Rev. Wallace L. Nourse, pastor of the Ninth Street Presbyterian Church of Hopkinsville, was born in Bardstown, Kentucky, November 30, 1834. His father, Charles Nourse, was also born in Bardstown, was educated in the schools of that place, and engaged in mercantile business there when twenty-two years of age. Hewas a man of great force of character, a prominent and influential member of the Presbyterian Church, a Whig in politics, whose convictions were as freely and openly expressed as they were firm and decided. He spent most of his life in Bardstown, but removed to Jefferson County, where he died in 1865, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.

James Nourse (grandfather) was born in Virginia, emigrated to Kentucky when he was a young man and became a prominent lawyer of Harrodsburg. He was a man of great influence and personal magnetism and made friends wherever he was known. He was agent of a

Kentucky Land Company and transacted a great deal of business for the early settlers of the state.

James Nourse (great-grandfather) was a native of England, who emigrated to Virginia, and died there in 1780.

Rosa Logan Nourse (mother) was a daughter of Judge William Logan and Priscilla Wallace, and was born in Shelby County in 1802. She lived to the extreme age of ninety-one years, and was hale and hearty and was an interested reader of the newspapers and the literature of the day until within a short time before her death, which occurred in Louisville, November, 1895.

William Logan (maternal grandfather) was born in Fort Asaph, near Harrodsburg, December 8, 1876, and was the first white child born in the State of Kentucky. Collins states that of the early born sons of Kentucky “he was the most gifted and eminent.” He was a judge of the Court of Appeals for many years; was United States Senator in 1819-20, resigning his seat in the Senate to become a candidate for governor of Kentucky during the old and new court controversy, but was not elected; was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1799 and frequently a member of the Kentucky Legislature from both Lincoln and Shelby Counties, and three times speaker of the house. He died August 8, 1822, aged forty-six years. His father was General Ben Logan of pioneer fame.

Wallace L. Nourse was educated in the Presbyterian schools of Bardstown and attended the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Danville, teaching school in the meantime, and was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Louisville in 1862. He began his work in the ministry in Daviess and Hancock Counties. In connection with the Synod of Kentucky he removed to Rockport, Indiana, in 1869; remained there for sixteen years, and was instrumental in building several churches in that vicinity, to which he made liberal contributions in time, labor and money. In 1885 he went to Hopkinsville, where he has accomplished a good work in building up the church, and has sustained his reputation as one of the ablest preachers and finest pulpit orators in that section of the state.

He married (first) Louisa Bell of Owensboro, in 1864, by whom he has two children living and one deceased. In 1875 he married (second) Sadie, daughter of James Bartrim of Rockport, Indiana, who is the mother of eight children.

Source: Biographical Cyclopedia of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. John M. Gresham Company, Chicago, Philadelphia, 1896.