Most don’t realize that Oldham County Kentucky, was the backdrop for a popular children’s series of books in the early 20^th Century.  Annie Fellows Johnston was a celebrated author of children’s fiction form the 1890s until her death in 1931 and is best known for her “Little Colonel” novels centered around old Kentucky’s aristocracy, and in particular, one girl, Lloyd Sherman, who was nicknamed the “Little Colonel.

 It was while visiting her relatives, the Burges, in Pewee Valley (Oldham County, Kentucky) that Johnston met five-year-old Hattie Cochran and her grandfather, Colonel George Washington Weissinger, the inspirations for the characters Old Colonel Lloyd and Little Colonel Lloyd Sherman in her now classic first tale, The Little Colonel.  Published in 1895, the book proved so popular that more stories soon followed.  Though Johnston planned to complete the series several times, her fans compelled her to keep writing.  The last book in the series, The Little Colonel Stories, Part 2, was published just months before she died.  The series’ fame reached zenith in 1935 when Twentieth Century Fox released “The Little Colonel” film starring Shirley Temple and Lionel Barrymore.

  Many scenes in the “Little Colonel” stories take place in fictional Lloydsborough Valley-Johnston’s pseudonym for Pewee Valley.  And many of the characters, homes, businesses, and churches in the stories were based on real people and places in the charming little turn-of-the-century resort town where it seemed to the authoress as if all the world were on holiday.

            Johnston revealed some of her characters’ true identities in her autobiography, The Land of the Little Colonel. Others were mentioned in the forewords to her books and on “Little Colonel” promotional postcards.  The following letter, courtesy of the Filson Historical Society, is written by Hattie Cochran to Elizabeth Kathleen Hansborough divulging how Johnston wove real people, places and even pets into the “Little Colonel” stories.

 

July 17, 1907

Pewee Valley, Ky.

 

Dear Elizabeth:

I am the real Little Colonel though everything in the books are not true.

You ask is my home like Mrs. Johnston describes it, sorry to say it is not, though there is a real Locust not far from where I live, where my Grandfather, Colonel Weissinger used to stay.  Perhaps you know of Mr. Harry Weissinger who has a summer home in Shelbyville, he was my Grandfather’s brother.

All of the Waltons are real, and the Beeches, the name of their place, is right in Pewee.  Also the haunted house of Hartwell Hollow.

Mrs. Macintyre really Mrs. Craig lives opposite Mrs. Lawton, her daughter.  I suppose you know they are general Lawton’s family and Miss Allison or Miss Craig is my teacher.  She is just as lovely a character out of the stories as in.

The MacIntyre boys are the Culbertsons of Louisville and Rob Moore’s real name is Muir Semple.  He does not live in Pewee, but Oaklea is here and he often visits his cousin Anna Moore or Anna Muir.

Betty is real but I do not know her.

Mrs. Johnston has met girls like Eugenia and Joyce and thought she would use their characters in the books, of course you know everything in fiction cannot be true.

Phil is also fiction and so is Mary Ware.

Mom Beck is real and so was Fritz (her Scotch and Skye terrier) but is now dead.

The Little Colonel or the first book was practically the truest and all the others, some parts are true and others are not.

Perhaps you think I am grown but I am not, as I am only sixteen, though in the books she has made me much older.

Hoping you will not be disappointed in knowing the real truth.

 

Very Sincerely,

 

Hattie Cochran

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