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Lexington History

The historic town of Lexington, South Carolina is a direct descendant of the old Royal township of Saxe Gotha. This township was 1 of 11 established in 1735 by the Colonial government of King George II to encourage settlement of back-country South Carolina and serve as a protective buffer between powerful Indian tribes to the west and the older settled plantations of the low country. The name Saxe Gotha was in honor of the marriage of the British Prince of Wales to Princess Augusta of the German State of Saxe Gotha.

Trading Trails

The territory of colonial Saxe Gotha covered most of present day Lexington County, and was traversed by 2 important early Indian trails:

• Cherokee Path which followed roughly modern U.S. Highway Number 378

• Occaneechi Path, today U.S. Highway Number 1

These ancient trading paths and the highways that later developed from them have had an enormous impact on the historical development of the area. Most of the early settlers came from various cantons, principalities and city-states of Germany and Switzerland. Others came down from Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Despite the disruptive Cherokee Indian War of 1760 and the "Regulator" unrest that followed, the township flourished as a largely self-sufficient area of small scale farming operations. Major crops in the 18th Century included corn, wheat, tobacco, hemp, flax, beeswax and livestock.

American Revolution

During the American Revolution several skirmishes occurred in the area. The Battle of Tarrar Springs was fought just 1 mile east of Lexington on November 16, 1781.

County Establishment

In 1785 Lexington County was established, changing the name from Saxe Gotha to Lexington in honor of the Massachusetts Revolutionary War battle. The county's first courthouse was built at Granby, located just south of present day Cayce.

Flooding

With the clearing of upriver lands for the spreading cotton culture, Granby became plagued with floods. The county seat was moved in 1820 when the present town of Lexington was laid out on a high, healthy sand ridge near Twelve Mile Creek. The town was known as Lexington Courthouse throughout the 19th Century since in the first few years of its existence there was only the courthouse with few residences.

Town Development

By 1861, when it was incorporated as a town, Lexington boasted a diverse population of lawyers, physicians, tradespeople, artisans and farmers. There were then 2 churches, several schools, a carriage factory, a saw and gristmill, a tannery, livestock yard, tin and blacksmiths, and a weekly newspaper. The major crops of the surrounding countryside were mainly cotton, corn sweet potatoes and lumber. Lexington was not a marketing center for these staples, but did serve as a retail market for manufactured goods purchased wholesale by merchants in nearby Columbia.

Civil War

In 1865 the town was virtually destroyed by occupying Union Army forces guarding General Sherman's western flank. The courthouse, county jail and St. Stephen's Lutheran Church were put to the torch as were most businesses and homes. The devastation and political turmoil of the period were weathered, however, by a frugal people willing to rebuild for a future without abandoning the ideals of their heritage.

Reconstruction

The small farms with their varied crops and the lumber industry stabilized somewhat the economy of the area after Reconstruction years. The completion of the Columbia to Augusta Railroad just after the Civil War and the construction of the Lexington Textile Mill in 1890 contributed greatly to the growth of the town itself. Disastrous fires in 1894 and 1916 on Main Street resulted in the construction of brick buildings, many of which are standing today.

Modern Lexington

The Town of Lexington has continued to be the political center of Lexington County, one of the fastest growing areas of the nation. With new major highways passing nearby, the town continues to experience phenomenal growth. The people of Lexington are proud of their past and look forward to a promising future.

Lexington Township History

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The history of Lexington Township starts with the passage of two pieces of legislation. The first piece of legislation was the Land Ordinance of 1785 that provided for the sale and survey of public lands west of the Appalachians, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River. It also created a system which divided the land into townships. The other is the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which created a style of government for these territories and a method for these territories to become states.

From 1787 to 1803, Michigan was a part of the Northwest Territory. Then from 1803 until 1805, Michigan was part of the Indiana Territory. But, in 1805, Michigan was separated from Indiana and became a territory in its own right.

With the end of the War of 1812, the Indian problems ended and British involvement in the fur trade stopped, pioneers began to pour into the Northwest Territory. This resulted in new states being created, first Ohio and then Indiana. When Indiana was admitted into the union in 1816, Michigan was allowed to become a territory, with government established at Detroit. This also resulted in a baseline (east and west) and a meridian line (north and south) being established to survey for the creating of townships. In 1822, Sanilac County was laid out and was attached to Oakland County. The first mention of Sanilac County in official records is in the Territorial Laws of 1827. A special act attached it to St. Clair County for judicial purposes.

On January 26, 1837, President Andrew Jackson made Michigan a state and in the same year Lexington Township was organized, making it the oldest township in the county. Sanilac County also at that time included all of what is now Sanilac, Huron, and Tuscola counties. An act of legislature on December 3, 1848, authorized the organization of Sanilac County as a separate county with Lexington as the county seat. Lexington Township at this time included all of the present day townships of Worth, Sanilac, Buel and Elk.

The two municipalities within Lexington Township are the Village of Lexington and the city of Croswell. The Village and the Township grew up together. Lexington was the county seat and a major lake port until the county seat was moved to Sandusky in 1880. The railroad coming to Croswell in 1879 turned that city into an important farm center for the area. The great fires of 1871 and 1881 did not do a lot of damage to the township, although it did end the lumbering era for the area. The historic storm of 1913 took out all the major docks in Lexington. After which the building of the sugar and canning factories, along with the railroad made Croswell into an economic center for the township.

In the first half of the 20th century, agriculture, commercial fishing, and tourism were the major sources of income for the people of the township. The automobile and better roads were changing the face of the township. By the end of World War II, the area along the Lake Huron Shore was a mecca for summer tourism.

Lexington Township also housed the Sanilac County Poor Farm built in 1868 and closed in 1958.

At the end of World War II, Croswell housed three separate German Prisoner of War camps. They helped with the farming and worked in the factories. They helped eased the U.S. Military cost of their care.

August 23, 2015 in Uncategorized

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Our Town Lexington: Local History

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History of the town of Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1868, with a genealogical register of Lexington families

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History of Kentucky

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The prehistory and history of Kentucky span thousands of years, and have been influenced by the state's diverse geography and central location. Based on evidence in other regions, it is likely that the human history of Kentucky began sometime before 10,000 BCE. A gradual transition began from a hunter-gatherer economy to agriculture c. 1800 BCE. Around 900 CE, the Mississippian culture took root in western and central Kentucky; the Fort Ancient culture appeared in eastern Kentucky. Although they had many similarities, the Fort Ancient culture lacked the Mississippian's distinctive, ceremonial earthen mounds.

The first Europeans to visit Kentucky arrived in the late 17th century was via the Ohio River from the northeast and from the southeast through a natural pass in the Appalachian Mountains. In 1769, frontiersman Daniel Boone while on the first of several hunting expeditions discovered the Cumberland Gap through the lower Appalachians.^[1] In a few short years his knowledge and the stories from his expeditions earned him a reputation attracting the attention of the Judge Richard Henderson of the Louisa Company in 1774. Meanwhile from the north by way of the Ohio River to the Kentucky River, the first permanent European-American settlement, Harrod's Town was founded under the authority of the Royal Government of Virginia.^[2] In 1775, Henderson and Boone along with the investors of the Louisa Company reformed to become the Transylvania Company under North Carolina Patriot Law. Boone was made a colonel in the chartered company which negotiated a treaty with the Cherokee for the lands west of the Cumberland Gap. In March, Boone with 35 axmen built the Wilderness Road enabling a direct, overland migration path which facilitated migration to Kentucky. The 200 mile road the trailblazer built ended at Boonesborough, on the Kentucky River where Colonel Daniel Boone, Colonel Richard Henderson, Captain James Harrod and ten other colonial colonels founded the Colony of Transylvania when they met for the Transylvania Convention on May 23, 1775 to write the "Kentucke Magna Charta".

On January 1, 1777 without acknowledging the Transylvania claim the territory officially became Kentucky County, Virginia under Governor Patrick Henry, Jr. The new county was placed under the authority of John Bowman, a Transylvanian as its first colonel, who was granted the authority to raise a militia of 100 men with the duty to establish a civilian government. Within 15 years Kentucky County was divided into nine new counties each with their own colonels, Post-Revolutionary War patriot colonels that were given land bounties by Virginia, and chartered company colonels (land speculators) who came together in 1791 to select their fellow, Colonel Isaac Shelby as the secessionist state governor who owned land claims in the Kentucky District dating back to 1775 when he worked as a surveyor for the Transylvania Company. The Commonwealth of Kentucky became the 15th U.S. state admitted to the Union on June 1, 1792.

Contents

Pre-European habitation and culture[edit]

Paleo-Indian era (9500 BCE – 7500 BCE)[edit]

Based on evidence in other regions, humans were probably living in Kentucky before 10,000 BCE; however, archaeological evidence of their occupation has not yet been documented.^[3] Stone tools, particularly projectile points (arrowheads) and scrapers, are primary evidence of the earliest human activity in the Americas. Paleo-Indian bands probably moved their camps several times per year. Their camps were typically small, consisting of 20 to 50 people. Band organization was egalitarian, with no formal leaders and no social ranking or classes. Linguistic, blood-type and molecular evidence, such as DNA, indicate that indigenous Americans are descendants of east Siberian peoples.

At the end of the last ice age, between 8000 and 7000 BCE, Kentucky's climate stabilized; this led to population growth, and technological advances resulted in a more sedentary lifestyle. The warming trend killed Pleistocene megafauna such as the mammoth, mastodon, giant beavers, tapirs, short-faced bear, giant ground sloths, saber-toothed tiger, horse, bison, muskox, stag-moose, and peccary. All were native to Kentucky during the ice age, and became extinct or moved north as the ice sheet retreated.^[4]

No skeletal remains of Paleo-Indians have been found in Kentucky. Although many Paleo-Indian Clovis points have been discovered, there is little evidence at Big Bone Lick State Park that they hunted mastodons.^[3]

The radiocarbon evidence indicates that mastodons and Clovis people overlapped in time; however, other than one fossil with a possible cut mark and Clovis artifacts that are physically associated with but dispersed within the bone-bearing deposits, there is no incontrovertible evidence that humans hunted Mammut americanum at the site.^[5]

Archaic period (7500 BCE – 1000 BCE)[edit]

The extinction of large game animals at the end of the ice age changed the area's culture by 7500 BCE. By 4000 BCE, the people of Kentucky exploited native wetlands. Large shell middens (trash piles, ancient landfills) are evidence of clam and mussel consumption. Although middens have been found along rivers, there is limited evidence of riverbank Archaic occupation before 3000 BCE. Archaic Kentucky natives' social groups were small: a few cooperating families. Large shell middens, artifact caches, human and dog burials, and burnt-clay flooring indicate permanent Archaic settlements. White-tailed deer, mussels, fish, oysters, turtles, and elk were significant food sources.

Natives developed the atlatl, which launched spears faster. Other Archaic tools were grooved axes, conical and cylindrical pestles, bone awls, cannel coal beads, hammerstones, and bannerstones. "Hominy holes" – depressions in sandstone made by the grinding of hickory nuts or seed to make them easier to use for food – were also used.^[6]

People buried their dogs in shell (mussel) mound sites along the Green and Cumberland Rivers.^[7] At the Indian Knoll site, 67,000 artifacts have been uncovered; they include 4,000 projectile points and twenty-three dog burials, seventeen of which are well-preserved. Some dogs were buried alone; others were buried with their masters, with adults (male and female), or with children. Archaic dogs were medium-sized, about 14–18 inches (36–46 cm) tall at the shoulder, and were probably related to the wolf. Dogs had a special place in the lives of Archaic and historic indigenous peoples. The Cherokee believed that dogs were spiritual, moral and sacred, and the Yuchi (a tribe who lived near the Green River) may have shared that belief.

The Indian Knoll site, along the Green River in Ohio County, is over 5,000 years old. Although evidence of earlier settlement exists, the area was most densely settled from c. 3000 to 2000 BCE (when the climate and vegetation neared modern conditions). The Green River floodplain provided a stable environment, which supported agricultural development; nearby mussel beds facilitated permanent settlement. At the end of the Archaic period, natives had cultivated a form of squash for its edible seeds and use as a container.^[8]

Woodland period (1000 BCE – 900 CE)[edit]

Native Americans began to cultivate several species of wild plants c. 1800 BCE, transitioning from a hunter-gatherer society to one based on agriculture. In Kentucky, the Woodland period followed the Archaic period and preceded the agricultural Mississippian culture. It was characterized by the development of shelter construction, stone and bone tools, textile manufacturing, leather crafting, and cultivation. Archaeologists have identified a distinct Middle Woodland cultures, Crab Orchard culture, in the western part of the state. The remains of two groups, the Adena (early Woodland) and the Hopewell (middle Woodland), have been found in present-day Louisville, in the central bluegrass region and northeastern Kentucky.^[8]

The introduction of pottery, its widespread use, and the increased sophistication of its forms and decoration (first believed to have occurred around 1000 BCE) are major demarcations of the Woodland period. Archaic pots were thick, heavy, and fragile; Woodland pottery was more intricately designed and had more uses, such as cooking and storing surplus food. Woodland peoples also used baskets and gourds as containers.^[9] Around 200 BCE, maize cultivation migrated to the eastern United States from Mexico. The introduction of corn changed Kentucky agriculture from growing indigenous plants to a maize-based economy. In addition to cultivating corn, the Woodland people also cultivated giant ragweeds, amaranth (pigweed), and maygrass.^[9] The initial four plants known to have been domesticated were goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri), sunflower (Helianthus annuus var. macroscarpus), marsh elder (Iva annua var. macrocarpa), and squash (Cucurbita pepo ssp. ovifera). Woodland people grew tobacco, which they smoked ritually; they still used stone tools, especially for grinding nuts and seeds.^[9] They mined Mammoth and Salts Caves for gypsum and mirabilite, a salty seasoning. Shellfish was still an important part of their diet, and the most common prey were white-tailed deer. They continued to make and use spears; late in the Woodland period, however, the straight bow became the weapon of choice in the eastern United States (evidenced by smaller arrowheads during this period).^[9] In addition to bows and arrows, some southeastern Woodland peoples also used blowguns.

Between 450 and 100 BCE, Native Americans began to build earthen burial mounds.^[8] The Woodland Indians buried their dead in conical (later flat or oval) burial mounds, which were often 10 to 20 feet (3.0–6.1 m) high. The Woodland people were called "Mound Builders" by 19th-century observers.^[9]

The Eastern Agricultural Complex enabled Kentucky natives to change from a nomadic culture to living in permanent villages. They lived in bigger houses and larger communities,^[9] although intensive agriculture only began with the Mississippian culture.

Mississippian culture (900 – 1750 CE)[edit]

Maize became highly productive c. 900 CE, and the Eastern Agricultural Complex was replaced by the Mississippian culture's maize-based agriculture. Native village life revolved around planting, growing and harvesting maize and beans, which made up 60 percent of their diet.^[9] Stone and bone hoes were used by women for most cultivation. They grew the "Three Sisters" (maize, beans, and squash), which were planted together to complement each plant's characteristics. Beans climbed the cornstalks, and large squash leaves retained soil moisture and reduced weeds. White-tailed deer were the dominant game animals.^[8] Mississippian culture pottery was more varied and elaborate than that of the Woodland period (including painting and decoration), and included bottles, plates, pans, jars, pipes, funnels, bowls, and colanders. Potters added handles to jars, attaching human and animal effigies to some bowls and bottles. Elite Mississippians lived in substantial, rectangular houses atop large platform mounds. Excavations of their houses revealed burned clay wall fragments, indicating that they decorated their walls with murals. They lived year-round in large communities, some of which had defensive palisades, which had been established for centuries. An average Fort Ancient or Mississippian town had about 2,000 inhabitants.^[9] Some people lived on smaller farms and in hamlets. Larger towns, centered on mounds and plazas, were ceremonial and administrative centers; they were located near the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys and their tributaries: rivers with large floodplains.

A Mississippian culture developed in western Kentucky and the surrounding area, while a Fort Ancient culture dominated in the eastern portion of what became Kentucky. While the two cultures are similar in numerous ways, the Fort Ancient culture didn't have the temple mounds and chiefs' houses like the Mississippian culture had.^[10]

Mississippian sites in western Kentucky are at Adams, Backusburg, Canton, Chambers, Jonathan Creek, McLeod's Bluff, Rowlandtown, Sassafras Ridge, Turk, Twin Mounds and Wickliffe. The Wickliffe Mounds, in western Kentucky, were inhabited from 1000 to 1350 CE; two large platform mounds and eight smaller mounds were distributed around a central plaza. Its inhabitants traded with those of North Carolina, Wisconsin, and the Gulf of Mexico. The Wickliffe community had a social hierarchy ruled by a hereditary chief. The Rowlandton Mound Site was inhabited from 1100 to 1350 CE. The 2.4-acre (0.97 ha) Rowlandton Mound Site has a large platform mound and an associated village area, similar to the Wickliffe Mounds; these settlements were probably established by Late Woodland peoples. The Tolu Site was inhabited by Kentucky natives from 1200 to 1450 CE. It originally had three mounds: a burial mound, a substructure platform mound, and another mound of unknown function. The site has a central plaza and a large, 6.6-foot-deep (2.0 m) midden. A rare Cahokia-made Missouri flint clay 7-inch (180 mm) human-effigy pipe was found at this site. The Marshall Site was inhabited from 900 to 1300 CE, and the Turk and Adams sites from 1100 to 1500. The Slack Farm, inhabited from 1400 to 1650, had a mound and a large village. One thousand or more people could have been buried at the site's seven cemeteries, and some were buried in stone box graves. Native Americans abandoned a large, late-Mississippian village at Petersburg which had at least two periods of habitation: 1150 and 1400 CE.^[11] Seventeenth-century French explorers documented a number of tribes living in Kentucky until the Beaver Wars in the 1670s.

The late Mississippian period overlapped with encounters with French, Spanish, and English colonists. Native groups known to have lived in Kentucky include the Cherokee (in southeastern Kentucky caves and along the Cumberland River); the Chickasaw, in the western Jackson Purchase area (especially along the Tennessee River); the Delaware (Lenape) and Mosopelea (at the mouth of the Cumberland River); the Shawnee (throughout the state), and the Wyandot and Yuchi (on the Green River).^[12][13] Hunting bands of Iroquois, Illinois, Lenape and Miami also visited Kentucky.^[14]

First Europeans[edit]

Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet (1673)[edit]

French Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, a French Canadian explorer, passed Kentucky at the mouth of the Ohio River on their trip down the Mississippi in the fall of 1673. Their boat later capsized, and many of their papers were destroyed.^[15]

Gabriel Arthur (1673)[edit]

English colonists Gabriel Arthur and James Needham were sent out by Abraham Wood from Fort Henry (present-day Petersburg, Virginia) on May 17, 1673, with four horses and Cherokee and other Native American slaves,^[16] to contact the Tomahittan (possibly the Yuchi).^[13][17] They were traveling to the Cherokee capital of Chota (in present-day Tennessee), on the Hiwassee River, to learn their language. The English hoped to develop strong business ties for the beaver-fur trade and bypass the Occaneechi traders who were middlemen on the Cherokee Trading Path.^[18][19] Needham got into an argument on the return trip with "Indian John", his Occaneechi guide, which became an armed confrontation resulting in his death:

From Aeno hee journied to Sarrah, with his companions ye Tomahitons and John ye Occhonechee accompanied with more of his countrymen which was to see ye tragady acted as I suppose, it happened as they passed Sarrah river an Indian lett [sic] his pack slip into ye water. Whether on purpose or by chance I canot judge, upon this some words passed betwine Needham and ye Indian. Occhonechee Indian John tooke up Mr. Needham very short in words and soe continued scoulding all day until they had passed ye Yattken towne and soe over Yattken river, not far from ye river Mr. Needham alighted it not being far from the foot of ye mountaines, and there tooke up theire quarters. Still Indian John continued his wailing and threating Mr. Needham tooke up a hatchet which lay by him, haveing his sword by him threw ye hatchet on ye ground by Indian John and said what John are you minded to kill me. Indian John immediately catched up a gunn, which hee him selfe had carried to kill meat for them to eate, and shot Mr. Needham neare ye burr of ye eare and killd him notwithstanding all ye Tomahittans started up to rescue Needham but Indian John was too quick for them, soe died the heroyick English man.

— "Letter of Abraham Wood to John Richards, August 22, 1674"^[20]

Indian John tried to have the Tomahittan kill Arthur, but the chief adopted the Englishman.^[18] For about a year, Arthur (dressed as a Tomahittan in Chota) traveled with the chief and his war parties on revenge raids of Spanish settlements in Florida after ten men were killed and ten captured during a peaceful trading mission several years earlier.^[21] When the Tomahittan attacked the Shawnee in the Ohio River valley, Arthur was wounded by an arrow and captured. He was saved from a ritual burning at the stake by a Shawnee who was sympathetic to him; when he learned that Arthur had married a Tomahittan woman ("Hannah Rebecca" Nikitie), the Shawnee cured his wound, gave him his gun and rokahamoney (hominy) to eat, and put him on a trail leading back to his family in Chota. Most historians agree that this road was the Warriors' Path which crossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Scioto River, went south across the Red River branch of the Kentucky River, then up Station Camp Creek and through Ouasiota Pass into the Ouasiota Mountains.^[21] In June 1674 (or 1678),^[8] the Tomahittan chief escorted Arthur back to his English settlement in Virginia.^[19] Arthur's accounts of the land and its tribes provided the first detailed information about Kentucky. He was among the first Englishmen (preceded by Nathaniel Batts and Fallam) to visit present-day West Virginia and cross the Cumberland Gap.^[18]

Arnout Viele (1693)[edit]

In early autumn 1692, loyal English-speaking Dutchman Arnout Viele and a party of eleven companions from Esopus^[22]—Europeans, Shawnee, and a few loyal Delaware guides—were sent by the governor of New York to trade with the Shawnee and bring them into the English sphere of influence.^[23][24] Viele understood several Native American languages, which made him valuable as an interpreter. He is credited with being the first European to travel and explore western Pennsylvania and the upper Ohio Valley. Viele made contact with Native American nations as far west as the Wabash River, in present-day Indiana.^[24]

He and his company left Albany, traveling southbound and crossing portions of present-day New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. They apparently followed the west branch of the Susquehanna River into the mountains, traversing the Tioga River and reaching a tributary of the Allegheny River before floating down to the Shawnee towns along the Ohio River.^[24] Viele and his expedition spent most of 1693 exploring the Ohio River and its tributaries in northern Kentucky with their Shawnee hosts.^[24] Gerit Luykasse, two of Viele's Dutch traders, and two Shawnee reappeared in Albany in February 1694 "to fetch powder for Arnout [Viele] and his Company";^[24] their party had been gone for fifteen months, but Viele was away for about two years.^[17] He and his companions returned from the Pennsylvania wilderness in August 1694, accompanied by diplomats from "seven Nations of Indians" who sought trade with the English (or peace with the powerful Iroquois nations of New York and Pennsylvania), and hundreds of Shawnee who intended to relocate in the Minisink country on the upper Delaware River.^[23][24]

Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry (1729)[edit]

In 1729, Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry, a French architect and surveyor whose survey was the first mapping of the Ohio River,^[25] led an expedition of French troops from Fort Niagara down the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers as far as the mouth of the Great Miami River near Big Bone Lick and possibly the Falls of the Ohio (present-day Louisville).^[22][26][27] Chaussegros de Lery mapped the Great Lakes in 1725, and engineered the Niagara fortifications in 1726.^[28][29]

I am indebted for the topographical details of the course of this River to M. de Lery, Engineer, who surveyed it with the compass at the time that he descended it with a detachment of French troops in 1729.

— Jacques-Nicolas Bellin^[30]

A map of the Ohio River valley, drawn by Bellin from observations by de Lery, is in Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix's History of New France.^[31][32] The 1744 Bellin map, "Map of Louisiana" (French: Carte de La Louisiane), has an inscription at a point south of the Ohio River and north of the Falls": "Place where one found the ivory of Elephant in 1729" (French: endroit ou on à trouvé des os d'Elephant en 1729).^[33][34] De Lery's men found teeth weighing ten pounds (4.5 kg) with a diameter of five to seven inches (130 to 180 mm), tusks 11 feet (3.4 m) long and 6–7 inches (150–180 mm) in diameter, and thigh bones 5 feet (1.5 m) long.^[35] The bones were collected and shipped to Paris, where they were identified as mastodon remains; they are on display at the French National Natural History Museum.^[25][28]

Charles Le Moyne III, Baron de Longueil (1739)[edit]

Charles III Le Moyne, second Baron de Longueuil (later the governor of Montreal and interim governor of New France), commanded Fort Niagara from 1726 to 1733.^[25] He led an expedition of 442 men, including Native Americans, from Montreal to war against the Chickasaw who occupied territory on the lower part of the Mississippi River in the area claimed as La Louisiane.^[36] According to Gaston Pierre de Lévis, Duke de Mirepoix, the expedition used the Ohio River as a corridor to the Mississippi.

Among the officers who accompanied this party were Major de Lignery; Lieutenants, de Vassan, Aubert de Gaspe, Du Vivier, de Verrier, Le Gardeur de St. Pierre, Chevalier de Villiers, de Portneuf, de Sabrevious; Father Vernet, chaplain; Cadets, Joncaire de Closonne, Le Gai de Joncaire, Drouet de Richarville the younger, Chaussegros de Lery the younger, de Gannes, Chev. Benoist, de Morville, de Selles, and seventeen others. The rank and file consisted of three sergeants, six corporals, six lance corporals, twenty-four soldiers, forty-five habitants, one hundred and eighty-six Iroquois from the Sault, forty-one from the Lake of Two Mountains, thirty-two Algonquin and Nipissing, fifty Abenaqui from St. Francois and Bécancour, Quebec; Father La Bretonnier, Jesuit; Queret, missionary.^[37]

One of the first reported eyewitness accounts of Shannoah, a Shawnee town, was by le Moyne III in July 1739. On their journey down the Ohio River toward the Mississippi, they met with local chiefs in a village on the Scioto River.

John Howard and John Peter Salling (1742)[edit]

John Howard, a pioneer from Virginia, led a party of five—John Peter Salling (a Pennsylvania German),^[38] Josiah Howard (John's son), Charles Sinclair, and John Poteet (Vizt)—from the Virginia mountains to the Mississippi River.^[39] The elder Howard had a promised reward of 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) of land for a successful expedition from the Virginia Royal Governor's Council to reinforce British claims in the west. Howard offered equal shares of the 10,000 acres to the four other members of his expedition. The party of five left John Peter Salling's house in August County on March 16, 1742 and traveled west to Cedar Creek (near the Natural Bridge), crossing Greenbrier River and landing at the New River. At New River, the Virginia explorers built a large bull boat frame and covered it with five buffalo skins. The first Englishmen to explore the region then followed the New River for 250 miles (400 km), until it became too dangerous to navigate. At a large waterfall, they traveled overland to the Coal River. Following the Kanawha River, they entered the Ohio River 444 miles (715 km) above the falls. The Virginia pioneers traced the northern boundary of Kentucky for five hundred miles (800 km), reaching the Mississippi River on June 7.^{[8][40][41][42][43]} They descended just below the mouth of the Arkansas River, where they were ambushed by a large company of Native Americans, Blacks and Frenchmen on July 2, 1742; one or two of Howard's men were killed.^[44] The rest were brought to New Orleans and imprisoned as spies.^[38] After two years in prison, Salling escaped on October 25, 1744, and returned on a southern route to his home in Augusta County, Virginia in May 1745. John Howard was extradited to France to stand trial. His ship was intercepted by the English and, as a free man, he reported his adventures after landing in London; however, his account has been lost.^[8][43] Salling's detailed account of Virginia's adjacent lands was used in Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson's 1751 map.^[8][43]

Etymology and nickname[edit]

The etymology of "Kentucky" is uncertain. One suggestion is that it is derived from an Iroquois name meaning "land of tomorrow".^[45] According to Native America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia, "Various authors have offered a number of opinions concerning the word's meaning: the Iroquois word kentake meaning 'meadow land', the Wyandotte (or perhaps Cherokee or Iroquois) word ken-tah-the meaning 'land of tomorrow', the Algonquian term kin-athiki referring to a river bottom, a Shawnee word meaning 'at the head of a river', or an Indian word meaning land of 'cane and turkeys'".^[46] The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke is a 1784 book by John Filson. Kentucky's nickname, the "Bluegrass State", derives from the grass grown in the central part of the state; "The nickname also recognizes the role that the Bluegrass region has played in Kentucky's economy and history."^[47]

Early European settlement[edit]

Main articles: New France, Louisiana (New France), French and Indian War, Treaty of Paris (1763), Indian Reserve (1763), and Colony of Virginia

Pre-conquest Native American settlements[edit]

Eskippakithiki[edit]

Eskippakithiki (also known as Indian Old Fields), Kentucky's last surviving Shawnee village,^[48] was in present-day Clark County. A 1736 French census reported Eskippakithiki's population as two hundred families.^[49]

Eskippakithiki had a population of eight hundred to one thousand. The town was protected by a stout stockade some two hundred yards in diameter, and it was surrounded by three thousand five hundred acres (1,400 ha) of land that had been cleared for crops.^[50]

John Finley, who lived and traded in Eskippakithiki in 1752, showed the flatlands to Daniel Boone in 1769 (piquing Boone's interest in Kentucky). Finley said that he was attacked by a party of 50 Christian Conewago and Ottawa Indians, a white French Canadian and renegade Dutchman Philip Philips (all from the St. Lawrence River) who were on a scalp-hunting expedition against southern tribes on January 28, 1753 on the Warrior's Path 25 miles (40 km) south of Eskippakithiki, near the head of Station Camp Creek in Estill County.^[48] Major William Trent wrote a letter which first mentions "Kentucky" about the attack on Finley:

I have received a letter just now from Mr. Croghan, wherein he acquaints me that fifty-odd Ottawas, Conewagos, one Dutchman, and one of the Six Nations, that was their captain, met with some of our people at a place called Kentucky on this side Allegheny river, about one hundred and fifty miles (240 km) from the Lower Shawnee Town. They took eight prisoners, five belonging to Mr. Croghan and me, the others to Lowry; they took three or four hundred pounds worth of goods from us; one of them made his escape after he had been a prisoner three days. Three of John Findley's men are killed by the Little Pict Town, and no account of himself ... There was one Frenchman in the Company.

— Lucien Beckner^[48]

The seven Pennsylvanian traders with Finley's crew were James Lowry, David Hendricks, Alexander McGinty, Jabez Evans, Jacob Evans, William Powell, Thomas Hyde, and their Cherokee slave. The traders shot at the natives, who took them prisoner and brought them to Canada; some were then shipped to France as prisoners of war. Finley fled, and the next European who went to Eskippathiki found the town burned to the ground.^[48]

Shannoah[edit]

Shannoah, also known as Lower Shawneetown and Chalahgawtha ("principal place") is the Shawnee village where Mary Draper Ingles was brought when she was kidnapped on July 30, 1755. Ingles, the first European woman to see Kentucky, eventually escaped. Shannoah, in present-day Greenup County, was founded during the mid-1730s at the mouth of the Scioto River as a center for commerce and diplomacy; it was one of the earliest known Shawnee settlements on either side of the Ohio River. Its population also included Senecas and Lenape. The town was a center of dealings with other tribes and Europeans (notably the French and the British) before it was abandoned around November 1758—possibly because of a 1753 flood or the French and Indian War, which began in the Ohio Valley in 1755.^[51]

Harrod's Town[edit]

Main article: Harrodsburg, Kentucky § History

Before 1750, Kentucky was populated nearly exclusively by Cherokee, Chickasaw, Shawnee, Yuchi, Mosopelea, and several other tribes of Native Americans. That year, a British scouting party was led by Thomas Walker;^[52] an Ohio Company expedition the following year was led by Christopher Gist. French claims to Kentucky were lost after its defeat in the French and Indian War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763. The Iroquois claim to much of the state was purchased by the British in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix on November 5, 1768. By 1774, only a few bands of Native Americans lived south of the Ohio River; the major tribes, based north of the river, agreed not to hunt south of it.^[53][54]

In 1774, Harrod's Town became Kentucky's first permanent European settlement. The town, named for James Harrod, was founded by the order of British governor of Virginia Lord Dunmore.^[55] Harrod led an expedition to survey land promised by the British crown to soldiers who served in the French and Indian War.^[55] From Fort Redstone, Harrod and 37 men traveled down the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers to the mouth of the Kentucky River, crossing the Salt River into present-day Mercer County.^{[56][57][58][self-published source]} On June 16, 1774, they founded Harrod's Town.^[57] The men divided the land; Harrod chose an area about six miles (9.7 km) from the settlement, which he named Boiling Springs.^[8] Shawnee attacked a small party of Harrod's in the Fontainbleau area on July 8, killing two men. The others escaped to the camp, about 3 miles (4.8 km) away.^[56]

As Harrod's men finished the settlement's first structures, Dunmore dispatched Daniel Boone to recall them from the frontier and into military service against bands of Shawnee and Mingo in Lord Dunmore's War.^[55] Although Harrod enlisted in the militia, he arrived too late to participate in the Battle of Point Pleasant (the war's only major battle);^[56] his men arrived at the battle site at midnight on October 10, the day fighting ended.^[56] The Treaty of Camp Charlotte, signed by the Shawnee chief Cornstalk to end the war, ceded Shawnee claims to land south of the Ohio River (present-day Kentucky and West Virginia) to Virginia; the Shawnee were also required to return all European captives and stop attacking barges traveling on the Ohio River.^[59] On March 8, 1775, Harrod led a group of settlers back to Harrod's Town.^[57]

The Shawnee defeat in Lord Dunmore's War emboldened land speculators in North Carolina who believed that much of present-day Kentucky and Tennessee would soon be under British control. Richard Henderson learned from his friend Daniel Boone that the Cherokee were interested in selling a large part of their land on the trans-Appalachian frontier, and Henderson began negotiations with Cherokee leaders. Between March 14 and 17, 1775, Henderson, Boone, and several associates met at Sycamore Shoals with the Cherokee leaders Attakullakulla, Oconastota, Willanawaw, Doublehead, and Dragging Canoe. The Treaty of Sycamore Shoals authorizing the Transylvania Purchase was not recognized by Dragging Canoe, who tried unsuccessfully to reject Henderson's purchase of tribal lands outside the Donelson line and left the conference vowing to turn the land "dark and bloody" if attempts were made to settle them. The rest of the negotiations went fairly smoothly, and the treaty was signed on March 17, 1775. At the conference, the Watauga and Nolichucky settlers negotiated similar purchases of their lands.^[60]

Revolutionary War (1775–1783)[edit]

After 1775, Kentucky grew rapidly as the first settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains were founded. Settlers migrated primarily from Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, entering the region via the Cumberland Gap and the Ohio River; it was claimed by Virginia. The best-known early explorer and settler was Daniel Boone, one of the state's founders. During this period, settlers introduced commodity agriculture to the region. Tobacco, corn, and hemp were major cash crops, and hunting became less important. Due to ongoing Native American resistance to white settlement, however, by 1776 there were fewer than 200 settlers in Kentucky.

During the American Revolutionary War, settlers began pouring into the region. Dragging Canoe responded by leading his warriors into the Cherokee–American wars (1776–1794), especially along the Holston River in present-day Tennessee. The Shawnee north of the Ohio River were also unhappy about the American settlement of Kentucky. Although some bands tried to be neutral, historian Colin G. Calloway notes that most Shawnees fought with the British against the Americans.^[61]

Lexington, Kentucky's second-largest city and former capital, is named for Lexington, Massachusetts (the site of one of the first Revolutionary battles). Kentucky was part of the western theater of the American Revolutionary War, and the Bryan's Station fort was built during the last year of the war for defense against the British and their Native American allies. The state was a battleground during the war; the Battle of Blue Licks, one of the Revolution's last major battles, was an American defeat.

Kentucky County and its militia[edit]

Main article: Kentucky County, Virginia

After Kentucky County was created on December 6, 1776 (becoming effective in 1777), the county militia was organized as follows:^[62]

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Kentucky History

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Kentucky History Timeline

Important Dates, Events, and Milestones in Kentucky History

Offers a chronological timeline of important dates, events, and milestones in Kentucky history.

Kentucky's first inhabitants are descendants of prehistoric people who migrate from Asia over the Arctic land bridge. Archaic people grow squash in the area, and Woodland people cultivate corn and beans. Kentucky was granted statehood in 1792, becoming the first U.S. state west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Frontiersman Daniel Boone was one of Kentucky's most prominent explorers and many immigrants followed the trail he blazed through the Cumberland Gap, known as the Wilderness Road.

18th Century Kentucky History Timeline

1739 - Capt. Charles de Longueuil discovers Big Bone Lick

1750 - Thomas Walker explores Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap

1751 - Christopher Gist explores area along Ohio River.

1763 - France cedes area including Kentucky to Britain.

1769 - Daniel Boone and John Finley first saw the far distant Bluegrass atop Pilot Knob, now in Powell County. The recorded date is June 7, 1769.

1774 - James Harrod constructed the first permanent settlement in Kentucky at Fort Harrod. 1774. James Harrod starts building Harrodstown (Harrodsburg); Indians force settlers to withdraw; settlers return in 1775.

1775 -

• Boiling Springs and St. Asaph settled.

• Indians give Richard Henderson land between Ohio and Cumberland rivers for Transylvania Land Company.

• Daniel Boone builds the Wilderness Trail and establishes Fort Boonesborough

1776 - Harrodsburg settlers, jealous of Boonesboro, send George Rogers Clark and John Jones to ask Virginia's aid; Virginia declares Transylvania Land Company illegal; creates Kentucky County.

1778 - The longest siege in United States frontier history was the thirteen-day siege of Fort Boonesborough in September 1778.

1779 - The First Baptist Church west of the Allegheny Mountains was formed at Elizabethtown.

1782 - "Last battle of American Revolution" fought at Blue Licks, near Mount Olivet.

1784 - First of ten conventions held to prepare way for separation of Kentucky from Virginia.

1791 - Upper Spottsvania Baptist Church Left In 1791 For Floyd County, Kentucky From Virginia Leading the Wagon train was Rev. Lewis Craig and Capt. William Ellis.

1792 - Kentucky becomes the 15th state on June 1, 1792. June 1; governor, Isaac Shelby; capital, Lexington, then Frankfort.

1794 -

• Gen. "Mad Anthony" Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers in Ohio ends Indian attacks in Kentucky.

• On July 4, 1794, Col. William Price, Revolutionary War veteran, held the first Independence Day celebration in the West, in Jessamine County.

1796 - Wilderness Road opened to wagons.

1798 - Legislature passes Kentucky Resolutions opposing United States Alien and Sedition Acts.

19th Century Kentucky History Timeline

1801 - The great church camp meeting at Cane Ridge in Bourbon County was attended by more than 20,000.

1811 - Henry Clay elected to Congress from Kentucky. New Orleans, first steamboat on Ohio River, stops at Louisville; Enterprise reaches Louisville from New Orleans, La., in 1815.

1812 - Kentuckians bear brunt of war with England north of the Ohio and in New Orleans.

1818 - Westernmost region of the state was annexed, following its purchase from the Chicasaw Indians.

1819 - The first commercial oil well was on the Cumberland River in McCreary County Kentucky in 1819.

1830 - Louisville and Portland Canal opened.

1849 - Zachary Taylor, Kentucky hero of Mexican War, becomes 12th president of United States.

1850 - Kentucky was the 8th most populated state in the nation in the 1850 census. There were 982,405 citizens listed.

1861 -

• Kentucky declares its neutrality in American Civil War.

• Civil War Kentucky had supplied about 86,000 troops to the north and 40,000 troops to the south. Ironically, south-central Kentucky was the birthplace of both the Union president, Abraham Lincoln, and the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, further enhancing the state's dualistic role in the Civil War

• Fort Jefferson, the first settlement in western Kentucky, was one of the first Kentucky positions occupied by Union Troops after the Confederates seized the area surrounding Columbus in September 1861.

1862 -

• The first major battle on Kentucky soil during the Civil War was fought near Prestonsburg, January 10, 1862

• The bloodiest Civil War Battle to be fought on Kentucky soil was the Battle of Perryville, Oct. 8, 1862.

1865 - University of Kentucky founded at Lexington.

1875 - First Kentucky Derby run at Churchill Downs.

1891 - Present state constitution adopted.

1892 - The radio was invented by a Kentuckian named Nathan B. Stubblefield of Murray in 1892.

20th Century Kentucky History Timeline

1899-1900 - Kentucky experienced four different governors in less than three months time, between early December of 1899 and early February of 1900.

1900 - Governor William Goebel was shot by an assassin on January 30, 1900. He died on February 3, 1900

1909 - Present State Capitol completed.

1912 - McCreary County, the last to be created of Kentucky's 120 counties, was formed in 1912. It is the only one formed in the 20th Century.

1904-1909 - The Black Patch War ends a tobacco-buying monopoly

1921 - In 1921 the law passed making it legal for women to serve on juries.

1926 -

• Mammoth Cave National Park established.

• The cardinal was adopted as Kentucky's state bird and the goldenrod as the state flower in 1926

1933 - The Tennessee Valley Authority begin building dams in Kentucky

1936 -

• The last legal public hanging in Kentucky took place August 14, 1936 in Owensboro. Florence Thompson was the first female sheriff in Davis County History. She was in charge of Kentucky's last legal hanging.

• A US Gold Depository is established at Fort Knox

1937 - Worst Ohio River flood occurs. United States gold depository built at Fort Knox.

1944 - Kentucky Dam on Tennessee River completed by Tennessee Valley Authority.

1946 - Frederick M. Vinson, born in 1890 in Louisa, is appointed chief justice of the United States.

1950 - Atomic energy plant built near Paducah.

1951 - Wolf Creek Dam on Cumberland River dedicated.

1959 - Cumberland Gap National Historical Park dedicated.

1961 - It takes 20,000 plants to decorate Kentucky's Floral Clock. The clock was dedicated May 4, 1961 by Governor Bert T. Combs.

1962 - Kentucky is first state given control of certain nuclear energy materials by federal government.

1964 - Western Kentucky Parkway opened; Kentucky Central Parkway, in 1965.

1966 -

• Kentucky is first Southern state to pass a comprehensive civil rights law.

• Barkley Dam on Cumberland River dedicated.

1969 - The Tennessee Valley Authority builds a steam-generating plant in Paradise

1977 - Nightclub fire in Southgate kills 164 persons.

1988 - Voters approve the establishment of a state lottery.

1990 - The Kentucky Education Reform Act is passed.

21st Century Kentucky History Timeline

2005 - U.S. Supreme Court ruled against display of Ten Commandments inside two Kentucky courtrooms

2006 - Comair flight crashed near Lexington, 49 killed

2010 -

• Tea Party candidate, Rand Paul, won Republic Senate primary

• Man killed five people, self in argument about breakfast

• Five U.S. military members from Fort Campbell 101st Combat Aviation Brigade killed in helicopter crash in Afghanistan

2011 - Australian man held in Louisville on charges of locking fake bomb around neck of Sydney teenager

2012 - Series of powerful storms and tornadoes killed 12