Spurlington, Kentucky

Spurlington is an unincorporated community in Taylor County, Kentucky. The Kentucky Atlas & Gazetteer places it about five miles northeast of Campbellsville.^[1] The place-name scholar Robert M. Rennick located it where KY 634 crosses the old railroad, near the Marion County line and about 4½ air miles northeast of Campbellsville.^[2] His working notes also record a correction, printed in Kentucky Explorer in June 2002, that the community lies on KY 744 rather than KY 634.^[3] GNIS lists it as a populated place with feature ID 504189 at about 37.412° N, 85.275° W. The U.S. Geological Survey's 7.5-minute topographic quadrangle for the area is also named Spurlington.^[4] Some regional media put the community about eight miles north of Campbellsville.^[5]

Name

Spurlington is named for the Spurling family, not a Spurlin family. The two surnames are closely related, but the family behind this place spelled its name Spurling.

Rennick's draft entry for Spurlington says the post office was established on 2 January 1880 and "was named for the pioneer forebears of its first postmaster, John Spurling Sr." His sources were a 1978 interview with Betty Jane Gorin, a Campbellsville historian,^[6] and a railroad-history article by Susan Burress in the bicentennial edition of The News-Journal.^[2] Rennick's working notes for Taylor County add that the family was in the county by about 1820, when old marriage records name a William Spurling as the father of a bride. Gorin told him that, as far as she knew, the Spurlings had always lived in the area.^[3] The same notes cite John Spurling Sr.'s site report for the proposed office, dated 19 November 1879.^[3] The Kentucky Atlas & Gazetteer says only that the station was "named for a local family."^[1]

Federal records agree. The 1881 Official Register of the United States lists John Spurling as postmaster at Spurlington, Taylor County.^[7] The 1885 edition lists "Jno. Spurling, jr."^[8] Rennick's notes also record gazetteer listings of John B. Spurling as postmaster, storekeeper and railroad agent in 1883, and of M. L. Spurling as postmaster in 1895.^[3]

Local accounts call the first postmaster John Kipsey Spurling. A local-history essay credited to a Taylor County High School student was reposted in 2002 on a Genealogy.com forum from a publication called Kentucky Heritage. It says the area was first called "Spurling town" because so many Spurlings lived near its two churches. It also names John Kipsey Spurling as first postmaster and suggests the name Spurlington was adopted when the post office needed a name.^[9] Rennick's summary of a 1992 Central Kentucky News-Journal article also calls the first postmaster "John Kipsey".^[3]

The two names very probably refer to one man. Rennick found a 67-year-old merchant named John Spurling, with a 60-year-old wife named Jane, in the 1880 census of the Campbellsville precinct, living near several other Spurling families.^[3] A Find a Grave memorial for John Kipsey Spurling (4 July 1813 – 8 February 1897) gives birth years consistent with those ages. The memorial names his wife as Jane Newton Spurling (1820–1904) and says he was born in Virginia and died at Spurlington.^[10]

The Spurling family

The Find a Grave memorial for John Kipsey Spurling names his parents as William A. "Pat" Spurling (1769–1857) and Nancy Blake Spurling. William's memorial is a cenotaph inscribed "Son of Jeremiah Spurling".^[11] Genealogies identify that Jeremiah with the Spurlings of colonial Virginia.

WikiTree's user-contributed profiles fill in the family's move to Kentucky. The profile of William A. Spurling says he was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, a son of Jeremiah Spurling (about 1745–1816). He settled in Green County, Kentucky, with his wife Nancy and their children, and was a prominent farmer who owned a large amount of land in Taylor County. The profile gives his death as 28 May 1857 at Spurlington and says he was buried on his farm about a mile from Spurlington, "a town named for the family"; that naming statement is not cited to a record.^[12] His brother Hanson (Henson) Spurling (1771–1838), a wagonmaker, moved to Kentucky at the same time, about 1816, after their father's estate was settled. Hanson's family lived in Clark and Green counties, and WikiTree lists several of his children as dying at Spurlington, among them Thomas (1800–1867), Catherine (1817–1886) and William (1831–1894).^[13]

Railroad and post office

The railroad through Spurlington was the Cumberland & Ohio line from Lebanon to Greensburg, completed in 1879. The Louisville and Nashville (L&N) later bought it at a foreclosure sale.^[14] An 1883 gazetteer, as summarized by Rennick, described Spurlington as a station on the C&O branch of the L&N, six miles from Campbellsville, with a population of 60.^[3] By 1895 the population was given as 100. J. B. Spurling kept a general store and was the railroad and express agent, and T. J. Smith ran another general store.^[3] The line's best-known engineering work nearby was the Spurlington Tunnel through Muldraugh Hill.^[15][5]

According to Rennick's summary of the 1992 newspaper article, the Spurlings donated the depot site and section houses. Their store, Spurling & Co., was older than the railroad by 25 to 30 years.^[3] At its height the community had three stores, Baptist, Methodist and Catholic churches, and a mill. The depot was torn down in 1940. Marvin and Alma Wise ran a store there from 1939 to 1975, and the store housed the post office.^[3] The post office closed in 1958.^[1] The last trains on the Lebanon–Campbellsville section of the line ran in 1985,^[14] and Rennick's notes say the tracks were removed in 1991.^[3]

Settlement, churches and cemetery

The Genealogy.com essay says farming drew the first settlers around 1800. It says the Spurlington United Methodist Church, earlier called Union Ridge, may date from about that time. It also says St. Francis de Sales Church was founded there in the 1850s as the first Catholic church in Taylor County, and that building the tunnel and railroad in the 1870s brought workers into the community.^[9] These claims come from a school essay and have not been checked against church records.

Find a Grave's listing for the Spurlington United Methodist Church Cemetery, also called Union Ridge Cemetery, includes several generations of Spurlings. Among them are John Kipsey Spurling and John Blake Spurling (1835–1898).^[16][10] Another is Nancy J. (Murphy) Spurling, whose memorial gives her dates as 25 December 1819 – 7 November 1925. An obituary transcribed on the memorial, from The News-Journal of 12 November 1925, calls her the widow of James Spurling of Merrimac, names a surviving daughter, Mrs. Betsy Childers, as living "near Spurlington," and says the burial took place at Union Ridge. The obituary spells the family name Spurling, as do the memorials of the relatives linked to hers.^[17] Her records disagree about her age; see Spurlin centenarians and longevity claims.

Rennick's notes record local accounts that the community includes the highest point in Taylor County.^[3]

Legend

Spurlington is also known for a regional folk tale about a witch named Nancy Bass and outlaw treasure hidden at the tunnel. Local archival research indicates that Nancy Bass was a real woman who probably died before the tunnel was built (see Spurlington Tunnel witch legend).^[5][6]