Don’t eat the fish: The sorrowful tale of judge and poet James Mulligan
Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history - some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.
On Feb. 11, 1902, Judge James Hillary Mulligan wrote a poem for his beloved state and read it first in Lexington
“The moonlight falls the softest –
In Kentucky;The summer’s days come oft’est -
In Kentucky;
Friendship is the strongest,
Love’s fires glow the longest;
Yet, a wrong is always wrongest
In Kentucky.”
“The sunshine’s ever brightest
In Kentucky;
The breezes whisper lightest
In Kentucky;
Plain girls are the fewest,
Maidens’ eyes the bluest,
Their little hearts are truest
In Kentucky.”
So starts, one of the best-known poems about our fair state. It was first recited by Lexingtonian Judge James Hilary Mulligan at the end of a speech at the Phoenix Hotel.
Born in Lexington, Mulligan graduated from St. Mary’s College in Montreal, and received his law degree from Transylvania in 1869. He went on to become an editor, attorney, judge, and orator.
After having served in the Kentucky House of Representatives between 1881-1889, and in the Kentucky Senate between 1889 and 1893, Mulligan was giving a speech the night before the General Assembly’s first day in session when he read his poem.
It has since become synonymous with Kentucky.
Mulligan went on to be the consul-general to Samoa under President Grover Cleveland, where he befriended writer Robert Louis Stevenson. He served in Samoa for only two years, but later wrote about the experience in a book on the Samoan government and culture.
Just two years after reading his ode to his home state, Mulligan and his family were the subject of an attempted murder. Mulligan came from a prominent family, and his father had gifted him what is now known as Maxwell Place, the traditional home of the University of Kentucky president.
Mulligan had lived there with his wife, Mary, and their four children until Mary died in 1876. When Mulligan remarried five years later, it was not a Brady Bunch connection.
His second marriage produced four more children. His second wife, Genevieve, sent the children of his first marriage off to boarding school, and made her own children’s lives miserable.
On Sept. 24, 1904, Genevieve Mulligan was having her midday dinner. As the Mulligan servant Lewis Mitchell presented a platter of salmon, he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Don’t take none of this, it’s doctored.”
While the Mulligan children at the table wanted to test the fish on the dogs, the dish was eventually sent to nearby State College (now known as UK) for testing. Lab workers determined there was enough arsenic in the fish to “kill several people.”
Mitchell, naturally, was arrested.
After several different explanations, including that he’d seen a mysterious woman lurking around the house – he finally dropped a bombshell. He said James, Jr., Mulligan’s son from his first marriage, had offered him $100 to poison the judge.
James, it turns out, had been so distraught after a fight with his father he had moved to Chicago. He had tried to arrange a meeting with his father the day before the fateful lunch, but was refused.
Under oath, James testified that he was angry with his stepmother and his father because they were spending his mother’s money and he wanted to “get even with certain persons.”
The judge escaped danger by not coming home for lunch that day. After hearing the evidence, the jury exonerated James, and Mitchell’s trial resulted in a hung jury.
As for Judge Mulligan, he lived to be 70, dying on July 1, 1915. He is buried in Lexington’s Calvary Cemetery.
Have a question or story idea related to Lexington’s 250-year history? Let us know at 250LexKy@gmail.com
This story was originally published April 24, 2025 at 3:26 PM.