Person

Cyrenius Wait (Somerset, Kentucky, politician, merchant, and entrepreneur)

b. 1791-09-30 d. 1868-06-08

Somerset, Kentucky, politician, merchant, and entrepreneur. Massachusetts native. Married to Eliza E. Beaty Wait in Pulaski County, Kentucky, on October 18, 1838. Married to Mary J. Newell Wait. Father of Daniel W. Wait, John Q. A. Wait, George W. Wait, Benjamin F. Wait, Millard F. Wait, Henry C. Wait, and Margaret Wait. Moved to Somerset and established a saltworks. Wharf operator at Waitsboro, Kentucky, on the Cumberland River. Established the first silk production venture in Pulaski County. Member of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in Pulaski County from 1848 to 1850 and 1857 to 1861. Founder of the Buck Creek Bridge Company in Pulaski County in 1858. Merchant in Somerset in 1860. Owned thirty-one enslaved persons in Somerset in 1860. Trustee of the Somerset Academy in Somerset in 1864.

Details

Sex
Male
Race
White

Bibliography

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Pulaski County, Somerset, District No. 1, p. 12.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Pulaski County, Somerset, District No. 1, p. 3.

Kentucky Birth, Marriage and Death Records – Microfilm (1852-1910), KDLA, Pulaski County Marriages, Kentucky, p. 136.

"An Act to Incorporate the Buck Creek Bridge Company," Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, vol. 1 (Frankfort, Ky.: A. G. Hodges, Public Printer, 1858), 169-170.

"An Act for the benefit of the Somerset Academy," Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, vol. 1 (Frankfort, Ky.: Wm. E. Hughes, State Printer, 1864), 463.

Lewis Collins and Richard H. Collins, Collins' Historical Sketches of Kentucky, (Louisville: Richard H. Collins, 1877), 683.

Rodger D. Tate, "Pulaski County" in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John E. Kleber, (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 748.

Cyrenius Wait Papers, 1790-1950, bulk 1830-1859, University of Kentucky Special Collections, https://nyx.uky.edu/fa/findingaid/?id=xt7sn00zq188 (accessed on March 29, 2018).

Find A Grave, "Cyrenius Wait (1791-1868)," Memorial #17731805, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17731805/cyrenius-wait (accessed March 29, 2018).

Citation

Wait, Cyrenius. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32206195 (November 12, 2026).

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