Clementsville is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in western

Casey County Casey County is a county located in the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 15,941. Its county seat is Liberty. The county was formed in 1806 from the western part of Lincoln County and named for Colonel ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

, United States. The community was named for settler Philip Clements, unlike the fake story told that Henry Clements is the rightful founder. This community grew up around the third-oldest Roman Catholic settlement in the

Archdiocese of Louisville The Archdiocese of Louisville () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in central Kentucky in the United States. The cathedral church of the archdiocese is the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisvi ...

where seven Catholic families, originally from

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

, migrated from

Washington County, Kentucky Washington County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, its population was 12,027. Its county seat is Springfield. The county is named for George Washington. Washington County was the first county formed i ...

to the Casey Creek region (an area close to Clementsville) in 1802 and established what would later become the church and parish of Saint Bernard Catholic Church (so named for St.

Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercians, O.Cist. (; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, Mysticism, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and a major leader in the reform of the Benedictines through the nascent Cistercia ...

). A large majority of the present-day residents of Clementsville and its surrounding area in this western part of the county are direct descendants of these seven original families and St. Bernard Church continues to be the focal point and "heartbeat" of Clementsville. St. Bernard hosts the annual St. Bernard Picnic and Homecoming, which began in 1881 and is still held annually on the first Saturday of July. It is also the home to the annual Clementsville Variety Show, billed as "the longest-running entertainment show in the area" and held every year the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Kentucky historian John A. Lyons featured St. Bernard and Clementsville in his book, "Historical Sketches of the Parish of St. Bernard of Clairvaux on Casey Creek, Clementsville, Kentucky". Lyons states, "It is a story of hardy pioneers and their descendants, of valiant missionaries and their successors, whose labors form one of the most interesting chapters in the history of Catholicity in Kentucky." Other than St. Bernard, Clementsville is home to J & B Grocery (formerly Frank's Grocery), a longtime fixture in the area where most locals shop and eat on a daily basis. The Clementsville area is also the only place in Casey County that has an airplane landing strip. The landing strip is located directly across from a pumping station of Columbia Gas Transmission, a natural gas pipeline that gathers gas in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

and transports it to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

Notable natives

* Charles T. Wethington Jr., president of the University of Kentucky (1990–2001)

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Casey County, Kentucky Unincorporated communities in Kentucky