Art: Bardstown Believers

In little Bardstown, Ky. (pop.: 1,767) last week a local legend was proudly celebrated as a national fact. Kentucky's rotund Senator Logan made a speech and ladies dressed in crinolines tittered and played hostess in "Federal Hill," the old home of Judge John Rowan. Bardstown believers were commemorating the birthday of a Rowan relation, Songwriter Stephen Collins Foster.

Bardstown believes that Stephen Foster drew inspiration for famed "My Old Kentucky Home" from "Federal Hill." Some Kentuckians further claim he actually composed it on the spot, during a visit in 1852. John Tasker...

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