946 WELDON, NETTIE and it stages many fundraising events sponsored by Welcome House volunteers and community friends. Its goal continues to be moving those at risk from a “crisis” lifestyle to stability and, ultimately, economic empowerment. Welcome House retains its connections to its founding churches. Welcome House of Northern Kentucky. www .welcomehouseky.org (accessed June 1, 2005).
Laughlin, Walter. “Northern Kentucky Had Covered Bridges, Too!” NKH 2, no. 1 (Fall–Winter 1994): 1–18. Wilson, James Grant, and John Fiske. Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography. Vol. 6. New York: D. Appleton, 1889. Who Was Who in America Historical Volume, 1607–1896. Chicago: Marquis, 1963.
Thomas S. Ward
Sarah A. Barlage
WELDON, NETTIE (b. March 3, 1881, Warsaw, Ky.; d. January 18, 1958, Warsaw, Ky.). Nettie Weldon was a practicing registered pharmacist in Warsaw for 26 years during the time when pharmacy was a profession dominated by men. She was the daughter of Richard and Margaret Turpin Weldon and a lifelong resident of Warsaw. In 1928 Benjamin Kirby Bailey employed her in his business, the B. K. Bailey Drug Store. She obtained her pharmaceutical education from Bailey under the “apprentice system” then in place in rural Kentucky. In the minutes of the January 21, 1932, meeting of the Kentucky Board of Pharmacy, it was reported that there were 11 applicants for the licensure exam. Nine of them passed, including Nettie Weldon. At that time Nettie was age 26. Never married, she worked for Bailey as his relief pharmacist until her death in 1958. Warsaw Independent Newspaper, January 23, 1958, 1.
Judith Butler Jones
WERNWAG, LEWIS (b. December 4, 1769, Alteburg, Württemberg, Germany; d. August 12, 1843, Harper’s Ferry, Va. [now W.Va.]). Lewis Wernwag arrived in Philadelphia from his native Germany in 1786. Once in the United States, he turned his talents to building machines and designing bridges. Early in his career, he invented a machine to make whetstones, and in 1809 he laid the keel for the first frigate constructed at the Philadelphia Navy yard. After building two lesser bridges, Wernwag created his masterpiece across the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia in 1812. This wooden structure was a single arch with a span of 340 feet, thought to be at the time the longest in the world. The behemoth became known as the Colossus of Fairmount and made Wernwag famous. He went on to build 29 other bridges; two attributed to him were built in Mason Co., Ky., while he resided briefly in Mayslick. Both of these bridges—one over Lee’s Creek and one over the Licking River—were destroyed during the Civil War. In about 1826 Wernwag moved to Harper’s Ferry, Va., where in 1833 he built his last bridge, a span over the Potomac River for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In 1835, while living in Maysville in a home that he had built, he began construction on the Mayslick Christian Church. During that project, he moved to Mayslick again, next door to the church, and today that home is known as the Wernwag House. Wernwag died in 1843 in Harper’s Ferry, Va. Benson, John Lossing. Harper’s Encyclopedia of United States History from 458 a.d. to 1912. Vol. 10. New York: Harper, 1912.
WESLEY CHAPEL METHODIST CHURCH. Wesley Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church is located in southern Campbell Co. along Ky. Rt. 10, a few feet from the Pendleton Co. border. Three roads intersect here, Shaw-Goetz Rd., Wesley Chapel Rd., and the Flagg Springs Turnpike (Ky. Rt. 10). The first church building was a log cabin, built in about 1830, when the congregation was first organized. This log building was covered with clapboards and sat near today’s brick church building. The brick church standing today was built in 1856. Its dimensions are 30 by 40 feet, and there are four approximately nine-foot-high windows on each of the long walls, allowing for maximum sunlight inside. The two doors at the front of the church were used, one by men and one by women, according to the custom when the church was new. The inside ceiling is 14 feet high and is covered with pressed tin. The “theater type” wooden seats probably were added after 1900. The exterior walls, 18 inches thick, were built of bricks handmade and fired on-site. Rev. James M. Jolly, a Baptist minister and a brick mason, oversaw the construction of the building. The bricks were not fired as hard as today’s bricks, a fact that led to a major structural failure many years later. The outside roof is steeply pitched and covered with tin. At the front is a small bell tower, which was originally open to the weather except for its small roof. The bell was installed around 1892. By 1880, there were 198 church members, and Sunday school was conducted regularly. There is a cemetery on three sides of the church that appears to be as old as the building. Electricity was added sometime in the 1920s or 1930s. During a funeral in the 1950s, the wood floor collapsed under the weight of the casket, and the floor was then replaced with concrete. At the same time, a metal fence and a metal arch in front of the building were added. In this period, there were also many large locust trees growing in front of the building, where picnics were occasionally held. The congregation declined in number, but the building continued in ser vice until November 1993, when it was damaged by a heavy rain. The rain soaked the soft bricks at the rear of the church (a place where the stucco had broken and partially fallen off ) and caused two-thirds of the structure’s wall to collapse. This event occurred shortly after church ser vices had ended one day. Because the wall was not a load-bearing wall, the building did not totally collapse. Cora Sabie, a member of the church, asked the Campbell Co. Historical Society for help. A subsequent examination of the damage revealed that the wall could be repaired but that the repairs would be costly and time-consuming. By
that time, the United Methodist Church headquarters had already closed the building and wanted it demolished. A group of former church members and the historical society launched a campaign to save it and initiated discussions with leaders of the Methodist Church, who eventually agreed to sell the damaged building for one dollar to the independent board that oversaw the cemetery. Through newspaper appeals, money was raised, and a local brick mason, Ray Seiter, agreed to fi x the damaged church wall. In spring 1994, the repair work on the building was begun. Volunteers did much of the work. A roofer was hired to fi x the roof and to build weatherproofing louvers for the bell tower. Donated paint was used to finish the paint job on the outside of the building. The inside was still in disrepair, but the building had been saved. From 1994 until 2003, the building remained in this condition. In 2004 a local couple planned to marry. The bride had attended Wesley Chapel Methodist Church and wanted to be married in the church building. Permission was granted for the couple to use the church for their wedding ceremony, if money could be raised and the inside of the building restored. Another appeal to the public for monetary donations went out, this time to finish the work left undone in 1994. Money did come in, and work to refurbish the interior of the church was begun. Then it was learned that the bell tower was in such bad shape that the bell had collapsed onto the ceiling beneath the tower. A roofer again was hired to rebuild the bell tower, through the efforts of Marvin Record and Ken Barbian. Two months of volunteer work followed that brought the old church into a new chapter of its existence. Cleaning, painting, and repairs renovated the interior. The couple was married in the newly remodeled church on July 31, 2004, before a capacity crowd. Wesley Chapel now quietly awaits its next ser vice. Campbell Co. Historical Society. Campbell County, Kentucky, 200 Years, 1794–1994. Alexandria, Ky.: The Campbell Co. Historical Society, 1994.
Kenneth A. Reis
WESLEY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH. In preparation for starting a Methodist church in Ludlow, a group of 7 concerned citizens began holding weekly prayer meetings in private homes in September 1853. One month later, Sunday night ser vices were added, and the number of worshippers increased to 12. In his will, Israel Ludlow, the city’s founder and namesake, bequeathed lots on which to build both a Methodist and a Christian Church. In 1857 the small Methodist group began construction of a church on their lot, which was on the north side of Oak St. However, work was soon halted owing to lack of funds and fear of the looming Civil War. Several years later, the Ludlow Odd Fellows Club completed the building. Exactly how they acquired the title is unclear. However, the club permitted both the Methodist and the First Presbyterian churches to hold ser vices there. The City of Ludlow also used the building as a city hall.