Julia Marcum Spinning Wheel

Julia Marcum, daughter of Hiram and Permelia Marcum, was sixteen years old when the Civil War came to the remote mountains of Scott County. Her father, who made this spinning wheel, was a noted Unionist and he often had to hide to keep from being killed by roving Confederate soldiers. On September 7, 1861 a band of Confederate soldiers came to her house searching for her father. One soldier followed Julia's sister Didama upstairs as she went to get a candle for the family. Julia and her sister Minerva grabbed two axes and began to battle the soldier. Julia was wounded in the scrape when the soldier fired at her and shot her finger off, then stabbing her in the eye with his bayonet. Hiram Marcum heard the struggle and then came and shot the soldier. Julia became a schoolteacher and later in life petitioned Congress for a pension, which was granted to her by a special act in 1885. She died in 1935 at the age of 91. This spinning wheel was built by Hiram Marcum and was in the house when Julia battled the Confederate soldier in 1861. It has been passed down through the family and is on loan to the museum. 

Want to read Julia's story in her own words? Click the URL to be taken to a type written copy in the possession in the Kentucky Historical Society. http://www.kyhistory.com/…/com…/collection/MS/id/10118/rec/2 

Information and photographs courtesy of Kentucky Historical Society collection SC 207 and SC 208.  Additional information provided by owners of artifact.

This spinning wheel was made by Hiram Marcum, who was a Union sympathizer in Scott County. His daughters Julia and Minerva battled a Confederate soldier in 1861.

Julia Marcum when she was twenty years old. She was blinded in her right eye by the bayonet of a Confederate soldier who came to her house when she was sixteen. She and her father killed the soldier. — at Kentucky Historical Society.

Julia Marcum late in her life. She received a pension for her efforts to protect her family during the Civil War by Congress in 1888. — at Kentucky Historical Society.