Josiah Ennis House
N. Broadway (N.W. Cor. Third), built 1838
Josiah Ennis, in deeds dated in 1838 and 1840, bought 42 feet fronting on Broadway at the corner and seems to have built the house here. Previous deeds to the lot went back to James Hamilton, Judge Thos. M. Hickey, John D. Halstead, Daniel Halstead, Robt. S. Todd, Robert Holmes, Henry Clay, Executor of Thos. Hart, Jr., and Wm. Morton.
Ennis lived here until 1854, when he and his wife, Caroline, sold the property to Richard Harcourt. Three years later Harcourt conveyed the property to Taylor, Shelby & Co.
The latter, in deeding the house and lot in December 1857, to Roger W. Harrison, were enumerated as E.H. Taylor, Jr., and wife, Fannie J.; Isaac Shelby and wife, Sarah B. Shelby; J. Warren Grigsby and wife, Susan.
A suit in 1859 (Isaac Shelby and J. Warren Grigsby vs Estate of Roger W. Hanson) resulted in the sale of the property in 1860 to Henry G. Poston.
Poston and wife, Ann M., of Clark Co., Ky., sold the same year to Wm. J. Hanley.
Hanley in 1861 gave the house and lot over to Patrick C. Hartnett with instructions to "convey immediately to Mary A. Hanly, wife of said Wm. J. Hanley."
Joseph Hollenkamp bought the property from Hanley and wife in 1863, and ten years later it was purchased by Capt. Calvin C. Morgan, who resided here for several years.
Capt. Morgan served on the staff of his brother, Gen. John H. Morgan throughout the war, refusing to accept a commission higher than a captaincy.
There was not a house on the north side of Third Street from the alley back of Broadway to Ross Street, near Jefferson, before 1866.
Next to the alley mentioned was James Hamilton's "rope-walk" (112 feet). From there to Ross Street (the old city limits) Dr. Benjamin W. Dudley had owned the outlots extending from Third to Fourth Streets, purchased in 1822 and 1827 from the heirs of John McNair (conveyed to him by the Town Trustees) and Asa Blanchard, who held one-third interest in the McNair lots.
Dr. Dudley sold the property in 1860 to G.D. Wilgus. Thomas Smith bought the west half of it from Wilgus and sold it to George Stoll, Jr., in 1866, after which the first houses were built. A year later George Stoll, Sr., sold his residence on Walnut Street (in these tours) and built a home here (1867-68). Successive owners during the next fifty years were Anson G.P. Dodge, Benj. Crawford and Sidney A, Clay, respectively.
Source: Dunn, C. Frank. Old Houses of Lexington. Lexington Public Library, 1976.
Transcribed by P. Brinegar, April 2000.
Updated January 1, 2026.