History of Lexington KY

city, slaves worked primarily as domestic servants and artisans, although they also worked with merchants, shippers, and in a wide variety of trades. In 1850, one-fifth of the state's population was slaves, and Lexington had the highest concentration of slaves in the state. It also had a population of free blacks. By 1850, First African Baptist Church, led by London Ferrill, a free black, had a congregation of 1820, the largest of any, black or white, in the state.

Many of 19th-century America's most important people spent part of their lives in the city, including U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis (who attended Transylvania University in 1823 and 1824); Confederate general John Hunt Morgan; U.S. Senator and Vice President John C. Breckinridge; and Speaker of the House, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State Henry Clay, who had a plantation nearby. Lincoln's wife Mary Todd Lincoln was born and raised in Lexington, and the couple visited the city several times after their marriage in 1842.

In 1935, Lexington founded one of the first drug rehabilitation clinics, known as the "Addiction Research Center". Expanded as the first alcohol and drug rehabilitation hospital in the United States, it was known as "Narco" of Lexington. The hospital was later converted into a federal prison, the Federal Medical Center, Lexington