From the Chesapeake to the Rolling Fork: Our Family’s Westward Journey

 

For generations, our family called Southern Maryland home. Places like St. Mary’s County are etched into the roots of many Catholic families who would later help settle the bluegrass hills of Kentucky. But after the Revolutionary War, those roots began to stretch westward—across the mountains, down the rivers, and into the rough but promising land of Kentucky. Some of our ancestors were among them.

The Revolutionary War left St. Mary’s County both proud and battered. British warships prowled the Chesapeake, supplies were seized, churches burned, and many homes ransacked. While Marylanders did their part in securing liberty—some fighting from New York to Yorktown—the economic aftermath of the war hit hard. Farmland was worn, trade was slow, and opportunity was scarce.

But beyond the Appalachians lay a promise.

Kentucky had long been a hunting ground for various Indigenous tribes, but after a series of treaties—including Fort Stanwix in 1768 and negotiations with the Cherokee in 1775—settlement by white colonists became more widespread. Despite these agreements, skirmishes with Native tribes were common, particularly in the 1780s and early 1790s, and settlers had to travel and settle with great caution.

For the families leaving Maryland—many of them Catholic—Kentucky wasn’t just a land of opportunity. It was a land of freedom. In Maryland, Catholic education had been outlawed under colonial rule. In Kentucky, these families hoped to build new churches, open schools, and practice their faith more freely.

The usual route west for St. Mary’s Countians was rugged. First, it was overland to Pittsburgh, then a flatboat down the Ohio River to Maysville, and finally more overland travel to fortified “stations” near where they hoped to settle. From there, they carved out farms along creeks like Pottinger’s, Rolling Fork, and Hardin, often clearing land while living inside wooden stations for protection.

By 1792, Kentucky had become a state. That same year, the first Catholic church—just a humble log structure—was built near Rohan Knob (today’s Holy Cross). And in 1808, Bardstown became the seat of the first Catholic diocese west of the Appalachians.

Names like Mudd, Mattingly, Cissell (Cecil), Spalding, Nally, and Edelen—still common in central Kentucky—appear on the earliest settler rolls. And among them, some of our own ancestors made their way from the tobacco fields of Maryland to the salt licks and hickory forests of Kentucky. They brought with them their faith, their distilling know-how, their recipes for stuffed ham, and a resilience born from both war and hope.

When I think of these ancestors, I try to imagine what that journey must have felt like. Trading the known for the unknown. Leaving behind graves of loved ones in Maryland and pushing forward, family Bible in one hand and musket in the other. Many of them couldn’t read or write, but they could clear land, build cabins, and raise large families who would shape the communities we know today.

Their stories are not just chapters in a history book. They are the preface to our own. And while we may never know every name, every date, or every reason why they left, we can still honor their courage and conviction.