15. Mock pretentious British aristocrats on the Fourth of July.
Directions: 37° 54.465′ N, 84° 39.374′ W. Between Wilmore and Keene, 0.1 miles north of Richardson Lane on the left when traveling north on Clear Creek Road. The historical marker is very near the postal address of 1691 Clear Creek Road, Nicholasville KY 40356.
Many white settlers of Jessamine County were given land grants for their Revolutionary service. Forty of them gathered on the Fourth of July in 1894. According to the host William Price, “It was a glorious sight to behold, and I wish King George III . . . could have witnessed the scene in the wilds of America.” And then in what be reference to the use of the guillotine in the French Revolution, he continued, “God hates all tyrants and despotic rulers, and sooner or later overthrows all such rascals in causing the people to rise up and cut their heads off.”
The letter I want you to read was written by Price and dated December 20, 1787. That’s seven years earlier than the first Fourth of July celebration and closer chronologically—and emotionally—to the hostilities. You’ll sense that in the egalitarian fervor of Price’s snipes at Episcopalians, titles, and the overbearing airs of English aristocrats. He even invites “Black Tom”!
Price’s biography helps explain his strong words. Born in 1755 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, he observed religious persecution by Anglicans at close range. When he was only fourteen years old, he saw two preachers jailed for preaching Baptist doctrine. Because the episode took place before the passage of the Statute of Virginia, which granted religious liberty, the jailing was completely legal. According to one history, “This produced a profound impression upon his mind, and he was never able to eradicate his prejudice against the Church of England, which had been instrumental in the arrest of these preachers, and he became an inveterate enemy of that church, and never brought himself to look with complacency upon those who were connected with it.”
Price’s bitterness also stemmed from violence. He had fought through the entirety of the Revolutionary War, including the Battle of Stony Point, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Princeton. Rising to the rank of major, he was at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781. During those years of fighting, he saw and inflicted lots of violence and death. He hated the enemy. In a 1779 letter after the Battle of Stony Point, Price called his British opponents “red-coated sons of bitches.”
He visited Kentucky for the first time just months after England’s surrender. In 1781 he took a harrowing journey with the so-called Travelling Church, led by Lewis Craig, one of the jailed Baptist preachers. He moved permanently in 1787, settling in Jessamine County. Many other veterans did too, drawn by land grants given for their military service. These were the forty men who attended the Fourth of July celebration, where the “glorious birthday of our freedom” was emphasized. As Price wrote in a letter to Kentucky’s governor the day after, “Throughout the limits of our country, from Massachusetts to Georgia, the hearts of a free and happy people have been dedicated to the contemplation of the great blessings achieved and bequeathed to us by such heroic leaders as George Washington, Israel Putnam, and Nathanial Green.”
The limits of American “freedom” must be acknowledged. While Price himself appears to have been making some progress—his nod to “Black Tom” may demonstrate some racial flexibility—most revolutionaries did not push to resolve the contradiction of white freedom and Black slavery.
Indeed, many unhappy, unfree people suffered enslavement by founding fathers such as George Washington. For one of the most compelling depictions of this reality, watch the 2023 Saturday Night Live sketch entitled “Washington’s Dream.” Comedian Nate Bargatze plays Washington rallying Revolutionary troops before battle, with a stirring call to imagine a country where citizens, not kings, shape their own destinies. But he can’t contemplate what to do about slavery, focusing instead on the wonders of weights and measures and the invention of American football.
Price, who had five sons and eight daughters, died in 1808 at the age of 52. His grave is on the same property as his still-standing home and the celebration. His descendants still own and reside in the house. They have sometimes given tours to school groups, but, of course, don’t trespass. This is private property.
