Historical Andrew Jackson Upton House
By
Opal Skelton
The old home, located on one and one twentieth acres one block from the business district, was built in 1851 by Andrew Jackson Upton, a wealthy farmer and lumber dealer and grandson of the town's founder--Edward Upton, who came to Kentucky from North Carolina around 1812-14. An 80 foot well on the grounds provided water to townspeople, and the place is said to have been used as a hospital during the civil War.
Andrew Jackson Upton died Nov. 11, 1896, leaving an estate of over $50,000 to his wife. After she died their two daughters kept the home until 1949. A descendant, Dellard Upton, bought it to retire from a career with Chrysler Corp. in Detroit, Michican. He was survived by a wife, Florence, who kept the home until her death, at age 96, in 1976.
Mrs. Upton left the house to a niece in Long Island, New York. She wanted to return to Upton, restore the house, and retire there. However, her husband wanted to retire in Florida.
Mr. and Mrs. Gene and Opal Skelton bought the house in 1979 and restored it. They made only one major change by opening up the floor to ceiling partition enclosing the front staircase. They purchased a staircase from a home in nearby Hodgenville and substituted it for the original wall.
The Skeltons discovered many interesting features about the house. The four front rooms appear to be older than a wing running back from and at a right angle to the original structure. A new roofline to meet the roof of the addition was built over a pre-existing roof, preserving the presumably original shingle roof for a visitor to the attic to see. The original lead-coated copper roof covers the house, with small sheets creased on the edges and fitted together in a way to hide any nails or other means of attaching the material to the roof.
The front part of the house is built on logs placed on a hewn rock foundation. The entire skeleton of the structure, foundation, rafters and studs are oak, with poplar and pine scattered through other parts of the house.
Outside, a cistern with a side crank winds a sprocket that originally turned a loop of chain lowered into the well. Metal cups attached to the chain dipped down within 18 inches of the bottom of the well to pull up the coolest water without disturbing the sediment on the bottom. This setup provided water for a country kitchen behind the house used for canning and cooking when the weather was too hot to allow building a fire in the house. The indoor kitchen boasted a pump attached to the cistern by a waterline coming through the floor, emptying into a sink. The pump was the only "running" water in the house until 1979.
Somewhere over the years, the country kitchen, chicken house and an outdoor storage building have been roofed with tin. The coal house has a lead-coated copper roof.
The house was auctioned in May of 1984 to the present owners.