Kaitlyn Tisdale: Telling the Whole Story at Historic Locust Grove

By VOICE-TRIBUNE • Photos By Matt Johnson

At Historic Locust Grove, the stories that tell us the most are very often the ones that have only survived in fragments. Maybe it's a name in an estate inventory. A reference in a letter. A record of emancipation. Kaitlyn Tisdale, Director of Interpretation at the Louisville landmark, says those scattered traces are the starting point for reconstructing the lives of those who built one of Kentucky's most significant historic sites and whose experiences have been widely overlooked in Kentucky's historical record.

"I fell in love with history as a young girl, at about 8 years old," Tisdale recalls. "What fascinated me was all of the other stories that were yet to be discovered. The overshadowed or forgotten figures: women who were kept voiceless and voteless, People of Color who were enslaved and stripped of their agency and humanity."

That curiosity has inspired her work during a decade in public history. At Locust Grove, where generations of the Croghan family lived and where enslaved men, women, and children built and sustained the estate, Tisdale has flipped the script on the interpretation to amplify those voices in their true and accurate place alongside the site's military, political, and architectural history.

"The house exists because of the labor of enslaved men, women, and children," she says. "Their stories deserve to be told with the same care and sensitivity as those of the Croghan & Clark family."

Her research resembles detective work. Deeds, wills, census records, church registers, and family papers are read together, each providing clues that can reconnect families separated by slavery or restore an identity. One recent milestone of this work came during Locust Grove's Fourth of July program, Dawn's Early Light, when the museum publicly read the names of 100 people enslaved at the site.

"Speaking these names aloud on this property was truly one of the most moving experiences of my career," Tisdale says.

Among the individuals whose story remains with her is Louisa Brown, who was emancipated in 1856 but died only 29 days later after suffering fatal burns in a rented room in Louisville. Brown's daughter married famed enslaved cave explorer Stephen Bishop, while her son Gibson served with the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War. Tisdale sees Brown's story as one of both hardship and inspiring strength.

Visitors usually arrive expecting to hear about George Rogers Clark or Kentucky's frontier past. They leave, Tisdale hopes, understanding that those histories cannot be separated from the people whose lives and labor made them possible.

"Our goal isn't to replace one history with another," she says. "It's to broaden the story so visitors leave with a fuller understanding of our nation's history."

That work continues. Tisdale is searching for people who appear only briefly in the historical record, hoping to learn the surnames they adopted after emancipation, trace the families they built, and identify descendants who may still live in Kentucky. Each discovery helps restore another piece of a history that has gone untold, ensuring that the people who lived, worked, and endured at Locust Grove are remembered as individuals and not anonymous figures in the past.

Historic Locust Grove is one of many historic sites that are reconsidering whose stories are preserved and how they are told. Tisdale's work requires patience, knowledge, empathy, and a willingness to confront difficult histories with honesty. This difficult work may not be visible to visitors, yet it impacts every conversation that takes place within the museum's walls. Through historians like Tisdale and others committed to this work, the historical record continues to expand, making room for lives that deserve to be remembered with the same care afforded to those long celebrated.