used his own funds to organize, outfit and arm several units of Union infantry. He used his personal wealth to protect and preserve the Union. His descendant reported in the memoir’s footnotes that Edward’s support was financially devastating:

“The War took its toll on the wealth of Edward Weir, Sr.  Though the War was good for his mercantile business, his efforts to support the Union troops were not.  During the War years, the outflow of moneys to purchase goods for the Army far exceeded the profits made.  Thus, to survive after the War, Edward Weir was required to commence liquidating his assets.  By the time of his death in 1891, from a farm of over a 1,000 acres and a plantation estate house and a mercantile business consisting of several stores, Edward Weir had only a farm of several 100 acres and no mercantile business.  Yet, despite the hardships financially, when asked during the latter years of his life, if he would have supported the Union cause as much as he did knowing his support would leave him penniless, Edward Weir always responded in the affirmative.”

This account was backed up by newspaper articles reporting his death in 1906. The Ohio County News of Hartford Kentucky noted that “He was at one time in life accounted a wealthy man, but at the time of his death had lost nearly all of a once comfortable fortune.” The article went on to note, “He was a man of strong personal characteristics.”

Ohio County News, Feb 11, 1891

The Owensboro Messenger death notice added that “he had many original and quaint ideas”—presumably quaint ones like slaves deserving freedom, blacks deserving decent and equal treatment, and that the Union should be preserved.

Both articles noted that President Harrison had appointed him Greenville postmaster. I expect that was a reward for Weir’s financial and political support for the Republican Party and cause, and a way to give him financial security as he grew old.  

While Edward Rumsey Weir experienced prosperity, he felt guilt at the price his slaves paid for that prosperity. That guilt seems to have motivated him to use his wealth to serve a greater good and support the Union in the Civil War. He may have lost his monetary wealth as a result, but I believe he died a spiritually rich man.

 

Sources:

The Recollections of Edward R. Weir Sr., written 1888. Douglas B. Brockhouse, Ed. MSS 651, Western Kentucky University, Weir Family Collection (MSS 651) Manuscripts & Folklife Archives. Western Kentucky University, mssfa@wku.edu

“Death of Edward R. Weir”. Owensboro Twice a Week Messenger, Owensboro, KY, Feb. 12, 1891.

A History of Muhlenberg County, Otto Arthur Rothert. Publisher J.P. Morton, 1913.

“Edward R. Weir Dead.” The Ohio County News, Hartford KY. Feb. 11, 1891.

Making Good Trouble in 1860s Kentucky: 52 Ancestors 2023 Prompt “Troublemaker”

 

The Troubled Troublemaker: Edward Rumsey Weir

Edward Rumsey Weir: 1816-1891 (Maternal First Cousin 4x Removed)

 

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America.” Rep. John Lewis, speaking on March 1, 2020 at a ceremony at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, commemorating the Bloody Sunday attack on civil rights marchers on March 7, 1965.

I believe Edward Rumsey Weir would have understood and supported John Lewis’ call to “get in good trouble.” Weir got in considerable trouble himself, supporting abolition in pre-war and Civil War era Kentucky. He believed that as a slaveowner himself, his calls for abolition would be more persuasive. He supported abolition despite the potential cost to his own businesses. Many of his fellow Kentuckians did not agree with him, and his views and actions made him a veritable pariah.

In addition to Edward Weir’s business interests, he was involved in politics, serving as a representative in the Kentucky House during two separate periods. His first term ran from 1841 to 1842. He was re-elected to the Kentucky House in 1862, serving through 1865. 

Edward was also a candidate for the Kentucky State Convention called in 1848 to prepare a new state constitution. In his memoir, Edward recalled,

“I took to the stump as an opponent of slavery.  After a heated and dangerous campaign, I was defeated by some 200 or 300 votes.  My opponent was a Democrat.  Nothing but the fact that I was one of the largest slave owners in Muhlenberg County and a born Kentuckian made it possible for me to discuss slavery.   More than once did I hear the pistol click in the pockets of my pro-slavery listeners as I spoke about the issue plainly before them.”

As the country became more divided over the issue of slavery heading into the election of 1860, Edward entered the political fray again.

 During the campaigns of 1860, I again took to the stump.  I ran up and down my County in support of the Unionists.  My speech came from the heart and was strong against those who favored succession and a disbanding of the Union.    In some circles, the opposition had become so strong to my position that a price had been placed upon my head.  I went few places without my trusty side arm at my side.”

Edward's ancestor said the "trusty side arm" was a "six-shooter minie ball revolver" that remained in the family into the 1900s. There is some question as to whether a revolver could fire a minie ball, but the Remington Army Revolver may have been able to use minie ammo.

Edward also travelled Washington D.C. to listen to the debates on the admission of the state of Kansas as a free state. He was assessing the mood of the federal government, and returned home fearing the country was headed for war. He travelled to the Kentucky state government and tried to rally Republicans to the Union cause and persuade the southern supporters to stay in the Union.

1861 drawing of the Kentucky capital building

He returned home prepared for the worst, recalling:

“I came home and held family council - a solemn one, and we decided not to abandon our home and state, but to fight it out "on our native hearth" though we all expected to lose our home and property. “

Edward started raising a militia group, arming them at his own expense and insisting they swear an oath that “demanded allegiance to the United States Government, ‘against all enemies, domestic or foreign’".

Eventually, Edward had 9,300 men under his command. This came at enormous personal cost. He wrote that,

“Guns and ammunition cost me $245 each.  Each man in my companies gave me his note for that amount which of course I never called and never received.  To me, it was the least that I could do to repay my Country for the opportunities it had given me.” (pg 14)

Edward continued to procure munitions once the militia units were replaced by federal infantry units. He was given a letter of credit for $10,000 to get supplies. He ended up using his own money, never tapping the federal credit. As it was unsafe for him to remain in Greenville, he ended up living in a Union Army camp for months. He noted that he was “tired of being afraid to sleep in my own bed.” (pg 22)

His wife and children were also forced to flee to safety in Illinois. Their neighbors were Confederate supporters and were a danger to the family. Edward’s wife and daughter were incredibly brave and stood up to raiding parties and mobs searching for Edward, but eventually they decided to wait out the war in a more secure environment.

                               

In 1863 he won election to the Kentucky House again. He recalled that:

“While serving in the legislature, by voice and vote, I supported the government at every turn.  On the floor of the House, I denounced the positions taken by the "weak kneed" Republicans of KY.  I gave such a stirring speech, that I was called upon by the Republicans of both Houses to furnish them a copy to be used as a campaign document.”

Residence of Kentucky State Rep Edward R Weir during 1864-65 legislative session, printed in the Courier Journal, Jan 31, 1865.

He ended up leaving the legislature when his family came down with smallpox. He went home to nurse them. His eldest son, now a Captain in the Union army, also spent months ill, sent back to Kentucky to recuperate before returning to battle. He was mustered out in 1864 as the war drew towards an inevitable end.

Even after the war’s conclusion, Edward continued to serve. He reported that:

“After my wife returned from Illinois after the fall of Ft's. Henry and Donalson (she had fled to Jacksonville to escape the dangers of the War), we kept an open house for all Union soldiers calling.  Often our floors were covered with weary Union soldiers, unknown to me except by their blue.  My wife and servants made our old kitchen hot with constant cooking.  Many a unit in need of supplies was willingly furnished for Union script [Figure 12] which I did not collect at War's end.” (pg 41)

Edward summed up his war years in a ridiculously modest fashion:

“Reflections upon our life at home during the War, considering how close to the enemy we were at times, it was rather mild.  At the beginning of the War, I owned a large farm near Greenville, KY (over 1,000 acres under cultivation).  It was well stocked with horses, mules and cattle.  Confederates during the early part of the War often visited the farm.  Their defiance forced me to remove all of my livestock behind Union lines after I lost five or six horses.” 

I was only captured by the enemy once.  It was for a very short time, as my captors did not know who I was.  I escaped from the semi-guerrilla band at the risk of my life.  Many a time I had to sneak away from my farm just ahead of an approaching enemy force.” (pg. 40)

In the next post, I will report on the financial cost of Edward’s support of the Union. He remained convinced that his political positions and his personal support of the Union were correct—merely what was required of him as a loyal citizen of the United States.

Sources:

1.       The Recollections of Edward R. Weir, Sr. Written 1888. Douglas B. Brockhouse, Ed. MSS 651, Manuscripts & Folklife Archives, Library Special Collections , Western Kentucky University. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=2&article=5534&context=dlsc_mss_fin_aid&type=additional

2.         "Edward Rumsey Weir, Sr." in the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/N00009772, (accessed September 19, 2023).

The Anti-Slavery Slaveowner: 52 Ancestors 2023 Prompt “This Ancestor Went to Market”

 

Edward Rumsey Weir: Civil War Era Man of Contradictions

Edward Rumsey Weir:  1816-1891 (Maternal First Cousin 4x Removed)

 

Edward Rumsey Weir was a conflicted man, full of moral contradictions. Although he was a slaveowner in Kentucky, owning forty human beings at the time of the 1860 census, he proclaimed himself to be anti-slavery. He worked to keep Kentucky in the Union during the Civil War, and even personally funded Home Guard units and the formation of Union companies in Kentucky. Did he undergo some sort of transformation in the years leading to the Civil War? But if so, why did he continue to own slaves?

Edward Rumsey Weir

Edward Rumsey Weir was born November 29, 1816 to parents James Weir and Anna Cowman Rumsey Weir. He was the oldest of their five surviving children, and grew up in Greenville, a town in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. His father was a successful merchant, and was able to send his two sons, Edward and James, to college and on to study law at Transylvania University.

In 1838, Edward married his first cousin, Harriet Rumsey Miller. She was the daughter of Samuel Miller and Harriet Rumsey. Harriet Rumsey was Edward’s aunt, as she was James Weir’s sister-in-law. Edward was 22, and Harriet was only sixteen when they married. The couple settled in Greenville where Edward had a legal practice. They had ten children, five of whom survived to adulthood.

Edward seemed to share his father’s business acumen. According to Otto Rothert’s A History of Muhlenberg County, Edward continued his father’s mercantile businesses following his death, although he sold some of the more distant properties. He also started a grist mill in the 1840s.

Edward also ran a large plantation. I don’t know what crop they were producing—perhaps tobacco? Edward owned 1000 acres of land, and he built a large ‘plantation home” on the portion of the property nearest to Greenville.

Despite relying on slavery to run the plantation, Edward believed slavery was wrong. As described in the next post, he became active politically as an abolitionist, risking his safety and his finances. And yet he didn’t free his slaves. His ancestor and editor noted that it may have been difficult to free his slaves in the 1850s and 1860s as the slaves would have faced a precarious future if they remained in slaveholding Kentucky. In addition, they would have been ill-equipped to relocate to a safer place in the north, and without their labor Edward would have lacked the resources to help them. I suppose Edward may have felt he was making the best choice among many terrible options.

In his memoir, Edward’s conflicted feelings about slave-owning are apparent. He wrote:

“Though slaves, they did live well and all were educated to read and write. A few received even better education. Yet, they had lived with us so long that they became part of the family. After the War, when they were free to leave, they remained in my employ and continued to live with us. There is no justification for slavery. In the South in the first half of the 19^th century, it was only through the use of slaves that one could economically operate a plantation and effectively compete with his neighbors.”

He seems to be trying to justify his ownership of these people, or at least he is trying to defend himself as a more enlightened and decent slaveowner than his neighbors. Following the war, he expressed gratitude for his slaves’ actions protecting him, his family and his property.

Edward’s anti-slavery sentiment seems to have come from his father, James Weir. The editor of Edward’s memoirs wrote that in the 1820s when Liberia became a destination for former slaves to resettle in Africa, James Weir “made the offer to his slaves to pay the passage of anyone wishing to relocate in Liberia. Several of them accepted his offer…” Edward Weir later called Liberia a “failed” experiment. Family papers that were donated to Western Kentucky University contain letters from two former Weir family slaves—probably Edward’s rather than his father’s former slaves—who had moved to Liberia. The archivist describes the letters as follows:

“Folder 17 contains two letters written to Edward R. Weir, Sr. by Lewis Ware [Weir] and E. Weir, emancipated slaves recolonized to Liberia. Lewis recounts his struggle with illness and his difficulties providing for his family because of drought, limited agriculture, lack of markets for crops, and expensive foreign imports. He asks to be sent aid in the form of clothing, shoes and foodstuffs. E. Weir’s letter is shorter but more cheerful, as he reports building a house and an “edifice,” perhaps for business.”

In addition to offering slaves the opportunity to emigrate to Liberia, Edward also gave at least three of his slaves permission to enlist in the Union Army (the Army required permission from slaveowners before accepting slave recruits). One of the three soldiers is pictured below.

Corp. Wilson Weir, Company F, 108th U.S. Colored Infantry

Edward Rumsey Weir was an interesting man, dependent upon a system of chattel slavery that he abhorred. In the next two blog posts, I will describe his political efforts to abolish slavery and to support the Union in the Civil War, and how these efforts devastated him financially.

 

Sources:

1.       "Edward Rumsey Weir, Sr." in the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/N00009772, (accessed September 19, 2023).

2.       Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Muhlenberg County, Subdivision 2, p. 144-145.

3.       Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Muhlenberg County, District 2, p. 98A-B.

4.       Lewis Collins and Richard H. Collins, Collins' Historical Sketches of Kentucky, vol. X (Covington, KY: Collins & Co., 1874), 640.

5.       "Edward Rumsey Weir, Sr. (1816-1891)," Find A Grave, Memorial #71435457.

6.       Kentucky Marriage Records, Madison County Courthouse, Richmond, Kentucky, Muhlenberg County Marriages.

7.       Otto A. Rothert, A History of Muhlenberg County (Louisville, KY: John P. Morton & Company, 1913), 56-62.

8.       The Recollections of Edward R. Weir, Sr. Written 1888. Douglas B. Brockhouse, Ed. MSS 651, Manuscripts & Folklife Archives, Library Special Collections , Western Kentucky University. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=2&article=5534&context=dlsc_mss_fin_aid&type=additional

9.       Source: “An old homestead sold.” The Record [Greenville, KY], 9 June 1910, page 3. Image provided by Muhlenberg County Kentucky History Group.

10.   Muhlenberg County Heritage Volume 14, Number 1. “Old Buildings” by Martha Beth Shelton.