Old Mulkey Meeting House, Kentucky Department of Parks, Monroe County, 17 acres funded by the KHLCF out of 72 total acres.
This addition to the state historic site was purchased to protect this park from surrounding development pressures from the city of Tompkinsville. The forested buffer is considered acidic mesophytic forest with 50% of the canopy in sugar maple and American beech. Other dominant canopy species include tuliptree, white oak, shagbark, mockernut, and bitternut hickories, black cherry, red cedar, and white ash. The remainder of the forested species in the canopy includes red, American, and slippery elm, red maple, pignut, hackberry, southern red, chinkapin, and post oaks, black gum, sycamore, black walnut, Virginia pine and non-native loblolly pine. The understory species include paw paw, red bud, flowering dogwood, American hop hornbeam, American hornbeam and winged sumac. The Old Mulkey Meeting House, originally called the Mill Creek Baptist Church, was created as the 19th state park and was established in 1931. It is the second oldest church meeting house in Kentucky and was built in 1804 by a small group of pioneering Baptists led by John and Philip Mulkey of South Carolina. John Mulkey was a charismatic individual and preached more than 10,000 sermons and probably baptized the same number. He was an influential man and four of his six sons went on to become preachers and his descendants were influential in establishing over 50 Disciples of Christ congregations. The church was built in the shape of a cross with 12 corners and 3 doors to symbolize the Holy Trinity and a historic cemetery is associated with the church and is the final resting place of early pioneers including Hannah Boone Pennington, Daniel Boone’s sister. Religious services were held at the church until 1856.
Access:
The Park is open daily from 8 am to 5 pm April 1 through October, and on Tuesdays through Saturday in November, December, and March and by appointment only during January and February. From Tompkinsville, take KY Highway 1446 approximately 2.5 miles south to the entrance on the right.