Hensley Settlement

Hensley Settlement is an Appalachian living history museum on Brush Mountain, Bell County, Kentucky in the United States. The settlement is part of the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. It is located approximately north of the park visitor center on Ridge Trail, and contains twelve homestead log cabins, a one-room school house, and a blacksmith shop. A restored spring house on the property was used by the settlement as food storage. The settlement was established by in-laws Sherman Hensley and Willy Gibbons, and most inhabitants belonged to either the Hensley or Gibbons family. The last resident was Sherman Hensley, who left in 1951. The school and some forty-five settlement structures and the agriculture environment were restored to their original state in the 1960s by the Job Corps.BackgroundThe settlement dates back to 1845 when Governor William Owsley deeded 500acre on top of Brush Mountain in the Appalachian Mountains. Brothers C. and R.M. Bales, who received the land from Owsley, leased the acreage to John Nichols and Jim Nelson, who mostly used the property for livestock. They cleared the property and made some improvements, including the construction of shake-roofed chestnut log cabins.HensleyIn 1903, Barton Hensley Sr. purchased the entire acreage and divided it up into sixteen individual properties for his extended family. Hog farmer Sherman Hensley and his wife Nicey Ann, Barton Sr.'s daughter, moved into an existing lob cabin on her allotted twenty-one acres. The couple purchased an additional thirty-three acres. The following year, Nicey's niece Nancy and her husband Willy Gibbons also moved to the self-sustaining settlement. Most of the inhabitants of the settlement were either named Hensley or Gibbons. The settlement never had electricity, indoor plumbing, modern roads or other conveniences. Everything was grown, raised and hand-made in the settlement. Transportation was either walking or a horse ride. A spring house was used for food storage.