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When the early settlers decided to settle in Perryville, they looked for a strategic area which could provide fresh water for their stockade. They also needed a place to take refuge in case of Indian raids. The early settlers found the perfect place. A spring provided fresh water to the early settlers which flowed into the Chaplin River, the spring ran underground and eventually opened onto the surface with a large cave entrance. The cave entrance provided safety to the residents who were able to use the cave for a quick getaway from the Indian raids and provided fresh water. In 1800 Squire Roberts built a home near the front entrance to the cave.
In 1856, James Vance Karrick, his wife Harriet Skinner Karrick, and his seven daughters, one son, and fifteen slaves, arrived in Perryville. He hoped to educate his children at the fine schools in town, such as the Ewing Institute and the Perryville Seminary. When they arrived in town, they bought the home from Roberts. Before buying the home, the house was enlarged and a second floor was added. The house had ten rooms, with three hallways, and five chimneys. The walls were fifteen inches thick in order to provide insulation and the ceilings were nine feet in height. A long porch with a brick floor reached the main house to the kitchen. The porch was bricked in for the Karricks and a wood floor was put in both the porch and kitchen for the Parks family. The carriage house was built over the smokehouse. There was also a house built over the cave and a slave quarters were also built on the property. A brick walk extended around the east and north sides of the house. After living in the house for only four years, James died, leaving his wife and eight children.
On October 7, 1862, Confederate soldiers arrived at the house. Confederate officers slept in the house, while the soldiers slept on the sidewalk outside. The soldiers also drank the spring in the cave dry. Early in the morning on October 8, the sounds of battle were heard through the town and the Confederate soldiers told the Karrick family to leave their house for their own safety. The Karrick family gathered their jewelry, silver, clothes, and bedding. They piled their belongings in a two horse wagon. The family rode in a carriage, while their slaves walked alongside the wagon. The slaves also carried the family’s belongings. i.
After the battle, the family returned to their home and found the contents of their trunks, drawers, wardrobes, etc. were in the middle of the floor. The family suspected the soldiers were looking for money. Most of their belongings that had left behind remained intact, but were on the front lawn. The only thing missing was the clothing they left behind, which had been torn apart to make bandages for the wounded soldiers. On October 9, rain fell on Perryville. The next day on October 10, snow began to fall upon the battlefield and town. One of the Karrick daughters, Rebecca, along with others, decided to walk the battlefield and wherever they walked they came across dead soldiers or they would step in blood. Rebecca ii.lived to be sixty-eight years and could still close her eyes and relive the horrible scene. The family moved back into the home and shared their home with Union doctors and Officers, who used the home as the Medical Headquarters for the Union army in Perryville. The officers and doctors stayed in the home for ten months. For weeks every morning when the family looked out their windows there were two to ten soldiers lying in the yard who had died during the night and they could see the same scene played out across the street.
By 1862, Harriett Karrick was a cripple and had to use two crutches. One day during the Union occupation, she was headed to her kitchen and found a Union soldier washing his hands in a frying pan. The same Union soldier stayed in the home for over six months. Before he left the house, he collected coffee rations from his fellow soldiers and gave them to Harriet as a gift for allowing him to stay in her house. During the Union occupation of her home, soldiers took her carriage horses and used the fencing for firewood. A Union captain, who was in the hallway above the front door was caught taking a silver spoon from the home by one of the slave girls. He explained to her that he was just taking a souvenir, but his superior officers did not see the incident in the same light and reprimanded the soldier for the theft.
After the Civil War, Wallace Green married one of the Karrick daughters. In 1866 Rebecca, another daughter of James Karrick, married William Huston Parks. In 1882, William Huston Parks bought the Karrick home from their in-laws for six hundred dollars. Huston and Rebecca occupied the house until 1924 and by 1969 the house still remained in the Parks family. Lora Parks, who was Huston and Rebecca’s daughter, lived in the house and operated the Lora Parks Store on Merchants’ Row, until her death in 1972.
In 2015, on the show Kentucky collectibles, Steve Munson, who is known as the Civil War Guru on his Youtube channel and an appraiser for Kentucky Collectibles, appraised a Civil War sword bayonet made by Cook & Brothers, of New Orleans. Sylvia from Chaplin River Antiques, told Steve Munson that the sword bayonet was discovered in the Karrick-Parks house in 2011 by Vicki Goode, who is the Perryville Main Street director, while cleaning underneath the stairs. The sword had been hidden by a Confederate soldier during the battle of Perryville and remained hidden until 2011.
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