Old Mulkey Meetinghouse, 1804

A religious revival swept Kentucky in the early 1800s, and by 1803 the congregation had grown to 125 members.

The church minutes of May 11, 1804, called for a meetinghouse 50 feet long and 30 feet wide, with jointed wood shingles, five windows, and three doors, its builder to be paid in trade by subscription. The finished building, of half-hewn logs chinked with rocks and mud, is shaped like a cross with twelve corners, said to stand for the twelve apostles or the twelve tribes of Israel, and its three doors are said to symbolize the Trinity. It had no fireplace.

Worshippers warmed their feet in bags of heated stones, and the men took turns tending an outdoor fire and keeping guard. John Mulkey is said to have preached more than 10,000 sermons, and his descendants helped establish more than 50 Disciples of Christ congregations. Services were held there until 1856.

The cemetery holds Revolutionary War soldiers and pioneers, among them Daniel Boone’s sister Hannah Boone Stewart Pennington, who died in 1828. The site became Kentucky’s 19th state park in 1931. It is often called the oldest log meetinghouse in Kentucky, though the state’s nature preserves office calls it the second-oldest church meetinghouse. The map pin marks the meetinghouse.