Pinnell-Osborne House

Last month the Clark County-Winchester Heritage Commission gave a his­toric preser­va­tion award to Chad and Emily Grant for their home at 3815 Old Boonesboro Road.  I was intrigued to learn that the old­est part of the house still has the remains of a log struc­ture inside.  The Kentucky Heritage Council’s inven­to­ry sheet (Ck-45) refers to the home as the Pinnell-Osborne House and includes the fol­low­ing description:

“House frame and brick.  Original por­tion is ver­ti­cal-board­ed sin­gle pen [cab­in].  This was sub­ju­gat­ed to a rear ell with the addi­tion a brick three-bay I house.  Entire house was paint­ed white, re-detailed and re-ori­ent­ed in the 1920s.”

The house stands on land that was first grant­ed to William Ledgerwood, a native of Ireland.  In 1779 William and his wife Rebecca (née Moody)  sold their farm in Virginia and moved to Kentucky.  His 500 acre pre­emp­tion on Lower Howard’s Creek was sur­veyed in 1783. 

William died in Clark County in late 1793 or ear­ly 1794.  His will lists two sons—James and Samuel—and four daughters—Isabel, Margret, Mary, and Rebeccah.  Reports list anoth­er son, William Jr.  This may be the William Ledgerwood who served in Gen. Charles Scott’s 1791 cam­paign against Miami and Shawnee vil­lages in Indiana.  On their return trip home, young William per­ished while the com­pa­ny was cross­ing a rain-swollen river.

William left the home­place to his wife Rebecca.  While it’s near­ly impos­si­ble to prove who built the orig­i­nal cab­in lodged inside the Pinnell-Snowden House, it seems like­ly that it was William Ledgerwood.  The cab­in stood at the south end of the present house.  The base­ment under the cab­in is laid up with dry-laid stone and the floor joists are made of peeled logs.

Rebecca sold the house and 310 acres of land to Zachariah Field in 1806.  Field sold to John Wilkerson in 1808 for $5,000.  Wilkerson was still liv­ing on the place in 1819 when the prop­er­ty sold for $10,068.  The dif­fer­ence in sale price could indi­cate that Wilkerson made sub­stan­tial improve­ments to the house.

Between 1819 and 1885, the house and attached land went through eleven dif­fer­ent own­ers.  William E. Pinnell pur­chased the prop­er­ty in 1885 for $7,000.  By that time, the sur­round­ing farm­land had decreased to 93 acres.  A promi­nent farmer, Pinnell raised hors­es, mules, cat­tle, and hogs.  His wife Alice bred Bourbon Red turkeys and kept dairy cows and chick­ens from which she sold but­ter and eggs.

Beginning around the turn of the cen­tu­ry, W. E. and his wife held fre­quent par­ties at “Breeze Hill,” described as their “beau­ti­ful coun­try home.”  The guest list some­times includ­ed more than 40 peo­ple and had the Winchester Orchestra for enter­tain­ment.  Elaborate descrip­tions of the home lead one to sup­pose that it was the Pinnells who enlarged the sin­gle-pen south end by the addi­tion of the three-pen I house.  W. E. Pinnell died in 1912, and in 1923 Alice sold the place to Nathaniel F. Cheairs.

N. F. Cheairs was engaged in farm­ing, bank­ing, real estate, oil, and blue­grass seed.  His wife Ethel was the daugh­ter of Winchester Mayor John Garner.  The Cheairs may have been the ones cred­it­ed with adding a kitchen com­plex to the rear and reori­ent­ing the entrance to face east toward Old Boonesboro Road.  The pop­u­lar cou­ple kept the house and farm for 38 years before sell­ing to Thomas M. Swope in 1948.  Beverly White pur­chased the place from Swope in 1949 and sold it to Fred Osborne in 1953. 

Fred Osborne, a farmer and dis­trib­u­tor for the White Truck and Auto Company, died in 1965.  His wife Ruth con­tin­ued at the Boonesboro Road home until her pass­ing in 1987.  In 1991 Woody and Robin Snowden pur­chased the home and 23 acres.  The Snowdens sold the home to Chad and Emily Grant, the cur­rent own­ers, in 2016.

The Grants have made numer­ous improve­ments to the prop­er­ty and the inte­ri­or and exte­ri­or of the home.  It looks ready to go for anoth­er cen­tu­ry or two.