The Barret-Keach Farm, also called “The Elms,” was built in 1852 from bricks molded on site. The Federal-style home as well as its detached kitchen house, smokehouse, and icehouse were a wedding gift to William and Elizabeth Barret from Judge Thomas Towles, the father of the bride.
The smokehouse, which the family still uses to cure ham, is original to the home, as was an icehouse, which was torn down and replaced with the pool in the 1970s.
As described in the National Register of Historic Places:
The Barret-Keach Farm “The Elms” is located about 4 miles southwest of downtown Henderson, Kentucky. Located at the juncture of Highway 136 West and U.S. 60 West, the entire farm contains approximately 630 total acres. The farm is bounded by Highway 136 West on the north side, U.S. 60 West on the east side, and farmland on the south and west sides. The farm has a sizeable lake and includes both pasture and croplands. The Barret-Keach homeplace is located approximately one-fourth mile from Highway 136 West at the end of a long tree-lined driveway. The service structures, including the garage/shop, kitchen, smokehouse, and pool house, are situated behind the main house, and the agricultural outbuildings are located west of the main house and service structures. The farm has an internal road system with the main farm entrance off Highway 136 West, an alternate entrance off U.S. 60 West, and internal paths connecting the residence, service structures, and agricultural outbuildings.
The Barret-Keach Farm (“The Elms”) is situated on Lots 44 and 45 of the original plan of the Transylvania Company’s land grant. In the early 1800s, Judge Thomas Towles purchased the acreage known today as the Barret-Keach Farm. Judge Thomas Towles was married to Elizabeth Alves, daughter of Walter Alves, one of the signers of the Henderson Grant, and Amelia Johnston, whose father was William Johnston, one of the Richard Henderson & Co., to whom the grant was made” (Starling 781). In 1852, Judge Towles constructed a Federal-style residence, smokehouse, and detached kitchen on the farm. The brick used to construct the house and service structures were made on the farm by slave labor.
“The pit from which the clay was taken still exists to this house in the form of a circular pond, and the same oaken moulds that were used to shape the brick for this home are in the Keachs’ possession” (Merrill 40).
In June 1853, Judge Towles’s daughter Elizabeth and her husband, William T. Barret, acquired the house and approximately 749 acres. The Barret family resided in the dwelling and farmed the site until 1868 when they moved to Henderson.
On November 12, 1923, Aubrey E. Keach and Cheal A. Moss purchased 208.23 acres of the original Barret farmstead. In 1925, Keach built a tenant house on the east side of the farm. In 1934, “The Elms” was transferred to Aubrey E. Keach’s son, Aubrey Houston Keach, and Houston Keach continued and expanded the successful dairy operations. In the 1930s, Keach built two dairy barns, hay barn, chicken house, and shop, and constructed a silo for grain storage. In 1939, Keach built the large pond located on the east side of the farm. The Keachs pasteurized and delivered dairy products until the 1940s. At the end of 1958, Keach moved the dairy operations to another part of the farm and ceased dairy operations at “The Elms.”
Today “The Elms” farm consists of 630 acres, and the Keach family still have their dairy operation and grow soybeans and corn. Only 165 acres of the original 207-acre purchase still exist, and since 1852, the farm has experienced changes and effects of urban growth and development. In 1957, Keach donated 98.2 acres for the site of the Henderson Community College. Additionally, the Barret-Keach farm has experienced encroachments from the widening of U.S. 60 West, construction of Highway 136 West, and development of Henderson’s industrial park.
References:
Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library
National Registry of Historic Places
Evansville Living: In Historic Context, By Beth Tompkins, May 9, 2013