Do you know the man credited with founding Northern Kentucky cities like Newport, Bellevue and Dayton?

Well, his name is General James Taylor.

And in tonight's look at Kentucky history, we'll take you inside his home and learn more about his influence.

Our Emily Sisk has the details.

This was actually the western frontier.

The country stopped basically at Kentucky.

It was the 1790s.

And that western frontier soon transformed into a prosperous area with much credit to General James Taylor, the fifth.

Taylor was a wealthy businessman from Virginia who had inherited thousands of acres.

And what we now know as Northern Kentucky.

He came out here to carve out out of the wilderness.

A city didn't come with the idea of opening a plantation like they had been doing in Virginia, but to actually make a city.

General James Taylor and his wife, Keturah, were well-connected in high society.

Taylor was related to President James Madison, connected with President Thomas Jefferson, and plenty of others.

He used his influence to convince the federal government to establish an army barracks in Newport.

They were acquainted with George Washington, so he was a very prominent Kentuckian, not only in Kentucky but in the United States.

He established a ferry that ran between Newport and Cincinnati.

He set up a road that went from Newport into Lexington.

That we now know is route 27.

Taylor was also a slaveholder.

Doctor David Childs, a professor at Northern Kentucky University, said Taylor may have owned more than 50 enslaved people.

It would have been a lot of labor, from his enslaved people to help clear land, cut down trees, establish, what we know today as Newport.

One of the hallmarks of General Taylor's influence.

And a location on the National Register of Historic Places is the Taylor Mansion, right in the heart of Newport.

The Taylor Mansion is probably the oldest construction surviving construction in this area.

It goes back to 1803.

That's during the antebellum period as well.

Before the Civil War.

The Civil War was not in the 1860s.

The mansion would have been one of the largest homes in the entire region, with 40 rooms and 17ft ceilings.

The architect who designed the home also worked on the white House.

When he built the Taylor Mansion, he intentionally built it to look right over the river.

This house was built for living and for entertaining.

Taylor entertained many at the mansion until he died in 1848.

He actually dies upstairs at the mansion.

After having cast a vote for his for his cousin, Zachary Taylor, in the presidential elections of 1840.

Eight years later, it became known that the Taylor Mansion was a station in the Underground Railroad.

While it's still not certain exactly what that means, historians have clues residents may have signaled with a lantern from the roof of the home, or used ferry boats to get enslaved individuals across the river.

Nobody would question them because they were enslaved people of the most prominent family in the area, one of the richest families in the country.

If you see a lantern in the sky in the top of this of of this building, that tells you that it could be safe to cross here and get to freedom.

While the legacy of General James Taylor the Fifth is complicated, marred by enslavement and mixed with wealth.

Northern Kentuckians still feel his impact.

I think we would see a very different Northern Kentucky relationship without James Taylor, without that vision for envisioning a city, if he turned it into a farm or a plantation.

We might never have seen the type of build that we have seen.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Emily Sisk.

An interesting look back there.

General Taylor's mansion has been privately owned for the last several decades.

The current owners plan to open the restored home for tours and special events in the coming months.