^ ::.:^a:i;m^:m^^m^mBm^^^^^^ ^;^^ -^JlT.'.,^^- c,'^--;: m THE LIBRARY V OF THE UNIVERSITY •1%^^ OF CALIFORNIA ft LOS ANGELES w^ ?Si ^m '^*'k- '^m -:'^me-s-- ^'^ ^^ t'ar>:-^ - / r % ^' V. Commander-in-Chief, U. C. V. A HISTORY OF H H u \^ KENTUCKY, FROM ITS EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO 1898. By BENNETT H. YOUNG, Society Member Filson ; President Polytechnic ; 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 gflod life out of the past" is a treasure luhich cannot be measured in money, and should be f>rcserved -,uith faithfullest care. LOUISVILLE. KY.: Courier-Journal Job Printing Co., 1.S98. T4. tT^-i TO TOu Father, ddobrrt ^Inuui], AND ^Xu Wotlicr, Btosrphiuc ^jaunii. 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 w^in. 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' ctnnit\- is one of the few jj^reat counties of the state whose history remains unwritten. I"'or a long time after its be- ginning, it was overshadowed in many ways by Lexington. Dan- ville, Paris, 1 larrodsburg, and W'incliester. 'Die county had no positofifice until 1801. Mails were infrequent and carried by hand. Lexington was the great town south of the Ohio and west of the Alleghenies. Wlicn the county was organized, Lexing- ton had a population of nearly 2.000. while Cincinnati had less and was its merchandise in which than 500, buying Lexington ; 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 }ears, 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 ihe I)est trade from the counties within a radius of fifty miles. Lexington, too. had the first railroad in the west. The line to P'rankfort was finisheil and operated in December. 1835. and b}- 1851. trains Vvcre run through from Louisville to Lexington. In 1854, a train ran from Covington to Lexington, and from Lexington to I'aris in 1853. Hiese railways diverted the trade from the steamboats on the Kentucky river and thev made Lex- ington a great center. The enterprise and courage of her people received a just and ample reward. J^'ayette 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 thev had the sagacity and tlie enter|)rise to improve the op])ortunities which presented tliemselves. Jessamine count \ liad no railway until 1857. From that time Nicholasville assumed a new importance. Long the terminus of 8 Preface. the Kentuckv CcMitral, tlK-rc came to it both travel and trade, and of it began to improve. The loss of slaves and the destruction of of affected both thes values ; the result the war 1861-65. greatly town and the county, but after the period necessary for a recu- peration from these troubles, the county and town have developed witli steady and constant growth, and both are now taking the l)t)sition to wliicli their natural advantages entitle them. lessaniinc county has never lacked in pul^lic s])irit. She has liberalh' rcs]ionded to all calls for ptiblic improvement. She never re])udiated 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, Xicholasville, Irvine and Beattyville line: is highest evidence of her sagacity and generosit\-. 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 feej a glow of honest pride at what a centtu'v has accomplish- ed. The smallest, except fifteen, of the one hundred and nineteen counties in ihe state, with an area of only 158 square miles, it has always maintained a prominent place among the rich and large agricultural ccjunties. I'^or its population it is surpassed in it as of wealth b_\- only a very few cotinties, and ranks one the great producing counties of I\entucky. 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 liand of fate to make mv home in the greatest of all Kentucky's cotmties. Jefferson, I have never lost love for and its Nicholasville and my Jessamine, capital citv, ; oftentimes there creeps into m)' heart a longing to spend the evening of life wb.ere 1 first saw the light, and an absence of thir- ty-seven }-ears, has neither destroyed nor dimmed my love for the ]:)eople who juive always remembered me in my comings to the old liome i)lace, with such generous hospitalit\' and unchanging kindness. Xo one else offering to write a history of the county, I have tmdertaken the task. The work has been done hurriedlv and Prefftcp. 9 uliile under ilie pressure of a l)usy 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 (jf their ancestors, great de- votion to Kentucky, and better aj)prehension of the cost and vakie of the freedom of our country, I shall be more than repaid for the labor and cost of ])roducing this voliune. It does not contain all that a history of the county should include, but it does for the first time \n\i in ])ermanent form ilie 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 (lis|mted 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 Xicholasville. 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 tise of all his facts. 1 have bv research gotten others and verified his. and J have, as is his just due, placed his name upon the title page of this book as associate author. Although the preparation and ptiblication was assumed by me. I consider it both a privilege and a duty to thus connect Mr. Duncan with the first history of the couiU}-. I beg to acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of Col. R. T. Dm-rett, Mqx. E. O. Guerrant. Sanniel 1). ^'oung. ]\Iiss Hen- rietta W. ilrown. .Mrs. \ irginia Xoland. Robert (i. Wright. Miss Jessie Woodson, Mrs. .\nna .Meade Letcher. Dr. D. P.. Todd. J. ^Villar(l Mitchell, I )r. Chas. .Mann. .Miss Josephine Mann. John S. Bronaugh, X. L. lironaugh, Henrv Glass, Melanctlion Young, Wm. L. Steele. I'.. M . Arnett, and l-",mil llhardt, the skillful in photographer, wlm liave spared no efTfort to lielj) me place durable form the im])ortant events )ii the historv of the cotmty. Bennett H. Young. Louisville. Ky.. Sept. l6. 1898. History of Jessamine County, In 1767 joliii ImiiIcv, a woodsman and hunter, from Xorth Carolina. mo\ed hy a spirit of adventure and a love for hunting, entered the country known as the lUuegrass 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. A\^ho came with him, whither they went and how long the party remained, neither traveler, legend, nor written storvtells. It is most likel\- that they passed through Jessamine count}- and were the first of their race to look upon its ]:)ristine beautv and glory. Two Acars later, ]-lnley returned witli Daniel Boone to that wonderful land he had descril;e(l 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.