Follow Up to Isaac Collier’s Powder Horn from the American Revolutionary War

(Originally Posted October 27, 2020)

From Heather Cecil of Shelby County, Kentucky Historical Society:

My research is complete on the powder horn owned by Isaac Collier, and I wanted to share with the Collier family.  Below is the article I wrote for the Shelby County, KY Historical Society Facebook group, with additional photos.  I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks,

Heather Cecil

The story goes that Isaac Collier was a member of the English Navy. When he left to join the Continental Army during the American Revolution, he gave his elaborately hand-carved, scrimshaw powder horn to his brother, Michael Collier. Michael, a Blacksmith, was one of the first citizens of Shelbyville, Kentucky. Upon Isaac’s departure, he requested that Michael name a son after him, and to pass this gift on to his descendants. Michael indeed named a son after his brother, and the younger Isaac went on to play an instrumental role in the founding of one of the oldest church congregations in Shelby County. Despite the fact that Isaac was not a Baptist at the time, he donated an acre of land on Fox Run Road to the erection of a church there. He later converted, and on June 16th, 1801, Burk’s Branch Baptist Church was organized. A humble log structure was erected there, chinked with mud and stones. The younger Isaac passed away in 1835 and is buried in the church cemetery. The powder horn passed to his son Isaac Fleming Collier, who built a fine home at the southeast corner of Burk’s Branch and Fox Run Roads. While the house has been lost to time, Walter H. Kiser published a sketch of it in the Louisville Times in 1938. When Isaac Fleming Collier had a son, he also named him Isaac, and the powder horn continued to pass from generation to generation, until it was gifted to the Shelby County Historical Society by Charles S. Moore, Sr., to share this piece of our history with future generations of Shelby County.