BARDSTOWN

city, seat of Nelson county, in the outer Bluegrass region of central Kentucky, U.S., 39 miles (63 km) southeast of Louisville. Founded as Salem in 1778, it was later renamed to honour William Baird (Bard), one of the original landowners. During the American Civil War it was occupied (September 1862) by General Braxton Bragg's Confederate forces. The city is the trade centre for a fertile agricultural area (tobacco, grain, livestock, and dairy products); its manufactures include bourbon whiskey, flour, and lumber. St. Joseph's Cathedral (1819), the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral west of the Alleghenies, is in the city. Nearby is Federal Hill (1795), a Georgian house preserved as a shrine within a state park, where Stephen Foster is said to have composed the song My Old Kentucky Home. Also nearby are Wickland (1813), home of three Kentucky governors; the Trappists' Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane (founded 1848); the Barton Museum of Whiskey History; and Bernheim Forest. Inc. 1788. Pop. (1990) 6,801.