McDowell House/Shaker Village/River Cruise

April 7th, we left for Danville, KY to visit Constitution Square and a tour of the McDowell House. This was quite a drive, but the house was very interesting, plus the guides were great. Dr. Ephriam McDowell performed the first successful abdominal surgery in 1809 when he removed a 22 pound ovarian tumor from a 46 year old lady. There was no anesthetic or antibiotics in those days, but she recovered and rode her horse home after about 3 weeks, and lived a full life. The rest of the house was very interesting and our guide was a very enthusiastic and funny elderly lady.

The house contained a lot of apothecary artifacts which I found very interesting and was so glad they have been preserved.

From here we drove to the Shaker Village, where we had a very nice meal then toured the village. At it's peak there were about 500 people living here but the industrial revolution ended their growth. They first came to America in 1774 where they landed in New York. In 1805 they settled in Kentucky and their village was called Pleasant Hill. We had a great time here and could have stayed much longer.

After or meal we wondered over the their meeting house, and a black lady with a beautiful voice and great entertainment skills enthralled us with some Shaker songs. She also gathered up a bunch of people  from our audience to dance with her. Shirley was one of the dancers, unfortunately no pictures were allowed so just imagine a very large black lady with a great voice and nine average sized people dancing with her. Naturally I was partial to Shirley.

This could have been just another old house, but it's occupants were so interesting we enjoyed it very much.

This was my first chance to photograph one of these walls. They are all over this part of KY because of the limestone rock as they plowed these stones were piled up and later rock walls were built by slave labor or in some cases by Irish immigrants.

One of the old Shaker buildings.

This was a dorm. Men and women were separated. They were celibate, but that was not the reason they are now gone. In Kentucky there are only 3 Shakers left and they are in their 90's.

A lady discussing and demonstrating a loom. We also had a demonstration of weaving yarn from wool.

This man is 70 and can sheer about 100 sheep a day. He too was very entertaining.

Couldn't resist the oxen. We saw some last year on our visit to Kentucky.

The plaque says it all. 

The trestle is over 300 feet tall and adds to the magnificent view of the area.

Next we took a boat ride on the Kentucky River and wished we had spent that time at the Shaker village. We have been on many beautiful rivers but no Shaker Villages. After the cruise we rushed back to the Village, but it was closing for the day so we did not see as much as we wanted to.

Dinner was with Carlos and Rosemary, who I call cousin. More on that at a later time. We had pizza at a place called the Grey Goose in Midway, KY.

Next, who knows?

See Ya! Barry and Shirley