Luke Pryor Blackburn (June 16, 1816September 14, 1887) was an American physician, philanthropist, and politician from Kentucky. He was elected the 28th governor of Kentucky, serving from 1879 to 1883.
After earning a medical degree at Transylvania University, Blackburn moved to Natchez, Mississippi, and gained national fame for implementing the first successful quarantine against yellow fever in the Mississippi River valley in 1848. He came to be regarded as an expert on yellow fever and often worked pro bono to combat outbreaks. Among his philanthropic ventures was the construction of a hospital for Mississippi River boatmen using his personal funds. He later successfully lobbied Congress to construct a series of similar hospitals along the Mississippi.
In the early days of the American Civil War, he acted as a civilian agent for the governments of Kentucky and Mississippi. By 1863, he was aiding Confederate blockade runners in Canada. In 1864, he traveled to Bermuda to help combat a yellow fever outbreak that threatened Confederate blockade running operations there. Shortly after the war's end, a Confederate double agent accused him of having carried out a plot to start a yellow fever epidemic in the Northern United States that would have hampered the Union war effort. The evidence against Blackburn was considerable, although much of it was either circumstantial or provided by witnesses of questionable reputation. Although he was acquitted by a Toronto court, public sentiment was decidedly against him throughout much of the United States. Historians still disagree as to the strength of the evidence supporting Blackburn's role in the alleged plot.
Blackburn remained in Canada to avoid prosecution by U.S. authorities, but he returned to his home country in 1868 to help combat a yellow fever outbreak along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. He rehabilitated his public image by rendering aid in yellow fever outbreaks in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1873, Fernandina, Florida, in 1877, and Hickman, Kentucky, in 1878. Dubbed the "Hero of Hickman", Blackburn's ministrations propelled him to the Democratic gubernatorial nomination the following year. In the general election, he defeated Republican Walter Evans by a wide margin. As governor, Blackburn won passage of several reforms in the areas of state finance and internal improvements, but his signature accomplishments were in the area of penal reform. Troubled by the conditions at the penitentiary in Frankfort, Blackburn attempted to ease overcrowding through liberal use of his gubernatorial pardon, earning him the derisive nickname "Lenient Luke". He also secured approval of the construction of a new penitentiary at Eddyville, the adoption of a warden system to replace the corrupt private oversight of the old penitentiary, and the implementation of the state's first parole system. Although his record of reform led historians to laud him as "the father of prison reform in Kentucky", his liberal pardon record and expenditure of scarce taxpayer money to improve the living conditions of prisoners was unpopular at the time, and he was booed and shouted down at his own party's nominating convention in 1883. After his term as governor, he returned to his medical practice and died in 1887. The Blackburn Correctional Complex, a minimum-security penal facility near Lexington, Kentucky, was named in his honor in 1972.
Early life and family
Luke Blackburn was born June 16, 1816, in Woodford County, Kentucky. He was the fourth of thirteen children born to Edward M. ("Ned") and Lavinia (Bell) Blackburn. Blackburn's great-uncle, Gideon Blackburn, was a well-known Presbyterian missionary and served as president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. He later matriculated to Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he earned a medical degree in March 1835. After graduation, he opened a medical practice in Lexington and was instrumental in combating a cholera epidemic in nearby Versailles. He accepted no payment for his services during the epidemic. Boswell's father, Dr. Joseph Boswell, had died in the Lexington cholera epidemic a year earlier. The couple's only child, son Cary Bell Blackburn, was born in 1837. He did not seek re-election, and in 1844, he and his younger brother opened a medical practice in Frankfort, Kentucky. He became a close associate of Jefferson Davis and William Johnson. While they were there, a yellow fever outbreak hit Fort Washington near Long Island, New York. Despite Blackburn's efforts to save her, Ella Blackburn's condition worsened and she died before the end of the month.
Civil War
Blackburn's sympathies lay with the Confederacy at the outbreak of the Civil War. Too old to enlist in the Confederate Army, he acted as an envoy for Kentucky governor Beriah Magoffin to obtain weapons from Louisiana for the defense of Kentucky, but he failed to secure the arms. After securing sufficient medical supplies for the wounded, Blackburn traveled to Richmond, Virginia, to meet with Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon and offered to serve as General Inspector of Hospitals and Camps without taking compensation or a rank. Union officials assumed Blackburn was a civilian passenger on the vessel and released him, after which he returned to Canada. The island was a major base of operations for Confederate blockade runners, and the epidemic threatened their continued operations there. The epidemic on the island continued, and Blackburn returned there in September to continue aiding the victims. He remained there until the outbreak abated in mid-October. Although little is known of his actions in Canada for the remainder of the war, he was rumored to have been part of a plot to incite massive insurrections in New England as a diversion, allowing fellow Confederate agent Thomas Hines to lead a prison break at Camp Douglas in Chicago. When word of the plot was leaked to Union officials, they sent troops to reinforce Boston, Massachusetts, Blackburn's rumored target, quashing his role in the operation. According to Hyams, he had agreed to help Blackburn smuggle trunks of clothes used by patients infected with yellow fever into Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington D.C.; New Bern, North Carolina; and Norfolk, Virginia (the latter two cities being occupied by Union troops). Acting on this intelligence, Bermudan officials raided Swan's hotel and found three trunks of garments and linens with stains consistent with the "black vomit" symptomatic of yellow fever. Swan was arrested and charged with violating the local health code. The contents of the trunks were soaked with sulfuric acid and buried. In October 1865, a Toronto court acquitted Blackburn on grounds that the trunks of garments had been shipped to Nova Scotia, which was out of the court's jurisdiction. A charge of conspiracy to commit murder was dropped after Blackburn's attorney reminded the court that such a charge could only be made if the accused had made an attempt on the life of a head of state. As well as a violation of his Hippocratic Oath, Blackburn's plot was one of the earliest attempts at a refined biological warfare.
Post-war humanitarian work
After his acquittal, Blackburn remained in Canada to avoid arrest and prosecution by U.S. authorities. After rendering aid during the epidemic, he and his family moved to an Arkansas plantation owned by his wife. The family lived in Louisville's Galt House hotel, and Blackburn resumed his medical practice in that city. This theory was espoused by Thomas S. Bell, a better-known physician in Louisville. He refused to accept compensation for his services in either city, but was presented with gifts from appreciative residents in both cases. Several southern newspapers also carried glowing accounts of Blackburn's service. It is not clear why, with only meager prior political experience, he decided to seek the office.
thumb|left|Blackburn's aid during a yellow fever outbreak in Hickman, Kentucky (marked) earned him the moniker "Hero of Hickman"
About the same time as his gubernatorial campaign began, Blackburn appeared before the Kentucky General Assembly to advocate measures to protect the state against disease outbreaks, including the creation of a state board of health and the construction of quarantine centers in the state's border towns. To a large degree, his pleas fell upon deaf ears, with the exception of his proposal for the state board of health, which was created in March 1878. Soon after, news came that yellow fever had appeared in the lower Mississippi Valley earlier than usual; by August 1878, it had reached epidemic proportions. Blackburn advocated implementing quarantines to deal with the influx of people fleeing north to escape the disease, but many of the state's doctors did not believe yellow fever could survive as far north as Kentucky. Some towns in the Jackson Purchase region attempted to implement crude quarantines, but the city of Louisville completely ignored Blackburn's advice and welcomed refugees from the South. Blackburn temporarily halted his gubernatorial campaign and traveled to Louisville to help treat those who arrived there already suffering from the disease.
On September 5, the mayor of Hickman, Kentucky, a small western town along the Mississippi River, telegraphed the state board of health, informing them that yellow fever had reached epidemic levels in the city and requesting that Blackburn be sent to them as soon as possible. Blackburn arrived on September 7 to find that roughly 20 percent of the town's population were ill with yellow fever. He organized cleanup crews to disinfect the town and a squad of Negroes to guard vacated homes. In late September, when it appeared the Hickman epidemic was waning, Blackburn traveled to Chattanooga and Martin, Tennessee, to render aid, but within ten days, he received word that the outbreak in Hickman had resurged and spread to nearby Fulton, Kentucky. Blackburn returned to the area and continued his ministrations until late October, when the outbreak had fully subsided. For weeks, receptions were held in his honor, gifts of appreciation poured in from across the state and region, and he was hailed as the "Hero of Hickman". It was against this backdrop that he resumed his gubernatorial campaign in November 1878. Underwood questioned whether Blackburn's medical background had adequately prepared him to be the state's chief executive; he also mounted a failed legal challenge that claimed Blackburn had not met the constitutional state residency requirement of seven years.
Due to ill health, Blackburn could not take an active part in the campaign. He sought relief from his ailments at Crab Orchard Springs, while much of the campaign oratory was delivered on his behalf by fellow Democrats Boyd Winchester, Parker Watkins Hardin, W. C. P. Breckinridge, and others. Bradley claimed that Democrats had maintained their power in the state through gerrymandering election districts.
In the general election, Blackburn defeated Evans by a vote of 125,790 (56%) to 81,882 (36%), the largest Democratic margin of victory in a decade. Greenback Party candidate C. W. Cook garnered 18,954 votes, approximately 8 percent of the total votes cast. These votes came mainly at the expense of Blackburn and the Democrats. In his 1880 address to the legislature, Blackburn reported that since 1867, the state had spent three million dollars more than it had taken in. Previous administrations had paid for the excess by using money from the federal government for "war claims" by the state and money from the state's sinking fund.
In response to recommendations from the governor, the General Assembly enacted cost-saving reforms in the judicial system, including the abolition of criminal, chancery, and common pleas courts, dividing the state instead into 18 circuit court districts. The number of jurors required for certain cases was reduced, juror salaries were set at a fixed rate, and penalties were established for soliciting jury duty. Reimbursement amounts for transporting and caring for prisoners were capped to prevent inflation of costs by local law enforcement. The state property tax was also increased from 40 to 45 cents per $100 of taxable property, and laws were strengthened to facilitate the collection of delinquent taxes. Conditions in the penitentiary were poor and resulted in many illnesses. One fifth of the state's prisoners suffered from pneumonia in 1875. When Blackburn became governor in 1879, the mortality rate of the almost one thousand inmates in the state penitentiary was over 7 percent. He particularly favored clemency for the incurably sick so they could go home to die with their families.
In the 1880 legislative session, the General Assembly approved Blackburn's recommendation to construct a new state penitentiary in Eddyville. With no oversight of these contractors, however, prisoner abuses again occurred, including malnutrition, overwork, and beatings that often resulted in injury and death.
Blackburn's other accomplishments included establishing a state railroad commission and reorganizing the Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical College. Kentucky A&M had been separated from Kentucky University under Blackburn's predecessor, James B. McCreary; Blackburn now advocated that it be put under the control of and supported by the state. This was done, and the rechartered institution, located at Lexington, became known commonly as the State College; in 1916, it was renamed the University of Kentucky. They decried his record number of pardons and resented the fact that he did not give more consideration to party service and loyalty when appointing individuals to state jobs. Further, state newspapers noted a lack of eloquence by the governor, and this provided additional fodder for Blackburn's critics. Finally, Blackburn responded to the heckling by saying he expected to be criticized for his reforms, but that anyone who charged his administration with corruption was a "liar—a base and infamous liar". At this, the clamor from the crowd became deafening, and Blackburn was forced to end his address and take his seat. While attending the 1883 National Conference of Charities, Blackburn was lauded for his prison reforms by guest speaker George Washington Cable. His failing health impeded the success of the endeavor, however, and in January 1887, he returned to the state capital of Frankfort—a city he regarded as his home—knowing that death was near. In 1972, the state opened the Blackburn Correctional Complex, a minimum security prison near Lexington named for Governor Blackburn.