By Jim Seaver
From its earliest years of Anglo-American settlement in the eighteenth century, Kentucky’s territory fell under the political control of neighboring Virginia. In December 1776, the Virginia legislature created one sprawling Kentucky County, with…

By Kayla Adams
The first European settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains is largely connected to the Big Spring in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. This spring provided a vital source of fresh water, a necessity for early settlement of the area. In 1774, Captain…

By Kayla Adams
Daniel Boone spent a great deal of time exploring the central Kentucky region. In the summer of 1769, he entered the Palisade region of the Kentucky River Valley accompanied by John Stuart. Boone’s Cave is located near Shawnee Run, a stream that…

By Ashley Spenneberg
The property on which Beaumont College once resided has served many different uses over the years. The land itself is home to a natural salt spring and was used by Native groups, such as the Shawnee, to manufacture salt. When Anglo-American…

By Ashley Spenneberg
The Old Mud Meeting House, also known as the Dutch Reformed Church, was established in 1781. The first congregation came to Kentucky via the New Jersey Dutch Reformed Church when they fled New Jersey following a Native American attack on their…

By Maddie Menz
The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, better known as Shakers, was a Protestant sect founded in 1747 in England. Its members were known for whirling and dancing vigorously as a part of their communal worship practices. In…

By Maddie Menz
Anglo-American activity in the area can be traced to 1774, when a party led by explorer James Harrod came ashore after canoeing up the Kentucky River from the Ohio. As a result, this section of the riverbank was sometimes called Harrod’s Landing by…

By Brian M. Trump
In the nineteenth-century United States, mineral springs across the country gained popularity as locations for health and healing. Because people believed that the mineral waters had medicinal properties, these springs were marketed as health…

By Ashley Spenneberg
James Harrod was born in Bedford County, Pennsylvania in the 1740s. The exact date of his birth is unknown but estimated to be between 1742 and 1746. Harrod and his nine siblings moved around Pennsylvania and eventually settled near Fort Lyttelton…

By Daniel Burge
In October 1773, a group of men gathered in Philadelphia at the First Continental Congress and sent a petition to King George III, asking for the Intolerable Acts to be repealed. Five months earlier, and nearly seven hundred miles away, a different…

By Ashley Spenneberg
Born in Culpeper County, Virginia on December 12, 1767, Gabriel Slaughter came to Kentucky in the early 1790s. He settled in Mercer County and began his lifelong political career. Slaughter was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1795 by Isaac Shelby…

By Allen Fletcher
Erected in 1930, West Side School in Harrodsburg was one of more than 5,000 Rosenwald Schools built across the southern United States. The Rosenwald Fund, established in 1917 by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, is most known for constructing African…

By Ashley Spenneberg
Before the original Fort Harrod site was erected, diverse Indigenous groups lived and hunted in the region, including the Shawnee, Cherokee, Mingo, Osage, and Chickasaw. Each group had their own society shaped by unique cultural traditions. The…

By Kayla Adams
Although constructed in 1895, Burgin Christian Church is inextricably linked to the early days of white settlement in Mercer County. John Rice organized the first congregation to meet at Shawnee Run Baptist Church beginning in 1778. This log…

By Kayla Adams
Morgan Row extends throughout an entire block in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. It is the oldest row house built west the Allegheny Mountains. Squire Joseph Morgan acquired multiple lots to build this structure in the early nineteenth century. A row house…

By Daniele Celano
In 1836, three neighbors, Isaac Gray, Josiah Wilson, and Abraham Whitenack, went on a hunting trip through the dense woods northwest of Harrodsburg. Each were Kentuckians born around the Revolution, and lived in a small, woodsy farming town where…

By Daniel Burge
Born in New York, Benjamin Mills—who usually went by Ben—moved to Kentucky in the early 1840s. Where he learned how to make guns is not known, although there is a possibility that his father was a gunmaker. Mills established a gun shop in…

By Chuck Welsko
Pleasant Hill traces its roots to December 1806, when Shakers established their first permanent Kentucky settlement, Union Village, in Mercer County. Six years later, they moved their settlement to higher ground nearby, naming it Pleasant Hill. From…

By Stephanie Lang
On October 8, 1862, Union and Confederate forces clashed at Perryville in what was the end of a six-week campaign. Arguably the most intense fighting in Kentucky, the brutal battle lasted five hours and incurred 7,500 casualties as both armies…

By Allen Fletcher
The Wilderness Revival of 1776 was among the first in a series of Baptist awakenings that swept Kentucky during the Revolutionary Era. Daniel Boone’s younger brother, Squire, was reported to have preached Baptist sermons during his exploration in…

By Jim Seaver
Following the Civil War, a strict system of racial segregation was imposed by law within the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It affected all aspects of daily life for Black Kentuckians, including their access to educational opportunities. According to the…

By Kristen Wheatley
Amish denominations became more common in the twentieth century as internal conflicts over specific religious and cultural practices led to a split within the community. Those who were more tradition-minded were labeled Old Order while the more…