Samuel May House facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Samuel May House
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Front and northern end
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 Location in Kentucky
Location in the United States
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| Location | 690 Northlake Drive, Prestonsburg, Kentucky |
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| Built | 1817 |
| Architect | Samuel May |
| Architectural style | Federal |
| NRHP reference No. | 80001526 |
| Added to NRHP | April 1, 1980 |
The Samuel May House is a historic home in Prestonsburg, Kentucky. It was built in 1817 by Samuel May, who was an important leader in Kentucky. He served as a state representative from 1832 to 1834 and a state senator from 1835 to 1838 for Floyd County.
Today, the Samuel May House is a Samuel May House Living History Museum. This means you can visit it and learn what life was like when Samuel May lived there!
Building History
Samuel May moved to Floyd County, Kentucky, from Virginia in 1808. He married Cathrine Evans. Between 1817 and 1821, Samuel May bought a lot of land – about 3,000 acres – along the Levisa Fork river. On this land, he started a farm and built a mill.
Building the house was a huge job because it was in a remote part of Eastern Kentucky. In 1816, workers began making the bricks for the house. They used special ovens called kilns to produce the bricks.
The cement for the house was also made on site. Workers crushed shells from freshwater clams found in the Levisa Fork to create lime, which is a key ingredient in cement. The wood for the house was cut from logs using a special saw and then brought to the building site. There, it was dried and shaped. Even the nails had to be brought in from a factory far away in Abingdon, Virginia.
House Features
The Samuel May House shows how skilled Samuel May was as an architect and builder. The bricks on the front of the house are laid in a special pattern called a Flemish bond. This pattern is not only decorative but also makes the walls very strong.
All the walls in the house, even the inside ones, are four bricks thick! This is very unusual. This special building method created deep window sills and door frames. It also helped the house stay strong and last for many generations.
Even though the house has two stories, it only has six rooms. The biggest room is Samuel May's Parlor, which is about eighteen by twenty feet. These large rooms were important because the house also served as a community gathering place. It was also a safe place for people to go if there were dangers, though there are no records of any attacks on the house itself.
The inside of the house has beautiful woodwork made from poplar wood, which is now painted white. The floors are made from both poplar and white ash wood.
In 1842, Samuel May sold the house to his brother, Thomas May. This happened because Samuel was having trouble paying off his house loan. A few years later, Samuel May moved to the California gold fields, hoping to become rich again. He was not successful and passed away in Placerville, California in 1851.
Restoring the House
The idea of fixing up this historic home and turning it into a living history museum started in March 1993. A group called "Friends of the Samuel May House, Inc." was formed. At first, they didn't have much money, so they could only do a few small tasks.
But in the spring of 1997, the city of Prestonsburg bought the house. They also received a large grant of $400,000 from the Kentucky Heritage Council and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. This money allowed the city to fully restore the house. They worked hard to make it look just like it did when Samuel May lived there!
