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.
John Gibson was a veteran of the French and Indian War, Lord Dunmore's War, the American Revolutionary War, Tecumseh's War, and the War of 1812. A delegate to the first Pennsylvania constitutional convention in 1790, and a merchant, he earned a reputation as a frontier leader and had good relations with many Native American in the region. At age sixty he was appointed the Secretary of the Indiana Territory where he was responsible for organising the territorial government. He served twice as acting governor of the territory, including a one-year period during the War of 1812 in which he mobilized and led the territorial militia to relieve besieged Fort Harrison.
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, the famed frontiersman. 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.
William Crawford was an American military officer and surveyor who worked as a land agent alongside George Washington while Washington was a teenager. Crawford fought in the French and Indian War, Lord Dunmore's War and the American Revolutionary War arising to the rank of Colonel. In 1782, his unit was attacked, and while he and his surgeon escaped for less than one day, Crawford was eventually captured where he was tortured and burned at the stake by Crawford's former soldier turned British agent, Simon Girty, and Captain Pipe, a Chief of the Delaware Nation.
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.
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.
Richard Callaway was an American frontiersman, military officer, politician, and hunter who was one of the first white settlers in modern-day Kentucky. Born in Essex County, Virginia, Callaway joined Daniel Boone in 1775 in marking the Wilderness Road into central Kentucky, becoming one of the founders of Boonesborough, Kentucky. He took part in organizing the short-lived Transylvania Colony. In 1776, two of Callaway's daughters, along with Daniel Boone's Jemima, were abducted outside Boonesborough by Cherokee and Shawnee raiding party. Callaway led one of a group of settlers in the successful rescue of the girls. His nephew Flanders Callaway later married Jemima Boone. In April 1777, Callaway and John Todd were elected to the Virginia legislature as burgesses from Kentucky County, Virginia.
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.
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.
Fort Randolph was an American Revolutionary War fort which stood at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, on the site of present-day Point Pleasant, West Virginia, United States.
John B. McClelland (1734–1782) was an officer in the American Revolutionary War. He was captured by American Indians during the Crawford Expedition and tortured to death at the Shawnee town of Wakatomika, which is currently located in Logan County, Ohio, about halfway between West Liberty, Ohio and Zanesfield, Ohio.
James Harrod was a pioneer, soldier, and hunter who helped explore and settle the area west of the Allegheny Mountains. Little is known about Harrod's early life, including the exact date of his birth. He was possibly underage when he served in the French and Indian War, and later participated in Lord Dunmore's War. He also rose to the rank of colonel in the local militia.
Edward Worthington was an Irish-born American frontiersman, hunter, surveyor and soldier who explored and later helped settle the Kentucky frontier. A veteran of the American Revolutionary War and the American Indian Wars, he also served as a paymaster under George Rogers Clark during the Illinois campaign. His grandson, William H. Worthington, was an officer with the 5th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. Historian and author, Kathleen L. Lodwick is a direct descendant of Edward Worthington.
John Gabriel Jones was a colonial American pioneer and politician. An early settler of Kentucky, he and George Rogers Clark sought to petition Virginia to allow Kentucky to become a part of the Colony of Virginia at the outset of the American Revolution.
Brigadier General Robert Todd was an 18th-century American pioneer, politician and soldier. As an officer in the Kentucky militia he took part in the western theater of the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War. Together with his brothers John Todd and General Levi Todd, he was involved in the early economic and political development of Kentucky prior to its admission into the United States in 1792.
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.
Colonel Abraham Bowman was an 18th-century American frontiersman and American Revolutionary War military officer. Bowman served as an officer and later commanded the 8th Virginia Regiment popularly known as the "German Regiment".
Captain Isaac Ruddell was an 18th-century American Virginia State Line officer during the American Revolutionary War and a Kentucky frontiersman. He was an officer commanding a company under BGEN George Rogers Clark (1777–1782). He was the founder of Ruddell's Station, or fort, on the Licking River in present-day Harrison County, Kentucky. In 1780, during the Revolutionary War, the settlement was destroyed by joint British Canadian and Eastern Woodlands Indian forces under British officer Captain Henry Bird. He and his family were held prisoner in Detroit for over two years before their release. Two of his sons were later taken captive by Shawnee, one of them becoming adopted brother of the famed warrior Tecumseh.
The Yellow Creek massacre was a killing of several Mingo Indians by Virginian settlers on April 30, 1774. The massacre occurred across from the mouth of the Yellow Creek on the upper Ohio River in the Ohio Country, near the current site of the Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack and Resort. It was the single most important incident contributing to the outbreak of Lord Dunmore's War. It was carried out by a group led by Jacob Greathouse and Daniel Greathouse. Daniel Greathouse died of measles the following year, and Jacob Greathouse was killed in an ambush in 1777. The other perpetrators were never brought to justice.
Richard Humpton was an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.