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, for whom the area was a traditional hunting ground. 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.
Estill County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,163. Its county seat is Irvine The county was formed in 1808 and named for Captain James Estill, a Kentucky militia officer who was killed in the Battle of Little Mountain during the American Revolutionary War. Estill County is a moist county meaning that the county seat, the city of Irvine, allows the sale of alcohol after the October 9, 2013 vote, but not the rest of Estill County outside the Irvine city limits. Estill County has two adjacent towns, known as the twin cities, Irvine and Ravenna. Both cities sit along the Kentucky River in the central part of the county. Ravenna is home to a former CSX Transportation facility, now owned by Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation for the restoration of Chesapeake and Ohio 2716. It conducts the Ravenna Railroad Festival annually in late summer, and the historic Fitchburg & Cottage Furnaces are located here. Irvine hosts the annual Mountain Mushroom Festival over the last weekend of April, which celebrates the abundant Morel Mushrooms found in the region.
The Battle of Blue Licks, fought on August 19, 1782, was one of the last battles of the American Revolutionary War. The battle occurred ten months after Lord Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, which had effectively ended the war in the east. On a hill next to the Licking River in what is now Robertson County, Kentucky, a force of about 50 Loyalists along with 300 indigenous warriors ambushed and routed 182 Kentucky militiamen, who were partially led by Daniel Boone. It was the last victory for the Loyalists and natives during the frontier war. British, Loyalist and Native forces would engage in fighting with American forces once more the following month in Wheeling, West Virginia, during the Siege of Fort Henry.
Isaac Shelby was the first and fifth Governor of Kentucky and served in the state legislatures of Virginia and North Carolina. He was also a soldier in Lord Dunmore's War, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. While governor, he led the Kentucky militia in the Battle of the Thames, an action that was rewarded with a Congressional Gold Medal. Counties in nine states, and several cities and military bases, have been named in his honor. His fondness for John Dickinson's "The Liberty Song" is believed to be the reason Kentucky adopted the state motto "United we stand, divided we fall".
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 Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Spanish Louisiana. 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.
The siege of Fort Meigs took place in late April to early May 1813 during the War of 1812 in northwestern Ohio, present-day Perrysburg. A small British Army unit with support from Indians attempted to capture the recently constructed fort to forestall an American offensive against Detroit, and its Fort Detroit in the Great Lakes region which the British from the north in Canada had captured the previous year. An American sortie and relief attempt failed with heavy casualties, but the British failed to capture the fort and were forced to raise the siege.
The Battles of Frenchtown, also known as the Battle of the River Raisin and the River Raisin Massacre, were a series of conflicts in Michigan Territory that took place from January 18–23, 1813, during the War of 1812. It was fought between the United States of America and a joint force of British and Native American near the River Raisin in Frenchtown,.
The Battle of Longwoods took place during the Anglo-American War of 1812. On 4 March 1814, a mounted American raiding party defeated an attempt by British regulars, volunteers from the Canadian militia and Native Americans to intercept them near Wardsville, in present-day Southwest Middlesex, Ontario.
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.
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 circa 1775–76 by brothers Morgan, James, William, and Joseph Bryan, and brother-in-law William Grant, all from Yadkin River Valley, Rowan County, North Carolina, to which all the survivors returned in August 1780. The occupants of this parallelogram of some forty log cabins 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 Crawford expedition, also known as the Sandusky expedition and Crawford's Defeat, was a 1782 campaign on the western front of the American Revolutionary War, and one of the final operations of the conflict. The campaign was led by Colonel William Crawford, a former officer in the U.S. Continental Army. Crawford's goal was to destroy enemy Native American towns along the Sandusky River in the Ohio Country, with the hope of ending Native attacks on American settlers. The expedition was one in a series of raids against enemy settlements that both sides had conducted throughout the war.
Lochry's Defeat, also known as the Lochry massacre, was a battle fought on August 24, 1781, near present-day Aurora, Indiana, in the United States. The battle was part of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), which began as a conflict between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies before spreading to the western frontier, where American Indians entered the war as British allies. The battle was short and decisive: about one hundred Indians of local tribes led by Joseph Brant, a Mohawk military leader who was temporarily in the west, ambushed a similar number of Pennsylvania militiamen led by Archibald Lochry. Brant and his men killed or captured all of the Pennsylvanians without suffering any casualties.
The Cherokee–American wars, also known as the Chickamauga Wars, were a series of raids, campaigns, ambushes, minor skirmishes, and several full-scale frontier battles in the Old Southwest from 1776 to 1794 between the Cherokee and American settlers on the frontier. Most of the events took place in the Upper South region. While the fighting stretched across the entire period, there were extended periods with little or no action.
Peter Hackett was an American frontiersman.
Pluggy was an 18th-century Mingo chieftain and ally of Logan during Lord Dunmore's War. During the American Revolutionary War, he allied with the British and commanded a series of raids against American settlements throughout the Ohio Country and the western frontier of Virginia until his death at McClelland's Station in 1776.
Col. Johannes "John" Bowman was an 18th-century American pioneer, colonial militia officer and sheriff, the first appointed in Lincoln County, Kentucky. In 1781 he also presided as a justice of the peace over the first county court held in Kentucky. The first county-lieutenant and military governor of Kentucky County during the American Revolutionary War, Col. Bowman also, served in the American Revolution, many times, second in command to General George Rogers Clark, during the Illinois Campaign, which, at the time, doubled the size of the United States.
Samuel South was born circa 1770 in Maryland. He was the second son of John South. The South family moved to Boonesborough when Samuel was still young. At the time, Boonesborough was in Fayette County in the District of Kentucky, a part of the state of Virginia. John South was in command of the militia at Boonesborough.
Nathaniel Gray Smith Hart was a Lexington, Kentucky lawyer and businessman, who served with the state's volunteer militia during the War of 1812. As Captain of the Lexington Light Infantry from Kentucky, Hart and many of his men were killed in the River Raisin Massacre of January 23, 1813, after being taken prisoner the day before following the Battle of Frenchtown in Michigan Territory.
David Glenn was of Irish descent and was born in 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.
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