Lisletown

Featured image: Lisletown, as shown on a 1937 map of Clark County.

Following the Civil War, for­mer­ly enslaved per­sons faced daunt­ing chal­lenges.  According to one his­to­ri­an, “after eman­ci­pa­tion on December 18, 1865, Kentucky’s 225,000 for­mer slaves were on their own.  Literally overnight, tens of thou­sands of black Kentuckians were scram­bling for the basics of life in an often hos­tile envi­ron­ment.”  Most had no mon­ey, no hous­ing, no land, and no job.  So many moved to the cities to find work that post­bel­lum estates expe­ri­enced a short­age of farm labor.

To attract work­ers, large landown­ers in the Bluegrass set aside tracts of 10 to 20 acres and gave away, rent­ed, or sold lots to those will­ing to work on their farms.  These small vil­lages were called “black ham­lets,” or Freetowns.  Each lot had space for a house, gar­den, chick­en coop, and hog pen.  These Freetowns were most numer­ous in Fayette County, which had a high con­cen­tra­tion of horse farms. As a result, black peo­ple came to play a key role in the devel­op­ment of the horse industry. 

White own­ers did not estab­lish all Freetowns, how­ev­er.  Lisletown, the best-known black ham­let in Clark County, had a dif­fer­ent origin.

Lisletown is locat­ed near the Kentucky River and the mouth of Lower Howard’s Creek.  Driving to Hall’s Restaurant from Winchester on Athens-Boonesboro Road, you pass a large rock quar­ry on your right.  Lisletown is on the plateau above, between the quar­ry and the restau­rant.  Its founder was Fielding Lisle, a for­mer­ly enslaved African American.

In the year 1850, Fielding Lisle was one of sev­en­teen enslaved peo­ple belong­ing to Henry Lisle of Madison County.  In 1864, Fielding and his broth­er John enlist­ed in the Union Army.  Their reg­i­ment, the 114^th U.S. Colored Infantry, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia.  After the fall of Petersburg, they pur­sued Robert E. Lee’s army and were present when he sur­ren­dered at Appomattox Court House.  Official records describe Fielding as 5 feet 7 inch­es tall with a cop­per com­plex­ion.  He lat­er received a gov­ern­ment pen­sion for his service.

Following the war, Fielding returned briefly to Madison County.  He was list­ed in the 1870 cen­sus as liv­ing near White Hall with his wife Annie and daugh­ters Mary and Mariah.  He soon moved to Clark County and set­tled on 20 acres of land he pur­chased from Richmond Martin in 1874.  His deed described the tract as being most­ly “in tim­ber or wood­land [with] no build­ings there­on.”  Fielding paid for the land with $200 in cash and a promise to pay anoth­er $100, which he soon made good on. 

Fielding sold off sev­er­al 1- to 3‑acre tracts to oth­er for­mer­ly enslaved peo­ple:  George Bell, Sam Williams, and Frank Smith.  He also sold or gave tracts to his future wife Emily George, son John Lisle, daugh­ter Lidia Woodford and her hus­band Thomas, and daugh­ter Sarah Gentry and her hus­band Jerry.  All these men found work as farm labor­ers in the area.  We don’t know the par­tic­u­lar farms, but the large estates near­by at the time were held by the Dykes fam­i­ly to the north and east, S. A. B. Woodford to the north, and H. L. Stevens to the west and south.

By the turn of the cen­tu­ry, there was a well-estab­lished black com­mu­ni­ty at Lisletown.  From the 1900 cen­sus, we can iden­ti­fy the fol­low­ing fam­i­lies liv­ing there:  Green and Savannah Woodford, Fielding and (then wife) Pauline Lisle, Jerry and Sarah Gentry, Lewis and Harriet Woodford, James and Susan Bell, John and Mary McCord, George and Demarius Bell, Jackson and Ella Williams, Sam and Jane Williams.  All gave their occu­pa­tion as farm work­ers except Sam Williams, who worked at a sawmill, and John McCord, who was list­ed as a “sta­tion­ary fireman.”

Fielding Lisle died on December 22, 1916, fol­low­ing an attack of acute bron­chi­tis.  His death cer­tifi­cate states that he was buried at “Howard’s Creek,” which may mean that he was laid to rest in Lisletown, the black com­mu­ni­ty he founded.

Of all the Lisletown res­i­dents, the Bell fam­i­ly had by far the longest tenure.  George Bell was the first.  He pur­chased a two-acre lot there in 1884.  He was fol­lowed by suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions until his great-great-grand­chil­dren left and moved to Winchester in the ear­ly 1960s.  The last black fam­i­ly to reside at Lisletown belonged to Richard “Sugar Dew” Bell, who lived to age 99.  He spent most of his life at Lisletown but moved his fam­i­ly to Winchester in his lat­er years. 

The most famous mem­ber of the fam­i­ly is Yeremiah Bell, a native of Winchester.  Bell attend­ed George Rogers Clark High School, where he let­tered three years in foot­ball as a defen­sive back and wide receiv­er.  He also let­tered in bas­ket­ball and baseball. 

Bell was not high­ly recruit­ed while in high school.  After two years of work­ing in a steel mill, he enrolled at Eastern Kentucky University, where he was a walk-on for the Colonels’ foot­ball team.  He was named to the Division 1‑AA All-American team in 2001.  Bell was tak­en in the NFL draft of 2003 by the Miami Dolphins.  After ten years in the league, he announced his retire­ment in 2014.