History of Henry County Kentucky United States of America

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Reuben Thomas Durrett, jurist, was born in Henry county, Ky., Jan. 22, 1824; son of William and Elizabeth (Rawlings) Durrett. An early ancestor, Louis Duret, was an eminent French physician and author of the middle of the sixteenth century. After the massacre of St. Bartholomew some of the family escaped to England, and in 1644 Christopher Duret was prominently connected with the Baptists in London, according to the records of that sect. Early in the sixteenth century three brothers, John, Richard and Bartholomew Durrett, settled in Spottsylvania county, Va., and became the progenitors of the Durretts in America. Francis Durrett, father of William and grandfather of Reuben Thomas, was with Gen. George Rogers Clark in the Illinois campaigns of 1773-79. He subsequently settled in Henry county, Ky., where his son William built, about 1801, the first brick house erected in the county and which stood in a state of good preservation in 1899. Reuben was a student at Georgetown college, Ky., 1844-46, and was graduated at Brown university in 1849. He then studied law at the University of Louisville, receiving his LL.B. degree in 1850. He was a practising lawyer in Louisville, Ky., 1850-80. He was a member of the city council, 1853-54; a park commissioner; part owner of the Louisville Daily Courier and its editor, 1857-59; founder of the public library of Kentucky in 1871, and its president, 1871-80, and founder of the Filson club, Louisville, 1884, and its president from its foundation. He was elected to a membership in the American, the Virginia and the Wisconsin historical societies, the Polytechnic society of Louisville, and a number of historical and scientific societies in America and Europa. He received the degree of LL. D. from Brown in 1894, from Georgetown in 1895, and from the University of Louisville in 1896. He collected a library of rare and choice books, which in 1899 exceeded 50,000 volumes, besides innumerable pamphlets and manuscript, his collection being especially rich in American and the most complete in the world in Kentucky bibliography. He was married in 1852 to Elizabeth H., daughter of Caleb and Elizabeth (Humphreys) Bates of Cincinnati, Ohio, and their son, William T., became a prominent physician of Louisville. His published writings, besides numerous orations and addresses, include: Life and Times of John Fitson (1884); Historical Sketch of St. Paul's Church (1889); Centenary of Kentucky (1892); Centenary of Louisville (1893), and many contributions, principally of an historic character, to current literature, notably his Exposition of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-99 which appeared in the Southern Bivouac, March, April and May, 1886, and attracted wide attention.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Henry County Kentucky

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