Abner Legrand Gaines, son of James Gaines and Mildred Bland Pollard of Orange, Virginia, was a school teacher, planter, and tavern keeper. Gaines also became the proprietor of the first stagecoach line that carried mail and passengers between Cincinnati and Lexington; a thirty-four hour trip in 1818. Gaines was a Boone County Justice from 1805 to 1817, at which time he was appointed Sheriff.[1]
"Migrated to Boone County, Kentucky in 1793 and built the house known as Gaines Tavern in Walton. The house was used by General Kirby-Smith (friend of James Forbes Robinson) as staff headquarters during the Civil War. He purchased property in southern Boone County from Archibald Reid in ca.1813. He continued to operate a tavern and inn built by Reid in ca. 1795. Gaines built a striking new house in ca. 1814, which is preserved today as the Gaines Tavern History Center." [2]
"Abner and his wife Elizabeth (Matthews) had 13 children [and raised orphaned nephew, Peter Hanger, who was instrumental in establishing toll roads and stage lines in Territorial Arkansas]; several of them experienced some notoriety in various areas of the United States. Abner’s oldest son, James Matthews Gaines, became the first postmaster for the community referred to as Gaines Cross Roads, now Walton, in 1815. Woodford Gaines became a paymaster in the US army and spent time at Fort Smith, Arkansas. President Andrew Jackson appointed Richard Gaines U.S. District Attorney of Mississippi. William H. Gaines made a successful claim for a large portion of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Major John Pollard Gaines was a soldier and a statesman. He was also the original owner of the Maplewood Farm, along with Margaret Garner and her family, before he sold it to his brother, Archibald, and moved to the Oregon Territory to assume his position as governor. Archibald K. Gaines enslaved Margaret Garner as well."[3]
"Margaret Garner, her husband Robert, and her children crossed the Ohio River in 1857 [quite literally across ice floes as described in Harriet Beecher Stowe's fictional portrayal of escaping slaves in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' in 1852]. The [Garner] family took refuge in the home of a formerly enslaved person in Cincinnati. With the legal support of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, deputy marshals [from both Ohio and Kentucky] apprehended the Garner family. Unwilling to return her children to captivity, Margaret cut the throat of one of her children and attempted to kill the other three before being stopped. Margaret was tried for murder and sold further south. Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, the 1988 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, was inspired by Margaret Garner's actions."[4] Abner Legrand Gaines died in Boone County in 1839. His wife, Susan Elizabeth (Mathews) Gaines survived him 22 years dying in 1861.
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Categories: Boone County, Kentucky, Slave Owners