Dr. Thomas Walker from Virginia explored a portion of Kentucky during 1750, 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. It was John Finley who saw the huntsman's paradise, and whose soul was fired for its possession.
In 1767, John Finley, a woodsman and hunter, from North Carolina, moved into the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. He was the first white man, history asserts, that ever penetrated the wilderness and forests of Kentucky sufficiently to view the central portion of the state. It is unknown who accompanied Finley on his first adventure into the region. But, two year later, after having returned to his home in North Carolina, he returned with Daniel Boone. 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 wilderness of North Carolina, far out beyond the advance of civilization and settlement, he found a rude cabin. At his side was a brave woman who shared his life.
There were sparse settlements along the Holston River, 200 miles away, and the forts on the Ohio River at Pittsburgh and a few wilderness houses were the closest neighbors to Kentucky.
Daniel 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, with forts at Harrodsburg and St. Asaphs, or Logan's Fort, forming the military triangle in which the new settlers made their homes. But the Transylvania land scheme of 1775 did not include Jessamine County whose lines followed the south or western side of the Kentucky River, and left the eastern boundary in Virginia.
In those says, pioneer travel did not include Jessamine. The Wilderness Road, entering the state at Cumberland Gap, divided at Rockcastle River, one branch going to Boonesboro, and the other by Crab Orchard, Danville and Pardstown, to Louisville.'
The persistent assaults of the Indians on the new Kentucky settlers in 1782 caused the abandonment of all the forts in the state east of the Kentucky— except five, Lexington. Bryants, McConnells, McClellans (Georgetown) and Boones.
The first fort and only fort in Jessamine County was established by Levi Todd in 1779, one year before Lexington was built. The line of travel between Harrodsl)urg and the Fayette county stations, passed through the northern and western parts of the county, and on this trace, near Keene, Todd's station was built.
The isolation of the forts and the constant and destructive marauding Indians, officered by Englishmen and provided with arms, terrified the settlers east of the Kentucky River whose homes were located nearest to the homes of the Indians. The Indians in the northwest were the most dreadful of all the savages in Kentucky, and during the 1780s the outposts were managed with great difficulty.
It was then that Todd ffelt compelled to abandon his Jessamine holdings and take such help and protection as the four stations around Lexington offered.
Despite the early Indian assaults, the county grew in population. In 1782, Jessamine County had not a single settler, but eight years later, it had 5,461 inhabitants. This was the first decade in which a census could be taken. Fayette County, from which Jessamine County was entirely taken, had 18,410 inhabitants in 1800, or one-fourth of the entire population of the state.
After the war, the Revolutionary veterans poured in from all parts of the state, and Jessamine received her full share, and more than one hundred of these brave and sturdy settlers found homes within its borders.
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.
Source: A History of Jessamine County, Kentucky, From its Earliest Settlement to 1898 by Bennett H. Young, President Polytechnic Society; Member Filson Clib ; Member Constitutioxal Convention, 1890; Author History of the Constitutions of Kentucky, of "Battle of Blue Licks, etc.. S. M. Duncan, Associate Author.
Genealogy Records Available Online for Jessamine County, Kentucky
Wills, Estates, Guardianships, etc
