Birthplace of Herman Chittison

Robertson County, KY

On a nearby hilltop lie the home site and grave of Major George M. Bedinger (1756–1843), a Pennsylvania-born patriot who fought in the Revolution—helping defend Boonesborough in 1779 and serving at the siege of Yorktown in 1781. Returning to Kentucky in 1784, he was among the first to survey this region, later serving in the state legislature and in Congress. An opponent of slavery, he freed his enslaved people when each reached the age of thirty.

Maysville, KY

Born into slavery in Bourbon County and raised at the "Glen Alice" farm near Maysville, Elisha Green purchased freedom for himself and part of his family and became an influential Baptist minister. He helped organize African American Baptist churches in Maysville and Paris and, believing freedpeople needed land, joined a white landowner to found a Black community near Paris. Politically active, he was chosen a vice president of the Kentucky Negro Republican Party at an 1867 Lexington convention and remained a force in Baptist life until his death in 1889.

Ripley, OH · est. 1938

From his house above Ripley, John Rankin and his family sheltered more than 2,000 escaping enslaved people over four decades. The lantern in his window signaled safety across the river from Kentucky.

Augusta, KY

As a boy in May 1833, the future songwriter Stephen Collins Foster visited Augusta, where his uncle presided over Augusta College. Tradition holds that the harmonious voices drifting from a Black church on the hill left a lasting impression on the young Foster, who would later be remembered as America's first great popular songwriter. The marker suggests these sounds shaped songs he composed in later years.