Draft:History of Slavery Within the Tyler Family of Kentucky

The Tyler Settlement, a portion of which is now known as Blackacre Nature Preserve, lies in Jefferson County, Kentucky. (More here)

History of the Tyler Family of Kentucky

The first person to privately acquire the land now known as the Tyler Settlement was Edward Tyler II (1719/20-1802). According to genealogical reports, Tyler was the great grandson of French emigrant Mareen Duvall. (Unknown—1694). Duvall sailed to Maryland in the 1650s, received a land grant for 50 acres in 1659, and ultimately became a tobacco planter. He married at least three times. The Tylers of Kentucky are descended from his second marriage.  Duvall died quite wealthy. At his death he possessed more than 3,000 acres of land in Ann Arundel County and the surrounding area. His estate inventory also shows he enslaved eighteen people.

Edward Tyler II was born in Queen Anne’s Parish, Maryland. He lived there for the first significant portion of his life. In the mid-1700’s, Tyler decided to travel west. The specific details as to why Tyler decided to move from Maryland and ultimately to Kentucky remain a point of speculation. Genealogical documents suggest that it may have been due to financial difficulties, but whether those issues originated in Maryland or elsewhere is unclear.

Tyler retained land in Maryland until 1764. A 1745 lawsuit which took place in Maryland described Tyler as a “planter…and a person trading merchandizing and using Commerce within the Province.” From the Revolutionary War pension of Edward’s son, William, we know that by 1755 Edward was located in Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia) near Shepherdstown, and by 1777 he lived 30 miles above Fort Redstone on the Monongahela River. By the time he decided to move to Kentucky, he was married and had already had all ten of his children.

In the spring of 1780 Edward Tyler, his wife Nancy (née. Langley) (1732—1820) and their family made their way from Fort Redstone area down to the Falls of the Ohio. Sources suggest they made this trip with numerous other families.  It is also indicated that conflict was ongoing with the indigenous population at that time. In 1782, Edward purchased a treasury warrant that allowed him the legal right acquire around 1,000 acres of land. On September 8, 1785 a land survey was completed “on the waters of ‘Chinworth’ Run”, thus establishing his claim. His sons Moses and William completed similar surveys in the following years.

Throughout the early and middle 1800s, the size and boundaries of the Tyler Settlement changed numerous times. Often this was the result of transactions between members of the Tyler family themselves, although they also negotiated property lines with neighbors. Many of Edward Tyler II’s children and grandchildren branched out into nearby farmland or to other areas of Louisville. His oldest son, Robert (1751-1815), moved to the neighboring Shelby County.

By the time the Civil War ended in 1865, Tyler’s grandson Presley (1796—1879) owned the land which eventually became the Blackacre Conservancy. It was sold after his death and continued to change private hands in the intervening years. Eventually the property was bought by Macauley and Emilie Smith, the couple responsible for turning it into a nature preserve. In 1986 the Tyler Settlement was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Moses Tyler-Presley Tyler Farm listed on this register is the same farm that makes up Blackacre today.