Daniel Boone was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1775, Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky, in the face of resistance from American Indians. He founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. By the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people had entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone.
Lord Dunmore's War, also known as Dunmore's War, was a brief conflict in fall 1774 between the British Colony of Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo in the trans-Appalachian region of the colony south of the Ohio River. Broadly, the war included events between May and October 1774. The governor of Virginia during the conflict was John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, who in May 1774, asked the House of Burgesses to declare a state of war with the Indians and call out the Virginia militia.
The Battle of Point Pleasant, also known as the Battle of Kanawha and the Battle of Great Kanawha, was the only major action of Dunmore's War. It was fought on October 10, 1774, between the Virginia militia and Shawnee and Mingo warriors. Along the Ohio River near modern-day Point Pleasant, West Virginia, forces under the Shawnee chief Cornstalk attacked Virginia militiamen under Colonel Andrew Lewis, hoping to halt Lewis's advance into the Ohio Valley. After a long and furious battle, Cornstalk retreated. After the battle, the Virginians, along with a second force led by Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, marched into the Ohio Valley and compelled Cornstalk to agree to a treaty, which ended the war.
}} Benjamin Logan was an American pioneer, soldier, and politician from Virginia, then Shelby County, Kentucky. As colonel of the Kentucky County, Virginia militia during the American Revolutionary War, he was second-in-command of all the trans-Appalachian Virginia. He became a politician and help secure statehood for Kentucky. His brother, John Logan, who at times served under him in the militia and replaced him as delegate, became the first state treasurer of Kentucky.
The western theater of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was the area of conflict west of the Appalachian Mountains, the region which became the Northwest Territory of the United States as well as what would become the states of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, and Tennessee. The western war was fought between American Indians with their British allies in Detroit, and American settlers south and east of the Ohio River, and also the Spanish as allies of the latter.
Charles Scott was an American military officer and politician who served as the governor of Kentucky from 1808 to 1812. Orphaned in his teens, Scott enlisted in the Virginia Regiment in October 1755 and served as a scout and escort during the French and Indian War. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a captain. After the war, he married and engaged in agricultural pursuits on land left to him by his father, but he returned to active military service in 1775 as the American Revolution began to grow in intensity. In August 1776, he was promoted to colonel and given command of the 5th Virginia Regiment. The 5th Virginia joined George Washington in New Jersey later that year, serving with him for the duration of the Philadelphia campaign. Scott commanded Washington's light infantry, and by late 1778 was also serving as his chief of intelligence. Furloughed at the end of the Philadelphia campaign, Scott returned to active service in March 1779 and was ordered to South Carolina to assist General Benjamin Lincoln in the southern theater. He arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, just as Henry Clinton had begun his siege of the city. Scott was taken as a prisoner of war when Charleston surrendered. Paroled in March 1781 and exchanged for Lord Rawdon in July 1782, Scott managed to complete a few recruiting assignments before the war ended.
Stephen Trigg was an American pioneer and soldier from Virginia. He was killed ten months after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in one of the last battles of the American Revolution while leading the Lincoln County militia at the Battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky.
Bryan Station was an early fortified settlement in Lexington, Kentucky. It was located on present-day Bryan Station Road, about three miles (5 km) northeast of New Circle Road, on the southern bank of Elkhorn Creek near Briar Hill Road. The settlement was established in the spring of 1776 by brothers Morgan, James, William, and Joseph Bryan, and brother-in-law William Grant, all from Yadkin River Valley, Rowan County, North Carolina. After a disastrous winter and attacks by Native Americans, all the Bryan family survivors abandoned the station and returned to the Yadkin River Valley in August 1780. Falling under the command of Elijah Craig, the remaining occupants withstood several American Indian attacks.
The Siege of Boonesborough was a military engagement which took place in September 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. On September 7, Shawnee chief Blackfish, who was allied to the British, led an attack on the Kentucky settlement of Boonesborough. Months before the battle, Blackfish had captured and adopted Daniel Boone, the founder of Boonesborough. Boone escaped the Shawnees in time to lead the defense of the settlement. Blackfish's siege was unsuccessful and was lifted after eleven days. Boone was then court-martialed by fellow officers who suspected him of harboring Loyalist sympathies. He was acquitted, but soon left the settlement.
The prehistory and history of Kentucky span thousands of years, and have been influenced by the state's diverse geography and central location. Archaeological evidence of human occupation in Kentucky begins approximately 9,500 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.
Logan's raid was a military expedition held in October, 1786 by a Kentucky militia force under Colonel Benjamin Logan against several Shawnee settlements along the Little Miami and Mad Rivers in the Ohio Country. The villages were occupied primarily by noncombatants, since most warriors had left to defend the villages of Chief Little Turtle from a separate force moving up the Wabash River under the command of General George Rogers Clark. Logan seized and burned thirteen villages, destroying the food supplies and killing or capturing many, including the aged Chief Moluntha who was soon murdered by one of Logan's men, reportedly in retaliation for the Battle of Blue Licks in the American Revolutionary War.
Blue Licks Battlefield State Resort Park is a park located near Mount Olivet, Kentucky in Robertson and Nicholas counties. The park encompasses 148 acres (60 ha) and features a monument commemorating the August 19, 1782 Battle of Blue Licks. The battle was regarded as the final battle of the American Revolutionary War.
Moluntha, also spelled Molunthe, Melonthe, and Malunthy, was a prominent civil chief of the Shawnee people in the 1780s. He was murdered by a Kentucky soldier at the outset of the Northwest Indian War (1785–1795).
Levi Todd was an 18th-century American pioneer who, with his brothers John and Robert Todd, helped found present-day Lexington, Kentucky and were leading prominent landowners and statesmen in the state of Kentucky prior to its admission into the United States in 1792.
John Logan was a military officer, farmer and politician from Virginia who became a pioneer in and helped found the state of Kentucky. He served under his brother, Benjamin during Lord Dunmore's War in 1774, then both moved to what was then called Kentucky County, Virginia. Logan took part in several expeditions against the Shawnee, including some led by Daniel Boone, John Bowman, and George Rogers Clark. After Kentucky County was split into three counties, Logan and his brother at various times represented Lincoln in the Virginia House of Delegates, and John Logan also represented that county at the Virginia Ratification Convention in 1788.
James Brenton Sr (1741–1782) was an American Revolutionary War officer. He was killed by American Indians during the Battle of Blue Licks in Robertson County, Kentucky. He married Rebecca Scott (1740–1771) abt. 1763 in Frederick County, Virginia, and then married Mary Woodfield (1750–1834) in 1772, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
During the onset of the Northwest Indian War (1786–1795), there were numerous skirmishes around Vincennes in 1786 between American settlers and Native Americans near Vincennes, a frontier town on the Wabash River. American pioneers had been pouring into the area after the American Revolutionary War, creating tensions with the Native inhabitants of the region.
Hugh McGary was an Irish-born American military officer and landowner who was the founder of McGary Station in present-day Oregon, Kentucky.
David Glenn was of Irish descent and was born in about 1753, likely in Pennsylvania but possibly in Virginia. He was one of the early settlers of Kentucky having accompanied James Harrod in founding Harrodstown in 1774, along with his older brother, Thomas. Today, Harrodsburg is considered the oldest permanent white settlement in Kentucky, being it was settled almost a full year before Boonesborough.
Kekewepelethy, also known as Captain Johnny, was the principal civil chief of the Shawnees in the Ohio Country during the Northwest Indian War (1786–1795). He first came to prominence during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), in which he, like most of his fellow Mekoche Shawnees, initially sought to remain neutral. He joined the war against the United States around 1780, moving to Wakatomika, a Shawnee town known for its militant defense of the Ohio Country.
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