FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — In order for history to live on, it needs to be protected and preserved.
That’s the mission of The Kentucky Trust, dedicated to taking care of any and all historic sites across the state.
Eric Whisman, the president of Kentucky Trust, is spearheading the group’s latest rescue at Frankfort Cemetery.
“We are in the first cemetery incorporated in Kentucky. I believe the eighth in the nation. One of the very first garden or rural style cemeteries in America,” Whisman said.
Following the public path of the cemetery will eventually lead you to the burial site of Daniel Boone.
Just ahead of that memorial is a stand alone vault holding inside it members of one of the believed first families of Kentucky.
“About 22 years ago, we had a project in Bourbon County which was to move this log house that turns out to be only type in Kentucky of its style that was built about 1784 that was owned and lived in by James Trabue who was a serving partner of Daniel Boone and one of the first families to settle in the state of Kentucky,” Whisman said.
“Here lies Elizabeth Trabue and her sister Martha who lived in the house we moved 20 years ago.”
The vault has stood on cemetery grounds since 1851, recently coming back into the spotlight because of the renovation of that log house decades ago.
Descendants of the Trabue family reached out wanting to learn more about their bloodline, which led to the vault.
It also revealed the damage the settlement had suffered over the years.
“Unfortunately in the 1960’s this thing fell. The façade collapsed and set the way until just a couple years ago,” Whisman said.
Plans to get the vault back on its feet began in 2019 before being put on pause because of the pandemic.
The project finally took form in 2022, as Jonathon Appell of Atlas Preservation brought his expertise to the Commonwealth.
“I’ve been in this field doing restoration work full time for over two decades,” Appell said.
“Resurrecting it was an incredible challenge. The capstone weighs almost 6,000 pounds. It’s been very rewarding but also challenging and time consuming.”
It’s been weeks worth of work to restabilize the vault, more than 1,000 bricks and countless pans of mortar used to get it standing again.
While it’s not fully known what caused the vault to fall decades ago, Appell believes mother nature made it inevitable.
“The fact that it’s on a hill. There’s a lot of clay soil which holds a lot of moisture and clay tends to expand a lot when it gets wet. Incrementally, the soil seems to have pushed over the structure. One day it just toppled,” Appell said.
Many of the pieces that fell from the vault were able to be put back into place while some do remain missing.
As the search for the original parts of the vault continues, Whisman is thankful that so much of the structure is still in tact and is excited to one day see the project completed.
“This project is a really a culmination of 20 plus year project,” Whisman said.
“It helps tell a story of a much larger part of our legacy. There’s a lot embodied in this place that connects to a broader family story but the story of our state too.”
You can visit the Trabue Family Vault at the Frankfort Cemetery near the Daniel Boone burial spot.
Whisman also encourages anyone who may know anything about the vault or be aware of where any pieces of the settlement may be today to reach out to The Kentucky Trust.
