Crittenden House
Frankfort, Franklin County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
An Eminent Statesman. John Jordan Crittenden, 1787-1863, lived here, 1819-1863. Legislator, 15th Kentucky Governor. Attorney General under three Presidents. Five times a U.S. Senator. Noted for Crittenden Compromise, 1860, futile effort to avert Civil War and preserve the Union. His last words: "Let all the ends thou aimest at be thy country's, thy God's and truth's." See over. (Reverse) Crittenden House - This building, before west portion was added, was the home of John J. Crittenden, 1819 until death, 1863. Built in 1800 by Dr. Joseph Scott on land once owned by Aaron Burr. In May, 1837, Daniel Webster and family visited here. In Feb. 1849, President-elect Zachary Taylor was guest here on way to inauguration. Carriage step is from the first Kentucky state capitol. Over.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
John Jordan Crittenden (1787-1863) lived in this Frankfort house for the last forty-four years of his life while serving as Kentucky governor, five-time U.S. Senator, and Attorney General under three presidents. In 1860 he authored the Crittenden Compromise, a last, futile effort to reconcile North and South and preserve the Union on the eve of the Civil War. The house, built in 1800 on land once owned by Aaron Burr, hosted Daniel Webster and President-elect Zachary Taylor.
Why it matters
Crittenden's doomed compromise marks the final moment when Americans hoped to avert civil war through legislation, and his home stands at the crossroads of the era's great statesmen.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
To understand this house in Frankfort, picture Kentucky in the first half of the 1800s: a young state, barely a generation removed from frontier, but already a political heavyweight. It sat on the seam between North and South, a slaveholding state deeply tied to the free states across the Ohio River. That in-between position shaped everything about its politics — and produced a run of statesmen who spent their careers trying to hold the middle ground.
The house itself predates its most famous resident. It was built in 1800 by Dr. Joseph Scott, on land that had once belonged to Aaron Burr — the same Burr who would later serve as vice president and become one of the most controversial figures of the early Republic. Frankfort was then a small but rising capital town, and a substantial home like this one was a natural gathering place for the powerful.
By the time John Jordan Crittenden moved in around 1819, the era of the Early Republic was giving way to fierce national arguments over expansion, tariffs, and above all slavery. For the next four decades, a great deal of that argument would pass through this address.
People & events
John Jordan Crittenden lived here from 1819 until his death in 1863, and the marker's list of his offices reads like a career designed to touch every branch of American government: state legislator, the 15th governor of Kentucky, five times a United States senator, and the nation's attorney general under a succession of presidents. Few Americans of his century served in so many roles for so long.
The house saw its share of famous guests. In May 1837, the great orator and senator Daniel Webster — one of the towering voices for the Union — visited with his family. In February 1849, Zachary Taylor, the Mexican War hero and president-elect, stopped here on his way to his inauguration. A carriage step said to come from Kentucky's first state capitol still connects the home to the earliest days of the commonwealth.
Crittenden's defining moment came in 1860, when secession loomed. He put forward the compromise that bears his name — a bundle of proposed constitutional measures meant to reassure the South and keep the states together. It failed. The marker calls it a "futile effort," and history agreed: within months the country was at war. His reported last words, urging that every aim serve "thy country's, thy God's and truth's," read as the creed of a man who spent his life trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Its place in the American story
The Crittenden Compromise marks a specific, poignant hinge in American history: the last serious attempt to prevent the Civil War through legislation rather than force. When it collapsed in the Senate, the era of compromise that had defined the previous generation of politics effectively ended. This house, then, stands at the closing of one age and the violent opening of another.
Kentucky's own agony mirrored the nation's. As a border state, it was pulled hard in both directions, and many of its families were split between the Union and the Confederacy — a division that ran straight through Crittenden's own household, as his sons took up commands on opposing sides. Few homes embody the border-state tragedy more directly.
That this modest Frankfort residence hosted Webster, Taylor, and its long-serving statesman owner also makes it a kind of crossroads for the whole cast of antebellum leadership. The men who tried to steer the country through its hardest decades passed through these rooms.
If you visit
Stand in front of the house and read both sides of the marker — the story is deliberately split, with the man on one face and the building on the other. Look for the west portion, which the inscription notes was added later; the older core is the part Crittenden actually knew.
See if you can spot the carriage step drawn from Kentucky's first state capitol. It's an easy detail to walk past, but it's a genuine physical link to the founding years of the state, worn by generations of arriving guests.
Frankfort makes a rewarding stop on any tour of Kentucky's political past. The capital is compact and walkable, and this house pairs naturally with the state's other historic government sites. Come here thinking about the year 1860 — about a man in these rooms drafting his last, doomed attempt to keep the country whole — and the quiet street takes on a weight far larger than its size.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · John Jordan Crittenden
- · Daniel Webster
- · Zachary Taylor
- · Aaron Burr
Related events
- · Crittenden Compromise, 1860
Themes & tags
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