BS: Irish laborers in Franklin KY 1850

Subject: BS: Irish laborers in Franklin KY 1850
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 12:50 AM

Does anyone know what they would be doing there in Ward II in 1850 Census? Lots of the names look like the ones I am researching in IOwa. Were there canals being dug there? I know West Virginia and Ohio had some. Most were listed as laborers but one as a cook and one as a shantee operator or something like that. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Irish laborers in Franklin KY 1850
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 11:15 PM

Are you sure Franklin Furnace (later Franklin) in New Jersey, and Franklin, Ohio, are not meant? Both had large iron works in mid-19th C.
Franklin, Kentucky, had reached the magnificant size of 828 in 1860.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish laborers in Franklin KY 1850
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 12:07 AM

No Franklin County Kentucky it was...I don't think a town was listed..just Ward II...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Irish laborers in Franklin KY 1850
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 07:09 AM

Franklin is also a county. Try these folks, why dontcha? They may actually have the answer

http://history.ky.gov/index.php

Subject: RE: BS: Irish laborers in Franklin KY 1850
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 01:59 PM

Franklin County is the location of Frankfort, quite a ways from the settlement called Frankfort.

I think Greg F is correct; the reference to Ward II should have caught my attention.
Its pop. was 3300 in 1850; it was the capitol and had government buildings which required laborers to construct them. It was on the Kentucky River. Navigation ends at Frankfort (once further upstream), so there would have been some river transport.