HISTORIC SPENCER HOUSE, TAVERN & INN
For almost 200 years the Spencer House, has stood as an anchor, and a landmark in the community of Taylorsville, Kentucky. This popular rest stop was on the Louisville and Taylorsville stage route, and it was a famous hotel, and a tavern for many years. The building was built about 1838, by Frederick B. Mathis. The building sits very close to the street and is a 20-room brick structure. It had three doors on the front, the one on the left was for a private apartment, the center door was for client traffic, and the one on the right opened into a dining room.
George Kurtz moved to Taylorsville, from Nelson County, and began his career as an undertaker, in 1833, and he purchased the Spencer House, in 1860. Then in 1873, George and his wife Eliza sold the house to Confederate veteran, Captain Isaiah Yocum, and Benjamin F Foreman. In 1877, Foreman sold his half to Yocum. For 58 years, he and his wife Kate served guests, calling them to meals by a bell atop the hotel. The belfry was removed when a new roof was put on, in 1940s.
The building was a stopping place for stagecoaches, which made three round trips a week from Louisville, to Taylorsville, and then to Chaplin, in Nelson County, 45-miles, in nine hours, which included three team changes. Captain Yocum was also known as “Old Zay Yocum”, and he’s remembered in some newspaper stories by Joe Green, in Louisville, that Yocum would tell stories to entertain travelers who stayed at the Spencer House. Yocum was reported to preserve an old-time bar. The newspaper story said that Yocum once sold liquor from the bar at 10 cents a drink, because he obtained booze for 25 cents a gallon. A specific story has been passed down through the years about Captain Yocum. As was the custom after the evening meal, the various guests would sit out in chairs in front of the house. One evening, Captain Yocum saw a guest whittling on one of the chairs. Yocum suddenly jumped up, took out his knife from his pocket, and cut off the necktie of the startled man. When asked why he did it, Captain Yocum said “you cut my property, I’ll cut yours!”. Yocum died, in 1925, and Charles Beard Foreman purchased the hotel, in the early 1930s, and operated the Foreman and Greenwell Funeral Home.
The Spencer house served as the Lutz-Shelburne Funeral Home, in the 1970s and 80s, and the Snider Funeral Home, from 1988 to 1993 when it closed, In September of 1996, Hall-Taylor Funeral Homes, Inc., of Shelbyville, purchased The Spencer House, and after extensive renovation, and remodeling, the Spencer House became the official home of Hall-Taylor Funeral Home Inc., in Taylorsville.
The historic Spencer House has stood as an iconic pillar in the community for almost two centuries. Imagine the history that is passed within and without the solid brick walls. If walls could talk… Be sure to check out the video below from the Spencer House.
– Col. Russ Carson, Jr., Founder, Family Tree Nuts