Isaac Wolfe Bernheim and the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest








 



     If you drive around the I-65 Corridor from the Ohio River South to at least the Cave City area of Kentucky, you are likely to notice numerous yard signs decrying the need to “SAVE BERNHEIM.” The “Bernheim” in question is more properly known as the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest which is made up of over 16,000 acres of land, in excess of three million trees, contains a 600-acre arboretum and is home to over 2,100 wildlife species. The save Bernheim slogan refers to an effort to protect the forest and its waterways from a proposed Louisville Gas and Electric natural gas pipeline that would break the conservation easement and cut through the Cedar Creek Wildlife Corridor.

      Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest contains an area known as Guerilla Hollow, a location which served as a base of operations for Magruder's Confederate Guerrilla Command during the Civil War. Magruder had served at the Battle of Fort Donelson and was captured there by the Union forces led by General Grant. He subsequently escaped and served with General Albert Sidney Johnston's bodyguard until the latter's death at the Battle of Shiloh on 6 April, 1862. Magruder then rode on General John Hunt Morgan's Great Ohio raid, escaping capture to become a Guerrilla fighter in the area South of Louisville. 

     Magruder was wounded and captured in the spring of 1865 and was sentenced to death and hung six months after the surrender at Appomattox, being executed on 24 October, 1865. Magruder's Great Grandfather Archibald Magruder, a Revolutionary War Veteran, is buried near Guerrilla Hollow at Magruder Cemetary, Bernheim Forest. With this kind of history, you may ask why the park is not named for the Magruders and for this you would need to know why the forest exists at all and the equally interesting story of the man who established it.

      Isaac Wolfe Bernheim was born in Schmieheim, Germany on 4 November, 1848. He immigrated to the United States, departing home for New York on 17 March, 1867.  He embarked on the steamer Hansa from Bremen on the 23rd, being put ashore on 8 April at the age of eighteen with about four dollars in his pocket in the form of twenty francs in gold according to Isaac himself in his book, The Story of the Bernheim Family, published by John P. Morgan & Company, Louisville, Kentucky in 1910. Isaac began his book with a biblical passage, Genesis IV, 16-18, explaining that “even in the earliest history of man there was a well-defined ambition to maintain the integrity of descent.”  

     The year it had taken Isaac to reach New York had not been kind to his uncle’s firm in New York and he was unable to provide the young immigrant employment but did provide him a box of what he termed “Yankee Notions,” small home goods such as needle and thread, and Isaac began a career as a peddler. He would subsequently move to Paducah and establish a trading firm, and subsequently move to Louisville where he would form Bernheim Brothers distilling Company with his brother Bernard and create their popular brand of bourbon, I.W. Harper. Their business was quite successful and in 1929, Isaac bought and endowed the land that would become Bernhiem Forest as a gift to the Country and State which had provided him and his family such opportunities. Isaac died 1 April, 1945 and a memorial to he and his wife is erected in the forest which bears his name today, a testimony to the opportunities presented by America.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bernheim, Isaac Wolfe, The Story of the Bernheim Family, John P. Morgan & Company, Louisville, Kentucky in 1910

Confederate Irregular Warfare in America 1861-1865: Partisan Rangers and Guerillas, N0. 108 CIW CH 8 KENTUCKY MAGRUDER’S CONFEDERATE GUERRILLA COMMAND, Posted on July 11, 2012. https://grayguerrillas.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/magruders-confederate-guerrilla-command/Magruder´s Confederate Guerrilla Command

Hartley, Charles, “Isaac Wolfe Bernheim.” The Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY, 11 Sep 2013. https://bullittcountyhistory.org/memories/bernheim.html


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