GREEN DERBY RESTAURANT
him, and at least one white witness, to tears and led him to write, “The stain of slavery and its degrading impressions will long linger in the minds of generations yet unborn.” Green went through a succession of owners and was put up for auction on the square at Washington, Ky. In the early 1830s, he was converted while plowing a field and baptized six months later in the north fork of the Licking River. In 1835 Green married Susan Young, who was also a slave. In 1838 he moved to Maysville, 12 miles away, and often had to walk that distance to visit his wife, being questioned along the way by skeptical whites as to why he was alone. Green became a sexton for the white First Baptist Church in Maysville and was allowed to attend ser vices. The leaders of that church recognized his devout nature and his singing ability. He was permitted to have ser vices for the African American community in 1844. On May 10, 1845, the Baptist Church licensed Rev. Green to preach, and he organized the Bethel Baptist Church in Maysville that year. He founded the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Flemingsburg in 1853 and the First Baptist Church in Paris for African Americans in 1855. Although Green had contact with operators of the Underground Railroad and had many opportunities to escape while he was traveling in Ohio to perform religious ser vices, he did not. After buying his freedom, he was able to purchase freedom for his wife and three of his children in 1858. He and his wife saw the removal of their son John in Maysville and watched him being sold in Paris. They never had contact with him again. After the Civil War, Green was elected vice president of the Kentucky Negro Republican Party at its convention in Lexington in 1867. In 1875 he and his congregation built a brick structure for the Bethel Baptist Church in Maysville that served the congregation for a century. He continued to pastor his churches, worked for the education of the freedman, and lobbied against discriminatory laws such as those that prevented blacks from testifying against whites in judicial proceedings. During the period of emancipation, many freed slaves left their former masters or were ejected from their former homes. In Paris a group of such freedmen were housed in a stable for 10 dollars a month. Its chimney was a hole in the roof. Because Green believed it was “as much my duty to look out after the interests of my people as to preach the gospel,” he persuaded his Paris congregation to buy houses in a development from Samuel Clay. The lots measured 60 by 75 feet, and on each was built a cottage with a door and a chimney. This led to a community of home-owning African Americans. On June 8, 1883, while riding the Maysville and Lexington Railroad from Paris to Maysville, Green was attacked by two white professors of the Female Millersburg Institute in Kentucky for refusing to give up his seat. Green brought charges against Professors Gould and Bristow in Paris and was awarded damages in the amount of $24. In the controversy that followed, many newspapers in Kentucky commented on the case, favoring Green.
The Maysville Bulletin called Green a man respected by his own race and “by the white population of Maysville.” Rev. Green baptized some 6,000 individuals, many in the Ohio River. He died at his home in 1893. His funeral was a community event and the church overflowed with mourners. Green was buried in the Maysville Cemetery, which was segregated at the time. Green, Elisha. Life of the Rev. Elisha W. Green. 1888. http://docsouth.unc .edu/neh/greenew/greenew.html (accessed April 2, 2006). Part of the Documenting the American South series. Kentucky Gateway Museum fi les, Maysville, Ky.
George Vaughn and John Klee
GREEN DERBY RESTAURANT. The Green Derby Restaurant has long been a fi xture at the northwest corner of Ninth and York Sts. in Newport. Its history is tied to the importance of family and friends, which are as essential to a visit there as any ingredient in the food. Helen Azbill Haller Cummins (1912–1986) started the Green Derby Restaurant in 1947 with her husband. In 1912 the Azbill family had a farm in Clover Bottom (Jackson Co.). Helen’s father, William Azbill, was a dentist from Sweden. He had married Mollie McCann, an Appalachian woman of Irish and Cherokee ancestry. In the 1920s many families in that part of Kentucky, including Helen’s oldest sister Lula, found opportunities for employment scarce and headed north to the more populated cities of the state. Before long the rest of the family followed Lula north. Helen married Jacob Haller, a German immigrant employed in Newport at the Interlake Steel Plant (see Newport Steel). The Great Depression took his job, and the story is that he became an entrepreneur in the “bathtub gin” business (bootlegging). Helen and Jake had four children, John (Jack), Glen, Ron, and Mollie. When her marriage ended, Helen turned to waitressing to support her family. A large picture hangs in the Green Derby Restaurant today showing Helen and her sister Lula at Arnold’s Restaurant on Eighth St. in Cincinnati during World War II. Helen married Wilber Cummins, who was an experienced restaurant cook. After the war, they decided to buy the bar on the corner of Ninth and York Sts. and start their own business. Helen named the restaurant the Green Derby because the Brown Derby was a famous restaurant on the West Coast at the time. Green in the name was a nod to her Irish ancestry. The place had a red tile floor, high pressed-tin ceilings, dark paneling, a jukebox, and a bar that stretched all the way from the front door to the tiny kitchen. And of course there was a “bookie” (a bookmaker) who sat in the corner booth. Wilber oversaw the business, while Helen, her mother, and two sisters cooked and served food to the bar patrons. Not much is known about the previous history of the building itself, except that it dates from the mid-1800s and that during the Ohio River flood of 1937, the water rose to the second floor.
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As the Green Derby began to prosper, Helen and Wilber would drive south on U.S. 27 to vacation in Florida. They made a point of stopping along the way to sample regional foods and specialties. A family story tells of the time they tried a side dish similar to hush puppies but made with mashed potatoes. Helen knew she had found something and marched back to the kitchen. She charmed the astonished cook out of the recipe, made a few changes of her own, and the Green Derby Restaurant’s popular Potato Puffs were born. The Derby Salad is also one of her unique adaptations, of hot slaw and wilted lettuce. All four of Helen’s children have been actively involved with the restaurant at one time or another, although Glen and John made their careers in other businesses. In 1989, after retiring from a corporate position with Kmart, John (Jack) moved back to the region. Helen had died and Ron and Mollie wanted help with the business end of the restaurant. So Jack started a new career, and Ron and Mollie had a new partner. Glen, meanwhile, was always there behind the scenes. There have been many expansions of the restaurant, including the addition of a bar/lounge and a large nonsmoking dining room. The Green Derby Restaurant rose to become the area’s “Fish King,” lauded by the Cincinnati Enquirer many times as having the “Best Fish Sandwich in Town.” The Green Derby Restaurant has witnessed many of Newport’s eras and changes. During the 1960s the Jai Alai Club, a notorious local strip club and gambling joint, was located across Ninth St. from the Green Derby. The bus boys would fight over who got to deliver carryout orders to the club. Helen would periodically come out of the kitchen and patrol the seating areas to make sure the girls who worked at the club were not sewing sequins on their outfits in the Green Derby Restaurant during lunch. All were welcome, but the “family atmosphere” was of utmost importance. All had to be comfortable, too. Through the years, the Green Derby Restaurant has become a favorite in the region. The soups and pies are homemade, and the large menu includes hard-to-find items like beef and chicken liver and country ham with true redeye gravy. Cincinnati Reds and Bengals players, judges and lawyers, politicians and celebrities—all make regular visits for “comfort food.” So do many people who have moved out of town, considering a meal at the Green Derby Restaurant a “must” during their return trips. The Green Derby Restaurant’s significance is not that it has been in business for so many years, or that the fourth generation of the family is now working there. The restaurant’s lasting impression is as one of the few places remaining where customers frequently stop at three or four tables to visit with other diners before sitting down at their own table. A visit to the Green Derby Restaurant, customers seem to feel, is as much a social event as an eating experience. The restaurant is regarded as a truly unique Northern Kentucky business and appears to live up to its motto, “Good Food, Good Friends, Good Times.”