USA > Kentucky > Jessamine County > A history of Jessamine County, Kentucky, from its earliest settlement to 1898 > Part 1
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Bennett A young
/
1
A HISTORY
OF
JESSAMINE COUNTY
KENTUCKY,
FROM ITS
EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO 1898.
By BENNETT H. YOUNG,
PRESIDENT POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY; MEMBER FILSON CLUB ; MEMBER CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1890 ; AUTHOR HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF KEN- TUCKY, OF "BATTLE OF BLUE LICKS, ETC., ETC.
S. M. DUNCAN, ASSOCIATE AUTHOR.
"Every brave and good life out of the past" is a treasure which cannot be measured in money, and should be preserved with faithfullest care.
LOUISVILLE, KY .: COURIER-JOURNAL JOB PRINTING CO., 1898.
INDEXED
, 55 Y62
TO
my Father, Robert Young, AND My Mother, Josephine young,
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME.
My father was a resident of Jessamine County for sixty-five years. He was honest, upright, patriotic, public-spirited, and always the friend of the poor and suffering. My mother-God bless her name and memory !- had a heart full of human sympathy and tenderness, and also of the love of Christ, whose teachings she faithfully followed for sixty years, in the midst of the people of Jessamine. Descended from Revolutionary sires, they both ardently loved the freedom of this free land with an unquenchable love, and taught their children, as the noblest aim of life, to serve God and be true to the glorious liberty their ancestors had so cour- ageously fought to win. They sleep in the cemetery at Lexington, Ky., and I trust they have a kindly remembrance with the people among whom they lived and died.
PREFACE.
Jessamine county is one of the few great counties of the state whose history remains unwritten. For a long time after its be- ginning, it was overshadowed in many ways by Lexington, Dan- ville, Paris, Harrodsburg, and Winchester. The county had no postoffice until 1801. Mails were infrequent and carried by hand. Lexington was the great town south of the Ohio and west of the Alleghenies. When the county was organized, Lexing- ton had a population of nearly 2,000, while Cincinnati had less than 500, and was buying its merchandise in Lexington ; which was already the seat of a university ; it had churches and schools, and was the great trading point for a large part of Kentucky, and portion of Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee.
Brick houses had begun to be erected, and newspapers had been published for eleven years, and being only twelve miles from Nicholasville, it was inevitable that it should draw to it a very large share of the trade of Jessamine. Lexington was then. and remained for many years thereafter, the political, intellectual, and commercial metropolis of Kentucky, and it necessarily dwarfed the surrounding towns and attracted the best trade from the counties within a radius of fifty miles.
Lexington, too, had the first railroad in the west. The line to Frankfort was finished and operated in December, 1835, and by 1851, trains were run through from Louisville to Lexington. In 1854, a train ran from Covington to Lexington, and from Lexington to Paris in 1853. These railways diverted the trade from the steamboats on the Kentucky river and they made Lex- ington a great center.
The enterprise and courage of her people received a just and ample reward. Fayette county and Lexington always exhibited great enterprise as well as the highest public spirit, and in com- merce as well as education they attained high rank, because they had the sagacity and the enterprise to improve the opportunities which presented themselves.
Jessamine county had no railway until 1857. From that time Nicholasville assumed a new importance. Long the terminus of
8
Preface.
the Kentucky Central, there came to it both travel and trade, and it began to improve. The loss of slaves and the destruction of values ; the result of the war of 1861-65, greatly affected both the town and the county, but after the period necessary for a recu- peration from these troubles, the county and town have developed with steady and constant growth, and both are now taking the position to which their natural advantages entitle them.
Jessamine county has never lacked in public spirit. She has liberally responded to all calls for public improvement. She never repudiated any of her obligations. She always paid what she agreed to pay, and her subscription to the Kentucky Central Railroad, to the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, to the improve- ment of the Kentucky river, and to the Richmond, Nicholasville, Irvine and Beattyville line : is highest evidence of her sagacity and generosity, and placed the county in the best possible position for the development of all its resources.
Looking back one hundred years, the people of Jessamine can feel a glow of honest pride at what a century has accomplish- ed. The smallest, except fifteen, of the one hundred and nineteen counties in the state, with an area of only 158 square miles, it has always maintained a prominent place among the rich and large agricultural counties. For its population it is surpassed in wealth by only a very few counties, and it ranks as one of the great producing counties of Kentucky. Its land, per acre, has always, for taxation, been valued at a very high rate.
In 1846 it was the sixth county in value of lands per acre, and in 1870, notwithstanding the great cities in other counties, it stood ninth : and still maintains that place.
Led by the guiding hand of fate to make my home in the greatest of all Kentucky's counties, Jefferson, I have never lost my love for Jessamine, and its capital city, Nicholasville ; and oftentimes there creeps into my heart a longing to spend the evening of life where I first saw the light, and an absence of thir- ty-seven years, has neither destroyed nor dimmed my love for the people who have always remembered me in my comings to the old home place, with such generous hospitality and unchanging kindness.
No one else offering to write a history of the county, I have undertaken the task. The work has been done hurriedly and
9
Preface.
while under the pressure of a busy professional life ; but it is a labor of love, and if the story of the sacrifices, courage, and patri- otism of our forefathers who settled and organized the county, shall be efficient in creating upon the present and future sons and daughters of Jessamine higher love of their ancestors, great de- votion to Kentucky, and better apprehension of the cost and value of the freedom of our country, I shall be more than repaid for the labor and cost of producing this volume. It does not contain all that a history of the county should include, but it does for the first time put in permanent form the leading facts connected with the organization of the county and accounts of the men who first cut down the forests, grubbed the cane brakes and drove out the savages who disputed its possession, and it will, at least be a help to those who may hereafter desire to write a more extended his- tory of Jessamine and of its people.
Mr. S. M. Duncan, of Nicholasville, has for more than forty years been gathering notes of the history of the people who have lived in Jessamine. He has done more for the preservation of its history than any one man who ever lived in the county. He has generously given me the use of all his facts. I have by research gotten others and verified his, and I have, as is his just due, placed his name upon the title page of this book as associate author. Although the preparation and publication was assumed by me, I consider it both a privilege and a duty to thus connect Mr. Duncan with the first history of the county.
I beg to acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of Col. R. T. Durrett, Rev. E. O. Gnerrant, Samuel D. Young, Miss Hen- rietta W. Brown, Mrs. Virginia Noland, Robert G. Wright, Miss Jessie Woodson, Mrs. Anna Meade Letcher, Dr. L. B. Todd, J. Willard Mitchell, Dr. Chas. Mann, Miss Josephine Mann, John S. Bronaugh, N. L. Bronaugh, Henry Glass, Melancthon Young, Wm. L. Steele, B. M. Arnett, and Emil Ilhardt, the skillful photographer, who have spared no effort to help me place in durable form the important events in the history of the county.
BENNETT H. YOUNG.
Louisville, Ky .. Sept. 16, 1898.
HISTORY OF JESSAMINE COUNTY.
In 1767 John Finley, a woodsman and hunter, from North Carolina, moved by a spirit of adventure and a love for hunting, entered the country known as the Bluegrass region. He was the first white man, history asserts, that ever penetrated the wil- derness and forests of Kentucky sufficiently to see the central part of the state. Who came with him, whither they went and how long the party remained, neither traveler, legend, nor written storytells. It is most likely that they passed through Jessamine county and were the first of their race to look upon its pristine beauty and glory. Two years later, Finley returned with Daniel Boone to that wonderful land he had described to his neighbors and as- sociates in North Carolina, with such eloquence and enthusiasm as to arouse within them an inextinguishable desire to visit a land which then was looked upon as "God's own country." What be- came of him after this second visit is unknown, but it is a reason- able conclusion that somewhere in the stillness and sublime silence of the great forests to which he had led the white man, the red man took his life and left him as his shroud the leaves of the forest and his monument the mighty trees which stood sentinel for ages over the fertile and genial soil of Kentucky.
Dr. Thomas Walker, from Virginia, had in 1750 explored a portion of Kentucky, but he only skirted the Bluegrass and rode over the mountains of Southeastern Kentucky, and what he saw and reported, created no spirit of exploration and no desire of emigration. Finley was the man who saw the huntsman's para- (ise, and whose soul was fired for its possession, and into whose mind was burned memories which made life miserable away from the glories of the new land into which he had by accident come.
Some months after his return, while wandering along the Yadkin river in North Carolina, Finley met a kindred spirit, one of the master woodsmen of his age. In the solitude of the wilder- ness of North Carolina, far out beyond the advance of civilization
(11)
12
History of Jessamine County, Kentucky.
and settlement, he found a rude cabin, in which dwelt a young man, not much beyond his majority. By his side was a brave woman, who, amid the dangers and hardships of the wild, wild frontier, shared his life and hopes and brightened the solitude and drearyness of his isolated home. By the humble, but hospitable fireside of the young hunter, Finley was welcomed as a guest, and again and again he told the story of his journey toward the north, of the magnificent region where there would be an eternal feast for the hunter, where game was so abundant that the droves of buffalo could be counted like herds of cattle, where deer licked the hand of the intruder, and coons, 'possums, turkeys and pheasants, were so plentiful as to obstruct the path along which mien would tread.
Finley had found a heart which would respond in fullest har- mony to his words, a harp which answered his touch, and each day gave back not only sweetest note, but varied and sympa- thetic chords ; a man whose brave soul was devoid of all fear and who wanted nothing better for time or eternity than that glorious and distant region of which the new found friend spoke. A com- pact, offensive and defensive, was then and there signed. Boone had at last heard of a land for which his soul sighed, a land which filled his ideal of a paradise and to see it, to tread its traces and to enjoy its pleasure, he resolved to give up his home, his wife, his children, and if need be to surrender his life. To once see such a land as Finley described, he felt would be compensation for all that earth could bestow.
Sparse settlements along the Holston, 200 miles away, and the forts on the Ohio at Pittsburgh and the few houses strung along the line of the wilderness now were the closest neighbors to Ken- tucky.
Boone came in 1769, and brought his family in 1775.
The founding of the Transylvania colony by Henderson, in 1775, gave an armed and trained force to meet Indian attack, and Harrodsburg and St. Asaphs, or Logan's Fort, formed the mili- tary triangle about which and in which the new settlers made their homes.
The Transylvania land scheme of 1775 did not include Jessa- mine county. Its lines followed the south or western side of the Kentucky river, and left the eastern boundary always in Virginia.
13
History of Jessamine County, Kentucky.
When by act of the Virginia House of Burgesses, in 1780, Kentucky was divided into three counties, Fayette, Jefferson and Lincoln ; Jessamine was comprised within the limits of Fayette, and so remained until, December 17, 1798, when it was separated from the parent county, and became the thirty-sixth county of the state.
The initial lines of pioneer travel did not traverse Jessamine. The Wilderness road, entering the state at Cumberland Gap, di- vided at Rockcastle river, one branch going to Boonesboro, and the other by Crab Orchard, Danville and Bardstown, to Louis- ville.
The persistent assaults of the Indians on the settlers in Ken- tucky in 1782, caused the abandonment of all the forts in the state east of the Kentucky, except five, Lexington, Bryants, Mc- Connells, McClellans (Georgetown) and Boones.
The county of Kentucky was established in 1775, and divided into three counties in 1780 ; and prior to 1792 six more were add- ed, making, at the inception of its statehood, nine in all.
Added: Bourbon, 1785 ; Madison, 1785 : Mason, 1789; Mer- cer, 1785 : Nelson, 1781 ; Woodford, 1788.
The first fort and only fort in Jessamine county was estab- lished by Levi Todd in 1779. This was one year before Lexing- ton was built. The line of travel between Harrodsburg and the Fayette county stations, passed through the northern and west- ern parts of the county, and on this trace, near Keene, Todd's sta- tion was built.
The isolation of the forts and the constant and destructive ma- rauds of the Indians, now officered by Englishmen and provided with improved arms, terrified the settlers east of the Kentucky river. They were nearest to the homes of the Indians from the northwest, who had now become the most dreadful of all the sav- ages who invaded the state, and 1780-81-82, they drove in the outposts, and with great difficulty the white men were able to maintain their stations at all in and around Lexington. It was then that personal safety compelled Todd to abandon his Jessa- mine holdings and take such help and protection as the four sta- tions around Lexington offered to the almost hopeless men and women who occupied the limited territory in Fayette, which re-
·
14
History of Jessamine County, Kentucky.
mained after the terrible fatality of Ruddell's and Martin's stations in June, 1780.
The land law enacted by the Virginia Legislature, in the set- tling of land made location easy and popular. The wonderful ac- counts of the fertility, beauty and salubrity of Kentucky turned an immense tide of immigration to the state. In 1782, the popula- tion did not exceed 1500; in 1790, it had grown to 61,133 white people : 114 colored free people, and 12,340 slaves ; a total of 73,- 677, while ten years later, in 1800, it had 179,873 white, 739 free colored, and 40,343 slaves; a total of 220,995, an increase in ten years of 224 1-2 per cent.
Of this extraordinary improvement, Jessamine county re- ceived a full share. In 1782, it had not a single settler, and yet in 1800, eighteen years thereafter, it had 5,461 inhabitants. This was the first decade in which a census could be taken. Fayette. from which Jessamine was entirely taken, had, in 1800, 18,410 in- habitants, or one-fourth of the entire population of the state. As a part of Clark was included in this enumeration, and assuming that Jessamine had grown in proportion as other parts of Fayette, the county in 1790 had about 2,000 inhabitants.
A great proportion of Jessamine immigration, came from Vir- ginia. The Revolutionary soldiers were pouring into all parts of the state, and Jessamine received her full share, and more than one hundred of these brave and sturdy settlers found homes with- in her borders.
No state could secure nobler treasure than were these Revolu- tionary soldiers. Their splendid courage, exalted patriotism, hardy natures, and noble characters, made them a worthy addition to any community. The self-reliance, tact and enterprise engen- dered by Revolutionary service, rendered them citizens of great and unusual worth. Of the rich store given by Virginia, Penn- sylvania, North and South Carolina, Jessamine received an ex- traordinary proportion.
The most distinguished men of Revolutionary fame who came to Jessamine, were George Walker, Joseph Crockett, Benjamin Netherland, William Price, Percival Butler, William Mckinney and John Price.
These were not more patriotic or more loyal to the American cause than the others, but they had in the war obtained positions
15
History of Jessamine County, Kentucky.
which made them more prominent than their associates in the early history of the county. A brief sketch of each is properly a part of the history of Jessamine county.
Benjamin Netherland.
One of the most unique and extraordinary characters in the history of Jessamine county in its early days was Maj. Benjamin Netherland. He was born in Powhattan county, Virginia, in 1755. He went to Cuba as the agent of his father, to dispose of his tobacco crop. There learning that Sir Peter Parker was to make an attack on Charleston, he left his cargo and ran the blockade into Charleston and helped to defend Fort Moultrie against British assault. He accompanied La Fayette on his journey from Charleston in 1777 as far as Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, when the distinguished Frenchman was on his way to Philadel- phia, to tender his services to Washington in behalf of American liberty. He remained at Charlotte, North Carolina until 1781, took part in the battle of Guilford Courthouse, and shortly after this he drifted into Kentucky. In May, 1782, he was at Estill station, and was with the Kentucky troops in the Estill defeat. He took part in nearly all the Indian battles from 1781 to 1784. He went with George Rogers Clark on his expedition in 1782 to punish the Indians for the wrongs of Blue Licks.
He was with General Harmar in his defeat, and with General Wayne in his victory at Fallen Timbers in 1794 and was instru- mental in punishing the men who had perpetrated the slaughter at Blue Licks. After seven years' absence in Kentucky, he re- turned to North Carolina in 1788 and married his boyish sweet- heart, Miss Theodosia Bramlette, who was a daughter of the distinguished Revolutionary fighter Col. Bramlette. He had lived in Fayette and Madison counties prior to his coming to Jessamine. After his marriage he settled on a farm five miles east of Nicholasville, and in 1793 he removed to where Nicholas- ville now stands, and built a hotel and called it Mingo Tavern- this house he kept until his death in 1838. The house was torn down in 1864. The author has often seen it when a boy, and the picture of it in this history is from a drawing made in 1820. He
- BY - OSNIW
4 UNV INTHLIN TAVERN
17
History of Jessamine County, Kentucky.
was chairman of the Board of Trustees of Nicholasville, and was prominent in its early history, and his children were the first white people born within its limits. He was the real hero of the battle of Blue Licks. Robert Wickliffe. of Lexington, whose second wife was the only daughter of Col. Todd, who was in com- mand at the battle at Blue Licks, in a political speech in 1848 in Nicholasville said that the majority of nien who escaped at Blue Licks owed their preservation to Benjamin Netherland and that Netherland was a fearless man. fruitful in resources and of mag- nificent courage.
Col. Robert Patterson, writing to Netherland in 1836, says. "1 can not forget the part you acted in the battle of Blue Licks." At the time of this battle Netherland was only twenty-seven years old. and he went from Lexington as a member of Capt. Robert Patterson's company. In the disastrous conflict lie remained mounted. and gained the ford over Licking in safety and crossed the stream unhurt. As he reached the west bank he looked back over his shoulder. and his soul was stirred with deepest emotion. and his heart filled with grandest courage as he saw his comrades struggling. swimming and plunging in the river. or rushing down the bank pursued by the savage enemy with unsheathed knives and uplifted tomahawks. He was a man of towering form. six feet two inches in height. He dismounted from his horse. and throwing the rein over his arm. in stentorian tone ordered his flee- ing comrades to halt and fire upon the Indians and save those who were still in the stream. His bravery and his splendid presence restored the spirits of his fear-stricken comrades. More than a dozen men instantly obeyed his call. and facing about with Netherland and standing in line they opened a fatal and deadly fire upon the foremost of the pursuing savages. The counter attack was so sudden and unexpected that it checked the fierce pursuit of the Indians and they instantly iell back from the op- posite bank. Netherland and his men maintained their position and drove the Indians to cover. while the wearied and almost despairing footmen were enabled to ford and swim the river in safety. Only a few minutes were necessary for those who could reach the stream or who were in it to pass over. The footmen as they left the bank quickly fled from the buffalo trace and dis- appeared in the thickets and started by circuitous routes to reach
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