Pioneer families first settled in Jefferson County, Kentucky, led by Captain Thomas Bullitt in July of 1773, who landed at the mouth of Beargrass Creek at the Falls of the Ohio River, and pitched a tent in the primeval forest that covered the banks. The water was very low at that season of the year, and, at night, to guard against surprise and attack from the savages. Captain Bullitt and his men retreated to the exposed rocks in the river, and slept with pickets out. These dozen men were the first people upon the spot that is known today as the city of Louisville, Kentucky. Captain Bullitt was a land-surveyor, and was sent to Kentucky by Lord Dunmore of Virginia to survey certain lands which are now Jefferson and Bullitt counties.
Louisville was founded upon a tract of one thousand acres of land first owned by John Connelly who forfeited the land when he became an active Tory during the war with England. Louisville was named for Louis XVI, the ill-fated victim of the French Revolution, and it was no wonder that a nucleus of French had already settlers at the Falls. It was estimated that about 359 persons settled in the Louisville vicinity.
James Wilkinson, a settler of Lexington, Kentucky in 1784, at the age of twenty-six, afterward having served as a General in the Revolutionary War, became interested in developing a canal for commerce, and frequently visted Louisville, but gave it up along with his other commercial projects when he returned to the Army and was made Commander-in-Chief.
In 1805, Wilkinson invited Aaron Burr to join him in a project in Louisville, Burr had become an outlaw when he killed Alexander Hamilton. Burr came to Louisville, examined the ground, and consulted with an engineer. He used that project afterward, or at least Wilkinson accused him of having done so. as a cloak for the greater and more hazardous enterprise of conquering an empire for himself in Mexico. The project failed to materialize, but the proposed canal was later constructed, in 1830.
Source: The City of Louisville and a Glimpse of Kentucky. PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL IMPROVEMENT OF THE LOUISVILLE BOARD OF TRADE. 1887.
Genealogy Records Online are available on KentuckyPioneers.com
Jefferson County Wills 1783-1833
