Kentucky Deputies, 1897

A. D. James was the new Republican U.S. Marshal in 1897 who appointed the first African American Deputy U.S. Marshals for Kentucky: Paul H. Kennedy of Henderson and Walker Blackburn, who was born in Bowling Green, KY and later moved to Russellville, KY.

For more see "Negro Deputies in Kentucky," The Washington Post, 7/08/1897, p. 3; and "Two Colored Men Deputies," The New York Times, 7/08/1897, p. 1. For more on Walker [or Walter] Blackburn, see M. Morrow, "One of first two African American marshals was from Russellville [online]," The Logan Journal, August 2013.