Beech Tree News Network

By all accounts, Woody Martin’s great-grandfather was a good man to have on your side. That became evident as Woody and his wife Sandra began to lay out a collection of published stories about John William Martin recently at their Morgantown home.

John William, along with his two friends, Bill Cardwell and Frank Flener, joined the Union effort locally at Woodbury and were later inducted at Calhoun Kentucky. The regiment they chose was the Eleventh Kentucky Volunteer Infantry. Martin was 16 years old at the time. Years later Martin’s son, John Wesley, said of his father, “He fought from Shiloh to Atlanta…..and I am proud.” 

That and other facts can be gleaned from the November/ December 1985 issue of the magazine, “Back Home in Kentucky,” containing an interview with his daughter Mary Martin Klusmeier. Her sister, Ruth Martin Morris published a paper recalling their father, titled, “Memories of My Father, Et Al.” 

Following the war, Martin’s public service career was far from over. In the summer of 1889 Martin opposed R.P.Hocker (the choice of the Hartford Herald) for the office of Kentucky State Senator for the eighth district covering Butler, Ohio and Muhlenberg counties. Martin won and served one term.

State archive records show that Martin was the first known Kentucky state senator to come from Butler County. That was 125 years ago. Three others would follow. They are Nathaniel T. Howard, Otis White and our current Senator-elect C.B Embry.

Martin was busy that first year, as shown by the variety of bills passing which affected the citizens of Butler in particular. Those include:

-The consolidation of acts affecting the city of Rochester.
-The discovery of a school census under-count resulting in extra money being sent to the district.
-Declaring Mud River as the official boundary with Muhlenberg County.
-Declaring Green River as a “lawful fence” from the mouth of the Green to the point where it forks with the Barren River.
- The Senate passed a bill authorizing the Butler County Court to appropriate money to detect the murderers of Granville Gray, a prominent Butler County citizen.

Failing to gain enough votes was an attempt to redefine the border with Ohio County in the little bend area.

When the courthouse square monument to soldiers of the Civil War was unveiled it was missing the name of Private John William Martin. Sandra Martin explains it this way: “He refused to have his name put on the Civil War Monument in Morgantown because of the fee charged to the Veterans of the Civil War. He said that all the ones who served could not pay for their name being put on the monument because the fee was too high, so his name wouldn’t be put there either.”

He and his wife, Ethie, are buried in the Salem Baptist Church cemetery in Logansport.  The stories of both Morris and Klusmeier have been placed with the Martin family collection at the Butler County public library.

“Memories of My Father, Et Al” is available in PDF format here. Click here

Back Home In Kentucky click here back home in kentucky john w martin.pdf

Private John W. Martin, Civil War soldier

Personal items of Senator Martin

Story and photos by Roger Southerland, Beech Tree News