Harrodsburg Historical Society Wants You To Be Another Brick In The Wall
Fundraising Campaign To Renovate Morgan Row
A sample of the bricks being sold by the Harrodsburg Historical Society to raise funds for renovations at Morgan Row (Image Submitted).
Robert Moore
Herald Staff
[email protected]
The Harrodsburg Historical Society wants you to be another brick in the wall. They are holding a brick campaign to support—financially—Morgan Row, the historic headquarters of the Harrodsburg Historical Society. By purchasing a commemorative brick, you can help support building repairs and maintenance projects at Morgan Row, which was built in the 1810s by Joseph Morgan and his son-in-law John Chiles. Morgan Row is credited as being the oldest row house in Kentucky.
The Harrodsburg Herald recently took a tour of the building. Nancy Hill, president of the Harrodsburg Historical Society, said they had finished work to stabilize the foundation for the kitchen using a grant from the Kentucky Colonels.
“It was a huge chunk of change,” Hill said. They are putting the finishing touches on renovating rooms upstairs, which was paid for through a bequest from the late Howard Gregory, who had served as president of the Harrodsburg Historical Society and as chairman of the Harrodsburg-Mercer County Landmarks Association before his passing. But there is still much work to be done to Morgan Row, including stabilizing the foundation of the office additions, work on the gutters and roof, painting the outside doors and windowsills, reglazing of the windows and the continuing problem with bats, or, as Hill calls them, “critters.”
“We have a lot of issues, as you’d expect of any historical building,” she said.
The Harrodsburg Herald/Robert Moore
Nancy Hill, president of the Harrodsburg Historical Society, stands in one of the newly remodeled rooms on the second floor of Morgan Row. They are selling memorial bricks to pay for more work at the historical building.
Bricks cost $75 each, with three lines of engraving and 20 characters maximum per line. No advertising is allowed. Hill said they haven’t decided “100 percent” what they will do with the bricks. She said suggestions have included constructing a walkway, building planters or a memorial wall.
“We don’t have enough bricks to even think about that yet,” Hill said. “We need more.”
The Kentucky Historical Society recently recognized the Harrodsburg Historical Society’s continuing efforts to “preserve and share Kentucky stories.” One of those stories is Morgan Row, which was once a fashionable place for the well-to-do, according to the Harrodsburg Historical Society’s website. In 1960, the historical society took part in a community effort to save the building, which was slated for demolition to make way for a parking lot, with Corning donating $10,000 towards purchasing the historic property. It took a lot of hard work by local volunteers to clean and restore the building. The Harrodsburg Historical Society is again asking for the public’s help in restoring Morgan Row.
To order a brick online, visit fundraisingbrick.com/harrodsburg. To pay by check, send your order and a check to the Harrodsburg Historical Society, P.O. Box 316, Harrodsburg, KY 40330. For more information, visit harrodsburghistorical.org.
