MAYS LICK, Ky. (LEX 18) — Charles Young is a name that can be found around the Bluegrass on signs, plaques, and buildings. He's best known for his military service — he’s the third African American officer to graduate from West Point. He served as a Buffalo Soldier, an ambassador to several countries, and the first Black colonel. Before all of that, he was born enslaved in a cabin in Mason County.
"He was only born in one place and that's right here in Mays Lick, Kentucky, Mason County,” says former Mason County judge-executive, James Buddy Gallenstein.
The cabin was built in the 1790s and Charles Young was born in it in 1864 — just before the end of the Civil War. This community's leaders say this is an important history for people to hang on to.
Current Mason County Judge-Executive Owen McNeil says it’s important, "To really ensure that everyone has the opportunity to be able to understand how impactful, this Mason County citizen has been in our history."
Mason County bought this land and cabin for around $225,000 about a decade ago. Now, McNeil hopes that the federal government will step in and help make this location a part of the U.S. National Park System.
McNeil explains, "Other communities spend millions of dollars to recreate. Well, we have it here in an authentic format."
Young would have lived here with his mom and five siblings. He eventually moved to Ohio. The Ohio History Connection says 100 years after Young’s death, in 2021, he was posthumously promoted to brigadier general retroactively making him the first African American recognized with the rank.
"In those times, all those individuals across Kentucky, particularly Black historians and Black leaders, look to Charles Young and his leadership and how he conducted himself,” says Gallenstein.
Gallenstein spent years of his career working with the community to preserve the standing legacy of Charles Young's beginnings — where a man born at a time the county had around 4,000 enslaved people, grew up to be a hero. When people step into the home, he hopes they feel that history.
"And they get the feel of what it was like back in the 1860s and 1864 — and the hard work that they had to put in just to survive. And what they had to do to be honored, to be respected,” says Gallenstein.
The Mason County community is working to keep Young's legacy alive.
