 After his term in the Senate , Rowan returned to Kentucky , where he served as the first president of the Louisville Medical Institute and the Kentucky Historical Society . In 1840 , he was appointed to a commission to prosecute land claims of U.S. citizens against the Republic of Mexico , but resigned his commission in 1842 because of failing health . He died July 13 , 1843 and was buried on the grounds of Federal Hill , his estate in Bardstown . According to tradition , Stephen Collins Foster , a distant relative of Rowan 's , was inspired to write the ballad My Old Kentucky Home after a visit to Federal Hill in 1852 , but later historians have been unable to conclude whether or not Foster ever visited the mansion at all . The mansion is now owned by the state of Kentucky and forms the centerpiece of My Old Kentucky Home State Park . 
